This text is addressed to readers with a certain spiritual awareness and elevation. I admit that it is not suited to everyone, and its content may seem troubling to some souls. The article is therefore intended for a forewarned readership, as it may offend certain sensibilities. May each person receive it with discernment.
The first story (link) spoke of a body that wasted away when faith took its place again.
This one speaks of a heart and a house that stay standing only thanks to a forbidden affection.
Two different kinds of health. One and the same inner dilemma.
Here is what a close friend was telling me:
“Martial, we have known each other a long time. You know I am a straight-up man, attached to my principles, and deeply respectful of family values. I have been married for twelve years, I love my wife, and my two daughters are the most precious thing I have. Their happiness comes before everything. From the outside, my life looks stable and balanced.
But on the inside… that is another story.
One evening, at a dinner among friends, I met a woman. Slender, intelligent, full of self-assurance. Nothing alarming that evening: she was with her husband, I was with my wife. An ordinary evening.
A few weeks later, I ran into her by chance at a Tim Hortons. We talked a little. Then a little more. Then very often. To the point where stopping by that coffee shop became a habit… perhaps even a pretext. We ended up exchanging numbers.
Last summer, our paths crossed again at another party. Her husband was away on holiday. After the party, I offered to drive her home. Nothing planned, nothing intentional… but the euphoria of the moment slid into a kiss. Not a friendly kiss on the cheek: a real kiss.
That single gesture opened a door. And behind that door was adultery.
And that is where the paradox began.
When all was well with her, I was a model husband: generous, helpful, tender, playful with my daughters, luminous. My wife adored that man.
But as soon as a conflict flared up with my lover, the house turned grey. A joke from my wife would offend me. A toy left out of place would wear me down. I would withdraw, absent, tense, my eyes lost on my phone waiting for a message… or trying to repair what was breaking apart outside.
Then, at the slightest easing with her, I became again the man my family loves. Present. Loving. Happy.
Our home shone — but with a borrowed light.
I did not like that dependence. I wanted my wife and my daughters to be my centre, my source, my joy. I prayed, I fasted, I tried to cut all ties. Nothing worked.
A single message was enough to set my heart going again. And without her, everything darkened.
I was stuck in a vicious circle:
To be a good husband and a good father, I was drawing on forbidden fruit.
I knew that this relationship was adulterous, culpable, dangerous. But cutting it off meant becoming a dull man, absent, almost a stranger to my own family.
So I kept asking myself:
Should I keep this relationship in order to stay alive at home?
Or end it, at the risk of becoming a cold, empty, extinguished husband?
Those questions haunt me to this day…”
At the time, I tried to advise him.
Today, as with the confession of the woman in the first part, five questions impose themselves — painful ones — but necessary:
What do you do when the forbidden gives you the strength to love those you ought to love unconditionally?
Must one choose fidelity at the price of emptiness, or infidelity at the price of inner peace?
How can you be a good husband and a good father with your heart elsewhere, shared, divided?
Can a home be built with energy drawn from adultery?
What is family balance worth if it depends on a hidden relationship?
Neither he nor I hold any absolute answer.
And I set myself up neither as judge nor as master.
For when you understand the labyrinths of the human heart, you stop judging too quickly.
The third article will try to explore these dilemmas, without condemning, but seeking to understand.
M. Z.
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