As a red blooded female I've often fantasized about the possibility of planning and carrying out acts of sweet revenge, and then bathing in the glory of its success... and that's a very small possibility!
There are many acts and issues which can provoke an act of revenge such as cheating or marital affairs, deals related to money such as in gambling or unpaid and increasing debts etc. However, for one reason or another in marital affairs we usually associate revenge with something the gentle-sex tends to carry out, yet statistically in many major regions across Europe as well as the US the female is more likely to commit adultery...

Just recently whilst watching a live TV show, I listened to a story unravel about a woman who discovered her husband was cheating with his boss' wife and in their bed. Her reaction was merely to keep quiet and prepare a video camera in the bedroom. Next...she leaves the house and leaves the video camera set on record...presumably with a very very long tape (or maybe not...depending on her husband). When she arrives home she finds everything is as she has left it, except the newly recorded footage capturing a sordid affair between her husband and the boss' wife. Now for her revenge...she sends the tape off to the boss.

As soon as I heard this story of revenge I felt like jumping for joy and clapping like a crazed seal to praise the woman for her sheer control and pursuit of the matter, and even though I am aware that morally the revenge was wrong, I could not help but feel utter pleasure and be in awe of it.

There are so many cases of revenge that we hear about and laugh off. Most of us don't give a first thought about perhaps one day carrying out an act of revenge. Typical scenarios include the wife who spends a day with some scissors shearing and cutting up all her husbands clothes, the wife who goes out to her husbands second love or maybe third...his car, and wrecks it senseless or bursts the tyres just to feel some pay back, even in the slightest form...Worst of all and thank God that it's very rare is the wife who does some damage to the husbands private parts as he sleeps unsuspectingly.

Unfortunately ever since then I have been consumed in the thought of 'if ever I discover my husband being unfaithful (whom by the way I haven't even met yet) ...how would I avenge of him!'

We are regularly taught or advised that revenge is rarely fulfilling and that the temporary affects never do make up for the slow and deepening pain. Nevertheless it challenges the idea of keeping the pain trapped within us and letting it either mount towards a huge eruption of emotions or resentment or letting it contribute to a downfall of depression.

Have you ever carried out an act of revenge and how satisfying was it? Is it normal to think about plotting revenge or is it more acceptable if the reaction is an immediate impulse (lashing out physically or verbally)? If the possibility arises that you discover your partner to be fooling around (God Forbid!), what revenge would you find most tempting? How would your reaction to a one night fling differ to a one year affair...are they as bad as each other? Do you believe that women are more likely to seek vengeance? If so, why?

By guest writer Samantha