DEAR EMILY,
I married my cousin’s childhood friend who is four years older than me. They have been friends since elementary.
Friendship is something I value a lot. We are now living abroad, but every vacation we make sure we spend it with them. One time, I was checking some bills from my husband’s e-mail and read previous chats from his best friend’s wife who wrote flirty messages to him. Here, they agreed to use different accounts where only the two of them could communicate. She also thanked my husband for all the stuff she had received, and for being there for her in her ups and downs.
This wife works as a nurse in the same city we live in. My husband’s best friend is in the Philippines. One time, he called my husband to check on his wife as he couldn’t call her for almost a month. We found out his wife went back to the Philippines and spent her vacation with an ex-boyfriend.
Then, my daughter and I spent a month’s vacation in the Philippines, leaving the two of them alone. This is when my husband’s relationship with the wife began.
I felt betrayed; I couldn’t even describe how angry I was knowing he has given her the attention he never gave me. I thought my husband was different. I know he can fall in love with another woman, not just his best friend’s wife. I don’t know what this lady has that all men are running after her.
In my pain, I sent a message to the wife and threatened her that I will send the e-mails between her and my husband to her husband. Then I confronted my husband. He just said sorry without any explanation. I feel sorry not only for myself but for my husband’s best friend who trusted them.—Lan
You can forbid your husband and the wife to stop seeing each other till you grow feathers, but if they’re into it, body and soul, there’s nothing much you or anybody can do about it. Threats, tears won’t work here. These will only embolden them no end.
Didn’t you find it degrading to go after the wife with threats? It is not classy. It is not civil. Vent your wrath toward your husband, not her. He should be the object of your scorn. Clobber him and send him out in smoke and that would have been acceptable. He is part of your domain. She’s not.
Most men get fidgety in their marriage after a while. Boredom sets in with the same-old, same-old routine, be it sex turned blah, empty conversations that go nowhere—you know, the trifles of everyday life.
Any diversion from the mundane becomes suddenly exciting. Here came the fling which your husband probably thought would fill up the emptiness he saw in your marriage and lead to a path of never-ending fun.
No matter how thoughtful or saccharine-sweet these husbands are to their lovers, just remember—they don’t last. What was so exciting initially becomes banal, common and, soon enough, boring. They’d long for the familiar—the old wife, the noisy children, their bad habits, and resume where they’d left off, thinking there’s really no place like home.
If there’s still a sliver of concern in you to save your family and are willing to forgive this louse of a husband, then do it. There’s no shame in forgiveness, more so if there are kids involved, and most especially if your husband never left the hearth.
By that inaction alone, you’d know it was just a fling for him. He probably showed her an inch of kindness and that was enough for this wife to welcome him to her paradise. With that in perspective, can you accept him without malice and recriminations, to keep your family intact?
If not, you’re in the right place for unhappy marriages. You’re in the land of disposal relationships where any reason—big or small, simple or complex—is justification enough to flush out any misery.
It’s as easy as changing a car. But, since children are as yet blissfully unaware of these easy way outs, think twice, thrice, a hundred times at how you can relieve your pain without inflicting too much havoc on their developing psyche. Sometimes, the easiest thing to do has the most complex outcome.
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