It seemed so sweet.

Even admirable.

Mother, father and young children — a handsome assemblage — disembarked from their minivan and walked ahead of me into the rec center.

The family that plays together, I thought.

We all filed past the front desk, and the father and I veered off to the men's locker room, where I put on my workout clothes and he, already properly attired, proceeded to place a call on his smartphone.

He was calling the Other Woman.

Apparently he had been somehow duped into coming to the rec center with his family, and he claimed he wasn't at all happy about it. Neither was the woman on the other end of the phone, judging from her tone and volume.

With the phone pressed to his ear, he paced the floor the way a nervous zoo animal circles its cage. He was quite the specimen.

The only words I can find to describe this guy aren't suitable for print. "Jerk" doesn't cut it. I suppose "liar" could sound pretty damning with enough venom behind it. "Pathetic" might do him some justice.

One thing he definitely was not: happy. If he thought he might find happiness outside his marriage, he had sorely miscalculated. More than anything, this guy was clearly stressed.

So, in a way, he had come to the right place. Doctors recommend regular exercise to reduce stress.

Out on the floor, he appeared right as rain. If he had come to the rec center under duress, it didn't show. He even went over to chat with his wife, who was reading a magazine as she pumped her elliptical.

I couldn't stop looking at her. She was pushing up on middle age, not as svelte as she once was, but neither was he. She was attractive, fit and didn't show any obvious signs of distress.

Did she know?

Would she want to know?

He knew.

I knew.

While I stood an inch or two taller than this guy, he outweighed me by about 30 pounds, and most of that was muscle. Not the type I would want to tangle with.

Not that I would have intervened anyway. It's none of my business. But it angers me nonetheless.

It angers me that men can be so callous.

It angers me that men's brains have yet to consistently win the battle with their biology.

It angers me that he'll probably get his wife a little gift for Valentine's Day, and she'll be grateful for the sentiment.

Some of the details of the rec center tableau were changed to protect the innocent. But this did happen, and it continues to happen every day.

It could have been just about anyone placing that call, male or female. Depending on where you get your statistics, anywhere from 20 to 25 percent of married people cheat on their spouses, with men on the high end of that range and women on the low end. Infidelity is among the main causes of divorce, which is where nearly half of today's marriages will end.

We all know people who have cheated on their spouses, even if we don't know what they've done.

Perhaps you yourself have cheated on your spouse. If so, maybe it's time to come clean.

Dishonest relationships don't work, and lying hurts everyone.

If you really want to show your spouse the depth of your love, stay faithful, or get faithful.

Michael Long welcomes email at mlong@lnpnews.com.