Top Three WAYS AN AFFAIR WILL AFFECT YOUR DIVORCE

I’ve been working as a Certified Divorce Coach for over four years and helping friends with their divorces casually for years before that.  One of the top questions I get is, “I’ve been seeing someone, how will that be viewed by the judge?”  Some people are more bold and open about their affairs, others are much more private and shy to share it with me. I ask all of my clients to be open and honest with me so I can help guide them in the best direction possible as they work through the divorce process.  

So, let’s break it down right here in my list of the Top Three Ways an Affair Will Affect Your Divorce.

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#1 - Emotions Caused By an Affair

I have ZERO judgment if someone calls me and they are having an affair. Oftentimes the affair is the RESULT of a failed marriage, not the cause of one.  The marriage is already irretrievably broken for a variety of reasons.  Emotional Abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse, drug and alcohol addictions, and mental health issues just to name a few all have already caused the marriage to fall apart. The victim is lost, confused, lonely and desiring love and connection. When they have faced all of these abuses and someone new walks into their life that is kind and gentle with them, it’s very easy for them to connect and fall head over heels.  

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Emotionally speaking though, a divorce is traumatic.  Even (and sometimes especially!) if someone has been abused, they still care for their abuser. They don’t want to hurt them back. They want good things for them. They want to get through the divorce peacefully and calmly.  Divorces bring out a lot of emotions that are important to tend to while you’re going through the divorce.  If you’re swept up in an affair, it’s a rollercoaster to manage the emotions of the divorce while also juggling the emotions of a new relationship.  Usually, one set of emotions has to get stuffed and ignored.  Because the divorce emotions are unpleasant, it’s usually those.

Victoria Mitchell, in her book, “Surviving Grief: Enduring and Learning From the Worst Days of Our Lives”, offers words of caution about moving forward and taking risks with another relationship. “I recommend waiting six to twelve months to get involved with someone new. You’ll be lonely. You’ll feel needy. You’ll be tempted. But adding another person to the mix disrupts your task of processing the grief of your lost marriage. You’re left with this work still to be done, shut down by the glow of new love. It’s also not healthy for your new relationship. In the abrupt abandonment of feelings about your divorce, much growth potential is left behind. You carry unresolved issues with you. When the time comes to venture into something new, be whole and healthy, not still wounded.”  ~Victoria Mitchell

If there are children involved in the divorce, it’s also important to have the emotional capacity to help them through the divorce. I’d rather see kids in a happy, divorced home than a toxic married home any day.  Usually children still love their other parent even if they are abusive.  They need help working through their big emotions.  I always recommend to parents that they find a therapist for their children at least through the divorce and possibly beyond if needed. It gives kids a trusted sounding board to work through their emotions.  Even with that, children need their parents to be emotionally available and mature for them. The kids will have big emotions and will often take these out on the parents.  If parents are daydreaming about their lover and excited to get the divorce over with as fast as possible so they can move in with them, they may be less inclined to see their children’s emotions as important or valid.  ​

#2: Parental Alienation from an Affair

When an affair is found out, it’s suddenly very easy for the affair to be the only reason for the divorce.  All of the prior problems suddenly evaporate as if the marriage was perfect ONLY to be destroyed by a new lover.  Too often I’ve seen a wounded spouse tell their children about the affair that the other parent had in an attempt to alienate them from the children.  No matter how old the children are, they often are unaware, or don’t know the extent, of the prior circumstances that led to the affair.  They may be too young to even grasp the concept of it all.  Or maybe they are teenagers, working through their own emotional challenges of hormones and growing up.  I wish this situation never happened, but it’s more common than many people realize.  ​

So what happens next? My client is trying to manage the stress of the divorce process, the butterflies and thrill of a new relationship AND children who are angry with them. This is an understandably horrible scenario to find oneself in and another reason to avoid affairs.  Clients find themselves wanting to rush the process to just get it over with. They become more willing to concede to financial demands by their spouse and children. They tend to give up time with their kids because not only is time spent with them often miserable, they don’t feel like they deserve it anymore.

#3 Divorce Settlement Implications of an Affair

I know what I know about Divorce Coaching but I leave the legal advice for the Family Law Attorneys. Partner at Butler, Meister and Giraudo in Morton, Illinois, Attorney Kelly Giraudo shared with me: "Illinois is a no-fault state, meaning that an affair will not be a relevant factor when considering the allocation of parental responsibilities or the division of assets and debts of the marriage."

At first glance, Hurray!  My clients quickly interpret that their affair won’t matter and carry on with the relationship, sometimes getting TOO casual.  Most likely it won’t in the sense of the final result. Where it WILL matter is in the length and amount of time it takes to get there.  As soon as the opposing council finds out about an affair you need to be prepared for a massive amount of questions and paperwork known as “Request to Produce and Interrogatories”.  The questions asked in these documents are required to be answered in a relatively short amount of time and they often are quite detailed.  I’ve had clients have to take days off work to fulfill their responses to these requests.  The requests range from additional financial disclosures to diary entries to strings of texts printed out.  This is not a fun place to find yourself in the middle of the divorce. Remember, the goal is to  divorce quickly, peacefully and inexpensively, while also being fair. Having this additional work added makes both attorneys' invoices jump considerably for the time needed to review and advise upon. Finding out about an affair is almost always an open door invitation for this expensive, time consuming next step.

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I'm Ready To Take Control of My Divorce!

According to Chicago attorney Raiford Dalton Palmer, Partner at STG Divorce Law, P.C., "It is important to know that affairs don't matter much to courts in many states - the "why" of a divorce is not important in Illinois, for example. Parties can't even mention cause for divorce in their pleadings (other than 'irreconcilable differences'). The only impact an extramarital affair has in terms of the nuts and bolts of divorce is financial in Illinois - that is, if the relationship involves waste of marital assets, the portion owned by the other spouse can be recovered. Note that in other states, however, an affair can be a very big deal to a court - leading to a denial of alimony, unequal division of assets, et cetera. As with anything like this, consult an experienced divorce lawyer in your area for legal advice."

So while it may not matter that much in impact on the settlement, it WILL matter in how long and expensive the process is to get there. 

Affairs are Tricky

An extramarital affair fulfills a need that many people in failing marriages desire but come with implications that aren’t necessarily legal based.  It’s easy to read what the attorneys say and think it’ll be okay to go ahead with a fling.  I encourage you to consider the collateral damage that comes with an affair before engaging in one, exposing it or becoming too casual about the relationship if you have not yet filed for divorce.  If the affair is already out in the open, it's important to continue to walk the path of divorce with dignity and respect for your partner that you are divorcing. They are having big emotions through the process and finding out about an affair tends to make people dig in their heels and fight more out of spite and hurt feelings.

​~Katie
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