Infidelity

I've been thinking about this concept a lot lately.  Unfaithfulness. Infidelity.

Essentially, it means not keeping your promise, and it has come to be used almost exclusively with the act of not maintaining sexual fidelity.

Marriages split up because one spouse had sex with someone outside the marriage. It has come to the point where it is almost the single most valued thing in a marriage. "I can put up with anything as long as he doesn't cheat on me."  Really?

I've been told many times that if I'm going to cheat, I should just end it, as if sexual fidelity is all there is and if you don't have that you have nothing. That's just bullshit.

A long term marriage is a very complicated thing. It involves being with someone day in and day out, often while raising children, and doing your best to support, not squash, each other's hopes and dreams.  It involves sickness and puke and seeing your partner in the most physically unattractive ways and still trying to maintain a sexual attraction. It involves a massive amount of forgiveness and humility. And love. Especially love.

I've shared with you before that my marriage vows were rather unconventional and didn't include most of the typical language of marriage vows, but the point was the same. I promised to be his partner in life, no matter what. That's it in a nutshell. I promised that nothing would ever make me walk away from him. Nothing means nothing. I promised to be in it for the long haul - in sickness, health, good times, bad times.While our vows didn't include a sexual fidelity component, most do, and it was pretty much understood in ours.  We just didn't say it.

The core of my commitment - and his - was that we would stay together no matter what. I would consider my husband truly unfaithful if he walked way from the marriage.  Anything short of that may fall under the "sickness, worst of times, or poorer" part, but it's certainly not cause to leave the marriage.

A word to my divorced friends....I'm not judging you.  To make a long term marriage work, both people must be fully committed and do their part to make the marriage work. If one party has checked out there's often nothing the other can do.

For those of you thinking, "What about abusive relationships?" I'll admit that my "no matter what" promise has two conditions - physically abusing me or abusing our children in ANY way. In those cases, I would leave immediately, but I can't say what would happen in the long run.  I've seen many families recover from such awful situations.  Each has to judge for him/herself.

But I digress.....again.  What I'm trying to say is that sexual infidelity does not erase years of fidelity to all the other promises. My husband has been with many other women during our marriage, and I didn't know about it until fairly recently. Should that outweigh everything he's done to honor our marriage over the past 27 years? Of course not. He's been my partner through thick and thin for a long, long time.  He's the father of my children.  So what if he likes to fuck younger women?  If it were a problem for me, we'd have to deal with that, but if it were so much of a problem that I'd throw everything away because of it, I'd be an idiot.

The opposite is also true.  If he was so twisted up over me having sexual encounters with other men that he couldn't see all the good in our relationship, he'd be an idiot.  But he can see beyond it.  He doesn't like it, and it was very upsetting for him when he first discovered it, but it's not going to destroy the marriage. Our marriage is about much, much more than sex. Most married couples understand that, but then they turn bat shit crazy over a single incident of cheating. It's illogical and shortsighted.

Let's look at it from another angle. If a marriage is reasonably good in most respects (or even if it isn't right now, but you believe in staying together no matter what), but the sex life is dead and there is nothing you can do to revive it, is it so bad to have those needs met elsewhere?  Obviously, I don't think so, but I am aware that I am in a minority. Does it make any sense at all to let sexual dysfunction or the lack of marital sex cause the downfall of the whole relationship?  Not to me.

I'm not saying that all marriages should be open relationships, but it's silly to let lack of sex poison things. It's just one piece of the marital relationship, after all.

Yes, I do think that the best case scenario is to have a healthy intimacy with your spouse that includes an awesome and ever-exciting sex life. If you've been married over 20 years and you have that and neither of you has cheated, God bless you. You have life's golden ticket.  Don't take it for granted.

If you're unmarried, or if you've been married for less than 18-20 years, you need to stop pushing morality that you can't possibly understand onto other people. I often wonder how many marriages split up because one spouse cheats and the other is pushed and prodded into divorce by well meaning friends and family members who don't truly understand the value of a long term loving, albeit imperfect, relationship with another human being.

Too often, we try to make very complex things simpler by narrowing them down to a few simple rules. That's what has happened with marriage and infidelity. Unfortunately, no matter how much you try to make it simpler, marriage isn't so easily "managed," neither is anything truly valuable in life.

If someone were to ask me if my husband has been faithful to me over these past 27 years, my answer would be, "In almost every way, and certainly in all the ways that really matter. I'm a very fortunate woman." His answer would be the same.

The Response

I was very moved by the response to the post Why I Cheat, not because I wanted approval of or support for my choices, but because I was struck by how many of us struggle with sexual issues at home. Having a mismatch in sexual desire between spouses is not uncommon at all, but when you're living with it, you feel alone because folks don't talk about it.

Sure, there's a common refrain from men worldwide that their wives don't give them enough sex, but accepting that that's "just the way it is" minimizes the issue and discounts the huge amount of pain that the situation causes men. And when the wife is the one with the greater sex drive, it's just as hurtful.

