Infidelity Keeps Us Together

That’s the title of yesterday’s cover story in the New York Times magazine. Mark Oppenheimer writes about sex columnist Dan Savage and Savage’s suggestion that marriages need less fidelity and more flexibility. Basically what Savage is suggesting is that monogamy isn’t quite natural and that we do relationships a disservice by pretending or insisting that absolute monogamy be the standard.

What’s good is that Savage is not espousing secrets or affairs or running around—rather he’s advocating for talking to your partner before, after, and during marriage to say, “This is who I really am; what I really want; and “Will you still love me if I need to try this out?” In a way, he’s talking about a very high form of commitment.

But just the title and then reading the article was disturbing. (Click on the link below to read the article). Right away I found myself asking, “What if John said he needed something –some kind of sexual experience—I couldn’t offer or even try?” Would I love him enough to say, “Ok, go be you?”

I doubt it.

In the article other experts on sex and marriage weigh in to say that some open marriages work but most do not—not because of the sex but because of the emotions and the dishonesty—again, not the dishonesty of the partner who needs to go outside the relationship but the dishonesty of the partner who agrees or acquiesces and then realizes they really are not OK with that.

But then the bigger and more personal question to myself is this: Do I have the right to want and insist on monogamy and fidelity in our marriage? This is a marriage that came to be from infidelity—so did I forfeit my rights by marrying a man who left his wife? Or do we painfully know just how high the cost is and not wish that on ourselves or on any others?

Reading this article provoked a deep and daring conversation with John about our love life and our sex life and our intellectual lives—and how we keep all of those alive so we can keep things fresh and exciting. And what it means to be sexually “good, giving and game” in a monogamous marriage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/magazine/infidelity-will-keep-us-together.html

If My Husband Ever...

“If my husband ever…”. Yes, with each round of celebrity infidelity we engage in the age-old game of, “If my husband ever…”. At 56, I’ve played this many times at lunch tables and water coolers and sitting on the floor in a girl friend’s living room. But at 56 I’ve also taken enough early morning phone calls from many of those same friends to know that even if you think you know what you’d do if you discovered a partner’s infidelity, you don’t.

Some leave at once, some never leave, some forgive, some don’t. Sometimes the ones that forgive stay but sometimes leaving is the route to forgiveness. Most chilling, I think, are those that never leave, never separate and never forgive. They keep up appearances—maybe are even envied by others for their perfect marriages which are glued together with hatred and spite.

The agony of infidelity does not discriminate. There is enough to go around. I’ve played all the parts: scorned wife, secret lover, other woman—and the friend who knew. There are no winners. No one has more or less pain.

Now, a new novel comes pretty close to accurately depicting each of those points of view. It’s a great read and even better as a book on CD to listen to in the car or at the beach.

If you have ever said, “I’d never” to any part of the extramarital triangle take a look at: “Heart of the Matter” by Emily Giffen.

Home Wrecker

Thank you Oprah and Rielle Hunter for re-framing the feminist discussion: “Are women property?” Most people would say that women are not, but when we enter this discussion it turns out that men are.

Hence language like: home wrecker and a husband stealer. But notice that in these discussions—on the air and all the next day at the water cooler—it’s always the women getting bashed—and mostly by women.

Infidelity brings out the most anti-woman beliefs in the most feminist women. We blame a woman or both women in the social construction of infidelity.

The “other woman” is a thief, home wrecker and man stealer. On the other hand if we determine that she’s not the bad one then certainly the wife is because she didn’t “hold onto her man”. In either case the man is just a piece of valuable property to be kept, owned, held or stolen. Kind of like a check book with a penis.

Oprah for all her big talking and her embracing of the pseudo-psychological and the empowerment of women still misses the basic geometry: Infidelity is a triangle. Three human beings, equally flawed, equally trying, equally noble, equally victims, equally responsible.

Power Games

I’m reading Sara Dunn’s first novel, “Big Love” this week. I came to that after reading her new—and second novel, “The Secrets of Happiness”. She’s a terrific writer, whom I suspect deeply mines the real and factual to create the fictional. But it works because she is funny.

In the new book—really the old book--she is writing about the man she lives with. One day he goes to the store and calls to tell her he’s not coming back because he loves someone else. This is the kind of real or fictional scenario that allows for endless rounds of “Better or Worse”. Better to be surprised? Worse to suspect before you find out? Better to get it on the phone? Worse to not even be able to hit or scream?

But later in that chapter Dunn writes this:

“The person who loves less has the power in the relationship. The person who is not afraid to leave has the power. Infidelity is power.”

That stopped me. I had to read it over and over. Another mindless gal chat game: Do you want to be the one who loves or who is loved? Do you want to be the lover or the beloved?

Is infidelity power? Or is it revenge for feeling no power at all?