Till Death do us part

My wife recently had a conversation with a bunch of women. Four out of the six ladies saw very little wrong with having an affair. Three of those four ladies are (still) married. Happily, my wife was in the dissenting two! Now I know that this is hardly a representative sample but...

These ladies have made their decision, opportunity will probably knock, the wrong headboards will bang, secrets will be kept, secrets will be leaked, and families will be destroyed. But at least they will have had their couple of moments of pleasure, perhaps days or even weeks of it. A taste of the forbidden fruit, every drop of its delectable juice licked and savoured. And the realisation that it is forbidden not because it isn’t fun or pleasurable but because it is devastatingly destructive!

Their children will lose everything. Their secure world will be shattered as mom and dad go their separate ways ensuring that life is never the same again. Their children will learn that self pleasure is far more important than the well being of others, almost at any cost. And the children will go on to repeat the same cycle in their own lives, after all this is a lesson learnt from the most important people they know!

Or perhaps, the affair is never discovered. Instead a little worm eats away inside. It eats everything that is dear to them and ultimately takes their joy of life. They live wondering if they will be discovered. Every word is counted to ensure that it can in no way be misinterpreted. And slowly they start to die. Perhaps they thought they were dead before the affair but now they realise how well and truly mistaken they were. And they cannot go back and change it!

Maybe, they are one of those rare individuals, narcissistic to the core or even psychologically challenged, where stuff like this bothers them not at all. Their own pleasure comes first and the rest be damned. Perhaps their husband does not mind and their children see them as the delinquent they are. And then the children grow older and forget birthdays or to go and visit, they live out their life alone. Well not really alone, a lot of time is spent in bars dressed in tight leopard skin pants and a top that shows off their once renowned bosom as they try desperately to snare some young buck and recapture that illusion of happiness. Only to find themselves lonelier than ever after the banging headboard is silenced.

Am I so old fashioned to believe wholeheartedly in the promise I made at an altar; to love and to hold to death do us part? Are people out there so broken and dispirited that they are willing to risk it all for a brief interlude of joy? And how do we make this world a better place for our children if we are prepared to exchange their happiness for our own?

Oh married people; please join me and prove to the world that marriage can be a beautiful partnership if only we dare to imagine its possibilities and do some hard work to make them reality!