The Heart of Infidelity
August 27th, 2006
In my recent work dealing with the ethics of right relationships, I’ve been exploring what it means to be faithful, the reasons we are faithful, and what causes us to stray the course once we’ve made a commitment to being faithful. When we enter into right relationships with people, relationships which are built on mutual trust, respect, and support, our commitment to them becomes a personal value. We order our lives in such a way that are able to uphold this value, and ideally, all our other values have to support this value, just as this value must seamlessly enter into the network of our other values. Part of what it means to be faithful to those to whom we are committed is to align the whole self, in a way that does not diminish who we are, toward upholding that relationship.
But human creatures being what we are, we make mistakes. We falter. We fall short of our goals and aspirations. As I heard on the Fox TV show “House”, “It is possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it.” Even as we try to align our whole selves toward upholding certain relationship, to being faithful to our family, friends and lovers (or to whomever our faith is directed) sometimes we fall short.
On a message board I frequent, the topic of infidelity came up. One of the posters, indignant at the very thought of marital infidelity, asserted, “We are all given self-control; to which extent is exercised I think directly correlates to how much you love/care for your significant other.”
Perhaps I was particularly incredulous of this statement because the poster is very intelligent and this particular statement just seems incredibly naïve. But then it occurred to me that taken at face value, quite a lot of people probably feel this way. But I don’t believe the notion of loving or not loving lies at the heart of fidelity. We are not loyal merely because we love, nor are we disloyal because love is lessened. The reasons we enter into and/or break commitments is much more complicated than that.
Commitment requires two things: a relationship, and a promise toward the maintenance of that relationship. It is a value that we choose to honor and uphold. If I choose to honor my commitments that says something about me: that I am loyal, that I place great importance in my relation to the things I am pledged to, that I value my honor. It doesn’t inherently say anything about that which I am committed to. It doesn’t necessarily imply that family is noble, or that religion is noble, or that education is noble. My actions are indicative of my character and my values as they relate to me, but not those values in and of themselves.
Being only one of many values a person may hold at any given time, commitment or faithfulness as a value also sits in relation to a person’s other values, and the ranking of those values may shift at any given time, given any number of different circumstances. Sometimes the reasons we reorder our values are based in logic, but frequently they’re not. We are human with human foibles, one of which is our great propensity to fall prey to emotion.
When a person is disloyal to her spouse, she is not disloyal because she experiences a lessening of love for her husband. She is disloyal because she experiences a reordering of her values—something has become more important or compelling, however temporarily, than honoring her commitment to her husband. In that moment, the alignment of her whole self is not toward her value of faithfulness, but to some other value. Worse, the value which has trumped her faithfulness may not even be one of her core values, at least not consciously. The value that has trumped her faithfulness may not be one that her moral self strives for. In this instance, the moment of her unfaithfulness, her moral self and her acting self are not moving as one agent, and this break is the root of her infidelity. This is not a reflection on the quantity or quality of her love. That is a reflection of the quality of her character, and that is an altogether very different thing. Character is the ability of the moral self and the acting self to remain aligned, such that our outward actions are manifestations of our innermost beliefs and values. We experience a lapse in character when we are broken.
When a person is deciding whether or not to be unfaithful, she does not ask, “Do I love my husband enough to not cheat on him?” She asks herself (though probably not this lucidly), “Is this situation/are my immediate desires more important than my commitment to my husband?” Her decision is not made primarily on her emotional tie to her husband; her decision is made upon the overall content of her character, the order of her values at that moment in time. Her love for her husband does not exist in a vacuum. It sits in a web of values, desires, and experiences, and may wax or wane as the most pressing value in her paradigm. Our value systems are not stagnant, and we are often swayed by transient, immediate values, not always holding to our moral values.
In fact, I believe that if a person claims that infidelity has to do with love that is shifts responsibility for the infidelity away from the perpetrator. Love is a relationship; it requires a self and an other. If I say, “I was disloyal because there was something wrong with love”, then I am implying there was something wrong with this relationship, something wrong with you in relation to me. I wasn’t the cause of my actions—you had something to do with it. That blame shifting is, I believe, entirely unfair. We break commitments not because there was something wrong with the other person. We break commitments because something else seemed more important than maintaining the commitments. We (consciously) break commitments to loved ones because we are selfish—that is the crux of it. To say, “My love waned” is romantic, poetic, tragic and yet for some reason acceptable. To say, “I was selfish” is hard, cold, despicable . Infidelity is not poetic and tragic; it is fundamentally selfish. A lessening of love could contribute to my reordering of my values, certainly, but ultimately that lessening of love or a troubled relationship is not the cause of my infidelity.
