UBT: I Let My Wife Have An Affair
In a NYT Ethicist column, a man writes to say his wife had an affair and now she wants him to understand she’s grieving the end of that relationship. Does he have to? The Ethicist flubs it once again, and the Universal Bullshit Translator is here to help.
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The New York Times Ethicist columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah sure has a long record of god awful advice about infidelity. You think he’d skip those questions, but instead he keeps leaning in, determined to bludgeon us all with his false equivalencies. And failing that, the sop of therapy. (He covers both of those bases here.)
So, once again it’s up to the Universal Bullshit Translator to make sense of this slop.
The letter, the wife, the affair that blew up
Here’s what some deluded chump wrote the Ethicist. (gift link)
I have been married for many years, and I still love and care deeply about my partner. Over the past year, she had an affair, and I knew about it from the beginning. She said that she needed it, that it gave her vitality, that she enjoyed a sexual freedom she had longed for and that she felt it was wrong to do this in secret and without my consent. I agreed; what she said made sense to me, and she convincingly assured me this was no threat to our relationship. At the same time, I always suffered when she was away with her affair partner and could not find a way to take this easily.
She recently decided to break it off because the overall emotional burden for both of us was too great. But while she is grieving about it, I feel relieved. Even though I wish that I could have better coped with a situation I rationally and ethically consider OK, it conflicted with something deeper inside me that I can’t easily change.
My question is: Should I feel sorry for my wife? At the moment, I don’t. I understand her feelings and I care about her, but at the same time I feel it is not my job to console her for this particular loss. What do you think about this? — Name Withheld
Dear Name Withheld,
The UBT thinks this is a mindf*ck. This “consent” was an ultimatum to accept her cake eating, at the same time she’s felling you with the blow of betrayal — informing that she wants to open the marriage.
That was the moment to consider divorce attorneys.
She said that she needed it, that it gave her vitality, that she enjoyed a sexual freedom she had longed for and that she felt it was wrong to do this in secret and without my consent. I agreed; what she said made sense to me
Did she offer you the same? The reciprocity appears to be missing here. You have no other Gods before her and she continues to explore her options at the dick buffet. Yeah, makes total sense. (Not)
and she convincingly assured me this was no threat to our relationship.
Dumping raw sewage in the Potomac is no threat to our ecosystem. Shooting peaceful protestors in the face is no threat to our democracy. Your wife’s lover is no threat to your relationship.
Stop eating cognitive dissonance for breakfast.
She recently decided to break it off because the overall emotional burden for both of us was too great.
In other words, she got dumped.
It’s not your job to help your wife grieve her affair.
But while she is grieving about it, I feel relieved.
If this is some light, superficial sexual exploration, no harm! no foul! What exactly is there to GRIEVE? This implies a kind of connection your wife assured you wasn’t possible.
Even though I wish that I could have better coped with a situation I rationally and ethically consider OK, it conflicted with something deeper inside me that I can’t easily change.
Why does the UBT have a sneaking suspicion that the Ethicist edited this passage? By adding “ethically consider OK” under the guise of paraphrasing.
Sir, this bullshit is conflicting with your common sense. You’re choking on the cognitive dissonance cornflakes.
Feel sorry for the wife?
My question is: Should I feel sorry for my wife?
At the moment, I don’t. I understand her feelings and I care about her, but at the same time I feel it is not my job to console her for this particular loss. What do you think about this?
She shagged herself into this mess. Her sulking (that she got dumped, that your feelings are a buzzkill) is just another bid for centrality. Tell her to go enjoy her vitality. Fly, be free!
The Ethicist’s advice
You will not be surprised to learn that the Ethicist failed to notice the blithering narcissism of the wife and instead leans into the dunderheaded idea that her failed affair is an equivalent bummer to his distress.
We don’t have voluntary control over our emotional responses, at least not in any straightforward way.
However, we do have control over our Times subscriptions, a choice the UBT considers every time it reads an Ethicist column.
You’re glad; she’s sad.
What kind of monster are you to rejoice at her sadness! The Ethicist will give you a pass, however, because we don’t have control over our feelings.
And neither of you can simply choose to feel otherwise.
Holy false equivalence, Batman
From what you say, it sounds as if she gave up the affair for you and for her relationship with you, just as you consented to it for her and for your relationship with her.
If she was dumped (most likely) or gave up her affair because her husband was such a buzzkill about it, doesn’t address the inherent THREAT that was levied at the beginning of this f*cktangle.
You most likely felt you had little choice about acquiescing to what she wanted, and, in time, she may have felt that she had little choice about acquiescing to what you clearly wanted. Your partnership would not have gone well, you perhaps thought, if you had withheld your consent; it would not have gone well, she perhaps thought, if she had persisted. Beneath the velvet of sweet reasonableness lurked the edged steel of unspoken ultimatums.
