Oh man. That’s a doozie.
I’ve been thinking about these things quite a bit lately, for my own personal dilemma of my own making, and I keep coming back to the central question:
What does love require of us?
Sometimes I’m convinced it’s total honesty, but then there are some truths that cause more pain than anything can heal.
My son’s best friend’s mother just died of a brain tumor. They weren’t close friends, but we’ve always been in contact and do kid exchanges, etc, and helped out however we could. Dad’s been struggling, obviously, with the loss of his wife, three young kids, and all the grief that comes along with it. A week before she died, she was on home hospice and losing her ability to communicate. During that time, actively dying and her husband bearing that unimaginable burden, he discovered that she’d been having an affair for nearly three years…with his best friend. It broke him, as it would anyone. She concealed it until she was no longer able to, but never broke it off.
I don’t know, but I imagine he struggled with whether or not to tell her that he discovered it. She’d dropped her phone and it was all there, just barely concealed. But he told her he found out, and she was coherent enough to acknowledge that he knew. He wanted her to know that he forgave her (he doesn’t) but didn’t want her to die carrying that burden. But she died, knowing he’s devastated, more than devastated, and there was nothing she could do to help him cope with the betrayal and now anger, grief, everything. No talking about why, what she’d planned to do about it, how she felt about him and their marriage, nothing. Just an end without closure and a life built on a lie. It’s unimaginable. I still can’t wrap my head around what kind of pain he’s living in today. The funeral was yesterday, and already, as of a week before her death, he’d taken down all photos of her in the house. Imagine having your mother die as a child, and seeing your father erase all evidence of her, while you’re grieving the loss of your mother. It brought me to tears, more than once.
So what did love require of him, at that point, and of her, leading up to her death? Honesty, or should she have taken it to the grave, as she planned? Should he have told her he knew, or give her the comfort of thinking he’d lose his faithful, loving, devoted wife without ever knowing of her, and his best friend’s, betrayal.
What does love and mercy require in that situation? I really don’t know the answer, at that point. I guess you have to think long and hard about the consequences and accept the life-altering changes that follow.
WOW, true life even more complex than a TV show. I think at some level she must have wanted him to know. I mean how hard would it be to delete whatever evidence was on the phone. Yes I think he should have told her he knew, she commited the violation. I can’t even imagine the conversation with the friend. Wow thats gotta be rough on the kids, I assume they don’t know mom was cheating? I think I would suffer in silence and leave the photos up for the kids sake.
I think she is dead love requires nothing of him going forward toward her. However his love of his kids does deserve something.
