Monday, 06 July 2009

• An Affair to Remember: Playing the Devil's Advocate

   

  I want you to forget everything you’ve heard.  Or put it to the side.  And just pretend, with me, for a moment. 

  Imagine that you’re in cold a marriage.  [If you’re currently happily married, imagine that you are not.]  This is the kind of marriage that lives by the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.  You live separate lives in the same house.  You have children, but they are not young. 

   

  You’re not happy, but you’re comfortable.  Resigned.  Possibly a little numb.  There’s work, which keeps you busy.  And you do so need to be busy.  Keep running, and going, otherwise you might have to consider all that’s missing.

   

  And then something considerable happens.  Like turning around a corner, a friendship that you’ve had evolves.  This person who has always seemed to get you—in a way that no one else has—makes your pulse race.  You start to look for extra reasons to talk to them, and the conversations that you have become a bit more intimate.  It takes you by surprise, and suddenly…reason and sense leaves the building.  You’re profoundly affected in a way that you’ve never been.  And you act on it.  You make this difficult choice to follow through on these feelings that you have.  Perhaps it’s against your better judgment, because what good could come of it?  You’re married already. 

   

  But this choice—you make it.  You see that other person.  You make love, and you talk for hours.  You feel at home and at peace, when those are the last things that you should feel.  Regardless of the circumstances, you’ve fallen in love.  You didn’t go out and seek it, but you’ve found it.  Or it found you.  For a brief moment in time, you get lost in it.  You give up something of yourself, but take a piece of that other person as replacement.

   

  And then you leave.  You go home.  Because you have to.  Because you have duties and responsibilities.  And those stolen moments don’t last forever.  But they do stay with you.

   

  Then imagine it all becomes public knowledge.  Everyone knows.  Everyone knows.  Your mail man, your kids, everybody in your office.  People you’ve never even met before.  They know.  They know that you cheated on your spouse with someone else.  (Granted, that’s not an original crime, but still.)  There’s a big old Scarlet Spotlight following you around.  They would’ve branded you with a Hester Prynne letter A, but they have to special order those.

   

  Now, end scenario.  Let’s look at the picture, which I’ve editorialized a bit.  It’s the picture of an imperfect person.  Someone who is supposed to be held to a higher standard, because he’s a religious man—and a politician.  Yes, I’m talking about South Carolina’s Governor Sanford (for a plethora of articles on the situation, go here).  He’s been a person to cast stones in the past (I believe he was very vocal during Clinton’s Infamous Saga of Scarlet).  He’s been married a very long time, as well.  That’s rather dirty pool, and not something I’m advocating for, necessarily—cheating, that is—but it’s a fact of the situation.  I’m leaving aside the issue of his disappearing to the Appalachian Trail—uh, sorry—Argentina.  No, I don’t think a politician should just *poof* off to go on personal business.  However, I can almost understand it, from his perspective.  It’s my understanding that he went there to breakup with his mistress.  The woman he’s referred to as his soul mate.  These days, I’m not even sure we know what that term means.  We’re too caught up in our Starter Marriages and whatnot; as a result, we mistake attraction for love, and commonality for connection.  That’s not the point.

   

  No, my point is this…you found someone, despite the circumstances, awakens things in you.  Who brings you to life in a way you’ve never known, or even thought possible.  And now you’ve been given an ultimatum of sorts.  You have to stop seeing her.  (A reasonable request.)  But it’s breaking your heart.  You’re a bloody mess.  The last thing you’re going to think about is work.  Yes, he’s in a position of authority.  Yes, he has responsibilities.  And no, he shouldn’t shirk them.  But imagine, for a moment, the utter devastation someone might feel in that moment.  The soul-wrenching agony.  And tell me that you’d be thinking straight.  Tell me that you’d be entirely reasonable and calm.

   

  I don’t care about party—Republican, Democrat, Independent, Wig, Tory, or whatever (shout out to my Canadian friends!).  Is it ironic that Governor Sanford, a conservative, would be entrenched in a scandal such as this?  Yes.  Is he a hypocrite, considering his previous moral standing?  Yes.  But which one of us is perfect?  Honestly, we’re all hypocrites, sometimes.  We all are capable of preaching one thing, but practicing another.  Am I saying that's good?  No.  Does that make us lesser people?  Maybe.  I can’t say.  I do know that it makes us complicated.  Personally, I don’t give two shriveled figs about the irony.  “Ohhh, look at the Republican!  He’s got one hand caught in the Bible, and the other hand—” (I trust I don’t need to finish that statement.)  I’m an equal opportunity observer.  It wouldn’t matter to me if Sanford was a Democrat.  His party affiliation is just one aspect of the man.  Sure, it might make better fodder for comedy, but if Jack Kennedy were alive today, I cringe to think of what our media would’ve made of him.

   

  I’ll be honest, I read the published email exchange between Sanford and Maria.  It left me more compassionate that I had been, originally.  It makes the situation more human.  (Note: I found this article rather interesting, as well.)  And, honestly, there’s something beautiful about affection like that.  There is real love in the way he speaks about Maria.  (Don’t take my word for it.  Look at the language he uses in his public statements, lately.)  I can’t imagine how gut-wrenching it would be to have a personal item like those emails made public.  It felt intrusive to read it, because it is intrusive. 

   

  I know I’m doing the unpopular thing here.  It’s easier to make snickering remarks, throw our noses in the air, and scoff that we could never be in such a position.  We’re so much better than that.  We know right from wrong.  We know where our duties lie.  (Saying nothing of the duty we might have to ourselves.)  But the truth is, it’s just pretending.  Pretending that everything’s cut and dry, that the human heart will dance like a monkey, if ordered to.  We pretend that it’s okay to heave blame at a man, because he’s supposed to be better, uphold a certain standards.

   

  Under the right pressure, we all crack.  In the right circumstances, we all can make what seems like the wrong choice.  I think that we judge, occasionally, in order to make ourselves feel better.  “Well, at least I’m not that guy.” 

   

  But the dirty, ugly, wretched truth is that you just don’t know, until you do.

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