by Laura Scott
She picked up a magazine at the grocery store with an article titled “Six Signs Your Spouse Is Having an Affair.” Her husband exhibited every sign. He started to criticize her for small things, dismissed her opinions, threw a fit one night for no apparent reason and slammed the garage door shut so hard it pushed the door jamb through the sheet rock. Although he knew Marie didn’t care for tattoos, he began to talk about how he wanted to get a full sleeve of tattoos on his arm.
She mentioned over coffee one morning that she wanted to spend part of the year in Arizona when they retired, and he replied, “I don’t know where I want to retire! Stop talking about it!” When she asked him what happened to the nice guy she married, he gave her a response that was so weird, it gave her pause. He replied, “Oh, he’s gone. I killed him and buried him in the backyard.”
When she asked about their marriage, he said that he wasn’t going anywhere and that he loved her and the boys. In the meantime, he continued to lie about everything. Marie’s radar became finely tuned, and she was so mad that she tried to distance herself from him at home. She also tried to sleep on the couch, but he would follow her and lie on the ground and hold her hand, saying he was sorry and insisting she return to the bedroom. One night he refused to attend a musical with their family that they had bought tickets for months before. Then he didn’t come home one night. Marie sat up all night, and it dawned on her in a very real way what was happening.
When she couldn’t take it anymore, she confronted her husband, and he left the same day. He told her that he had a new partner and that he was emotionally attached to her. He grew his hair out, started to wear a ponytail, got a huge tattoo, and basically turned into another person.
Behavior that seems out of character and dramatic statements such as “I never loved you”; “I am not sure why we got married”; and “I’m happy now—I wasn’t happy before” are common in the aftermath of an exit affair.
What is such a shame about an exit affair is that everyone in the family gets left, children included, so that this one person can be happy. If you are going through an exit affair, you should consider reading up on narcissism. Narcissists may marry, but they can leave a relationship pretty quickly without too much personal turmoil.
What happened to Marie? She got some good counseling, eventually got over her ex, received a solid divorce settlement, and made a new life for herself and her children. This is how she sums up what happened:
“Well, he really loved me for about thirteen years, until he didn’t. For years, everything I did was fine. Everyone has idiosyncrasies and I had mine and it was all good, until he didn’t love me anymore, and then everything was my fault, and he trotted out reasons to leave.”
YOUR OWN TAKEAWAY
One common myth about affairs is that the spouse who was cheated on wasn’t a good partner. This isn’t true.
The spouse who was cheated on doesn’t need to feel like they were at fault for the affair. The Accidental Divorcée went on a trip and happened to meet up with an experienced psychologist who told her, “You know, in the case of affairs, it’s always more about the person who had the affair. You are a victim, and this isn’t your fault. This person would probably have had an affair on anyone they were married to. It has a lot more to do with who they are, so don’t own this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Scott, a forty-four-year-old aerospace engineer with one daughter, was abandoned by his wife after she had an exit affair. He puts it nicely: “She thinks that by moving out and changing her job and her address that she can turn into the new person. Well, the point is that wherever you go, or move, you show up there. She will still have the same problems, because she is the same person. You cannot run away from yourself.”
Robin, a nurse and mother of three teens, experienced an exit affair and says: “There is something that he must absolutely not be able stand in himself to do this. He must hate some side of himself to just walk away from a family. You can rearrange all of the furniture in your house, but at the end of the day, it’s still the same house.”
IGNORANCE IS BLISS
If your spouse had an exit affair to end the marriage, you may be tempted to find out all you can about it. But this can be a problem. Don’t chase texts and phone calls and e-mails. You don’t know what you don’t know about an affair—when it started, where and how they met—and that is a good thing. Under these circumstances, ruminating can mean ruination.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss when it comes to finding out about an affair because of the pain involved. It’s important to realize that an affair is something that, like a very sharp sword, will slay you if you let it. It’s like a crocodile—don’t engage too long in speculation or it will roll you and take you down.
OBSESSION
Obsession is when you think about the other person constantly, wondering what they are doing, who they are with, and if they have a lover. You focus on them being together. It’s not healthy. If you don’t read anything else in this book, read this and stow it for thought because it’s important: if someone has left and you are obsessing about them, you are engaging in the one activity that will not ever make you feel any better or help you recover from your divorce.
But you can cry, take a walk, call a friend, run two miles, or write to that person who is gone and will never, ever come back, and all of those things will make you feel better.
Obsession tends to be a bigger issue when a marriage breaks down because of an extramarital affair. If this is your situation, keep in mind that obsession has no restorative value for your psyche. Obsessing for a period of time after losing a love or a marriage is a normal thing to do, but if you are looking to move on with your life, it’s better not to obsess—at least not for too long. It’s incredibly destructive to you!
