When you seek answers regarding “how to break up an affair” on a blog, you may find yourself disappointed. Since affairs are relationships, there will be many ways of starting them, yet not many ‘good’ ways of ending them.
Before any intervention is made, you’ll need to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for what lies ahead.
In ending an affair, there will always be the risk of blowback in reaction to any thing you do. When you make a radical intervention, there will be radical blowback.
If you’re wanting to end the relationship without blowback, you’re setting yourself up for heartache. There’s no way of ‘playing nice’ when it comes to breaking up an affair.
You’re fighting for the survival of your marriage. You’ll have to accept this reality rather than trying to be ‘liked’.
When you break up an affair, you’ll not initially be liked. The cheater will be upset with you.
You cut them off from their playmate, and they’ll view you as the over-intrusive parent like figure who only wants to ruin their fun. Be prepared for immature reactions to you breaking them up. The reactions will come.
You also need to accept that gradual break ups only prolong the pain, not lessen it.
Recognize that the lover is a threat to the security of your marriage and family. Treat them as the threat that they are.
Any contact with that threat poses significant risks. For that reason, all phone contact, facebook, twitter, email and physical contact with the lover must stop.
You’ll even have to intervene in terms of their fantasies and spiritual connection with the lover. Not addressing these areas can leave a back door open for further problems.
You can’t be ‘reasonable’ on this matter if you’re serious about your marriage. Tolerating contact means that preserving your marriage is no longer your priority.
When cheaters have affairs at work, there are some stickier problems. The cheater may put you in a bind of job security versus marital security. That’s a tough situation to have to deal with. In such situations, you often find out what your and your spouses ‘real’ priorities are.
I don’t know of one sure-fire, always works way of breaking up an affair that I recommend. Each situation calls for some unique intervention.
Whichever intervention you choose, you will have to be mentally and emotionally prepared for it, which is what this post does address.
If you break them up, intervention can occur faster, yet, the cheater has assumed no responsibility for ending the affair. The lack of responsibility puts them in a martyr role.
When the cheater takes responsibility for the break-up, then they’ve mentally shut the door on the affair, although cheaters don’t often rush out and want to end the affair as quickly as they need to.
You may also want the video, “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery” in the event the cheater wants to break up but aren’t sure what comes next. The cheater may have good intentions yet find themselves unable to break up or confused regarding what comes next.
Best Regards,
Jeff
One Response
It would seem that despite the disconnect with the OW …the children of adultery have become the next OP in my husband’s life…even to the degree that he moved out . He decided to completely cut me off from all but the most necessary communication and most often through our daughters which puts them in an awful situation.
He still lies and spends money that has not been agreed upon ..thinking that as long as our bills are paid and we have food we are ‘ok’ and all the other monies are his to spend any way he likes…which is not very much ..at least that is what all of the ‘books’ I CAN view would suggest.,
It is very hard to observe this man who we all thought so highly of continue to behave in such a way …he must be very assured that we are stupid …even when he confesses something about the OC to our children he does not think about how the money he spends in addition to the amount for support and other things we did agree on are now very importantly taking from what we have been trying to save up for paying debt.
Apparently the life goes on wherein he is in a ‘compartment’ where none of what he does ‘should ‘ bother anyone else…
I am going to reread your narcissist articles…The OC built up a debt on a video game of some 130 . oo to pay for food for a virtual game character! She is only 14 and must have had access to a credit card to do this so perhaps he has given her one …which really ‘fries ‘ our kids who never had an allowance nor credit cards..until college and then it was strictly used for designated things.
This is very sad to see that he has not idea what priorities or boundaries are necessary to protect his primary responsibilities ….