Peeps, before you exhaust yourself getting a thief, a liar, a cheat to admit to the truth, think about the following: Do you really think your thief, liar, cheat will actually admit to the truth?- Better yet, will you actually believe what your offender says?
- Does it really matter? If you are willing and ready to forget, why do you need to know the truth? What good will the truth do?
- More importantly, can you handle the truth? You sure that the truth will set you free or get you into another frenzy?
What triggered the reflection? Friend No. 3 just added to my list of friends having marriage woes. And all three simultaneously have the itch -- no, the obsession -- of having their husbands admit to having affairs. Sorry, but I just have to ask: What’s with that?!
And what gives me the right to exclaim such? Experience. I went down that path before and it didn’t get me anywhere. Correction. It did lead me to some things. More frustration. More bitterness. Separation.
I’m beginning to think that if couples want to stay together, sometimes the road less travelled -- not knowing the truth or not wanting to know the truth –- is the way to go.
I am not perfect. Never had the illusion that I was, am, and will ever be perfect. And because I know I am not perfect - that I err – I make an effort to give people slack for their own errors and imperfections.
That is why I just blew off the roof when my friend went ballistic against her sister. It’s not that I condone what my friend’s sister is doing. What I wasn’t feeling was my friend beating up her sister for something my friend herself has done – having an affair! Not just once, in the seven years that I’ve known her.
Not one to mince words, I told my friend exactly what was on my mind. And this was what my friend had to say about her sister: “Her case is different than mine. She’s doing this just to entertain herself. I know her husband. He’s good looking. He’s intelligent. He’s nice. He’s a good person. And my sister agrees. And she says that she loves him. That is why I am furious. She is risking losing what is good in her life.”
My friend has a point. But it still didn’t feel right. It felt like she was now justifying her own affairs. I know her husband and I wouldn’t have a husband like him. But spouses’ flaws, whether real or imagined, are they reasons to have affairs? Are they reasons or are they excuses -- excuses for one’s own flaws?
If a relationship is not working out, if a partner is not working out, wouldn’t the more decent thing to do be to go separate ways (temporarily or permanently) before “exploring people” and having affairs? Isn’t it a sign of one’s own weakness to be having affairs while lingering in a supposedly dysfunctional relationship because your partner makes threats, because you want to have the best of all worlds, or because you need a back up plan as you can’t handle being alone on your own?
I guess I’ll never know the answers until I am in such a situation myself. And believe me, being in that situation is not in my shortlist of dreams and wishes. Till then, I will just continue giving people the slack that I hope will be accorded me when it is my turn to need it.
A good friend of mine, my age, married for the last 23 years or so, with two kids (one in post graduate studies, the other about to go to college), called me one work night and threw me a bomb: "My husband is having an affair!"
Come the weekend, a co-worker sent me an email: "My husband slept with the nanny!"
Having been on the receiving end of such scenarios, I got really caught up in my girl friends' plights. And once again, I was thrown into a conundrum of lies, anger, pain.
Why do people in relationships have affairs? How can people be "intimate" with more than one person at the same time? Can someone really be "in love" with more than one person? How can one even think of hurting someone he/she loves?
I do not have the answers. All I know is that, these things do happen, rightly or wrongly. And that, knowing the pain and brokenness these can cause, I can only pray that I do not get to be on the giving end and be the other woman. Why? It's like having all guns pointed right at you. You're faced with bearing everyone's pain -- the wife's/girlfriend's, the kids' (if any), your lover's (if love is real), and yours. Now, why would anyone want that?
I mean, really. Think about it.
