Our being right today must not set up tomorrow's revenge

A man discovers his wife's infidelity.

He has messages, images and facts. He is right about the wrongdoing.

He sends the evidence to his family, shows the photos and turns the intimate betrayal into a spectacle. He wants his wife's shame to look like his pain.

Then another truth emerges: this man had himself been unfaithful.

When his wrongdoing is discovered, his wife will not receive only the information.

She will receive a set of instructions.

She will know that, in their relationship, a betrayal can be told to the families and used to humiliate.

He may explain that it is not comparable.

His arguments will arrive after the rule he himself created.

Today, I am right and you are wrong.

Tomorrow, the roles can be reversed.

Responsibility begins when we do not wait for that reversal to examine the method we are authorizing.

Being right is a position, not an identity

We sometimes speak as if the couple contained one reasonable person and another who is mistaken.

This division reassures us when it places us on the right side.

Yet even an attentive person can misunderstand, forget a consequence or hurt someone they love.

Reason is a position in a given situation.

It is not a permanent rank.

We can be right on the substance and misuse that rightness.

When we forget this, the wrongdoing no longer serves only to address a problem. It establishes who would henceforth be the good person facing the bad one.

Reason stops illuminating.

It becomes a pedestal.

Pain does not choose a useful reaction

Our pain says something true.

It shows the importance of the trust, the intimacy or the promise that was touched. The partner cannot decide that their wrongdoing was small or impose the speed of calm.

But the legitimacy of the pain and the usefulness of the reaction are two separate matters.

Does our response protect what was damaged? Does it make repair possible? Does it stop the behavior?

Or does it only add humiliation?

"I have the right to be angry" answers the question of the emotion.

It does not yet answer the question of the action.

We can be right to feel and wrong in the rule we build with that feeling.

Every reaction becomes a reference

In a relationship, we learn through precedents.

We discover how a lie is handled, who protects intimacy during a crisis and how long a wrongdoing remains available.

These reactions form a culture.

It is enough to humiliate and then justify it by pain to create a future permission.

The day the roles are reversed, the other person already has a reference. They can take up the same language, the same audience and the same intensity.

One question must therefore accompany our reason:

"If the person I love used exactly this method when I am wrong, would I still find it fair?"

The mirror does not make the faults identical.

It checks whether our method survives the reversal of places.

Exposing adds a second story

When an intimate fault becomes public, two problems exist.

The initial wrongdoing remains and belongs to its author.

The exposure then creates its own story: relatives have seen, heard and formed a judgment. Even if the couple evolves, that audience does not automatically receive the new evidence.

Seeking help from a trusted person may be necessary. Broadcasting in order to humiliate pursues another objective.

Before sharing, let us ask:

"Am I seeking safety, advice, or witnesses to their suffering?"

Protecting intimacy does not deny the wrongdoing.

It refuses to unnecessarily hand back to the outside the power to administer what comes next.

One wrongdoing does not pay for the authorization of another

"After what was done to me, I can go too far."

This sentence seems to balance the accounts. It creates a new debt.

The wrongdoing received explains our reaction. It does not become its author.

If we humiliate, lie or destroy to give back pain, that action has its own person responsible.

Recognizing this does not diminish the first wrongdoing.

It prevents the couple from losing every boundary as soon as someone has started.

Otherwise, the first wrongdoing authorizes the second, the second authorizes the third and each person keeps the proof that they did not start it.

The couple becomes a repayment room.

Evidence must serve protection, not become an additional wound

When we hold evidence, we may feel relief: we are no longer facing only an impression. That relief does not yet decide the use we will make of the information. Keeping a useful piece, presenting it in an appropriate setting and broadcasting it to humiliate are not one and the same response.

Before sharing, let us ask ourselves what precise effect we expect from it and why that recipient needs this information. Are we seeking support, protection, a decision or the other person's public suffering? If we want a harm to be recognized, it is possible that certain intimate details add nothing to that recognition and create a distinct injury.

This check does not ask us to remove what can protect us. It asks us not to confuse the strength of the case with the extent of the exposure. We may still want to repair or end the relationship; the information broadcast, however, does not always return under our control. Protecting our future also means not letting the relief of finally being believed choose alone what will be made public.

A consequence protects, revenge makes someone pay

A consequence and revenge can both be uncomfortable.

A consequence changes an access, a trust or a condition that the wrongdoing made imprudent. It keeps a link with the problem and seeks to protect.

Revenge seeks suffering first.

It sometimes chooses an unrelated area because it will hurt more. It continues after the message has been understood and prefers the public to precision.

A consequence can be firm. It has a reason, a proportion and a boundary.

Revenge feeds on going beyond.

Refusing to humiliate does not mean forgiving everything. We can say:

"What you did is serious. My trust and my decisions will change. I am not going to expose you, but I will not act as if nothing happened."

This position removes a weapon without removing the consequence.

Forgiveness must not become a throne

We may not be ready to forgive. Trust, access and the continuation of the relationship do not always follow the same calendar.

But our forgiveness can become such a precious object that the other person must remain below us for a long time.

We recall the wrongdoing to maintain a position and measure repair less than the duration of their supplication.

Seriousness does not oblige us to make forgiveness cheap.

Nor does it authorize an endless debt.

Let us ask ourselves whether the time serves to observe, understand and decide, or to prolong a superiority that has become pleasant.

A wrongdoing that has been recognized and repaired must not remain a weapon available for all future discussions.

Also protecting the person we will become

Self-respect does not only serve to prevent the other person from disrespecting us.

It also prevents us from committing, under anger, acts that we will later despise.

Refusing revenge is not a favor offered to the guilty person. It is a way of not losing ourselves in what we condemn.

We have no guarantee that the other person will offer us the same high ground tomorrow.

But we avoid providing them with our cruelty as a justification.

We lay down another reference:

Here, even the person who is right is accountable for the way they use their reason.

What rule am I in the process of creating?

What rule does my reaction create for tomorrow?

Would I accept my method if the roles were reversed?

Does this consequence help to close the conflict or does it prepare the next revenge?

To whom would I be tempted to tell the conflict at the risk of adding a second wound?

Will I still respect this reaction when my next wrongdoing comes?