Agatha Christie Pair: The Couple That Reconciles After Cheating

In my list of Christie types, I list "the bad husband [who] gets his wife back."

One of Christie's most remarkable traits was her ability to objectively present different reactions to adultery. She suffered from a first marriage to a man who may not have been technically adulterous (it's hard to say) but who emotionally and physically absented the marriage to marry another woman, a decision he made while Christie was clearing out her dead mother's house. 

Christie wrote books with plots that faintly resemble her own experience (which she never spoke about directly) but here is where the writer rises to the fore--because she also wrote books about couples who resolve their problems quite differently than she and her ex-husband, Archie. 

In Hercule Poirot's Holiday, the adulterous husband is a bigger-than-life character; in Evil Under the Sun, the supposedly adulterous wife is actually a pathetic victim; in The Hollow, the adulterous husband is a complex man who exhorts his mistress to protect his wife as he is dying (she does)--the narrator's sympathy is entirely on the side of the adulterers; in Towards Zero, the ex-wife's adultery is excused because her ex-husband was, well, nuts; in Five Little Pigs, the wife feels pity for the mistress, largely because the adulterous husband never intends to leave the wife for the mistress; in Sparkling Cyanide, the adulterous husband reconciles with his wife.  

Adultery is not the primary motive in all Christie's books--or even a given theme (the theme life is about taking risks is far more common). But she shows a readiness to treat each marriage/relationship as comprised of individuals whose individual personalities and relationships dictate the outcome. 

Which is not to say that adultery doesn't cause all kind of problems. Christie may have been willing to see every relationship as different. She was also a realist. Betrayal is betrayal. 

It is immensely difficult to forgive adulterers in romances. Libertines: okay. Characters with scandalous pasts: part of the charm. But a significant other that cheats...

In terms of my own reading, the closest novel I've read about a possible adulterer (that I actually enjoy) is Lessons in Temptation by Charlie Cochrane in which Jonty contemplates cheating. The temptation is real. His troubled reaction is real. The counseling he requests and receives is down-to-earth. His rejection of the temptation is a relief.

In television, one of the few couples I wanted to see get back together, even though one cheated, is Rusty and Gus--and even there, I had my doubts that it would work since Rusty requires absolute trust and security. However, at the time of the event, they had separated (for more than 24-hours), Rusty practically pushed Gus into the other man's arms, Gus was immediately repentant and paid the price before he ever spoke to Rusty of reconciliation.

Point: It is a terrifically difficult plot to write successfully. Kudos to Christie that she considered reconciliation a possible solution in some cases for some characters.