While the answer to this question is entirely circumstantial you consider a few things about divorce and the reasons why people get divorced. Most marriages are over long before the divorce is finalized. Relationships that you once centered your entire life around slowly lose the flame that once sustained them. Marriages that were once passionate and loving, become tedious, dull, and perfunctory. What's worse is that we mourn their passing even as we wake up in the same bed with one another. We can see that bond fading and we lack the energy or inclination to make it happen. Relationships themselves have a life. And lives have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not all relationships were meant to last forever, and this is as true of marriages as it is of any other kind of relationship.
Should you divorce after the affair
So if you're asking yourself if you should divorce after an affair has happened you need to think back to the preceding paragraph. Was your marriage fading? Was the spark that once tied the two of you together now too dim to sustain the effort to make it work? Or did something else happen. Did you grow apart because of life complications. Did work take you away from one another. Were you at a particularly vulnerable time in your life or were they at a particularly vulnerable point in theirs? People don't talk about midlife crises as if they're real things, but so many marriages nowadays do not survive the point at which the kids have moved out and are all off to college or establishing lives for themselves. Husbands and wives at this point often end up looking outside the marriage for stimulation, and it really is stimulation that they're after. They've just spent 20 years or more being responsible adults, holding down jobs, and raising however many kids. Now is their time to get back out there and have some fun. So once the kids are gone, the illusion that a married life is for them simply fades away, and so many times that ends up culminating in divorce. Divorce after infidelity should be seriously considered, but it shouldn't be the only reason for the divorce. Nowadays, cheating doesn't necessarily mean that the marriage is over. The marriage being over generally results in cheating. So spouses make the decision to cheat based on the fact that their relationship has run its course and there's nothing left to share with the other person. Religious beliefs on the subject notwithstanding, there is nothing really wrong with this. Most couples can remain cordial after the divorce and even behave nicely toward one another at family gatherings. If novelty is what they're looking for, but you don't have the same needs where new stimulation is concerned, then that's where the problems and hurt feelings come into play. More often than not the fading of the relationship is recognized by both parties in advance and the decision to vacate the marriage is more or less mutual. The key to sustaining a good relationship with the ex after the marriage is over is openly discussing your feelings with them and being honest about your needs. So if you're thinking about running around behind their back and elaborately lying, then you're not going about any of this the right way.
