Infidelity - I've been thinking about infidelity. Having been on both sides (cheated upon and the cheater), I know a tad about it. It sucks on both sides. It sucks enough on the cheater side that I won't do it anymore. And it sucks on the cheated upon side enough that I wouldn't participate in doing that to someone else (i.e. even if I was single, I wouldn't get together with someone in a relationship).
Friends who have never cheated, or never considered it, have asked me why I would do it. I think there are lots of reasons that people cheat, but fundamentally it comes down to the fact that there's something you're not getting in your current relationship that you look to get from the outside. It's not (ok, for women at least) usually about sex (although there is the interesting phenomenon that the sex in your regular relationship gets better during the affair - maybe out of increased self-esteem, maybe out of guilt.) Sex is the vehicle by which you get the things you're probably really looking for - validation - the idea that someone other than the person who HAS to say you're sexy thinks you're sexy. Sometimes it's also about the thrill of the illicit - can I pull of the lie, what are the consequences if we get caught - all the things that while adding guilt and shame, also add tingle and anticipation and danger. Sometimes it's about romance - that ineffable thing that you get when you have a spark with someone new, the thrill of discovery (we both like this, he hates that/I wonder why), the reveling in being treated in a new way - someone thinks you're smart/funny/cool - all the things that your SO used to think about you, but probably doesn't show you he thinks now.
It's not (usually) about an intent to hurt the other person. (Ok, if there was infidelity on both sides, then that's a possible reason, but then you're actually wanting to get caught or found out). It's again about wanting to get something that you're not getting, and not having the insight to figure out what it really is and the guts to go out and get it in a way that won't hurt someone else. In some ways it's a strange way of striking out on your own - you're going to get something (whatever it is that you get from the entanglement), and damn the consequences.
While you're in the middle of the infidelity, you're not sure whether it's really worth it or not - is the thrill worth the heartache it would cause to be found out? For some amount of time it obviously is worth it, or you wouldn't continue the involvement. But there's so much lying and concealing and thinking about getting caught and guilt and shame and lust and sex and sharing and thrills and bucked up self-esteem all rolled up into a big messy ball that it's hard to think straight.
Going public - This tags onto another thought I had had - about whether to go public with certain involvements or not. Again, I've been on both sides. At times it's great to have everything out in the open - you can openly revel in your latest tryst, enjoying that person's company in the company of others, showing off that person (if you're proud of them) to your friends, seeing your new flame's interaction with your friends in ways that confirm that this person is worth doing the work of a relationship with. And on the other hand, when that relationship goes down in flames, you can mourn openly/publicly/bitterly if you'd like about how the opposite sex sucks, that person was shallow/stupid/immature, etc.
But there's something to having relationships stay private as well. There's the feeling that since this is a secret just between us that it's somehow more intense and more special. That something about sharing this with others will either make this less special, or somehow cheapen/weaken the bond between us. And on the other side, when it ends, no one else needs to be any the wiser - there's no second-guessing of your decisions, there's no need to rehash it endlessly. Then again, there's no one to help you get outside your own head about it, to have a different viewpoint about what happened (or didn't, or what was said, or wasn't, etc.)
I wonder too about the ways that men and women differ on both sides of the keeping it quiet or not idea. I think for some reason (and this is merely my experience through my friends, so I could be wildly wrong) that if guys have kept things hidden that they are much more gung ho about keeping the next one(s) open. I don't know if it's because it's hard for men to keep a secret in that way (you'd think it would be the opposite - that women, who are much more into sharing their thoughts and feelings, are the ones more likely to have a hard time keeping a relationship secret). Or maybe it's because it's such a relief to not have to sneak around, or tell partial truths to friends, that men don't want to have relationships stay in the shadows. Or maybe it's because men are much more about wanting to parade their conquests in front of others (either for sheer numbers to show their virility/conquest abilities or to make others jealous, or just because they can)?
I think that in this way women are more likely to take each potential relationship as it comes and react according to the specifics of that person/time/place, meaning that it depends upon the relationship whether the woman keeps it under wraps or lets the relationship stand for others to see. For women there can also sometimes be a vested interest in NOT having people know how many people you've slept with (as old ideas of madonna/whore die hard).
For me personally, I'm torn. I have had a couple of relationships stay under wraps, and given the outcomes, I'm glad they did. It means that the only person second-guessing what happened is me (and possibly the other person, but I don't have to know about that). Some of this reluctance to let other people know what's going on comes from being in a crowd of people for whom any tidbits in my life were fodder for the gossip mill and dinner party speculation. Given that I tend to make foolishly dramatic choices of people to be involved with (if there couldn't possibly be someone worse in my life to get involved with, that's who I'll choose), I tended to provide a LOT of fodder for the rumor mill. And I got tired of it. It was frankly no one else's business. And so I stopped sharing what was going on in my "real" life, and left only work and the innocuous bits of my social life open for public inspection. And I continue to do so. I am starting to trust people in my social circle a bit more to know what's going on in my "real" life, but it's difficult given how I've been burned by former friends. Hence my reluctance to share what's really going on.
It would be nice to have a relationship that I can trumpet openly. I'd like to be able to sit down with my friends (a la Sex and the City) and dish about what's going on in my head, my heart and my bedroom. I'd like to be able to openly bitch when it's over about the way he treated me, how crappy and conflicted I feel about it, to wonder aloud about the "what ifs". Maybe by doing these things I'd move on more quickly. Or maybe with exposure to the light of day (and hence some clarity of vision), I'd figure out sooner (with less angst for all concerned) that this isn't the place I'm meant to be.
Posted by cshell at August 24, 2003 04:08 PM