Theory of Relativity

All this Ashley Madison drama has me thinking.  There are potentially more than 30 million spouses that could find out that their mate has cheated on them in the very near future.  What is the appropriate reaction to discovering that you have been cheated on?    If you are in love, if you are in a committed relationship, if you have given your heart and your life to one person, what is the appropriate response to finding out your partner/spouse has betrayed your trust?  I'm going to assume that you aren't also cheating on your mate.  Then, the only appropriate, mature response is to walk away, no hard feelings on either person's behalf. 

But what if you are faithful and your partner cheats, how should you react?  The cheater always assumes that the person cheated on should take the high road, they always act as if the person betrayed should just suck it up and walk away and they shouldn't show any emotion, they shouldn't show any anger, they shouldn't try to get revenge.  Society in general is always quick to say that the betrayed shouldn't waste their energy on any sort of revenge, any sort of willful intention to hurt the person back. 

But, is that really reasonable?  If you have made love to someone, if you have shared your body, your secrets, your dreams, your fears with someone, if you have truly given your heart to someone, if your heart has been broken and your trust betrayed, even the most sane, reasonable person should be expected to feel extreme rage and anger when you discover that the person you were building a life with has decided that your feelings, that you mean nothing to them.  In my mind, only an insane person would react with no reaction at all.  That, to me, indicates, being so out of touch with your emotions that you are incapable of processing them.  

Clearly, you shouldn't physically harm anyone but isn't that asking a lot of the human heart to not seek any sort of salve for your pain?  I can think of no greater pain than being betrayed by your life partner.  I think society's insistence that injured party just suck it up and hold their head up high with dignity . . . I'm pretty convinced that's extremely unhealthy.  We are sentient beings and we are supposed to process our emotions, we are supposed to feel.  The concept of letting an individual who has inflicted tremendous personal pain on their mate just walk away, not having learned a painful lesson, seems delusional to me.  One of the reasons I think we are so unhealthy as a society is that we have this obsessive need to present fake images of perfection, facades of one-dimensional pictures that aren't realistic. 

So, is burning all your mate's clothing acceptable? Is a lost wardrobe really that detrimental for the crime committed?  Is going to his or her job and embarrassing them okay?  If your cheating spouse is embarrassed, if they are humiliated by co-workers, is that something they won't be able to rebound from?  Is outing them as a cheater to their friends and family acceptable?  What about doing something to the person your partner was cheating with?  Should they escape your wrath because it's socially unacceptable?  Cheating, lying, betrayal should be unacceptable but it seems as if society is telling the victims of adultery that they should just suck it up and be the better person and their their perpetrators walk away with their own guilt as their only punishment.  Where is the line?  What is the appropriate, acceptable response when someone rips your heart out and steps on it? 

Are we as a society so obsessed with pretending to be perfect that we've lost perspective of the fact that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction? 

A primer for disgusting cheaters

If you are in a relationship and you aren't happy, if you want to have sex with other people, tell your partner BEFORE you cheat.  Let them have the dignity of leaving with their self-esteem.  Cheating hurts.  It's a betrayal of trust.  If you cheat, if you hurt your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband, you are leaving an emotional scar that doesn't just go away.  You have changed them for the worse, you have broken their heart in ways that can't be repaired. 

If you tell them you are unhappy, if you tell them that you don't want to be with them any more, if you are HONEST with them before you cheat, you will hurt their feelings but people can rebound from that.  If you betray their trust, you have destroyed a part of their soul.  Be mature.  If you love sex with different people more than your family, more than your partner, don't bring anyone else down with your deception, lies, and betrayal.  You might get a thrill sneaking, lying, and having sex in the back of your car but the consequences of your immaturity have lasting impact on more than just you. 

If you're single, if you sleep with married people because you don't want an emotional commitment, you are the very definition of immature.  You are hurting the spouse even if they don't know about you.  You are hurting a family, a parent has to look in their children's eyes and lie about where they were and what they were doing.  If you don't want someone cheating on you, don't be the person that someone cheats with. 

There are more than enough single people who will have sex with you.  If you have children and you think that staying with your spouse is better and cheating is better than leaving, you are a pretty shitty parent and your kids are much better off knowing that you are being honest, not lying, not cheating. 

And if you  have cheated in the past and you've gotten away with it, tell your partner/spouse.  Why?  Because it's the right thing to do.  Because they deserve to know the truth so they can be informed.  They can decide if they want to stay and try to work things out or they can decide if they want to leave.  Information is power.  Tell them because you should apologize sincerely for your immaturity and betrayal. 

