Sunday, July 26, 2015

The Ashley Madison Hack: Let's Think of the Wives

Ashley Madison, as I've said before, was created by a smug idiot delighted to profit off other's pain. Adultery did quite well on its own, of course, long before Noel Biderman created a site with the tagline: Life's short. Have an affair. (If life's so damn short, how hard is it to stay faithful to your spouse?) But to encourage and facilitate cheating takes garden-variety infidelity to a new low.
So it was with a certain glee that I heard about the hack of Ashley Madison and the threat by a group calling itself the Impact Team to expose the 37 million male subscribers (female subscribers don't have to pay so they're largely exempt from exposure, at least for now).
I couldn't resist a few tweets about the irony of guys who paid to join a cheating Web site expressing outrage that the site that had promised them anonymity and security had betrayed them. Or wonder aloud if life probably mightn't seem so "short" now that there's the possibility of spending years of it without your wife and kids by your side.
My glee, however, was short-lived. Because for every jerk who gets outed by this hack, there's a wife whose life is blowing up. And don't we all know her pain and the long journey ahead?
However this plays out, I hope that even the threat of exposure has made more than a few AM subscribers reconsider just what the hell they're doing. To ask themselves why they're risking their marriage for a not-necessarily-discreet encounter. To examine why they're going outside of their marriage rather than spend some time and/or money to fix what's wrong inside their marriage. Or, if they're really miserable and hopeless, spend some time and/or money to work toward an amicable divorce.
Cause that's the thing with cheating: you can't un-cheat. Once you've crossed that line, whatever the line is (texting dirty photos, confiding in a "secret" friend, or sex in a hotel room), you've betrayed your partner.
Maybe "cheating dirtbags who deserve no discretion" is a bit much. I doubt all of them are dirtbags. I imagine some are guys who are lonely and at a loss for how to reconnect with their partner. Some of them likely believe their partner has lost all interest in them, which may or may not be true.
Some might be struggling with their sexual identity. They might have bought into the promises of porn – quick easy sex that makes them feel like a stud.
Most have convinced themselves that what they're doing is a victimless crime. Nobody has to know, after all. So nobody gets hurt, right?
Until, of course, they do.
And then, if they have even a shred of integrity, all their excuses sound ridiculous. In the face of a loyal wife's bewilderment and pain and outrage, none of it really seems worth it. Not the thrill. Or the excitement. Or the novelty. Or the ease.
And certainly not the $19 fee that promised to protect your identity but did nothing of the sort.
So yeah...maybe these guys have it coming. They made the choice to cheat.
But not their wives. They don't deserve to discover that their husbands have betrayed them by reading about it on the front page of a tabloid. They don't need the additional pain of having to explain to their children just what Daddy has done and why the kids at school will be whispering. Or to face the embarrassed silence of their colleagues at work.
I wish these Ashley Madison subscribers would think about that when they're fuelling their self-righteous fury about their security being compromised. I hope it hits them like a slap in the face that the terror they feel right now about being exposed is nothing to the terror of realizing that trusting your husband was a mistake. Or the humiliation of sitting in a doctor's office to be tested for STDs when you've been married to the same man for two decades. Or the paranoia of wondering how many people have known and for how long and why did nobody say a thing.
So while the Impact Team is ostensibly threatening to take down a company on the basis of some high-handed moralizing – to embarrass the corporation and anyone who trusted in it – I'll be thinking of the millions of women about to join our ranks. Because they are the only truly blameless ones in this whole mess.


41 comments:

  1. I don't mind saying that I do not feel one bit of pity for the bastards getting caught. There is not one marital problem big enough to take the blame for some jackass husband willingly signing up at a website like this one. Their wives, on the other hand, are blameless. I truly feel sorry for them. But the jackasses? They can go to hell.

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  2. Or, think of the husbands of the cheating women who signed up to Ashley Madison?

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    Replies
    1. Why is it you think that AM doesn't charge women? Kind of chauvinistic don't you think?

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    2. TH,
      I suspect women are less inclined to pay for this sort of thing. It's only when it's free that these sites can attract women and they need women to make it work.

