Look, I understand that by attributing her motives to something she lacks in her character somehow gives us some kind of relief. “ She does this because she needs control. She does this because she needs to feel powerful. She does this because she needs her AP to desire her. She does this because she needs validation” and the list goes on and on...
While I agree that these are certainly feelings she must be feeling inevitably during the affair, and what most people seek in affairs, in her case it could be just good old desire to have someone new and different than her husband. She actually admitted that her AP was the exact opposite of her husband sexually, while answering a question.
She is certainly acting very selfish and entitled but I don’t believe these are the driving motives behind her affair, but rather enabling factors of the affair. She does this because she loves having sex with someone completely different than her husband in bed, and while she knows damn well it is wrong and very unjust, she does it anyway because she can! She does it because she has no fear of losing her husband. She does it because she is well aware of the fact that there won’t be any serious consequences.
We as men would like to think that women wouldn’t really do it just for some desire or need to have something different and new. Because it comforts us in some level and helps us to protect our masculinity. It’s not that we couldn’t keep them interested, it was because they have such a weak character that needed some external validation! Well, that may very well be true in many cases, but not every time, and certainly not in this particular case.
I believe that she has a very strong character, very confident, cleary intelligent and articulate and I don’t believe for a moment that she needs any sort of external validation to feel better about herself! She knows what she wants and she just selfishly takes it without much regard to her husband’s feelings. And she does feel bad afterwards cause she is not a malicious type of person either. Very selfish, but not malicious.
In a way, her affair upsets me a lot more than the type of affairs that are described above which are the results of some need of external validation of sort. She isn’t like those women who are too weak to get control of the situation, who desperately need the continuation of the affair to feel better about whatever they feel like they lack in their personality. Oh no, she is in full control of her mental capacity and well aware of the full implications of this thing. She can stop this damn thing any time she wants without much difficulty! Sure she will pine over her AP for a while, as she may have very well got attached to him over time, but she will get over him soon enough.
But no, she doesn’t do it because she simply doesn’t want to. I mean, why should she stop when it is something she wants and something that makes her feel good when she knows very well there won’t be any real repercussions?
The same goes for making it right with her husband. She knows what he is going through and she knows exactly what she needs to do to build him back up again. She just doesn’t know how to bring her self doing it! Because she is so used to always having her way, she just doesn’t know how to put her pride aside and make her husband’s feelings her number one priority! She doesn’t know how to do it, because she never practiced this before!
And it pisses me off, because this can be learned! It isn’t necessarily an innate ability, but rather something that can be picked up through patience and hard work and by listening to people who have been in these similar situations. She is strong and more than capable of accomplishing this and healing her husband and making him happy again, yet her damn pride just simply doesn’t let her do it! It has to be her way or else!
And then the guilt sets in! She does feel guilty because she knows all of this! She feels guilty because she knows she can fix this whole thing and it is very wrong not to do it when she is able to! And whenever anyone tells her anything that needs to be done which she knows it to be true already, she just gets upset! Because that would mean changing her ways completely! Changing her ways that she has been so accustomed to all her life! Which will also change the entire power dynamics in her relationship by the way! And once she does this, there is no going back! It’s goodbye to that selfish VioletElle who always gets her way and playing fun and games!
She knows this. Yet she won’t do it. She can easily fix her husband just like she broke him, but she won’t do it because of this. Instead, she just lets it lay, hoping that maybe, just maybe he will be allright somehow. I mean she loves him, and she hasn’t left him, so what more does he want anyway?
In a way, I would say that VioletElle’s husband is in no danger of being abandoned by his wife which is opposite of many husband’s situations whose wifes have affairs. Because I believe unless her husband revolts against her and this whole situation, she would never leave him. The wifes that leave finds something in their AP that they want in their life permanently. Well, VioletElle has that already with her husband and she loves him for it! Unless I am very wrong, there is nothing her AP can give her that she would need in her life indefinetely. She doesn’t think he is someone she can grow old with and share all of the things that a shared life entails. No, instead he does serve a certain purpose that makes her happy, that she desires and that’s that. That’s a good enough reason for her to indulge herself in this seflish escapade.
I know that the picture I draw here might be very disturbing for some, but picturing her as a weak woman who is in need of external validation and gets it through an affair she has no control over doesn’t accomplish a damn thing. Same thing goes for vilifying her to no end. If there will come any solution out of this, and I hope that it will, it will be through helping her see herself in the mirror if that is at all possible. I may have gotten some things wrong, but I am sticking to my main thesis.
