In the past few months I have learned that many of my students think that infidelity is an inevitable outcome in a relationship, much to my dismay. (Sure, we have a cultural problem with personal accountability and a 24/7 news media that portrays celebs hopping in and out of bed with one another with barely any negative outcomes, but I'll save that for another day.)
Yes, the belief that infidelity is inevitable is distressing, but the main reason my students offer for why people cheat is that "they're bored." Yes, out of boredom. And sure, that's what they believe, but is boredom being used as a somewhat more palatable excuse for something else? Because I have to say, it strikes me that people typically don't cheat because they're "bored," but because their partners aren't meeting their needs. And in the case of teenagers, is "not meeting my needs" synonymous with "he/she is not going as far as I would like?" Do teens cheat because their partners aren't doing everything they'd like sexually? Or because they think it is easier to cheat than to actually have an honest conversation about needs, desires, feelings and potential problems in their current relationship? (Thank you, text messaging, for hindering our ability to speak face to face.)
So let me just put it out there: I don't think that cheating is ever acceptable. If you're a stand-up guy or girl, you deal with your relationship issues before you betray someone's trust, body, sexual health, feelings and so on.
But there's a difference between cheating because you're bored and cheating because you are emotionally drawn to someone else. All are bad, don't get me wrong. But from a emotional pain perspective, the latter (to me) is far more painful.
I recently had the chance to see a screening of "Last Night," a film that's being released by Tribeca Films on May 6. In it, Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington play a married couple who, on one particular night, are faced with temptation -- of two different varieties (and in the forms of Eva Mendes and the surprisingly delicious Guillaume Canet). Sure, in the end, the temptation is sex, but one is about lust and the other comes from love. (And no, it doesn't end as you might think.)
In fact, I wanted it to play out differently for someone. And I feel guilty about it because it goes against everything I believe in. (But no worries, I won't give away the story. No spoilers here.) But that's why movies are an escape. They allow us to be and do things that we wouldn't even consider in our real lives.
But it does leave me with three questions that I shall pose to all of you: Is the fantasy better than the reality? Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time? Is emotional infidelity worse than physical infidelity? I have my opinions. What are yours?
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Margaret Paul, Ph.D.: Mending Broken Trust
Emotional infidelity is the next step before physical infidelity if the conditions present itself without appropriate mind reasoning to counter these (S)urges.
This is a no brainer for me. She has a husband or a boyfriend, she's off limits. Period. Just the way I was raised.
The fantasy (I assume you meant of an affair) is better. One can never be disappointed in a relationship that exists only in one's own mind. Also, the reality has the potential to wreak total devastation on another person or persons (i.e. children) that anyone who pauses for just a second can decide that it is totally not worth it.
I don't believe it is possible to be in love with two different people at one time - not REAL love. Yes, maybe the butterflies, the obsessive thoughts of being with them, etc. But if a person really loves someone else, there is no room for the possibility of letting someone else in in that way. Love is TOTAL surrender to another person; if you've surrendered completely to someone, how can you surrender to someone else?
The emotional affair is worse. This I know from experience. While the physical act can lead to all kinds of obsessive thoughts about it, it pales in comparison to the thought that your best friend in all the world having betrayed your trust so severely as to share their soul with another person when they told you they never would. You lose a piece of yourself when that happens to you.
I can't tell by your screen name, but I suspect you're female. I could easily love multiple woman. I think most men could. I'd love a harem. Two problems though: (1) lack of willing females, (2) prohibitive expense.
Yes. Evolution. Research shows clearly that BOTH men and women go outside of their relationships for sex. This is a natural consequence of the drive to reproduce offspring that have the greatest chance of survival.
http://www.womensinfidelity.com/
http://www.catalogs.com/info/relationships/percentage-of-married-couples-who-cheat-on-each-ot.html
All the social taboos on infidelity are also a consequence of the same evolutionary pressures.
A purely rational, logical and practical social solution to address human sexual needs would be to decouple sex from love and marriage. There are many in our society who have already liberated themselves in this way so it is not only possible but it is demonstrably achievable.
Humans should be more like their cousins the Bonobo's when it comes to sex. If we were I think we would all live happier more fulfilled lives, divorce would probably be significantly reduced and Tiger Woods would still be a great golfer.
Bottom line, a well-adjusted, adult, human being who decides to make a commitment to another person in marriage has both the responsibility and the capacity to be monogamous. Decoupling the wondrous potential of our humanity from our animal baseness, and saying our sexuality can only be a result of the latter is doing us a disservice and ultimately it just sounds like a bad excuse to do whatever you feel like.
Follow blindly? Where did I say or imply this? No, I do not advocate that we "blindly" follow the whims of nature. What I advocate is that we recognize the scientific facts of human evolution and its consequences in terms of human sexual behavior. With this recognition humans then use their defining characteristics of rational and logical thinking to create social contracts and practical behavioral strategies and moral values that allow humans to live happier and more fulfilled sex lives. Forcing humans into life long sexual monogamous unions when their evolutionary history has conditioned them to pursuing other behavioral strategies is going to create unnecessary problems and destructive social discordance in child rearing and adult social relationships and interactions.
"makes us sound too much like animals for my taste."
There is no way for a human to be "too much" like an animal because humans ARE ANIMALS. Period, end of story! This is the problem with the religiously based morality that functions in human societies today. It treats humans as if they were NOT a part of the animal kingdom. It treats humans as if they are not subject to the same biological laws and influences as other animals. This is folly and is the base cause of most, if not all the sexual disfunction, that occurs in society today.
Wondrous potential? What is that? Are you saying that a life long monogamous sexual relationship is "the wondrous potential of our humanity? Sorry I just don't see it.
And what ever this "wondrous potential of our humanity" is I sure was not advocating decoupling it "from our animal baseness (whatever that is)." What I did say (or tried to say) was that human sexual behavioral needs to be decoupled from "love and marriage" in a way that recognizes that sexual monogamy is not the way evolution has conditioned humans to behave.
"Decoupling the wondrous potential of our humanity from our animal baseness, and saying our sexuality can only be a result of the latter is doing us a disservice"
First, I never said this. I don't even know what this means. When you say "our sexuality" what do you mean? My sense of this is that it covers such a broad area of human activity as to be meaningless.
jf12
Almost every woman? Jeez, jf, give our gender a little credit for having more discriminating taste than that. If she's five feet two and tips the scales at two and half bills, or has a bum-bum as wide as a two lane highway, you aren't going to . . . .uh, I don't even want to think about it.
And while cheating is nothing new, I think we have got much worse in the last 40 years or so about accepting adulthood. My parents' generation wanted to be adults. They got jobs and got married and had kids as soon as they could. They wanted to be grown ups. A lot of us today, not so much.
A view shared by many Americans, particularly women. A number of European cultures have a less guilt ridden, puritanical view.
At President Mitterand's state funeral, his wife and mistress marched side by side at the head of the procession.
I don't think we'll see Hillary and Monica doing that at Bill's funeral.