Tonight, we saw a show with a short run called All Because of Infidelity. The show is about four different couples at different life and relationship stages, and all are either going through or have gone through periods of infidelity that they are forced to deal with. One couple is engaged and planning to get married in six months, but the woman is having an affair with another man at work that her fiancé is unaware of. The second couple has been married over 40 years, and during every wedding anniversary, they run through a “recap” of their married life together, which also touches upon his infidelity early on, as well as hers… though she received his “consent” to sleep with this other man to make sure they were both “even.” The third couple is made up of two gay men, one of whom appears to have a sexual addiction and has multiple sex partners on the internet, whereas his husband walks in on the internet relationships and is horrified, just wanting a happy married monogamous life. Finally, the fourth couple is in couples’ therapy after the man cheats on his girlfriend with a colleague (they may be in therapy, but contrary to what the man has said, his affair is still ongoing and he has zero plans to end it).
Infidelity is one of those things that everyone seems to have strong opinions about. But as I have reflected over many years, I don’t really think it’s the end of the world. Human beings weren’t really designed to be monogamous, otherwise why would so many people cheat? People are human; they get bored. They crave newness, they want different experiences. Being monogamous really isn’t for everyone, and I dislike the judgment that people get for cheating. Maybe the relationship wasn’t right in the first place. Over time, people evolve, and not always together. I don’t think our ancestors ever thought that we’d be living on this earth on average for about 79-82 years. Assuming you get married at age 30, that means that you’d be monogamous with one single person for 50+ years; that’s a LONG time to be in a relationship with just one person. Infidelity, if anything, is just a sign that perhaps the open communication in a relationship that may be desired is not being met. Monogamy is a social construct that only works if the two people in question are committed to making it work.
A friend once naively commented about people who cheat, “I don’t have time for that type of thing (cheating), and neither would the person I’d be with. Life is busy, and there’s too much to do to have time to mess around.”
It’s funny the judgments you hear people come up with… because cheating can be fun and exhilarating, that’s another way of saying, “I don’t have time for fun.”