Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:00 PM | January 25, 2026
Stromboli

The New York Times is not without value if you live outside the bubble that surrounds the cultural elite. Not only do they have a worthwhile section dedicated to cooking, which I use often enough, but also because their news section and magazine provide valuable insight into how people on the other side of the cultural divide think.

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Just as elite liberals understand little to nothing about how you and I think, we sometimes miss the subtleties of their complicated interior lives. They aren't only hysterics who actually take the rantings and ravings of teenage dropouts seriously when it comes to predicting what the climate will look like years and decades ahead, however much it seems that way. 

They also see moral dilemmas that we aren't sophisticated enough to grasp.

I don't know about you, but this question would never occur to me. You see, I would be angry if my wife had a longstanding affair, and I doubt I would spend a lot of time thinking about how devastating her breakup would be for her. That's obviously because I am too simple a man to think about the feelings of others, I suppose. 

I have been married for many years, and I still love and care deeply about my partner. Over the past year, she had an affair, and I knew about it from the beginning. She said that she needed it, that it gave her vitality, that she enjoyed a sexual freedom she had longed for and that she felt it was wrong to do this in secret and without my consent. I agreed; what she said made sense to me, and she convincingly assured me this was no threat to our relationship. At the same time, I always suffered when she was away with her affair partner and could not find a way to take this easily.

She recently decided to break it off because the overall emotional burden for both of us was too great. But while she is grieving about it, I feel relieved. Even though I wish that I could have better coped with a situation I rationally and ethically consider OK, it conflicted with something deeper inside me that I can’t easily change.

My question is: Should I feel sorry for my wife? At the moment, I don’t. I understand her feelings and I care about her, but at the same time I feel it is not my job to console her for this particular loss. What do you think about this? — Name Withheld

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Unlike Name Withheld, I would have called BS on the claim that my wife having an affair would pose no threat to our relationship, and to be honest, it seems a bit strange to me that a man who admits that every time his wife went off with her boytoy on the side, he felt bad about it can simultaneously believe that his wife is hurting him and that her doing so is ethically OK. 

But apparently, New York Times readers are better men and women than I. 

If I didn't read the Times, I would never have learned this lesson in ethics, and more importantly, would have missed out on gaining an insight into how the other 25% think. And if we don't understand each other, how can we get along? 

I do have to admit, though, that the ethical lesson hasn't sunk in yet. No matter how much I try, all I can think of Name Withheld is that he is a stupid cuck. 

I have some growing to do. 














































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