By David Valdes Greenwood
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2006/02/26/somebody_elses_secret/

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  COUPLING

Somebody Else's Secret

It's heartache-by-proxy when you learn that a friend is
cheating.

  couple at a party
  (Illustration / Christopher Silas Neal)

  By David Valdes Greenwood  |  February 26, 2006
  It was an almost perfect party. Animated stories were
  being swapped over rapidly emptying plates, the wine
  flowing as easily as the conversation. But I found my
  mind drifting. Two of our guests, here with their
  partners, had each recently confided in us about
  affairs. Their partners knew nothing. This effectively
  increased the size of the gathering by two: It felt
  distinctly like the Other Lovers were there as well.

  Neither of these friends fits the mental image I had
  of cheaters. When I was a kid, my clear understanding
  of adultery was based on watching television. A
  50-year-old man with a bad comb-over buys a sports
  car, dumps his saintly wife, and runs off with a young
  blond chick, who, in turn, dumps him. This cliche
  appeared with such regularity, it became definitive.
  Cheating is how balding men ruin their lives.

  In my adult life, the cheaters are often much younger
  and are just as likely to be female and, for that
  matter, have all their hair. The bigger surprise is
  that I find myself feeling sympathy for them. I'm old
  enough now to understand how long and lonely the road
  of love sometimes feels, and I've not yet met anyone
  who was unfaithful on a whim; what preceded each
  affair was painful and sad. When asked to keep things
  in confidence, I did, telling myself that I had no
  wish to heap more pain on the couple and believing
  myself too far removed from the complexities of anyone
  else's relationship to interfere.

  Still, as much as you feel for both sides, there is a
  big difference between the nature of the sympathy you
  have for one who strays and the kind that you have for
  the person he or she has strayed from. The expectation
  of secrecy prohibits you from expressing your sympathy
  to the wronged party. So, as much as you tell yourself
  that you're not taking sides, you are. The cheater
  gets an outlet, and the partner gets to be kept in the
  dark. Your relationship with one party is now full of
  stories (steamy ones, no less), and your relationship
  with the other is full of silences.

  So there we were, our small party feeling suddenly
  crowded, as the cheaters - unaware, as far as we knew,
  that they had this in common - and their mates stood
  chatting in a circle. I couldn't help wondering
  whether the cheated-on partners were as ignorant of
  the truth as I thought or if knowing is better or
  worse than not. My train of thought led beyond the
  circle: Maybe there were other Other Lovers in the
  room. Perhaps more guests were holding hot secrets
  close to their chests while trying to act as cool as
  possible. What if, unbeknownst to me, someone in the
  room looked at Jason and me and saw a trio? It was an
  unsettling thought.

  Just as unnerving was envisioning a time after the
  party, when the faithful partners would learn about
  the affairs. When they found out that we had known
  before they did, how would that feel? I hated the
  thought. If it were me, I can imagine how my cheeks
  would burn the first time I looked into the eyes of
  someone who'd been allowed such a intimate glimpse
  into such a sad part of my private life. At one point,
  I snagged Jason in the kitchen, and we whispered about
  how surreal it felt to be "in the know" like that. We
  could only hope our friends who weren't would
  understand someday that we'd given them what we could:
  affection, welcome, a few happy hours in a difficult
  time. It was what we had to offer, and we knew that it
  might not be enough.

  But we also knew that the old scripts about affairs
  were flawed in another respect. Cheating doesn't
  always end the relationship. Yes, it can wreak havoc,
  and it does cause pain. But sometimes affairs are
  followed by the beginning of a new era, one in which
  the Other Lovers become history and restored love
  becomes the future. That night, we had no way to know
  which way either story would go. There was nothing to
  be done except to attend to the people who really were
  in the room, keeping their glasses full and their
  spirits high, hopefully not for the last time.

  David Valdes Greenwood lives with his husband and
  daughter in Arlington.

   COUPLING: Somebody Else's Secret

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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2006/02/26/somebody_elses_secret/
By David Valdes Greenwood