Is Your Affair Putting Off Your Divorce?
“Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce.” Louis C.K.
I recently wrote an article that I view an affair like a band-aid. Then, I read an article in Psychology Today that backed up that revelation. The article also gave me more perspective, making me think even more profound. The article was titled The Overlooked Tyranny of Quick Fixes. The author, Dr. Jason N. Linder, did not explicitly refer to affairs or even relationships in general. His approach suggests that a quick fix can hinder our personal growth. However, I saw an immediate connection to my past experience in infidelity and many other cheaters I’ve known through the years.
Dr. Linder felt that mental health practice is falling for the trap of quick fixes. Many of us are too impatient for long-term changes in behavior. Not only does it take a lot of time, but it is hard work. How easy is it to just put a Band-Aid on the issue when one is hurting?
Where I saw the connection between staying in an unhappy marriage and the extra-marital affair was when Dr. Linder said, “As we increasingly expect and grow accustomed to immediate relief from whatever challenges or ails us, our ability to cope and grow from difficulties may be diminishing. Predictably, this makes us increasingly susceptible to developing addictions. And, like an addiction, what starts as a temporary solution may itself become another problem, often worsening the original concern.”
There is some controversy if an affair is considered an addiction. I can assure you it is one from someone who was in an affair for over eight years. Before any current cheaters think I’m picking on them, I’m not attacking you for having an affair. I’ve written candidly before that sometimes an affair needs to happen for all parties to wake up and confront the problems. But like any quick fix, an affair can easily morph into a reliance or even a compulsion. Why I view an affair as an addiction is as simple as evaluating your cravings, dependence, and triggers when you try to break up with your affair partner. Believe me, it feels like withdrawal.
When you have the escape from an affair, it makes it tolerable to live in a sexless marriage. Or a verbally abusive one. Or one where you are taking care of a disabled spouse. Feel free to insert all the insufferable or unbearable parts of an unhealthy marriage here. But that is exactly my point and where the caution from Dr. Linder is needed. There is no quick fix for a miserable marital situation.
I do have to put in a disclaimer. I know how hard divorce is. For anyone who claims, “Your marriage is so bad? Then get a divorce!” Is either clueless or a person of privilege. My divorce bankrupted me. Please read that again. I was more than broke. BANKRUPT. Granted, I divorced a mentally unstable man who received an inheritance right as we separated and used it to pummel me. The current court system has no protection from that kind of financial abuse. And I’d go further to add that you don’t have to necessarily divorce someone who is bipolar, like my own ex, to experience astronomical lawyer’s fees. Many angry spouses take out their hostility and rage in a divorce settlement. I completely understand why a person would kick the can down the road to avoid this trauma.
Secondly, I know many people, especially fathers, who won’t divorce because they don’t want to lose all that time with their children. I can empathize with this. I can’t imagine not being able to live with your children. I obtained full custody of my children, but only because my then-husband assaulted me in front of them. If he hadn’t, my lawyer said that I’d have to share custody with him. I would have hated not being able to live with my kids. Not divorcing because you are going to miss your kids is valid. But that doesn’t negate that it also exacerbates an unloving marriage. Very few people can fake being an affectionate and adoring spouse, especially when you are probably growing to despise your spouse.
In my last article on self-betrayal, I began to realize that my affair messed with my coping skills. I used my affair partner as my crutch for getting through my horrid divorce. I wrote in past articles that he became my best friend and confidante. Which sounded lovely until I looked back and saw that he really wasn’t a person I could depend on. His availability relied on a secret being kept. I couldn’t call or see him whenever I needed to. I scrambled the signals in my brain that he was helping me cope because, in reality, I was doing it on my own and not even realizing this.
This is one of Dr. Linder’s points — masking symptoms. My affair caused an over-reliance on my lover. I’m not beating myself up for it. I would never tell someone to go through that alone if that didn’t have to. But my ex-lover wasn’t my solution. I had to find that all on my own.
Dr. Linder also writes about the impact on personal growth. Oh boy, this is a huge one I see with affair partners that divorce during the affair but stay with their married partner. They claim they do this because the affair partner is a soul mate. Here’s some tough love from Tullia. If any relationship is based on a secret, then what you have is not a relationship but an illusion. Sometimes, we need some fantasy to cope with an unhealthy marriage. But then, don’t delay your personal growth to continue to be someone’s secret. Because you are choosing the relationship you think is the easiest by calling it natural. All because you are afraid of change.
Toward the end of Dr. Linder’s article, he discusses how quick fixes actually impede therapy, lifestyle change, and more holistic approaches. It is true that when I focused more on my own self-care and put myself first, I began to see how I needed my affair partner less and less.
Many times during our affair, my lover would say to me that our relationship helped him tolerate his sexless marriage. Yet our conversations and his ensuing messages were filled with frustration, strife, panic, and even depression over his marital life. I am no longer in his life. I guess I’ll never know how he is learning to endure.
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