      Delete
  3. i think about the 37 million wives who will be introduced to who their husband really is, what they are capable of and finally "no I'm not crazy". Any woman would want to know if their husband is cheating. Although painful I would rather know the truth. Lies and deceit never stay hidden, truth always somehow comes to surface. It may take awhile but the truth does show itself like a beacon. I do feel sorry for those woman who have to go through the shock and all the garbage that comes with it. You are right something's can't be undone. These woman will realize they were not given a choice but now they have a choice in a matter which was previously denied to them. Their husbands made the choice that suited them best. Their husbands had other choices and there were other choices available. These women did not have choice to try on the new relationship. These women did not have choice to get a divorce. These women did not have a choice to try to make their marriage work. Their husbands chose this to keep them securely in place They didn't didn't allow the same to the wives, to explore their options. These wives were unaware that choices were being made for them all along but now they will have a choice because they will know the truth. I feel sympathy for these wives about to hear a awake up bell that cannot be unrung.

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    Replies
    1. Lynn,
      Yes, I agree. Ignorance is not necessarily bliss. And we should all have the benefit for knowing just what our marriage is in order to make our own choices based on the whole story.

      Delete
  4. Amen Sister! Strength prayers and love to all you beautiful women.

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  5. This blog hits home for me because my husband was one of those men who used that site. I found out two years ago about it when he disclosed his affairs. So, when I heard about this, all I could do was smile. Serves the cheaters right to be exposed. Maybe they will stop cheating. I feel no sympathy whatsoever for those cheating men on that site. There are plenty of cheating women on there too, and, unfortunately, it doesn't look like they will be exposed, although, i sure hope there is a way that they can be. What I didn't realize, until I read your blog, was the wives who will be hurt when they find out what their husbands are doing. The pain that they will endure will be a pain that they never thought was possible to feel. I have such compassion for those women. I wish there was a way that I could be there for them, to help them, when their husbands affairs come to light. They are going to need all the support they can get. Hopefully, they will find your blog because I know it has helped me so much. I look forward to your posts. Thank you for sharing. :-)

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  6. I feel for the wives and I only say wives because AM doesn't charge women a fee and that is who they are exposing, those who think they are safe and that their info will be expunged by paying a fee. So it's only men who will be exposed. Yes, I KNOW wives cheat too. Not the subject right now.

    However I feel more sorry for the wives if they are wondering what the hell is going on in their lives right now. They know something is off but just can't figure it out. I feel sorrier for the women being gaslighted and lied to rather than enlightened by the possibility of their cheating husbands being exposed. Ignorance is NOT bliss. It is their right to know what their husbands are doing and what diseases they are being exposed to by their cheater husbands.

    I'm sorry, but I would rather be smacked with the truth than kissed with a lie every.single.time.

    I feel for the children and the rest of the collateral damage to friends and family and employees that occurs when people lie and cheat. I'm not saying collateral damage to hurt anyone or trying to be insensitive. It will be awful for all the people concerned: and the infidelity beat just keeps going on!

    Thank goodness for soft places, like your blog, to land when the infidelity bomb hits them.

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    Replies
    1. "would rather be smacked with the truth than kissed with a lie." Absolutely TH.

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  7. I agree with everything! I wanted to share that it made me feel much better to report the AM facebook page. There are so many reasons it shouldn't be on facebook but I chose HATE. I feel it is gender biased since the women on the site don't pay but the men do....ick! Also the ratio is off. Mainly it is degrading to all people in monogamous relationships. I also reported some of the disgusting posts as porn. I mean facebook takes down pics of nursing mothers but allows this? It probably won't matter, but I felt better to add my feedback to others who feel the same......

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    1. I like your idea - well done. If enough people report a page perhaps they will take it down. This high-profile hacking can also raise awareness of the ethical issues surrounding infidelity.

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  8. The information can be used to blackmail, extort, destroy careers, etc. So the whole family will be in trouble. And this is whether they did anything or not. Also, a portion of these "men" will commit suicide.

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    1. There is a risk that because of this some men may contemplate or attempt suicide. Research shows that middle aged men are anyway 'more at risk of taking their own lives' - (in quotation partly because I don't have access to the statistics and don't know exactly what 'more' means)

      Quote via Mind from: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/22/suicide-rate-middle-age-men-mental-health-up-73-per-cent

      also:

      http://janderson99.hubpages.com/hub/Why-Unhappiness-Depression-Suicide-Rates-Peak-at-45-Years-of-Age

      I think we're pretty certain on these blogs that unhappiness at mid-life may be what prompts some men (and women) to have the 'adventure' of an affair. They may blame their spouses or the marriage for their unhappiness or confusion, as if they have been outside the marriage looking in. Most of us are to a certain extent compassionate about this, especially if our partners (or friends) are prepared to undertake the painful work of changing and making amends. There ought perhaps to be a support group for those who might be perceived as victims of this breach of privacy.

