Why do you call your thread Dating Too Soon?
You should rename it My 3 year affair that started when I was married

Yeah, I can relate to your situation, as the first woman I met after my divorce was also bad news, but it sure did not feel like it at the time. Because I was not really ready to date, and still had the "marriage" concept in mind, I became too involved with her before really figuring out who she was, and then I felt bad about breaking up with her. And when I did break up, I felt bad and sad, both of which came more from my neediness than from her being good for me (she was not).

It took a lot of time alone, as well as casual dating, to learn how to not be needy and what to look for in a partner. One thing I learned was to run away from the first red flag, instead of saying "well, no one is perfect, you have to settle, blah blah". Dating is all about finding compatibility, not trying to force fit a match.

Time alone is a very good thing!

AGG

AGG
This is not dating.
This is an affair that is dying.
There is a MAJOR difference

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

AGG

GodGiveMeStrength, I appreciate your comments. What you say about Dr. Harley's methods for bringing a spouse out of Withdrawal are true, and I believe in them. I wish I had known about them at the time. I also wish I had known about his strategy for handling affairs, and I see now that I should've handled things differently and put more pressure on my wife to stop seeing the other man. We were in counseling for that, both secular and pastoral, and she agreed to stop contacting the other man, but it wouldn't last. I did not want to share details with friends & family, I guess because I wanted to protect her? I know that sounds dumb now that I understand Dr. Harley's approach, but at the time, I was doing what I thought was best. When I reached the breaking point, I gave up and said I'm done with this marriage. As I wrote before, I didn't want to break up the family, so I stayed until the kids were older. In hindsight, during that time I could've tried to save my marriage, but that's not the way it happened. I simply gave up.

I'm bothered by the fact that several posters feel that I had an affair by dating while legally separated. I don't feel like I had an affair, but the fact that others do bothers me. I'm open to being proven wrong, but in order to do that, I need to understand why my thinking is wrong. Can you please help me?

In your post, you wrote "this situation is not unique or special" and that you've read "thousands and thousands of threads...each one almost identical to your relationship." Can you please share with me the links of just a couple of threads that have situations similar to my own? Reading what others have gone through might give me some additional perspective on my own case. The characteristics that I'm interested in are:

• unrepentant wayward wife
• husband stayed in marriage for the sake of the kids
• when kids were old enough, husband moved out, obtained a legal separation, filed for divorce
• laws of state require waiting period between separation and granting of divorce
• husband started dating after separation but before divorce was granted
• laws of state permit dating while legally separated

"Thousands and thousands" might have been an exaggeration, maybe not, but I'm sure you've read a lot. If you can please link me to a couple situations with characteristics similar to the above, maybe not exactly but close, I'd really be interested in reading about what others have gone through. Thanks.

Prisca, Markos, and Alis, I also appreciate your thoughts. Not because they kept me up a lot last night! but because they make me question whether what I did was right or wrong. Before you guys posted, I believed my dating situation was ok, but now I'm wondering... If you decide to help me figure this out, I would really appreciate it, and Alis, I already appreciate your first response.

Your posts prompted me to ask myself, "why do I feel that what I did is not wrong?" If you guys believe that what I did was wrong, then in order for me to believe it, I need to understand why my thinking is wrong. And in order to understand that, I need to explain my thinking to you. Please know that I'm not trying to attack your beliefs, and I'm not trying defend my beliefs; I simply want to explain my thinking so that you can see it and correct me if I'm wrong.

When I quoted Dr. Harley and pointed out his use of the terms "emotional divorce" and "legal divorce", I also had in mind similar but opposite terms, emotional marriage and legal marriage. I think couples can be either or both. In other words, if a foreigner pays a US citizen to marry them so that they can gain citizenship with the understanding that they'll divorce a year later, I think that is a legal marriage but not an emotional one; I think that even though they were legally married, they weren't really married. I also think a couple can stand before a group of people, make sincere vows of lifetime commitment to each other, and care for each other with a Buyer mentality the way Dr. Harley advocates. I think that couple is married emotionally but not legally. (I imagine before paper and printing and written contracts and all that, this is how marriages were done; just a guess though, I don't really know.) Anyways, I suppose there will be disagreements with what I wrote, but that is what I believe.

