Betty Broderick and the Taboo of Rage
Betty Broderick, who killed her ex-husband and his affair partner, died last week. She claimed he psychologically abused her and pushed her to the brink.
****
If a lot of chumps are honest with themselves, they probably look at Betty Broderick and think “There but for the Grace of God go I.”
If Betty Broderick had this blog in 1989, I would’ve told her “If it feels good, don’t do it.” But she did it. She shot her ex-husband Dan Broderick and his second wife (and former mistress) Linda Kolkena Broderick. And forever solidified the narrative of the batshit crazy woman scorned.
Before she was a murderess, however, Betty was a chump. She put Dan through medical and law school. Suborned her own career ambitions to raise their four children. And in return for her sacrifice and support? Dan cheated on her throughout the marriage. And when she raged over his infidelities, he had her committed to a mental hospital for hysteria.
Having now legally established Betty as unstable, Dan eventually dumped Betty for his affair partner, the much younger flight attendant, Linda. Worse, he used his financial advantage in the divorce to gain custody of the children and left her hardly anything with which to start over.
“His was the white-collar way of beating you,” Ms. Broderick told The New York Times between her trials. “If he had hit me with a baseball bat, I could have shown people what he did and made him stop.”
At the murder trial Betty didn’t deny killing them. She simply said:
‘He pushed me too far.’
The Betty Broderick murder case became one of America’s most infamous true-crime sagas because it fused domestic violence, wealth, gender expectations, and divorce warfare into a tabloid-ready tragedy. To supporters, Betty Broderick was a woman psychologically shattered after years of betrayal by a powerful husband who discarded her for a younger woman. To critics, she was a vengeful and batshit crazy ex-wife who turned her scorn into murder.
Yet to me, Betty Broderick is a cautionary tale. I judge her for leaving her children orphans. And as Chump Lady I absolutely reject revenge and violence. But my heart understands her fury.
I hate that these family court injustices still exist.
Even today, according to National Institute of Justice study, if a woman getting a divorce tries to tell the court that her husband is abusive, she is more likely to lose custody of the children. The thumb is on the Scorned scale. Which is why chump rage is still taboo. Which is why Belle Burden can go on Oprah and talk about her ex’s double life and abandonment, but must reassure the audience (at Oprah’s insistence) that she isn’t angry.
Betty Broderick was ANGRY. She didn’t channel it for a better legal outcome (if that was even possible) or a new life, she channeled it at her abusers. And that’s a tragedy.
I felt murderous rage at my cheating (now ex) husband, the depths of which astounded me. When his double life was revealed and my world was absolutely shattered, he slept soundly as I imagined him gutted like a fish. Stem to stern.
I’ve written about this period of insanity. At the very same time I was having these gruesome thoughts, I was pick me dancing. Comparing myself — and being compared by him — to the affair partner(s). Hating him. Grieving him. As the realization dawned on me that I was never loved —
I’d been used.
Every moment I was around him I felt dangerously off-balance. And the provocations — the bullying, the taunting, his rage when asked for any kind of accountability — left me with suicidal ideation. I’d imagine driving myself into highway medians.
And isn’t that the way it usually goes? Women turn their rage into self-harm. Alan Dershowitz’s ex-wife Sue Barlach had a very similar story to Betty Broderick’s. Sue threw herself off the Brooklyn Bridge. Hey, but she wasn’t angry.
I was angry. When my ex, who was my height but twice my width, and who had many guns around the house, and a handgun under our bed, once stood an inch from my face and shrieked that the Other Woman’s tits were bigger than mine. IS THAT WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR? WAS IT? Spittle. Enough with my STUPID QUESTIONS. His face, red, enraged yet also sort of enjoying it?
SMACK.
I boxed his ears. It was completely instinctual. He would not stop screaming in my face. Some primordial part of my brain stem flipped to “fight.” Wham! The flat side of my fist hit his ear. (I learned this move in some self-defense class I took in college.)
He lost his balance and fell over. And I will never, ever forget the look on his face of complete astonishment. He had pushed me too far and I had lost it. I kicked him. And in that moment I knew I was capable of murder. I could’ve killed him. He was prone on the floor, and I could just sh*t kicked the life out of him. I wanted to.
But I didn’t. A voice in my head told me to stop and I stopped.
And he started to cry. Said he was going to report me. So I got his cell phone off the table and handed it to him. “Call the police. DO IT. CALL THEM.”
He didn’t call them. And I didn’t kill him.
There but for the grace of God go I.
Rest in peace, Betty.
Discover more from ChumpLady.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wow, oh boy does that resemble one of my experiences. During an argument where my husband told me he was back with the OW, but didn’t want to be (poor sad sausage), I punched him. The only time I’ve ever hit anybody. I have been so ashamed of my next reaction, until now. I kicked him. Thank you for sharing CL, you released me from this shame. He was down on the ground, he too was crying, and I kicked him. It wasn’t the last stupid thing I did, not even the last stupid thing that weekend. I’m not ashamed for cutting myself that night, first and last time for that. I’m not ashamed for going to the OW house and breaking two windows and then subsequently turning myself into the police. I’m proud of turning myself in, took the sting out when she called them since I was waiting on their bench. I’d already made friends with a couple of the guys there. The lieutenant ended up helping me out and keeping the outcome worse than apologizing and paying for the windows. And now, I applaud myself for not killing him and her. There was a song by Fiona Apple that comforted me then, Window. “So I had to break the window, It just had to be, Better that I break the window, Than him or her or me”. I agree with CL, if it feels good, don’t do it. Revenge and violence were my reaction, but not my character.
Thank you for sharing and offloading that. No judgement here. I often say that if we were all living as cave people, we’d probably have bumped off our FWs with a big rock and wouldn’t have been judged for it.
