I was reading an article in this month's issue of LHJ about this elderly couple who was having marital problems. The husband perceived his flirtations with younger women as harmless and fun. He felt that they would not compromise on his enduring love for his wife. His wife, on the other hand, saw even one of these encounters as a taint in his love towards her.
I know of cases where there was regret that a wrong marital decision had been made and adultery was seen as merely a reaction to it in the absence of divorce. It is not so easy to convince the guilty parties that they are committing an immoral act. In fact, some of its supporters regard the adulterous affair as a more enjoyable 'relationship', since no legally binding commitment can be made towards such momentary pleasures. They tell themselves that they have chosen to remain married to their life partners and thus that is what really matters. They also attempt to downplay their affairs by claiming that they are not going to marry the person they are involved with, and that the affairs are just for fun.
Sadly, they ignore the reality that the other person may possess feelings which are based on genuine love and emotion, and they are being very unfair to him/her. Such people desecrate the sacred institution of marriage and also fail to realise that deep within themselves, they have a phobia towards it.
Indeed, as another article states, they are cowards who fear broaching the subject of the marital problems faced with their husbands/wives as well. If the courage is summoned to do so, then things can be worked out between them, bearing in mind that they must go back to the genuine love which propelled them towards marrying each other.
The same article reports that husbands see their adulterous wives as dirty while wives see their unfaithful husbands with more tolerant and even forgiving eyes. That is unfairly biased. The same act had been committed by both genders. It is probably the fact that their male egos that have taken a blow and this sorely inaccurate perception is the result of it. This perception can be held by wives too, for their information.
Two cases deserve my comment. Both husband and wife had affairs in the first one. The wife wanted to divorce her husband due to his adulterous affair but she conveniently downplayed her own one-night stand on an unconscious level. The length of time may differ between both their acts but the fact remains that both husband and wife were unfaithful to each other. It is merely language that segregate the type. She has no right to ask him for a divorce when she herself was unfaithful.
The husband justified his adultery as hereditary in nature and acceptable in a familial surrounding, in the second case. His own father had committed adultery and his mother, out of love for the family, I presume, had not reacted in an unhappy manner over it. Tragically, this had misled their son, this husband, into thinking that adultery was condoned and he could do the same when he was married. He expected his wife to react to his affairs in the same way his mum had done so to his dad's. His mother must now speak up and tell him that she had accepted his father's adultery out of love, but adultery injures the vow of trust mutually taken by a married couple.
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