Probably the best joke I heard was that Mr. Schwarzenegger justified his extramarital sexual activity by claiming he was just trying to fit in with his wife’s family.
Over at Dr. Helen the good doctor wonders why it is that women show such outrage at Arnie’s behavior when by some estimates one in ten children are not the biological offspring of the putative legal father, her point being the moral double standard but also that when men father children outside of marriage they get tasked with child support, but when women conceive outside of marriage… their husbands get tasked with child support.
There’s a little inconsistency in the proposition, because it follows that for every father who is paying child support for a kid that is not biologically his own there is at least one guy out there not paying child support for a child that is biologically his. So in that way it’s a wash… it’s not a conspiracy against men, it’s just a fallible system.
But the vast majority of the commentators on her page (a compulsion which has not struck the three followers of BetterManBetterMarriage ) feel that not only does this seeming unfairness represent a vast mysandrist conspiracy to enslave and emasculate men, but it is the leading edge of Armageddon, as willful, immoral, and unjust fornicators go unpunished and even rewarded for their iniquitous ways.
Really, this isn’t Sodom and Gomorrah, but if I were Lot’s wife and I had to put up with all that moral, bible thumping righteous indignation and blame, I would gladly look back and become a pillar of salt just to be done with it.
The bottom line is that nine times out of ten an affair is the result of a failed marriage, not the cause of it. I haven’t got a citation of authority of that, it’s just a rule of thumb. But honestly, no one has ever come to me for a divorce and said “we were doing just great until I had that damned affair.” No one sits at a bar and tells a potential sexual tryst how wonderful his or her spouse is, how happy they are, and how the feel understood, appreciated and loved.
Men and women have affairs. Is it a moral failing? There are a lot of people screaming that it is, that the adulterer is unfit to be a parent, a fraud and a hypocrite, and yet these moralist always seem to forget key tenets of their religions. Seek to forgive rather than to be forgiven, remove the beam from your own eye before the speck from your brother’s, let he without sin cast the first stone….
When we get to heaven we are not going to be asked how we were treated in our lives, but how we treated others.
And that works in relationships too.
Sure, an affair can be the straw that breaks the relationship camel’s back, but by the same token, not being man enough to get over it can too. My money says more relationships end because of one party’s inability to let go of blame and moral superiority than because someone impregnated a domestic.
When I was in college I cheated on my high school girlfriend, and the next morning I felt like such a failure, such a heel, such a bad person. I hated myself and what I’d done and I knew there was no way I could undo it, no way I could fix it, so I learned from it and became a better man.
I don’t know what happened with Arnie and Maria, but I wonder if Arnie felt regret and remorse and stupid and ashamed, and I wonder if Maria could appreciate the pain he felt if she could find pity in her heart, if she couldn’t know that after Arnie did the wrong thing, he did the right thing, and that because of his mistake he became a better man.
I’ll never know about Arnie, but I do know this: forgiving others for their misdeeds is a gift you give yourself. Letting go of blaming others for mistakes lets you be free to find your own happiness.
