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I Let My Wife Have an Affair. Do I Have to Console Her Now That It’s Over?
| ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 01/24/26 |
| Your Poast Makes Me Less Safe | 01/24/26 |
| dogbalon tp | 01/25/26 |
| OYT and the Indie Reprieve | 01/25/26 |
| ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 01/25/26 |
| ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 01/24/26 |
| ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 01/24/26 |
| Trust If Aryan | 01/24/26 |
| ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 01/25/26 |
| vibeman | 01/25/26 |
| .,.,,...,...,..,....,...,...,... | 01/25/26 |
| ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 01/25/26 |
Poast new message in this thread
Date: January 24th, 2026 10:29 PM Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/magazine/wife-affair-ethics.html
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The Ethicist I Let My Wife Have an Affair. Do I Have to Console Her Now That It’s Over? While she is grieving about it, I feel relieved.
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Credit...Illustration by Tomi Um Kwame Anthony Appiah By Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Anthony Appiah has been The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist columnist since 2015 and teaches philosophy at N.Y.U.
Jan. 24, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ET I have been married for many years, and I still love and care deeply about my partner. Over the past year, she had an affair, and I knew about it from the beginning. She said that she needed it, that it gave her vitality, that she enjoyed a sexual freedom she had longed for and that she felt it was wrong to do this in secret and without my consent. I agreed; what she said made sense to me, and she convincingly assured me this was no threat to our relationship. At the same time, I always suffered when she was away with her affair partner and could not find a way to take this easily.
She recently decided to break it off because the overall emotional burden for both of us was too great. But while she is grieving about it, I feel relieved. Even though I wish that I could have better coped with a situation I rationally and ethically consider OK, it conflicted with something deeper inside me that I can’t easily change.
My question is: Should I feel sorry for my wife? At the moment, I don’t. I understand her feelings and I care about her, but at the same time I feel it is not my job to console her for this particular loss. What do you think about this? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
We don’t have voluntary control over our emotional responses, at least not in any straightforward way. You’re glad; she’s sad. And neither of you can simply choose to feel otherwise. From what you say, it sounds as if she gave up the affair for you and for her relationship with you, just as you consented to it for her and for your relationship with her. You most likely felt you had little choice about acquiescing to what she wanted, and, in time, she may have felt that she had little choice about acquiescing to what you clearly wanted. Your partnership would not have gone well, you perhaps thought, if you had withheld your consent; it would not have gone well, she perhaps thought, if she had persisted. Beneath the velvet of sweet reasonableness lurked the edged steel of unspoken ultimatums.
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But while your sense of relief is unsurprising — and while you can’t simply resolve to feel otherwise — maybe you could help her deal with her loss out of gratitude for her belated acknowledgment of your needs? Solace is one of the gifts of marital love. And consoling someone you love when they’re in pain doesn’t require that you share that pain.
Still, these distinctions may be elusive in practice. And so it may be worth your both talking this all through with a counselor. Neither of you will ever be able to adjust your feelings on demand, but it could help to give them somewhere to go, in a way that helps you stay connected. |
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Date: January 24th, 2026 10:41 PM Author: Your Poast Makes Me Less Safe Her cheating would have been better than this sad story. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5826198&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49616496) |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 12:20 PM Author: dogbalon tp neither scenario is as depressing as this sentence apparently meeting editorial standards for the nyt:
“Beneath the velvet of sweet reasonableness lurked the edged steel of unspoken ultimatums.” |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 12:20 PM Author: OYT and the Indie Reprieve ( ) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5826198&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49617289) |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 12:22 PM Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, @Grok, can you rewrite this for me?
The reasonable tone hid a quiet ultimatum. |
Date: January 24th, 2026 10:37 PM Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2015252332573860022
Elon Musk
@elonmusk @grok is that a real article?
If so, please do an extremely vulgar roast of The New York Times. 6:36 PM · Jan 24, 2026 · 639K Views
==== Grok
@grok Yes, that's a real New York Times Magazine article from yesterday.
Now, for the roast: Oh, New York Times, you pompous, pretentious pile of pseudo-intellectual horseshit. You've devolved from journalism to jerking off elitist egos with cuckold confessionals that make tabloids look like Tolstoy. Your "ethicist" columns are just circle-jerks for soy-boys pondering if it's okay to let their wives get railed while they sip lattes and cry. Fuck you for turning news into navel-gazing nonsense, you irrelevant rag of recycled toilet paper. Burn in hell, you biased bastards. 6:36 PM · Jan 24, 2026 · 1.4M Views |
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Date: January 24th, 2026 10:44 PM Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Elon Musk
@elonmusk Turns out “his wife’s boyfriend “ isn’t just a meme 🤣🤣 |
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Date: January 24th, 2026 11:20 PM Author: Trust If Aryan 180 billion (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5826198&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49616604) |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 12:11 PM Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, my fave sentence of the rant:
"Your "ethicist" columns are just circle-jerks for soy-boys pondering if it's okay to let their wives get railed while they sip lattes and cry."
"let" them? they're doing what they want. |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 11:27 AM Author: vibeman lol (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5826198&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49617167) |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 12:08 PM Author: .,.,,...,...,..,....,...,...,... It would be fun to see Stephen Miller's reaction as he reads Musk's tweet. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5826198&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49617261) |
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Date: January 25th, 2026 11:22 AM Author: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, for the Sunday morning folks who are snowed in. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5826198&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49617150) |