This appeared in the advice section of Salon Mag. Since it is a subcription site, I'm pasting the article in its entirety. Too bad all WSs don't take the enormous damage they do to their families this seriously.

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Since you asked ...

I made a terrible mistake and there's no going back

I left my husband and children, and now I'm in a living ******.

By Cary Tennis

Feb. 2, 2006 | Note: This letter arrived Dec. 2, 2005, the same day as the referenced column. I did not know what to do with it for some time. I had no answer for it.

So I put it aside.

Finally I got an idea. -- C.T.

Dear Cary,

Your advice to Lost in L.A. was excruciatingly correct. I hope he listens to you. If he doesn't, he can count on a horrible, slow-motion shipwreck that never stops groaning and cracking and coming apart in new and agonizingly surprising ways.

When I look back, what I see is myself in some sort of trance, making insane and rapturous decisions, rationalizing in tongues and somehow pretending to myself that what I was doing made perfect sense and that my own giddy "escape" would somehow provide a happy ending for everyone. Or that there was some cosmic safety net that would gather everyone up and protect my children, my good husband and myself from anything remotely resembling dire trauma and ruin.

Ha.

There is no cosmic safety net that blocks inevitable consequence.

Consequence is immune to even the most desperate remorse. It's as cold and inexorable as a moving glacier. Fantasies of undoing are not efficacious. Frantic efforts to somehow mend the thing, to fix the pain one has caused, finally seem both selfish and masochistic.

Consequence is a cold, hard thing and if you can bear it for yourself, good; try bearing it in your children's faces. For the rest of your life. So, Cary, what advice do you have for this fellow in L.A. some six years later, if he ignores your good advice, comes to you and says, "I'll never again feel whole and untroubled. No one who placed their trust in me and whom I love feels whole and untroubled. I did not protect my spouse or my children from imbecilic folly and it was my fault. I'm unable to simply disappear from the face of the earth; my kids still walk it. My ex-spouse still walks it, and lives seem to be irrevocably spoiled. I failed to protect them from myself, and the affair and the divorce has indeed become the pivotal trauma of all of our lives. It's not a single event that recedes into the past -- the fallout just doesn't quit, for any of us. I'm tottering on the edge of a smarmy self-loathing that's even more self-absorbed and ignominious than the stupid, blissed-out hedonism that got me here. I want to be clearly and straightforwardly remorseful, confess my error (I have, of course), endure my own situation with some sort of grace and compassion, and just do no more harm to anyone else ever again. Just, you know, buck up. Especially for the kids. But I feel terminally broken, myself.

I was married for 30 years! Cary, what IS a ruined life? If you wake one morning, and then every morning, for YEARS, and all you can see is ruin, remorse and the requirement to get up and put a good face on it, and pick your way as carefully as possible through the rubble, which you do, though you can't see any way to redeem anything, and your beloved children are floating somewhat helplessly away toward some other horizon, and you are genuinely helpless yourself to prevent loss after loss, all in the wake of your own stupid decision: What do you do then? The Zen Master, when asked the meaning of life, laughs and says, "Mistake after mistake."

OK. Self-laceration is a pointless self-indulgence. Regretful ruminations are a sloppy waste of time. "I deserve this" does not translate into "they deserve this." OK. So help me out, here. Where's the foothold? I can't find my way into inspiring heroic myths. Once upon a time I was the Wise Mother and honored and cherished in my family without much fuss about it. So much for that one. What the ****** can I grow into now? Sisyphus? Magdalena? I figure I don't really have the right to sink lethargically into Sodden Heap of Remorse, despite sucking undertows. And I'm done with trying to glamorize the thing -- it is to vomit.

Just Plain Lost

Dear Just Plain Lost,

I suggest that you undertake a program of service to people in jails and prisons. I suggest you seek out those who share with you some fatal flaw of action and who, like you, are enduring harsh consequences.

You did not go to jail for what you did, but you are suffering as though you had been sentenced by a jury. Indeed, though it might be too easily said, you are a kind of prisoner. By bringing comfort to prisoners you may, after a time, learn to bring some comfort to yourself. Perhaps you will learn to forgive yourself, too, for what you have done.

If this sounds like rather an extreme measure, consider the extremity of what you have written -- your biting, wrathful self-condemnation, your lacerating, saw-toothed rancor. Consider the extremity and long duration of your affliction. Rarely have I read a letter whose fury lashed me so -- and I am not even the intended target. You are! So I shudder to think what condition your tender skin is in.

Being punished so, and apparently continuing to punish yourself, you need to turn outward, away from your self, who is also your victim. What power on earth could help you do that? Earthly pleasure, being your sin, is now poison to you. It cannot possibly take you out of yourself but only deeper into your self-hatred. So I'm guessing that only service, humble, austere, difficult service, can awaken you to the joys of life once again.

I see you at San Quentin, or maybe down at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, or Calipatria, or Lancaster, down there in Southern California. (Why do I picture you in Southern California? I do not know, frankly; I do not know where you are!)

