Disclosing infidelity to the few: The elephant in the room

“There’s an elephant in the room. And it’s a stinky one”.

This was part of the message I sent to a dear friend who had invited us to their beach house for a late afternoon swim and dinner last Summer.

My friend had to Google the meaning of “There’s an elephant in the room” to fully understand my message. As a non-native English speaker, she was not entirely sure about the meaning of such expression in the context of my brief text message.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday but wouldn’t be fair not to warn you that there is an elephant in the room. And a stinky one. We are going through a rough marital patch since Tuesday, when the evidence of a triangle surfaced. There’s no way to sugar coat these things. We are sorting things out but that includes separating in the short term. We are on friendly and civilised terms so would love to have our yearly dip in the sea with all of you. PS: sorry if I upset you with our news.

How to tell your friends you have discovered your husband cheating is not easy. But I am not the kind of person who can pretend all is well. I felt I either wasn’t going to have any social life during the Summer or I would warn those friends I wanted to see. They were not going to be many. What was happening to us was so big that I couldn’t keep it to myself and, at the same time, there were people with whom I didn’t want to discuss what I was going through.

In the midst of the immediate actions after discovery day, I decided to send my friend a warning to minimize the damage we could cause to the jolly mood that they were probably looking forward to. She was extremely supportive in her almost instant reply.

I was only seeing people I could be open about the infidelity. I refused to accompany my unfaithful husband to work-related commitments or get-togethers with his school friends. I didn’t want to flood emotionally. And I didn’t want to make things easy for him to pretend that all was well.

The early evening dip with our friends, followed by alfresco dining had become one of my Summer highlights since it had been happening for the last five or six years. With this particular couple, we always enjoyed just being ourselves. There was no talk about mundane parenting chores. We also went deep into the meaning of the life stages we were going through. That’s why I felt they could be trusted with the fact that my husband's affair had come out into the light.

Ten days before I sent the message about the stinky elephant, we had gladly accepted their invitation for this yearly get together. Our daughters play along very well and I was looking forward to a high-level conversation with our friends. Nothing was going to stop me from attending this invite to their beach holiday house. Not even the recording of the painful truth of betrayal.

To be continued...