Sigh. I really should have posted this when my thoughts and feelings were most FRESH.

Was channel surfing yesterday night and happened to settle on a movie. Had no idea what movie it was but some time into the movie I found out the title. Unfaithful. Was a most disturbing show.

Basically, it's about a typical American family...husband, wife and child.... Wife meets a tall, dark stranger (who's quite a bit younger), falls in love with him and has an affair with him. Lives a double life for a period of time having fun on both ends - perfect wife and mother on one end and vibrant lover on the other. It is inevitable that the husband finds out. I think it's far easier for a man to lie his way through, than for a woman. Women tend to wear their feelings on their sleeves. It is obvious when their hearts are elsewhere.

Anyway, what happens next is that the husband finds out where the stranger lives and pays him a visit. His intent was, I guess, not so much to seek revenge, but rather to satisfy his curiosity. I really felt for the husband. He chose to swallow his pride and suppress his pain, just so he could find out why his wife was discontented with their marriage and life as it was. I think on some level, he wanted to know what the stranger was giving her that he was unable to, and I think...he wanted to experience what she came into contact with....what she did, where she sat, what she enjoyed....etc. In a way, it was sick. I think I would never want to be in the same room as the rival. In fact, if I were him, I wouldn't even want to be in the same room as the wife ever again. The betrayal would be too much to bear. And actually, the husband did feel sick. Literally. He was dizzy and all. Especially after he discovered his wife had given the stranger as a present, something HE had given his wife. I felt really, really, sad for him. (Richard Gere was excellent in his portrayal of a betrayed husband) And then, most abruptly, he suddenly smashed the gift (it was hard ok) onto the top of the stranger's skull. The stranger tottered over and then fell heavily to the floor. The bleeding was insane. The whole scene was so surreal! I was half expecting the stranger to get up. But then after a minute or so of insane bleeding, I concluded that it was going to be quite impossible. He was as dead as a doornail.

By this time, I was feeling quite sick myself. But although this show probably comes under the category of MORBID, there were a lot of interesting themes and feelings at play. I wish I was a literature major and able to discuss all these in a coherent way at length. Rage, guilt, curiosity, desire, discontent, deceit, lust, horror, fear, insanity, sorrow...

The husband was, I think, going to turn himself in after the deed. He sat at the scene of crime a long time, even picking up the phone to dial 911. But it was a phone message which came in at that moment, that stopped him. It was his wife, leaving a message in tears, her voice racked with guilt. She had called to put a halt to their illicit affair. I think that jolted the husband out of his daze. Her call reminded him that he still valued his marriage and still loved his wife. And in that instant, he made the decision to take one more shot at making his marriage work, regardless of the price he had to pay. So he cleaned the scene up, got rid of the body and tried to pretend everything was ok.

As with real life, your crimes always catch up with you. One way or another. His wife found out about the deed and out of love (and possibly guilt) helped him to cover up. But they both could not live with the guilt for long, even though they wanted to so much to leave the place and start anew somewhere far away. The show ended with them both sitting in their car, at a traffic junction (green lights) just outside a police station, with their son sleeping peacefully at the back of the car. Both were weeping softly and seeking solace in each other's arms.

One scene I could not forget was one of the wife who, after the horror of discovering what her husband had done, had a flashback of the moment she first met the stranger in the street, right at the beginning of the movie. What really happened was she had accepted his offer to step into his apartment to get her wound dressed, in spite of her better judgement. And that was probably how it all started. But what the wife saw, in her mind's eye, at this point of the movie, was a scene of how she had met the stranger, DECLINED his offer to go up to his apartment, and instead hopped onto the next available cab and waved goodbye. Somewhat like Sliding Doors. Very thought-provoking.

Reminded me of how my bible teacher often told us about how Temptation works, and how we should always nip it in the bud right from the beginning, before it gets too difficult to handle. She always says, "It's like going down a slippery slope, once you start, you can't stop." How true it is in this case.

I blame the wife you know. Really I do. Maybe cos I could see his pain and anguish. Or maybe because I don't think she could be excused for what she did. No one should be. That's like the worst form of betrayal in marriage. And you know what else is bad? The fact that affairs like this are getting more rampant. Esp on the part of the husband. More than we know and realise. Sure puts a dampener on Marriage. Doesn't help that a friend mentioned a colleague who feels the need to 'maintain' herself so that her husband wouldn't lose interest....SO depressing!

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised huh? Afterall, this is part of what God warns us would happen...