Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts’ recent movie Larry Crowne explores the positive side of adultery—but, as many people know, the effects of cheating and infidelity can be devastating. Not only can it break up marriages and relationships, it can also leave lasting scars in those who were involved—not to mention the children.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
In their new movie, “Larry Crowne,” Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts — two of our most likable stars — commit adultery.
So, the message from Hollywood is: It’s OK! But here’s Destiny, who disagrees:
DESTINY: I’m in my teens, and I’m part of a family that was damaged by my mom’s infidelity when I was just 2 years old. My dad was entirely faithful, and moreover, he did nothing to cause the affair. He wasn’t a workaholic, and he didn’t abuse my mom physically or emotionally, not even when he followed her to a motel and walked in on her with her partner in bed.
(My dad can’t drive by a Super 8 without remembering that day, and you can imagine the indelible images in his brain.)
Soon after that heart-wrenching excursion, he came home to an empty house, free of furniture, silverware and me. The scars I suffered are indescribable. I cried myself to sleep and wished other women were my mother. I felt orphaned. I remember one day I was watching a nature show with my dad, and I said I hoped the mother zebra didn’t get attacked by the lion because then the baby zebra wouldn’t have a mom, just like me.
The other family, the second one my mom helped tear to shreds — suffered, too. They got divorced, too, and the wife of the man my mom had the affair with had no education and found herself with a son to support. The boy was adopted, and now the family that took him in was ending, too.
These are the realities of affairs.
My dad remarried after years and years of being nothing but a wonderful and devoted father. He held out for someone as deserving and moral as him. I finally — after all of my mom’s lousy tries at a relationship — have a mother I can emulate.
What do you think—is Hollywood presenting cheating in the right light?
