Let me say at the outset that my
one and only marriage did not survive infidelity. But my divorce occurred many
years ago, and I was a different person then. Given similar circumstances,
would I pursue the same course of action now?
To
set the stage for this treatise, I grew up internalizing the American sitcom “Father
Knows Best,” in which the wife and mother Margaret Anderson (glamorous actress
Jane Wyatt) vacuumed the floors, if she ever did vacuum the floors, while her
elegant neck was perpetually encircled by a string of perfect pearls and her slender
movie-star silhouette was adorned in haute couture dresses. Her greatest tragedy
was likely to be a bad perm day at the beauty parlor, and her adoring and loyal
husband Jim’s (actor Robert Young) last nerve was apt to be jangled by a
cloudburst on his golf day. “Adultery” was a word absent from their lexicon,
and even its causes didn’t exist. Of course, my own parents resembled Margaret
and Jim Anderson not even a smidgen, and neither did their “hum-drum” marriage.
But I, we of my generation, wanted to believe the TV version to be the “real”
thing, and all of us were convinced it was our true and only destiny.
If
you are familiar with the TV series “Mad Men,” you’ll get the picture of the
vast differences in male and female relationships that beset my generation by
the time we approached marriageable age. Drugs, sex, and rock n roll were cultural
tsunamis that rearranged our world, and with the changes came rampant bed
hopping, even by married individuals. In my experience, married men more than
married women indulged in the sport then, and I was one among the majority who
abstained. As with my girlfriends and female members of my family, in my heart
of hearts, I remained a version of Margaret Anderson and my husband of Jim
Anderson. Boy, was I wrong about him! And boy, was I wrong about me! I just bet,
though, that if Margaret and Jim Anderson had been swamped by the swirling,
dirty, drowning cultural waters of the 1960s and 1970s, they very well might
have been swept into the divorce court, too.
It
took me several years after my divorce to realize, or actually, to admit, that
the infidelity was a symptom rather than its cause. And of course, the fact
that it was the “accepted” rationale for breaking up our family blinded me to
the truth, as well. I had all the evidence against the continuation of my
marriage I needed, so why bother to dig any deeper than the specter of the “other
women?” Among the “real” culprits were our unrealistic Margaret and Jim Anderson
expectations of married life, as were secrets we hid from each other. Everyday
proximity was another. “Familiarity breeds contempt” really is true. Is there
anyone whom you hate more than your spouse at times, or maybe all the time to a
degree—disdain, dislike, disrespect, disapproval, scorn—all the possible
synonyms for hatred of him or her stuffed away somewhere in the sub-basement of
your consciousness?
Nowadays,
we have many more opportunities to be better informed about what it takes to
forge and maintain a complimentary marriage, to learn new adaptations, and to
stop and contemplate Hemingway’s avowal: “The world breaks everyone, and afterwards,
many are strong at the broken places.” But I think he should have enlarged his statement
with the actuality that many are left cripplingly or fatally weakened at the
broken places. What are your thoughts on this subject? And more to the point, would
your marriage survive infidelity?
Linda Lee Greene’s latest novel “Cradle
of the Serpent” explores the causes and consequences of infidelity in the
long-term marriage of archaeologists Lily and Jacob Light. Hover your mouse
here goo.gl/i3UkAV to find it on Amazon.
Look for her on Facebook and on Twitter @LLGreeneAuthor.
