Letters to the Editor
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what's going on?
The oldest story in history. Cary nailed it. Listen to him.
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This part is important:
Then your life will become hell, I promise you, because I have seen many go through it. And nobody involved will behave in a predictable manner.
The LW seems to be forgetting these other women actually exist in a world other than the moments they are with him. They are not players in his little drama, or pieces on a board. They are living, complex creatures with fully developed lives, including their own family members or even husbands.
They can "tell" you it's all fun and games - until someone gets attached, or forgets to renew that prescription for psych meds.
My husband cheated on me a lot during our marriage. He thought I didn't know, but at some level I did. And it made it impossible for me to feel safe enough with him to continue a healthy sex life. He finally fell in love with one of his lovers, ending our marriage.
I often wonder if he'd held me in higher regard, if our marriage would have had a chance. But I never did know what it was like to feel safe with him, so our marriage was doomed.
I've been single a long time, in part because trust is still so damn hard after that betrayal.
Act like an adult. Make your choice as Cary says. If you want to stay married, live within the rules. They're what has kept your marriage happy until now.
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How could this happen to a good person like me?
But why wasn't I smart enough to stop it earlier, when we were having drinks and were both giving clear signals to each other?
It's the drinks, stupid. They contain a chemical called ETOH that destroys willpower and makes good people do things that only bad people do.
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Simple answer.
When men aren't having sex, they want sex.
When they're having sex, they want variety. End of story, that's who men are. That's who I am.
It's the male animal instinct to spread one's DNA around as much as possible. Fortunately, we can choose not to be just animals but moral persons.
So what the LW needs to do is to choose to be a moral person. He needs to honor his commitment, his promise, to his wife. That is a sacred thing. We liberals don't talk much about the sacred, and that's too bad. But it's there nonetheless.
So the dude needs to ignore the "little head," and submit to the moral sensibility contained in the "big head." That's all there is to it, and once you get used to ignoring the demands of the "little head," the moral path is clear.
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oh boy
Wow. What a bunch of puritan alarmists!
If in nearly 20 years of marriage he's had a bunch of fantasies and two hasty fumbling make out sessions with other women and still speaks well of his wife, their sex life and their marriage, he's doing pretty damn well. All we're hearing here are slippery slope theories about what a kiss might lead to -- Sex! Devastation! Divorce! Life Long Regret!!
Please.
I think a hell of a lot of marriages would be a lot happier if the people in them struck a better balance between their vows and emotional attachment, and the reality of thinking, feeling sexual beings. Your desire for attention and lust doesn't end just because you take that vow. Rather what begins is the life long process of managing it. We do the best we can. We try not to lie to ourselves, we protect the feelings of others.
The LW can kiss someelse and still love and respect and adore his wife. His own need for attention, for that rush of desire, for newness can coexist with his commitment to his marriage. And he might have a better marriage for it, if he keeps his wits about him, which he seems to be doing.
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He's already ruined it
How good is your marriage now that you have planted these seeds of deceit and betrayal between you and your spouse?
If you really did have a good close marriage where you honestly communicated and trusted one another, you have poisoned that with this conduct. Even if your wife never finds out, you know; and it will be a barrier between you.
You've already crossed the line; you might as well have fucked her.
And the question: "what's my problem?" is plain and you know it. You're weak and selfish. All men lust, you succumbed. And the best Cary could do was to tell you was to avoid situtations that will test your weak virtue again. It's like telling an alcoholic to stay away from liquor; it's an obvious tack at first, but sooner or later you're gonna have to address the bigger issues because liquorand wine, like women, are ubiquitous.
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@ P. Goodwill
"His own need for attention, for that rush of desire, for newness can coexist with his commitment to his marriage."
This is nonsense. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
By the way, do you expect your spouse to date others? You cool with that?
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We get it, Cary...
Adultery is baaaaaaad! Baaaaaaaaad!
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In the end
Anyone who can look back on their lifetime of marriage with the benefit of hindsight and say that their greatest moments of infidelity were a couple of tipsy makeouts with cute chicks back around the time of their midlife crisis (since the timing is about that, isn't it?) can give themselves an "A", especially if grading on a historical and societal curve.
And anyone's spouse, looking back from a similar halcyon perspective, is going to roll their eyes and think, you know, that certainly could have been worse.
After all, even Jimmy Carter committed adultery in his heart.
The hard part is making sure that there were only ever a couple of these encounters, right? And staying out of the trap of saying, "Well, 'a couple' could mean three.. or several really... what's the harm in one more?"
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Adultery IS bad
not because of some crap someone wrote and said it came from "god", but because most of the time the results are pretty horrendous.
If it's an open marriage, it's not "adultery". Adultery carries with it the lies, secretive meetings, shortchanging one another, injecting a tone of negativity into a marriage.
Lightening will not come from on high. The destruction is nonetheless the same. In my case, the other "woman" was very young, and she was quite confused and madly in love and devastated by his promises. She was married, too, with a young son who suffered from her lack of attention while she juggled her marriage and her affair.
My son was devastated by the fighting and discord at home. It's tough to keep it together when your husband sorta just doesn't come home all night. I was destroyed emotionally as the man who I considered my best friend lied and manipulated me so he could continue living at home with his son while carrying on as if this woman was his destiny.
It was almost amusing how his friends fell for the "star crossed lovers" thing and offered their homes and lies so it could continue.
In the end, two marriages were broken up, two kids were devastated, four adults went through hell, friends were torn, family members embarrassed and hurt.
Adultery is bad. Not because someone told us so during Sunday school, but because of the harm it causes.
If you want to fuck other women, marry someone who doesn't mind, or don't be married. Lying isn't good for anyone.
This isn't rocket science.