Nicole Kidman Can’t Believe Friends Kept Keith Urban’s Alleged Cheating from Her
Was Keith Urban cheating on Nicole Kidman? Sure looks that way. And their friends probably knew it before Nicole did.
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Raise your hands, CN, if people in your circle knew you were a chump before you knew you were a chump. Oh, is that nearly all of you?
News broke last week that Nicole Kidman filed for divorce from Keith Urban. Speculation immediately began that a certain Aussie dick was wandering. But not before the casual misogyny articles appeared subtly blaming Kidman for taking a bunch of sexy roles (over 50!)
Who was Keith Urban allegedly cheating with?
Internet sleuths were quick on the Schmoopie trail, noticing that Urban changed the lyrics from his song “The Fighter” (which he wrote for Kidman) and dedicated them to a young member of his band, Maggie Baugh.
Instead of warbling, “When they’re tryna get to you, baby I’ll be the fighter,” he changed it to, “When they’re tryna get to you, Maggie I’ll be your guitar player.”
Swoon! What girl doesn’t want a greasy-haired, Australian man baby who wouldn’t know what country music is if Hank Williams rose from the dead and gave him a kidney? Keith, substance abuse doesn’t make you a country Western star. Wash your hair.
But take heart, Maggie. When people call you a homewrecker, he’ll defend you with his guitar! And isn’t that worth being twinkie du jour?
Who knew about Maggie?
Cosmopolitan magazine reports:
A couple things happened on September 30: 1) News broke that Keith Urban is dating someone new amid his split from Nicole Kidman, and 2) Nicole went ahead and filed for divorce.
And according to Rob Shuter’s ShuterScoop, she thinks Keith’s closest friends were keeping his infidelity a secret for him.
“Nicole feels blindsided not just by Keith but by the silence of the whole group,” a source says. “She can’t understand how no one gave her even a hint—not Blake (Shelton), not anyone.”
The Blake Shelton who (allegedly) cheated on Miranda Lambert and Gwen Stefani? That Blake Shelton? Protecting the wandering dick privileges of a fellow faux country hack? Say it isn’t so!
Nicole, welcome to our chump world. Sit on the Ethereally Beautiful Woman settee with Christie Brinkley, Beyonce and Shakira. Someone pass the snacks.
Conspiracy is part of the chump condition.
This never seems to come up in those Esther Perel articles. How betrayal isn’t limited to your partner, but encompasses your entire family and friend world, as you learn who knew, or suspected, and never told you. Some apologize later. Some avoid you. But the worst become Switzerland friends and feign neutrality. We love you both. (Air kisses!)
Love is telling a person the truth about their reality. Love does no harm. It’s not letting Nicole Kidman go to award ceremonies and be the giddy, supportive wife to the duplicitous FW.
I’m glad she filed immediately. She survived one FW, Tom Cruise. She’ll survive another.
Being a Hollywood megastar, there’s probably a lot of pressure on Kidman to not appear Bitter. Shakira at least got to write her diss track, but all an aging actress can do is eat the shit sandwich of conscious uncoupling and hope her profession doesn’t reject her like her FW husband just did.
Cue the misogyny of “Well, what did she expect? He’s a musician, surrounded by adoring fans! Sure it’s a bit icky that Maggie is young enough to be his daughter. But that’s men for you. Now, let’s pivot back to the obscenity of a woman over 50 having an orgasm on screen.”
I am not Hollywood.
I am Chump Lady.
Nicole, if you’re reading, Keith Urban was always beneath you. I know you bred with him, and probably feel flinchy and protective of him. But he was always dragging you down, from the first year of marriage when you had to stage a sobriety intervention for him. Everything you’ve accomplished, you accomplished in spite of his narcissistic, addict chaos.
He was never that deep. Maggie’s not that deep. She’s just next.
There’s always a next with these freaks.
Be glad you’re not the freak. Heal up.
CL, a lovely post for Nicole Kidman. X
I am grateful that friends didn’t know first. I hadn’t considered that scenario, but oh that would so amp up the constant nausea. I can’t imagine.
I’m going to rename my shabby, pre-loved chaise lounge ” The Ethereally Beautiful Woman’s Settee”. I LOVE the sound of that! And the thought of it will warm my soul I’m sure, as I sit there drinking tea and looking out the window (with or without rocking backwards and forwards…).