If I break a promise to you, it isn’t because I don’t think you’re worthy of my promise. It is not a reflection of you; it has very little to do with you. It is a reflection of me.
I love your thought process and even though I have no right to ask, completeness demands me to… were you unfaithful?
I’ll just say I was young and dumb, once.
Very interesting exploration of infidelity. I think it is true for women. It seems true for me. I love my husband, but can be tempted. It’s not easy to be monogamous, but I just can’t deceive my family. I don’t think it’s right.
A very well thought out essay on infidelity. I came across this post that ties in with your point, and stresses that a failing to live up to one’s standards doesn’t mean that one doesn’t value those standards, but just simply wasn’t strong enough to uphold them.
http://www.beheremondays.com/Blog.php?eid=218
Becka,
Thank you so much for posting that. It gives me much food for thought. I’m sure I shall be revisiting the topic of corruption. It’s a good one. Thank you again.
The definition of “character” provided above is brilliant.
There are different definitions of faithfulness as well. For example, there are mormon men who have more than one wife living in the same household. Some would say they are “most godly”. Some would disagree vehemently.
Some might say you have to be faithful to yourself.(”To thine own self be true”-Shakespear)
The very nature of a relationship with another person is - compermise.
If you engage in a relationship with more than one person; someone, somwhere… is compermised!
Let’s say couple “x,y” has a child “z”, there is further compermise, because x and y have to show z attention and their attention is then divided. Granted there is joy in this kind of sacrifice, but isn’t there joy when a person has to divide his/her attention to say a job, hobby, ailing parents, etc.
Selfishness comes in many forms but it is LOVE that allows us to remit selfishness for faithfulness!
Youth is especially selfish, but if shown how to give up selfishness for the love of someone, they ‘ll learn it!
My love is mine! I don’t love a relationship but a person.
If your love is for the relationship, you REALLY DO need to reorder your values. Maybe even rethink the relationship altogether.
Adiposefin:
I really appreciate this comment. You’re absolutely right: every relationship presents some kind of compromise. That doesn’t mean that breaking the agreements of any given relationship is acceptable: it isn’t, or else it wouldn’t be called cheating :) But it’s a worthy observation.
Also, the last part about loving a person, not a relationship, is *very* interesting. I do believe that relationships are entities unto themselves, and have to be respected even outside the person you are in the relationship with. People have needs, but so do relationships. However, you’re right: if the relationship is what is cared for more than the person, then there’s a problem. Relationships should exist *by way of* our love for other people, not despite its utter absence.
I totally agree with your summation on the ethics of infidelity. My dh cheated on me even though he loves me dearly, or claims too. And I never have cheated on him even though at times I’m not sure I love him. the cheating has to do with your character and not the other person. I couldn’t do it, because it’s not in my character. on the other hand I always did see a serious character flaw in my dh and it had nothing to do with his love or lack there of for me. I guess that begs the question, if it’s not you, then can the cheater ever really be expected to be faithful, if it is a character flaw? HOw do you know if they can be trusted? Is all lost?
“I guess that begs the question, if it’s not you, then can the cheater ever really be expected to be faithful, if it is a character flaw? How do you know if they can be trusted? Is all lost?”
Good questions all around. I don’t know. I think the nature of cheating is that it requires a relationship, and the relationship itself changes the people involved. So I think, at least tentatively, that there are certain relationship dynamics for any given cheater that would sway them into faithfulness. But that dynamic isn’t necessarily achievable with any two given people. The cheater might require a different kind of person or a different kind of relationship in order to overcome his natural inclinations.
But this is just speculation. The truth is, I don’t know.
what relationship are you referring to? the married one or the one the cheater had with the other person? Because both are involved and that is the crux of the cheating, not really the sex so to speak. the third party involved where only two should be. I’m not sure I can be the person he needs, especially after the hurt and pain inflicted by the cheating. I might be all out of second chances. closed off, unwilling to go there again. sad really. even if your head is willing, your heart might not be.
