The Perils of Infidelity

Yesterday I was reminded just how upsetting it can be when someone discovers their partner has been having an affair.

All the talk at my sons cricket club was of the previous Sunday when a fight erupted between two of the fathers and the police had to be called and both men were arrested. We weren’t at the club last weekend when it all happened, but of course everyone was talking about it, and the closest friend of the woman involved was being grilled by all the other mothers about what had happened in the week since.

One of the boys mothers (I know her quite well though her son is in a younger age group than my son), had become involved with another husband and had, apparently been seeing him for some months. Her husband had somehow found out and came storming into the clubhouse, half way through the day, looking for the other man. I’d always thought that he was a quite a nice, laid-back, easy-going sort of guy (and his wife is very pleasant, very chatty and always bustling around helping out with everything, though she hadn’t turned-up that morning). But apparently her husband had completely lost his temper and just flew into a rage and attacked the “other” husband. “His” wife and children were there and, from what everyone was saying yesterday, it all got very nasty and upsetting.

Obviously none of either family were at the ground yesterday, but apparently the woman involved has had to leave her house, and take her children with her, to move in with her parents. No one seems to know what has happened with the other couple yet.

It’s all very sad . . . But with all the girls sitting around just talking about nothing else, I was wondering to myself just how many of them may have had some sort of fling at some time. Most of the gossip was about the affect it would be having on the families and children and especially on the “other” wife. And, of course, all the sympathy was with her, but there was the occasional little comment, or aside, about how the “cheating” husband was “quite hunky” and had a certain way about him. Or, of course, the occasional “well I’ve never trusted him” sort of comment.

I’m not being smug . . . or trying to appear superior . . . because I genuinely did like both of the other women involved, and I do really feel sympathy for the situation they both must now find themselves in. (Over the past year one of my work-colleagues has been going through terrible hardships and turmoil with a really spiteful divorce that has split-up her family and meant they’ve had to sell the family home. Her children alternate between her and her ex-husband on a fortnightly basis. And the man she was having an affair with, just refused to have anything more to do with her, once it all got discovered. I know it has been terribly stressful for her and it has changed her life, and even her personality, completely. And a similar situation for a close male acquaintance, has had a similar affect on him. He became very depressed and emotional after he found out that his partner of five years or so, had been spending business trips away with her boss for almost the same length of time).

So I do know from close personal experience how upsetting, and life-changing, these things can be. But I just found some of the comments from the other girls yesterday to be the sort of things that perhaps we all feel we “have to say” in certain situations. I’m sure that they all must from time-to-time have found themselves attracted to someone else and thought about “it”. I found myself thinking, that some of them at least, had a certain sense of “envy” for our other mother’s “adventure” and some of them were being hypocritical and self-righteous in the extreme. And yet, I was annoyed at myself, because I felt I couldn’t voice those thoughts aloud. I couldn’t tell these other mothers about what I really thought, or what I do occasionally in my private life, because of course it isn’t the accepted or done thing and I had to protect my privacy and that of my family in the surroundings and environment I was in at the time.

And then talking about it with J last night, (which inevitably led to wonderfully passionate “cuddles”), we talked about S’s wife and why I no longer get the little flashes of guilt that I used to. We both know and have seen the way she treats him, and virtually humiliates him in front of other people. And we both know how wrong she is and how nice and genuine he really is.

So what I suppose I’m trying to say is that I know our lifestyle isn’t accepted as the norm, but oh how much simpler and perhaps much better for people it would be, if it was more accepted by society. I enjoy sex and I love the freedom and excitement of knowing I “can” if I want to . . . but if people WERE able to talk to each other much more openly and tell each other what they really like and what they really want, then perhaps they wouldn’t find themselves embroiled in such moments of jealousy and upheaval over what, after-all, is supposed to be an enjoyable and simple and exciting and fulfilling physical and emotional exchange between two people.

I sincerely hope it all works out for both of the families.



Best wishes - Edith
http://www.scarletsecrets.co.uk/edithsdiary