MCC
It’s sad, but nothing shocks me anymore. Ex FW’s brothers knew. All I heard is “he told us he had stopped [patronizing prostitutes]”. In the meantime it was fine that both my health and the health of our unborn daughter was risked. For what? The possibility of an intact family? That their brother’s unilateral poor decision making wouldn’t ever come to light and his wife would just continue on in the darkness, losing her mind but not ever knowing why? Screw that. “The shame must switch sides.”
“Losing her mind but not ever knowing why” sounds like the shitty c&w song Nicole could sing when she transitions to faux country hack like her stbx. And why not? If predatory, middle-aged baby-man FWs can do it, why can’t she? Or you? Or me? ❤️
““The shame must switch sides.”
Imagine the experience that future chumps would have if they get chumped in a world where there is no shame for them?
And I wonder if cheaters suffered the shame would it alter their behavior any?
Re: Continuing on in darkness. My ex said to me “I wish I hadn’t told.” That he would be willing to continue to deceive me forever took my breath away, and did a lot to help me see he wasn’t worth my love.
Mine told me that his lies to me (and his previous girlfriend) “Kinda worked for him.” I consider that the only time he ever told me something meaningful that was true.
Yeah, it’s startling when the truth emerges and you see behind the mask or past your own spackle.
My cheater said he could not find someone of such great value as I was to him (as his wife appliance) this is what he said to me. I added the words ..no not YET. Sometimes a cheater will keep you dangling on one line, while they continue to fish with the other line. No one as good as you bebe..until there is.Thats the time the RIC gives cheaters on the heart of the chump. More time to find a better catch than the one they have OR to keep stringing OW behind as a dance partner. Nicole was smart and covered her hinney…I hope! I was relieved it was over after the torture of so many years, maybe she is too.
I got something very similar, Adelante.
Maggie Baugh F@@@ing her way to the top.
She has no morals or self respect. And being young is no excuse. Him being a star is no excuse. She (and he) both know the difference between right and wrong. So everyone can bag on her for being a home wrecker because she chose that role for herself. Ick
“Cum on the rungs” as they say in my former creep-filled industry. As in “The more cum on the rungs of your career ladder, the more it turns into greased rail on your way down.”
Yikes. I hope Maggie sees this…lol
Gross, huh? But kind of true.
Haha, yeah it’s totally true but is kind of an icky visual!
Media in general is a really icky industry. News and documentary aren’t quite as disgusting as showbiz but that’s not saying much. Spoiler alert for the film The Assistant: she spends half her time scrubbing the omniscient but never-seen Weinstein-ish character’s sperm off the casting couch and carpet and the other half unboxing his bulk orders of prefilled alprostadil syringes (drug for serious ED injected directly into the penis).
I think the film should be categorized as body horror.
OMG, I have not seen the film but glad I haven’t by your description above, Yikes.
I can’t re-watch it myself but I still recommend watching a clip of the “HR scene” because of Matthew McFadyen’s chillingly spot-on performance as a corporate rape-enabler performing gaslighting and DARVO to silence a potential whistleblower. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sa6C7J1zwU&t=112s
Oh yeah, I watched the scene you linked and it was a really potent scene. Very much like the stuff we chumps always get from people.
Didn’t the character feel way too familiar?
I think we’ve all been stuck in confrontations with sociopaths like that– people who seek social or bureaucratic “gatekeeper” positions in order to gain the power to say “no” to desperate people because the only way they’re sure they exist is when they can induce suffering, anxiety or forced gratitude in people they have momentary power over.
I continue to be amazed at how much psychological damage my Switzerland friends have inflicted on me by aggressively hinting that I should be friends with my cheating ex, and that we should all hang out together, papering over the fact that they knew more about his activities than I did (how much, I will never know) and suggesting that I am bitter, or depressed, or whatever suits their narrative. I have repeatedly told them I need space, but their texts continue to intrude on my hard-won peace of mind (there are reasons I haven’t blocked them yet — but that day is probably coming). It’s exhausting; I wish the Internet contained fewer so-called advice columns telling people it’s best to be neutral when friends in their circle divorce.
