by Laura Scott
Miranda, a fifty-year-old mom of two teenagers, thought she heard her ex one morning walk downstairs, make coffee in the kitchen, and leave for work. Try as she might, Miranda could never figure out if it was a dream; because it felt so real, she was sure it happened.
Kate’s husband left her for someone else. She was obsessed with the whole thing for the first three months of separation: how this woman would be with her children, wondering if her husband would ever come back—it troubled her deeply. And then, one night, she had a dream where she and the other woman sat and had a conversation about everything. Her ex-husband was in the room, but he was facing the wall. Kate woke up, felt sick, and cried, but something had happened that night to move her forward. The affair stopped running around in her mind like a gerbil, and she felt a bit better.
If you are having dreams or fantasies, it’s good to be aware that this is part of the grieving process. It’s disturbing because you might feel like the events really happened, but it’s another way that your psyche is sorting things out. Rest assured it’s just a phase and should pass.
HATING YOUR STUFF
You might even hate your stuff for a while. Things that are sentimental or that you purchased during the marriage become rough emotional territory during separation and divorce—your house, clothes, jewelry, kitchen items, furniture, art, and pictures included. Sometimes the more commitment it represents, the more you might dislike the item.
Erica, an interior decorator, and her husband, an investment banker, had picked out Lenox china when they got married, and every year at Christmas he had given her a serving piece and she had given him a Wallace Christmas bell. After they divorced, Erica began to hate her china. And she hated the Wallace Christmas bells even more. When she mentioned selling all of it online or having a garage sale, her mother came to her house, picked the china and bells up, and told her, “I will save these for your daughters to have someday. If you change your mind in a few years, this beautiful stuff will be at my house.”
Marcus, a thirty-nine-year-old website administrator, got the house in the divorce. He liked the house and was glad to retain it as an asset, but he felt funny about sleeping in his marital bed. He sold the bed, bought a new one, and moved out of the main bedroom to the guest bedroom for a while. “The rest of the house was okay, but too many fricking memories in that bedroom,” he shared with a friend.
Elaine’s husband left his old Mercedes at the house. He asked her to sell it for him and get the best price she could. She was having a garage sale that weekend and sold his Mercedes to a college kid for $100. No, her ex was not happy about it. (If you ever see “divorce sale” in the local listings for garage sales, you can be sure to pick up some things at a great price. The seller is motivated by more than money to get rid of all that stuff!)
Feel free to discard, donate, relocate, or temporarily pack up anything that bothers you. Keep sentimental records and photos; just put them away. If you have a family, someone (even you) may want to see your wedding photos again one day.
PAIN
Many people going through a divorce are in emotional and physical pain. If you are hurting, it’s a natural response to deep grief.
Jeff went to the dentist. After twenty-three years of marriage, Jeff’s wife had left him for someone with whom they’d gone to high school. His wife’s lover was in his fifties while Jeff was just forty-eight. Jeff was stunned she had left him for an older man. He was in denial and besides his mouth hurting, the rest of him was in a good deal of pain as well from the separation. When he woke up in the mornings, he didn’t know what time it was and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.
The X-rays showed that Jeff needed a root canal, so the dentist numbed his mouth. He realized, for the first time in eight months, that he wasn’t in pain. It felt great to be numb. Jeff was a career firefighter and had medical training—but it was only in the dentist’s chair that he realized that a good antidepressant might help him. He went to the doctor, got a prescription, and felt like a new person. He stayed on the medication for about a year. Looking back, he realized that it saved him from that razor feeling in his chest and got him through a difficult time.
If you are having physical pain or so much emotional pain that you cannot stand it, or even if you feel numb, see a medical professional. It can be a great decision for the right person.
WANTING TO NOT BE HERE ANYMORE
Sometimes people think that dying would be a logical way to get away from the pain. Rest assured that it’s normal to want a cessation of the pain of divorce, and sometimes your mind sets up creative ways to get you off the hook. Most feelings of suicide are temporary, and a response to feeling like, “I am so sick of all of this I would do anything to get away from here.”
Anna was driving home one night when she thought, “What if I ran my car off of the road? Would it matter? Anything would be preferable to this . . .” Before she went to bed, she thought of that fleeting instinct, and it scared her. What was wrong with her? She was separated and had two daughters in high school. She was thirty-six, and she had a lot to live for; what would possess her to feel that way?
Rod, forty and separated, was having some pretty wild thoughts and fantasies about dying. He was terrified to tell anyone. Deep inside he knew he wasn’t serious—he was just being vengeful. But why was he doing this to himself? What Rod realized was that he didn’t want to die— he just wanted to be somewhere else. Rod had grown up on a beach, so when he felt really low he trained himself to imagine that he was on that beach, looking out at the water. After about six months, he no longer needed to use the visualization.
