Unfaithful Husband Quotes

Commitment is Circumstances

Like your marriage, everything in the universe is trying to find its orbit. In the midst of this constant readjustment, both partners should be able to go to bed knowing that neither one is going to abandon a wounded, or struggling marriage. There is a comforting reassurance being with someone who keeps their promise. pg iv

There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months. The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight — and the grog shops to comfort the loser. The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.

The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man's affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.

There would definitely be way fewer instances of cheating, if the average couple did not have sex only when the woman feels like it.

All husbands are unfaithful in one way or another.” Lillian and Daisy glanced at each other with raised brows. “Father isn’t,” Lillian replied smartly. Mercedes responded with a laugh that sounded like crackling leaves being crushed underfoot. “Isn’t he, dear? Perhaps he has stayed true to me physically—one can never be certain about these things. But his work has proved a more jealous and demanding mistress than a flesh-and-blood woman could ever be. All his dreams are invested in that collection of buildings and employees and legalities that absorb him to the exclusion of all else. If my competition had been a mortal woman, I could have borne it easily, knowing that passion fades and beauty lasts but an instant. But his company will never fade or sicken—it will outlast us all. If you have a year of your husband’s interest and affection, it will be more than I have ever had.

IF any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife, Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.

[A] young husband with an unfaithful wife, who is consecrated and dedicated to continence, eats daily of the Bread of Life so that the bride may one day return to both the home and the faith.

the most unrepentantly unfaithful husband in Parliament (not a contest with light competition). It was clear that Mrs.

Stepan Arkadyevitch, like all unfaithful husbands indeed, was very solicitous for his wife's comfort

The drug dealer, the ducking and diving political leader, the wife beater, the chronically “crabby” boss, the “hot shot” junior executive, the unfaithful husband, the company “yes man,” the indifferent graduate school adviser, the “holier than thou” minister, the gang member, the father who can never find the time to attend his daughter’s school programs, the coach who ridicules his star athletes, the therapist who unconsciously attacks his clients’ “shining” and seeks a kind of gray normalcy for them, the yuppie—all these men have something in common. They are all boys pretending to be men. They got that way honestly, because nobody showed them what a mature man is like. Their kind of “manhood” is a pretense to manhood that goes largely undetected as such by most of us. We are continually mistaking this man’s controlling, threatening, and hostile behaviors for strength. In reality, he is showing an underlying extreme vulnerability and weakness, the vulnerability of the wounded boy.

Genuine forgiveness and reconciliation are two-person transactions that are enabled by apologies. Some, particularly within the Christian worldview, have taught forgiveness without an apology. They often quote the words of Jesus, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Thus, they say to the wife whose husband has been unfaithful and continues in his adulterous affair, “You must forgive him, or God will not forgive you.” Such an interpretation of Jesus’ teachings fails to reckon with the rest of the scriptural teachings on forgiveness. The Christian is instructed to forgive others in the same manner that God forgives us. How does God forgive us? The Scriptures say that if we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins. Nothing in the Old or New Testaments indicates that God forgives the sins of people who do not confess and repent of their sins. While a pastor encourages a wife to forgive her erring husband while he still continues in his wrongdoing, the minister is requiring of the wife something that God Himself does not do. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be always willing to forgive, as God is always willing to forgive, those who repent… While a pastor encourages a wife to forgive her erring husband while he still continues in his wrongdoing, the minister is requiring of the wife something that God Himself does not do. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be always willing to forgive, as God is always willing to forgive, those who repent…

The husband has the right to avenge himself if his wife is unfaithful. The village has known for many moons that White Eagle planned to steal Prairie Flower away from Howling Wolf. Howling Wolf has learned of this and punished his wife.

As an example, when Zeus is dallying with the nymph Io, Hera spots them, so he turns Io into a lovely white heifer. Hera, not fooled, seizes the cow and places her under the guard of a giant named Argus Panoptes (“All-Seeing”) because his body is covered with one hundred eyes (making him, quite literally, the first private eye called in by a wife to intervene in a case of adultery). Zeus sends in the god Hermes to tell him a boring, endless story, which gradually puts Argus to sleep, one eye at a time; then Hermes kills him and frees Io. Not done, Hera sends a gadfly to chase Io (an apt choice for hassling a cow), which stings her all the way to Egypt. Hera takes all of the eyes from Argus’ corpse and puts them on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock. Take away the fanciful elements and the metamorphoses, and you have a classic story of an unfaithful husband confronted by an angry wife who tries to get even with the other woman.

