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

Tracy and Sarah discuss the common, if depressing, problem of forgiveness and multiple D-Days. What does forgiveness mean? Is it essential to get over betrayal? Or can you move on quite fine without it? And how do you fend off forgiveness trolls -- the sorts who insist on forgiveness before you've even processed the offense?

A discounted chocolate Easter egg for a 13-year-old's birthday... weeks past Easter. American-flag themed polar fleece. The same gift the Other Woman got, only in the wrong size. In this episode Tracy and Sarah lampoon the Worst Cheater Gifts. Narcissists aren't known for their gift giving, as demonstrated by listeners' submissions of the most thoughtless and tasteless presents ever. The thought did not count.

Was there a moment in your relationship, before you knew about the cheating, in which you look back and regret not leaving then? In this episode, listeners answer that question. The casual cruelities. The weird absences. The disconnect from family life. And the double lives that are later revealed that make sense of it all.

Sarah Manguso has written the ultimate chump novel: Liars. Jane is a woman who endures marriage to, and divorce from, a textbook fuckwit. It dramatizes marital betrayal, narcissistic abuse, and coercive control in a way we all know deep in our bones. Manguso says, "It’s a novel, so of course it’s all fiction—except for the parts that are true."

During the pandemic, Manguso's cheating husband abandoned her and their son. It became fodder for Liars.

She the author of nine books, most recently the novel Very Cold People. Liars, is forthcoming on July 23 from Hogarth Books in the US and August 22 from Picador in the UK. Her other books include a story collection, two poetry collections, and four acclaimed works of nonfiction: 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, and The Two Kinds of Decay. Her work has been recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize, and her writing has been translated into twelve languages. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Los Angeles.

A listener calls in to discuss being an unknowing Other Woman. Her cheater had three other families, as it turns out, including her child. She asks for understanding for those in complicated family situations. Children of cheaters are victims too.