How might you arrange this program of service, and what might you have to offer? I understand from our private correspondence that you have certain skills that may be of value to those who are residents of the penal system. These skills and the benefits they offer I would suggest you present to officials of the penal system, or, if to an agency that coordinates such visits. You need not explain what personal benefit you plan to gain. That is your business.

But precisely the kind of karma-reversing issue I had in mind revolves around this question: What if, in your life, at that crucial moment when you made whatever fateful decision it was that cast you into this cauldron, what if there had been someone there to persuade you to hold on, to help you clarify your thoughts, so you could deny yourself whatever delicious but disastrous pleasure lured you out of happy home, and thus avoid the prodigious torment you so strangely, with dark eloquence, describe? What if some such person had been present at the right moment? Might your life not have turned out a little differently?

What good is that? You certainly can't intercede now to prevent what has happened. But you can warn loudly of fire and flood, as perhaps you wish someone had warned you. You can warn not to jump head first into that shallow, rock-bottomed stream. You can teach about the virtues and usefulness of sharing with others whatever disastrous and ill-conceived actions we might contemplate. You can teach about the dangers of acting in isolation without revealing our plans.

We all need, now and then, warnings of catastrophe from someone. Perhaps henceforth you can be that person full of warning, replete with grave caution for others to borrow.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2006/02/02/mistake/

Sometimes Cary gives good advice, and sometimes he gives clunkers. The clunker I remember best was when a married man wrote in saying he was very attracted to his co-worker (female). Cary suggested that he explore this attraction, but in a platonic way. I know that there was a post about it here when the advice came out.

Good advice - not. Perhaps the column quoted above is an attempt to make up for that one.

Wow, GrownUp, that's a great article.

I know from reading studies that the vast majority of WS's regret leaving, but it sometimes takes several years.

My WH has written me 3 letters now telling me how sorry he is, even though I have let him know he is forgiven.

"Consequence is immune to even the most desperate remorse. It's as cold and inexorable as a moving glacier." This is how the author puts it, and she has it exactly right.

Yeah... Cary sometimes gives amazing advice with great insight. Sometimes, I just shake my head.

Here's the original column that he refers to in the advice to the woman above. At first.. I was unsure of his telling the guy to keep his mouth shut. But as you read to the end, you see what he's getting at. Interesting, anyway...

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Since you asked ...

I'm married with kids -- and in love with a prostitute

I know it's crazy, but she's the woman of my dreams.

By Cary Tennis

Dec. 2, 2005 | Dear Cary,

I am going through what is a classic midlife crisis with a bit of a twist. I'm in my early 40s and have a great wife and two great young kids, all of whom I love dearly. I've been with my wife for over 20 years. Everyone tells me how lucky I am to have the perfect marriage. But, of course, I don't feel so lucky. Instead I feel burdened, trapped by the overwhelming obligations of family and of keeping up appearances. The way I've tried to deal with these feelings is by seeing prostitutes.

About eight months ago, I met and paid for the woman of my dreams. She's beautiful, a sexual dynamo, smart, funny and sweet. She's not a typical prostitute; she's more like the girl next door who wants to get paid for her great looks and abundant sexual talents.

I soon went from being her client to being her friend and confidant. Her presence in my life does two things for me. First I get to feel those incredibly strong emotions that I haven't felt in years about my wife (lust and longing), and more important, I feel so free during the few hours a month I get to see her. Not only do we explore sexual fantasies that would be completely out of bounds with my wife, but more important, I can completely relax around her and joke around and talk frankly, and not have to worry about things like who's picking up whom from school.

Of course, I know that this whole thing is incredibly stupid and immature, but I can't figure out how to unring the bell and go back to a life without this woman. Do you think it will be possible to not see her and forget about the pleasure, love and passion that we had? I've tried for a few weeks at a time, but I've always felt the need to see her again -- the urge for release, both literally and metaphorically, was too strong. I have a hard time imagining life without her, but at the same time, she could never be a part of my "real" life -- I have too much invested in my marriage and family to break it up.

So the question boils down to this: How do I give up sexual (and emotional) nirvana for the sake of my family?

Lost in L.A.

Dear Lost in L.A.,

Imagine this: In 15 or 20 years, when the kids are out of the house and you and your wife are adjusting to a new life in which the focus is less on the daily grind and more on gauzier, more philosophical questions, when you're both less easily shocked by the rank perfidy and incompetence of man, when you have faced some of the early questions of mortality and senescence and have learned not to be thrown too hard by the occasional sucker punch, you sit down over coffee and tell her about an episode in your married life that you'd kept secret until now, an episode a long time ago that almost brought everything crashing down.

There's no telling how she might respond. She might deck you. She might walk out and not come back. But imagine if she were to tell you, much to your surprise, that she had known all along, if not the details, at least the rough outline, and that by saying nothing she had knowingly protected you from the breakup that she could easily and quite innocently have precipitated had she chosen to confront you and demand all the sordid details. She might reveal that she had thought long and hard about what to do and had decided to continue with marriage and motherhood, betting that you would eventually resolve this devastating personal crisis on your own and come back to her.

