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.

We asked for your worst cheater stories, and you delivered. In this Part 1 episode, we hear about a father and his affair partner who continually reject an autistic son; a guy who cheats on his terminally ill wife; a husband who insists on naming their child after his affair partner (unbeknownst to his wife); and a serial cheater who ghosted his date while his wife is in labor, and gets mad that his Match.com date didn't wait.

Tracy and Sarah answer your letters on the show today. A woman whose boyfriend-now-husband kept a secret second family from her until a sheriff served him. And the age old anxiety of comparing yourself to the affair partner. A listener calls the Other Woman "dirty and chaotic" but can't understand how this person won the pick me dance for her husband. And why both of them still have friends in their former friend circle.

The hits keep coming. We're on our second episode of your stories of workplace affairs. The creep who's been perving on his vendors. A doctor who hits on a subordinate trainee. Teachers who use their students to pass notes to one another. An on-again-off-again thing with the teenage receptionist. When it comes to being transgressive at work, and perhaps even criminal, these f*ckwits shine.

Tracy and Sarah are back from summer vacation with your workplace affair stories to share (Part 1). Skeeving on the hired help. Boinking your mistress while your wife works in the office downstairs. Pervy bosses. Suddenly and mysteriously unemployed spouses. It's all here. And chumps are the mighty people who don't have to live with this chaos and dysfunction any longer.

In this episode, Sarah and Tracy discuss your voicemail questions. A woman wonders if she should report her cheating soon-to-be-ex-husband for having a workplace affair with a woman he was professionally mentoring? Also on the topic of telling and not telling, what happens when children disclose to their betrayed parent that they knew about the cheating?

We got your stories after Sarah said she was considering dipping her toe into the dating waters. Instead of horrifying us with gruesome tales, most of you were encouraging. And resilient! We hear about better boundaries and better boyfriends. Okay, and a few errant dick pics.

In this episode Tracy talks with two OBGYNs -- Dr. Leyla Moossavi and Dr. Diane Traenkle -- about what it's like to be on the front lines of women's health when dealing with infidelity. Having to break the news to someone that she's tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease is not a topic covered in medical school. They shoot straight about the health risks of being cheated on. Everything from the loss of her fertility to even maternal and fetal death if a woman is unknowingly exposed to infection while pregnant.

Drs. Moossavi and Traenkle, who practice in rural Michigan, also discuss the overlap they've seen between cheating and domestic violence -- the men who insist on being in the doctor's office, who gaslight and threaten their partners after a positive STI test, and who even insist that their partners stop receiving healthcare.

On a more compassionate note, Dr. Moossavi and Dr. Traenkle also discuss what good care looks like after you've been cheated on -- zero shame and lots of self love.

Oona Metz is the author of Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women. She is a therapist with 30 years of clinical experience. For the past 15 years Oona has specialized in treating women navigating divorce. She and Tracy discuss why divorce shame remains a stubborn relic, the grief of losing a marriage (even a bad one), and the power of peer support to get you. If you chose a divorce, or had one thrust upon you, Unhitched is a field guide to a better life on the other side.

Learn more about Oona at her Youtube Channel.

Sarah decided to shelf dating for the last 13 years and focus instead on raising four kids. But now that they're nearly grown, she's considering to try dating. Maybe. Her friends are sharing horror stories. Tracy shares a couple horror stories and some pointers (as a two-timer loser who is been happily remarried for 15 years, yet sucks at dating.) And we open the field to your stories and advice.

Last week we heard from chumps who outed their cheaters -- to their families, their other Other Schmoopies, and even their employers. This is part 2 of "Did you out your cheater?" Hell hath no fury...