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Comment by scottmagdalein | Hacker News Reader

Life: forgiving my wife after she had an affair. It was hard, but a single mistake doesn't negate the fact that she is a great mom, we are good together and our son deserves a shot at having his dad in the house.

Programming: learning by doing instead of by reading. I started learning Rails when I wanted to build PicDigest and the mistakes I've made have helped me learn faster on a broader foundation.

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I am a little dissapointed you are catching some flak. It is your life, do what you think is right.

Kudos to you for your decision. A book was written about marriage, long term monogamy, and (at least for me) showed that maybe sex shouldn't be this huge deal we currently make it out to be. It's called Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

Thanks.

I hope you're posting under a pseudonym. Revealing that one's wife had an affair is no small potatoes.

Nope. I'm Scott. It's public knowledge. We were separated for eight months as a result of the affair. Everyone who knows us knows the reason for the separation.

If you've really forgiven her then maybe you shouldn't be telling the rest of the world too.

Absolutely forgiven her. It's something we talk about. We help other couples dealing with the same type of hardship. Keeping it to ourselves doesn't prove forgiveness and it keeps us from helping others.

Humans are capable of incredible self-deception a la Robert Trivers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/books/review/the-folly-of-...

You're most likely fighting your genes (or perhaps you're a mutant): maybe you'll win and maybe you won't. Here the _you_ I refer to here is that part which believes it has free will and can override the other (genetic) part.

I don't understand what you're saying.

You could always look up Trivers' work.

Apparently some other people think that they do understand what I'm saying but they don't like it and have consequently downgraded my post!

It's the old "nature vs nurture" thing: those who don't like my posting are "nurturists" and believe that we're born as tabulae rasae, empty slates that learn all behavior; I'm seen as the "naturist" who believes that we're totally gene-controlled.

I mean, what am I overriding in my nature? Maybe you mean forgiveness is overriding my nature to seek revenge or hold a grudge for some wrong doing. If that's the case, then yes I'm going against my nature.

But nature is terrible at defining and shaping human relationships. We confuse "love" with affinity. "Love" is more like a verb that entails sacrifice, acceptance, and patience...along with affinity in a marital relationship, of course.

Fighting the genes is in our genes and this is simply our ability to adapt, which is generally a good thing - though it is too often manifesting as counter-productively.

So "fighting the genes" is sometimes not bad at all but I agree that most of the time it may be.

Publicly acknowledging his wife's affair could be seen as an act of forgiveness- he is showing that he isn't ashamed his wife had an affair. Protecting secrets implies the past affair is shameful even today, that his wife needs to feel constantly ashamed, and gives those who discover the secret the power to embarrass or emotionally attack him and his wife. Refusing to hide it is a public declaration that it really doesn't matter today.

I admire (and even envy) your ability to be transparent, although it has left me questioning the purpose of social taboos and whether or not the custom of attempting to keep knowledge of things like extramarital affairs private is beneficial or not.

As 'jaquesm points out above, publicising it could be seen as a form of "public shaming". Attempting to hide it, however, leads to people in your community speaking in hushed tones behind your back, which is annoying and possibly a greater net negative in the long term. I realise that this may be more than you care to divulge, and I don't want to focus too much on your personal situation, but is there any particular reasoning or philosophy behind your unusual (I think it's fair to call it that) approach?

Being open about the affair has many benefits.

It cripples the rumor mill, taking away the secretive intrigue. If it's out in the open, people have less to speculate about and less to talk about.

It makes it possible for us to help other couples going through it. Dealing with this can be an incredibly lonely experience. We want to help make it less lonely for couples.

Keeping it a secret doesn't help anyone and it's only built on the social need to keep up appearances. That's useless in a world where the only people's opinions that I care about are my family's.

I can only hope to be as level-headed as you seem to be when life throws a new wrench my way. Good for you, and thanks.

I first read it as "when life throws a new wench my way", and had to read it again since that would have been a clever pun.

It would be a taboo and Scott's character could be questioned if his wife did not agree with the disclosure. That doesn't seem to be the case.

Our social system could use more people like Scott and his (reformed) wife. To me, they look like leaders in personal development and growth, let alone relationships.

Nice to hear you forgave your wife afyer an affair, i can't imagine how you felt

A really hard decision, I think he is a man with brave heart.

Thank you for post, I think you are incredibly brave to disclose such information with your name behind it. I'm always paranoid of a similar thing happening to me. What do you think could have prevented this from happening?

I think if the couple can come to terms between themselves, then forgiving one affair could be a good thing. But only one.

This is great, thanks for sharing.

This would've been a great comment if it hadn't have your real name attached to it.

Why? What if someone is going through it and wants to talk about it with someone else who's experienced it? I'd LOVE to help them. My wife would LOVE to help them. We can't do that very well if we keep it a secret or speak about it anonymously.

Because I would feel odd knowing what you just disclosed if I were to ever cross paths with your wife. Your wife might be OK with it, but that's not an issue. How other people feel about it is.

To put it bluntly - nudism belongs to a nudist beach.

I agree with the point.

What are the odds you'll cross paths with the wife of a random person from the internet?

Your comments (and the others saying this should have been anonymous) are really saying that you think scottmagdalein should feel ashamed about this part of his life -- in his replies he's telling you that he doesn't. It's worth reflecting on why you feel that way.

No, I am not saying or implying this. Who am I to say what he should be ashamed of? What I am saying that this is a matter that perceived as private and sensitive by many, and that I would personally prefer for it to stay that way.

Why would you feel awkward? She made a mistake. She stopped, asked for forgiveness, and we are very happy. The "sin" has been rectified.

You are a weak man!

No, he is a strong man.

he is, who he chooses to be, instead of a sterotype

Are you serious? I think he is a very strong man. He rose above petty concerns, like how his masculinity will be judged in a public forum, to forgive his wife and then share the fact.

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