It’s certainly reactive abuse. The body seeks justice and rectification. We need to listen to that and give ourselves grace that those feelings and outcomes are normal in the circumstances. However, keeping our hands clean and ideally out of prison. 😉
Yes, that’s known as reactive abuse and it is not indicative of character. It happens when you’ve been so beaten down by the other person’s abuse (doesn’t have to be physical, emotional abuse does the same thing) that your self preservation instinct kicks in and you hurt the person to try to make them stop hurting you. It’s normal given what FWs put us through and as CL says, it’s one of many reasons why we should leave and go NC.
This experience is one of the reasons I am so adamant about no contact. And why I think the RIC is dangerous, because it encourages you to STAY in this volatile environment. I also have never before, and never since hit anyone. Or physically disciplined my child. I’m peace, love and granola and I snapped. And what I did was VERY stupid, because this guy had threatened to kill me. He had guns. And although he never hit me, he threw things at me and threatened me. Who knows where the line is where one side snaps? I don’t feel ashamed of this, but I share it so people leave sooner and don’t let this UNWORTHY horrible person have so much of your power.
Excellent point. Get out of the situation nothing worse happens.
I feel this post. Managing my rage has been an exhausting process.
I’ve had to observe my desire for harm and create enough space not to act on it.
At this point I’m finding some of the thoughts that pop into my brain, that I do not act on, rather hilarious.
Just yesterday I saw his eyedrops in the bathroom (its been a long 14 months to get this FW out of my house, he leaves today) and the fully formed thought to rub the applicator on my butt so he’d get pinkeye arrived unbidden. It made me laugh outloud.
When I found a bag of his erm ‘accoutrements’ for his visits to escorts, a friend suggested I hang each item in the trees around the dog walking route our neighbours (and he) takes.
I don’t know if I believe in karma exactly. It seems to me that good people get rained on just as much as bad. But he has to be him. And that must fucking suck.
Thanks for this post. Cathartic.
SillyChump,
I love this comment SO much. I do the same. I think about revenge moves, but don’t DO them. I do sometimes share my ideas with my friends, and we laugh and laugh. And it’s freeing without risking any legal consequences. And as it is all fantasy, the stuff I dream up can be as out there as I want to be.
I see he is moving out. You won’t believe how much better you will feel. (It took me THREE years to get mine out)
I will warm you, depending on what flavor of FW you get, he may still try to mess with you. “No contact” helps immensely, but we have kids so I could only do LOW contact. A few times he really messed wth me after moving and I got so upset like “will this EVER end? Will I ever be actually rid of him?” The answer is yes, when the marital home sells and youngest turns 18, I can block him and never have to say one word to him again. In the meantime, the more time that passes, the less often he tries to bother me.
I do believe that in Article 45664339, Section 23906876367543 of Chumplady Bylaws, there is an “eyedrop exception” to the “If it feels good, don’t do it” rule.
Congrats on his exit !!! 🥳 🎉 🎊
Yesssss!!!🙌🥂🥳
If there had been a gun in the house, my Ex would be dead. And I’d be in prison. Thank goodness there was no gun in the house at that time. People who have never been so betrayed have no idea the rage and feelings of helplessness that ensues.
100%.
(So great you are here, EJT)
I heard about poor Betty’s death and said a prayer for her and her children.
I remember the Lifetime Television movies about her back in the day (do watch it, I’m sure it’s available online somewhere).
I never physically hurt SparkleDick. I didn’t want him dead either. Was I angry? Yeah. But it wasn’t like I didn’t know he was capable of what he did. It didn’t surprise me at all. I was married to him so I knew what a prick he was (and still probably is).
Infidelity is abuse. Her husband and his Schmoopie conspired and colluded to abuse her. Her husband and his Schmoopie conspired and colluded to impoverish her.
Murder is a sin.
As adultery is a sin.
If it feels good don’t do it.
RIP Betty.
There are a lot of old miniseries, made for TV movies, and older movies available for free on YouTube. Some are also available on Amazon Video,and if you have a Prime membership, some may be free. I always look at YouTube first before I pay for something on Amazon.
Thanks for sharing this personal story, Tracy. It really is astonishing where rage and abuse can take us.
I never hit my XH, but during the split and divorce, I did a number of things I’m not proud of: logging into his FB, posting from his account, tagging the OW and calling her a w**** (this was before timeline review; it 100% published to her feed). Taking his yucky Mormon underwear that he’d left in my apartment yet again and spreading it out on the windshield of his car. Sending a sarcastic snail-mail letter to OW telling her he’s asking me for gas money, can you please take care of “your” man? Calling him up just to howl and rage and scream and cuss at him.
Now I preach and teach at my church, adjunct at a Christian college, and work for law enforcement. I’ve published in one of the best academic journals in my field. I would be super embarrassed if my students or LE colleagues or academic friends were played a reel of those behaviors from me. How in the heck was I ever a person who acted like that??
Betty Broderick seems to have been a rather screwed-up person in her own ways—but I do wonder whether she would have been that person had she not been subjected to years of infidelity and psychological abuse and threatening behaviors by her husband (and later Kolkena). Do we have a chicken (Mr. Broderick) and an egg (crazy, murderous Betty) or just two chickens both laying rotten eggs? We’ll probably never know in this life. But she is a chump cautionary tale for sure.
Yes, I went down all kinds of rabbit trails trying to make sense of her story. I completely understood the rage, but I saw myself in her and didn’t want to snap.
I think she did have a lot of issues herself, but it was also the culture she grew up in. It was very patriarchal — grow up to be a good wife, and life will be amazing! Oh, and with a side of religious guilt because they were conservative Catholics.
And he was an attorney who knew how to work the system to get at her. I know of several cases like that in my metropolitan area. Some years before mine, my divorce attorney represented the wife of the president of the state bar association in their divorce. She developed cancer during the proceedings and died not long after it was final. He told me that story to illustrate how hard a bad divorce can be on your health.
Truly a sad end for Betty. News reports say the family was with her at the end.
I can only hope that someone that finds themselves in Betty’s shoes today would have better access to the support (or maybe access to better support) than she had.
LFTT
I hope that too. I think there is a lot more support AND a lot more work to do.