I am still friends with my ex’s sister (albeit awkwardly, and without much contact), and my young adult kids are trying to navigate keeping their relationships with both me and my ex — but those are the only people in my book who get a pass on choosing a side. (And they themselves have told me they are horrified by ex’s behavior.) Otherwise, if you are OK with hanging out with my ex, you are OK with him cheating, lying, and destroying our family life, and that is not OK with me.
When the full.measure of the number of people,friends,acquaintances and relatives within my ex wife’s family knew about her long adulterous,relationships with the.principal AP, a doctor in the hospital where she worked, it added a new depth of depression to my shattered ego
The revelations. of her affair was made all the more difficult to deal with when it became clear that, my ex, the daughter of one of the three nursing instructors at the same hospital, was having a quite public affair with the head of the ER, her immediate supervisor. Everybody in the ER knew, and the word traveled fast as wildfire through the 485 bed hospital. Even the family doctor, a friend of the POS AP knew, although to his credit, he tried in an oblique way, to.let.me.know.
All my ex’s sisters knew, as did the four brothers in law, one sister helped facilitate a hotel.hookup in a neighboring. County where she lived. My.mother in law knew, in fact every guest at several.parties we.threw knew. At two of these parties the AP was an invited guest, so I, dumb fool, was cruelly.paraded in front.of the guests as some kind of hilarious entertainment. All this happened fifty years ago…but the painful realization of the reality of my.life and how I was mistreated, abused emotionally both then and now in full revelation, was one of the drivers in my firm resolve to divorce. I will.be 81 soon and this will be part of me.untill.I die. Of that I am certain.
I’m struggling for an analogy to describe how evil your circumstances sound and the best match I can muster (despite not actually believing in hell or the devil) is Rosemary’s Baby. It’s like you accidentally wandered into a demonic coven.
But from one truly terrible experience that my kids and I had with a particular school district (administrators and PTO defended a very credibly alleged child molester on staff, shriek), I don’t think it’s far-fetched to imagine that psychos and sociopaths tend to cluster together for safety and affirmation. You might have fallen into an infected geographical cyst of toxic creeps.
Those who have read my previous posts know that my ex was deeply in love and lust with the AP, whose baby she was carrying through every part of the ordeal I describe. My unique solace is the joy that the child she bore has given me, from infant to the very successful middle-aged family man he has become, with a no us of four wonderful grandchildren. I refuse to wallow in self pity, what I was given in life was not what I would have ever elected to undergo, yet I have survived, even as learn to be alone physically, after decades of being alone emotionally.
I think it speaks volumes about your soul that you came to love your son this way.
To me that means you were the only decent person present at those parties. Please give yourself some grace for your decency and trust. I am sorry you were surrounded by vipers.
Hah, seems everyone thought Urban Decay’s former fiance, Nashville veterinary tech Laura Sigler, was “bitter” when she warned Urban had a “dark side” and was unlikely to “make any woman happy.”
One country music publication concludes that : “Looking back, it feels less like bitterness and more like foresight.”
“suggesting that I am bitter, or depressed, or whatever suits their narrative.”
I know CL has written more on “bitter bunnies” and did so much better than I ever could.
But I think what sticks in my craw about the whole idea of being bitter in regards to a failed romantic relationship is that it is so skewed. As if Chumps are jerks unless they forgive the FW and be his/her friend. I think it was Elsie’s lawyer who said “who would be friends with the person that burnt down their house?” and that fits here. No one would expect you to be friends with that arsonist that set fire to your home. If you scowled and even growled anytime you saw that person in the street, no one would question it. Hell, they might scowl too, as they also have a home that they would be upset to see burn to the ground. But somehow if you feel equally perturbed with your FW that blew up your life without a lighter, that is different. You are just “jealous”??
Bitter automatically assumes a petty, unjustified anger that generally is seen as a trait of an immature and unenlightened person.
I am not bitter. I don’t want to be friends with my ex because he hurt me worse than anyone or anything else ever has. I mean, can it even be said that way? “I don’t WANT to be friends with him because he hurt me so deeply”? Is it even a matter of just “wanting” or “not wanting” to? That person is simply NOT my friend. Better that I just randomly pick any other person on the street to be friends with than keep allowing this particular person around me who I already KNOW I can’t trust. Who I already know would hurt me terribly if given the opportunity.
