Clearly it’s a major shock to discover your dearly beloved’s infidelity. However some folks have compounded the awfulness of their situation by reacting in such an extreme fashion that they face prosecution for what they’ve done to get back at their philandering partners. Most people know about about one of the most psychopathic forms of revenge short of actually murdering the cheating cad: cutting off his penis as in the notorious case of John and Lorena Bobbitt. However, there are endless examples of creative ways that those who have been cheated upon get back at the cheaters.

One of the most common ways women get their revenge on a cheating spouse right away is to get rid of all his precious stuff. Some choose to flog it all in a yard sale, some give everything away to charity, others throw it all away in the trash. Although this is a lot better than chopping off his penis and the sentiment behind such actions is understandable, but seriously? Obviously you won’t go this route unless you know you want to divorce the dirtbag, but is your behavior going to get you the best of all possible financial settlements with him? What if he decides to chuck away some or all of your possessions in reprisal? If you have kids, are you training them to behave like angry harpies rather than showing them what a mature human being would do?

I read the top ten revenge stories on a site called revengelady.com and was struck by the asinine, vindictive behavior the schemes involved. Perhaps I have no sense of humor, but I actually found it dreary and depressing rather than amusing to read about them. Some people took revenge on the other woman rather than the philandering partner. One woman threw away a garage-full of possessions belonging to her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend because it appeared that he had rekindled his relationship with her after she returned from overseas.

Why do cheated-upon women often react more strongly against the girlfriends than the guy who’s doing the cheating? An interesting question to consider is the following: “Who is more of a villain, the mistress or the husband?” It’s the husband, not his mistress, who took a marriage vow and thus promised to be faithful. Unless she also happens to be a close friend of the wife, the lying and betrayal come from her spouse and not his girlfriend.

I read about a wife who had found incriminating text messages romantically linking a friend of hers to her husband. The friend had beautiful long hair. The wife put a lot of effort into concocting a bottle of shampoo containing hair remover and made it appear that it was a gift from a secret admirer. Thrilled by the fact that she managed to ruin her friend’s hair, the wife wrote that she was still busy working on further forms of revenge.

Cracked.com reports on 5 creative ways people got revenge on cheating spouses. In one, a farmer filled his wife’s car with horse manure after finding out she had a profile on a farming dating site, KissingGates.com. In 2013 the husband made a video about it all that went viral. I suppose that’s one way to get your fifteen minutes of fame.

Cracked.com put at number one a story about a wife whose husband had been looking for sex on Craigslist. She contacted women who had responded to him and together they held him down in a hotel room and superglued his penis to his stomach. Surprise, surprise—it’s actually illegal to do that, however promiscuous the guy is. The women involved were charged with several felonies, including false imprisonment, battery and sexual assault.

Back in 2005, British DJ Tim Shaw joked with a topless model on his radio show about being willing to leave his wife and kids for her. This levity spurred his 27-year-old wife Hayley, apparently a little worse for wear after a few drinks, to sell his luxury sports car on Ebay for 50 pence—about 75 cents—so that it was gone by the time he got home. Had he actually committed adultery rather than just joking about it? Who knows? Hayley claimed she was at the end of her tether as regards her relationship with him. OK, maybe he was a complete asshole, but then she should have got rid of him rather than his car. You might call her actions childish behavior, but if my daughter did such a thing, I’d think seriously about dumping her at an orphanage, preferably in somewhere like India or China, so that she couldn’t come back home.

So what else could you achieve at the tender age of 27 rather than finding a creative way of disposing of your husband’s car because he joked about leaving you? One example might be the brave legacy of 27-year-old Vicki Soto. She was a first grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School. On December 14, 2014 a man shot and killed 20 children and 6 teachers at the school, one of the deadliest mass shootings by a single person in US history, second only to the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech. At Sandy Hook, Vicki Soto tried to shield her students from the maniacal shooter. She put herself between the gunman and her students and was shot dead.

Maybe you might think I’m hammering you over the head here with some sanctimonious sentiments. I understand that few of us are heroes willing to put our lives on the line. I doubt I could have done what Vicki did. Nevertheless, some people put huge amounts of time and energy into carrying out convoluted revenge schemes. You have to wonder what they could achieve if they put their imagination and creativity into doing something positive with their lives rather than focusing purely on finding an outlet for their anger and vengeance.