I just ran across this scribbled note while cleaning my desk and organizing for filing my taxes. Which I have so far avoided doing. Because I run across interesting things like this scribbled note. I wish I could give credit to the author but I have a bad habit of scribbling things down when listening to a podcast or watching a video and then losing the scrap of paper on my mess of a desk. Sometimes for weeks. Months, perhaps. Which brings us full circle. I would like to share what is written here and hope the person whose mind it sprung from will see this and take credit. I think it's brilliant.
Infidelity has always existed, since marriage was invented. It's very complex and we can't reduce these multi-layered human experiences to good and bad, victim and perpetrator, and black and white. In relationships we need to bring back complexity, nuance, and less judgement and more reflection.
This brings to mind a conversation in a grocery store aisle I had with an acquaintance shortly after I had become single again. It seems she had seen my divorce in the court news in the local newspaper. She blurted out a pretty rude question. She was curious as to whether I had been the slut or had my husband been the slut. As if infidelity could be the only possible reason for ending a marriage. I was astonished. I responded that I had not seen her in months, and if she was interested in why my marriage failed perhaps we should get a coffee or a beer and I would tell her all about it. But that never happened. So there was no sharing of beverages over which we could have had a real dialogue. She wanted a neat and easy answer that doesn't exist. She'll never know the pain and agony over ending it, the months of therapy, the loss of intimacy, the anger, the passive-aggressive behavior, the concern for our two sons, the financial worries. All she wanted to know was if either of us had bumped uglies outside the sacred bonds of our marriage. I guess that makes for better gossip. And less contemplation.
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