AliceFraser
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Infidelity, Procrastination, New Year and All That Jazz
🕑 Added 2018-01-12 21:00:00 +0000 UTC I was asked by a Patreon-ite to write a post about infidelity, a while ago. It's been one of those things that I've tried to start about eight(een) times and failed to organise even the most incoherent of arguments about. In part, I think it's something that I don't want to understand, which makes it relatively rare for me, and puts it in the category of why people like raw onion or complex mathematics - all things that leave a lingering nasty taste in the back of my mouth.Also, I hold fairly strictly to the rule that I don't talk about my personal relationships in the public sphere, and it's difficult to talk in general/theoretical terms about a topic that is as deeply personal as human relationships are. Any stance on monogamy or non-monogamy is likely to be taken as a manifesto of personal desire, personal practice or personal belief. I'm likely to come across as needlessly judgmental, or overly permissive. I wasn't sure that I could assume the mantle of dispassion on this topic, and so I put it off, waiting for an angle.
Nonetheless, I promised I would try to produce words in response to Patreon-ite requests, and if I was only going to write what I wanted to write about, I shouldn't have asked for prompts.
That said, i've got to confess I have been putting it off. It's not until I have an article due tomorrow (today) that I've been moved to just get on with it and pump something out.
Which made me think that infidelity is a lot like procrastination (bear with me). In this modern world, where polyamory and open relationships are a borderline respectable way to run your love life, why do some people still choose a double-ended lie-life?
Let's put aside the maliciously selfish, the narcissists, the Dan Savage staying sane in a sexless marriage variety, and the people who get a thrill out of danger, because those ones are relatively self explanatory. What about the otherwise seemingly good people who get sucked into relationships with 'taken' others, or vice versa? Do I have strong feelings? Can I put them aside and look at this objectively?
I think it comes down to the nature of love. Part of love is loving what your lover makes of you - the beautiful version of yourself you see in their eyes. And part of that version of you is a you that loves only them. To ask for an open relationship is to run the risk of tarnishing that reflected perfection. Not just hurting their feelings, but hurting their idea of you. So you put it (the revelation) off, until it is too late. (see, I told you it was like procrastination)
Part of what you like about the nature of your relationship is the feeling that you have created with another person, a third entity - the relationship. And part of the nature of that entity is that it is exclusive between the two of you. However much the polyamorists and open-relationshippers claim that love is a renewable resource, the secretly unfaithful (and people who are monogamous) can't help feeling like it isn't. Those people feel it's renewable in the way that copyrighted works are renewable - the more it is replicated, the less value it has.
What are your thoughts? Have you been the person, or the other-person in a secret infidelity? Do you have strong opinions about it?
Comments
Adam! This is well put, I like the mathematical analogy. The other analogy I was thinking about the more sneaky side of infidelity is the dead man switch aspect of it. For many people, revelation is a nuclear option. The moment you grasp temptation, you have to keep holding it, or your life explodes.
I like the procrastination angle. It's also true that the longer you delay revealing little bits of your general catastrophe, the harder it gets and the higher the stakes. As for (complex?) mathematics, polyamory very quickly turns into one long conversation about other people's feelings - punctuated by safe sex. The best way I can illustrate that is with graph theory, where two nodes have an edge between them (a line), three nodes have three lines (a triangle) and four nodes have SIX lines (a square with diagonal lines cris-crossing). If everyone in the polyamory blob interacts with each other those numbers get bigger faster and faster (1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, ...). Past a certain number, there's just no way of getting through the week without SOMEONE in your writhing pile of lovers having some sort of drama. I enjoyed your article! I'm pleased to be a patron at last!
I completely understand this being a hard one to write. I was in a long term relationship with a married man. I knew that he was married when I went into it but their relationship was in name only at that point & they were not separated as he was worried that he’d lose contact with his child. Ultimately I had to end our relationship ended as he got stuck. He couldn’t leave the marriage & I was put in an entertainment bubble where I provided distraction from his reality. Over a year later, he’s still stuck & I’m still single again but that’s still better than hoping for something that the other person cannot offer.