      Of course it's now normal for people to use dating sites and we do not want to see legitimate businesses sabotaged by hackers. I also cannot see that the public revelation of sexual fantasies is in anyone's interests, although it is going to get very problematic if those fantasies include minors. In those cases it is more important in my view to protect the most vulnerable.

      I don't think AM is a legitimate business. This is not for moral reasons, I think it's a matter of public health and human rights. It is my view that AM profits from abuse and, since marriage is also a contract, in my personal opinion there is an encouragement towards actions which could be described as fraud. I'm assuming there will now be legal challenges and possibly a class action but I'm not sure who will bring these or who in the end will pay.

      If it could be more widely understood that affairs are rarely if ever the answer to a question which is more about the self than others (and in which 'others' fulfil a supporting role to the self) and that they are more likely to deaden the senses and harm the soul than make us feel 'alive'; that the cost paid by those to whom we have made commitments or who are dependant on us is simply too high for the thrill of deceit, then we might have a conversation about what we might do instead with our inevitable human itching and malaise. This may mean people choose to leave marriages they no longer want the burden of, thus freeing their spouses to find happiness elsewhere. That has to be better than the kind of emotional limbo some betrayed are suspended in for years and from which they might have walked away had they known their spouse had already left the building.

      The risk of suicide may be the realisation for some that they will no longer be the partner with the choice. They're losing control. But this is only how BS feel so much of the time, and we're expected to deal with it.

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    2. It's the vigilante aspect of the hacking that freaks me out. While I happen to agree with the moral stance of the hackers in this instance, what about when I don't?
      If anything, I hope this reminds a great many people that nothing is ever really private. Not online. Not in real life. And there are consequences that we rarely anticipate.

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    3. amen to that - you know I'm agreeing...

      I don't know that this was a moral stance, wasn't it that AM said it was deleting information (for a fee) and wasn't doing so?

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  9. While I would love nothing more than to see the site shut down, I mourn for the families who will be torn apart at the seams by the exposure. This will not be a private matter between a husband and wife, but rather a public scandal that will most assuredly cost lives, destroy families, and further victimize innocent women and children. I do not rejoice in this at all.

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    Replies
    1. Dana,
      My rejoicing was short-lived. Though I do hope this provokes a wider conversation about the cost of infidelity, I'm not holding my breath.

      Delete
  10. Elle
    As I read the article the hackers intent is not taking the moral high road to expose cheaters per se. The hack was to show that the owners of the site told the subscribers that if they paid a fee their information and identity would be expunged. The only way the hackers could reveal the true identity is only when the subscribers paid the $19 fee to have their profiles erased from the system. The hackers were proving that this was not so. And they believe it was and inside job so who knows if it was really and truly a "hack" job from outsiders. I have not read that the hackers are exposing the identities as a moral point but rather a privacy point that indeed the subscribers and their privacy to this site are not safe. Exposing the cheaters and their actions would however be the resulting collateral damage to the exposure.

    Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but this is my understanding of the AM hack story.

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  11. My glee was also short lived. I do believe that every single one of these people should be outed, but being betrayed for me was thankfully a private matter. If my H's name\credit card info were to show up online it might have killed me. YES he fucked up but we all fuck up (though probably not as big as this) and I would hate if my search history during that time were ever to be made public, not to mention the websites i actually joined to see if he had (no one ever said i was sane) It's my great optimistic hope that these guys on the site will come clean after this close call. Confess to their wives and realize they were "this close" to losing it all. I remember once a few years ago, going only about 10mph trying to take a photo out my car window...and it happened, I had to hit the brakes so hard to avoid hitting the person in front of me who had stopped. It was THAT close call the made me finally realize that I was playing with fire (i didnt text and drive as a rule ever) I don't pick my phone up anymore when I am in the car. I learned my lesson without getting clobbered, maybe this will be the close and wake up call that shakes the insanity out of these spouses.

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  12. Steam
    One can only hope! I learn so much from you all about this mess! That is the only way to describe this horrible place we find ourselves! This web sight and so many more like it just enable people to lose themselves in a fantasy life rather than deal with the real stresses we all face in this life! I am gaining such strength in my day to day from what I learn on this blog! God bless all families that this 'disaster' happens to!

