I stayed with my husband after he was unfaithful to me. It's a completely different situation when you live it than when you are on the outside looking in.
It's not a situation I'm unfamiliar with here (not that you are saying it is, just confirming I have my own experiences with such a situation).
First, personally (uh, oh, Jythier will be here breakin' my balls on that word again soon), my wife was carrying on what at the very least was an emotional affair, if not a physical affair, some years ago. While she said that nothing physical ever happened, there was definitely more than a few hints that something was happening, including e-mails and other communications.
Second, I watched my parents nearly break up over my father's affair with a 'groupie' type individual that loved men in uniform (law enforcement type). My mother found out about it and wanted to inflict serious physical harm upon that individual, upon my father, and later upon herself (she did try to commit suicide over it). She forced a confession of all transgressions and found out about an earlier affair that only served to make her more upset.
In my own case, with my wife, she perhaps could claim to have had reasons to be seeking emotional and physical contact outside the marriage, but then again she really didn't have that much justification to go elsewhere. She was unhappy at not getting what she felt was enough attention from me, but it was more a case of her wanting 'change' in my behavior rather than realizing what she had all along. I've never strayed, never not been a good provider, and never not been a good and loving father to my children or a good and loving husband to her, but she wanted attention. Me, me, me. Meanwhile, perhaps, I had grown tired of not getting attention from her, and her always tending to herself and the children despite their advancing ages, and had almost always devoted attention to other hobbies to fill my free time figuring that when she wanted attention and had time for me she'd let me know. Instead of letting me know by coming to me, she opted to start looking elsewhere apparently to see if I would notice.
I don't claim not to have been upset and hurt with the situation with my wife. When things came to a head I was really disappointed and still have doubts about how truthful my wife is when she claims nothing happened. Regardless, we stayed together and have worked at being more attentive and more communicative about what is going on with both of us.
Back to my parent's sitaution, my parents stayed together, no physical harm came to the 'whore' that was my father's enabler, and thanks to some counseling my mother came to realize that perhaps she had been a bit too domineering with my father and hadn't paid attention to what he might want rather than just always deciding for him. She'd long had family members wondering why he put up with her own behavior and got more than a few 'you've been driving him away for years' type comments from friends and relatives, so it became apparent to her that yes she did need to address things for herself first.
To get back to the original questions raised above though, airing all of this in news conferences, standing there and being humiliated publicly, etc., just seems so wrong to me. Why do it at all?
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