Should I tell the affair partner's spouse?

This blog comes from a really good question I was asked recently and one I grappled with myself and have helped many couples work through since:

“…I wrestle with thoughts of why should her life go on as normal & ours is blown apart? Why should she get to live a normal life with her friends & husband & we are trying to reassemble after a bomb has exploded in ours. Several friends have told me I'm mad not to let her husband know.”

So if you have the ability to blow the affair partner out of the water with his or her partner why not? After all, the affair has torn your life and relationship apart and you have been going through the most painful time rebuilding self and possibly relationship. Why should the affair partner just get to go on with their life as though nothing had happened?  They deserve to have to face the consequences of their actions and go through hell too don’t they?

Years ago I actually had to attend a Christmas party with one of my husband’s affair partners (if you haven’t read the other parts of my blog he had 2) and her husband and young children. I was fully aware that a casual word from me to her husband could spark something big and painful.  I gave it a lot of thought and even in the car on the way to the event I was really not sure what I would do – what was the right thing to do.  So I did nothing – even though I had opportunity - which is what I usually do when I don’t know for sure which is the right way to go.

What I do know, away from the emotional pain of that time in my life, is that when you make a decision to do something that will have an impact on someone else’s life like that, you need to check in on your motivation and intention.  What is your reason for taking a particular course of action and what do you want to see from it?

Honestly checking in with yourself on that and then examining your answer is key to whether you should do it or not.   

If you find your answer coming from a place of love and compassion for the affair partner and his or her partner then go for it. But to be honest I am having a hard time right now thinking of an example of what that might be. Right back at the start of the affair recovery journey you set a boundary with the affair partner and cut them out of your life so you could rebuild without the threat of them hanging over you or your relationship.  A boundary with an affair partner is a solid brick wall you cannot see around or through or over. Once you have set a boundary with the affair partner their lives are now totally inconsequential to you.  Your best path to healing is genuinely keeping at that distance and not caring whether they are happy or sad or facing the consequences of their actions or not.

So it is more likely that you will find the motivation and intention comes from a place of revenge – wanting to see them hurt the way their behaviour has hurt you and your relationship.  Wanting to see them pay the price for what they did, face the consequences and definitely not wanting to see them at all happy while you are still in so much pain.

A key step in the process of working towards acceptance is to give up the need for revenge.   Revenge may give voice to your pain but it will not provide peace.  The goal of revenge is to crucify the offender.  The goal of acceptance is to find your best self again.  Revenge fantasies or actions do not help you heal and are best dealt with in the same way you would deal with an obsessive thought. 

Whilst I was in the midst of affair emotional turmoil it was sometimes hard to think through the pain, what would be the best course of action. Something that helps with this is to keep focused on your own healing.  Ask yourself the question “How is this going to help me heal?”  And if the answer is “it’s not” then don’t do it or let it go, because focusing on things that don’t help you heal, won’t make you feel better and will only prolong your own pain in the long run.