According to recent studies, about 90% of mankind are expecting faithfulness in their relationships. At the same time, many more than 10% are themselves not faithful. It is a built-in self-destruction mechanism.
There is a nuclear-war option built into those monogamous relationships. The – usually unspoken – threat is: “Make one mistake and it’s over.”
This is not a form of conflict. Conflicts can be resolved and compromises reached. Conflicts escalate and can be de-escalated. In breaking up as in nuclear war there is no such thing. Both are all-or-nothing options and their purpose is not to defeat or conquer, but to destroy.
It is an ancient way of thinking. One back from times when justice meant killing the other bastard. From an area of our minds that knows only vengeance and retribution. Moderation is a fairly recent invention, starting just a few thousand years back and most of it much more recently. The biblical “an eye for an eye” was – at that time – a request for such moderation because it was more common to retribute with both eyes and the rest of the head for one eye.
Sexuality is the most primitive part of our lives today. That is largely due to religious taboos which have prevented most open discussion for thousands of years. Without discussion, we are all left alone with our base emotions and no guidance on how to handle them. We do not advance, we can not utilize our most human ability, what Korzybski calls “time-binding” and David Christian calls “collective learning”. And our base emotions, untempered by reason and culture, do not give us moderation. They are based on a hostile environment where our very existence can hang on every single decision we make. We rarely feel with moderation, and in those areas where the primitive mind comes to the surface, we do not act with moderation, either.
It is possible to seperate the feeling of existential threat from its imagine sources. Once we realize that the stranger on the street is unlikely to murder us, we can be as we should be. Once we realize – not just rationally, but emotionally – that our negotiation opponent is not threatening our life, we can work on compromises, apply the Harvard Concept, and act without personal stress.
Few of us have managed to unlink sex and death. An unfaithful partner is attempting to kill us – emotionally. Since survival is at stake, there is no room for moderation. Everything available has to be brought to bear, and right now. Spouses are left, lovers are killed, relationships ended. The personal suffering those who were cheated upon feel inside is only surmounted by the suffering they cause with their reactions.
An infidelity can mean all kinds of things. It could mean that the partner is ready to leave us, or indeed has pretty much already done so. It could also mean pretty much nothing – a moment of lust, an opportunity, an impulse decision with no impact on the relationship whatsoever. As hard as that is for many cheated spouses to believe, it is quite common.
As a matter of fact, the system is self-reinforcing. That an infidelity means more than a night of lust is caused in no small part by the fact that it is considered such a grave offense. Many cheaters do wait until it is “worth it”, at which point it does mean something for the relationship purely by the fact that it is considered to be grave. Working open relationships demonstrate that it is quite possible to have sex with someone else without doing any harm whatsoever to the relationship. Monogamy, however, assumes not only that an infidelity always causes harm, it also assumes that harm to be of the utmost severity.
Both assumptions are rarely questioned nor substained. They can be true, I will not make the mistake of assuming the opposite without evidence. The problem is in moderation or lack thereof.