Melancholy, amorous and barbaric,” these tales exalted adulterous love as the only true kind, while in the real life of the same society adultery was a crime, not to mention a sin. If found out, it dishonored the lady and shamed the husband, a fellow knight. It was understood that he had the right to kill both unfaithful wife and lover. Nothing fits in this canon. The gay, the elevating, the ennobling pursuit is founded upon sin and invites the dishonor it is supposed to avert. Courtly love was a greater tangle of irreconcilables even than usury. It remained artificial, a literary convention, a fantasy (like modern pornography) more for purposes of discussion than for everyday practice.

Treat them as you’ve treated me (וְעֹולֵ֣ל לָ֔מֹו כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר עֹולַ֛לְתָּ לִ֖י) literally; “and-do to-them to-them-as You-have-done to-me”. An odd request from an unfaithful wife—asking her ex-husband to beat up her new husband. Obviously, her mind is still on the kings of the earth, not King Jehovah.

You deny our vows. You deny my rights. You abuse my pride and leave me nothing of yourself. You send me from you on some lackey's strength. You betray me at every turn." Shanna met his glare and hurled a fierce reply. "You took my heart and set your fingers firm around it, then, no doubt delighted at your success, you rent it with unfaithfulness." "Unfaithfulness is only from a husband. You play the same to me and yet do say I am no spouse." "You plead you are my husband true and spite the suitors come to woo me." "Yea!" Ruark raged. "Your suitors flock about your skirts in heated lust, and you yield them more than me." Shanna paused before him, rage etched upon her face. "You're a churlish cad!" "They fondle you boldly and you set not their hands away from you." "A knavish blackguard!" "You are a married woman!" "I am a widow!" "You are my wife!" Ruark shouted to be heard over the rising wind outside.

Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her, and she was unfaithful to him.

[A] young husband with an unfaithful wife, who is consecrated and dedicated to continence, eats daily of the Bread of Life so that the bride may one day return to both the home and the faith.

Not a day goes by without many thousands of people each having sex with their girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, or husband, only because the person they are cheating with is busy, not in the mood, sick, on her period, tired, or not around.

In his business, he observed human nature and came to certain conclusions about it. The conclusions lacked wisdom and originality; in fact, they were tiresome. But they were important to McGarrity because he had figured them out for himself. In the first years of their marriage, he had tried to tell Mae about these conclusions, but all she said was, "I can imagine." Sometimes she varied by saying, "I can just imagine." Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her, and she was unfaithful to him.

But instead of all that, here he was—the rich husband of an unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, who liked to eat, drink, and, unbuttoning himself, to denounce the government a little, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universally beloved member of Moscow society.

One day a woman went to the saintly Father John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, in France, and said, “My husband has not been to the sacraments or to Mass for years. He has been unfaithful, wicked, and unjust. He has just fallen from a bridge and was drowned —a double death of body and soul.” The Curé answered, “Madam, there is a short distance between the bridge and the water, and it is that distance which forbids you to judge.

That the Old Testament represents God chiefly as angry Judge and vicious Warrior is a false stereotype. While these images are not absent, they are more than balanced by striking portrayals of God as Lover or Husband, infatuated with Israel beyond all reason or deserving. God is not too proud to grieve terribly over Israel's unfaithfulness, nor to be giddy over her return home. ... [This covenant's] primary quality is love at the highest pitch of intensity.

The Lokasenna (Loki's taunts): Njorth, you were sent from the west as a hostage for the gods. The daughters of Hymir used your mouth as a urinal, and you’ve tasted plenty of piss. ... Freyja, you are a witch, and have dealt out many curses. I hear the gods found you lying with your brother, and that you farted then. ... “Tyr, or don’t you know your own wife had a son by me? You poor fool, I’ll never pay you a penny in compensation for that. ... “Sif, I alone know how you were unfaithful to your husband Thor— and I was the one you slept with. ... And you, Odin, you always judge battles unfairly for humans. You have often given defeat to the better side, when you shouldn’t have. And Odin said: “Even if I did judge unfairly, and made the better side lose, I know that you, for eight years, lived on the earth down below as a cow in milk, and as a woman, and you’ve given birth to children— I call that a pervert’s way of living!

On November 27 Napoleon wrote to Leclerc about Pauline, who had bravely gone out on the expedition, saying he was ‘highly satisfied with the conduct of Paulette. She ought not to fear death, as she would die with glory in dying with the army and being useful to her husband. Everything passes rapidly on earth, with the exception of the mark we leave on history.’67 At the time he wrote, Leclerc himself was nearly four weeks dead from yellow fever. ‘Come back soon,’ Napoleon wrote to Pauline on learning of Leclerc’s death, ‘here you will find consolation for your misfortunes in the love of your family. I embrace you.’ Pauline – whom Laure d’Abrantès described as ‘a less-than-desolate widow’ – returned with the body on January 1, 1803, and by the end of August she was remarried, to the handsome and rich Don Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese, Prince of Sulmona and of Rossano, Duke and Prince of Guastalla, whom she privately thought ‘an imbecile’ and to whom she was soon wildly unfaithful.

