When I wrote “Jumping Into The Adultery Pond,” it resonated with one reader. He wrote an insightful comment:
By Dino DiGiulia:
You’re SO right…adultery often just opens wounds even deeper and allows them to ooze and fester…and bleed.
But…more often than not, adultery provides some much needed and appreciated boosts to one’s fragile and bruised egos. Affairs restore can your self esteem and images. They can often save your life!
I cannot put this in any other way that would have an impact…affairs are a team effort. I could be wrong but, I see very little evidence that people have affairs for no reason. I have been “around”. And I have met only two people ever, who were serial adulterers for “no reason”. Every person I have met throughout my life, turned to affairs because they were missing something vital in their marriage or relationships.The denier have driven them into the arms of another. Plain and simple.
I know for a fact that I would had NEVER turned to affairs had my ex wife, BEEN a wife. Had she been loving, kind, supportive, interested, sexual, I would had had no desire to cheat. But, she rejected me almost 100 of the time. Emotionally, physically, sexually, she turned me into, as you described, a basket case of self doubt and self loathing. I felt as if I were the ugliest man on the face of the planet. I felt undesirable. I felt horrible about myself. I felt no woman on Earth would ever want me. And, I decided that the ONLY future for me was, NO future. I wanted death. I didn’t want to “live” like that any longer. I felt the worst punishment for me was to live a long life…unhappy, unwanted, sad, and lonely.
And I realized that the ONLY times I felt better, the only times I felt like living, the only times I felt alive, less ugly, sexy , was when some woman flirted with me…wanted to fuck me…wanted me. So, I reacted by having affairs. They saved my life. They did…and that’s NO exaggeration!
So…to this very day, I find the audacity of the “deniers” puzzling and their attitudes that they have been “wronged,” completely unacceptable and arrogant. What nerve?! They reject and deny their supposed “loved one” yet they have the unmitigated audacity to be SURPRISED and angry?!?!?!
NO!…they deserve to be cheated on! And, as I have written before, DON’T shit out of your mouth, “just get a divorce”! That is the most shallow and unempathetic thing one can say! There are many factors involved…family, children, finances, friends. Maybe for the likes of someone like Zsa Zsa Gabor, divorce is a painless and their “go to” fix for their marital and relationship problems. But for the average person, divorce is devastating.
Affairs ARE a team effort. It’s true. Marriages don’t die if both people want to save it.
And divorces are devastating. I know. I lost half my friends and half our money. I felt alone and abandoned. I still don’t want to write about it because it hurts too damn much.
Thank you, Dino DiGiulia, for your response. I loved it.
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Previously Published on Medium
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