By Damian Corless

'Unbelievable." That was the reaction of Lowri Erin when she heard in an English court that her husband Edward had tried to poison his pregnant mistress.

The hospital consultant wanted his secretary, Bella Prowse, to have an abortion, claiming she would "destroy" his life if she had the baby. She refused, and Edward decided to take matters in his own hands by spiking her tea, coffee and orange juice.

After a jury found Edward Erin guilty of dissolving harmful drugs in her drinks, his sobbing wife Lowri called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice" and said she forgave him everything.

It emerged in court that the medic hadn't told even his closest colleagues that he had a wife and children. It was a deception that enabled him to carry on a string of affairs. What was more unbelievable was that wife Lowri was happy to put up with her husband's double life.

Shortly after the marriage, Edward started an affair with a colleague. Lowri tolerated it, as she had with earlier flings. She explained after her husband's guilty verdict that she was happy to share an "unconventional" marriage, saying: "We always had separate lives but we loved each other. There were other relationships in the marriage, but that was the way it worked."

The way it worked in the marriage of English couple Yvonne and Robert Godwin was that she did her best to give their five children a stable upbringing, while he dished out 30 years of violent abuse.

Last year a court heard that Yvonne put up with the three decades of bullying and only finally cracked when she learned that he'd begun an affair with her best friend's sister. Her response was to bake his favourite fruit cake with a new ingredient -- rat poison.

Her big mistake was to tell a neighbour that she wanted her husband dead. The neighbour went to the police and the plot unravelled. Yvonne Godwin got off with a suspended sentence after her intended victim sent a letter to the court asking for leniency.

Despite her admission of guilt, he said: "I don't think she put poison in anything. There's nothing wrong with me. She's a wonderful woman and a loving, caring person."

When it comes to marriage, all the available surveys suggest that the term "long-suffering" is far more likely to be attached to the word "wife" than "husband". There are strong historical reasons for this.

Until relatively recently the man was the cash dispenser in the relationship, and in the case of a break-up the woman would, literally, be left holding the baby.

Despite a significant shift in the power balance towards greater equality, it appears that women are still more likely to utter the 'F' word than males.

There are many theories as to why this is. One of the more intriguing comes from the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, who argues that forgiveness is actually about self-empowerment.

He says: "Forgiveness puts the forgiver in an immensely powerful position. There is word magic here. The belief is that if you forgive, people will be absolved of their guilt. At worst, forgiveness is a tyrannical gift -- your life in my hands. You'll feel better when I forgive you."

His theory seems borne out by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If forgiveness was ranked like judo, the wife of Roving Bill would be a black belt.

Hillary once wryly observed: "In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times seven. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart."

Someone whose chart must be entirely filled in is Karla Giraldo, the beautiful girlfriend of New York politician Hiram Monserrate, who required 30 stitches to her face after he assaulted her with a beer bottle last Christmas.

Giraldo refused to press charges but the case went to court anyway, as her brutal beating had been caught on a security camera.

As the video was played in court, she challenged the evidence before her eyes, claiming that while it might appear that Monserrate was giving her an almighty hiding, he was actually trying to drag her to the hospital after she'd suffered "an accident".

If forgiveness really is self-empowering, Clare businessman PJ Howard is another who qualifies as something of a super-hero. Last year his lover, Sharon Collins, was jailed for six years for plotting the deaths of Howard and his two sons. The motive was to inherit his €60m fortune.

The method she chose was to go cyber-shopping for a hitman, using the pseudonym Lying Eyes.

The Egyptian she found offering to kill people for money turned out to be a bad egg. Instead of keeping his part of the bargain he tried to extort €100,000 from Howard for double-crossing Collins.

In court, PJ Howard pleaded in vain that Collins not be jailed.

He said: "Sharon has a very positive outlook on life and she was very loving and giving of her time to our extended families. Sharon always kept an even keel and I have never known her to do anything drastic over those years.

"She is a very straightforward and honest person and if she wanted anything she would ask."

He added he would happily take her back into his home. As she was led away, Collins said she took comfort that she'd been "acquitted" by the man she'd tried to kill.

For the first 22 years of her marriage to Bee Gee Robin, Dwina Gibb never had much use for forgiveness. He had numerous flings, some of them with Dwina's close friends, but she was content to live and let live in an open marriage.

That was until their housekeeper gave birth to a child, Snow Robin, last year, which reportedly left Dwina "furious" and "betrayed".

Her forgiveness has stretched to standing tight- lipped beside her husband at public functions, while he's said things like: "New life is heaven sent and a blessing." The same 'F' word was not applied to the housekeeper, who was given her marching orders.

Yoko Ono had an entirely different attitude to the hired help. If forgiveness really is a source of clout in a relationship, John Lennon, in metaphorical terms, must have qualified as a battered husband.

In 1973 John and Yoko were fighting like cats and dogs. Yoko decided the couple needed some time apart. She knew that once John was out from under her watchful gaze he'd start womanising, so she approached their secretary, May Pang, and asked her to start an affair with her husband.

Horrified, the young woman refused. Ono told her that John fancied her and that she'd arrange everything.

Everything went to plan and 18 months later John returned and Yoko had enough forgiveness brownie points in the bag to last the rest of the marriage.

And the Lennon album that came out of that period? Mind Games.

- Damian Corless

Irish Independent