Then the Switzerland friends trot out arguments like “you have 2 kids together” or “you have a 30 year history with him”. Yeah. And the fact that he STILL hurt me so badly despite those kids and that history make what he did WORSE.
Generally I am not even all that angry anymore. Certainly if he does something new and shitty, it brings up the old anger. And if I am having a bad day and think about some particular bit of excessive fuckwittery from the past, sure, I can get worked up. The divorce will affect my life possibly forever. So getting angry occasionally is a give, Here, at CN, I vent. So you all probably see my angriest moments. More than anyone else, even my super supportive friends.
But D-Day was 5 years ago. The divorce was finalized this Summer. I haven’t lived with him for nearly 2 years. I am deep into my healing journey. I still have a ways to go…but I am doing really well in general thanks to the lowest contact possible with kids in the mix. In life, I am mostly positive. I am often pretty damn happy, Things are going well. I don’t want anything to do with him, but that is just a choice I am making for my well being, the same way I won’t have an espresso an hour before bed. Or drink 4 martinis out with friemds when my upper limit is definitely two.
I also think if anyone is not healing up quickly, and is struggling, that makes them a normal human dealing with a terrible situation, not “bitter”
I passively cut ties with the ex FW’s family after I was good enough to talk to/commiserate with (the wives of ex’s brothers didn’t know and seemed quire sympathetic up front), but then after I decided I needed to divorce it was complete radio silence. I haven’t spoken with any of them since.
IME those types of friends are cheaters themselves or enablers like some who stay with cheaters for money and status. The truth will out
Re: advice columns telling people to be neutral. And worse! To stay silent! In the latest Appiah column in the NYT he once again tells someone who knows something’s up not to tell the wife, but I was heartened to see how many people pushed back against this advice.
I hope Nicole’s career allows her at least six months to avoid interviews. Her spokesperson can refer questions about his behavior directly back to him (thank you Melinda French Gates).
She’s allowed to set boundaries with family, friends and associates explaining a decision to distance herself from anyone who has not had her well-being in mind.
I dont envy her having to navigate these choppy waters with 2 teen girls. Good for her she has he case to create any sort of home she wants and not fear for their next meal, but it hurts no matter how many numbers you have in your bank account.
My military Cheater worked very hard to keep his work life and marriage/family life very separate. Im sure that a few of his work friends knew juicy details, but since they didnt know me at all (and I’m sure there was a Batshit Crazy narrative going), no one ever told his secrets.
Nicole, if you are here, know you are surrounded by support.
re: the teenage girls. In the custody agreement, which they were apparently working out this summer, he asked for 59 days of custody. 59 days!!! out of 365!!! I don’t care about his work, their school, etc. etc. — that’s base. He knows Nicole is just gonna handle everything they need for the rest of the year. What a no-show he is.
My guess is the girls attend a private boarding school with scheduled holidays and summer breaks. Is the custody agreement a public document? Release the Epstein files, instead.
It’s a similar one to my arrangement and FW has shown a callous disregard for the kids that in hindsight was already there when married. He only cares about image management. Expects Chump to do all the parenting work.
I cringe every time a clueless therapist / bystander tells Chumps a cheater can be a good parent even if a terrible spouse.
By definition someone intentionally deceiving the family and stealing marital assets is NOT A GOOD PARENT.
Blake was not HER friend. He being without morals, also, this comes as no shock.
It was quite disgusting to me to learn klootzak’s one friend, who claims to be strict Catholic – so much so that he refused when we asked him to be godfather to our only child because we were not married in the Church – was entertaining klootzak and AP at his home. Having them over for dinner and to join his friend group on camping trips while we were still married. But oh, he is so upright and religious! He sings in the choir on Sundays! And entertains adulterers every other night of the week, apparently.
