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Rebecca Woolf of Girl’s Gone Child says

I never got around to posting the following Momversation _[article that sparked this episode perpetuates paranoia, guilt and “omg I touched my friend’s knee and he was a dude and I’m a chick and it totally turned me on I SHOULD CONFESS TO MY HUSBAND because I’m an awful CHEATING CHEATER!”

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I personally stand by the following when it comes to marriage and monogamy be it physical, emotional et al: Animals stray because they feel caged. People cheat because they feel trapped. There is nothing more attractive to a caged bird* than an open sky. Remove the cage? There’s no need to fly away. (*Please pardon the cliché)

She said it here.

Yup. I’m pretty sure of two things. First, that the rate of extra-relationship activity in “open” relationships isn’t significantly higher than in “closed” ones. (Or, to put emphasis where it belongs, the rate of extramaritality doesn’t appear to be any lower in closed relationships.) Second, though, is that I’m pretty sure most affairs aren’t the direct cause of most relationship breakups, I’m also pretty sure that obsessiveness derived of guilt, jealousy, and/or anxiety can lead to the alienation that does cause a lot of breakups. (For instance both guilt and suspicion lead to possibly unnecessary distancing.)

Which leads to another apt clichés “don’t let yourself drown in knee-deep water” There’s a strong tendency to panic about what you think you’re most supposed to worry about, with the result that the panic about a situation does more damage than the actual situation would have.

What if we believed our mythology of romance in partnership so thoroughly we had to make up excuses for having affairs?

I mean… y’know how back before there was “no fault” divorce (actually, I hope you don’t... mercifully, at least most places in the U.S. it’s been a while.) Anyway, back before you could just tell a judge “it’s not working” you had to have a reason. One of the big ones back then was “alienation of affection.” And oh the cases people could (and had to!) build to prove just how alienated their affections were. Then along came no-fault divorce and… not so much.

I’m sort of wondering if the same couldn’t be said for the subset of people who seem to have a hard time being monogamous. I mean, if you buy into the idea that true love has to not only be forever but also has to meet all your needs sexual, domestic, economic, social, psychological, etc. then… it’s gotta be hard to admit to yourself that sometimes we just get horny, or lonely, or restless, or bored. Or just curious!

If you’re busy thinking “I’m stronger than that,” or “I’m not that kind of girl,” or “my parents didn’t raise me to be like that” or, especially “he/she’s the love of my life, I want to spend the rest of my life with him/her” then… well, it’s either going to work, in which case great! Case closed. Or it’s not going to work and rather than compromise on what you say about yourself you start cooking up reasons not to be so attached to your partner. They drive you crazy. Or they’re never home. Or there’s that annoying little whistle when he/she laughs through her nose. Or, classically, he/she’s gotten all stodgy/dowdy and settled in his/her ways And son of a gun, after a while you’ve convinced yourself. Whereupon someone you might have enjoyed a casual fling with suddenly starts looking a lot like Christmas.

Problem #2 being that, well, someone who you might have enjoyed a casual fling with is probably not at all an improvement on the person you decided to spend the rest of your life with and then invested a large part of your life with. Which, incidentally, is why such a low, low percentage of people who leave their partners for another person actually wind up staying with that other person.

Point being that we’re so invested in the idea of monogamy (serial or otherwise) we don’t have a lot of narrative for scratching an itch and having it go away after we scratch it. Of having an affair and being really comfortable and happy when we return to our familiar, much-loved regular partners.

Another clue? People who have a fling and then use all that internalized social expectation (“I’m not that kind…” etc.) to alienate themselves from their partners.

If I wasn’t so fond of long-term relationships, and if I wasn’t sort of tired of seeing really good people breaking up with other really good people, often over affairs… if I wasn’t becoming more than a little tired of our explanation that “it’s just that way” ... and if I wasn’t so darned irked at that Ashley Madison ad, I probably wouldn’t keep bringing it up.

Note: I can’t find the link but evidence suggests that, all other things being equal, long-term outcomes for children are no better when parents stay together “for the children” than when they divorce.

Note #2: See another good post and discussion in comments at Dana’s place over at Life Amid Crisis

I noticed the other day that the Ashley Madison website is now advertising on television. The ad I saw invites a woman who’s burdened with an, um, inattentive husband to consider an affair with a soulful-looking customer… or maybe waiter.

I wonder about all the websites and alt-weekly personals that are designed to facilitate adultery. I’m not personally opposed to people having relationships outside of their primary partnerships. Although I do think they ought to be conducted as responsibly as, well, any other kind of social relationship ought to be.

Thing is? The tagline for that ad is “When divorce is not an option.”

The common assumption, as expressed in that ad, that one pursues an affair to escape one’s main relationship. When it seems like a much better idea to seek affairs that enhance one’s primary relationships by, say, providing outlets for expression and activity that aren’t otherwise available. In other words, instead of when divorce is not an option how about when divorce is the last thing you’re even interested in.

Note: Obviously I’m not limiting this notion to sexual affairs. The kind of “outside” intimacy I’m thinking about, the kind that gives one perspective, say, rather than distraction, appreciation rather than relief, and re-creation rather than neglect or abandonment is larger than that.

Note #2: Neither am I proposing that those inclined to relationship-affirming affairs attempt to bring in the entire infrastructure of polyamory. (As Sigourny Weaver’s character said to Kevin Klein’s in Ang Lee’s “how-not-to” The Ice Storm – Criterion Collection, “I’ve already got a husband.”)

Oh, and note #3: given that 50% of relationships that make it to marriage end in divorce it’s not like the present model of 100%-investment-till-failure-or-nothing is so durable all we need to do is just clap louder to make it all better.

B of B is for blog, wrestling with a problem between her partner and his most (and evidently only mostly) recent ex-partner, raises little-discussed problem with infidelity (emphasis mine.)

I had always trusted them explicitly, I’m not the jealous type. Earlier this year R admitted (after I had found some damning evidence on his phone) that they had ‘nearly’ slept together in our bed. I haven’t spoken to her since, although not out of my doing. She has been avoiding me.

She said it here.

Think there’s a corollary of the Washington-D.C. maxim that “it’s not the scandal that brings you down it’s the coverup” in there somewhere? Oh yeah!

I think in a lot of cases the real consequences don’t arise from what the “betrayed” partner feels about betrayal (especially if it’s undiscovered.) It’s how the betrayers feel, and consequently behave, about the betrayal.

Thoughts?