Was This Article Written About My Divorce?

I found an article online that pretty much touched on exactly what I am going through.

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.

A third party entered our marriage and I was compared to her in ways from how I act socially to that I don't like to do outdoor activities or drink beer.

It makes me feel like for the 14 years we were together I was useless.

  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. 

 so basically this means he knew what he was doing when he started the affair.

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 wife and mother and even accused of being evil.

Wow.  This is like a daily thing for me.  If he isn't saying what a shitty wife I was then he is running his mouth about me being a shitty mom.  He is always telling me how everything was my fault and that I pretty much pushed him into the arms of this other woman who lives in Michigan.

 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.

Yup.  That's him.  I love the line that he hasn't been happy for six months.  No wait!  One year.  No, no... last week it was two years.  It keeps getting longer.

 

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 as tools to punish the faithful spouse, which leads to bitterness and emotional detriment to the children.

Wow.  He's doing that too!

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's true.  Such bullshit but it's happening to me!!!!

The second part of the article deals more with what the faithful spouse goes through ....... that will be in part 2.