Tell me, M. Antoine,’ said Harriet, as their taxi rolled along the Esplanade. ‘You who are a person of great experience, is love, in your opinion, a matter of the first importance?’ ‘It is, alas! of a great importance, mademoiselle, but of the first importance, no!’ ‘What is of the first importance?’ ‘Mademoiselle, I tell you frankly that to have a healthy mind in a healthy body is the greatest gift of le bon Dieu, and when I see so many people who have clean blood and strong bodies spoiling themselves and distorting their brains with drugs and drink and foolishness, it makes me angry. They should leave that to the people who cannot help themselves because to them life is without hope.’ Harriet hardly knew what to reply; the words were spoken with such personal and tragic significance. Rather fortunately, Antoine did not wait. ‘L’amour! These ladies come and dance and excite themselves and want love and think it is happiness. And they tell me about their sorrows—me—and they have no sorrows at all, only that they are silly and selfish and lazy. Their husbands are unfaithful and their lovers run away and what do they say? Do they say, I have two hands, two feet, all my faculties, I will make a life for myself? No. They say, Give me cocaine, give me the cocktail, give me the thrill, give me my gigolo, give me l’amo-o-ur! Like a mouton bleating in a field. If they knew! Harriet laughed. ‘You’re right, M. Antoine. I don’t believe l’amour matters so terribly, after all.

A third assumption: a commitment to monogamy is an admirable consequence of love, stemming from a deep-seated generosity and an intimate interest in the other’s flourishing and well-being. A call for monogamy is a sure indication that one partner has the other’s best interests at heart. To Rabih’s new way of thinking, it seems anything but kind or considerate to insist that a spouse return to his room alone to watch CNN and eat yet another club sandwich while perched on the edge of his bed, when he has perhaps only a few more decades of life left on the planet, an increasingly dishevelled physique, an at best intermittent track record with the opposite sex, and a young woman from California standing before him who sincerely wishes to remove her dress in his honour. If love is to be defined as a genuine concern for the well-being of another person, then it must surely be deemed compatible with granting permission for an often harassed and rather browbeaten husband to step off the elevator on the eighteenth floor, in order to enjoy ten minutes of rejuvenating cunnilingus with a near-stranger. Otherwise it may seem that what we are dealing with is not really love at all but rather a kind of small-minded and hypocritical possessiveness, a desire to make one’s partner happy if, but only if, that happiness involves oneself. It’s past midnight already, yet Rabih is just hitting his stride, knowing there might be objections but sidestepping them nimbly and, in the process, acquiring an ever more brittle sense of self-righteousness. A fourth assumption: monogamy is the natural state of love. A sane person can only ever want to love one other person. Monogamy is the bellwether of emotional health. Is there not, wonders Rabih, an infantile idealism in our wish to find everything in one other being – someone who will be simultaneously a best friend, a lover, a co-parent, a co-chauffeur and a business partner? What a recipe for disappointment and resentment in this notion, upon which millions of otherwise perfectly good marriages regularly founder. What could be more natural than to feel an occasional desire for another person? How can anyone be expected to grow up in hedonistic, liberated circles, experience the sweat and excitement of nightclubs and summer parks, listen to music full of longing and lust and then, immediately upon signing a piece of paper, renounce all outside sexual interest, not in the name of any particular god or higher commandment but merely from an unexplored supposition that it must be very wrong? Is there not instead something inhuman, indeed ‘wrong’, in failing to be tempted, in failing to realize just how short of time we all are and therefore with what urgent curiosity we should want to explore the unique fleshly individuality of more than one of our contemporaries? To moralize against adultery is to deny the legitimacy of a range of sensory high points – Rabih thinks of Lauren’s shoulder blades – in their own way just as worthy of reverence as more acceptable attractions such as the last moments of ‘Hey Jude’ or the ceilings of the Alhambra Palace. Isn’t the rejection of adulterous possibilities tantamount to an infidelity towards the richness of life itself? To turn the equation on its head: would it be rational to trust anyone who wasn’t, under certain circumstances, really pretty interested in being unfaithful?

She'd voiced the unspoken question that had plagued him and tormented him earlier that morning, a question that had weighted his body down almost as it was a poison, a question without an answer ad it completely eluded his mind, much like an unfaithful husband avoids a questioning, nagging, suspicious wife.

All sin is against love. Our relationship to God is like the intimate relationship of husband and wife. As such, sin is infidelity to love. When we sin, we break not just a commandment; we break God’s heart, as the heart of one partner in marriage is broken when the other is unfaithful. Sin is personal unfaithfulness to Christ our Bridgegroom.

Though portrayed as the long-suffering spouse of an unfaithful husband, whose infidelities I personally observed or knew to be true, the Hillary Clinton I saw was anything but a sympathetic victim. Those loyal to her kept coming back for her volcanic eruptions. I

You are right. He has the free will to choose good or evil, to be a husband and father or an unfaithful philanderer. He made his choice, and it wasn’t me or Neil. He’s left me and I’m just seeing it now. He chose drinking and gambling over our marriage. I struggled to stay with him, when all along, he was leaving me.

Suddenly he imagines the house where Bridget’s husband lives alone, longing for her, with his unfaithful wife’s name on the mailbox, her lipstick beside his shaving things. Only then does he feel guilty.

In 1926, after she discovered her husband was having an affair, Christie disappeared. The police dredged the local lake, believing she might have drowned. Thousands of volunteers searched for her in the countryside. Meanwhile, a woman claiming to be a grieving mother from Cape Town checked in at a health spa under a name very similar to the name of the mistress of Agatha Christie’s unfaithful husband. Eventually, one of the guests recognized her as the famous crime writer and alerted the authorities. Christie regained her memory, but she never remembered anything that happened to her during her time at the health spa.

Tonight, Mom painted a portrait of our family, and through her eyes I saw people I’d never imagined—a drunken, unfaithful husband and a depressed, overwhelmingly unhappy wife. How is it that I saw none of this? Are children so sublimely oblivious to their own world? She was right to hide this truth from me. Even now, I wish I didn’t know it. Sometimes, knowing where we come from hurts more than we can stand.

In my mind, then, I began to question myself and answer myself. I wanted clarity, I wanted sight, but it seems to me that I did not try to think the thoughts I thought. I did not foresee the thoughts I was going to think. “Do you mean that you love Mattie Chatham enough to say what you just said?” “Yes. Oh, yes! I do.” “You love her enough to be a faithful husband to her? Think what you’re saying, now. You’re proposing to be the faithful husband of a woman who is already married to an unfaithful husband?” “Yes. That’s why. If she has an unfaithful husband, then she needs a faithful one.” “A woman already married who must never know that you are her husband? Think. And who will never be your wife?” “Yes.” “Have you foreseen how this may end? Can you?” “No.” “Are you ready for this? Think, now.” “Yes. I am ready.” “Do you, then, in love’s mystery and fear, give yourself to this woman to be her faithful husband from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death?” “I do. Yes! That is my vow.

You are not being unfaithful to your husband when you seek help. It is not gossip (regardless of what your husband or others might say) to share your hurt or concern with a person capable of helping you, especially when you share it in a redemptive way (that is, to genuinely seek help or to work toward a healthy marriage). Ridiculing your husband in front of a bunch of friends just to vent or elicit laughter is gossip; going privately to a counselor or trusted friend who can provide godly feedback and help is called fellowship.

You will testify against me? You, Sedric Meldar, a lowly servant? Then do so now, before all of us. Tell us then, give us one instance of my unfaithfulness to my wife. Just one will do.” His gaze was sharper than a knife. Alise saw victory dancing in his dark eyes. Sedric drew a breath. The trembling she had felt as she gripped his arm stilled. He spoke clearly, his voice pitched to carry to everyone there. “I shared your bed for years, before you took Alise as your wife, and for years afterward. You spent your wedding night with me. And in the years that followed, you made her a laughingstock among our fellows. In that circle, all knew that you disdained the company of women for that of men. I was your lover, Hest Finbok. I helped you deceive her, and I did not speak up when you mocked her. And if need be, I will stand before all of Trehaug and all of Bingtown and attest to that. You were an unfaithful husband to her, and I, I was a treacherous friend.” Alise stared at Sedric as he committed social suicide. But he turned and met her gaze and said, “And again, Alise, I am so sorry. Would that I could take back those years of your life and give them to you unscathed.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. Sedric had just destroyed all chance that he could ever return to Bingtown and resume his life. Even if he remained in Kelsingra forever, if even one Trader returned to Bingtown, all would know not only what he had done to her, but what he was. “I forgave you, Sedric. I told you that a long time ago.” “I know that,” he said very quietly. His hand covered hers as he added, “But I did not deserve your forgiveness then. Perhaps I can say I have earned it now?” “You have,” she said quietly. “And more. But Sedric, what have you done? All will know that you…” “That I am what I am,” he said calmly. “I do not apologize for that. Ever.” She sensed someone behind them and turned slightly, thinking it might be Leftrin. It was not. Carson was grinning, but as he stepped forward, a single tear tracked down his sunburned cheek. He folded Sedric into an embrace from behind that lifted the smaller man off his feet. “Proud of you, Bingtown boy,” he said huskily. He set him down on his feet and leaned down to kiss him. The kiss did not end quickly, and Sedric’s hands came up to cradle Carson’s bearded face to his own. Several of the keepers favored the couple with knowing whoops that drowned out the incredulous muttering from the watching prisoners. Alise found herself smiling, as much for joy for them as the stunned expression on Hest’s face. She felt a nudge, and turned to see Leftrin. He stuck out the crook of his elbow, and she took his arm in his ragged coat sleeve. “I think we were going to get some tea?” he asked her conversationally. She nodded, and instantly forgave him the triumphant look he shot over her head at Hest. She walked a dozen steps with Leftrin before she glanced back. Hest was standing alone, staring after them.

Who are you? Go back with the others until you are judged.” He met Hest’s stare eye to eye. Hest responded with wide-eyed shock. “But… but I’m Hest Finbok! I’ve come all this way to find my wife, Alise! I hired passage on the newest and swiftest ships I could find to come in search of her. When treachery by the captain let it fall to Chalcedean pirates, I thought all was lost. But here I am! Sweet Sa, your miracles never cease! I am here, and alive, and so is my darling wife! Alise, don’t you know me? Has your mind been turned by this harsh place? I am here now, and you need no other protector than your loving husband.” His words, she thought, danced all through the truth, never touching it. Reyn, startled, stayed as he was as Hest stepped around him. “No.” It was the only word she could manage. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding. She could not find breath to say more than that, but she clung to Leftrin’s arm as if it were her only lifeline in a wild sea storm. And he did not let go of her. He stood firm at her side. Leftrin spoke in a low growl. “The lady says no.” “Take your hands off my wife!” Hest ignored Reyn’s challenge of him as he stepped around the Elderling to glare menacingly at Leftrin. “She is obviously not right in her mind! Look how she stares! She does not recognize me, poor thing! And you, you scoundrel, have taken advantage of her! Oh, my Alise, my darling, what has he done to you? How can you not recognize your own loving husband?” She felt a low rumbling from Leftrin as if he snarled like a beast. His arm in her clutch had become hard as iron. He would protect her, he would save her. All she had to do was let him. “No,” she said again, this time to Leftrin. She squeezed his arm reassuringly and then stepped out of his shelter. She stood free of him, and the wind off the river blew past her. Her unbound hair lifted in wild red snakes, and she knew a moment of dismay as she wondered how ridiculous she looked, her skin weathered, her woman’s body garbed in the bright colors of an Elderling as if she did not know her age or place in the world. Her place in the world. She squared her shoulders. As she walked forward, Reyn stepped toward her as if to offer his arm and support. She waved him off without meeting his eyes. She advanced on Hest, hoping to see some flicker of doubt in his eyes. Instead his smile only widened as if he were truly welcoming her. He actually believed that she would resume that role, would pretend to be his loving, dutiful wife. That thought touched fire in her soul. She halted before him and looked up at him. “Oh, my dear! How harshly the world has treated you!” he exclaimed. He tried to put his arms around her. She set both hands to his chest and pushed him firmly away. As he staggered backward, it pleased her that he had not expected her to be so strong. “You are not my husband,” she said in a low voice. He teetered a moment, then caught his balance. He tried to recover his aplomb. But she had seen the sparks of anger flare in his dark eyes. He tipped his head, solicitous, his voice striken. “My dear, you are so confused!” he began. She lifted her voice, pitched it for all to hear. “I am NOT confused. You are NOT my husband. You broke the terms of our marriage contract, rendering it void. From the earliest days of our marriage, you were unfaithful to me. You entered into the contract with no intent of keeping yourself to me. You have deceived me and made me an object of mockery. You are not my husband, and by the terms of our marriage contract, all that is mine comes back to me. You are not my husband, and I am not your wife. You are nothing to me.

Sita is domestic and chaste because Ram pays her attention. Ahalya is unfaithful because Gautam neglects her. Tadaka is wild because her husband is dead and she is attached to no single man. Thus the onus of maintaining a field falls squarely on a farmer. In

Something happens to a woman when her husband is unfaithful. Songs and poems are written about heartbreak and betrayal, but they only serve to flower up the ugly truth. The young girl, the one inside every grown woman, the one dancing around in her mother’s shoes, she dies. The wide-eyed innocent who looked up at the man she loved and professed her devotion, she leaves and the woman is never the same.

