Member-only story
If you must cheat…
Keep it quiet
A friend of mine cheated on his wife.
He knew it was wrong. He justified it to me.
“She wouldn’t go with me to conferences,” he said.
“Doesn’t excuse it, dude,” I told him. “Besides, didn’t you guys have kids?”
“Well, yeah… but it was a conference in Prague.”
“I get it,” I said. “Hey, if it was me, I’d be on the plane with you in a heartbeat. But, I mean, how old were your kids at the time?”
“I don’t know… pretty young, I guess.”
The look on his face told me he’d gotten my point, but he didn’t like it.
Then he tried another tack.
“I was drunk at the time…”
“OK,” I said. “So it was a drunken one night stand.”
“Exactly. It’s not like it was an affair or anything.”
“I get it,” I said. “You’re human. Mistakes happen. So was that the only time you cheated on her?”
“Yeah…”
I shook my head. “Then why did you tell her?”
I already knew what happened next. He’d confessed to her to assuage his guilt. It had eaten him up inside.