Recently, I had lunch with a friend whose marriage was on the rocks and her husband had moved out.  She was talking about it, asking for advice and my thoughts on the situation because she couldn't figure out why they had just become so disconnected.  She shared many personal details about their relationship, but none were sexual.  I asked her, "How's your sex life?  What's going on there?" She looked shocked that I even mentioned sex and she quickly said, "Oh, everything is fine in that area.  We have no problems there."

Bullshit.

My question is, why can't we talk about this stuff? Talking about it with a spouse (and that's the exact person with whom we should be talking) is extremely difficult. We don't want to hurt their feelings.  We're afraid we'll say something wrong and make things worse.  We have lost confidence that even possible to change things, so why bother?

I think it's so hard because it gets down to who we are as men and as women. It's about our emotional identity and our sexual identity and messing with those is just dangerous. It's Pandora's Box; you don't know what's in there but once it's open there's no putting it back in the box and there may be no controlling it.

But why wouldn't my friend discuss it? She couldn't hurt me by discussing it.  She wouldn't harm the friendship.

Why do we choose to be miserable, rather than talk about it?

There's another blogger who suggests that men tell their wives about their sexual expectations of them and that they explain that it is part of their marital responsibility and they will be expected to turn their husbands on and participate with enthusiasm. The problem with that is that you can't make people want you - at least not for long.

When we had been married several years, my husband made a similar demand.  I was working full time, I had a two year old at home, and I was going to graduate school.  And he wanted enthusiastic sex every other night regardless of how I felt emotionally or physically.

I tried.  I was successful for a while, too.  But then I started to dread "sex nights" because it became a huge source of stress and pressure, and I knew that if he didn't have sex that night he'd become sullen and quiet until he did.  And then there was the schedule.  If I missed a sex night, he expected that I make it up, which meant two or three nights in row. And it was my responsibility to initiate.

After several months, I couldn't handle it anymore, and sex had become no fun for me at all.  It was a chore, and at a time in my life when I was dealing with extreme stress in most areas of my life, it only added more.  It wasn't a loving communion between partners anymore. It was an oppressive control mechanism.

I finally broke down in tears one day and told him I couldn't handle it anymore.What shocked me was that he had no idea how unhappy I was.  Why?  Because I wasn't talking to him about how I was feeling and I was "performing" well in bed.

What he was really trying to tell me months before is that sex was very important to him, that he became physically and emotionally uncomfortable when he went for days or weeks without it. What he gave me instead was a command to perform.

Fast forward 20 years...... The situation is now reversed. I become physically and emotionally uncomfortable without regular sex, and he feels like sex is a chore and he has to perform.  The difference is that when we were younger, he didn't notice how I felt about it until I completely lost it. Today, I notice every sigh, reluctant touch, nod of the head when he's about to doze off.  Part of me gets very angry.  Why can't he just fake it like I was forced to do years ago?  If I could pretend that I was really into it, why can't he?

But I don't want him to pretend to be happy.  I want him to be happy. I don't want him to feel the emotions I felt back then.  I love him.

So, we keep moving forward, dealing with it as best we can.  Sometimes we talk.  Sometimes we fake it.  Sometimes we really connect and have great sex.  Sometimes I feel like a lousy wife who can't inspire her husband to want her.  Sometimes he feels like a lousy husband who can't satisfy his wife.

But we always end up looking past the sex and see our best friend.

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I genuinely appreciate all the comments and the many emails written by folks who didn't want to comment but wanted to share their own stories. If I haven't responded to you yet, please be patient.

Is Compromise Possible?

I know that people make many compromises in a marriage. It's how you get along with someone else and how you can manage to live together happily for decades.  Of course, there are some things on which people can't or won't compromise.  We all have those issues. Sometimes they change as we grow and age and sometimes they don't.

I find myself in a situation with Hubby where compromise may not be possible.

First, let me say that we have agreed that we are staying together no matter what. Divorce is not an option. We love each other, and our children, and we are committed to making the marriage work.  We get along very well.  We enjoy each other's company. Our relationship is very good, except for this pesky sex issue.

He wants us to re-commit to only having sex with each other.  Even though we both have done our share of straying outside the marriage for sex recently, he wants that to stop now.

I want to continue to have the freedom to have sex outside the marriage.  I'm totally fine with him having sex with other women if that's what he would like to do. If not, I'm okay with that, too. But I want it all to be out in the open.  No more lying.

This is kind of where things are at right now, but not because we have agreed.  It's kind of the default situation until we reach agreement. I'll admit though, that I have cut way back on my prowling out of respect for him until we reach agreement, and when he asks about it, I tell the truth.

I guess it sort of feels like a compromise to me because I'm doing much less prowling than I'd like.  Of course, Hubby doesn't see it that way. To him, screwing JJ once a month or once a week is all the same.

