Ask a F*cking B*tch!
Advice from me, a Sovereign Woman, who's been around for a minute.
Hi friends! I’ve been on the hamster wheel of horribleness for weeks. Americans are frightened, furious, heartbroken, outraged — name a cortisol-spiking emotion, and you can bet it’s in the mix. The latest dump of 3 million emails from the Epstein files has only served to highlight that 1) rich and powerful people have been ruining lives forever and 2) seemingly, no one ever faces consequences. Although, several other countries are now opening investigations into the miscreants named in those emails, so perhaps some kind of justice will be served. Millions of fingers are firmly crossed, including mine.
Aaaaanyway, I’ve been thinking about things (3 a.m. is a wild time to be awake every night). I’m in a cool phase of life, despite *gestures wildly* everything. I’ve known about the Maiden, Mother, Crone archetypes of womanhood for a while, ever since I read Joseph Campbell, I guess. The Maiden stage represents youth, or spring: innocence, purity (barf, when you relate it to those fuckin’ Epstein emails), and beginnings. The Mother is maturity, or summer: fertility (again, barf, if you relate it to the tradwife movement), abundance, and stability. The Crone is wisdom, or winter: inner knowing, mastery, medicine (and the time of life when men loved to burn women/witches because, blech, scary knowledge, and old!). But there’s a stage between Mother and Crone: the Sovereign Woman, also known as the Enchantress, Wild Woman, or Queen.
The way I gasped when I heard this! It resonated with me down to my Sovereign Woman core. She is autumn, the harvest, the reaping of what we have sowed. She is a woman who owns her sexuality and creative power. This is also the time in her life when she’s most likely to be furious and jacked, as one commenter wrote on my IG. The Sovereign Woman is a badass fucking bitch. And what do I have to offer, at this stage of sovereignty? Well, for one thing: advice. I’ve been around, through, under and over a lot of things in my 50 years.
So, I’m gonna try writing an advice column! Mostly for fun, because I’d love to weigh in on things like which way toilet paper should hang (over the roll, side-eye to you psychos who do it wrong), but also because I’d like to tell folks how to avoid making some of the mistakes I’ve made. I want to offer my perspective on dealing with difficult family members, problematic partners, or that friend who somehow makes you feel worse every time you see them. I’m going to look for questions from you, friends. I go for a long walk in the woods with my dog Archie every day; as we walk, I would love to think about what you’re asking, and then give it my best shot as a fucking bitch who’s firmly in your corner to tell you the truth.
This is the first installment. Leave your questions for next week’s column in the comments, or send me a direct message. I’m planning on publishing on Thursdays, so get them in by Monday, Feb. 8th? xo
Dear F*cking B*tch,
My ex cheated on me. We were in a committed relationship for two years. I knew something was up for the last couple of months of our relationship, but whenever I asked him about it, he denied anything was going on. A couple of weeks after we broke up, he was introducing his new girlfriend as the “love of his life.” I found out they’d been dating for months when she shared their meet cute story on IG. Do I have a responsibility to let her know that he’s a shitass who, I guess, was technically cheating on her with me? Or should I just block them both, and move on? This is terrible and I hate them both.
Hi, This Is Terrible. 💔
Intimate betrayal is soul-shattering. Being cheated on suuuucks; being cheated on, and lied to, is another layer of fuckery, especially when there’s a happy partner in the place you recently occupied. The question of whether or not to inform that person of the shittasticness of their new love is tricky.
First: what’s your intention in contacting her? Are you concerned for her physical wellbeing? One of the toughest things to face with an untrustworthy sexual partner is that your health was possibly compromised. I hope you went to your doctor and got a full workup. I came of age in the ‘90s, the AIDS era, when, if you found out you had an STD, you contacted everyone who’d swapped bodily fluids with you and/or your partner to let them know. We only needed to see KIDS once.
If that’s not the issue, then, what outcome are you hoping for? I know the feeling of righteous indignation burning in my veins, wishing the other woman knew the TRUTH. I really do. But you need to get clear on what your intention is. Settle yourself, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask yourself what you’ll get out of trying to talk to her.
I would’ve appreciated a heads-up that my ex was going to use me for everything he could get before moving on in a brain-defying discard, but he didn’t bring any old friends to our relationship. That should have been red flag number one: no one to get intel from. I hope that, someday, I end up at a party with the woman who dated him before me, and we snort-laugh together over champagne about what a dingus he was.
I could’ve gotten in touch with his new girlfriend to share my sob story, but to what end? I realized that getting in touch with her would only be because I wanted to hurt him, and make him understand that I was in pain. Getting in touch with your ex’s new girlfriend isn’t going to hurt him. The most likely scenario is that she’ll tell him about it, he’ll tell her you’re crazy, and she’ll probably buy it. It will also make him think that you’re still in love with him, and that he’s the one that got away. Don’t give him that.
As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” I’m not saying the new girlfriend is a pig. I’m saying your ex is. Don’t wrestle with a pig.
Lastly, this is what girlfriends and sisters are for. My friends have held my sorrow and fury with me, and every time I need to submerge myself in the waters of FUCKHIM, they’re waiting on the banks of that river to greet me with fresh towels, hot coffee, and flowers for my hair. My sister was betrayed by a man who coaxed her back, and then broke her heart a second time. I called him the CutOut, because I cut him out of every memory and photograph that he’d dared to occupy in her gorgeous life. It made her laugh, even when she was deeply sad. I was proud to hold the rage on her behalf.
Block them both, everywhere, and then, take every atom of energy that you gave to that relationship and give it back to yourself. Talk shit about him with your friends. Someday, sooner than you think, you’ll shudder at the thought that you ever let him near you — and you’ll be glad that you didn’t wrestle with a pig.
Love, MJ ❤️
Don't wrestle the pig! 🐽
I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS