LW Notes: The Redemption Arc

First off, a warning and an apology. This isn't actually a Loving Wives story. Instead, it's more like a cross between an extended comment and a book report. I hope to write a few stories in the future--and I hope that a few of you will read them--but right now, all I really want to do is get a few ideas out. I will completely understand if you want to leave right now. If you're looking to check something out, can I suggest The Harpy by Todd172. It's a genuine kick.

If you're still reading this, you're probably already a fan of LW stories. Whether you come for the sometimes outrageous plotlines, the joy of watching a cheating wife get dragged through the mud, or the catharsis of seeing a man rise from the ashes of his own destruction, you've probably discovered the quality of the writing. To put it simply, LW pretty much has the best writing on this site.

That's not really a surprise--unlike most other genres, LW is full of of built-in questions and conflict. How does a man discover that he has a cheating wife? How does he respond? Does he get a satisfying revenge? Can he forgive her? Can he forgive himself? Can he rise above the horror of being cuckolded? Can he find a way to move on?

By comparison, what does incest have to offer? "Gee, I hope mom and dad don't find out." "Gee, I feel a little weird about banging my sister/cousin/mom/grandmother/daughter/hot Aunt Doris." "Gee, I hope our kids don't come out with two heads and twelve fingers."

Fun questions, but not anywhere near the level of existential pain and angst that underlies most Loving Wives stories!

But, for all of the genre's complexity, most cheating wives stories break down along a pretty simple line: "burn the bitch" (BTB) or "reconciliation at all costs" (RAAC). It's a pretty simplistic division--and, like most simplistic lines, it's also fundamentally flawed.

Burn the Bitch

On the one side, you've got BTB: Usually, the husband--devastated and outraged after discovering that he dedicated his life to an adulterous monster--vomits on the sidewalk, drinks a truly ridiculous amount of booze, and collapses in upon himself. After a mourning period, he takes a hard look in the mirror, sets on a path of self improvement, and plots his revenge. By the end of the story, his wife's life is in tatters, his opposition is devastated, and he left is standing tall--often with brand-new muscles and a snappy haircut--on a pile of wreckage, often with a hot, sexually explosive new woman on his arm.

It's a fun, satisfying journey, filled with humiliations galore for the cheating wife, physical and economic destruction for the bastard who screwed her, and a new life for the hero. Justice is done, peace reigns, and the reader feels that balance has returned to the universe.

The problem is, most BTB stories are also built on a weird, ascending scale. It's like when you're with a bunch of friends, trying to one-up each other with the craziest, most bizarre story. By the end of the night, you're drunk, your stomach aches from laughing, and you're trying to gasp your way through a mostly-fictional tale about the time you caught your Uncle Dan doing up his garter belts before going to the VFW dance. You ever see the movie The Aristocrats? It's like that.

You've got a story about a wife who loses her job after fucking around? Well, I've got a story about a wife who loses her job and gets gonorrhea. You've got a story about a seducing dickhead who gets divorced? I've got a story about a seducing dickhead who gets divorced and is repeatedly hit in the balls with a baseball bat until his junk is basically ground beef. And on and on it goes, until you're left with a cheating wife whose been transformed into a one-legged prostitute, shunned by her family, and reduced to walking (well, hobbling) the streets with a shaved head, ten STDs, tits that hang to the ground, and an addiction to huffing spraypaint.

The escalation is funny and all, but how far can it go--and, in the end, how much will be left of the moral, upright hero who began our story? After all, in the process of setting up all that revenge, he has to become a monster himself. He has to transform his once loving relationship and his (usually) once loving wife into a smoldering dumpster fire. He has to harden his heart, betray his moral code, and leave devastation in his wake. And, if he's not willing to lie, cheat and steal his way to total victory, there's usually someone in the comments section ready to tar and feather him as a "cuck," a worthless, meaningless wimp who didn't have the guts to stand up for himself.

And that leads us to reconciliation at all cost.

Reconciliation at All Costs

To begin with, RAAC is usually a misnomer. Granted, there are real RAAC stories--stories in which the main character has to completely humiliate himself, give up any sense of his own value, and willingly submit to being cuckolded--generally with the added misery of having to cater to his wife's lovers, including slurping semen out of her various battered orifices after her night of fun.

I don't read those stories.

This is the point where we usually say something like "Well, it's not my idea of fun, but it takes all kinds...I mean, if that's what you're into...." Truth be told, though, I honestly can't get my head around being a willing cuckold. I understand the concept of a man who gets off on seeing the most important person in his world being fucked hard by another man (or men) while he serves up the Pabst and mops up the jizz--I mean, I understand what the words mean, and I can string them together in a sentence--but, honestly, the entire concept is just beyond what I can rationally imagine. I can be selfless and all, but that seems like something out of the DSM-5.

