Dear Emily,
It was New Year’s Eve 32 years ago when I discovered my husband was having an affair with his officemate. I heard rumors, but only confirmed it when our home phone rang persistently while my kids and I were preparing for an out-of-town trip. My husband was going to stay home to host his relatives who were coming from the United States.
The maid who ran to pick up the phone said nobody was answering at the other end. On the 10th ring, a person finally answered and only wanted to talk to my husband who was away for the day.
When he finally came home and answered the phone himself, I grabbed the phone from him and heard a woman’s voice screaming, demanding where he has been. I got so livid that I grabbed whatever I could of his clothes and threw them all out of my house (a paraphernal property). My kids and I still went on our vacation.
He broke up with this girlfriend for divulging their affair and messing up an otherwise convenient arrangement between them.
I left for abroad after coming back from vacation and planned to get a quickie divorce. But, after all the puffing and huffing in my initial anger, I decided to cool off and instead pamper myself. I visited places I’ve not seen before, went shopping and even took up ceramic classes for a day.
Then I met a wonderful, joyful man who was pampering himself as well in a vineyard tour—just the type I needed to make me forget my hurt and the planned revenge on my husband.
All is well now in our marriage. We never again discussed his affair and never will he ever learn of mine. We somewhat just swept everything under the rug and pretended like nothing happened.
We’ve grown older and are relieved that our family —children and grandchildren—has remained intact. Nobody needed to know the existence of splinters in our marriage. It’s ours and nobody else’s.
Why this letter? Just to prove that wounds heal over time and should never be nurtured ever. —EVEN STEVENS
Doesn’t revenge sound so unkind? A bathroom graffiti puts your short-lived affair more to the point as “returning the favor.”
If you and your husband have forgiven each other quietly and have maintained the dynamics of your family without creating any wrinkle in it —great! Nobody should pass judgment on anybody anymore! What happened in the past would have frayed marriages of lesser quality. But you both survived it.
Your children didn’t get battered by that experience because you both shielded them from the storm. It didn’t concern them. You knew that it too shall pass and gave it enough time to heal. Wasn’t it worth saving your family for?
The pain was probably something you couldn’t live with at that time. But you endured. Isn’t it wonderful to have proven on your own the saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?
emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com