Is Your Affair Partner Trying to “Help” You Leave Your Marriage?
Let’s say you’re married. And you’ve been involved with someone else for quite a while. And you really want to leave your marriage so that you and your affair partner can have a non-affair relationship.
But… taking steps towards actually leaving your marriage has been hard. As much as you love the idea of a future with your affair partner, the idea of leaving your known world behind scares the living daylights out of you. And thus, you haven’t actually been DOING all that much to leave your marriage.
And your affair partner knows about all this. They know you want to be with them. And they know you’re rather terrified of doing everything that goes along with leaving your marriage.
And they sympathize with your struggles. They know your mind and your heart and your history and your patterns very, very well, and they understand you like nobody ever has before. And you deeply appreciate that about them. It’s one of the biggest reasons why you want to leave your marriage so that you can be with them.
The only problem is that your affair partner is working really, really hard to “help” you leave your marriage. They’ve got suggestions. They’ve got advice. They KNOW what you should do, and how you should do it. And their advice, quite often, is pretty good. You really respect their insights. And you appreciate their attention to your problems.
But when you don’t do what your affair partner tells you to do, they get upset. Maybe really upset. Maybe dramatically upset. And that of course doesn’t make you happy at all. All you want is to connect with them! You don’t want to displease them, and deal with them being displeased with you. You get enough of that from your spouse!
So you try to keep your affair partner happy by doing the things they want you to do in regards to your marriage.
Sometimes you’re successful, and your affair partner is pleased about that, and that’s a huge relief. And sometimes you aren’t successful in meeting your affair partner’s expectations, and then they get upset, and then you try to placate them.
And you do this because you really do want to be with them! You love them and adore them and just want them to be happy — and you hate it when they’re mad at you!
The only problem is that attempting to make sure they’re happy with you gets kind of exhausting. Trying to work up the nerve to tell your spouse you want a divorce is hard enough. Keeping your affair partner from being upset with you can seem like a full-time job… on top of your official full-time job.
If this scenario sounds familiar to you, here’s what I want you to know. It is not unreasonable for your affair partner to have made it their agenda to help — “help” — you leave your marriage. It’s not unreasonable for them to have developed a great interest in you leaving your marriage, and it’s not unreasonable to think that they can actually help you do that. They really can’t help you leave your marriage — that’s something that you can only do for yourself — but they can be forgiven for not understanding this.
Let’s be really clear about this: if your affair partner has made it their agenda to help you leave your marriage, that isn’t an indication that there’s anything terribly wrong with them. What they’re doing is very human, and very common.
However! It is not your job to make your affair partner happy with the progress you are — or aren’t — making towards leaving your marriage. It is not your job to ensure that they are happy with your actions in this department.
Even if you are as sure as you can be that you want to have an above-board relationship with them in the future, it is not your responsibility to ensure that your affair partner is delighted with the manner and timeline in which you extricate yourself from your marriage.
When I tell clients this, they often freak out. “Upset my affair partner?” some exclaim. “I just can’t do that!”
The great fear, for a lot of folks, is that they’ll leave their marriage for their affair partner… and then their relationship with their former affair partner who is now just their partner won’t work out.
And then on top of that, many of us just have deeply ingrained people-pleasing issues. The very things that make it hard for a lot of folks to leave their marriage make it hard for them to consider de-prioritizing their affair partner’s agenda, and focusing on what THEY need to do to resolve their infidelity situation.
So if the idea of doing anything that might destabilize your affair relationship sounds like a downright bad idea, I totally get it.
And, I will tell you that focusing on what your affair partner wants and trying to keep them happy is not the same thing as ensuring your own happiness.
If you’re going to effectively leave your marriage so that you and your affair partner can have a non-affair relationship, YOU have to leave your marriage.
That might sound absurdly obvious, and it is — but the fact of the matter is, leaving a marriage can be hard. (It certainly doesn’t have to be as awful as you think it’s going to be, but it may be pretty darn hard. Both of those things can be true at once, and it’s really important to recognize that.) And it’s something that you essentially have to do alone. Your affair partner can support you throughout the process, but they can’t leave your marriage for you. If you’re going to get this job done, you have to assume responsibility for getting the job done.
What can you actually DO if you want to leave your marriage, and you know that trying to keep your affair happy with your progress in this department is actually keeping you from making the progress that you want to make?
Here are five recommendations.
First: The bottom line here is that in the long run, you are going to be happier with decisions you make and actions you take if you make them for reasons that are truly right for YOU. Trying to make your affair partner happy may get you some wins in the short term. But if being satisfied with your love life in the long run is important to you, you need to start thinking more about your own agenda than your affair partner’s agenda.
Simply making this mental shift is a really big deal for some people. But it’s an important one for you to make. Your priority is your agenda. You don’t have to make your affair partner’s agenda your priority. Even if you think they are trying to “help” you comes from the best possible intentions, it’s okay — and probably very necessary — for you to relinquish some or even most of the help they’re offering.
Second: In order to focus on your own agenda, you may need to actively disengage from your affair partner’s attempts to “help” you leave your marriage. What exactly this means in practice is for you to decide, but some people find it helpful to simply stop discussing their marriage — or their progress towards leaving their marriage — with their affair partner for a while. Time you spend attending to their agenda is time you aren’t spending attending to your own agenda. Period.
Third: Setting any new boundaries with your affair partner may be uncomfortable — for you and for them! It might be HARD for you to stop talking about your marriage with your affair partner. And your affair partner may get irritated (or enraged!) if you close off that topic of conversation, even if only temporarily. Remember: getting what you want in the long run may require you to do some things that are hard for you in the short term.
Besides, do you really want your relationship with your affair partner to be exclusively focused on them “helping” you leave your marriage? That’s probably not a solid basis for a long-term connection. Use the time you don’t spend talking about you leaving your marriage with your affair partner to talk about other things that interest you both!
Fourth: If you set some new boundaries with your affair partner, and you resign from the job of attempting to make them happy by adhering to their agenda for you, and you find yourself feeling lost, get help. Don’t let yourself STAY lost. Find someone who a) doesn’t have a vested interest in your love life and b) can actually help you sort through what you need to sort through, and make use of that support. If you’ve been relying on your affair partner’s guidance for a long time, it can feel very strange to cut yourself off from that source of assistance (or “assistance”).
It’s totally okay to want help as you consider leaving your marriage and do the things you need to do to actually leave your marriage. But get that help from someone who doesn’t have a horse in the race.
Fifth: Know that you can do all of this and still love your affair partner madly! Disengaging from their agenda, setting some boundaries, and prioritizing your agenda over their does not mean that you love them any less, or will end up loving them any less. Your goal and your affair partner’s goal may be exactly the same — you just have to give yourself permission to do what you need to do to make your shared goal a reality in your own way.