A LOT more work. Thank you for sharing the statistics link about how if you claim abuse you are punished by the system, not to mention usually your own larger community. Men need to only claim “She is crazy”. Amber Heard case was a huge legal backward moment, up there with the rescind of Roe v Wade. It’s 2 steps forward and 1 and 1/2 back. And yes also so much to NO CONTACT. I never thought about it in terms of doing less stupid things, but just as avoiding his abuse. But YES! I had incredibly violent thoughts, and have them less just by being here for support, and the passage of time. But I would not be sad if he were dead. Fairly certain of that. I recently found out that his mother is still alive and that saddened me, as she and his siblings were always abusive to me as well. They are scum of the earth, they only know entitlement and “of what use you are”. Terrifying people who his friends early on said “you need to get him away from them”. That didn’t work. There was no “saving ” him. Or “teaching him how to love” or all that shit I spent decades trying to do. Trust people when they show their real self the first time as Maya Anjalou. I do that relentlessly now, and my world is smaller, and so much better.
No, there is no better support today. Women are not allowed to express rage, period. In therapy sessions, in the courts, anywhere.
Mostly agree with this comment. Unreal how little we care about women, and how we still blame them for everything. I read a novel realty The Four Spent the Day Together and in it the mother is called – clinically!- a refrigerator mom because her child was autistic. We don’t use that term anymore, but we blame women always for everything bad.
I remember how that was. My FW also would not screaming in my face. It went on for days and days. He never even tried to control himself. Still doesn’t. Entitlement!
“What a shame she went mad
You made her like that”
Belle Burden understood the assignment. The cost for telling her story was that she could not be angry. Every time she called her ex “sweet” in interviews I died a little death for her.
I agree with your statement. But I bet it was worth it to her. She told the world what utter garbage he is. She can SAY “he was sweet” but nothing he did WAS and anyone that reads will know that.
I found her book upsetting. She kept hoping he’d give her closure and be someone he wasn’t. Well, I think he told her who he truly was by his actions.
I wouldn’t call that a “sweet man.”
Read Chump lady as soon as you sniff deceit and feel the abuse in your gut..do NOT WAIT. Get your ducks in a row..very quickly. See a good attorney while you still have marital assets. They are sneaky, you get more sneaky. Get what you need, tax papers, the safe code. Keep doing what you do. Smile pretty, cook, take kids to practice. Get apartment ready or whatever your lawyer says. Stealth is essential. Don’t get to raging, don’t leak any information. Do not give second and third chances. Then treat this as a nighttime strike carried out by Navy Seals. Know your rights and strike.
I believe that woman who take men back or ignore the red signs or keep going as they are abused..DO TAKE TOO MUCH and cannot recover their control.
Leave early before you feel the murderous shift and don’t get revenge, get what you deserve.
It is Never worth leaving kids behind and often the abuser gets tired of the kids and you get them anyway.
Please don’t go too far. The future can be better than you think and far better than death row.
I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of men who murdered their wives and were paroled or served less time than Betty Broderick, but it won’t answer me directly. It says that her case wasn’t plea bargained, and she never expressed remorse.
ChatGPT has been a cheater apologist since its new version came out. Use Google AI. Use the same search and request and you’ll get better results. I have poured my heart out to ChatGPT and it wouldn’t list narcissistic things my husband has done. It said “narcissistic personality disorder can only be diagnosed by a professional.” I angrily explained that narcissism is a quality, not a disorder, make that list like I told you and stop gaslighting me! And that worked.
When my ex was being truly horrible to me one day, was still living in the house (do not do this!) and yelling at me about something, probably money (no kids, Thank God!) my sweet little dog, which he actually had given me for Christmas and which never hurt a fly, before or after, calmly walked over to him and bit him on the arm. Not hard – No skin broken, but he was so shocked it shut him right up and he moved out shortly after. I obviously didn’t want to encourage her to bite anyone, but she picked the right person and time if she ever was going to do it.
I absolutely love this. Obviously, like you said, you don’t want her biting in general. But something tells me that isn’t something you need to worry about now that he is gone. She’s not a biter by nature, but he IS a FW and she knew it.
Dogs can be very protective of their person. Or people. That was a warning bite because she didn’t break the skin.
We got a dog some months after my ex left for the last time. She’s forty pounds of sweetness, but we always wondered what would happen if someone threatened one of us.
In love, they might do anything!
My cat was like this.
I actually got her from the shelter while we were married, but she never warmed up to him: I was her person, and that was that.
But in the last 6 months of our marriage, before I kicked him out, she started stalking him. She’d slink around like a ninja, stealthily and silently slither up next to him, and then paw-punch him in the ear HARD and take off.
She started doing this all. The. Time.
It was glorious, especially because she was the Houdini of cats, and would hide so well, even from me.
Good doggy.
It was 5 years ago last Christmas that my niece was beaten nearly to death by her husband. They were seperated and she was picking up their 2 sons. He started to yell at her and she laughed at him. One son ran for help at a neighber who called the police. The ER doc said that quick action saved her life My niece is still recovering from from her extensive injuries and her husband got 5 years in prison. He lost lost his, job, his teaching liciense, and his relationship with his sons. The violence that night shattered that family and my grand nephews suffer from the trauma. I do understand anger, but we need to remember that violence affects everyone.
5 years is nothing for a violent assault in front of witnesses, but at least he got prison time. So many men get away with beating women and sexual assault.
I’m so sorry. It just goes to show how these things can become horrific.
{{hugs}}
Oh man, yeah all of us chumps have been there. The rage at finding out that they have been betraying us, some of us months or years long, just takes over. I kept myself from doing anything, but man I sure thought about it and A LOT. I pictured it being like the The Pruge movies and him and the OW were on the top of my list. And as in the movies, anything goes, right?! Oh the fantasies I had. I really think it got me through some of the darkest days – losing 35 pounds in 2 weeks because I couldn’t eat or sleep, hiding out in my closet with one of my pistols seriously considering to off myself, etc. I have 6 kids so stuck around for them, but man, it was hard. The hardest thing I have been through – and I DIDN’T CHOSE IT – that rat bastard of a cheating EXFW chose it! F*cker!