It’s an often repeated lie that familial bonds are the strongest. Some swear by them. Some claim an other-worldly connection with their siblings or nonsense of that order. These can be dismissed as flights of fancy. Artifices of civilization. In the wild, animals often exhibit what we would perceive as familial love. Some wild cats will grow up nurtured by their mothers, surrounded by their siblings, but should one stray from the pack for too long and attempt to rejoin, it will be summarily eaten or maimed by its ‘family.’ It’s no longer a part of them. The blood connection is irrelevant, what matters is the perception of the group. Conversely, there have been recorded instances of unfaithful wives giving birth to children from a man other than her husband. The father, oblivious to the indiscretion, loves the child as if it were his own. Would that love fade if he found out the truth? Who do you love more, your brother or your best friend? What if your brother tried to kill you, who then? Here, then, is my twentieth truth: “Do not trust in blood, trust only in yourself." In the end, that is all you have.

There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months. The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight—and the grog shops to comfort the loser. The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.

I wouldn’t let myself think ahead! I remember when my sister said, ‘I know widows who have remarried, and are happy.’ I almost took her head off. I was appalled. I wasn’t at all hopeful life could go on.” “It sure went on for you,” Vanni said. “Boy howdy. I came here absolutely determined to live out my days lonely and miserable, but that damn Jack—he ambushed me. I think I fell in love with him the minute I met him, but I fought it. As though I might somehow be unfaithful to my husband’s memory by moving on, which was absurd. I had the kind of husband who would have wanted me to have love in my life, and I bet you did, too.” “You

5. Unfaithful husbands in long-term marriages described their affairs as more emotional than sexual. Men whose affairs were primarily sexual seldom chose to leave.   6. Commitment to working on the marriage was low at the beginning of therapy. Involved spouses who were not committed to do everything possible to save their marriage were more likely to drop out of therapy quickly and leave the marriage.

The true condition of a people may be known by the regard held for woman. The beauty of their women was extolled in song. Small eye-brows was considered as a mark of beauty, and names were bestowed upon the owners from this feature. No country in Europe held woman in so great esteem as in the Highlands of Scotland. An unfaithful, unkind, or even careless husband was looked upon as a monster.

I want to tell you something,” he said. “I asked your sister all about your husband. Mark.” “You did?” “Yep. I understand he was a great man. A brilliant man—and kind. He did a lot of good in the world, and he was good to you. I have a lot of respect for him.” “She didn’t tell me this.” “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this to you. I might muck it up, but you have to listen. A couple of weeks ago I let you cry alone, because I was pissed. I caught you talking to his picture and I got threatened. Threatened by a dead man, which makes me a true candy-ass.” He touched her hair. “I won’t ever do that again, Mel. I understand why you love him, why you’ll always—” “Jack—” “No, I’m going to do this, and you’re going to listen. I know you didn’t want your life to change the way it did, and you couldn’t control it. Just like you can’t control what you feel. You don’t have to pretend you don’t think about him, or miss him. And if you have those moments when you’re sad, when you wish you could have him back in your life, you can be honest with me. You don’t have to pretend it’s PMS.” He smiled. “We both know you don’t have PMS anymore.” “Jack, what are you talking about?” “I just want one thing. If I can be a sport about the fact that he’ll always be an important part of your life, can you try to not be sorry that we’re together, having this baby? Because I have to tell you, I’ve never been more ready for anything. I’ll do my best not to be jealous. I realize I’m not your first choice, but your next choice. That’s good enough for me, and I’m sorry someone died. I’m sorry for your loss, Mel.” “Why are you saying this? It’s such nonsense.” “It’s what I heard,” he said. “I heard you saying you were sorry you were pregnant, that it just happened, and you promised not to forget him.” Mel gave him a look of disbelief. “I thought you were hurt by what you heard me say—but you were hurt because of what you didn’t hear!” “Huh?” “Jack, I’m not sorry I’m pregnant. I’m thrilled! I got myself all worked up because I realized that I was more in love with you than I thought possible. Maybe more in love than I’ve ever been in my life. I had a short insane moment of feeling that I’d betrayed his memory somehow. As though I’d been unfaithful or something. It’s true—I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. I know I resisted, but you just got to me. I promised Mark I wouldn’t forget him. And I won’t because you’re right, he was a good man. And I respect him, too.” “Huh?” he said again. “Look,” she said, playing with his thick, damp hair. “I was upset and a little confused. I loved Mark very much. I didn’t think I’d get to feel that again, much less for someone new. Imagine how it threw me when I realized I felt something even stronger. Something even more powerful. Jack, I was telling Mark I had moved on. I was saying goodbye—it was difficult. I’m not going to be a widow anymore, darling. I’m going to be a wife. This thing I have with you—it’s amazing.” “Seriously?” “I was in this high, emotional state,” she said with a shrug. “I was tired and pregnant. Jack, I love you so much. Can’t you tell?” “Well…yeah,” he said, sitting up in the bed a little.