Your ultimatum is as sharp and steely as hers. How dare you expect monogamy from your wife! That arrangement you all agreed to with free will and then she bait and switched.
Thank your wife for ending her affair
But while your sense of relief is unsurprising — and while you can’t simply resolve to feel otherwise — maybe you could help her deal with her loss out of gratitude for her belated acknowledgment of your needs? Solace is one of the gifts of marital love. And consoling someone you love when they’re in pain doesn’t require that you share that pain.
Perhaps she could refrain from sulking? No, no. Chump-o, it’s your job to feed her entitlement and acknowledge that your wife has a sadz about her affair. Be grateful she notices you! She tethered her needs for vitality and sexual adventure to settle for your boring ass. Is solace too much to ask? You don’t have to enjoy the taste of sh*t sandwiches. Just eat them.
Consider therapy!
Still, these distinctions may be elusive in practice. And so it may be worth your both talking this all through with a counselor. Neither of you will ever be able to adjust your feelings on demand, but it could help to give them somewhere to go, in a way that helps you stay connected.
Do your feelings need somewhere to go? Your wife’s have wandered off to the dick buffet. You could try the Reconciliation Industrial Complex. Limbo for $180 an hour. STI testing is extra. When questions are too thorny for the Ethicist (PEOPLE ARE ASKING FOR ETHICAL CLARITY Kwame Anthony Appiah!) he defaults to therapists. Take your feelings there!
The UBT suggests you take them to a divorce attorney.
It’s not clear to me that she was hiding it from him for a year. He wrote: Over the past year, she had an affair, and I knew about it from the beginning.
Not sure why he’s calling it an affair, but I reckon it’s because he felt it as a betrayal, no matter what he agreed to. It will be the first of many such “requests” from her, along with increasing distance, because she wants “vitality” and “freedom” instead of her husband. Actually, she wants all of the above.
He feels bad because he intuits that he is going to have to do a lot more consenting to b.s. requests in order to keep his marriage.
I doubt that I’m the only one here thinking that Name Witheld’s wife has proven herself to not be so much of a catch. He’d be better off releasing her back into her natural environment so that she can find herself and the happiness that she undoubtedly believes that she is entitled to. Or, to put it another way, he should divorce her and go “no contact.”
Life is too short to have people like her in your orbit; better to cast them off into deep space and have done with it.
LFTT
PS – As for Mr Kwame Anthony Appiah’s scribblings …. however much the NYT are actually paying him is is too much.
Thank you, once again, CL, for providing the sane and helpful response. The Ethicist always, always, takes the side of cheaters. Can you imagine the pain the LW is in for if he tries to take Appiah’s advice?
I read all the comments (and left one, saying the LW should send his letter to you), and no one else pointed out, as you do, CL, that if this out-of-wedlock sex was supposed to be physical only, the cake-eating-wife should not rationally have the sadz.
LW’s wife said she “needed” to have an outside affair because it made her feel vital and she enjoyed sexual freedom. If LW was willing to agree to this, I’m sure he would have also agreed to some fun vacations, volunteering together, and a copy of a good sex book. Wife just wanted to cheat without having to hide it. And with the bonus of knowing her spouse was suffering every time she was with her AP.
I too suspect she was dumped. If she broke it off, I think she would have told LW before, instead of after. And if she ended her affair for her marriage, I think she would have been trying to make amends for what she did, instead of expecting him to console her.
My ex-husband of four decades also demanded that I console him after I discovered he planned to marry a catfish scammer he’d met online less than two months before, despite never meeting in person or vido chat, and only a two-minute phone call.
When I discovered this and proved it was a romance scam to get him to send tens of thousand of dollars, he was devastated and demanded that I console him for losing the love of his life. He flat out told me that I had better please him, including sexually, if I wanted him to chose me over the scammer! It was always all about him. He never considered how I felt or what I had lost.
He repeatedly told me he was mourning the loss of his true love-someone he’d never met, Months later, during his sole visit with our tween, he left his cell phone open to his current “I love you” messages to the scammer, and tween screenshotted them.
He would not give up his delusion, and I suspect letter-writer’s wife would not give up hers. His wife saw her AP as much more than just sex.
It’s telling that she hasn’t tried to make amends for the pain she put him through. Instead it’s all about her.
I suspect she is going to “need” another AP as soon as she can find one.
And how ethical is it to expect someone to comfort the person who betrayed their marriage vows? The columnist doesn’t seem to think the wife’s behavior was unethical. She’s grieving the loss, not regretting her prior actions. His answer is pretentious and ignorant.
I suspect the the “Ethicist” was raised by some scientist’s wire monkey. It is apparent he doesn’t understand mutual attachment and commitment and it’s place in a fulfilling life.