rotten

I know 'rotten egg', but it usually refers to a person who is not very good. I can think of nothing at the moment; could you give me a bit of context?

Hello Mr Micawber,

here's the context:

The logic of an adulturer/cheater is madly ambitious: to preserve the rotten egg of the marriage at any cost, and to keep their surreal trophey outside the marriage.

Well, I think it is a mistake to use rotten egg, because as I said, in English it refers to a person rather than a situation. And you already have mixed metaphors-- rotten egg and surreal trophy do not go together at all (nor do I have any idea what surreal trophy may mean-- beyond the fact that the writer is obviously opposed to out-of-marriage love-making).

W

Surreal throphy is cheater's mistress.He is unwilling to abandon his wife as well as his mistress.His mistress is his trophy, although I am not quite sure why surreal.

Perhaps he's having an online affair; or he's having a "trophy" in his dream (????)

(I'm making this up.)

Maybe this might help -

The logic of an adulturer/cheater is madly ambitious: to preserve the rotten core of the marriage and to keep their surreal trophy outside the marriage at any cost.

Thank you Anon,

Is this expression rotten core common?

Surreal trophy is just too hard to decipher in this context. And I would write-- insanely ambitious.

Maybe:

The logic of the adulterer is ridiculously ambitious: to preserve the hollow shell of his marriage intact at any cost, while keeping a firm grip on his obliging, decorative, surprisingly expert extra-marital plaything.

MrP

'Rotten core' is not a common expression to refer to marriage.

i was trying to suggest a more appropriate word without changing your sentence in any other way.