In my case, he should have gone to jail becuase he strangled me almost to death when I discovered the cheating on his phone. Wish I would have called the police but I was worried about how it would affect me and the kids with him in jail and no income. I wasn’t working at the time, I was a stay at home mom so I felt trapped. And I really was, by him! I just had to suck it up and take what he did, eat the shit sandwich and live with the humiliation.
These things just go to show how horrible it is to betray somone they way our FW’s do (did) and that we get stuck holding the shit end of the stick
Weirdly during the reconciliation farce, FW voluntarily watched the entire Betty Broderick portion of the Dirty John series starring Christian Slater as a particularly effective, dirtbaggy Dan. It’s like he couldn’t look away and when I asked him what his impression was, he began crying uncontrollably as he blubbered about the filthy legal games Dan played against Betty, how blindsided, trusting and humiliated Betty was and how the “piece of sh*t bimbo idiot” Linda Kolkena bragged to coworkers about vacation plans and bragged to friends about honeymoon plans.
He’d had little reaction to films like Raise the Red Lantern and Promising Young Woman but cried himself sick for thirty minutes over the Broderick story? I thought… “WT actual F, does he IDENTIFY with Betty??”
It really seemed like he did which was interesting and a bit creepy, almost as if the reason he cheated “first” was as a way to beat me (or anyone he was partnered with) “to the punch” because, from the crying jag, clearly his worst nightmare was being treated the way Dan treated Betty. But, especially considering FW’s financial skullduggery during his nearly two year affair was similar to Dan’s (hid assets and blew family money on the affair but never followed through to divorce me and replace me), you’d think he’d identify more with Dan and would be angry at Betty. I think he did relate to Dan to some degree and it likely caused shame (thanks, Christian, for characterizing a balls-out repulsive villain. A lesser actor would have been tempted to pretty things up to make the character sexier and more sympathetic). But it was so obvious that FW mostly put himself in Betty’s shoes.
Why? Then it occurred to me that the part FW related to might be the murderous rage. That made me remember how, after his mother engaged in a smear campaign against me to family friends and extended family by absurdly claiming I “caused” my son’s medically documented disability and cellular disorder to get attention for myself, basically accusing me of criminal Munchausen and FW by extension, FW finally (after years and years of her toxic behavior) went NC with her and also suffered intrusive visions of “killing my mother.”
I have to assume by this that leaving FW likely prompted similar “intrusive visions” towards me. This is what started making sense of a lot of FW’s DARVO attempts during his affair where he would falsely frame me as “dangerous” and “crazy” and I was left completely mystified about what he was basing this on (and, like a lot of chumps, thought he might have a brain tumor). It’s because he knew that, in my shoes, he’d be imagining my gory demise or he was already imagining it when he projected forward and thought of me leaving him for someone else as I would be perfectly justified in doing given his double life.
The whole Dirty John/crying incident served to remind me that I’m really not very “Broderick-ish”. I don’t fault the reaction of some chumps to passively imagine the gory demise of the cheaters because these chumps are also probably the types who don’t freeze if physically attacked. Meanwhile I’m a huge physical coward and self-defeatingly squeamish even about harming someone who might be trying to kill me which is a big problem I’ve always had. But I do go intellectually cold and counter-predatory when pushed too far to the point that it’s shocked a few people along the way. Even if that’s not quite a murderous state, that military OPSEC Machiavellian mode is not considered very “feminine” or ideal by a lot of bystanders and there’s a tendency to demonize women who are even capable of being like this.
I don’t know how these people think the human race survived if women couldn’t ferociously (one way or another) defend themselves and children but whatever. I’m sure my sense of gallows humor and schadenfreude wouldn’t get me any points from toxic pozzy bystanders either. I don’t even know what “forgiveness” means. But, bottom line, I didn’t choose any of it. I just reacted and the stakes justified some kind of defensive reaction. And I figure if you’re having to fight for your life, you might as well sneak in a few stinky laughs.
A lot of people don’t know that Betty Broderick was taunted and mocked by her ex-husband and his mistress. The mistress sent her ads for weight loss and wrinkle cream and both of them insulted and prodded her. Dan Broderick was a lawyer and knew exactly how to goad her and then use her outraged response to portray her as crazy, as well as to make it difficult for her to get good representation. There are many women who sympathize with her and I’m one. The usual blah blah blah about not condoning murder of course, Mr. Broderick and his mistress engaged in immoral behavior also, and I wish that was more recognized. From all accounts Betty was a very good wife and mother and worked very hard to support her husband and the family until he dumped her and allowed his mistress to mock her.
YES!
Obviously, no one should condone the murder.
But I do think Betty’s case is so extreme. They drove her to it. And I am not going to pat myself on the back that I refrained from murder, because as CL mentioned, a lot of Chumps go the other way and think about self harm. I did. I was driven to that place of desperation.
We all know how awful the betrayal feels. And to varying degrees, we have all seen other aspects that betrayal causes, stds, loss of homes, loss of family, financially insecure futures. The list goes on.
Betty saw that betrayal, after she supported him and raised his kids all those years. Then he took the kids too1. But that wasn’t enough, they taunted her. I think far too often people dismiss her case as “she was nuts”. And hey, maybe she did have some issues before this. But my god, she was tormented.
It’s reactive abuse. I don’t raise my voice and I’m all for being logical. This was only the second time in my life, I was so angry I heard nothing; as if time had stood still for my moment of rage. You get to the tipping point after manipulation galore. I didn’t want to face legal repercussions and I divorced an attorney-so could get messy. I just said get the f out of my house, sign the damn papers and leave me out of his failed life. Still today, I wish he would just leave me alone. I talk to the trees a lot to ensure he stops reaching out-we’ll see if it works. He voice memos/calls/texts from different phone numbers every few months. He’s an addict and supposedly bipolar now…don’t care.
