Divorce Support Forums: Is it possible to sue my husband's mistress?

[quote] I wouldn't do it personally, I have way too much going on in my life and I'm ready to move on. [quote]

I think this is the most important thing here. As emotionally satisfying as some scorned spouses might THINK it's going to be, to sue the spouse's parramour, it's going to be a HUGE problem of learning to let go & move on. Being involved in a lawsuit requires a huge commitment of time and emotion, it requires learnign how to express and sometimes exaggerate your feelings of injury. It is all-confuming and often diminishes the participants.

One of my best friends was sued by a sue-happy neighbor. The neighbor's kid tried to climb the fence my friend maintained between the house and when he fell off onto a concrete piling that ended up with a trip to the hospital, the family sued. They wanted my friend's house, MILLIONS, way more than the insurance would pay. The insurance offered 10K for it. My friend spend the 2 years of the litigation totally freaked out and worried that they'd lose the house.

The neighbors spend the entire two years talking about how damaged thier child was, how he'd lost part of his childhood by spending a few weeks away from school & getting a few surgeries & having to do rehab (he was 100% back to normal after two months of rehab, was back to school 2 weeks after the accident). They spent the next TWO YEARS talking about how awful it was, how the kid missed out on a huge part of his life. THe kid learned how to bring up tears and say how he missed his class play (or whatever stupid thing he missed during that time he was out).

They had him out of school for more doctor's visits, depositions, hearings. They had him in a wheelchair longer than he needed and would not allow him to re-join the football team, in case they might lose thier lawsuit if he proved he coudl enjoy life again.

It was sad. The neighbors eventually moved from the neighborhood because none of the neighbors could believe that they were waging this WAR over an admittedly difficult injury

Then they lost thier case. (my friend has been so emotionally drained by this that she's just withdrawn from socializing in the neighborhood this past few months... just exhausted and relieved, I guess.) But for our former neighbors? No one has heard from them, since. I can only imagine that this kid who had to take two weeks off school because he fell off a fence HE was climbing... and then spent the next two years talking about how horrible his life was because of this injury... he has missed two years worth of LIFE and FRIENDSHIPS over that 2 weeks worth of time off school! And he's just 12... in his own lifetime, two years is HUGE.

Suing a mistress for daring to sleep with a married man might feel satisfying, but waht would be the price of the suit? In emotional growth and development? In SOCIAL moving forward and learning to DEAL with it? A lawsuit encourages people to exaggerate the fact that they can NOT deal with something, so figuring out how to deal with it just won't happen if you sue... Heck, I guess the same could be said about people who won't settle thier divorce cases and continue to drag it out to get this detail or that litigated in front of a judge.

MUCH better to think, "I have way too much going on in my life and I'm ready to move on."