But those sorts of stories are rare. Most RAAC stories--at least, most of the stories that are branded RAAC by commenters--involve the main character and his wife going to counseling, acknowledging that they both contributed to the misery that their lives have become, and trying to find a way to move on together. It's not, literally, reconciliation at all costs. It's actually more like "sucking it up, acting like a man, and trying to find a way forward." Or SIUALAMATTFAWF.

Not really a catchy acronym.

Those sorts of reconciliation-with-hard-work stories also a lot harder to read, mostly because they feel pretty real. In the real world, most of us don't have a dark past in the Navy SEALS, a bright new job on the horizon, and access to millions of dollars. Most of us don't have the ability to inflict unending pain on another person--and those that do are generally referred to as psychopaths. While it can be fun to read about serial killers, it would be pretty horrifying to see one staring back from the mirror.

According to my incredibly scientific analysis of the top couple of hits on Google, well over half of cheaters are still married, even after their infidelity has been revealed. Which tells me that most victims of a cheating spouse somehow find their way to forgiveness. Or, at least, find a way to keep it together until the kids go to college.

It's not glamorous and it's not fun, but it sounds about right. In the case of my divorce (which, admittedly, wasn't directly caused by infidelity), I stuck it out, did the work, and tried my best to preserve what felt (at the time) like the most meaningful relationship I'd ever had or was ever likely to have. And, when it was all over--when it was clear that there was nothing left to save--we parted on the best terms we could, because my kid needed that. When all was said and done, I was able to walk away (or, at least, take the subway a few stops to a smaller apartment) knowing that I'd done everything I could for my kid and myself.

In other words, it sucked, but it's gotten better. And that leads us to the Redemption Arc.

The Redemption Arc

The problem with the BTB/RAAC divide is that they're usually about the wife, not the main character. In the case of BTB, the main character spends hours trying to find a way to make his ex wife's life a living hell. In the case of RAAC, he spends hours trying to find a way to dig deep for forgiveness while making her love him again. In both cases, though, it's about her.

Seriously, think about it: A BTB revenge requires hours thinking about her needs and desires. What would hurt her the worst? What would destroy her world? What bizarre Mission Impossible scheme can he come up with to bring everything crashing around her ears?

And most RAAC stories aren't much better. In those, the main character is trying to figure out how he can change his personality in order to find forgiveness--while, at the same time, making his cheating spouse aware of how much she stands to lose. In both cases, he's thinking about her--her psychology, her needs, her failures, and how to adjust himself to remain married to her.

In both RAAC and BTB, the main character isn't thinking about himself. But what if he did?

In a few stories, the main character starts down this path. What can he do to heal? How can he rebuild himself to be stronger and more complete? What will the rest of his life look like--and is it something he can be happy with? How can he become the kind of person who can't be destroyed by a cheating spouse?

And that's the real story. Because, at the end of the day, the question isn't about whether you destroy the person who hurt you or learn to live with her. The question is how do you make yourself whole again. And the answer doesn't lie with a cheating spouse--in fact, the answer lies with everything BUT the cheating spouse.

Think about it: If the person you're building is reliant on the person who left you behind, how can you be truly whole? You're just creating a new type of weak self, who is dependent on other people for validation and value. Even if you rebuild yourself to a person who can wreak epic revenge on the bitch who burned you, if the person you've created is still dependent on the pain you inflict on others. In other words, you may have burned the bitch, but by not changing yourself, you're still setting yourself up to be hurt all over again.

These sorts of self-change stories, the Reconciliation Arc, can be either BTB or RAAC--although, in most cases, they tend to end with the wife on her own, a little toasted, but not torched. At the risk of some light spoilers, here are a few of the best:

Play It Again Sam: An absolutely ridiculous, over-the-top series that crosses Loving Wives with Groundhog Day. By the end, the main character comes out stronger, both physically and intellectually, with a new, better life waiting for him.

A Town Without Honor: You generally can't go wrong with Tx Tall Tales, but this is one of his absolute best. Great soundtrack (get Alexa involved for the full effect), awesome hero arc, and some outstanding supporting characters.

Let Go: No infidelity in this one...well, no infidelity with a human...but in the end, the lack of p-in-v is pretty irrelevant. The character still has to come to terms with cruelty, deal with his shit, and find a way to move on. Which he does brilliantly.

Then Surely We: Malraux does a shifting narrative that sometimes makes this feel more like an oral history than a short story. That said, it's a devastating, incredibly powerful story about a guy going all the way into the abyss and then coming out stronger. The construction makes it not quite BTB and not quite RAAC, but really something altogether special.

Man in the Mirror: Jesus, this one is hard. It's incredibly real--documenting all the painful, cruel emotions that you go through when the person who is supposed to hold you up ends up being the one who brutally pushes you down. Javmor79 does a brilliant job of highlighting that arc--even if he does make the cheating wife a little cartoonishly evil. VERY much worth a read.

Anyway, that's it. Please let me know your thoughts--especially if they're constructive. What are your favorite redemption arc stories? And which ones don't ring true?