News matters with adult subject matter today. You have been warned!
Herself speaks.
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A thousand years ago when I was in my last year of graduate school, there was a certain subset of the student population that consisted of somewhat older individuals. In comparison to the fresh-out-of-college bunch, this group had been in the workforce or in the military for several years before starting graduate school; many of them, like others their age, had spouses. Some of the spouses had been left behind in home towns temporarily while the students relocated and began class. I was a newlywed, and after having endured over three years in the long distance relationship with Beloved To-Be-Husband before the wedding, I always felt empathy for those separated spouses.
In addition to those married individuals, there were occasionally blossoming romances between students. I remember watching flirtations between one of Beloved Husband's male friends -- a tall and funny man -- and a comely, bright woman in class. It was well known that they had 'a thing' together.
Then, I met the man's wife.
She'd finally been able to move and join him. I looked at her auburn hair and Irish complexion, and thought about the raven curls of the woman I now knew to be The Other Woman. The Wife seemed so cheerful, so pleased to be there, so -- naive? Innocent? When Wife and I chatted at a gathering one night, she learned I was a newlywed, and she told me how many years she and her husband had been married. She then looked down at her wedding ring and said proudly, "I've never once taken it off in all that time."
My heart broke for her.
Graduation came soon thereafter, and I never saw what became of the man, his Wife, or The Other Woman.
I still think of the Wife on occasion when I look at my own wedding ring, which I have never once taken off in these past twenty-four years.
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This was all in the pre-internet era. Now in this computer era, we have the current news spectacle of the
Ashley Madison data hack, through which thirty-nine million individuals have been revealed as having paid money to join a website catering to individuals who are looking for extramarital relationships. (Tagline: "Life is short. Have an affair.") Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of adulterers or would-be-adulterers, exposed. There's a lot of amusement, horror, and shadenfreude bouncing around the world wide web as a result.
(As a side note: I find the hack itself reprehensible. That degree of pilfering and releasing of personal information is a tremendous crime. Yes, the individuals whose information was released may be morally questionable (or bankrupt). All the same, two wrongs don't make a right.)
There are so many reasons why individuals have affairs. Danger and excitement; vanity, insecurity, spite; callous self-absorption; loneliness, despair, unmet needs; boredom; validation, desperation, consolation; broken-hearted searching for some better version of 'love.' Motives likely tend to be different for men and for women; as we all know, men and women often attach different significance to physical encounters. The various reasons for each individual affair may be difficult to parse. People are complex, and sometimes people are broken. And sometimes people are just plain bad.
Nevertheless: a promise is a promise. When I stood in the church that sweaty August morning, I promised to have and to hold, from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I placed on Beloved Husband's finger a ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. I meant every word. At what point do the users of Ashley Madison come to the conclusion that the similar vows they exchanged with their spouses are no longer valid or worth upholding? How do they step over the edge of fidelity? It seems to me to be a precipice. Surely that step would kill one -- and yet, it does not. Infidelity happens, every single day, and life goes on.
(A second side note: there may be the rarest of circumstances under which I would not consider an "affair" to be morally wrong. Consider the case of
Terri Schiavo. Her husband faithfully worked for years to release her from a vegetative state caused by a medical crisis; after his wife was already in a nursing home because of her condition, he met a woman with whom he developed a relationship and had children, and whom he eventually married after Terri's death. I cannot fault him for seeking love and support and new life as he did. I wish them well.)
My heart bleeds for the individual unexpectedly holding that broken marital string. This is the part of the Ashley Madison disclosure that pains me the most: the spouse on the other end of the infidelity. Each one in my mind like that freckled Irish beauty Wife in graduate school.
I wonder how many of them were caught by surprise to discover their spouses on the list of subscribers. Likely a few had suspicions; more likely, though, many had had not an inkling. Now, though, here they are exposed to the world as a wronged spouse. There's no hiding from the cold harsh internet. People will judge. And there will be people who will fault the wronged spouse: "What did you do to drive him away?" Yes, marriages sometimes mutually disintegrate. But other times, one party steps out despite the very best efforts of the other.
I am thinking in particular of
Anna Duggar - a young woman raised in the very conservative and patriarchal
Quiverfull culture. She has been taught (likely by her family, as well as certainly by her husband's parents) never to refuse the sexual advances of her husband. Her
mother-in-law advises: "Be available. Anyone can fix him lunch, but only one person can meet that physical need of love that he has....You always need to be available when he calls." As the mother of four children within seven years, it's likely Anna is doing her best to take that advice to heart.
Is Anna doubting herself right now? Who else -- besides her own heart -- is asking her: "Did you not do enough as a wife to keep your husband from straying?" How is she managing, having learned that the man who should be the Biblical, patriarchical authority under which she lives, has broken covenants to her and to their God in such a manner? What can she do but watch while his failings are paraded before the world, and wonder how she can continue to love a man who has betrayed her in this way? Besides wonder what she did wrong. And weep.
God bless her and give her strength. Where does her path lie now? No one knows. I hope she will find it, for her and her children.
Now, I'm not advocating that she should have continued in ignorance of her husband's infidelities. Knowledge -- even the extraordinarily painful kind -- is power, and drives us forward. Perhaps Anna will find new grace in the future. I hope so. In the end, though, some pains are best suffered privately (and with one's close loved ones, if one so chooses). Perhaps the "Impact Team" behind the Ashley Madison hack should have considered how they would be adding to the pain of the betrayed spouses. I don't think they did.
So many broken hearts. And so many heartbreakers.
This is a failure both of human individuals, and humanity collectively.
Let us do better, People of the world.
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