Yes, I remember the anger as if it were yesterday. It didn’t hit until I healed some and found myself with raw emotions that I had been squashing for years.
Some really horrible things came to light some months after my ex left for the last time. So bad that my college kids and I cried together one night. More came out during the divorce. Some of it could have put him in jail, and that was part of why his own attorney actually turned on him in some ways.
During that rough period in my divorce, my attorney actually asked me if I ever felt like killing my STBX. Honestly, yes. He outlined why that wasn’t a good idea for my children and me. My children needed their mother, even though they were older. And I wouldn’t do well in prison. He added that he preferred not to talk about it, but yes, he had been in situations where that happened during the divorce process and afterward. It was heartbreaking, he said.
So, at my next therapy appointment, I asked to discuss more about managing anger, and that pretty much helped me resolve it over time. It helped that my STBX was many states away and stayed there, as far as I know. I channeled the emotions in productive ways and focused on getting the divorce done in a way that would end any involvement with him. Thankfully, I was no contact during the divorce process and truly felt meh when I saw online that the judge had signed off. Dealing with my ex post-divorce via email was fine, even as horrible as he was. He no longer had power over me.
But yes, rage is appropriate in these situations. If you need help with figuring out how to deal with that rage, get professional help and channel it into healing, if you can.
I fell through my own “don’t do it!” filter one time. Arguing near a jar in which I had knitting needles. I got so enraged by the pablum and BS that I bonked him over the head with it. Thankfully, it was more of a gesture than an effort to harm, and he was fine. I was still enraged, but no more gestures like that!
Yes to everything.
I want to offer the perspective of someone living in the USA in that here and perhaps other “modern” Western societies the acceptance of anger and other ‘negative” emotions seem to sadly be increasingly rare.
It’s unhealthy to suppress the natural anger one feels at waking up to decades long abuse and theft of assets. It is RIC BS in fact and Oprah is a cheater apologist.
In telling my story to many people of various backgrounds nobody from a Latin, Asian, Russian or African origin was uncomfortable with my anger. It was seen as a normal response and many were angry on my behalf!
Interestingly those who were born here and thus marinaded in our toxic positivity culture, regardless of ethnicity, were less comfortable with the anger. So it’s definitely a cultural phenomenon.
Like Tracy, I luckily did not kill FW narcopath and I did not succumb to suicidal ideation but came close. I leveraged my anger to get the hell out of dodge and maintain near NC
Tracy, thank you for sharing that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that story from you. If you’ve told it before, I missed it, because I’ve been on the blog for coming up on nine years. Which is possible, because I don’t claim to have read it every day.
As for Betty Broderick, Belle Burden and Sue Barlach? Yes, there but for the grace of God go I. I understand their rage and despair. I think all of us chumps here do.
I’ve told people, and probably will continue to tell people (less frequently) that I literally saw red when my FW XW told me she was in love with her married, older, rich, married-for-forty-years boss. It was a massive, disrespectful, metaphorical slap to my face and my gut after over 27 years of love on my part towards her, and almost twenty five of those married years at that point.
And yet I resisted wanting to hit her.
I’m not sure exactly how. I think…I think it’s because in the past, I had mainly been a relatively peaceful person who tended towards wanting to be left alone. I teased/mocked some kids growing up, but that was about it. And I deeply regretted doing that once I became an adult.
I’ve had five physical altercations in my life. Three of them I came out fine, defending myself without hurting the other person. One I had to fight, because he saw me as a way to make his mark, and I hit him once in the gut and it was over.
The only other one was where I was caught unawares by a kid in high school who I can see now, looking back, must have had issues at home. Not much I could do with the position he caught me in at the time.
I dealt with a bunch of these kids in a NJ town in high school because I was considered “smart,” had an intact, happy family and therefore became a target for kids who maybe didn’t have as rosy a future ahead of them, or as happy a past behind them.
I’d also been brought up to believe you never hit a girl, or a woman. So, add to that, I think, that my mind was somehow also telling me that if I got physical with the FW XW, it wouldn’t end well for me.
It also at some point occurred to me that going after her or her AP physically (which I still suffer from, occasionally, but restrain myself from doing) would not be the message I want to send or show to my three kids. It doesn’t help that the FW XW and her AP live only a few blocks behind me, or that the FW XW is now running for state senator in our county, the most populous county in our little New England state. Grrr…🤬
So, somehow my rational brain restrained me. Even though the rage inside me wanted me to get physical. I realized a day or so later that I had passed some sort of test regarding myself. I could be blind with fury, but I could also hold it in check. Barely, but still.
So, I feel for those women, especially Betty Broderick and Sue Barlach. One who was forced over the brink (I don’t know if I wouldn’t have done something similar in the male equivalent of what her husband did to her. His mental and emotional abuse of her was so effing awful), and the other who turned her anger into despair, and took her own life.
It’s really easy to turn the anger you feel into despair. I felt it. I briefly would have suicidal thoughts. But it never stayed in me for long. I don’t know why. I’ve struggled with depression for a good part of my life, but suicide never really appealed to me. Maybe I just think too highly of myself in the final analysis?🤷♂️
I don’t know. Maybe the idea of letting the other person win doesn’t sit well with me. That’s probably closer to the truth. Even if the other person is my depressed mind.
But, as usual, Tracy, you’ve touched a nerve in me. Made me think a little bit more about things. And I appreciate it. I’m sure all of CN does, too. And I’m glad you gave your FW husband a few good whacks. He deserved it, the scumbag.
But I’m even more glad that you stopped yourself from going over the edge and finishing him. Because the world would be a lot poorer without you. Especially for all us chumps, but also in general. You are a special person.
I hope you and all of CN are having a good day. And let’s give those poor women chumps we’re discussing some time today of sincere empathy. For all the chumps who have gone over the edge at the abuse they’ve suffered, men and women.
Because, yes; there but for the grace of God, the Great Spirit, or the Universe, go any of us.