This is important: If you continue to have suicidal thoughts, seek help from a medical professional. In most cases, it’s a phase and will pass as you move through the recovery process. But if suicidal thoughts are persistent, don’t hesitate to ask for help.
RETURN OF CHILDHOOD ISSUES
Who were you as a child? Whatever happened to you back then may resurface. Divorce brings out a lot of childhood feelings, the bad ones as well as the good. Childish behavior is quite common during separation and divorce.
You may have a tantrum like a three-year-old on a playground because your marriage is ending. If you feel like someone walked off with your favorite Barbie doll, that’s normal. Reverting to childish behavior is okay: you are working through the same type of hurt now.
Julia, who works at her church and has middleschool-aged girls, has a cousin from England. As a child, Julia would copy her cousin’s accent for fun. Julia began to mimic this old accent again at thirty-five, just to see if anyone noticed.
Al, a sports writer with two kids in elementary school, was divorcing and not by choice; it was his wife’s call. He had been a baseball star on his little league team. At forty, he hit the batting cage regularly and joined a softball league. He wanted to get sweaty and dirty and exhausted again.
Allison, a thirty-nine-year-old mom of three kids, jumped on her kid’s trampoline in the backyard, reliving her seventh-grade gymnastics glory days. She also lay on the trampoline and looked at the stars at night, and cried a little. It made her feel better.
Kirk, a thirty-year-old security guard, won “Most Witty” in high school. He watched the comedy channels and Saturday Night Live religiously. When he got divorced he wrote some comedy routines and tried them out, doing stand-up at a local comedy club.
If you suffered any trauma as a child, divorce has a way of magnifying those feelings and bringing them back to life. Issues of abandonment or anything negative can come up again for you postdivorce. Seek professional help if it gets out of hand, but realize it’s normal to feel this way.
Caroline’s father died when she was four. Later in life, her divorce was unimaginably bad for her. She felt like she wasn’t going to make it; she physically hurt all over for months. A psychologist helped her understand that she felt like she was losing a parent all over again. Basically, she had abandonment issues and the loss of divorce was
magnified for her because of the trauma she survived as a young child.
Whatever your childhood tendencies were, it’s not uncommon for them to reemerge during divorce. It’s simply part of the healing process, so let your inner child out for a while.
THE DANCE OF GUILT AND RELIEF
Divorce brings forth strong feelings. It impacts everyone involved. Some people who separate do a dance: they go back and forth between remorse for their actions and relief at being away from the other person. If the initiator has a conscience, they will probably be aware of how they are affecting everyone. They may vacillate between one stance and another. On one hand, they may feel really guilty, but they may feel relieved, at the same time. It’s a common experience during divorce.
Marla left a long-term abusive marriage. She felt uncertain about moving out for a long time. Her father was a minister and told her marriage was a permanent arrangement and to go back to her husband. It took her many hours of prayer to feel forgiven by God. She asked for her children’s forgiveness and was surprised when they forgave her willingly. Although she has a full life now, Marla has never really given herself a break for fracturing her family.
Some people may feel a huge sense of relief at not having to live up to a partner’s expectations anymore. People leaving a marriage who feel relief say that no matter what the consequences, they just couldn’t stay in the relationship. They may even enjoy their new freedom and feel guilty for not feeling worse about ending the relationship.
For twenty-five years, Greg lived with a controlling wife. He felt for many years he had made compromises to keep her happy. Greg liked living in his hometown, but as they got older, his wife kept talking about retiring and moving to the country with her family one hundred miles away, and after a while something died in him. He realized he had no say in his future, and it broke the marriage. Greg moved out and felt a great deal of relief at being away from her. He refused to speak to her on the phone and ducked questions from his grown children. Greg began smoking cigars at a local cigar shop and met a great group of guys who hung out there. They played golf, and he took part in their annual chili cook-off. He felt sad about his family situation, but he was having a good time and felt deeply relieved when he heard his ex-wife had met someone new and that she was getting serious with him. “She found a new person to tell what to do!” He told his friends at the cigar shop.
CHAPTER 6
The Aftermath of an Affair
The famous philosopher Nietzsche once said, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
Recovering from a divorce can be especially difficult if an affair helped cause it. If your ex had an affair, this particular chapter might be of interest to you. It gives some basic information about affairs. There are many books and resources on affairs to support you if you have been the victim of infidelity. Seek additional resources on this if necessary—knowledge of affairs can be extremely helpful to you during this time.
When someone has an affair, it would seem that they do not give a damn about their relationship; there is no excuse for their behavior. Maybe you’ve heard about others’ affairs, but having it happen to you is just awful. It’s worth noting that there are different types of affairs, and that affairs are actually quite common—this might make you look at yourself and the state of marriage in a whole new light.
Realize you aren’t alone. Basic Internet research finds this stunning statistic in numerous places: in six out of ten marriages one of the partners has an affair! If six out of ten people have had an affair, there is a chance someone you know has had this happen to him or her—and quite possibly you’ve had it happen to you.
