Exit affairs are about using people. The whole situation consists of unhealthy relationships dynamics where people are used in an unhealthy manner. Let’s put it plainly…exit affairs include exploitation. Somebody or even somebodies besides you are getting used and played when there is an exit affair.
Rather than confront issues directly an affair situation is used to ‘force’ the situation. By ‘forcing’ the situation, the cheater is intending for the affair to end your marriage. Like committing an offense to get out of what one party considers a bad contract. For them it is better to commit an offense to be thrown out of the contract than to live with the bad contract.
Rather than face the issues associated with direct confrontation, they engage in an exit affair. Direct confrontation often brings discomfort, honesty and facing a reality that someone or several someones are not wanting to face.
There can be various reasons for the exit affair. The cheater may feel unworthy, they may fear your reactions, they may prefer you rejecting them in anger to facing some other issues or it may be about revenge. The cheater may or may not have planned out everything. One thing that they did plan out, was your reaction to the affair. They were counting on your reaction. They wanted you to end the marriage.
When an exit affair is extremely repulsive, they may have wanted to make doubly sure that you would ‘boot’ them out of your life and family. Oddly enough this strategy of using an affair to make and exit or as an excuse to dump someone is also employed by many businesses. There have been employees and executives who lost their jobs as a result of an affair. In some companies, busting troublesome employees for affairs is often the easiest way to remove them. There have also been cases where an executive has an affair in order to be ousted just before bad news or bad earnings are made public.
These situations are why it is important not only to consider whether or not their was an affair, but also consider the timing of the discovery and other possible related events. You may find a connection between these things. When you find such connections, chances are you are dealing with an exit affair and not something that happened in the heat of passion.
When the affair is particularly ‘repulsive’ or the timing is awfully odd, you need to consider the possibility of it being an exit affair. If it is repulsive and the timing is odd, you can rest assured that it is an exit affair.
Best Regards,
Jeff
4 Responses
Sounds interesting
D day happened quite by accident
Discovery was much later after the 14 years of infidelity and two children with one woman …but other women were also involved at distances ..each for two years at least concurrent with the one who had the two children
Though he finally left saying he “always wanted a separate life”
He also abandoned the OW
He does pay support to her and keeps paying our bills though our finances are all but depleted
Whether or not this was an exit stratigy I am not so sure
A means to avoid facing his issues I do know is possible
I tried to address and engage him to discuss whatever might be an issue in marriage since the beginning
He did not want to disclose his thoughts even when I sensed some “cloud” over his countenance
Sadly he is still running and using other women to insulate himself from transparency and genuine intimacy …..this distancing seems to facilitate his position that he is entitled to walk away from any wreckage his choices bring about
Why did he not “exit” long before all of the women and children have had to deal with his hubris
Zaza,
I don’t know if I would use the term interesting in describing ‘exit affairs’. They certainly have a different dynamic. In some ways, I think ‘Avoidant affair’ may be a better title since avoidance is a key issue, yet the end game is creating and greasing their exit from the marriage. It is a self-serving crisis taken to a different level.
Some spouse are more willing to throw money at a relationship to end it than to face honest emotions and reality. Sadly, the direction society is going, virtual reality is becoming more important than actual reality, so I suspect the issue of exit affairs will become more mainstream.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for this article. I am a very young woman who was used by a man 40 years my senior for an exit affair. He came across as really kind and gentle and I thought I was ‘saving’ him from his awful marriage, but as it turns out he was an exploitative covert narcissist and this was not his first time leaving behind absolute carnage and mistreating women who truly loved him. He hated confrontation and was very avoidant with a false mask of ‘niceness’. Of course I only see this in retrospect!
Do you think that affairs like these are normally perpetuated by narcissists?
R,
Thank you for writing. It’s sad and tragic how you were used in an exit affair. Your question shows good insight into the affair.
In terms of “Do you think that affairs like these are normally perpetuated by narcissists?” I haven’t seen official numbers and diagnoses on those having exit affairs, so I can’t say that they are committed by narcissists. I can say that with the very nature of exit affairs, those doing them have narcissistic tendencies at the time they do them.
They are focused on themselves and getting their own needs met. They use all their charm and influence in getting their way and exploiting others to do so.
What I’m not sure about is whether they’re desperate, mean or pathological given that they are using the affair as part of their exit strategy.