CRIMES OF PASSION
Sometimes after an affair, the injured party has the urge to stalk Facebook for pictures, drive by their ex’s house, or plot to harm the affair partner. While these impulses are understandable, what you do can affect the rest of your life. Men often feel that some retaliatory action needs to be taken, especially if their wife is being intimate with another man. The Accidental Divorcée says to take steps to make sure that you don’t confront anyone.
Talking to the affair partner is usually a bad idea. It compromises your integrity and can lead to a restraining order, which will look bad in court and look bad on paper. It will haunt you for the rest of your life. (Do you really want to explain on every job interview why you have a restraining order on your arrest record? Wait a minute—you will have an arrest record? Stop! Don’t do it.) Also, approaching your ex-partner’s lover only makes you appear antagonistic and makes your ex feels justified in leaving. It will only serve to bring them together, not tear things apart.
If you’re afraid you might do something, you can avoid finding out that person’s name until after your divorce. It’s also worth knowing that there are ways for a person to find out if you are Googling them or trying to look them up on social media channels like Facebook or LinkedIn. Avoid painting yourself in a bad light.
Will’s take on his wife’s affair may be helpful to you if you’re tempted to confront the affair partner: “I don’t blame the guy Janie ended up with; I hold Janie responsible for her betrayal.”
If you feel like taking matters into your own hands and doing something drastic, get professional help immediately.
If you find yourself making a plan to execute and figure out just how this person could be hurt, reach out to a friend, family member, pastor, or medical professional, and get help before you do something that will devastate everyone around you. They are called “crimes of passion” for a reason.
ELIZABETH’S BREAKTHROUGH
Elizabeth, a twenty-nine-year-old career counselor, found out that her husband was having an affair. In the end, after lots of threats and drama, Elizabeth left him because he refused to give up his lover. Elizabeth talked to her friends, sisters, and mother about the affair
for months after it happened. She seemed less concerned with other aspects of her divorce than with the “darned affair,” as her father called it.
Elizabeth eventually had a breakdown. She didn’t sleep for three days and ended up seeing a psychologist, who asked her, “So, why do you think about them all the time?” She couldn’t answer him, but she did continue to talk about it all of the time in therapy. On her fourth visit, she came into the office and told the therapist, “I think about them all of the time because since he left, I am alone. I am afraid of the future, and I am scared of being all by myself. I am not sure what will happen, but it’s easier to worry about what they are doing than about what will happen to me.”
This realization was a breakthrough for Elizabeth. She realized that her obsession wasn’t healthy and she began to figure out ways to focus on her own crisis, which allowed her to move past the humiliation and hurt of the affair.
AN EXERCISE TO STOP OBSESSION
Look in the mirror and say to yourself out loud: “I am better than this. I cannot think about that person all of the time because it’s not making me any better. What happened to me isn’t my fault. [Fill in the blank] committed to me and s/he broke the commitment. I am too good for this. I can get up and move on because I am worth it. I am way better than this.”
AFFAIR OUTCOME
An affair is messy, and usually it’s not near as much fun once the affair is out in the open. Many affair relationships fail (even if the affair partners do marry) within a couple of years, because the fact that it was sexy and enticing to sneak around is gone once it becomes a regular relationship. The two-year mark of an affair is usually the maker or breaker. People stop pretending and pretty much become themselves at that point in the relationship.
The Accidental Divorcée also wants you to know that some people will have an affair, leave their spouse, and even marry their affair partner. This makes the whole relationship a lot different, especially if children are involved. If this happens to you, it will require even more circumspection on your part to see this person become a spouse and step into your shoes. If you can manage to keep your feelings private, which is very, very hard, it will be an easier transition for your family.
CHAPTER 7
The Divorce Process
Process is defined as “a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.”
Just as the first year of marriage is the hardest, the same is true of divorce. The new solo (being single) definition of normal is a lot to grapple with, so give yourself time to adjust. Some days you wish you could feel better right away, but that’s not how it works. It may take months or years to rebuild your life. Remember the old adage that “Rome was not built in a day.” Be patient with yourself.
No matter how the divorce is going down, once you start to split up and separate an estate, things can become hairy. Anger and negative verbal conversations are typical once you have to work out finances, property, belongings, and custody issues. The gloves usually come off at this point and strong emotions—even hatred—can surface.
IT SECURITY/SPYING
It’s a good idea to take steps to protect yourself by changing all of your IT information. For example, did you share e-mail accounts, cell phone services, or passwords? If you don’t change these, your ex could easily snoop—or even cause bigger problems.
Do you really want someone tracking your conversations or activities?
Alice, thirty-nine, left an abusive marriage and was separated from her husband for eighteen months before she filed for divorce. She was moving on with her life, making new friends, and working on her recovery. When she did file for divorce, she realized that the reason her husband never asked her any questions or wondered about scheduling with their kids was that he knew exactly what she was doing—he was reading her e-mails and checking her calendar every day. He admitted it during a heated conversation before the divorce was final.