I met a woman once who was married for twenty years to an unfaithful husband before they divorced. She spent the next two decades asking why and being bitter toward God. Twenty years after her divorce, she still had no answers—only bitterness. But now, she has lost forty years of her life to the jerk she married. How would her life have been different after her divorce if she’d moved from why to how?

He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, one hand resting lightly on her naked hip. “It’s time this old house saw some joy again, don’t you think?” Emma nodded. “Your father and Macon’s mother—were they happy?” Steven shrugged. “All I really remember about my father is that he always gave me rock candy when he visited, and that he adored my mother. It doesn’t seem likely that he’d have kept a mistress if he loved the woman he married.” “What about Cyrus and his wife, Louella?” He grinned. “My guess would be they were happy. Granddaddy gets a certain light in his eyes when he talks about Louella, and he told me once that he’d never been unfaithful to her.” Emma wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, her eyes wide and weary as she looked at her husband. “Would you ever take a mistress?” He kissed her, his tongue sweeping her lips once, awakening her needs in spite of all that had happened that day. “Never,” he said with such quiet certainty that Emma was greatly comforted. “I get everything I need from you.” She

A GLOSSARY OF IGBO WORDS AND PHRASES agadi-nwayi: old woman. agbala: woman; also used of a man who has taken no title. chi: personal god. efulefu: worthless man. egwugwu: a masquerader who impersonates one of the ancestral spirits of the village. ekwe: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from wood. eneke-nti-oba: a kind of bird. eze-agadi-nwayi: the teeth of an old woman. iba: fever. ilo: the village green, where assemblies for sports, discussions, etc., take place. inyanga: showing off, bragging. isa-ifi: a ceremony. If a wife had been separated from her husband for some time and were then to be re-united with him, this ceremony would be held to ascertain that she had not been unfaithful to him during the time of their separation. iyi-uwa: a special kind of stone which forms the link between an ogbanje and the spirit world. Only if the iyi-uwa were discovered and destroyed would the child not die. jigida: a string of waist beads. kotma: court messenger. The word is not of Igbo origin but is a corruption of “court messenger.” kwenu: a shout of approval and greeting. ndichie: elders. nna ayi: our father. nno: welcome. nso-ani: a religious offence of a kind abhorred by everyone, literally earth’s taboo. nza: a very small bird. obi: the large living quarters of the head of the family. obodo dike: the land of the brave. ocbu: murder or manslaughter. ogbanje: a changeling; a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. It is almost impossible to bring up an ogbanje child without it dying, unless its iyi-uwa is first found and destroyed.

I will not say it is because we are unfaithful to our Master that the world is more kind to us, but I half suspect it is, and it is very possible that if we were more thoroughly Christians the world would more heartily detest us, and if we would cleave more closely to Christ we might expect to receive more slander, more abuse, less tolerance, and less favor from men. You young believers, who have lately followed Christ, should father and mother forsake you, remember you were bidden to reckon upon it; should brothers and sisters deride, you must put this down as part of the cost of being a Christian. Godly working-men, should your employers or your fellow-workers frown upon you; wives, should your husbands threaten to cast you out, remember, without the camp was Jesus' place, and without the camp is yours. Oh! ye Christian men, who dream of trimming your sails to the wind, who seek to win the world's favor, I do beseech you cease from a course so perilous. We are in the world, but we must never be of it; we are not to be secluded like monks in the cloister, but we are to be separated like Jews among Gentiles; men, but not of men; helping, aiding, befriending, teaching, comforting, instructing, but not sinning either to escape a frown or to win a smile. The more manifestly there shall be a great gulf between the Church and the world, the better shall it be for both; the better for the world, for it shall be thereby warned; the better for the Church, for it shall be thereby preserved. Go ye, then, like the Master, expecting to be abused, to wear an ill-name, and to earn reproach; go ye, like him, without the camp.

Now wild-eyed with the last of his vapor, her husband leapt to his feet and bellowed a desperate, enigmatic question to the first glimmer of dawn light. “Did you ever see a stare like a Persian cat?” And then, out like that light, he fell back in a stupor. •

Wives judged as more physically attractive than their husbands stated that they would be more likely to divorce unfaithful husbands. Similarly, wives higher in mate value than their husbands declared that they would break from unfaithful husbands. Women who were lower than their husbands on attractiveness and mate value, in contrast, were more forgiving. These women indicated that they would probably remain with their husbands, even if these men had a one-night stand or a brief affair.