FW friends are losers themselves. They cannot be trusted as they share the same lack of a moral compass.
the X had a workplace affair with AP at a large oil and gas company, and i attended work social events (corporate dinners, etc.) where, looking back, his co-workers knew of the affair, but i did not. i was not alone as so did AP’s husband at the time, also sat there at the table, too. this is no consolation.
i still cringe when i think of this, even though other folks here have explained why co-workers don’t get involved.
but the whole situation is remarkably unkind.
it’s the first monday of October and i’m feeling grievous. soon it will be 5 years since d-day and i’ve done lots of work (therapy + healing) and recently set my life up in another city. my adult kids, who moved with me, are thriving. i’m thriving, but i’m still grievous at times.
#damnitfeelsbadtobeachumpster
I had a similar thing happen. My ex was cheating on me with a coworker. We (ex and I) used to host holiday and random house parties in our apartment for the large coworker friend group. They all knew we were dating, and nobody said a god damn word to me!
A few months after it all imploded, I was on a dating app and saw one of the coworker’s partners, who was on there cheating on her. Even though we weren’t friends, I still messaged her immediately, because god knows I wish someone would have done that for me.
So, military Cheater was retired in June (of the year in question) . He had given me the “Im divorcing you because you are a terrible wife but there is no one else involved” speech in April. Seems he was boinking colleague on business trips and wanted to feel less guilt so he told me the marriage was over (but he didnt leave).
We (me, him, 3 kids, dog) lived on the east coast but he had his military retirement in the west. He was so oblivious to the fact he had kids that he didnt bother to check to see if his kids were free to travel (they weren’t…finals in school) that week. I think he scheduled the retirement ceremony to suit OW.
He told me to not bother attending the ceremony (after being a military spouse for 18 years) because we were divorcing. He created that trap so when I didnt show up, he could say “she didnt even come to my retirement – she is a terrible wife”. We did not travel together…I flew out with just my then-2nd grade daughter. At the airport, we ran into his boss (who was also flying to the event). He looked profoundly uncomfortable…I didnt think much of it in the moment but later realized that my perfectly normal self shocked him when Cheater had told the boss that his mentally deranged wife wouldn’t be coming to the retirement.
I took photos of him at the event… 2 of the photos were taken just seconds apart one looking at OW (his face all Schmoopie and smily) then the next looking at me (with absolute contempt and rage on his face). Perversely, I keep those photos on my phone even though it has been 20 years.
the whole thing about smearing you and calling you a bad wife and crazy. man, it’s ridiculous. i still find it hard to believe that the person i was married to for 32 years would do such a thing, but the evidence exists.
i picked poorly.
#onward
It is always so shocking and disorienting to become a chump, but one of the many things that freaks us all out, it that…I chose this person! I picked wrong! How the hell did that happen? How the hell was I with him for 30 years and not know it?
I remember the first few days laying awake all night long, not sleeping for days in a row, going over our entire life together questioning “did I miss something. I must have. What was it that I missed that I didn’t know who this person was?” WTF?
Yes. This past weekend, me and my husband (Colonel Greatguy) went to an event in the city and setting where I fell in love with Cheater 40 years ago.
I was sad for much of it…being in that setting and seeing all the young adults living the things I lived all that time ago made me sad. The person he either was (all along) or became in that era of his life set us up for disaster.
The 2 traits I see missing in him that caused him to have so little virtue is that he 1) wanted everything…he refused to admit that some decisions were mutually exclusive – if you pick this, you cant have that. Anytime he had to pick something, he raged against it.
2) He lacked the ability to hold himself accountable for his mistakes. Everything had to be blamed on someone else who he them vilified (and as soon as we married, the blamed thing was me.
I can see it now, but I was so young and naive. I gave him credit for goodness he didnt actually have.
It’s really what CL describes as head in a blender stuff isn’t it? The little red flags were there but most chumps weren’t prepared for sociopaths. We could not imagine leading a secret double life for decades.
I’m not into conspiracy theories, but I want to scream that our FW are the actual “lizard people”, they might as well be reptilian aliens walking around in human bodies they are so abnormal.
Who the hell cheats on Nicole Kidman? I hope she does him like Jeff Bezos got did and soaks the idiot. When she’s done with him, he’ll be Keith Urban Decay (I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress, folks!)
(shrugs) mine isolated me from her family and collective friends…the timing of when that started was around when she started cheating in earnest (~1.5 years before D-Day-gods only know how much other villainy she got up to before that.) She similarly stopped coming around to see my friends and family. She wrote it off plausibly as getting busy from school, pandemic related stuff, etc. Trusting idiot that I was? I bought it and spackled for her.