Oh I’ve been there, in the wreckonciliation hell when he was full on lying pity party to therapists and continuing to steal and lie because he’d pegged me as never daring to leave him. Screaming that I was disrespectful when I brought up legitimate questions. Ultimately he hit me too.
NC is truly the path to the light. Before NC, I was constantly being mindf**ked by an evil expert in manipulation. After NC I began to see what true friends had been saying! Instead of agonizingly counting the number of OW/escorts and ferreting out more secret accounts. Or thinking of ways to end my life and agony – murder suicide style.
The mind cannot work properly when overwhelmed by trauma. It’s how FW abusers love to keep their chumps because they can control and gaslight much more easily.
Thank you for this blog CL! It saved my life and I turn my kids’ lives ❤️
I was putting away the Christmas tree in a sea of grief after I decided divorce was the only option, finally lifting out of the fog of despair I had been in for months after he confessed his pay for secks habit that existed from the beginning of the marriage (he said) / always (I calculated). I was holding a cute couples-related sentimental ornament someone gifted us when we got married and I laughed ruefully and crushed that glass ornament in my hand right in front of him. He got “scared” and called my parents, trying to get them to believe his “concern” for me over the anger, grief, and yes, probably madness that HE caused. It is completely an injustice that they get to do this to us and then walk away as if we are nothing. Like Tracy, as much as I abhor revenge violence, I understand it on a visceral level. The pain FW inflict elicits that fight or flight response. We will turn it outward or inward – so many women turn their pain inward and it becomes disease, cancer, mental illness. Turning it outward as violence puts us in Betty’s shoes, and that only doubles down on the unfairness. Instead we can use it to fight our way out of a bad situation, into a better life, for any bits of justice that can be granted to us by law. The unfairness of the whole thing remains, but there is something we can get back by channeling the rage – our lives. If she had the community and the support and the law behind her, this story could have ended differently. RIP Betty.
Being cheated on was the closest I’ve ever come to understanding how a human being could kill another person. I didn’t have the desire to do it, but I had this strange, rage-induced clarity where I was like oh, this is how it happens. This is how it feels to have true hatred for another person. I never had that feeling before or since, and I hope I never do again. RIP Betty. It was wrong, but I get it.
Being cheated on was the closest I’ve ever come to understanding how a human being could kill another person. I didn’t have the desire to do it, but I had this strange, rage-induced clarity where I was like oh, this is how it happens. This is how it feels to have true hatred for another person and to want total annihilation. I never had that feeling before or since, and I hope I never do again. RIP Betty. It was wrong, but I get it.
And this my dear – is why you walk away.
Or use your words. My ex – 28 women over ten years together. 19 marriage proposals. Had me in a financial and health stranglehold. He knew I had a stress disorder and cannot metabolize either stress hormones or pharmaceuticals. He also had hundreds of guns, everywhere, waved one in my face. He was SA, emotionally, verbally, financially, and mentally violent. But he could also be the sweetest, kindest most loving man. The extremes were you never knew who was walking through that door. Hiding women under male “client names”, including his ex girlfriend BEFORE me.
And yes he had the kind of hate for me that he told me how his latest gal (whom I discovered 48 hours after he asked me to marry him – with an empty ring box) – had “meant everything” to him. And the only reason he was asking me to marry him was because he felt sorry for me. Oh and then went on and on about how “she” – a woman 25 years younger than him- a woman with over fifty warrants, known drug dealer, con artist, scammer- taught him how to love.
Not the woman who helped him for years through severe health crises (me for him) from double punctured lungs, through colon cancer, through concussions, through crushed sternum, through a severe back infection that nearly left him paralyzed – not the woman who helped him relocate, maintain his entire life for him, over and over. No.
Someone – a woman – who ended up scamming him for over $500k over the course of less than a year. Then he had the audacity to tell me the hardest thing he ever endured was watching her get sentenced for all she had done- only after all that- he hired another scammer “handyman” who proceeded to empty his gun cabinets, his entire vault, lifted literally everything of value from his house – so he lost another $500k. And he had the audacity to call me and tell me how he “finally” understood what it felt like to be betrayed and that “everything” he did to me was done to him- and worse. And poor me.
No- you didn’t have your entire life blown up over and over for 10 years, you didn’t lose your family, your home, your animals, everything you loved and was forced to relocate to a place you have zero support system.
You are worth millions and happen to lose a few dollars. You weren’t assaulted, constantly threatened with homelessness, cheated on, lied to every day for ten years. You weren’t held hostage.
The insanity these FW will lead with and the mental gymnastics they do.
But no- I never once put my hands on him or retaliated until after I got out. After that- I did a series of documentation dumps every time he tried to reach out for my comfort. Just screen shots of his lies, other women, the emails I uncovered, and receipts of literally everything dr appointment and every little thing I did.
No response- just document dumps.
Karma comes- it may take time but dang. Karma hits and all you can do is walk away and never look back.
Do not sink to their level. Just meet their BS with receipts or no response and live your best life.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post.
Lived in La Jolla. Yes, Betty may have been hard to live with, but you know what is harder? Watching yourself be replaced by a younger version of you. That is exactly what Dan Broderick did and he gaslit her the entire time. He and Linda Kolkena were running around behind her back. And Lynda was working as his assistant, knew full well he was married the entire time, and several people testified that she sent harassing email to Betty, so not innocent.
He sold the family home out from under her. She couldn’t get adequate legal representation because of his stature in the San Diego legal community, including chumminess with the judges.
So yes, they caused a woman who was probably tightly strung to begin with, to go crazy. I do not condone violence either, but I understand what she did.
I understand that three of her children maintained a complex relationship her, but her eldest, Dan Jr., of course, doesn’t. He married his babysitter.
RIP, Betty. For a while, you gave pause to rich cheaters everywhere. But especially in La Jolla, California.
The memories this brought back and the emotions it stirred up. Sorry this is long, but I have to get it out.
