A Dirty Mistress: To Be or Not To Be?

One big happy family---every person in this world is surely dreaming of having one. Family bonding, reunions, night laughs, parent-child conversations, well who doesn't? You might have experienced seeing your mom and dad giggling and cuddling in the kitchen while you, on the other hand, were watching over them, wanting to throw up for their overload grossness; or maybe that feeling when your brother or sister teases you for you have splashed a mud on your nose, but you end up all laughing because you both realized you have mud stuffed on each other’s faces. For many of us, having a simple yet complete happy family is enough, because as long as the family stays together, no problem nor trial is impossible to overcome. But what if one day, a stranger from nowhere suddenly entered the scene, claimed your mother or your father as his/her lover, and destroyed the relationship that you and your parents built for a long period of time?

Devastating, I would say! For the last 21 years of my life, I have already witnessed the different realities that a family could experience having a problem like this-from the news, a friend or relative’s story and for the fact that I am from one, I could say it is quite difficult. Separation of the parents could arrive from a number of reasons, but having what we call a third party is the strongest of all. It might be from the reason that the mother or father, due to lack of affection of his/her other half, found someone else to fill it up. He/she might found this affection from a co-worker or a friend and from it developed an absolute attachment and worst, a secret affair. In this generation, having a secret lover aside from the husband/wife is not far from the ordinary. Nowadays, just only a few bits of people particularly believe in the sacredness of marriage as according to them, annulment is just a reach away when they feel their relationship doesn’t work anymore.

Secret affair-as it is encrypted with the term secrecy-could bring a dramatic tragedy once spilled out and affected a family. Sadly, factors like trust, respect and commitment could be shaken and damage; and, in assurance, each one has the possibility to be unfocused due to emotional stress and anxiety. Once the affair is tolerated or if the couple involved does not compromise to give each other a chance due to pride, this could lead to separation. The critical part of such problem is the emotional and mental effect it will cause to their child. Of course, as a child you could not properly discern the right reasons to take why your parents had quarrel or separated. All you know is that you are furious about it for you thought they have not even considered your feelings and sake, so there are times that you may think that rebellion is an answer. Your outlooks in life can drastically change, you might get uninterested in school anymore, get badly influenced by your classmates, take drugs or even move out. Apparently, there are others who have the attitude to do well in spite of the pain inflicted by the separation, yet there are still chances that the problem could affect the child’s trust and attitude towards others.

Yes, nowadays family problem like this cannot be prevented, for each one of us has his own weakness towards emotional temptation, yet I hope that we should think first about the possible consequences of our actions, consequences of destroying our family commitment if we submit ourselves to an attachment that is strictly forbidden. We should worry about the people we love that we will lose once we allow our surge of desire to take over our conscience. I think that’s why metaphorically our brain is located at the top of our heart--to control everything that happens inside our body most specifically our emotions that goes wild like animals out of their cages.