Misinformation would have had to have started around then as well-I got looked at like a leper the last time I saw any of them in person (which was 2 weeks after the famous “I want an open relationship” conversation the day after I was diagnosed diabetic.) I never heard a peep from any of them (and still have not 2 years later.)
Anyhow, if Nicole Kidman is reading this, welcome to the Chump Nation! And since you’ll be single again soon, I know a guy that had a huge crush on you after seeing Batman Forever…
Have a Mighty Monday!
That’s what I thought too when I read about this: ‘Who the hell cheats on Nicole Kidman?”
I did wonder, when I first read about them divorcing, if one of them was cheating. Looks like i was right.
If, as we’re being told by the Perelistas and mainstream media, cheating is about life-affirming sexual adventurism and “thrill is gone” sexual disappointment, it seems remarkable that Urban Decay (hah, good one) not only cheated on a world class talent and beauty but did it with someone who’s going to be a dead ringer for Stephen Fry in a few years.
Even according to cheater apologism logic, something doesn’t compute.
Cheaters ALWAYS trade DOWN!
I logged in today just so I could say “Hahaha!” to ‘Keith Urban Decay’! So funny.
Welp, I lost a friend this week because she wanted to introduce me to her FW. I declined, stating that it would be very unhealthy for me to spackle over cheating, lying, an STD, and talk of suicide. Am I supposed to shake his hand and say, “Nice to meet you! 😃 ” Nope.
I still believe friends — real friends — should always stand with the truth.
Man, this guy is such a pathetic cliche. Aging botoxed musician abandons loyal wife who stuck by him during his addiction issues to chase younger woman. Dime a dozen. I read that the song he mentioned his sidepiece in was originally written for Nicole. That’s what pathetic cliches do…bet he’s also taken her to places he took his wife and gave her the same presents. It is like they crank these cheap clones out in some substandard factory in China and to cut costs they don’t install a heart, courage, loyalty or any virtue. Good luck, Schmoops!
Really great story
Nobody knew and protected FW, but a number of his family and colleagues suspected but never communicated with me about their concerns. It was infuriating in the aftermath to keep hearing “we thought that ….” or “we wondered if ….” or “we were concerned about …” from people who I thought knew me well enough to have included me in those discussions. Hello, I am kind of the one person most likely to need to know about these concerns. One female colleague did apparently confront him – he denied, she didn’t believe him, and urged him to come clean. So helpful to learn all this after a horrific surprise D-day (because the affair was discovered, not because he confessed).
Listening to Carl Jung combo’s with CL on chump features..the key here is to see how truly AWFUL these characterless cheaters REALLY are, clear as the dawn. Other people who are SILENT are NOT your friends so that culls the herd A favor to you. He did you huge favor NICOLE..Listen up!! So awful you filed like a champ chump!- a favor!!!Yes, even the father of your babies can cheat even if you are are a mega mega super star, they will cheat!! And blame everything everything but themselves.Yes all those mushy Instagram pictures that added to the ILLUSION that a drug addicted wanna- be took to mothering .. add to that $600,000 a year to stay CLEAN and sober for all the posts and pictures..was it ever love? Is that even possible.??? It seems the higher a Chump goes the worse cheaters need a stand -in of any age to hold their flaking ego. Look at Keith’s eyes in so many pictures. Where was he? So friends who betrayed you, let them go. Now Nicole is free. Free to also see all she tried to do to keep this going and not let that enter her life ever again. There is no way that ever works. Please send her LACGAL book!!! I wish I could. My lawyer loved it!
Maybe because of how litigious Scientology tends to be, Nicole Kidman was pretty mum about the split from Cruise for a long time. But I remember her describing her life after the split in an interview several years after divorce with one interjection: “Wheeeee!”
