... and leaving her children behind.

I'm sitting at my desk at lunch-hour watching a late spring rain fall outside my office.  I'm wondering what the Hell has gone wrong in the world.

I have (or had) two good friends in Shepparton.  I came to know them through SES (where else).  They seemed to be a good, decent couple, getting by and raising three children aged from about 7 to 14.  About six months ago, the wife and mother left the family, to be with her boyfriend interstate.  It hit my mate out of the blue.  I remember being appalled by it.  A double standard, I suppose: in my mind a man who deserts his family is worthy of contempt, and if he wilfuly refuses to support his ex-wife and children, he should be shunned.  But a woman who leaves her own children to be with another?  That strikes me as almost monstrous.

This is one my mind because of a story that popped up in a recent Times (London), describing just such a situation

I like to think I can make sense of most types of human behaviour, even truly evil types.  But I can't begin to understand a person voluntarily leaving their home and spouse and children for - what? - a lover.

On balance, the most appalling acts in the world may not be committed by a Ratko Mladic, or even by a Codey Hermann.  All it takes is a person with no apparent sense of shame.