About a month after I moved out of the family home, after I realized that Cheater #1 was not willing nor would ever change, I *called him first* then went to the aforementioned home to pick up some of my belongings. He proceeded to try and pick a fight with me, flash his hands in my face and invade my body space when I tried to load my things in the car and leave. I told him to back off (yeah, I yelled and I own it), he locked himself in the kids’ bathroom and called 911.
Cue the driveway full of patrol cars. Neighbors standing in their driveways wondering what was going on. I opened the door for the officers while Ch#1 was still upstairs locked in the bathroom, only this time, he had dialed the drug whore and was carrying on loudly in an, ahem, vulgar manner. I explained to the officers that a), this was our co-owned home that I had recently moved out of; b) I had called first to come pick up some belongings (showed them the phone log); and, c) he had become verbally abusive which I tried to avoid by leaving (showed them the pile of belongings by the door).
They told me to sit on the couch and went upstairs to talk to CH#1 in the bathroom. At first, he would not open the door, shouting that it was “her #$%&( friends faking the police and he wasn’t that stupid. A few tries later, CH#1 unlocked the door and the officers went in the bathroom and had a muffled (to me) conversation with him. Next thing I know, he is being frogged walked down the stairs and shuffled into the patrol car.
One of the officers comes over to me to tell me to load my car and leave because CH#1 is obviously intoxicated but they can’t do much about it since he is at his home and technically not a public nuisance. Officer hands me his card and says call us at the non-emergency number if this happens again.
I took my things and left. I guess they walked drunken CH#1 back in and he passed out on the floor/couch/wherever.
I didn’t have to use the card that the kind officer gave me, but it was validating that he and his fellow officers saw that I was NOT the crazy. I was mortified and angry that CH#1 could be that manipulative to possibly get me arrested for doing something he had agreed to.
If those nay-sayers that advise you to “forgive because it’s good for you” could live in our hearts and head for one full minute after putting up with FW bull hockey then they’d (thankfully) never spout such unhelpful pseudo advice again.
TLDR: CH#1 called the cops on me at the family home. Ended up in the back of the patrol car, instead of me.
Like Betty, I put my fw through med school. Unlike Betty, I controlled the finances for no other reason than he couldn’t be bothered. So post d-day, I divided things in a way that seemed fair. He got nine years of support and a medical degree and I paid myself back for my labor and expenses. First though, I did crack him across the face once. My hand stung for hours and hours – the best feeling in the world and such a happy memory.
It’s nice that I have at least one fond memory of our 30 years based on truth and mutual understanding.
It feels good to know that our spark of life hadn’t completely been snuffed out by the abusers. I get it.
I read two books about Betty Broderick and when I finished, I concluded that I admired her. I sincerely feel that if more betrayed spouses behaved like Betty, there would be fewer betrayed spouses. Adultery no longer carries any consequences. You can barely get someone jailed for child sexual assault these days, and getting legal recourse for bigamy or adultery is simply impossible. I do not think we have improved our society by tolerating these FWs among us. I understand not doing something that feels good in order to protect your legal situation, but if you don’t CARE about your resulting legal situation, I think you should do whatever eases your pain.
I left two marriages because the cheater was physically abusive. Threatened to kill me on the regular, saying he’d beat me to death and the military had taught him how to do it without getting caught. He strangled me nearly to death. The other was planning fatal “accidents” for me. But before all that, I married my first husband, a serial cheater.
My first D-day was the day before he “graduated from college.” (He didn’t actually graduate because he hadn’t gone to class. But he did walk through the ceremony to get an empty diploma.) A couple of weeks prior, he had screamed in my 24 year old face that I was too fat, I was too ugly and he deserved something better so he was leaving. And he walked out of our apartment. I didn’t see him for a week. I came home from my second double shift in a row, and he was asleep in our bed. And he carried on as if the previous week hadn’t really happened.
And then one day, I was in the walk-in closet of our small apartment, standing on one leg to pull on a pair of uniform pants (I’m a nurse) and fell over, crashing into his bureau on the way down and knocking his grandmother’s cookie jar off the top of it. I instantly forgot about the pants and the significant bruises I was developing because that cookie jar was precious to him. When I picked it up, it was intact, but a little piece of pink paper fluttered out of the hollow lid. It was a love note from his mistress. There were lots of love notes from his mistress stuffed into the lid of that cookie jar. I called in sick to work, read them all and waited for him to get home from class.
When he got home, I asked him where he had been since his class ended at 4 pm, and it was halfway through what would have been my evening shift at the hospital. He said he’d been studying at the library. He had just walked in the door, wearing his favorite jacket (that I had paid for) and carrying his backpack (which I had also paid for), totally nonchalant because I was supposed to be at work. And I already knew he was lying to me. I just did. Finals were over, and he had nothing left to study for. Then I asked him how long he’d been having an affair. He turned pale and reached out toward me, reaching for my arm, telling me of course he wasn’t having an affair. And that, I already knew, was a huge lie. I was wearing one of the only two pairs of shoes I had (he had several pairs of shoes that I paid for), a pair of Bastad clogs — navy blue leather clogs with a wooden sole. And I was so enraged at the lie and so afraid to let him actually grab me that I kicked him in the shin. No one was more surprised than me when he fell down. “Don’t lie to me,” I said so quietly that I wasn’t sure he heard it. And as he laid there on the kitchen floor, swearing to the heavens that he wasn’t lying and he wasn’t having an affair, I kicked him again, in the ribs this time.
This was May, 1980. I’m not proud of kicking him. I was so ashamed when he came home from the Emergency Room with a binder around his torso because he had two broken ribs. But I was so angry — I had been working double shifts to pay for his education, his clothes, his toys, and the money that kept disappearing that he was spending on jewelry for the other woman. (The receipts were in the cookie jar.). And he was cheating on me. He left me and moved in with her, but she wasn’t willing to pay his bills so he moved back in with me. He hadn’t far to travel — she was in an apartment on the first floor of the building. I was so ashamed that let the next man get away with shoving me, and all the other abusive shit he pulled.
