November 15, 2017
When you are in a monogamous relationship, engaging with another person in a private relationship that is sexual in nature, regardless to what degree, is infidelity. I’ll put a stake in the ground on that one.
That’s a pretty rigid definition. Given that fact, it is pretty impossible for any married person to remain perfectly faithful. There are going to be times when you bond with someone you work with and sexually charged communication occurs. Sometimes it’s just harmless silliness between two work friends. Sometimes it’s not harmless. What’s the solution? Deal with it appropriately, as an adult and as a married person. That is going to be different for every person and for every situation.
OK, here’s where I’m going to put another stake in the ground. If you’ve had a liaison and it’s brief and it’s up to you to decide what “brief” means, do not tell your wife. Believe me, she does not want to hear it. Why destroy years, possibly decades of marriage by confessing a slip in judgment?
I know this from personal experience, not from being a wife, but from being in a serious long term relationship. If it was one time, I don’t want to know. If you’re not in love with her, I don’t want to know. Don’t break my trust in you and in the relationship by confessing to assuage your own guilt.
I used to feel entirely the opposite about this. I used to think the woman deserved to know so she had a choice how to handle the relationship from there on out. And maybe I will feel that way again someday. But having been kicked in the gut by figuring out for myself that my partner had cheated, I must say, I would rather never have known.
Not every person believes infidelity is automatic cause for dissolution. Every person is different, every situation is different. No woman should be judged for staying with her unfaithful partner. We are all free to make the choices that work for us and we are also free to change course at any time.
And don’t hate the husbands for cheating. None of us is free from making mistakes. Judge them, judge yourself. So don’t judge. You don’t have to like them, but be decent. You’re just as human and just as fallible as they are.
Don’t kid yourself and think you’re above it. We are all capable of committing depraved acts we never thought we would. Just look at me. Look at my story. I sometimes don’t even recognize myself. Yet this is who I am, the good, the bad, all of it. Accept it. Own it. Remember we are all free to change course at any time.
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart...even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an uprooted small corner of evil."
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