If you read Alis's earlier reply, she was helping me discern the difference between legal and moral definitions of marriage and adultery. What I'm trying to understand is the rationale behind using both a legal definition of marriage and a moral definition of adultery. It seems that you (collective you, not you personally) should either apply legal definitions to both, or not apply legal definitions to either.

What I mean by that in my case is, it seems that I'm being held to the legal definition of marriage while at the same time being held to a moral definition of adultery. Even though I was emotionally divorced, legally separated, and my marriage was essentially over except for the waiting period, I was still married because I was still legally married and therefore I commited adultery, not because it's illegal but because it's immoral.

If I lived in a state where the waiting period is only 6 weeks, my divorce would've long been granted and I don't think you would have a moral problem with me dating 10 months after my separation. It seems odd that my situation would be deemed moral or not depending on which state I live in.

The last thing that I lost sleep over last night concerning your belief that I had an affair, is that it was my ex-wife's involvement with another man that caused the break-up of my marriage. That was a very hurtful thing to go through, and to be accused of doing what my ex-wife did doesn't feel right. I don't know how to put it into words, but there's a difference between what she did and what I did, and when you say that I had an affair, it feels like you're putting us in the same category.

That is an interesting argument and made me stop to think:

If your WW was "emotionally divorced" from you while you were still "legally" married then was it really an affair since she was "emotionally" divorced? Was it just "legally" an affair but not "emotionally" an affair and so not morally wrong?

What do you think?


I like this logic because I can twist it around to justify whatever I like.

Every wayward spouse that comes to MB is "emotionally divorced".

Where I live, there is no legal separation. You are either married or divorced. So, I really don't have the concept of "separation dating etiquette" except to say that you are still married, still required to interact with your current wife (even if it's just in a courtroom), while dating another woman.

I don't really comprehend how choosing to be "emotionally divorced" is okay for you, but it wasn't okay for wife. I'm sure she told her other man that she was emotionally divorced yet you'd beg to disagree.

Perhaps you might try calling the radio show and ask Dr. Harley to explain why dating while married is a bad idea and considered adultery.

That's a good point Pokerface, was she or wasn't she emotionally divorced? I obviously was not meeting some of her EN's or was causing LB's or both - so was she in the state of Conflict or Withdrawal? My guess is she was probably vacillating between the two, getting some of her EN's met at home and others away.

An important difference is that while she was seeing the other man, we were living together, in counseling trying to work on our marriage, no moves toward divorce. When I started dating, counseling had stopped, we were living in separate dwellings, divorce papers had been filed, and it was a matter of when, not if.

Hi Alis, choosing to be emotionally divorced was not ok with me, and at the time, I didn't even know about the concept, so it wasn't really a choice. When I learned about the concept from this website, I realized that that's the state I was in. I agree with you and Markos that that state is horrible.

Being emotionally divorced was probably not ok for my ex-wife either, but I don't think she knew about the concept either.

Please let me add that now that I understand the Three States of Mind in Marriage, I would work very hard to maintain the state of Intimacy. Being in the state of Withdrawal without understanding what it was, was very paralyzing for me. I didn't know what to do.

BTW, I guess divorce laws really ARE different depending on where you live. Once separated, I did not have to interact with my ex-wife at all. The divorce was handled by attorneys, and until my daughter's graduation from college this year, I hadn't seen, nor heard, nor emailed, texted, nothing from my ex-wife since I saw her at my son's high school graduation which occured during our separation.

Where I live, the legal separation is a document filed in court that says a couple intends to divorce and it allows for the protection of assets so that, for example, one spouse can't take money from a joint account and hide it. The legal separation is also what allows a couple to date other people before the divorce is final; without the legal separation, one spouse could use adultery against the other spouse in the divorce proceedings.

Absolutly: I will give you an example of only one succes and examples of many failures. (Just read SAA and the failures stare you down). Here is a great post by Brainhurts: Affairages

MelodyLane is a success, and the only reason is her FWH and she found MB. Her current marriage began when she still legally married. Her thread and her posts will demonstrate to you the only way she was able to save this marriage was because they implemented PORH and POJA and her FWH was able to do EPs. She is one of the only ones I know that have been a success.

