MY PHILOSOPHY

Over the years, my wife and I have had a few discussions about this topic. It's about the concept of leaving your spouse for someone else.

I have always maintained that if you're marriage is good, why would you risk leaving your spouse for someone else? Now granted, as good as your marriage might be, there's always a chance that you might be happier with someone else. In my situation, I always argued that after nine years, I know how good I have it. I'm very happy with my marriage. I'm happy with my life. And most importantly, I know that I can live in harmony with my wife. I put up with her quirks. And she puts up with mine. And I would never risk anything breaking that peaceful harmony. It's not like a new relationship is going to blossom over night. If I were to ever fall in love with someone else, I would have to work at it. It would have to cultivate itself over time. And frankly, I refuse to let that happen. I refuse to even begin the process. I refuse to take that time.

Now, that being said, if my marriage was miserable, and I was unhappy, then by all means, it's worth taking a risk. Granted, being with someone else could actually end up being worse. But the point is, if you're so miserable that life is already filled with unhappiness, then I would encourage anyone to seek joy elsewhere.

My wife had always disagreed with me on this topic. She always maintained that a person should never be afraid to seek something better, even if the odds are slim. And frankly, I couldn't disagree more. In my own life, a wild guess tells me that the odds of me being happier with another woman is probably less than 5%. Could it happen? Sure! But am I willing to risk everything for such small odds? Not a chance in hell! I am very happy now. There's no way I'd risk everything for a potentially small increase in happiness, when the odds are that I would fail to achieve that goal.

You always hear stories about people running off with someone else, getting divorced, then marrying the new person. Then a year later, they find themselves absolutely miserable, and realizing that they made a horrible mistake. But by that time, it's generally way too late. And the person has to live with the consequences of his or her actions.

It's interesting to note that my wife and I had this conversation about a week or so before she met that other guy online. And true to her belief, she followed through with seeking more happiness elsewhere. Now, I don't know exactly what my wife's frame of mind was at the time. She never fell out of love with me, or anything as drastic as that. But I now know that she wasn't as happy as she could have been. Was she unhappy with me, or merely not as happy as she would have liked to have been? I believe it's the latter. I believe she has stated this. Did she think that she could be happier with someone else than she was with me? Apparently the possibility entered her mind, and was strong enough that she personally felt it was worth exploring.

Now as anybody knows, when you decide to cheat on your spouse, you run a serious risk of your marriage ending. Yes, there are couples who deal with infidelity and still manage to patch things up. But there are also plenty of couples that end up in divorce over cheating. And a cheating spouse knows full well the potential consequences of their actions.

In my case, I wonder what she was thinking. Was her life with me so unhappy that she felt it was worth getting a divorce? Was her life so unhappy with me that it was worth finding a place of her own and starting all over again? Was her life with me so unhappy that she felt it was worth seeing her kids grow up for only half of their lives?

If the answers to these questions were "yes" than by all means, she should have gone out and explored other options besides me. But in discussing these things with her, I don't believe that was the case at all. I tend to think that she simply acted on impulse (after all, she'd only "met" the guy online the day before) and didn't sit down and fully analyze the consequences of her actions. Had she done that, I like to think that she would have come to the conclusion that it was time to let me in on everything that was troubling her.

After everything had come out, we sat up in bed one night and talked about it. I believe it was the night of August 23rd. During that conversation, she mentioned to me point blank, "I don't know why I risked everything for an unknown." And when she said that, I laughed and responded, "THAT'S what I've always been saying!" After I said that, she smiled, and looked a bit embarrassed, knowing that she had just agreed with my philosophy, and had disagreed with her own.