If She Won't Stop the Affair?

[chatterbug]

I never understand the fear of legally protecting yourself from a wayward in an active affair. If you tell someone that what they are doing is hurting you and that you want to work on the marriage but if they continue to do that then you will no longer be a part of the marriage.

You said your thoughts. They continue to hurt you. It is abuse. Plain and simple.

So you work hard and show them what they are losing. But they continue to have an active affair.

That protection could be legal separation or it could be filing for Divorce.

Divorces can be stopped when the paperwork has been put in. As can a legal separation. There is a great dissociation with reality here. So many people are afraid to legally protect themselves ( even when they are threatened with loss of children or finances )because it may make the wayward spouse angry. It may make them want to divorce you.

But it is their continued actions that are leading to the divorce or legal separation. IMHO it is foolish to not get yourself legally protected with rights to your children and finances. Knowing full well what your expenses will be or income. Getting checked out by the doctor for STD's or worse.

You can still do all this and be pro marriage.

Its like many people cling to that MLC issue. But they fail to realize that the people who delt in that set strong personal boundaries and moved on with their lives. They lived with structure in place. They healed and when the WS wanted to come back. They measured it and decided if the WS was actually worth dating again. Then they decided if the WS would actually work on their issues and make the marriage a priority. Then they worked for years and years to repair the marriage and make it safe for both of them with communication and boundaries.

If any of these Marriage sites had anything close to 100% success rate... heck even 50% success rate it would be published everywhere. But that is not the case. The majority of these marriages end in divorce. Some of them are saved. The majority of the saved ones end up having the same problem again in a few years because the LBS allowed the WS back too easy and did not work on the underlying problems. Same with the SSM marriages. Or the LBS did a little work and went on the LBS diet.. lost 30 pounds and called it a day and comes back here when their second marriage is failing. Michele has written some great books on how to DB but it has been warped on her forums to be a passive BS who should not enforce boundaries and sometimes that includes legal separation or divorce.

The concept that that the wayward spouse feels the betrayed spouse are a "given" in their lives and that they are the arbiter of whether the marriage survives should not be promoted. This is the 180 that has been forgotten. So its promoted to trap yourself.

IT does not matter who leaves first. It does not make their decision easy by protecting yourself legally. They still have to deal with the fallout. They have to deal with the memory of what they did to ruin the marriage.

When someone is cheating on you the goal should be from the moment of figuring it out is a path to being self-sufficient. Rebuilding self-esteem. Learning and understanding the Grief cycle and PTSD. Working yourself through them. And legally protecting yourself.

When they continue to cheat on you after you have asked them to stop and return the marriage and attempt to repair it. Well you have one choice to make. Remove yourself from their life.

The outcome of that is as follows.
1. You divorce a cheating spouse.
2. Your cheating spouse realizes that they made a mistake and work hard to repair the damage. But you decide if they are worth the effort.

The vast majority of LBS's did not abuse their spouses. Did not abuse substances. Most did not even know their marriage was in a downward spiral. They may have been guilty of working 60 hours a week and then catching up on choirs on the weekend. They may have been guilty of staying home and raising the children. They may have been guilty of not passing mind reading 101 and ESP 101. They just happened to be lucky to be married to a person who has poor boundaries around the opposite/same sex. Or they married someone with a cluster B personality disorder. Or they just drifted apart and lost how to communicate with each other.

Legally protecting yourself up to D. Should not be dismissed. It is not always the end like it is spoken about here. Just like saying wait it out is not the solution like it is spoken about here.