Failures: Search these threads ... there is excellent advice in them

Affairages Radio Programs

hubb1's thread

Concerning dating while married (affairages also)
Dating while married
Woman legally married dates man who is now cheating on her.
This woman is dating while married to a man who wanted to save the marriage.
Another woman dating while married.

I will see if I can also find radio broadcasts where Dr. Harley discusses this notion. If you read SAA what is the #1 excuse the wayward uses to justify their affair? "We were emotionally divorced"

It doesn't matter if you are secular, religious, sane, or insane: Dating while married demonstrates "TWO" key facts.

1) The partners do not respect marriage
2) The partners have poor boundaries around the opposite sex

The reason this stance is taken on this forum is for the sole purpose that anyone can justify walking out on their spouse ("emotional divorce") I guess you call it ... Dr. Harley is a staunch advocate that logic should suffice here (especially with children involved)...The spouses should do whatever it takes to save the marriage. It usually starts with one spouse bringing the other spouse back from withdrawal. There are two ways to do this: Meet the spouses most important emotional needs and avoid all lovebusters.

You can make all the excuses in the book ... but my question still remains what are you going to do now?

You have been armed with logic ... are you going to use it? Or just flop around making excuses for dating women who are not good quality. It is your choice. You can date a woman who thinks dating a married man is acceptable.

You have been warned ... adultery is your near future. It is your life and it is your choice.

Your wife was "emotionally divorced" when she had her affair that destroyed your marriage. A lot of waywards are.

So, she didn't do anything wrong, right?

You are being lumped into the same category as your wife because you are just as guilty. I'm sorry if that makes you feel bad but I am not going to sugarcoat it for you. The truth is:

1. You were married.
2. You sought romantic enjoyment with members of the opposite sex while still married.

Just like your wife.

The law doesn't define morality. The law could very easily allow for open marriages, just as it allows for dating while seperated. Just as it allowed for owning a slave 200 years ago. Doesn't make it right, or wholesome, or healthy.
Laws change. Morality doesn't.

I would really appreciate it if you would stop using Dr. Harley's concepts of the state of withdrawal and emotional divorce to justify your having dated while married. It is taken wildly out of context to justify something Dr. Harley would never advocate.

Right, and the obvious question is who gets to define what is moral and what is not?

Most legal separations have the statement along the lines of "from this day forward we will live as two single persons", which to me implies the ability to date others with a clear conscience. That is a far cry from a wayward spouse who brings in another person into a marriage, especially without their spouse being aware of the extra person. That is an affair - the lies, the deceit, the cheating. There is no cheating or deceit if the couple has already parted ways and separated. It may not be wise (and usually is not, because people need time to heal), but it's not cheating.

Now, I hear you about the "morality" of dating while still legally married, but again, that is subjective. You may think that it's not OK to date until you are divorced, but that after the divorce it is OK to date and marry. And that is fine for you. But the Catholic Church thinks that that would be adultery as well, so should we consider anyone who remarries to be an adulterer?

AGG

Actually, ""you're married until you're divorced" is really not subjective.

Actually, it really is. As I said, the Catholic Church considers you married even if you are divorced, so you can never remarry without being an adulterer. I don't happen to subscribe to that mindset, but it shows that what some consider to be moral, others do not. And vice versa.

AGG

You are misrepresenting the Catholic belief. A Catholic would agree with the basic statement that you are married until you are divorced. They add subjective beliefs to that, but in of itself it is a statement of fact.

You are proving my point - folks believe in different things as being "moral" or not, but they are their beliefs, not necessarily others'.

From http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=54:



AGG

This whole discussion reminds me of a philosophy course that I took in college..."Why be moral." We spent 3 entire months going in circles because every argument could be twisted around to shoot down the previous argument.

It got no where and was a complete waste of time.

I agree. That is why I think that the best argument against dating while legally separated is "you are not ready" rather than "it's not moral". I think the former is one that posters can relate to (just ask KL ), while the latter will only cause controversy and not help as much.

AGG