SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I would make the pro-marriage movie, but it would only gross $12 because nobody wants to see a couple bickering over whether to throw out the week old tuna casserole. They want the dangerously risky romance of sneaking off to Niagara Falls for candlelight dinners and freaky monkey sex.

HA HA HA! So true. Unfortunately, it's become a vicious cycle. People want to see romantic, unrealistic movies, and they then think those plot lines should be a part of their real lives, and so on and so forth. It's too bad that we can't go see those movies and take them with a grain of salt-- instead, we fantasize that our lives will follow the same unrealistic plot lines (consequence-free, of course) and that whatever we truly have in our real lives is dull and not worth appreciating. Obviously, this is not true of everyone, but I think it's true for many.

We definitely need more movies like The Descendants. I thought that was the closest thing I've seen in recent memory that shows what infidelity is really like.

There is a movie with Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr. Sandra's WH left her for her best friend. It was a good portrayal of a BW. I can't remember the name but I liked the show.

Hope Floats

Yes..Hope Floats. Can't watch that movie either...the scene with the little girl yelling at her daddy to take her with him, as she's trying to get in his car breaks my heart.

That scene is utterly heartbreaking.

"I wish I could think of more..."

Damage starring Jeremy Irons.

Not a movie I think but I saw a preview for some show and the OW was yelling that the WH for having sex with his wife while he was sleeping with her.

Seriously is that supposed to make someone want to watch the show?

I watch tv and movies with a whole different set of eyes now.

Heartburn, with Meryl Streep. She, of course, did a wonderful job showing the complicated feelings of a BS.

There was also a Tyler Perry movie recently (I know, but it was a serious one) called Temptation, that showed how an A blew up big time for everyone. Not very well done, but was a cautionary tale.

Unfaithful actually showed an A in a happy M and they did not try to demonize the BH (although, of course he did kill the OM!). The WW was just bored and got caught up in it, with obviously disastrous results.

I wish Heartburn the movie had the heart of Heartburn the book.

It's in kids shows, too.

God, been seeing it in kids' TV shows too. We were watching the 1992 X-Men series, and while Jean is recovering from her resurrection, Cyclops goes out to a nightclub and makes out with Dazzler. Jean/Phoenix catches him, and yet after the whole Phoenix debacle, no one even mentions what he was doing. He says he loves her, but never even apologizes for what he was doing with Dazzler (ironically Emma Frost was in the episode too, but Cyclops didn't cheat with her, unlike in the comics).

Then there was Batman Beyond. After Terry (the new Batman) stood up his girlfriend Dana again, she breaks up with him and 5 minutes later he runs into Melanie. There was no actual infidelity in that episode, though I found their "caught in the rain" moments sickening since he had never put that effort into his relationship with Dana. The next episode with Melanie in it, it *was* infidelity. He was with Dana again and blew her off on the phone to spend the night with Melanie. And yet in almost all episodes, Dana is presented as the nagging girlfriend (why wouldn't she be? Her boyfriend is constantly ditching her, and he won't even tell her his secret). Somewhat vindicated later in that he told her his secret and they still got engaged, but still… They were saying in an interview that one of the producers wanted Terry to start making out with his and Dana's best friend, and another producer vetoed it with extreme prejudice. Yay for Bruce Timm.

Sorry for the rant. For some reason, it angers me worse in the kids' shows. Almost like it's saying "hey, so and so was a nag, and relationships aren't meant to last anyway at that age!" Doesn't make cheating OK.

ETA: Oh yeah, and Buffy. Could go on a rant or few about some of those episodes.

ETA again: and X-Files. Feel so sorry for Cassandra Spender and Bill Mulder.

[This message edited by silverhopes at 2:47 PM, January 19th (Sunday)]

I feel the same way but also with a twist...I have a hard time with movies that show spouses sticking it out through the hard times and cry because mine left me when I became I'll so I guess it is like jealousy and I can't watch them either anymore.

An episode of scrubs made me nearly throw my ipad across the room. Good luck charlie, because the baby's name (not Charlie, the new one) is the same as the prostitute's "Stage name". One of my daughter's favorite toutube celebs goes by that as his nickname. (I want to know her real name, so it's not such a damn trigger all the time! )

[This message edited by steadfast1973 at 4:14 PM, January 19th (Sunday)]

In light of total honesty, they only went to the aquarium and dinner once. I have no idea what else, but it wasn't Niagara Falls. But, you should all know that all suggestions to go places were hers and I have never once suggested we go somewhere fun. We all clear now?

PS, we also never really made tuna casserole

I totally understand! One of my favorite movies is "The Notebook" and after DDAY I now see it for what it really is...not a movie about true love, but a movie about a woman who has an affair and leaves her fiance.... :(

I guess it just goes with the territory. I've watched so many movies with similar story lines (something borrowed,walk the line..ext..) and never connected to that part because it hadn't happened to me yet. But you can't understand something until you've been through it...

Disagree with that last sentence. I hated The Notebook because of the infidelity, way before going through it myself. There's plenty of things I understand that I haven't gone personally gone through.

And when the roles are reversed, the BH is either an abusive controlling nightmare, or a selfish neglectful absentee, and the WW is "rescued" by an OM who "really sees her" or some such bullshit. Equally offensive and barf-inducing.

Exactly, works both ways.

Re ally don't understand the need for sexist attitudes in a thread like this.

nobody wants to see a couple bickering over whether to throw out the week old tuna casserole

Why on earth would anyone argue about that? No wonder so many marriages fail, if that's the kind of thing people waste their time arguing about.

I've been watching Army Wives lately on Netflix. There's a lot of cheating in that show, and the couples always work it out. But something that I've noticed with every single couple is that the BS changes after the A to make the WS more happy. One wife cheated with a guy who rode a motorcycle and the husband was painted as this "strict" guy who didn't have fun... after she was caught, the husband got a motorcycle and they rode off into the sunset together. With a different couple, the husband cheated because the wife didn't want kids. After he got caught, the wife got pregnant to make him happy. So yeah, all that upsets me.

I agree that it is infuriating when it is kid's shows, it bothers me that the idea that affairs are acceptable and romantic is given to kid's even at a young age. Thanks Disney. I was watching a kids movie the other day, and I knew I should turn it off when I had the strong urge to cuss at the characters.

"Fatal Attraction"

That movie should have been enough to put anyone off even thinking about having an affair.

My fathers favorite movie was Dr. Zhivago. He made me watch as a teenager. I hated it. The dude had a wife and a mistress the whole movie. When Bridges of Madison County came out I hated that too. After that I was more careful with movies I went to. That's why I never saw the Notebook. What crap.