I have received news of another forty-something who has decided to leave his home, his wife and children and follow the trail of another woman/man younger than him.
And there are already so many who have followed this path that I think (another one too!) that it would be good if they set up a club (maybe it already exists, but I don’t know). If it does exist, I’m sure there is a waiting list for new admissions. They must not be able to keep up.
This last acquaintance has used the usual arguments, but his originality lies in how and where to present them: at dinner, in front of the children and without prior anaesthesia. The scene will be difficult for those present to forget.
The phrases are repeated with greater or lesser accuracy:
“I don’t love you any more”.
“I’m not cut out for marriage”.
“I want to live life”.
Let’s analyse them carefully.
“I don’t love you any more”
Right. Infidelity (verbal subterfuge that reduces the moral charge of the word adultery), repeated infidelity, requires a level of selfishness so deep that it is incompatible with love. The adulterer is incapable of loving. No one. Absolutely NO ONE.
I have heard of some who have said “I never loved you” but that seems to me more of a literary device to reinforce their position than a reality.
Of course, you loved her. And you would have given your life for her. But now you have decided to change. To change everything. Change your wife, change your house, some are even willing to change their children. But it is such a violent change – for others and for you – that saying “I never loved you” is a great way to keep your conscience somewhat clear. Freud called it a defence mechanism.
“I’m not cut out for marriage.”
Oh no, what are you cut out for? Celibacy? Ah… not for that either. Then what’s the point? To go from bed to bed? Yes, but no strings attached, right? No commitment.
And it took you more than 15 years of marriage to realise that?
Did you need to have three kids to realise that this isn’t your thing?
Well, let me explain something to you.
You, yes you, are made for marriage. Just like me. And you’re also made for celibacy. Yes, for celibacy. Just like me. And you’re made for whoring. So am I. And you’re cut out to be an extremely kind and nice person. And you’re also made to be unpleasant and unfriendly. Just like me.
The truth is that the human being is, in essence, all potential. We can be in an infinite number of ways. We can make commitments and we can break them. We can be honest or dishonest.
You choose what you want to be.
And you chose to say to your wife, looking into her eyes and in front of dozens of people, “I promise to be faithful to you, to love and respect you … until death do us part”.
And you have chosen to pass your words, your commitment and your choice over the triumphal arch. In the same way that, it seems, you have chosen to pass all those who are willing to collaborate with your “change of heart”.
You have chosen it. That “I’m not cut out for marriage” is a lousy excuse. It’s trying to shift the responsibility for your decisions to “your nature”. There are others who try to blame “upbringing”.
Be a little man. Take responsibility for your decisions.
You are made, if you want, for marriage. And you didn’t need more than fifteen years of cohabitation or three children to realise that “that’s not what I want”, but it only took you one fuck outside the house to realise that you like it better than eating with your fingers. It was too hurtful to your conscience, so you had to build a whole series of excuses (all of them cheap, simple and lame) in order to break away from who you had decided to be, and to become “the new you”.
Your excuses, and your “defence mechanisms” may work for you, but I assure you that they don’t work for anyone else.
“I want to live life”.
Again, you have not been original at all. You all say it, although some people qualify it a little: “I want to enjoy life”. But what does that mean?
Are those of us who remain faithful to marriage and in marriage “dying life”, or are we “suffering life”?
What does it mean to say “I want to live life”? Don’t you realise that it is an absolutely empty phrase? It has no meaning because it is an incomplete sentence.
Finish it! Be brave, finish the sentence!
Say: “I want to live life as selfishly as possible”, or “as immaturely as possible”.
Say “I want to enjoy life by renouncing the responsibilities to which I had committed myself”, or “I want to enjoy life by thinking only of myself”.
Be a man, take your responsibilities. Of course, what I am saying is incongruous. If you assumed your responsibilities, you would not have been unfaithful to your wife and children.
Yes, to your children. Everyone knows that adultery is not only unfaithfulness not only to one’s spouse, but also, in the first degree, to one’s children. To them, we have a tacit commitment to be faithful. That is why most adulterers fight tooth and nail to hide their infidelity from their children. They know that if they find out, it will be an explicit loss of responsibility, honesty and dignity as parents.
That is the curious thing about your case. From the very first moment, you made it explicit, to your wife and to your children. I don’t know if that makes you more coherent or more cruel.
But rest assured that I’m not wrong. I know perfectly well that I’m no better than you. Not one iota.
If you’ve fallen, I could be next. I don’t doubt it.
That’s why I’ve been taking steps for years to prevent falling. Basically, it consists of little tricks that allow me to keep my love for my wife and my children very much alive and very much present. And I can say that they work.
But I want to end with a point of hope. I have known men and women who, having fallen into adultery, into infidelity, have been able to pull themselves together, ask for forgiveness and go back to being who they had decided to be.
It is true that it requires their spouses to show the highest degree of love, that which is capable of granting forgiveness. But it is possible, yes, it is possible, although it is necessary to ask for forgiveness first.