An unfaithful woman always knows where her husband is.

Exactly. That’s why I like being your wife.” Olivia lifted her head and grinned at him. “I also like being able to grope you inappropriately whenever I want.” Nate chuckled. “Working together doesn’t have to interfere with the groping. Vince is always trying to grab my ass.” “That’s not the body part I wanted to grope,” Olivia said in a deep voice that was perfectly seductive. “Wow, Liv. We’re in public.” Nate laughed awkwardly. “What has gotten into you?” “All the talk about bad marriages and unfaithful husbands this morning just made me realize how lucky I am to have you.” She kissed his cheek. “It doesn’t hurt that you’re so damn sexy, too.” “Seriously, Liv. Did you take some horny pills or what?” Nate said with a laugh as she ran her hand up his leg. Olivia moved her hand to her stomach and gave him a guilty smile. “I think it’s the pregnancy hormones.” It was true that Olivia’s pregnancies usually made her even more affectionate than usual. Nate wasn’t convinced that was the reason, though. “We shouldn’t have taken on this case,” Nate said with a sigh. “You were right.” “What makes you say that?” she asked. “It was too soon. You and I needed time to be together and to be with the kids. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.” Nate turned to the playground and watched Rosalie swinging with her head back, eyes closed. “She looks just like you, Liv. I can’t get over it.” “Don’t forget about the Nate-clone coming down the slide,” Olivia said playfully. “I’m just glad he has your name so I don’t have to feel bad when I accidentally call him Nate.” “Do we need to name this one Nate, too?” he said, putting his hand on top of hers. Olivia didn’t answer. She was staring at their hands, lost in thought. “What are you thinking?

I have a lot of sympathy for Melania Trump.

leaving me in the kitchen with a stained apron, sweating over a three-course gourmet meal for my husband and his floozy. Only then does it occur to me that maybe I didn’t think this through.

If this feminist world we proclaim is so dope, why wouldn’t a Black girl like her want to be part of this work, too? And if her husband Jay-Z’s recently released confessional album 4:44 is any indicator, perhaps feminism helped Bey find her power when she was confronted with an unfaithful partner. Feminism has certainly been a soothing reminder of my badassery every time I’ve been forced to mend my own broken heart.

this what other women did, the ones who knew their husbands had been unfaithful and decided to stay? She knew several women who stayed for financial reasons, but Priya had a modest amount set aside from her days selling her paintings, so it wasn’t that. She stayed because Brad made her feel safe, or at least safer than she’d ever felt before. There was no way someone who’d never experienced an anxiety disorder could understand, but Priya didn’t believe she could be okay all by herself without his care. It wasn’t just that he medicated her—she could find a psychiatrist for that—it was the day-to-day monitoring of her behavior, her moods, and her fears. Who else would do that with such care? Priya was terrified of her own mental state, because what if she missed the subtle signs and then plunged into a downward spiral? What if she went off the deep end again with no one there to save her? What

Beck.” Helena smiles at him, shakes her head. “Sweetheart, be serious. You don’t think the press might be interested in the fact that a human bone has been found to form part of a sculpture made by the late, great, reclusive, enigmatic Vanessa Chapman? The same Vanessa Chapman whose notoriously unfaithful husband went missing twenty years ago? His body never found?

That’s why I never feel guilty for being unfaithful: How could I, when I do it out of love for my husband? Plus, I know how to set limits: I’ve never cheated on my husband on any day but Thursday. It’s not the color of betrayal for nothing.

One night at dinner, Mom casually mentioned that a woman in her support group, had been “cheating.” The offense? Noticing the mailman was attractive. In ConneXions’ warped reality, this constituted infidelity. Jodi’s teachings were extreme: a married man talking to a female coworker could be unfaithful, and glimpsing attractive people online might be classified as porn addiction. Only absolute purity of thought was acceptable. In Jodi’s rigid world, innocence was rare. Those deemed “distorted”—usually husbands—were told to abandon their families to work on themselves. Alone. Jodi seemed to specialize in guiding wives to distance themselves from their husbands. Or kicking them out entirely. ConneXions language framed it as “inviting him to leave,” code for “I’m going to make you isolate yourself from everyone you know, except Jodi.” Shockingly, the husbands often went along with it, fully convinced that it was in the best interest of their families. It was like watching lemmings jump off a cliff.

The thing of it was, Phil should have understood that Mona was vulnerable. You shouldn’t need to tell your husband that now was the moment to be inflamed with jealousy. You shouldn’t need to explain to him why. That was the whole point of marriage—that there was someone in your life you could count on to be paying attention. Had Phil displayed such an alarming, even offensive lack of jealousy precisely because he was unfaithful himself?