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  13. Talking about the Ashley Madison site, maybe this has been mentioned but I missed it, there is a site called cheaters anonymous. It is not only cheaters that come there for help but OW and BS give advice too. On a creepy level it was interesting. The OW write in saying how they want to tell the wives everything, write us letters, send emails or texts just to hurt us because they feel rejected and want revenge on their AP. Husband want to know how to get over the guilt. There is more about missing the AP than I expected. Some of it can be a little hurtful. All said sex with the AP was a 10. It seemed like a peep show ito the mind of a cheater. It is interesting at best but I did gain some understanding of the WHY and HOW. What did make me feel good was all the men who were seperated or going through a divorce who deeply regretted their actions and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it. They realized too late the cost of their affair and could not un-do their damages. Our husbands are damn lucky we are who we are. One more thing, I noticed many of the OW were in abusive marriages or just got out of an abusive marriage according to the cheaters. Having your cake and eating it too was a common theme.

    Just an update, Over the last week, I got unexpectedly laid off from work, my sisters husband has a lethal cancer and my mother died. I haven't had much time to verbally abuse my husband. He has really been there for me in all ways. Life goes on.

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    1. Oh Lynn,
      I'm so sorry. Any one of those things would be enough to send us reeling. All three is a whole lot to handle.
      That said...I wonder if this will be a chance for your husband to support YOU emotionally for a change. To really step up and be there for you so that you can simply absorb all this and grieve until you feel like you can get back on your feet. I hope he takes this opportunity to show you what he's capable of...in a good way.
      In the meantime, we're all thinking of you.

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    2. Lynn,
      I'm so sorry for your loss.

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    3. Lynn Pain my heart aches for you and i will pray for strength. When it rains it pours. Im very sorry for your loss on all accounts. Take care dear. Take the reigns to navigate all of this as you want to ... your pace ... your way. Much love and support.

      Delete
  14. Lynn
    I am so sorry for everything you are going through. Indeed you certainly have bigger fish to fry than dealing with your husband and his issues now. You are right, life goes on and give your love and attention to those who appreciate it and need it.

    Hugs to you.

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  15. I am so sorry for all o ur recent bad news. Good luck to u. We all send u our deepest sympathies on loss of ur mom.

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  16. Lynn -

    I'm so sorry for your loss. x

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  17. Lynn:

    Please know my thoughts and prayers are with you as you. I'm sending you a virtual ((hug))!

    Merilee

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  18. Oh Lynn, I am so sorry.

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  19. article by Rick Reynolds at Affair Recovery: google 'The Ashley Madison Hack - Surviving Discovery.' - direct link is v long.

    People who need this may not know where to find it.

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  20. Thanks you all, this support is so appreciated especially now. I love you all and I mean it. Yes, I felt every hug, every thought, every prayer. Keep you updated.

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  21. I love this blog and how we support and validate each other. How we truly feel each others pain and suffering. It seems for we older women all the crappy things in life happen despite our suffering from the pain of betrayal and infidelity and it makes it so much harder to cope with the eventual things that happen naturally in life.

    All you women here are wonderful and supportive and I need to express my gratitude to all of you for sharing and supporting.

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  22. Lynn
    I just read your post and wanted to let you know I am sorry for your loss.

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  23. Lynn

    I've been traveling with my family and not near a computer for very long. Just want to send you BIG LOVE and you're in my thoughts and prayers. As all of you are who post here....may we find.....

    Coraggio E Forza (strength and courage)

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  24. I found out my husband had looked on this awful site. The catch phrase about life being short why not have an affair is enough to make me burst into tears. Whilst I think it is fantastic that it could cause harm to the site I think of all the innocent people - wives and children who would have to live with the actions of someone else. I think the one thing that has made things bearable for me is knowing that people don't know and I have control over who I tell if I want to tell. I have chosen to keep this between my husband and myself. It is so unfair to take this control away from those poor wives. They have done nothing wrong and now not only have to deal with the emotional roller coaster that their lives have now become but everyone knows and some who don't understand will judge them. I hope they have strength and courage to get through this. It is hard enough when people don't know I'm not sure I could do this if they did.

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    Replies
    1. Alone,
      Such a good point. When "our" story is taken from us, it contributes to the lack of control we already feel. One more way in which we've lost agency.

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  25. I just wanted to let everyone know that the AM facebook page has been down since last Friday (Aug. 21). It may be delusional, but I like to think we had a little bit to do with that. The reasons I think this is that the Twitter page is still up so I think it was facebook's decision.

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