To protect the marriage financially, also take steps to designate a different beneficiary -- probably in trust if you have kids-- for any life insurance, home insurance (you can get caught in both having to sign the check hell), retirement plans, wills, accounts styled "joint tenancy with right of survivorship", cars, boats, --any mechanism whereby someone might have to pay you money in the future needs the beneficiary changed.

Some of those financial arrangements may require the signature of your unfaithful spouse. Execute the plan Lil laid out above, document it, prepare a beautiful notebook in duplicate with color coordinated tabs which contains the relevant information (no kidding on the notebook -- cleanly presented material carries more authority and suggests a pragmatic, organized mind, neither of which your unfaithful spouse is expecting.)

Lay it all out on the kitchen table showing that your unfaithful spouse is as cut off from the marital assets as you can make him/her, then request that he/she sign the remaining documents.

Then be calm, cool and collected. Don't react -- just say like a broken record, "I am doing this to protect the financial future of our family, and I include you in that group. Would you like a cookie?"

When he/she objects, say "these are marital assets and I see you are done with the marriage so it is important to protect them until we get before the judge. Your judgment seems poor these days, so I'm taking on protecting the financial future of our family. If you have an issue with that, I suggest you take it up with the judge as soon as possible."

Judges LOVE to leave things in the status quo as long as it is working -- if you have sole control of the marital assets and are giving your unfaithful spouse enough to live, the judge is unlikely to disturb that so long as you can prove that a studio apartment can be rented for $400 a month, etc.

If you have children, make sure a generous allowance is made out of the marital assets for their support. In other words, don't give your unfaithful spouse any basis on which to go to court screaming that you are a controlling, vengeful jerk out to punish her and the kids by forcing them to live in a dreadful apartment with roaches who keep eating the rice and beans.

Ideally, the kids will be with you most of the time.

Be organized and ready to execute -- if that takes several weeks, that's OK. The goal is for the unfaithful spouse to all at once experience a tsunami of financial drowning. Be calm and confident with the materials you present -- numbers are numbers, and they don't lie. You have X amount of dollars coming in the door and that is it. Now X has to be divided by two households.

Have projections for the costs of college education and what will need to be saved to send your kids to college and a draconian divorce budget to accomplish that. There are lots of websites to help you figure out that number.

Lay out the historical costs you have had for car related expenses -- registrations, fuel, maintenance, insurance andrepair, and do the division.

Same thing for the house -- taxes, insurance, mortgage, utilities, repairs.

My husband and I paid off his half sister's college loans because mom and dad couldn't pay for college after their divorce, my point being when you have kids this is a real issue and should be addressed in the draconian divorced budget.

I've talked to any number of divorced people who have said they would never have gotten divorced had they fully understood the financial consequences to themselves and their kids.

The other thing is retirement. Whatever you have isn't enough, and it is 1/2 of not enough after the divorce. Prepare spreadsheets showing where that ends up in however many years you have to retirement. I THINK that if your wife has been a SAHM, she is dependent on your social security at retirement. If you die, the payments go down to near nothing. Elderly women are the fastest growing group living under the poverty line in the US -- throw that out if you are dealing with an unfaithful wife.

Do a cost of living analysis where you live demonstrating you won't be able to afford to live there anymore and indicate where you think you might be able to live. Highlight the difficulty the kids will experience living in two homes downgraded substantially from the marital home, neither of which can they really call home.

Do a cost of healthcare analysis for both of you, and your kids. If your unfaithful spouse has been on your group policy or the other way around, one of you has to go get insurance after divorce unless it is employer provided.

I think it is a powerful tool, and one I haven't seen used except in a vague way.

Here's my point: the standard of living for children of divorced families goes down. Money that formerly paid for one household now pays for two. Typically, the father's child support isn't substantial enough to keep the working mom and kids in the same socio-economic and education bracket. Resources that an intact family would devote to the kids are being misdirected to apartments and lawyers and furniture and therapists and hobbies and counseling and fast cars with loose women.

I know many here think of exposure as the only meaningful reality check and maybe it is, but I think an Economic Reality Check could be just as powerful.

Just a thought.

Great post and very valuable information. None of these thoughts crossed my mind until the reality hit. I was not prepared and ended up with less than I should have. When I remarry, it will be with a prenup.

Good point CG.

Legally, your spouse will typically have decision making authority surrounding your medical care should you be incapacitated. This is one of those "opt out" situations -- the presumption will be that you want your spouse to make those decisions unless there is a document stating otherwise.

The goal is to (1) protect yourself and your kids and your marital assets, and (2) possibly cause an awakening to the unfaithful spouse that they are OUT and this is what life looks like after that.

Changing the medical proxy is both necessary and a message.

Put it in the notebook and explain to your unfaithful spouse exactly what you have done -- that so long as you are legally married your unfaithful spouse would have had medical authority but based upon his/her uncaring conduct in the affair, you no longer trust him/her with that authority and so you have given it to your brother or whoever.

I gotta say, that would have been a HUGE blow to me -- it is one thing to have an affair and quite another to tell your spouse you don't trust them to make medical decisions that are in their best interests.

ETA: Reality bites. The quicker it bites, the better off everyone is. Bite HARD.