People decide to divorce and already consider themselves free. Why a relationship started while you're still legally married to someone else is doomed.
I often run into this in consultations: people have decided to get divorced, and from that moment on they consider themselves entirely “free” for new romantic adventures.
They start going on dates and sleeping with someone else.
The logic being: what matters is my decision to separate from my husband or wife, and all those official divorce papers are nonsense, a mere formality.
Without realising it, these people are dooming themselves to suffering later on.
First of all, I’ve never come across a situation in a marriage that couldn’t be repaired. That’s why I always argue for saving the family, if both people want it.
But if you have already decided to divorce, at least wait for the official papers, and only then start looking around.
When you are still officially married (even if only on paper) and you begin a relationship with someone new, that relationship is doomed to fail.
How will you be able to trust a man who was fine with starting a relationship with a married woman? In his value system, sleeping with someone else’s wife is acceptable. Are you sure you want to be the wife of a man like that?
How will you tell your future children the story of how mum and dad met? Mum was still married to another man, but dad asked her out and we started dating?
How will you respect yourself, knowing you had a lawful husband and started sharing a bed with another man?
I could keep adding to this list of questions, but every one of them will be extremely uncomfortable.
Everything I’m writing applies equally to men. Some of them are even quicker to jump into a new romance while still legally married.
I have yet to meet a single couple with a happy relationship that began while one of them was still formally married to someone else.
So from my point of view, it’s better to put a full stop to your old relationship first, and only then start building something new.
You can’t build anything solid on a rotten foundation.
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