Dominic West has embarrassed his family enough - let's not put fuel on the fire

Dominic West attending the Colette UK Premiere as part of the BFI London Film Festival at the Cineworld Leicester Square, London.

The pictures of The Affair star Dominic West kissing Lily James in Rome last weekend have caused exactly the stir that these kinds of things always do. Lily is getting raked over the coals in every corner of the Internet – beware, scarlet woman! Meanwhile, Dominic careened home and convinced his wife to stand outside their house holding a tissue and a piece of paper proclaiming that their love lasts.

Inside that house, you can bet that things are far from the fairy tale that he wants us all to think; I hope that his wife (Irish landscape designer and gardener Catherine Fitzgerald) is giving him absolute hell, affair or not.

My father was unfaithful in his marriage to my mother, and as a teenager in an Ireland where separation and (shh, don’t say it!) divorce were not acceptable turn of phrase, it fell to my mother, brother, sister and I to carry the shame of what was going on inside our house. The world may have changed since then, but the fallout from an affair – or even a whisper of one – is far-reaching and devastating.

When you are a child in the middle of a marriage on its knees, you look for a lifeboat, and that is quite naturally enough, your parents. These kids need to be shielded from their father’s public disgrace as much as possible. They don’t need to go to school and know that their Dad was the dinner table conversation, or to be shown what strangers are saying about him on Twitter.

Let’s be very careful how we comment on this. When pointing fingers and sharing images zooming in on hands-on-bums or clutching necks in a sexy way, let’s consider who will be seeing these images. Did Dominic’s four children or his unsuspecting wife expect their lives to be torn asunder over a weekend? Almost certainly not.

The hatches may be battened, but as we are reminded daily, the Internet is forever, and those pictures will outlast Dominic and possibly his marriage. Spare a thought for the woman in that oh-so-orchestrated photo opportunity. Would you like to be dealing with the massacre of your family? Would you like to be working through your memories as a couple with a fine-tooth comb, wondering if you had spotted the signs, could this have been avoided? Would you like to be shut up in your home, trying to protect your four children from the horror that awaits them outside?

Dominic West should not have been carousing around the place like he was. He should not be mortifying his family by hopping on scooters and driving around Rome like some gap year student high on freedom. He should not be photographed drinking wine and touching a beautiful actress-who-is-not-his wife's face. But, his wife should not have to deal with this worldwide scrutiny, because her husband is acting like a character from a Jilly Cooper novel. 

So, do me a favour. The next time you share, or retweet, or comment, consider that his family might read it, or that it might be shown to his 13-year-old child in the schoolyard. The kids didn't ask for this, Catherine Fitzgerald certainly didn't ask for this, so let's leave them to deal with the wreckage of this situation in the best way for their family - in private.