We're in the negotiation stage now.  We have been here for a while, but our positions haven't been as clearly defined as they are now.

Is compromise possible in this situation?

The First Time

I looked over at my husband while he was sleeping last night. Just a tiny sliver of light from the hallway was all I needed to see him clearly in the darkness. The years have changed him. That gorgeous, wavy black hair he had when we met is now all grey. He's an inch and a half shorter, too, almost as if the weight of decades of work and worry took its toll physically. Wrinkles have replaced the firm skin of youth, and his shoulders are hunched just a little bit, stealing some of that appearance of pride and confidence with which he carried himself for most of his life.

But in spite of all those changes, I can still see him. I can still see the man who asked me out on our first date and worried that I wouldn't be interested because I was so much younger. I can still see the man who stood holding my hand as we married, promising to stay with me until he had breathed his last breath. I can still see him holding our oldest son just seconds after he was born, standing there with a look of wonder on his face and tears in his eyes. I can still see the man who laid in a hospital bed helplessly as he battled a bout of pneumonia that almost took his life. I can still see the man who held my hair back when I was kneeling in front of the toilet sicker than I had ever been before. I can still see the man who held me when I buried my mother; the same man who cared for my uncle gently and lovingly as he finally surrendered to cancer.

When he rolled over, he snuggled against me and put his arm around me, and I felt the man who made love to me for the first time. I had had sex many times before I met him, but the first time with him was the first time I had ever truly made love to a man. I knew then that we'd marry and I'd stay with him for the rest of my life. I knew then that he was "the one." It took him a couple more months to figure it out.

Since then, we've had our share of both the better and the worse, the good times and the bad. We've both gone through periods of growing pains when we weren't sure we wanted to stay, but we did. We both suffered losses from which we thought we'd never recover, but we did. We have both been wounded by the other in ways that we worried we wouldn't be able to forgive, but we did.

Just as I looked at him last night and saw the man I knew and loved, there have been times over the past quarter of a century when I looked at him and thought I was looking at a stranger. We had drifted so far apart that the only thing keeping us together was that promise to stay that we made years before. It was enough.

So, what is a perfect marriage? Is it one in which the two parties are never sexually unfaithful? If so, that wouldn't be us because we both have strayed in that way- more than a few times. Is it one in which the two people have the same perspective on life? If so, that wouldn't be us either because at various times in our marriage we have stood at opposite ends of opinion and perspective. Is it one which the people never really had anything truly bad happen to them? If so, that wouldn't be us because we have walked through unspeakable loss - the loss of a child, of parents, of friends.

I think that no marriage is perfect and yet all marriages are perfect. No one can live up to the image of a happy marriage that has no hard times, suffers no loss, moves along throughout the years without a hitch. But we all can choose to stay married, to overlook our partner's shortcomings and find ways to be reasonably happy, sometimes even VERY happy.

When you can look at your husband late at night and still see the lover he was when he made love to you the first time and you can't imagine your life without him, you have a pretty perfect marriage - as perfect as it gets, anyway. The rest is unimportant.

Comfortable, Predictable, and Safe

One of the biggest advantages of a long term marriage (20+ years) is that it is comfortable, predictable, and safe.

One of the biggest challenges of a long term marriage is that it is comfortable, predictable, and safe.

*sigh*

Yeah, it's confusing.

Comfortable becomes complacent. Predictable becomes boring. Safe becomes smothering and restrictive.

Sometimes.

Other times comfortable means you can just relax. Predictable means you don't have to deal with the stress of constant change. Safe means the experience of both physical safety and emotional safety.

Usually, you experience it both ways at different points in the marriage.

Some people deal with this situation well. Others don't. Most get divorced because they can't stand it. Many find relief by cheating. Others drink or find some other way of dealing with it.

Sometimes it's all you can do to just hold on to get through the hard times, the years of feeling invisible and realizing that the life you're living is not the one you want.

If you deal with it by cheating, most folks just don't get it, and (if anyone knows) you get subjected to pot shots from the cheap seats - moral judgements made by people who simply don't know what it's like and moral judgements made by people who do know what it's like, but have chosen another way of dealing with it, therefore allowing them to feel superior.

The big payoff comes for those who weather the storm - no matter how they have to do it - and grow through it.  The payoff is a lifelong, intimate and special connection with another human being.

Imagine that the only way to get to heaven would be to have to walk through parts of hell and purgatory to get there.  That's what I'm trying to describe.

If you have been married for decades and you have never gone through any of this and you don't really know what I am talking about, you are a very fortunate exception to the rule.

I'm reading a book right now  in which the author refers to marriage as a "people growing institution." Experiencing wedded bliss at all times is not the point.  Growing together over decades as you walk through mud and fire and flowers and sun---all while raising a family...that is the point.

Together you experience the best and the worst of who you each are. And you choose to love each other anyway.

That is the point.