Would you leave your spouse under these circumstances?

[bleedingheart]

Poll question: Would you leave your spouse under these circumstances?

(disclaimer..I am not leaving my husband..this thread is inspired by the Judy Guiliani story and what happened to a friend/coworker of mine's mother..)

While I write this from a woman's perspective...it could apply to either sex..

Let us say that your current financial situation is rocky...you are middle class but struggling to get by and it never seems like there is enough cash for the things you or your kids need. You love your spouse but not in the honeymoon phase way...more like the we are good partners and lovers...

Then...you get a job working for a new company...a bit more money to help out and you are feeling better about the new situation. This job however puts you in contact with one of the Vice Presidents...a guy who makes a great deal of money and is already well off...you don't work directly for this person.

However this VP is attracted to you and you find yourself going to lunch and perhaps spending some time talking at work with him about all kinds of topics.

Let us say a year passes...you still kind of love your spouse but you find that you are just as attracted and very likely in love with the VP however he is pressing you for more (let us say for sake of argument..you have been friends but no sex has been involved). He wants to be with you and has even put marriage on the table...(let us say that the VP is single in this case)...he has promised you the moon and the stars and he is ready to leave this company for a more lucrative offer elsewhere...$10 million in stock options...luxury living..etc)...all you have to do is leave your spouse and come away with him to the famed "casbah"....

Now remember...your marriage isn't a wreck...it is just a normal..ups and downs situation...
The only difference between your current spouse and the prospective one should you leap...is the money...the guy/gal is loaded and your life will make a sudden upturn for the better...

Would you do it?

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Nope

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear bleedingheart...

I would absolutely not leave my husband in this situation!

To leave an established and loving marriage for a precarious union? Crazy!

No fucking way!

:hi:

[bleedingheart]

5. I would not either...

however my coworker/friend's mother did leave her husband.

She worked for a rather large company (her first foray into the working world after being at home with the kids)...

She basically ran off with her bosses bosses boss...

The kids (my friend was one) was the recipient of the excessive largesse of her new stepfather but their father was just a wreck over it for years to come...

[lost-in-nj]

35. Once again the voice of reason

I agree with CP....

even though she dropped the F bomb again LOL

lost

love wins over money everytime.......

[skygazer]

3. Well, I doubt it I'd put myself in that position

I avoid any kind of workplace relationships like the plague. I would probably not be having lunch with the guy, especially if it was evident he was attracted to me. And I really think it's a bad idea to leap from one relationship to the next.

[bleedingheart]

7. that is a great piece of advice that many folks ignore

the piece about not putting yourself into that position....many folks do and they regret it later..

[LaraMN]

4. No.

It's not like trading one sock for another, because one has a quarter in the toe.

x(

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. There's a legal term for those who sell various kinds of love for money.

It's not a pretty one.

[liontamer]

8. if you love your spouse, you wouldn't consider it

if you would rather have the money then you're not really happy in the marriage so the faster you leave, the better for everyone.

[pitohui]

9. nope

even if you were the kind of person inclined to sell yourself for $10 million, then a little thought would show that you would have to give up the "sure thing" first as you can't marry the $10 million without divorcing old faithful -- and we all know how often in these circumstances the promised second marriage doesn't come off -- you were only desirable to that type of man when you were unavailable

so even if you're a cold calculating witch it seems it would be a poor bet to leave one's husband on a promise of cash...talk is VERY cheap

[I Have A Dream]

30. Good point, pitohui. n/t

[Brigid]

10. Forget it.

I've never been married (lucky me! :evilgrin: ) but if I do know this much: if you expect marriage to be just one long honeymoon, then you'd better stay single. To me, marriage means you're in it for the long haul. I certainly wouldn't leave my spouse just because we're not rich.

[Dora]

11. To begin with, I wouldn't go to lunch with him.

"your marriage isn't a wreck"

Yeah, right.

If the woman in this situation is compelled to satisfy her "emotional" needs via a clandestine flirtation with a powerful and wealthy man who can offer her an easy out (the fantasy route, no less), then that marriage was wrecked the moment she accepted the invitation to lunch.

