Adultery’s wrong but so is giving up on your marriage
THOUSANDS of Britons have spent the week in a cold sweat after news that Ashley Madison, the dating website that specialises i n extramarital liaisons, had been hacked and its users threatened with public exposure.
Some may consider that ‘naming and shaming’ the adulterers would be sweet justice. After all, don’t cheats deserve all they get — all the way to the divorce courts?
That’s how Sarah Gould responded when she discovered her husband had been cheating on her thanks to Ashley Madison.
‘I threw him out the next day and have never looked back,’ she told the Mail this week. Her ‘perfect family’ life was over in an instant, with her sixyear- old son, James, j oining the growing number of children now being raised without a father at home.
Her hunger for revenge is understandable. For many spouses, infidelity is still an instant deal breaker. Hence the new trend in prenuptial agreements with a ‘fidelity clause’ stipulating that if your spouse has an affair, you get everything.
Yet I can’t help feeling that wronged spouses often act too hastily and — dare I say it? — obsess too much about a sexual betrayal that needn’t necessarily spell the end for a relationship.
I know that as well as anyone, having booted my unfaithful ex-husband out 25 years ago. For years, I blamed the breakdown of our marriage on his affair.
Only later did I concede that perhaps I had not put the energy and care into fighting for our marriage that I should have — before and after I learned of his betrayal.
Affairs make us martyrs. As victims, we believe we occupy the moral high ground. We rage and scream at the injustice of our lot. And yes, adultery is wrong. But I believe it’s also wrong to rush to end a marriage in its wake.
With time, you may find a way to forgive, to remain a couple, and to build a better future together.
It worked for David and Victoria Beckham, the Clintons, John and Norma Major, Paul and Alex Hollywood. And I admire them hugely for it. God knows, it can’t be easy — all the more so when the affairs become so public.
Among your friends and family, you may know of many such marriages that have survived.
Ashley Madison’s motto is: ‘Life is short. Have an affair.’ Wrong. Life isn’t short. So don’t cheat. Most of us will live well into our 70s and beyond — and a moment of sexual transgression could result in a miserable and lonely old age.
Yes, for a marriage to endure 50 years or more takes hard work. But we owe it to ourselves, and to our children, to make the effort, even when life’s not perfect.