It’s an easy fix to cut the ties that bind by setting up a new e-mail account and changing your cell phone provider. You can keep your number, if that’s of concern. Give serious consideration to protecting your interests and privacy during this crucial time. If you do not want to be spied on, make the effort to ensure that it doesn’t happen.
And do it sooner, rather than later.
DIVORCE LAWYERS
This book is not a source of detailed advice on the legal aspects of divorce; there are plenty of books and resources about retaining a good attorney. The Accidental Divorcée does, however, want to share some thoughts about this aspect of the divorce process.
If you are an emergency rescue tech, the first time you saw blood you might have thrown up and felt sorry for the injured person. When you saw the injured or deceased, it was difficult, but after a few years on the job, it probably became routine to rescue people and witness suffering on the job. You are professional and kind to the victims you help, but it doesn’t keep you up at night.
If your divorce attorney has been in practice for a while, they have had plenty of people walk into their office either enraged or deeply upset, and usually sobbing and crying. This comes with the territory of being a lawyer who manages divorces. This attorney will sit and listen to your anger and rage and figure out how to get you a divorce settlement. You will expose your life, list your assets, discuss your children, and then make a deal with your ex-spouse through the courts. That is what divorce attorneys do: manage the process.
It’s important to keep in mind that your divorce attorney isn’t your best friend. Nor are they your therapist.
When Celia, forty years old with two preteen kids at home, whose husband had filed for divorce, cried one too many times while meeting with her divorce attorney, her attorney said, “My services are $350 an hour, and a good therapist is $180 an hour. Figure it out.”
It’s not uncommon for divorce attorneys in a geographic area to know each other and even be friends. Be aware that they may be hammering out a deal with an attorney they know. Familiarity between attorneys on opposite sides of the table can be beneficial to the divorcing spouses or not.
Don’t retain the same lawyer as your ex to save money. Some people handle the legal aspects themselves and that’s okay, but it’s a conflict of interest to have the same attorney. You no longer have coinciding interests.
Your divorce attorney is a part of a terrible chapter in your life. After a divorce, many people project their negative feelings onto the instrument of the marriage destruction: the divorce attorney.
Bruce, a forty-two-year-old financial planner with elementary-school-aged boys shares: “I acted horrible during my divorce and my divorce attorney saw the worst side of me. It’s a time I would rather forget. The first six months of separation were awful and I yelled at everyone, including him.”
DECISIONS, DECISIONS
One of the most difficult parts of divorce is that you are faced with making excruciating decisions when you are in the worst frame of mind to do so.
Do you want half of the retirement fund, or do you want to keep the house? Do you want to pay part of your salary for child support in a percentage, or the state-mandated rates? Who gets the baby pictures? Who gets the $4,000 super-special Sleep Number bed you bought for your tenth anniversary? Who gets the dog? Who gets the kids on holidays and birthdays? How are you going to come up with the cash retainer it takes to hire a good divorce attorney?
These are not easy decisions, and you need to realize that in the end, these are decisions that you will make alone. Do not underestimate the importance of the divorce settlement and how it can affect your future. Find someone who can keep you on track. Enlisting a family member or a good friend might make sense, if that person can be helpful and not get too involved in the situation. You will need support to deal with a divorce settlement while dealing with all of the other changes in your life.
Some people obsess over their settlement and making it difficult for their ex-spouse, while others try to control their sp
ouse through the divorce attorney or courts. Others pick up that bottle opener they always liked, gather their personal things, and leave, without asking for much of anything. Some spouses accept credit card or other debts to get out of the marriage.
Erica, a thirty-nine-year-old orthodontic assistant, was overwhelmed with the legal aspects of divorce, and both of her parents were already gone. She didn’t feel right asking her friends to help her with splitting up an estate, so she contacted her financial planner, who became an invaluable resource and helped her to figure out budgets and gave her tough settlement advice.
James, a home remodeler with two small children, was going through a divorce. He had inherited a family home that might have to be sold to satisfy the property settlement agreement. His sister was very helpful, making suggestions to him when negotiating to keep the home. It helped him feel supported to run things by her, and in the end he did get to keep it.
THE BIG STUFF: THINGS TO PAY ATTENTION TO
The Accidental Divorcée offers the following from her subjective point of view (These are some things I have observed that are important when going through the legal aspects of divorce that were not brought to my attention, as well as subjective advice and things I wish I had known ahead of time):
Some of the best divorce settlements are made within the first six months of separation. If one person gets all or most of the assets, it’s because the other person wants out or is so busy chasing that new relationship that they don’t act to protect their own interests.
The spouse that initially stays in the house usually gets it. This is of the utmost importance if you have children.
