To Love Is To Forgive - Chapter 3

Throughout the entire conversation, I never insulted either of them—not even once.

I simply thanked the other man for bringing my wife some happiness during that period of her life, and I told him that he should go back to his own family.

I also made no attempt to hide how much I still loved my wife. In front of both of them, I told her how deeply I cared for her and pleaded with her to change.

Neither of them could bring themselves to look me in the eye.

If I had behaved like some thug and lunged at the other man, perhaps I would never have made him feel the shame he felt that night. But because I remained calm and treated him with dignity, he became increasingly uncomfortable and kept apologizing to me.

In the end, I made the two of them swear in front of my daughter that they would end their relationship.

Both of them burst into tears as they looked into that innocent little face.

They didn't need to swear some elaborate oath. I believed the promise they made that night was something they would remember for the rest of their lives.

To completely cut off the connection between my wife and her lover, I asked several friends to help arrange a transfer for my wife to another workplace.

But I wasn't going to make that decision for her. I talked to her first and asked what she wanted.

She was deeply grateful that I had done that.

As for her lover, I never regarded him as an enemy. Every now and then, I would even call him and invite him out for a beer.

There were two reasons.

First, I wanted to see whether the two of them were truly keeping their word.

And second, I wanted him to understand that I would remain a decent man from beginning to end. If anyone had crossed the line, it wasn't because I had failed to treat him with dignity.

After that shock, my wife gradually settled back into her role as a wife and mother.

Perhaps once you've tasted something, the curiosity and temptation eventually lose their power over you.

My wife regarded what had happened as a stain on her life.

I chose to see it differently.

To me, it was simply one of the trials that any marriage might have to endure.

Sooner or later, whether the mistake belongs to one person or the other, every family may face a moment that tests the strength of their bond.

What matters is whether the person standing beside you has enough love—and enough forgiveness—to hold on.

I was incredibly grateful that we were still together, and that somehow, after weathering that storm, we loved each other even more deeply.

My wife often told me how grateful she was that I had chosen to be a forgiving husband.

But honestly, when my two closest friends found out what had happened, they never let me forget it. They would tease me relentlessly and call me a “cuck.”

And strangely enough, I was happy to own the joke.

Fine.

Maybe I was a fool—a lovesick old bull willing to endure almost anything for the woman he loved.

Because after more than eight years together, the ending I received was not a broken marriage. It wasn't a tragedy in which I had to find another wife, another mother for my child, and try to rebuild a family from the ruins.

Instead, my family was still together.

And we were genuinely happy.

Sometimes, when I'm sitting alone with nothing to do, I still can't believe that I somehow managed to pull my wife back from the edge of an affair.

And I find myself wondering:

Were my friends right?

Was I pathetic?

Was I crazy?

Was I really as foolish as that “old bull” they kept calling me?

Maybe I was.

But if being that foolish meant keeping the woman I loved, keeping our family together, and finding our way back to happiness—

then perhaps, for once, being a fool wasn't such a bad thing after all.