Tracy Schorne has cultivated a personal philosophy of cheating, viewing infidelity as a form of abuse and betraying any role in their own betrayal.
Perhaps more significantly, she has also created a very specific language to discuss it.
Cheaters are known as “The Chumps”. An affair partner is called a “schmoopie”. “The cheater feeds.”Ego KibbleAnd often benefit from a partner’s “spackling”—an excuse-making that a friend undertakes in a desperate attempt to save the relationship.
Ms. Schorn, a cartoonist and former journalist who has run a blog called Chump Nation since 2012, says this blunt approach allows victims of infidelity to process their realities, all while adding levity to difficult times.
“I tried to create the kind of support site that I wish existed when I went through it,” Ms. Schorne, who is 57 and lives with her husband in Waterford, Va., said in an interview. She compared the site’s straight-shooter approach to “a best friend who will grab you by the lapels and go, ‘Shut it off, you’re being manipulated.'”
her blog’s supportive policy; Her oddball words and phrases, such as “Pick-Me Dance“(Competition can be wooing someone with an affair partner); her comic strip-style cartoons of cheaters and their exploits: all in service of her mantra, “Quit the cheats, get a life.”
on it websiteMs. Schorn responds to letters from readers looking for guidance. One wrote that she told her husband a. Thinking of giving A fourth chance And another asked what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder May support fraud. Also writes about her News events as they relate to fraud and hosts a podcast called Surviving Infidelity “Tell me how you are mighty” with Sarah Gorrell, BBC radio journalist.
Twelve years after starting her blog, Ms. Schorn has amassed a following of thousands of people who find solace in the community she creates, comforting each other in the comments section of her site and on Facebook and Reddit. But as she finds herself in a spotlight that has become brighter recently thanks to a A high-profile novelCritics have begun to question the wisdom of his approach to infidelity.
Ms. Schorn is quick to point out that she is not a marriage counselor or a psychiatrist, just “a woman with critical thinking skills and a sense of humor.” She is also a chump herself, having dated her current husband since 2006, four years before marrying her.
Ms. Schorn, 39, married her second husband after being in a relationship with him for about a year and a half. Six months into what she believed to be wedded bliss, she received a call from a woman who said she was having an affair with him.
“His mistress called me and revealed that he had a double life dating back decades,” she said. After researching him further, she found out he was a serial cheater.
She soon filed for divorce, and although the marriage was short, they bought real estate together and were already meaningfully connected.
“It tore me apart,” she said. “It made me financially vulnerable to him, because I quit my job in DC, I followed his career, and I did a lot of things that were expected of women that weren’t based on self-preservation.”
She sought guidance online but was unhappy with what she found. “Everything — and I mean everything — was, ‘What did you do to cheat on him and how are you going to improve yourself to win him back?’” she recalled.
Frustrated by what she calls the “harmonious industrial complex” — counselors, writers and others with a financial interest in selling the idea that cheating can lead to a strong relationship — Ms. Schorn sought a different approach.
In 2012, her current husband suggested she write a book about her experiences. She decided to write a blog instead, as a way to process what she was going through. (A book, “Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life: The Chump Lady’s Survival Guide,” followed later.)
Ms. Schorn has recently been the subject of considerable criticism and backlash. An article last month The New Yorker Mrs. Shorn was accused of peddling. week later, This cut wrote that she is contributing to a general culture of affirmation in which women are often expected to acknowledge each other without question.
Ms Schorn said she believes her work is getting a lot of pushback because it questions “basic assumptions” about infidelity, such as how the quality of a marriage can lead a person to cheat.
“Bad therapy encourages this. Bad theology encourages this,” she said. “Chums are blamed by cheaters, and they internalize it and stay on a hamster wheel of trying to fix themselves so they don’t hurt their partner. That’s a whole other way of hurting. level.”
Many people hesitate to label cheating abuse for fear of diluting the term usually reserved for more direct forms of physical or emotional harm. But Mrs. Schorn He dismisses those concerns. For him, the potentially traumatic effects of deception are no different from those of gaslighting, lying, and manipulation, since deception encompasses all of those betrayals.
“We easily perceive punches in the face as transgressive,” she said. “We do not recognize infidelity as transgressive. This is the narrative I am trying to change.
For those who point to cheating as a symptom of a larger problem — such as an unsatisfying sex life, struggling with new parenthood or discovering one’s true sexuality — Ms. Schorn said it’s possible to work through those issues, or break down morally, because “your Don’t owe anyone a relationship.”
“Fraud is done knowingly not Breaking up with you,” she added. “Cheating is stealing your reality. It extracts labor from you and value from you. Maybe you’re raising my kids. Maybe you have the salary I like. Maybe you against mediocrity.
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