'Injunctivitis' causes collateral damage

There is a part of Manchester city centre that will be foreverRyan Giggs. Known locally and with razor-sharp subtlety as "Giggsy'sCorner", it is the place the Premiership footballer, reluctantTwitter star and super-injunction fan is said to have taken hisfemale conquests in days past, presumably so he could discuss thefiner points of the British judicial system in a more comfortablesetting. Oh, the romance.I could have happily lived the rest of mylife without this vital piece of information. As, I would imagine,could Stacey Cooke, aka Mrs Giggs and a woman who has probably spentquite a large proportion of the last fortnight cornering herhusband, although for somewhat different reasons.Over the past fewdays, the Giggs super-injunction saga has evolved into a grippinglegal drama - the sort that would make a passable episode of PerryMason or an above-average Jeffrey Archer novel. So much so in fact,that it is easy to forget that at its heart sits a sordid tale abouta man who not only cheated on his wife, but is dragging his familythrough the mud alongside him in a hugely misguided attempt toshield his privacy.Of course, if Mrs Giggs is in need of asympathetic ear, she could do worse than turn to Lady Joyce Goodwin,wife of Sir Fred and another victim of a super-injunction- happyhusband. In the past, Lady Goodwin has incurred the wrath of RoyalBank of Scotland shareholders and account holders for displayingwhat some might describe as a somewhat Marie Antoinette-ish attitudetowards the Royal Bank of Scotland's woes. Whether these accusationshad any truth or not, it is certainly the case that she stood besideher husband while he was vilified as one of the chief orchestratorsof the economic collapse of 2008. Equally, their Edinburgh friendsstood by the couple, supporting them loyally while the nationalmedia had its field day over their lavish lifestyle.What betrayalthen, must Lady Goodwin be feeling now? To have supported herhusband, only to discover that not only was he was playing away fromhome with a colleague (who, in what is rapidly becoming the grandtradition of these things, cannot be named but whose identity isspread far and wide across the internet), but that he then spentthousands of pounds trying to conceal the fact?There is, of course,a shame involved in such revelations. To find out that one's partnerhas cheated and then attempted to cover it up is not onlyemotionally devastating, it is embarrassing.When Stacey Cookeappeared at the Player of the Year Awards with her husband lastweek, dressed to kill and with a slash of red lipstick that mightwell have been warpaint, she must have needed every last ounce ofenergy to face a room full of people who knew that her husband hadhad an affair and then stomped off to court like a recalcitranttoddler when someone tried to talk about it.For Giggs and Goodwin,the shame is in their attempts to conceal their actions, and intheir brazen belief that flinging money at the problem would make itgo away.Many men - and women - have affairs. Some come cleanimmediately, others never speak of it again. And many in the publiceye weather the storm, knowing that while it may receive a modicumof media coverage, you and your partner will eventually be able toretreat from the public eye and lick your wounds.What Giggs andGoodwin have failed to do is take responsibility for their actions.If they were not prepared to weather the storm, they should neverhave got into the situation in the first place.Mrs Giggs and LadyGoodwin will no doubt have accepted by now that their husbandscheated on them. What they will be finding so much more difficult toswallow is the notion that their rich, powerful partners sought tocover up their actions, dragging their own names - and theirfamilies - through the mud in the process.For both wives it is this,ultimately, that may prove to be the final marital straw.And veryfew women would blame them.