Sunday, February 17, 2019

She Avenges Herself... on the Guilty and the Innocent


It’s all about the rage. It’s all about the impotent rage. The woman has just discovered that her husband is a cheater. She has been married for 33 years and has just found out that he has always been cheating.

Outraged, she decides to exact her revenge. No weakling she. She's going to show how strong and empowered she is... by sharing the pain. So she writes to the husbands of the women her husband has cheated with… to hurt them too. And to hurt their families. Of course, she does not realize that these husbands might quickly assume that their children are not their children... thus adding a new level of horror to the story.

As our culture is filled to overflowing with antagonism between men and women, angry women feel compelled to show their power by destroying people and lives. And besides, in a culture that worships the goddess of empathy… why shouldn’t every spouse of every other cheater feel what she feels?

She feels that she is exacting justice. And she is convinced that she is in the right. But then, why does she write to Carolyn Hax? After all, the deeds are done. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men are not going to put these ruined lives back together again.

Here is the letter, apparently written by the outraged woman, who refers to herself in the third person:

Cast: Wife of 33 years and mother of three; all of whom are college-educated and in careers. Husband, worked out of town during the week for the majority of the years.

Scene: Wife, who is not a suspicious woman — too busy rearing children alone — has a "feeling" and decides, for the first time, to look into husband's phone. Pandora's box opens to reveal infidelities that go back at least 20 years, even though husband never stopped having sex with wife.

Scene: Wife, a business-minded woman, says nothing and becomes a sleuth: GPS attached, phone uploaded (including all deleted information), profiles on his "dating" sites, etc. Husband has not been confronted as wife compiles dossier.

Scene: Wife, without husband knowing, thinks she should disclose to all participants' husbands, boyfriends and families the infidelities that were perpetrated at wife's expense. Defamation is not a concern as wife has the facts to support. Slowly and methodically, information is divulged that makes their affairs come to light. Surprise!

Questions: Shouldn't all the players' lives be altered as the wife's life has been? Shouldn't these people, without concern for wife and children — whom some met — be exposed for what they are?

Please don't advise karma, therapy, divorce, the price of revenge. Whatever wife decides to do about the marriage isn't relevant, this is about leveling the playing field.

As for why she is writing to Hax, I have no idea. To brag about all the lives she wrecked. And, what about the children of those families? Dare we mention that she has also destroyed her own life, her own social life and her own relations with her own children? I hope she is getting off on some of it, because she has just made herself a permanent pariah. In fact, the gesture is so self-destructive that you begin to wonder whether she has perhaps not done what she said she did. We can hope, can't we?

Hax is naturally horrified by it all:

You suffered devastating pain, which no one deserves. I’m sorry that happened to you.

You responded, though, by inflicting pain, just for the sake of inflicting pain, which nothing justifies. You leveled the playing field with firebombs and calculated fury.

And without apology or apparent remorse.

Even though such payback never affects only the guilty, but also the people who love them. Innocents all.

He did this to you, with them, yes — but you ensured that everyone affected got the most information in the worst way possible.

I have only dismay at reading of a person who apparently worked hard for an entire lifetime to build good things and then, under the influence of incendiary rage, turned destructive as if these were movie people and feelings, not real ones.

It means that we live in a cultural climate where women who were wronged by men have gained the right to lash out, with maximum outrage, to avenge the hurt. To destroy for the sake of destroying. It also means that empathy is a two edged sword. If you think that there is some virtue to making other people feel your feelings, you really do need help.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rule of Thumb. Don't open a bodega next to a ball bearing factory.

Hurt people do hurtful things. Not "Karma", just plumbing, as in "stuff" rolls down hill.

Vengenance is mine, He sayeth in the Book, but some people are just too damn "helpful", especially when they have been hurt. With all the medical (i.e.,genetic) testing available, that truth would have come out soon enough, anyway. Besides the perpetrator who left his phone available was inviting this outcome. It was his "out".

No sympathy available for any of the players in this game.

Mike-SMO

Sam L. said...

This is one example of the truth of the statement, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Coulda been worse, though; she could have written Ask Polly.

jabrwok said...

Do the cuckolded husbands not deserve to know that their wives have been cheating on them, and that the children they thought were theirs might not be? Why should those women be exempt from the suffering they've helped inflict on this woman? Why should their husbands be condemned to continue to pay to support cheating women and those women's bastard offspring?

Peter B said...

The cheating husband certainly does not come off well in this, but neither does the wronged woman. The couple's children are fortunate that their mother didn't find out until they were well into their careers. I doubt that her malevolence and selfishness are new.