Wow. What a week for reflection and big questions.
Two nights ago somebody asked me what my views were on monogamy. I told him that was a really big question and I needed some time to formulate my reply. Last night the same person asked this: Love…. have you ever felt it before that it’s so strong and powerful? and Do you believe in love? Again I told him I’d best consider a reply on those first and I would address those questions along with the one from the previous night.
I think the questioning is less about, um, romantic intentions and more about a young person questioning his own life and wanting views from somone ‘with more life experience’ lets say 
. I think, anyway.
So. Monogamy. When I was at a young, idealistic age I would have answered this one immediately and firmly. I would have categorically stated that when you are in a relationship you must remain totally faithful to your partner … and looking at porno magazines counts as cheating (forgive me – I was young 
) And that once married you should stay married for ever and ever amen. That even considering looking at another person was cheating.
Considerable years have passed. And my answer today is less definitive, as are a lot of my answers about anything these days. I still subscribe to the theory that if you are in a relationship then it is right to remain faithful to the other person. I’ve been cheated on .. most of us have .. and it is one of the most painful things in the world to go through. I would be devastated if anyone cheated on me again, so I would not wish to commit the same atrocity on anyone else. I guess that answers that question. But … it brings up other questions for me.
What constitutes cheating? My friend, the one who asked me the question, told me he had been having this discussion with a very intelligent young woman who thought that having dinner with somebody else was intellectual cheating, whilst kissing was a cold removed act and therefore okay. This astounded me! When was the turn around? I’ve heard from various sources that teenagers now consider blow jobs no more intimate a deed than kissing. Which … if kissing is a cold removed act and just something oh so casual … means that the giving or receiving of oral sex is therefore not cheating either? (is Clinton to blame for this? 
)
I’m sorry. Maybe it’s because I’m just an old fashioned old fogey. Or maybe it’s because of the general lack of anything resembling kissing in my life for a prolonged amount of time. But I consider kissing an intensely personal act. And as for bj’s … well, I’m definitely not adverse to the, um, gift of giving 
but only in the confines of being involved with a special person. Seems to me that kids these days have no concept of sensuality. None. Generalising .. of course.
As to what constitutes intellectual cheating – I have a hard time defining that. It’s hard to find exactly where the line should be drawn there.
And do I now believe that once you’re in a committed relationship it should stay that way forever? You only have to look at divorce statistics to see the problem with that. And domestic violence statistics but I’m not going there today. I’ve done a bit of thinking about that lately. And my views have changed somewhat considerably there.
Hypothetically … what if … you are in a relationship that has died a death, but you remain in the relationship for whatever reason … the sake of the children being the most common. Who’s wellbeing are you most responsible for … your’s or your partner’s? Do you deny yourself the chance of intimacy and love with another human being by remaining faithful and not hurting your partner, a person with whom there is no longer any intimacy? Do you live a deadened and sensualness-less (doubt that is even a word lol) life forever, your soul crying out for some kind of contact and love with another human being? Or do you perhaps discreetly get what you need elsewhere and bring to the relationship at home more peace and happiness because you are more fulfilled? Questions that long ago I would never even have considered pondering. I could see why some people might cheat on their partners. Sheer desperation. Of course the thing to do with integrity would be to leave the relationship. But at what cost to the children? Do you see why there are no easy answers to such a question of monogamy?
Maybe we need different people at different times in our lives. Different people to fulfil different needs. After all, we each one of us are growing our entire lives and we don’t all grow in the same directions. For instance, perhaps I needed a particular person long ago for their calmness, gentleness, sensitivy and stabilising influence. Maybe now, that very influence has fulfilled it’s purpose and is starting to have a detrimental effect. Maybe now intellectual and creative stimulation and nourishment are needed. Sounds harsh. But I can’t help thinking it is true.
That’s not to say I think we need to jump from one to the other whenever the wind blows left on a sunny day. I’m talking important life changes here. I still would like to believe that long-lasting relationships are possible. Maybe it’s a rare thing to find that one person that grows with you and you with them. It’s the ideal and a lovely thing to strive for.
So I guess now we’ve slipped into the questions of love.
“Have you ever felt it before that it’s so strong and powerful?”
Yyyeess. But not, sadly, in the realms of a relationship. Never. And it scares me that perhaps I never will. I have felt unrequited love – but that’s hardly comparable, I imagine. It has always been that I love and it isn’t returned, or that someone else loves and I don’t return. I would love to have the experience of that all encompassing love exchanged between two people. It terrifies me that I may go to my grave never having had that.
“Do you believe in love?”
Of course I believe in love 🙂 But beware – there many different versions of love. And I don’t mean the love of your parnter vs the love of a child vs the love of family members vs friends. I mean that even within intimate relationships there are different ways of loving. That gaspingly heady can’t take your hands of each other don’t want to be seperated love can last anything from six months to a couple of years if you’re really lucky (apparently …I’ve heard (and seen)… I have never experienced it so I couldn’t tell you personally) before it changes to something calmer and deeper. You could even call fondness a form of love.
And so it goes on. But all of a sudden I’m exhausted and need to lie down for a nanna nap so that’s all the answer you’re getting 🙂
I think, first, the deepest strongest most powerful love you feel must be for self, for your soul, for your creative existence. The way you love everyone else is inherently selfless, but the way you love yourself must be selfish, you can’t give it all away and lose yourself that is a kind of death, a life not really worth the living. I don’t know if that made any sense at all, but I think I’ll blog about it tomorrow. It’s what I walked away with after reading Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, a work that made a profound impact on my way of thinking about love in all its forms.
What is cheating? My answer remains the same all these years later – cheating is cowardice and fear. A fear of taking a chance a cowardice of moving towards what you need right now, because what you need right now may lead you to what you need forever. Cheating is the absence of honesty. I think kissing is cheating, I think blowjobs are cheating, I think confiding your emotional highs and lows to someone and excluding your partner from the same knowledge is cheating. I’m harsh, but understanding that the world has tints and shades, but you have to be true to your heart because if you aren’t how can you ever expect someone else to be.
Right to the point and very much to the point. Wonderful comment and thank you so very much. I really must read that book.
I’d never thought of cheating as cheating on yourself. Heavy words my friend 🙂