By April, 1981, I was done with my first husband, kicked him out of the apartment and changed the locks. But that’s another story for another time.
I understand rage.
Yes completely understandable. when DDay #1 happened to me at 24 I was too dumb to leave. The counselors did not suggest it. Here I am 30 years later on this blog…
FW narcopath bought a BMW for main hooker hohoho while screaming at me over $10 cable and stealing time and energy from our children one of whom is disabled. That’s 1 of thousands of examples of his dirty deeds. Is it any wonder that I wish him dead every single day?
Not by my hands, but by karma bus or God or the universe.
One day, one way or another, he’s going to die. It may not be a pleasant death. If we live long enough, many of us will get sick with something nasty, experience painful injuries, or deal with chronic pain.
I’m not wishing anything on him. I’m just saying.
If I’d been on that jury, I’d have voted to acquit.
I just read about Betty on Wikipedia. So sad 😔. Betrayal does indeed make you go off the rails, your brain goes wild. I told my xh I hoped I never saw her driving in town as I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t head-on her, through sheer rage. I stopped looking at drivers of other cars. And I made a decision that I wouldn’t go walking on a nearby track as last time I stopped to look at a place where you could jump off. So I promised myself not to go back. As I didnt want that thought revisiting my head. Moral of that story: When faced with temptation, turn and walk away. Walk away and stay away.
Yes, but for the grace of God go I.
I think Betty must have been remarkable. She raised four (!) kids suffered the loss of a four day old baby, all the while putting that sh*thead through university…??!! No wonder she flipped after how he and the malicious schmoopie treated her.
You did not deserve to be treated so abhorrently. Rest in Peace, Betty. 💐
I come from a violent household, my mother used to beat me, and when I was strong enough to return the punches I did it.
That’s why, when I stopped living with her, I became so self aware of the violent person I was, only because I wanted to defend myself.
D-Day was one day where I wanted to punch him, but I couldn’t. I simply closed my hands in a fist. I know I was capable of violence. Rage, dissapointment, sadness, fear, everything rushed into my body.
But I just couldn’t.
I get it. I did not know, or had forgotten this story. I have felt rage and used to dream of him being dead. As I healed and cared less and less about him, I didn’t spend that sort of energy. But I do look back, recalling years ago when he had a stroke and I saved his life…I knew that if it happened again I would have walked away and let nature take over. I would never have saved his life again. No contact is the answer. I will never have to be in that position.
“I could’ve killed him…I wanted to.” Thank you for this. I am sure the anger I felt had a nice strong link to some childhood issues, but the taunting, the smirking…yes, there was the time I was inches from driving into an underpass. Today I sit here thankful that I was HEALTHY enough to take the anger out on furniture and not myself, or him. He tried to kill me mentally for years but had I snapped and ended up in prison for killing him, he would have had the last laugh in the afterlife. NOPE.
“ I’d imagine driving myself into highway medians.”
I did that too. And until I just read your post, I FORGOT that. I remembered having suicidal ideation, but what I remembered was going to bed and hoping I would not wake up. I remembered the hopelessness of feeling like things could never be ok.
It wasn’t until just this minute, reading this that I remembered I used to think about ways I could do it that would look like an accident. I thought it would spare my kids some pain if I drove into a median and they thought I just slipped.
Cheating is abuse. It drove me to a desperation so intensen that I was sure that my kids would be fine, with a FW and AP.
Something about his crying while lying on the floor and threatening to report makes him sound creepy beyond description. If he had begged for forgiveness that would not sound so bad. But crying and threatening to report sends sickening shivers down my spine. I have no idea why.
Funnily enough, I’ve just started watching Dirty John that features this story. It’s pretty activating for me to watch. I can relate to Betty in so many ways. I was gently crying watching it. I can see how pushed into a corner she was with the court system rigged to work against her.
I’m likely to be applying for a child arrangements order here in the UK, very soon. I’m quite disturbed by the assertion that if domestic abuse it cited, I’m more likely to lose or have reduced “custody” of my children. I have been getting support for the domestic abuse I’ve been enduring in as a time-served chump (dominated, controlled, gaslit, you know the drill). I guess I will still cite domestic abuse as I’m pretty confident I can “prove” it and I couldn’t live with myself if I just let it go, no matter the outcome.
I think it’s a tricky one with Betty. Without knowing her it’s hard to say if she was a narcissist pushed to the edge, who had the added load of being a chump, resulting in a disastrous, murderous concoction of behaviours and outcomes.
All I know is that my heart broke when she lost her children. I feel that could happen to me. They are all I have. I can also relate to her portrayed feelings and behaviours. This chump journey can make you lose sight of rational thinking and you have to try to keep yourself grounded. I wish my FW would just disappear and I know that one day he will, via severely reduced contact at the very least.
Rest in peace Betty, I hope you finally have in heaven the happiness and peace that you so deserved in life
I remember watching one of the movies on TV while I was in the middle of trying to figure out how to bounce back from my husband running away with his pregnant mistress 8 weeks after our wedding, and marrying her in Hawaii while still married to me
I was angry, I was hurt, I was left homeless and with $25 in my checking account. Marriage was so brief that I had no claim to anything. The bigamy? I called the police and they told me that most likely, nothing was going to happen as other crimes took priority
Of course I wanted to get even, to run them over with my car, but decided that NO ONE was worth my freedom. I did not wanted to end up like Betty
I had a really good cry, the kind where your heart hurts and cannot breath! but I packed my things from his house (that he had put up for sale) and left. Thankfully, I had friends who helped me and eventually, I came out of the fog and put the energy into making my life better and the difficult process of not into thinking of ways to get even with them. I didn’t have to do much, life caught up with them. Of course he cheated on her with other women, that was expected!
As for what I learned from Betty, I learned to never be dependent on anyone for my financial stability and well being, that life will eventually catch up with the mistress and history will repeat itself, but above all, I learned that NO ONE is WORTH my freedom!