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Jewish World Review Sept. 2, 2010 / 23 Elul, 5770 The ‘other woman’ finds her married boyfriend divorced By Betsy Hart
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When I last left off with Casey, she was in the midst of an affair with a married man. She's in her late 20s and never married, he's a few years older. They lived in different cities. Casey was growing increasingly frustrated that her boyfriend wasn't "making a decision" about whether to be with her or his wife.
Casey seemed scared when I first spoke with her, different from the oh-so-sure-of-herself person I'd heard discussing her affair on the radio, which is how I "met" Casey. Anyway, I wrote that her dreams of a future with her married boyfriend were unlikely to come true. And if they did, she'd be looking over her shoulder the rest of her life.
Flash forward six months, and once again Casey was willing to open up to me. A lot has changed. She'll soon have a new job and she'll be living in the same city as her boyfriend, whom, she told me, is now divorced.
I admit it: I was gob-smacked at that news. (His ex, she said, still knows nothing of Casey. There are no children involved.)
When I talked to her several months ago, Casey quietly referred to having "moral blood" on her hands. This time, needless to say, she sounded a lot happier. Casey assured me that she was not the reason for the divorce. And, in one sense, she's right. Ultimately, he was the one willing to break the promise. She was a means to his end.
But that doesn't excuse Casey in my book. Why? Because it takes a village to defend a marriage. It's a public institution we are called to protect from within and without. In something of the same way, I was better off as a kid than most are today because I knew if Mrs. Cooper or Mrs. Clancy found me up to something, they'd call my mom in a heartbeat and I'd be in big trouble. Let's just say that offered me moral protection in weaker moments.
But marriage, tragically, has become privatized. We're redefining it to be whatever we want it to be according to our own personal happiness right now. So then, naturally, we no longer feel a responsibility to shore up, to outright protect, each other's marriages. And that leaves them more prone to falling apart in their inevitable moments of weakness.
Casey is reflecting the cultural ambivalence we have today toward marriage in general.
Still, I can tell Casey is struggling with all this. That she was raised to know better, as she told me when we first talked. Maybe that's why I admit I like her and have compassion for her. It's like she's wishing that it had all started out very differently. I don't suggest for a minute that she's not morally responsible for her choices. Only that I'm well aware that for any of us, sin of any stripe can quickly become powerful and blinding.
Anyway, what now? Well, Casey says that she and her boyfriend will date for a while in a "normal" environment where everything is out in the open. She suspects that they will eventually move in together, and after that get married.
I'm guessing her boyfriend will want to date other women now that he's single. But I was totally wrong about his divorce, so who knows? Casey says she wouldn't stand for that -- if he doesn't know she's "the one," she'll walk away. She realizes her heart could still be broken. There's a long road ahead.
I'm left wondering if their life from here on out could ever be "normal" given how it began.
For my part, I would love to call Casey in six months and find that she's met a great guy and sees this affair, and her current boyfriend, in a very different light than she does today.
Stay tuned.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Betsy Hart, a frequent commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel, can be reached by clicking here.
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