Methinks “wheeee” is the sound of freedom. It made me suspect that living with Tom Cruise must have been like a 1000 years of Baltic humor. I imagine she had a constant sense of gloomy foreboding and walked on egg shells lest the sawed-off Napoleon with unresolved daddy issues have another ragey mantrum. And all the while, feeling a sense of shame because of the optics– that people wouldn’t believe such a tall, lanky, competent blond could possibly be viscerally afraid of such a shortish dude and everyone’s favorite guy to boot… despite the way his eyes went black when he raged behind closed doors and the fact his neck and biceps were bigger than her thighs…
Oh wait, I was talking about myself, oops. In any case, I think anyone who utters such a sincere “Wheee” after divorce was likely experiencing coercive control– the psychic aspect of domestic violence that’s reportedly the most paralyzing and devastating and much harder to heal from than even assault.
But this didn’t really have a name back when Kidman escaped Cruise. I wonder that there were resources available even for the very wealthy to aid in recovery before she ended up in the slightly wimpier but still dysfunctional Keith Urban snare.
Anyway, I don’t think she or any abuse survivor is to blame for landing with a subsequent abuser considering the statistics, the fact that abusers specialize in playing hero/rescuer and that once a woman’s been deeply terrorized by a partner and the fear sinks into her bones, the greater the understandable fear of being alone and the greater the risk of tripping into the pitfall of mistaking a bodyguard for a partner.
I hope she shrugs off the false victim shaming and refuses to accept the usual split blame for this shit (also talking about myself).
Yes. I think your perceptions of him are likely accurate when you see how His 3rd wife undertook her escape. Tom Cruise is, to me in our generation of women, a bit like Prince Andrew…he sure looked like a catch in the 80s but now I would chew my leg off to get away from either of them.
Raising my hand. Although Cheaty McLiarface’s brand of betrayal was flirtations and infatuations that I clearly tolerated and had no want or ability to see them for what they were. I couldn’t comprehend that the disrespectful detachment in front of my face hid a pile of lies and manipulations behind my back.
Many people tell me now that they thought his behaviors with other women were inappropriate. But they are correct when they add that they didn’t say anything because it didn’t appear to bother me. I tell them that they were correct in not bringing it up. I would have gaslit myself by rationalizing his behaviors.
Where were my boundaries?! I finally found them when he refused to hold himself fully accountable and acknowledge the damage he had done to us. Strong in this one the entitlement remains.
I think you’re me!
One good friend said to me after DDay ” I thought you had an open marriage”.
We’d move to a smaller town (previously being a in a major city) and got know people, socialised etc. so his flirty behaviour was noticed in a way that it had never been before.
We were the ‘solid couple’, married for over 30years at the time and got on well. And then I found out he used that as a ‘mask’. He used to set women up to compete for him (you know the script).
I do have an ending to the story.
I’m nearly 4 years on from D Day and he’s 61 and single. And hating it. The AP dumped him after he cheated on her after a year together.
He’s dating, he’s trying but he no longer has the mask.
Nicole Kidman is a goddess. I hope she finds peace.
History shows it doesn’t matter if you’re rich, beautiful and famous or just a regular chump… More than a few people knew about FW’s rotating harem of APs but they never breathed a word of it to me. For starters, I personally knew 11 of the 14 APs he eventually admitted to — when our therapist required him to name names, I realized this illustrious group included 6 of his married coworkers (all with children), the wives of couples we vacationed with, our triplets’ soccer Team Mom (Go Tigers!), even our gullible 19-year-old babysitter I entrusted my children to — and none of them ever called, emailed or confronted me face-to-face to say they were fucking my husband. And then there were the social “friends” who saw FW and the wealthy Married Howorker (AP #14 and now his wife) out on lunch dates or talking about their upcoming road trips; even my son’s now-ex-girlfriend was a witness but she didn’t say anything to me until 3 years later! WTH is wrong with people? If just ONE person had said something… anything… I could’ve saved myself YEARS of being legally hitched to his community dick.
This is why I spread CL message far and wide.
Infidelity is abuse as Tracy states, yet society fails to understand it. If someone witness a child or elder being abused, a woman being attacked or a man beaten, most people get that they should tell someone or do something . People need to see serial cheating as the enormous bundle of ABUSE that it truly is.
Even if the early warnings fall on the chumps deaf ear, it plays out.for .later if the message is finally heard.
