Tell Me How You're Mighty: Real Talk About Cheating

If you bred with a cheater, chances are you may be dealing with someone who doesn't honor their financial obligations either. In this episode Tracy talks again with the Happy Hausfrau blogger Jenny. Both Tracy and Jenny are veterans of unpaid child support. We react to Chump Nation's stories and discuss the hopeful news from Australia, which is taking on deadbeat parents with new stronger laws. 

It's human not to know what to say in the face of another person's hardship. It's quite another thing to say the most insensitive  thing imaginable. In this episode, we hear gobsmacking blameshifting ("what did you do?"), shameless self-congratulation ("I give great BJs!"), and downright insults ("you got fat") delivered from people you assumed cared, or at least knew better. 

Do you need more schadenfreude delivered into your veins? More stories about affairs that didn't work out, or actually ended spectacularly badly. Wherever you go, there you are. Crappy character and all. 

Did your cheater's affair relationship eventually end? Maybe badly? With indictments and much schadenfreude? The correct answer is you have no idea, becaues you're totally no contact and have moved on with your life. But on the chance you did hear, or you have children with this person, or they hoovered back -- here are some reports of Twu Wuv that went splat. 

Tracy discusses a recent online kerfluffle with a therapist/influencer who objects to infidelity as abuse, and rejects the idea of "victims." Sarah finds some inconsistencies in the influencer's arguments. And there's a tangent about trad wives. 

The popular Netflix documentary Death of a Pastor's Wife looks at sinister minister John Paul Miller and the suspicious death of his wife Mica Miller. Did his serial cheating drive her to it? Can you call their relationship an "affair" if he was a married pastor preyed on her as a teenager? WTF is wrong with that congregation? We have many thoughts. 

Tracy interviews a former chump who shares how she tried every reconciliation book, retreat and save your marriage program before divorcing her cheater. Now, happily moved on and remarried, she and her husband have an unusual arrangement "living together apart." She kept her home, he kept his home, and they each coparent their children from their former marriages in their own homes. We discuss how to navigate independence, trust in a new relationship, and blended family. 

In this episode, we survey your stories about when the spell broke and your cheater stopped having the power to suck you into caring. It's part one of a two-part series. No contact is the fastest way to healing!

Tracy speaks with therapist Lauren LaRusso, author of the new book "Beyond Infidelity: How to Turn the End of Your Relationship into the Beginning of Your Life." LaRusso shares her own chump street cred -- how discovering her (now ex) husband's affair changed her life and how she practices therapy today. Most of all, she focuses on new beginnings. How the awful catalyst of betrayal can lead to a much better life on the other side. 

We're not finished with the Pain Olympics. More of your submissions from the Worst Cheaters Ever. The guy who reviewed thousands of escorts. The woman who went to court claiming her affair partner was just a nice acquaintance who bought her fancy dinners. The creep who walked out on his disabled child. They're all vying for the crown and only you can decide who sucks supreme.