From the outset, an affair appears to be the ultimate betrayal and a total relationship killer. Why would someone have an affair?
According to the Kinsey Report, 60 percent of all married partners have engaged in affairs. In The Evolution of Desire, David Buss showed that 26 percent of married women had cheated and between 25 and 75 percent of men had cheated.
It would seem that in the case of an affair the cheating partner is looking for emotional or sexual intimacy missing in the marriage. But why wouldn’t they just let their partner know what they need?
Affairs are complicated and happen for many different reasons. The most common reason is that the person isn’t getting the love or intimacy that they are seeking from their marriage. But why wouldn’t they just let their partner know what they need to be happy in the partnership? Most affairs are kept secret because the cheating spouse has no intention of leaving the marriage. In this book we are focusing on one type of infidelity: the exit affair.
THE EXIT AFFAIR
In her excellent book, Affairs: A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity, Emily Brown discusses exit affairs, which occur when someone has an affair to end the marriage. They are too afraid to confront their partner, so this is a way for them to leave the marriage. Generally, the exiting spouse thinks that the marriage is dead and beyond repair.
In most other types of affairs, great concern is taken to hide the infidelity from the partner; this is not the case with an exit affair. In an affair that isn’t an exit affair, the cheating partner, when discovered, will give up the relationship to save the marriage.
Some marriages recover from affairs, but usually the prognosis for an exit affair is pretty grim: the cheating partner is definitely leaving. Seventeen percent of all divorces list an affair as a contributing factor.1
It’s a rough way to go for the partner who is left behind.
Few experiences can match the pain of an extramarital affair. From the joy of dating and the first intimacy you have with someone to the marriage proposal and planning a life together, the feeling of marriage is that you have “come home” in a sense, and that you have it made with this one person. Many couples have children together, and you become a family. Over years of marriage, the intimacy deepens. Life experiences shared are innumerable.
And then an affair happens, and it’s a crushing blow. The betrayal is stunning. To find out about an exit affair is the most bitter of endings for any marriage. It’s hard to reconcile for the partner who was cheated on, because they are blindsided.
Chances are, if you are reading this book, an exit affair might be the reason. Having information about exit affairs can help you realize that you aren’t alone, and that there is little chance of reconciliation. However, it’s still good to know if you have the hallmarks of an exit affair, so you don’t have to sit around wondering what will happen. You can take steps to protect yourself emotionally and financially from the person who is leaving.
The consequences of an exit affair happen quickly— the betrayed spouse has no time to get up to speed on emotionally detaching from the marriage. One day their spouse is there and things are working, and the next their spouse is gone. It’s emotional abandonment at its height. Also, it’s financial abandonment, marriage abandonment, and family abandonment. It’s hard to have any sympathy or ongoing concern for someone who leaves a marriage by an exit affair. It can cause hard feelings for many years, and some people are never able to forgive their ex-partner, especially if there are children involved.
Adding to the bitterness of a divorce is when the person who had the affair is unrepentant about their behavior. This makes it even harder for everyone in the family to accept, specifically the soon-to-be ex-spouse. It’s rubbing salt into an existing wound, causing the tone of the divorce to be quite punitive.
For example, it’s not atypical for the spouse involved in an exit affair to tell family and friends that they have someone new in their life and that this person has all of the qualities that they were missing in their marriage. And that everyone will have to get used to this new person. It’s quite common.
YOU LIED TO ME
When someone is having an affair (an exit affair or any other type of affair) lying becomes common. The person who is cheating will often lie to their spou
se’s face. It’s a common characteristic of affairs. When the partner finds out about all of the lies they were told over time, it’s devastating. Most marriages are based on trust, and lying shatters all respect for the other person.
ANGRY, OUTRAGED, AND INDIGNANT
If you are stunned and angry about what happened to you, it’s okay—this is normal. It’s a measure of how much you loved and trusted your partner. Do not feel bad for being outraged and so upset that you don’t know what to do. There is nothing off about feeling burned by what has happened. You would not be normal if you were not really upset by an affair. There is nothing wrong with you—you have been wronged. And so has your whole family!
Marie’s husband began leaving home for long periods of time. He lost thirty pounds, and he couldn’t perform in bed. He told his wife he was having some type of breakdown and didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.
Marie’s friends told her repeatedly that they thought he was having an affair, but their comments fell on deaf ears. Marie was blind, saying, “Oh, he loves me. We have seven- and nine-year-old boys together. I trust him. He would never do that to our family.”
One day, while her husband was getting out of the shower, she noticed that he had shaved his pubic area. When questioned, he told Marie that he had done it for her, but they hadn’t had sex in six months so that didn’t make any sense. She also found a picnic basket in the garage with the remainders of wine and cheese and crackers in it. Marie began to observe his behavior more closely. He was texting a lot, but not with her.