Such a future is certainly not guaranteed. But it is only even possible if you can find a way to end this unconscionable indulgence and put it behind you. Even if you do everything right, things have a way of going wrong. But consider the alternative. Imagine where you will be in 15 or 20 years if you blithely continue along this path and are discovered in flagrante delicto, or, what might seem more honorable but could in a practical sense be worse, if you decide to come clean about this and throw yourself at your wife's mercy.

My bet is that you then go through an ugly divorce. And 15 or 20 years in the future my guess is that the kids have still never forgiven you for destroying the marriage; they have never been able to understand how their father could have hurt their mother so, could have done such a stupid, selfish thing, could have, basically, destroyed his own life and theirs. The affair and divorce became the pivotal trauma of all your lives. You never really get over the loss, never again really feel whole and untroubled. Nor perhaps do you ever really get over the rejection by your "girlfriend" who, pleasure being business, must regretfully decline your proposed promotion from paying client to permanent lover.

No matter what your wife would do if told 15 or 20 years later, the news couldn't possible be as tangibly disruptive to her life then as it would be now, when its revelation would threaten everything she has -- her marriage, her children, her self-esteem, her identity, her trust in others. While your letter mainly spells out your own concerns about the effect all this might have on you, it is the effect on your wife that must determine your course of action.

So, for your wife's sake, I think your best course of action is to end this affair immediately, put it behind you and never say a word about it.

There are problems with ending it and keeping it a secret, of course. Even if you're capable of doing it -- and we'll get to how in a minute -- some might argue that as an adult with free will she deserves to know the truth so she can choose whether to stay with you. Others might argue that the psychological damage done by keeping this secret would be greater than the damage done by revealing it. Some might say that a relationship based on less than complete disclosure is morally or psychologically inferior to one that includes full disclosure, and that it's your duty to be forthcoming, whatever the practical effect.

But in weighing the known ill effects of revealing this affrontery -- the probability of divorce and ignominy -- against the hypothetical evil of keeping it concealed, I find in favor of the perhaps impaired but still functioning relationship. That is, I sentence you to live in your own private ****** instead of dragging everyone else into it.

So, as you so astutely observe, what this all boils down to is that you need to give up this sexual nirvana and put this whole episode quietly behind you. The question is how?

I would submit that you replace this sexual nirvana with a more compelling vision: the hero's quest to protect those he loves from the effects of his own tragic weaknesses. That is, you undergo a transformation of your fundamental orientation toward the world from one that is self-centered and narcissistic to one that is quest-centered and classically heroic. You move from a hedonistic extended adolescence in which you feel entitled to pleasures that threaten your marriage, to an adult role in which protecting your wife and children from your own imperfect character is your life's guiding principle.

But what's the fun in that? you ask. Well, frankly, it isn't much about fun. It's about right living. But there is something in it for you: self-worth, and the secret pride of knowing that you have done the best for others whether they know it or not. It's the kind of thing you can take to the grave with you and die happily. If lived with sufficient vividness, this sort of renunciatory role can have an almost erotic allure -- like the priesthood. OK, so maybe I exaggerate a little. But my basic take on it is that your only salvation from this god-awful mess is to pass into a new stage of manhood in which sacrifice and not pleasure is the goal.

Colloquially, this is known as "being a man," or "stepping up" or "doing the right thing" -- dealing with this quietly, on your own or more likely with the help of some confidential aide such as a spiritual counselor, 12-step sponsor or psychotherapist.

Again (and again and again) I'm not saying I think keeping secrets from your wife is a good idea. It's a terrible idea. I'm just saying that confessing to her that you've fallen in love with a prostitute is an even worse idea.

You won't have as good a marriage as you could have had if you had never allowed this situation with the prostitute to come up. But that's tough. Something bad has happened. It's your fault. Somebody has to take the fall. That person is you. You take the fall for the good of your wife and your kids. You shut up and be unhappy and uncomfortable for a while. That's a small price to pay, I'd think, to protect the lives of your wife and children.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2005/12/02/prostitute/index.html

though they say you can't educate a WS...

if was a BS ...

I would print this out...

and leave it somewhere...
somewhere....

a brief case...
wrapped around a cell phone
stuck to a steering wheel...

I think if I was a BS...I'd just happen to misplace this letter...

somewhere....

lets see...

mailed to an office...hate when I accidently mail things off...

on a pillow....

bathroom mirror...

kitchen counter......

if asked I would say...
Dang I couldn't remember where I put that little gift someone gave me....

that's what I'd do if I was a BS....

did you read it...all you current BS...?

interesting don't you think...

"I'll never again feel whole and untroubled. No one who placed their trust in me and whom I love feels whole and untroubled. I did not protect my spouse or my children from imbecilic folly and it was my fault. I'm unable to simply disappear from the face of the earth; my kids still walk it. My ex-spouse still walks it, and lives seem to be irrevocably spoiled. I failed to protect them from myself, and the affair and the divorce has indeed become the pivotal trauma of all of our lives. It's not a single event that recedes into the past -- the fallout just doesn't quit, for any of us.

ARK