IMO, if anybody is that bored or frustrated with the "ups and downs" of their marriage, then s/he needed help long before the wealthy and attractive VP ever entered the picture.

[bleedingheart]

21. in post #5 I provided more information

at least the information I knew from my friend...

What I will say is that I never liked this friend's mother but not for what she did to her hubby...but based on how she treated her kids.

My friend was a young mother herself and was a very intelligent nice person...her mother (the one who left for the richer fellow)...would needle her about her appearance and tell her "you need to lose weight if you are going to keep your man..." etc...

Apparently before she left her husband for this guy...she wasn't like this...but when she married him either she changed or she was this way from the beginning...my friend told me her mother got more glamorous and more fussy about stuff after her second marriage.

I think in her case she wanted more material comforts and she moved to her second husband to gain what she had not had... which is why the Judy Guiliani story made me think about it...

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. If I were already that willing to emotionally detach from my spouse, I might as well go.

The woman here is clearly already emotionally disinvested in her marriage.

She needs to choose her hubby or other guy; but if she chooses hubby, I would hope that she'd suggest some marriage counseling to help her with her feelings and expectations.

If she goes with the other guy, I hope he's smart enough to suggest some counseling for both of them, to help her with her feelings and expectations and clear the water - unless all he's looking for is a few years' of trophy wife by his side before he dumps her, in which case I hope he's smart enough not to marry her or he's gonna have to give up 8-9 million of those stock options to her, either when he dumps her, or, more likely, when she leaves him for the next guy.

[pitohui]

15. do you think counseling ever changes one's feelings and expectations?

i think that an unreal expectation in itself, to be honest

gold diggers don't change, single men who prefer the challenge and distance of an unavailable married woman don't change, or if they do, they're changed by time, not by "counseling"

just my opinion tho

[Rabrrrrrr]

20. Well, you're right, of course, as always - why show a glimmer of hope,

or a ray of sunshine, or any thought whatsoever contrary to the fact that the world is just rigged and stacked and loaded in the favor of everyone else but oneself?

How daft of me.

How silly of me to have laughed earlier today, or have smiled at the small child's playing in the parking lot at lunch. I should have stayed home with the curtains drawn and the furnace turned all the way up to "oppressive" while I sat in a musty closet of self-hatred cutting myself profusely with a Hallmark greeting card that was obviously sent to me out of spite by my "best friend" who is clearly only using me for his own personal elevation and need for abusive control through emotional manipulation of others. I would bleed, but life is meaningless, and so my veins are as empty as the abyss, leaking only the pain of pure psychic and cosmic abandonment.

[Phillycat]

22. Heh.

[jpgray]

29. Hahahahaha!

[Midlodemocrat]

34. .

:rofl:

Dude. :yourock:

[ZombieNixon]

36. Dude...

that's fucking amazing. Even for a Rrrrrrant, that was amazing. :rofl:

[Rabrrrrrr]

39. Thanks!

Even I get tired of the pessimism.

:thumbsup:

[pitohui]

44. how is it amazing? counseling can't change sexual desire, it's a lie and hoax to say it can

i mean what's next, that camp that is supposed to change gay to straight?

face it

counseling NEVER once changed anyone's sexual desires, not once, this is not possible

[Rabrrrrrr]

46. It was amazing because that was some of the fucking best dark poetry

sarcastically offered to an over-the-top and nonsensical response that's ever appeared on DU, baby!

:thumbsup:

IMO, anyway.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

41. ...

:rofl: :toast:

[pitohui]

43. counseling isn't about a glimmer of hope, it's about gnawing on one's pain

i think the real glimmer of hope is to move forward courageously but that's just me?

i'm surprised that my question got such an over reaction, it was an honest question, as i've never seen anyone helped or changed by "counseling," it's a jobs program for counselors

you cannot change who you desire sexually by counseling and anyone who says they can change that...is a liar

[Rabrrrrrr]

45. And saying that I said that counseling can change sexual desire is.... lying.

Or, at best, eagerly engaging in erroneous evasionary eisegesis and especially equivocation.

You received such an extreme answer because your post had so little - no, scratch that, utterly nothing - to do with what I posted, and YOUR post was extreme and over the top considering that to which you were responding.

