"Exposure" vs. "Shame"

[Puppy Dog Tails]

We will have to agree to disagree. True, exposing an affair to FAMILY AND FRIENDS (who's???) MAY hasten the demise of the A...sure that may be true.

You pass this off as being perhaps a small thing. When one spends time studying affairs, and the intense personal, emotional, financial and even medical pain they inflict, I don't think this is any small thing at all. If an affair might otherwise die its own natural death in an average of six months, but one can hasten its demise by several months by WHATEVER means, I think that has to be weighed more heavily. These forums are populated with stories of STDs, businesses run into the ground, tens of thousands of dollars put on credit cards and/or drained of bank accounts, children traumatized, etc. If any of these affairs had ended a few months earlier, because of exposure, would that not have saved an awful lot of pain??

Or it could force them to see it as "them against us", but let's say it does end the A sooner... So what? How does it serve the restoration of the marriage? That IS important to me and to most people here.

Again, I find the "so what?" to be too dismissive, considering the topic at hand. Ending something as intensely destructive as an affair, sooner, is huge in my opinion, and I contend that it is the FIRST STEP to any potential restoration of the marriage. One cannot effectively restore a marriage -- or even engage in any meaningful marriage counseling -- so long as there is a third person in the marriage. Most MCs acknowledge this.

If that is NOT the goal, what is? Is it about being "right" and OR making the shamed spouse "wrong", or hurting their standing in the community or family, instead of forgiving and being happily married? B/C being happily married IS the goal of most people here. Does the exposure force a spouse to go home? Maybe. But in some cases, so would a scarlet letter....

I've already said that "exposure" doesn't have to equate to "shame" -- in fact, it SHOULDN'T. And one can forgive a past (or continued) act, while still coming down forcefully against the continuation of that act. And yes, often exposure does end the affair, and bring the wayward spouse home. Does it always? No.

My main point is If the m ends in divorce but MIGHT have gone differently if the LBSer had stepped back and not "shamed the wayward spouse" that matters and...that's my point. And I stand by it. Sometimes exposing it hurts the chances of a long term reconciliation. But as far as SHAME is concerned, I can think OF NO time that is good for anyone, especially the kids, and the idea of restoring a healthy happy M...with shame...nope, I don't think so.

I hear you, 25, I really do. And I stand by my point as well, and that is you can just as easily point to cases where marriages end in divorce and it might have gone differently if the betrayed spouse had been MORE aggressive, not less so. In fact, we've had entire threads on this very forum, where LBS after LBS stated that very regret -- that they wish that they had done MORE, and SOONER.

It's also not always even about saving the marriage (although that's certainly our primary goal here). Many LBSs, in cases of continued and flagrant infidelity, wish they had taken a stronger stand for their OWN self-esteem and emotional well-being. And that IS very much in line with what DBing is supposed to be all about: that in trying to save our marriages, we are to save ourselves, and if our spouse sees our changes and responds to them, then great, but if not then at least we are now stronger, more emotionally healthy people to bring that with us into our next relationship.

As for the "shame" part, you keep bringing up that word, not me. Exposure should never be about shame or condemnation. Asked and answered.

No offense, but there's a stubborn need to be right here, or something going on here that is off point. I don't get it. I know it's close to home for you and I'm sorry if it hit a chord. I really am. But isn't it possible that you could be overstating something here? Or not be right about this? Would it be so terrible to not be correct and to have to try something different? I'm a bit flummoxed. How can you argue that shaming a spouse is EVER a good thing? "If handled correctly"??? What??

25mlc, I'm TRYING to present "something different" here. It is BECAUSE the conventional wisdom around here is "never snoop!" "never expose!" that I bring up the opposing view, for the poster to consider. And I think if anyone would look back at Eternal Optimist's thread, they would see that I'm not the one who seems to have had their chord struck. In fact, I didn't even introduce the topic -- you did. You went on several long, emphasized text rants about things that neither I nor EO even brought up, and it makes me wonder where you're coming from on this? If someone used God, and shame, to get you to come home or something, I'm truly sorry -- that's not right.

You may be making a very different point, but I'm quoting YOUR WORDS in response to mine in my first post on this topic. In reply to my stating that "shaming a spouse into coming home won't lead to true marital restoration in the long run..." you chose to chime in and say "If handled correctly it can be an effective tool..." so I'm left wondering, "shame -- as a tool"... for what?

NOPE -- you've misquoted me. Go back and read it again. I said, very specifically:

Exposure, done correctly, should never be about shame or condemnation. It should be a loving but firm gesture, that says "I love myself too much to allow this to continue, and I love YOU too much to let you continue in this without a fight."

Done properly, it is basically a marital intervention, and it can be quite effective. It can, however, then make the "repair" work that much more difficult.

And I still don't get it. I understand it, PT. I just don't get your long term goal. And I disagree with your approach about it, IF your goal is to restore a marriage. And it DOES matter if that is the goal. I don't know anyone with a healthy restored marriage who was shamed into it. The word SHAME is the word[i] I chose, and you disagreed with my statement.

Implicitly, that means you were referring to shame when you said "it can be an effective tool if used correctly" and yeah, that bugs me a lot.

Hunh?? Clearly you are implying what I didn't infer.

As for the rest of your post, there's really no way to respond to it because you keep on insisting on using the word "shame" to frame the discussion. If you'd like to have an honest debate about the pro's and con's of exposure as an affair-busting tool, I'd welcome that. Because although reasonable people can (and do) disagree about it, I do think it's a discussion worth having.

Peace,

Puppy