Great article on break ups...

My wife left after 24 years together 2.5 years ago..I saw this on another support site and it was uncanny how spot on it was regarding her behavior (she was a cheater and left me and our daughter...these following behaviors were her actions exactly..)

Read this and recognise things immediately!

Coping with Infidelity and Divorce

By Cathy Meyer, published Jun 18, 2005

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Until six years ago I thought that all divorces were basically, very similar in nature. I found out differently when I went through my own divorce. There are differing types of divorce and each one has it's own emotional and psychological intensity. There is the bilateral agreement divorce where both spouses are unhappy and conclude that they will be happier being apart. In a divorce like this the couple is often able to come to a mutual agreement and settle their affairs amicably and stay connected as friends with little emotional upset.

Then there is the unilateral divorce where one spouse makes the decision to divorce to the utter shock of the other spouse. This type of divorce means more emotional and psychological intensity for the spouse who was unaware of the problems in the marriage. The one choosing to leave has had time to think about, reflect upon and weigh the options and to emotionally detach themselves from the marriage while the other spouse is caught by surprise, is normally mistreated and left to feel abandoned. There is a huge imbalance of power with the one leaving being the one in control of all aspects of whether or not the marriage will continue.

Add to this a third party, another woman or another man and the emotional intensity is compounded. Not only will the left behind spouse feel abandoned but he or she will also feel replaced by someone better, younger, more attractive. The pain in this type of divorce comes from losing a position of importance in the life of a spouse, from beliefs about immorality, betrayal and feelings of failure as a spouse.

When a third party enters a marriage and a spouse in that marriage becomes romantically involved with this person certain psychological things start to happen in the mind of the unfaithful spouse in order to justify their actions.

At first they lavish in the attention and feel energized by the adoration of someone new. In time they begin to compare their feelings for their spouse with those they have for this new person. If a decision is made the break up the marriage and move onto a life with this new person several psychological stages will be gone through which only exacerbate the pain of this type of divorce.

Normally a spouse who falls prey to infidelity is a decent person that is aware of their behavior and how it is frowned upon by society. Even though they are aware of the immorality of their actions they continue with the relationship, which means dealing with feelings of guilt. These feelings of guilt motivate to demonize the faithful spouse in an attempt to justify their behavior. They will attribute many negative and unforgivable traits and behaviors. The faithful spouse may be portrayed as an inadequate husband and father or wife and mother.

Not only will the faithful spouse be demonized, history will be rewritten to make it appear that he/she has been faulty for the entire duration of the marriage. The unfaithful spouse will recreate the marriage and what happened during the marriage to make it appear that they have suffered much pain and unhappiness throughout the entire marriage. They may say things such as, "I was forced into marrying you" or, "You've never loved me the way I needed to be loved" or, "I have lived in hell for 20 years." He/She will say anything as long as it will enable him/her to appear to have been the victim of the marriage and fully justified in abandoning the family.

The unfaithful spouse will tell their story often and to anyone who will listen, to the point that they will finally begin to truly believe that the left behind spouse deserves to be punished. The faithful spouse is the offender and the persecutor and needs to be dealt with harshly. Punishment will come in the way of financial withholding or, even worse, fighting over custody for any children of the marriage. They may begin to believe that the faithful, demonized spouse is not entitled to receive any future benefits from them, sometimes not even those allowed by law. In many cases the children will be used. No matter how much the faithful spouse is demonized and mistreated by the errant spouse, he/she still feels the need of the approval of family and friends and, strangely enough even the spouse they have hurt so tremendously. He/She needs the faithful spouse to start to believe that they truly are the responsible party and to realize that the unfaithful spouse had no choice but to leave the family.

The unfaithful spouse will expect the left behind spouse to accept their new life and to even be happy for them. They want the faithful spouse to take full blame for their need to escape an "unhappy marriage." In their mind, for this to be done properly the left behind spouse should also accept the other man or woman and make peace with them. Since the left behind spouse does not share any of these views with the unfaithful spouse, he/she is often unwilling to embrace and bestow their well wishes on this new life. If you have been a party to this type of divorce or know someone who has you are well aware of the emotional turmoil that takes place.

It doesn't matter who leaves the marriage, the wife or the husband, the person left behind to deal with the betrayal experiences a hellish nightmare. Next I will discuss the stages the left behind spouse will go through during the process of this type divorce.

Being demonized will produce feelings of shock and dismay. They will question their own sanity and replay their marriage in their mind trying to find some hint of all the unhappiness they are told of. They will question how their spouse, someone they have loved and trusted could betray them in such a way. First to have an affair and then to rewrite the history of their marriage in such a way as to try and lay blame at their feet.

They will wonder how their spouse could not only blame them for having to have an affair but also how they could defame their character after many years of being given love, respect and trust. They will wonder how their spouse cannot see how their words and blaming does damage to the children by depicting him/her in a bad light.

The faithful spouse will question their own memories of what they thought were years and years of a happy marriage. He/She will wonder if the marriage was never anything but a sham and a figment of their imagination. They will wonder why the unfaithful spouse never complained if they were really that unhappy or why they never made a request for changes in the relationship. Being punished for your spouse's misery is a mind-boggling state to find yourself in. The children are used as tools to punish the faithful spouse, which leads to bitterness and emotional detriment to the children.

If all this isn't bad enough the unfaithful spouse now demands that their partner accept this other man or other woman and rejoice in their well-deserved happiness. They also expect their spouse to encourage the children to embrace and love this new person and welcome them into the foldso to speak.

Just reading such a scenario is painful, imagine actually living it? If you are reading this article you may be living it yourself at this moment. It is a crazy making time isn't it? Such severe distortions of what the marriage was actually like can cause the left behind spouse to question their sanity and every action they take. Recovery from such a profound emotional trauma is slow.

What can a left behind spouse do under circumstances like these?

Most importantly they can realize that all the distortions have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the leaving spouse and their need to justify their actions.

Understand that these distortions and negative behaviors are your partner's way of dealing with their guilt. It's his/her perceptions that are wrong and not yours.

Surround yourself with a support group that can affirm your view of what your marriage was and that the distortions you are being fed are for your partner's self-exoneration. Surround yourself daily with people who love and care for you.

Remember that every parent earns his or her separate relationship with the children of the marriage. Children will ultimately process these events appropriately and make their own choices and come to their own conclusions based on their memories and moral beliefs.

This nightmare will end!! With time, healing does come and you will laugh again and love again and the sun will shine again; All you have to do to survive is trust your memories and never forget that, this insanity is not of your making

Excellent. Thank you for posting this. It is very informative and insightful.

Excellent. Thank you for posting this. It is very informative and insightful.

Yeah wiseman I read this this morning and was like whooaaaa lol, so obviously this is as common as sliced bread lol! Hope your well..Coop

What if both spouses were shi**y but at different times?

Excellent post, I think this can be applied to any long-term relationship not just marriages. Very true and sad especially when children are involved.