A number of our friends knew. One went over and above for Ex-Mrs LFTT though; she actually provided cover for Ex-Mrs LFTT’s dirty weekends with her AP by pretending that Ex-Mrs LFTT was visiting her instead ….. and it wasn’t just the once or twice either.
I got the last laugh though. Just after our Divorce was finalised, said “friend” came home from work early to find her husband butt naked and playing “hide the sausage” with one of her friends.
While I can’t say that I approved of her husband’s actions, it didn’t stop me from laughing so much I almost puked.
LFTT
Some higher power served that revenge dish ice cold to that b****h for you! Bwahahahaha
Good grief. Covering for FW’s is worse than just knowing and not saying anything. Disgusting. It also shows what kind of person they are, which is crappy!
Fantastic that “friend” got her karma though and in just that manner! Stupid twit.
And that was a well deserved laugh from you, that’s for sure.
I suspected one of ‘our’ friends knew. I saw my FW’s phone one day (this was while I was suspecting more and more that he was cheating on me) and texts to his buddy with some ‘code talk’ and then a few days later they were all gone. Just disappeared and my FW had “no idea” how that happened or where they went! “I’m innocent, I don’t know how to delete texts! And I would never do that!”
He was telling his buddy he may need a place to stay, shit like that. This was before I had confirmed he was cheating on me. But only a month later I caught him and all his texts with his AP and I immediately told him either his friend set him up with this home wrecker whore or that he at least knew about it. Either way, this guy was helping you sneak around saying stuff behind my back and not warning me. So in the pick me phase I had told him you either dump this “friend” or I am gone. He chose me and I made him call and tell buddy he could no longer be friends with him on speaker phone. He did it, to my surprise.
And a side note – I had also found out (right after I caught my FW cheating) this buddy not only had cheated on his wife, but bragged about sexually assaulting another women right in front of my FW and adult son one night when I wasn’t present. My FW never told me about it but my son sure did! And my FW also tried to stand up for buddy, saying, ” he was just kidding probably.” WTF? I told him “no man that has self respect for himself or women, and had even a sliver of common decency, would joke about what he did/said.” So I told buddy’s wife immediately and she said she knew he had cheated before but this story was new news. His ‘friend’ was super pissed I had told her.
I told my FW that a man is measured in many ways but one of them was definitely with WHOM HE KEEPS COMPANY WITH. In other words…birds of a feather. That’s how all these FW’s cheat – they find a disgusting person that is the AP to do their dirty deeds with. Takes two disgusting people to do what they do. Good people DO NOT behave that way. EVER.
And sometimes, they even have help from ‘friends’.
And also – Thank you Tracy for doing this for Nicole! I really like her. She seems like a sweet, good person. I am sure she isn’t perfect, but doubt that she did anything to deserve what she got from her FW. Makes me sad. I really loved them as a couple and thought he was a decent guy. Guess I was wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. I thought the same thing of my FW, until he proved me wrong.
I hope she sees this post and spends some time here. It will help her! Could also help her daughters as well, help them all navigate the betrayal and all the mixed bag of shit emotions that come with discard and abandonment. Maybe someone who loves her/them will come across this and show it to her. Fingers crossed!
I attended many of the ex’s work events and meet ups with his work colleagues and could never put my finger on why the ambience felt somewhat ‘off’. I went to one event towards ‘the end’ and, with hindsight, I can see that one of the women was trying to warn me. One couple stopped socialising with us and with the ex. The ex couldn’t explain why. After I was ‘let go’ but before I discovered the affair, the ex told me that I ‘made people feel very, very uncomfortable’. I agonised about this in therapy (and outside) for months. It was true in one way: my presence to most of those who knew about the affair was uncomfortable. The ex enjoyed it. Interestingly, he never told his close friends from school and university directly about the affair with exgf also from school. They knew her and couldn’t stand her (except for one couple). I told one of the women (I’m still close to her) and she told the others. The ex continued to lie blatantly to the faces of all of them. The couple who liked her were told by me 4 years later when I got fed up of them sending a Christmas card addressed to both of us at what was by then my home. They were shocked. I’ve often described the ex as a ‘replica chocolate bunny’. Cheaper than the real thing; shiny foil on the outside; thin, odd-tasting chocolate in the vague shape of rabbit; a complete hollow in the middle; and a sense of disappointment after eating.