Perhaps you read individual words well. You seem to not quite "get it" when lots of them are strung together into sentences, though.

At least, this time you sure didn't.

[u4ic]

13. First of all,

that's the daughter's perception of the marriage, not necessarily the mother's. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. There could be much more to it; the marriage may have had a lot of issues, or been in trouble and she didn't know about it.

If so, jumping to another relationship is not the answer.


Having said that, there's no fucking way I would do that, nor would I do the opposite gender equivalent and leave my spouse for a younger model.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Trading up --- how could it be a bad thing?

Unless you have minor children who will learn that money is worth more than love, or you find that other than money the new spouse is a step down from your current spouse, or you get dumped in a few years when the rich husband finds a new greatest love of his life....et cetera.

Of course, everything could turn out peachy in your new life.


Me, I'd rather stay with the old shoe.

[ThomCat]

16. Someone who would let that situation develop, and then leave for money

is not ever going to be someone you can trust in a relationship. x(

[idgiehkt]

17. I can't separate my life out from who I am with at the time

Not saying I don't have boundaries, but there is only one reason to be with someone and that is love. So the sentence "your life will make a sudden upturn for the better" kind of didn't make sense to me. It just seems kind of icky. Has the lady said that it was only about money? What if the VP made her feel passion she didn't feel with her husband (of course sometimes that passion is just from the covert operations aspect of having an affair and dissipates when it goes out into the open. My ex's stepmom left his Dad for his Dad's boss, which I think must have been awful.

[TOhioLiberal]

18. Nope...

... I would not.

[cobalt1999]

19. Depends on if you have children.

IMO, children supersede personal wants. No kids, go where you want. Children, cut it off. I have two young daughters and would never do anything to impact their lives that negatively.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. Hmm let's see...Fairytale fantasy or being worthy of trust...

I pick trust.

[Shine]

24. Nope. Having more money doesn't necessarily mean "happily ever after"

[bleedingheart]

26. you are correct...there are a lot of rich miserable people

I had a friend who married well the first time but it was his 6th marriage...

She said that she knew when he was cheating because he would always suprise her with expensive jewelry...stuff that was in the 5+ carat range or more...

She confided in another friend that "once his pecker stopped working I found that he made a great friend and a better husband"....

[Withywindle]

25. No.

I see the temptation, but any woman over the age of 15 who still believes in Prince Charming (who will, of course, be rich) and a honeymoon phase that lasts forever needs to grow the fuck up.

And that's not coming from a place of bitterness. That comes from a place of appreciating realistic love, and a partnership of equals. I'd rather be financially struggling with a true peer and companion than living in luxury with someone who could hold his superior economic status over my head.

[buddhamama]

27. no.

money alone will not make me happy nor will it make a relationship better.

[BlueJazz]

28. No..I wouldn't do it. If I wanted to divorce my spouse and I did it ...

..First...then I would see how things go with the VP.

I believe in the old adage..."Slowly they turn..Step by Step"

[I Have A Dream]

31. No, I couldn't live with myself.

I try not to do anything to anyone that I wouldn't want done to me.

:(

[Nikia]

32. I'd probably stick with my husband

The situation obviously would not be a good one, and I hope that I would have stopped it before it got to that point.
Unfortunately, I could see that sort of thing happening to me. Of course, I'd be naively going to lunch with the VP in hopes that he could get me promoted, not even thinking about the potentila relationship aspect.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[SPKrazy]

38. But if it were grovelbot, would you leave?

:shrug:



:rofl:

[SPKrazy]

37. No, that wouldn't be a good reason to leave

someone for

money is money

if there is love involved still then that should be the consideration.


No, bad reason to leave.

[mopinko]

40. do i have kids?

if yes, probably not moving. no? hmmm. i might.

[mopinko]

42. most of you people are lying to yourself.

i know, it makes the world go round. but i don't think these numbers are for real.

[noamnety]

47. I think it's easy from the outside looking in

to say the woman left a decent marriage because of money.

Only the woman knows for sure whether the marriage she left was basically okay or completely devoid of feeling.

I find it impossible to imagine that "the only difference between your current spouse and the prospective one should you leap...is the money." Two relationships are never really the same, are they? Is that even possible?