How many forms of cheating are there? Please define “mind or emotional” cheating.
Should a relationship/marriage of 24 yrs that constantly experiences “mind or emotional” cheating by the male spouse, who continuosly denies it, wants to stay married, but still enjoy “mind or emotional” cheating, seek to repair this or just give up & go seperate ways?
This man makes his actions more than obvious when out socially with a group of friends, and also refuses to admit it or seek counselling.
How should this be remedied?
Amber, i followed you here from a comment on seethrew.blogspot - Barry is a mentor type figure of mine.
Thoroughly enjoyed your writings, design and honesty. I’ll be back. I’m in a stage of life when i’m asking the calling and companionship type questions (where am i going? and who will i go with?), and the fear of infidelity, or loving too many people, is very real for us. Thanks again…
Perhaps you’re right. It’s all the cheater’s fault, ego and character and all that. Yes, it plays a part.
But there’s no way it’s just the cheater’s fault. The cheater (myself in particular) has spent many years with a man who is guininely loving and caring, and whom I love. But for so long there was impatience, drinking, anger, under the surface tension.. and a lack of love and desire from him. I wanted to be wild and open with him, but was told I was “demanding”.
I was open to something else. It happened. Now I am leaving my partner and now he is treating me with everything I wanted for so long, he now wants me so much, but it’s too late, because I can’t make love with him any more because I love this other person. Too much, too little, too late.. ha ha cliches.. Everyone has needs, and it’s certainly not sex! It is love.
I never wanted this pain, the hideousness of separation (child involved), but looking at it, it seems rather inevitable. We are who we are, and I don’t think we can help what we feel.
To suggest it’s down to “character” is to suggest a lack of something in the (as you put it) “perpetrator”. It’s a suggestion of blame.
Melanie:
People break their allegiances for many, many reasons. My intentions aren’t to “blame” anyone. In your case, it sounds like your husband wasn’t doing his part to uphold a right relationship. The relationship itself was broken. But in the end, no one made your decision to act but you.
And me. This is as much about me and my battles with infidelity as anything. So I don’t stand here pointing fingers. I’m standing here looking in a mirror.
Hey, i like this, soo much i think i’ll tell the world about it. It really makes sense and opens my eyes to sooo many things that i have overlooked.
Great article, in swahili we say “Kazi Nzuri” (Good job)!
Thank you so much for writing this.
A friend told me to read this entry and he was right…really cool!!!I’ve read it three times since the 1st and It puts a whole new perspective on things…Absolutely looovely!
I’m young (respectively) and attempting to find closure from my first true love. My first marry me. My first you and only you forever. It was long distance, and he cheated. I’ve realized for a while that it was him. And that it was a temporary espace from the personal trauma he was dealing with at the time.That once it happened he couldn’t deal with it what hed done to me- hence the sharp end to our communication. That she was there to catch him when he felt terriable about himself. And has been every since. But i wanted to say thank you for writing this article. Because hearing the words that have been floating in my head from someone else- someone who was once “young and dumb” makes me feel like i am right. It has nothing to do if he loved me. It had nothing to do with us. It had nothing to do with me (well not alot). But it is him and a reflection of his character and the fact that he was/is broken. I simpily wish there was a way i could help him to be strong and to help ease the pain hes constantly trying to escape from. But i’ve also come to realize that as much as i love him- i can’t save him. So again, i simply wanted to say thank you.
The problem is simple. We take infedility against us as involving us because we take a person’s love for us as telling us something good about ourselves. In other words, we believe that the person who loves us loves us so much that it crowds out all potential for love with someone else. Given that basic belief, if a person goes against their word to honor their love for us by not having sexual or emotional intimacy for another, it means that they must no longer love us.
But if we take someone’s love for us as not telling us we are a great person, then things are different. The fact is that I have felt attracted to people outside of the relationship in every relationship I have been in. Then the infidelity becomes a question of a person’s ability to maintain a promise in the face of powerful feelings of attraction to another. It hurts when it happens–because within it is the threat that the infidelity to another will result in the loss of the loved one. But the hurt should never be about one’s own worth to the worl.
i have been trying to become more informed on this subjet.Your writing has helped me understand why the inital reaction to the dicovery of infedility is so unbearably painful.