Cheating

I was married for a brief period of time so long ago I sincerely don’t remember when I got divorced. I think it was 93 or 94 but it someone showed me my divorce decree (which I have NO idea where mine is) and it said 95 I wouldn’t be shocked.  We were married in 89 and we separated in 91.  When the actual divorce was finalized is beyond me however. 

The reason my ex-husband and I separated is because he cheated on me.  The entire marriage was unhealthy but of the four years we were together, two years were good, two were extremely horrible.   Oddly enough they weren’t consecutive years.  My ex-husband was a pathological liar (a theme that has been consistent in my partners throughout my life) and he was emotionally abusive.  If I didn’t know any better, I would say that he trained under my mother because he was the male (extremely handsome) version of her. 

I put him out the first time he cheated.  I had told him from day one, “Don’t cheat. If you feel like you want to have sex with someone else, come to me FIRST.  Let’s talk about it, let’s figure out if it’s just a physical attraction, if you are unhappy in the relationship, let’s get to the source of your feelings BEFORE you cheat.  Once you cheat, our trust is destroyed and I can never trust you again.  All I ask is that you let me leave the relationship with my dignity before you decide to cheat.”  Apparently, those instructions were too complicated for him to grasp because he cheated anyway. 

I put him out the first time I found out he cheated.  Apparently, he had been cheating with a woman almost the entire time of our relationship but that was not the woman I found out about.  There was no room for negotiation, no need for counseling at that point.  My mother was a mistress all my formative years and I saw first-hand how deceptive men could be when they were cheating.  I was willing to tolerate the emotional abuse but cheating was my hard limit.  Clearly, he had no desire to be married to me any longer because he broke my one cardinal rule. 

I wasn’t enlightened at the time.  I wasn’t at all self-aware or introspective.  I was intelligent by nature but I hadn’t explored, read, studied, or research 1/10^th of the things I’ve done in the decades since I put him out.  I hadn’t examined my own issues nor had I decided that I needed to work on or heal myself from my childhood traumas.  I couldn’t even have admitted to myself that I had childhood traumas at the time because I was still of the, “My mother beat me and I turned out fine,” mindset.  I had low self-esteem but I would have told you at the time that it was high.  I was average.  I was still relaxing my hair and an unquestioning Christian.  I was not at all the evolved and conscious person I am today. 

I said all of that to say this.  I didn’t cheat on him to pay him back.  I didn’t take him back and forgive him time and time again.  I didn’t stalk the woman he cheated with and try to make her life hell.  For as average and mediocre as I was at the time, I didn’t do any of the classically dysfunctional things so many average and mediocre people do.  I had my hard and fast limit and when he crossed it, I ended things succinctly and I didn’t look back.  I found out he cheated and he packed his things that day and he was gone.  There was a brief period, or about a month and a half, more than a year after we separated that we tried to reconcile and he told me how he was going to therapy and how much he was going to be a better man for me.  Turns out he was cheating on me with two other women during the reconciliation.  I confronted him, with one of the women as soon as I found out, and I have never seen him since. 

I’ve been divorced over twenty years (I think).  Cheating and adultery is entertainment these days when it wasn’t back then.  Cheating is so commonplace these days, people don’t even see it as a hard limit, they expect cheating in the relationship.  The same people who are cheaters are offended and outraged when their partner is cheating on them.  I simply can’t be that dysfunctional.  I can’t allow that much drama in my life.  If you don’t want me, fine, move on and let me move on.  I’m not for every one, I get that.  I do, however, bust my ass to make my relationships work, even more so now than I did when I was in my 20s and stupid.  If you don’t value, cherish, appreciate, and love me enough to work at our relationship, if you find someone else more appealing, cool, go pursue a relationship with her and I’m going to make space in my life for more healing and introspection. 

If people today no only don’t set hard and fast limits about cheating, but they lie and cheat and deceive their partners, if they are having internet relationships, texting relationships, if they are having sexual relationship with other people while supposedly committed to someone how can any relationships ever be healthy?  If you can turn on the TV and see a dozen shows at any giving time about cheating how on earth are you ever going to say to yourself that you won’t cheat, let alone that you will end the relationship at the first sign of cheating?  I think cheating, revenge cheating (Is that a thing?  I’m sure there’s a name for it) and the acceptance of cheating is so commonplace that even the long lasting relationships are victims of it.  How can we ever get to a place of having healthy relationships ever again? 

I have lots of ideas of how to show people healthier models of relationships (and I’m fully acknowledging that I’ve never had a healthy relationship other than in my mind) but people are so desperate to hold on to their dysfunction they don’t want to listen.  (I feel like the word dysfunction is my most used word).  Black culture promotes cheating.  TV promotes cheating.  Music promotes cheating.  And here I am, little ole me, trying to beat the drum of emotional maturity.  I don’t think anyone hears it.