Infidelity

Why do we cheat …  and why do happy people cheat?

When we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean?

Is it a hook up, love story, chat room, massage with happy endings, paid sex ?

Why do we think that men cheat because of boredom and fear of intimacy?

Why do women cheat  out of loneliness and hunger for intimacy ?

 

Is an affair always is the end of a relationship ?

Hundreds of couples have been shattered by infidelity.

An affair, Is one simple act of transgression that can rob a couple of their relationship, happiness, identity.

And yet, this extremely common act is so poorly understood.

This lines are written for the anyone who ever loved.

 

Adultery has existed since marriage was invented and also the taboo against it.

Infidelity has a tenacity that marriage can only envy.

Therefore it is the only commandment repeated twice in the Bible, once for doing it and once just for thinking about it.

 

 

How do we reconcile what is universally forbidden, yet universally practiced.

Throughout history, men had the license to cheat with little consequence, supported by the evolutionary and biologically theories which justified their need to roam.

This double standard is as old as adultery itself.

Who knows what is really going on under the sheets?

When it comes to the sexual act, the pressure for men is to boast and exaggerate.

The pressure for women is to hide, minimize and deny. Which isn’t surprising.

Monogamy used to be 1 person for life, now a person at a time.

I am monogamist in all my relationships. ( many of you have said )

We used to marry and had sex for the first time, but now we marry and stop having sex with others.

Monogamy had nothing to do with love:

Men relied on woman’s fidelity to know who’s children these are and who gets the cows when I die.

 

Everyone wants to know what percentage of people cheat. It applies to you!

The definition of infidelity keeps expanding: sexting, watching porn, staying secretly active on dating apps, because there is no universal agreed  upon a definition of what even constitutes an infidelity act.

On top of it we are walking contradictions: 95 % will say is terrible wrong for our partner to lie about having  an affair. The same amount of us will say that that’s exactly they would do, lie to their partner if they had an affair.

I like this definition of an affair, it brings together 3 Key elements:

Secretive relationship, which is the core structure of an affair

Emotional connection to 1 degree or another

A sexual alchemy, where alchemy is the key word here:

 

The erotic frisson is such, that he The kiss that you imagine giving can be as powerful and as enchanting as hours of love making.

 

It’s our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person

 

 

It’s never been easier to cheat and never more difficult to keep a secret.

Infidelity has never exacted such a psychological tall.

When marriage was an economic enterprise, infidelity threatened our economic security.

Now marriage is a romantic arrangement, infidelity threatens our emotional security.

Ironically, we used to turn to adultery, that was the space where we sought pure love.

 

But now, we seek love in marriage and adultery destroys it.

Infidelity hurts different today:

We have a romantic ideal in which we turn to one person to fulfill and endless list of needs:

Best parent, trusted confident, emotional companion, intellectual equal:

Here I am, I am indispensable, irreplaceable,  I’m unique,  I am the one,

Infidelity tells me I am not. It is the ultimate betrayal.

Infidelity shatters the great ambition of love.

In history infidelity has been painful, today it is often traumatically.

It threatens our sense of self:

” I thought I knew my life, I thought I knew who we were, who we were as a couple”

Violation of trust, a crisis of identity:

Can I trust again ?