There are times when cheaters assume their actions don’t impact anyone else. They are oblivious to the impact. One affair that continues impacting us today is that of Percy Shelly. His affair is what I call the curse of the Frankenstein affair.
You have likely heard about him in your English literature class. English teacher tend to share the poetry with you, but hide the immoral back story from their students.
What’s often not mentioned is that he was married as a teenager. His first marriage began with his impulsive eloping to marry a friend of his sister after his romantic relationship with his cousin had soured. Yes, he tried hooking up with his cousin, but that didn’t work out. Affairs with cousins are never a good thing.
One of the girls at his sister’s boarding school, Harriet, was unhappy at boarding school. She made suicidal threats about having to stay there. Shelly, ever the romantic, came to her rescue. Although his father forbade him from seeing the girl, it didn’t stop him from marrying her. His father thought the girl was beneath Percy, since her father operated a tavern.
Percy ignored his father’s warning and married the girl. Running off and hooking up with suicidal school girls is not the wisest of moves. Two years later they became young parents.
Surprisingly, Shelly took offense when a friend, which he invited to move in with them, made advances toward his wife. The friend was promptly asked to leave.
Soon, his wife’s sister moved in with them. He resented her sister. Percy began spending more time away from home. He thought the sister influenced his wife too much.
While away, he met the 15-year old daughter of a mentor. He was so smitten with her that he ran away from his wife. Although he was ‘robbing the cradle’, the radicals of that time excused his antics, excusing his actions as being ‘romantic’.
The relationship of Percy and Mary Shelly is a story that could happen today, even though it occurred two hundred years ago.
Their relationship is often idealized, and surrounded with exclamations of “how romantic!”. When you look at the details, it was far from dreamy portrayal that’s often given to students. When such romances are idealized, is it any wonder that society still struggles with infidelity?
Mary Shelly’s book Frankenstein left its mark on culture and continues doing so. Their relationship continued influencing authors like Thoreau and the writers behind Breaking Bad. Their affair impacted their age and ours. Their affair continues its rippling impact through the centuries.
Although your English teacher may portray what happened in romantic terms, dumping your wife and infant child to run off with a teenage groupie remains morally reprehensible. Their affair continues impacting lives now 200 years since it happened. By romanticizing the relationship, their affair is condoned as are others that are done with ‘romantic intent’.
When you condone ‘romantic affairs’ you lose any moral authority to stand on when you have to face an affair in your own family. By excusing Percy’s running off with a 15-year old, in the name of ‘literature’, ‘romance’ or whatever, you end up weakening your own marriage.
Imagine how different things would have been had Percy worked out his differences with Harriet. Instead of his running off with a teenager being romanticized, he would have instead written of love and healed relationships. The problem with romanticizing Percy’s relationship with Mary is that it lends acceptance to affairs. Idealizing the affairs of others sends the message that ‘affairs are okay’. It’s bad enough having an affair, its worse when the lover is a teenager. It creates a Frankenstein like freak monster of a relationship.
There were issues between he and Harriet. Those issues could have been worked out. It could be that Shelly avoided using his skillful use of emotional expression with his wife. Had he used those same skills to express himself and work things out in his marriage, things would have turned out very different.
What wife wouldn’t want a husband who expressed his emotions and feelings as well as Percy Shelly did?
Your marriage can turn out very different as well. You may not have the expressive skills of Shelly, but you can learn what you need in the “Hurting People and Healing Words” video. You and your spouse can have what it takes to open up communication in your marriage.
Best Regards,
Jeff
