Wednesday, January 12, 2005

A Word to Prospective Lotharios

Yesterday TOW pointed out in an entry a steamy inter-blog soap opera that was playing out, with one of the participants coming into marital strife as a result of their erotic participation. I feel I should weigh in on this subject as it has already been established in this space that I had been likewise involved with my own dalliance in the ether. Clearly this will not be of the lecturing sort, but I would still like to toss in my empirical pair of coppers.

Some time back The Odd Wife and The Even Husband were going through quite the bout of relationship challenges, (something that seems an epoch away in light of our renewed position of wonder and passion) and I elected to absorb the tension and anger and channel it into an irresponsible reaction. I hadn’t sought out solace on the web but instead it came about slowly, as I found someone who was telling me things I wanted to hear and gradually revealed her knowledge of illicit actions. In hindsight can see that she was something of a DSL siren, but I still entered into things willingly. All the while I was aware that what I was doing was wrong, but I rationalized and excused my actions in immature ways.

Now herein lies the lesson for anyone who is considering this, or is currently active without yet having been found out. While I was fully aware of my impropriety I thought I had considered all of the things that might transpire if/when I was discovered. She would be mad, she would be disappointed, she would take physical action, she would toss me out, she would toss things at my head, et al. Yes, all did take place, but something else happened as well, something most people forget in this situation. The one thing I had never considered was just how hurt she had become when she found out. I had never intended to do this as a way of injuring her, and that was the main thing that froze me in my tracks. This had always been something I was doing, something that concerned me, and the ramifications were going to be all my own as well.

Wrong.

Somebody else was in this and I never deliberated what the toll on her was going to be. It may sound breezy for me to say now, but had I managed to have that in mind before launching into this bout of decadence I would not have gone through with it. She was stunned, shocked, wounded, depressed--and numerous other emotional wounds. I always thought I could deal with whatever was going to come my way as a result of my actions, but I am still affected by how much I had wrought on The Odd Wife.

While what I did was wrong, I feel much worse about what I did to her.

Posted by Anonymous :: 8:15 AM :: | ---------------------------------------