Ashley Maddison, website for cheaters, hacked. Why I hope if your husband is on that list you never find out.
Ashley Maddison, website for cheaters, hacked. Why I hope if your husband is on that list you never find out.
Ashleymadison.com website, “Life is short…” and so are this quarter’s profits.”
A group of internet hackers is demanding that #AshleyMadison — a social-networking site for married people whose slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair” take down its website or the team will release all 37 million of the sites customer records. To show that the hackers are serious, a small percentage of the stolen data has already been posted online with a message to Ashley Madison customers “Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion.”
I think for most people the story goes that a bunch of douchebag cheating liars are going to get their comeuppance followed in their mind with cartoon images of old timey looking wives in robes chasing their husbands around with rolling pins. But what about the consequences this cyber terrorism is going to have for the wives of these cheating men? Why is there no real concern about the long-term ramifications to the wife after learning her husband has been unfaithful. Maybe there is a justification that she is going to know the truth and the truth will set her free. But what if she is better off not knowing?
It’s been over a decade since the day I learned the truth that my DCH was having an affair. The primal scream that ripped through me after seeing the truth laid out in hundreds of emails still rings in my ears. I was a lost girl, a broken woman, a desperate person in love, lacking barely the courage to confront him through my tears. That moment in time is still so vivid to me, probably because it was so traumatic. Learning the truth about his affair was the mark of a downward spiral that took years to fully recover from. That moment of “knowing”, of actually having that evidence of your husband’s infidelity, is a marked moment for most of us. It becomes the shift in our perception of our husband, of our marriage, and of ourselves. Discovering the betrayal of infidelity stains every aspect of our lives.
After a few years had past and DCH and I had mostly disentangled our life ( he got the electronics and his friends, and I got the couch and my friends) and it was the unspoken rule that we would never ask how the electronics, the couch, or the friends were doing. The DCH volunteered to tell me that his friend Oreille was getting married. Oreille was a good man, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide; he connected with everyone he met on such a deep personal level that whoever bumped into him on the street likely felt that they were best friends. He was not bitter about the war and the loss of his family, because time and distance have given him perspective. Over the years though it was revealed to him that his family was on the … well wrong side if you must think in those terms, of the war. A surprise that was hard for him to reconcile and make peace with. When we talked about it once he said to, “sometimes you are better off not knowing the entire story.”
Of all DCHs’ friends, I missed Oreille the most and there was a part of me that was hoping he was angry at DCH for being an asshole so I broke the rule and asked what he thought about our split. DCH told me, “He knew about the affair the entire time. I told him I was conflicted.” I was shocked! He knew? He sat at my table over dinner and he knew? We seemed to be friends and he had on more than one occasion told DCH how lucky he was to have me… and… he knew? Oreille advice to the DCH was even more shocking, “leave her and never left her know you were cheating.” What the fuck! I was angry, didn’t I have the right to know the reality of the situation. Isn’t it cruel to just dump someone after all the years we were together, out of respect for me, didn’t I deserve to know the truth?
My gut reaction at the time was to be hit over the head with everything he had lied to me about. I was a woman without perspective. “Sometimes you are better off not knowing the entire story.”
Demand post from Ashley Madison hacker group.
Last year when a close friend had found out her DCH had been having a long-term affair with a coworker she said to me, “it would have been kinder if he had put a bullet in my head.” Statements like that may seem over the top or dramatic but for the person going through the aftermath of discovering your husband has been having an affair, the divorce, fighting over custody, fighting over who gets what, the complete overhaul of your life, can mean the loss your emotional stability. Then there is the isolation, often times the DCH is the closest person to you, and losing them is like losing your best friend. The person you normally turn to, to be your solace, is now the same person who has lied to you, cheated on you, and broken your heart. Your friends are being supportive, “let’s get drunk and burn his stuff on the lawn!” Your family, they will tell you he was never good enough for you anyway. However helpful they try to be, you just feel so alone. Even when you reach that point where you might start seeing another person, you struggle with ever really trusting them. You live with a nagging voice inside that cast doubts on yourself and your sanity. Carrying the burden of infidelity is hard on the soul. Time has given me more perspective on the value of knowing. I wonder if it is easier to find satisfaction with yourself if you didn’t know the entire story? I began to think that there is a kindness in not knowing about your DCH’s affair.
Recently I was having a conversation with a friend’s ex-DCH about the details of the affair he was having that ended their marriage. He was telling me that at the time he was conflicted, he was emotionally growing closer to this other woman, who at the start he only considered to be a friend, and then it became physical. He admitted that he was giving my friend the flimsiest excuses, but my friend trusted him and she just wasn’t “getting it”. She didn’t see that he wanted to be “found out”. He was feeling so much guilt and he was to his own account, too much of a coward to just tell her that the marriage was over. It was easier for him to let her “discover” the truth, because then he could put the blame on her for the aftermath. It was easier for the DCH to relieve his guilt and in a twisted way make his wife the responsible party for breaking up the family. Sadly, and is too often the case, his revelation became his wife’s life-long burden.
“Sometimes it’s more noble to tell a small lie than to deliver a painful truth.” Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian 2009 Robin Williams
This is why, Dear Cheating Husband, if your name is on that Ashely Maddison site, I hope for your wife’s sake, she never founds out. I am not saying that you should act like your affair never happened, the effects of your affair are already there in the relationship. Your lies are degrading the marriage. You sneaking around, distancing yourself, always one foot out the door, are hurting your wife and your family. The relationship is deteriorating and she is losing you and her heart is breaking everyday, because you are a lying dirt bag cheater, but stop making your bullshit her burden. Right now, when everything you have is truly on the eve of destruction because any minute now some Ashley Madison hackers are going to put your name on blast, you can take concrete steps to make amends and rebuild your relationship with your wife, do it now BEFORE she finds. Don’t tell her you are on that list and then compound it with my lies and excuses. She’s not your mom and you weren’t sneaking cookies before dinner so she’s not going to pat you on the head for being a good boy . If you just can’t see yourself ending the affair for whatever reason, then do the right thing, man-up, call the marriage quits and most importantly, do not let your bad behavior become her responsibility.
Dear Cheating Husband #infidelity
