There are millions of statistics out there that tell us exactly how many men cheat on their wives during the course of their matrimonial bliss. I’ve always questioned their accuracy because you never really know if the men are telling the truth. It’s not like we’re dealing with people who are well-known for their honesty.“Forsaking all others. . .until death do us part” is starting to have very, very little meaning, with first marriages suddenly being dubbed “Trial Marriages,” as if divorce were a certainty. This new catchphrase of the decade is, indeed, disturbing. Yet the statistics on divorce are accurate and undeniable, and vary little from a 50/50 split. More couples are now opting to live together instead of getting married, and some even have the kids, buy the house, and then get married. Some states now recognize common law marriages, and I can’t understand the thinking behind that, either. Make it legal.
It also makes my blood freeze every time I even hear a rumor of a married man who cheats on his wife, and for some reason the person telling you leaves the husband out of the circle of blame. We’ve all seen enough Jerry Springer shows to know that the fight is usually between the two women. No one seems very concerned about the guy who made the vows to begin with. The “other woman” is always assumed to have been so irresistible, and so seductive, that the man just couldn’t control his sex drive, that he’s pre-programmed by biology and destiny to cheat, and therefore, should be held blameless.
Throughout my life, I’ve always avoided married men like a snake pit. I grew up in the talk-show era, and read enough Dear Abby columns to know that more often than not, the husband feeds the mistress a line of bullshit with the goal of stretching the promise of his upcoming divorce as long as he possibly can. Even when the divorce actually takes place and the mistress gets her man, wife number two gets exactly what she went after: A husband who cheats on his wife. And thus the cycle continues.
I once had a Stepford-wife-type neighbor who was naive enough to say, “If women would just simply refuse to date married men, then men would never cheat on their wives.” Well, that statement of the millennium, once again, takes the blame off the person who made the legal, and in some cases, religious commitment, and puts it on the person who didn’t agree to anything more than a few nights of great sex, and promised no one anything.
Could the unspeakable question be: Is adultery ever justified?
I have a close male friend who married his long-time girlfriend a couple of years ago. “Jack” showered her with pure, undying love and devotion and spared no expense or inconvenience in making every moment of their private time together special and memorable. I remember the joy on his face when he told me she had agreed to marry him. Afterward, the Cinderella-like wedding was planned and executed, a true representation of their love for each other.
Did something change in his marriage? It sure did. Jack, who had always dreamed of having a large family, found his new bride suddenly putting him on notice, after their marriage, that she always hated children and not to expect her to bear any. For some men, that announcement alone would have sent them flying to divorce court, but not Jack. Jack took his marriage vows seriously, and was very committed to carrying them out, no matter what, for better or for worse.
Their marriage reached the boiling point after the recent purchase of their new home. They’ve lived in it for almost five months now, and to be tactful, the house hasn’t yet been properly christened by the newlyweds. The wife refuses any and all of her husband’s sexual advances, and refuses to go to a marriage counselor, or a counselor of any kind. So what’s a husband to do?
Unfortunately, Jack’s particular situation is pretty predictable. He isn’t the type of man who will stoop so low as to actively pursue a mistress outside of his marriage; however, what he’ll probably soon find is a woman he will one day befriend and confide in, and then nature will take its inevitable course. Then he’ll eventually be caught, there’ll be a nasty divorce, and the only thing anyone from either side of the family will remember is that Jack cheated on his wife — and his wife will always blame the mistress for the extramarital infraction.
There’s no way that, being an outsider, I could objectively look into Jack’s marriage and put all the blame on his wife. But I don’t necessarily blame Jack either — call it corny, call it old-fashioned, and it’s obviously a politically incorrect statement — but assuming the absence of substance or emotional abuse, both parties in a marriage have a moral obligation to attend to the sexual needs of the other partner. They may not be bunny rabbits and go at it several times a day, seven days a week, but five months is too long of a dry spell for anyone to be expected to endure.
Though I find it 100 percent unforgivable for anyone, male or female, to actively seek out a partner who’s already married to someone else, and make a calculated decision to be a home wrecker, you have to wonder — when we hear these stories of unfaithful partners — who bears the burden of blame. It isn’t always clear.
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2002.
