THAT'S MEN:Confessing only salves your conscience, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN
WHAT ARE we to make of the actions of a man who, on his deathbed, confesses to a long-past affair with his wife’s best friend?
The affair, of course, is a betrayal but what can motivate the confession other than his selfish need for some sort of closure or resolution?
I am referring here to the case of Surrey man Tony Wakeford who, about five years ago, was in hospital with severe Parkinson’s disease and was convinced he was about to die – so convinced he felt a need to ease himself of carrying the burden of guilt for a past misdeed.
He did so by telling his wife, Patricia, of a lengthy affair with her best friend a long time ago. We can well imagine the effect of this confession.
His wife’s peace of mind was shattered as subsequent events showed.
I don’t know whether the friend is still alive (Mr Wakeford was in his 70s when he made his confession) but if so then her life, it is fair to assume, has been mightily disturbed especially as she was named in the newspapers.
You might not have very much sympathy for the disloyal friend but one might have thought that honour among thieves, if nothing else, would have encouraged her former illicit lover to keep the information to himself.
In a twist that could have been written by Roald Dahl, Mr Wakeford did not die but returned home to his wife’s care. Apparently he was hopeful that his “death-bed” confession meant he had been forgiven by Mrs Wakeford.
Not so. The next few years brought a series of rows as his wife repeatedly demanded all the details of the affair, as is usually the case after an affair comes to light.
She was subject to outbursts of anger as is also usually the case in these circumstances.
These events culminated in a situation in which Mr Wakeford got stabbed through the heart by Mrs Wakeford and died.
Mrs Wakeford did not take the stand at her subsequent trial for murder but her police statement outlines a bizarre sequence of events in which Mr Wakeford sort of accidentally gets stabbed in several places while they are struggling on the floor.
According to her account, the final row started after she demanded to know yet again why he had the affair.
She was convicted of manslaughter and the week before last walked free from court.
The judge had sentenced her to 582 days in prison and she had already served time on remand.
In what he described as an act of “mercy and compassion”, Judge Christopher Critchlow said the protection of the public did not require that she be kept in custody.
She had, he said, been betrayed by the two people closest to her apart from her children.
So there it is. Mr Wakeford’s confession cost him dear and Mrs Wakeford’s response has cast a shadow over the rest of her life.
There is a suggestion in the court proceedings that previous rows between the couple had also turned violent.
Mr Wakeford had suffered from Parkinson’s disease, remember, and his wife was his carer. It strikes me that this was not an even match when it came to a fight and that Mrs Wakeford had a duty to deal with her anger, frustration and hurt in another way – divorce, for instance, is an option so many people seem reluctant to take who end up killing their spouses.
But if you guess that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Mr Wakeford, you would be right.
It seems to me that if you have had an affair and if nothing can be gained from confessing it except to salve your conscience, then you should be prepared to take the guilt to your grave.
If you must confess, call in a priest, a counsellor or a doctor – but don’t lob a grenade into the life of the person you betrayed.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
His book, Light Mind - Mindfulness for Daily Living, is published by Veritas. His mindfulness newsletter is free by e-mail