publicly-humiliated-wife-after-affair

You are a father of two young children, a husband, and your world fell apart when you found out after ten years of marriage your wife was having an affair with a coworker for multiple years. That news alone not only rocked the shoe of your marriage, but made you sleep with one eye open—the integrity of the family life you’d bought into, now being called into question. When you discovered racy utterances, clandestine jaunts, alongside an apartment she had available with her extra, you confronted her and eventually selected to reveal her immorality above from tossing her properties at her location of employment. You got divorced since then and now want full custody of your kids.

Even though your anger and grief made sense you now regret how you dealt with it. You are afraid that you went too far, even though what you did stemmed from a terrible place of heartbreak and betrayal. Your journey for healing also involves therapy — so that you can be a better parent and your children are better off staying with you (rather than with someone who is capable of this level of deception). When we say you betrayed us, the question becomes were you right in reacting the way that you did, or were you gone too far by risking her trust in the same breath?

Read for more info Reddit

You are a man who devoted ten years of your life to his wife, and owes it to two small children of that marriage, and suddenly your whole world drops out from under you because you find out your wife has been having a long-term relationship with a coworker. Not only did this revelation shake the pillars of your marriage, but it also shattered the idealism of the family life you had bought into. When you found raunchy texts, trips, and even an apartment that she shared with her paramour, you confronted her and eventually dumped her stuff out front of her work so that she had to walk through the evidence of her betrayal. Fast forward to today, you have filed for divorce and are fighting for sole custody of your kids.

We can or we should respond to those that express personal treachery, like infidelity. Although your response was fueled solely by passion, it also raised broader questions about public accountability and its effect on the parties involved. You are reading Psych, Me five years later So as apologist, let us examine the psychological, moral and legal aspects of your descision.

Psychological & Emotional Effects

Extramarital affairs are the most painful type of treason. Research has shown that the shocking revelation of a partner’s infidelity can cause heightened emotional responses, akin to bereavement or PTSD. Perhaps your control was giving her the public humiliation of exposing her at her workplace. But for relationship therapist Esther Perel, the partner who has been betrayed is often left confused and mortified—so they will try to find a way to regain their dignity, even if it involves “retaliatory” measures.

But public scorchings like you described will backfire in the long run, not just on your wife but on the two of you, and your children as well. Although it might have offered a temporary high, public shaming serves to intensify the confrontation, rendering it impossible for the parties to reach any type of a non-contentious resolution (like a custody arrangement). Also, it can reinforce an unnecessary concern that the image aside due course he would like as other people see you in framework or close friends.

Legal Considerations

Legally speaking, if you are in the middle of a divorce and are considering, a WAR between your wife and you, then humiliating your wife on social media is only going to make your divorce and custody proceedings much harder. Most states now allow judges to consider what they term the ‘best interest of the child’ in custody cases, and impulsive or vindictive conduct may be called into question. In fact, while infidelity can have an effect on spousal support or distribution of property in certain jurisdictions, public shame generally lacks the force of law unless it amounts to harassment, defamation, or emotional distress.

However, if your wife or her employer decided to sue you for the display in her place of business, they could claim that it was a hostile environment. However, certain accusations might not be legally binding unless your conduct was directly menacing or damaging to your reputation. Continue to be calm when taking the next steps, because any further escalation could hurt your case.

Moral and Ethical Reflections

Although your wife had acted deceitfully, the issue remained one of whether public humiliation was the appropriate or productive response. But from an ethical standpoint, some would say that exposing her infidelity would be a good way to hold her accountable for destabilizing your family. To some, the workplace is an unsuitable stage for those types of personal battles, especially around other coworkers who had nothing to do with it.

Public shaming comes with collateral damage and could affect your kids. Some day, their kids are going to read about this incident, and to have it set before them that their parents could not find a way to keep their conflict private — well, that may pile additional confusion or resentment atop the wound. Striking a balance between being held to account and being given discretion is vital, especially in cases involving children.

Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:

While this does not mean that your wife did not get extremely hurtful, you should feel hurt, angry, and betrayed. STOP. Although your reaction was clearly typical of an enraged adult with no prior level-headed anger management training, the spectacle of this response has an excessive tone, especially as it may affect both custody cases as well as your children’s emotional health. You aren’t, by definition, an “asshole”, but it is apparent that, like Jodie, therapy and retrospective-looking will be involved on the way forward.

Looking back, perhaps keeping things private could have done a better job of ensuring that you get the moral advantage while shielding your family from the aftershocks. Your best course of action from here is to focus on the respective emotional health of the kids as they work to navigate this difficult chapter and reenter some semblance of normalcy.