I can really define my journey through the land of betrayal and WTFJUSTHAPPENEDTOMYLIFE as PRE and POST Chump Lady. Before one of my readers commented on my blog that I should really ‘go check out Chump Lady’, I was living in a perpetual state of circular arguments in my head about who this man really was.

PRE-CHUMP LADY: Am I going crazy here? How can he just ‘change’ overnight? How can my awesome, sweet, funny, respectful husband with old-school values and patriotism and love for his family just WALK AWAY? Does he have a brain tumor? Did he have a psychological break? What did I do to cause this? What has got to be so fundamentally flawed in me that he’d have to leave his own CHILDREN behind? He has to get away from me that badly? I did everything I could possibly do, all with a smile…what wasn’t enough? I don’t get this. How can this be happening?

And on and on and on this went, ad nauseam, month after agonizing month.

POST-CHUMP LADY: Blinders off. Clouds parting. Choir of angels singing as the dawning of truth in my heart and mind sets me free from the mental shackles I’d labored under for so long. The eyes open. The heart lightens. The truth sucks…but at least it’s the truth, and at least it’s not laden with flowery nonsense about my dear, messed up, misunderstood husband, or my fundamental unworthiness as a woman. The man’s a narcissist with major undiagnosed sociopathic tendencies, and I was simply the wife/appliance that was no longer useful and therefore needed to go to the curb with Thursday’s recyclables. Chump Nation, post after amazing and hilarious post, has allowed me to look back and see every single indicator and clue I’d missed all lined up like perfect little ducklings. Neither my past gullibility nor my trusting heart have to be viewed as a character flaws. Yes, I’m still immensely effed up and have a long way to go towards indifference (pronounced MEH in Chump Nation), but this site has forever altered my paradigm and its impact on my life can never be overstated. I’m her biggest fan. But, you know. Like, in a fainting-at-a-Beatles-concert-from-the-sheer-awesomeness kind of way, not in the Kathy-Bates-gonna-hobble-you-and-keep-you-in-a- wheelchair-in-my-guest-room kind of way. Anyway, if anything like what I write about has happened to you, go there. Go there NOW.

Let Chump Nation start a revolution in your heart.