Dear
Viny,
I have
been involved with a married man for the past 2 years. I haven't told
many of my friends about this because it's something you're not
supposed to do. And, because some of them are married – and hate
the idea of cheating or being cheated on – I'm just not bringing it
up. I met this man online after putting out an ad for a 'friends with
benefits' relationship on Craig's List. I do not know his wife and he
keeps his life with her completely separate from me. I don't know –
and don't want to know – what she even looks like. He and I meet
downtown for lunch or at my house several times a week. A lot of
early mornings on his way to work. The sex is quite amazing.
Aside
from the social stigma of the relationship, I personally have no
problem with seeing him like this. If I knew his wife, worked with
her, even saw her somewhere, I wouldn't do it. But I have no
relationship with her. I guess I'm writing you because worrying about
what others think about me is the problem for me, and not the
relationship itself. I want to know your opinion on extramarital
affairs and whether you think they are just wrong, period. I've had
feedback from friends who tell me it's dishonest and/or hurtful. I
want to resolve this for myself, but obviously I'm spinning my wheels
and need an objective view on it.
Please
be kind,
“Janice”
***
Dear Janice,
I wish I could invite
you to cozy up to my kitchen table with a mug of ginger tea and a
slice of leftover Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, so that we could have
this conversation in person. Sometimes, electronic communication can
feel so cold.
When I give you my
opinion, please picture me giving it warmly. My subjective view –
there is no such thing as an objective view – is that what you are
doing is wrong.
That said, you're
hardly the only person out there involved in what I consider to be an
unethical relationship. Fifteen years ago, I myself was in the middle
of a steamy affair with a married man. (Well, half an affair, anyway:
my husband knew about the relationship, but my lover's wife did not.)
And in the time since then, I have heard a lot of confessions from
friends and acquaintances who are fucking someone technically
off-limits to them, or who are madly in love with someone they
“shouldn't” be, or who have engaged in some kind of sexual
behavior not sanctioned by their partner(s). Mr. and Ms. Wrong can be
extremely compelling, and a
lot of us are going to end up doing them.
I will further concede
that good can come of bad choices. For
all I know, your affair will end up resulting in more good than bad,
on balance. In her book Mating in Captivity,
Esther Perel argues that “an illicit liaison can be catastrophic,
but it can also be a liberation, a source of strength, a healing.”
She also points out that different cultures have different ideas
about how to perform ethical calculations. In American culture,
cheating is bad, and lying about it adds insult to injury; in other
cultures, cheating is considered more acceptable, and “a protective
opacity....not only maintains marital harmony but also is a mark of
respect.”
It's
possible that your lover's wife will never find out about you, and
that what she doesn't know will never hurt her. Or maybe she sort of
senses what's going on, but prefers a “don't ask, don't tell”
arrangement, and has subtly managed to convey this to her husband,
whose discretion is actually in line with her wishes. Or maybe she
has the female equivalent of a cuckold fetish, and her husband
regularly thrills her to orgasm by recounting the lurid details of
his latest dalliance with you. Maybe you only think
you're a big secret. I don't know, and it sounds like you don't know,
either.
You
don't want to know.
And
for me, that's the sticking point in your story. I can try to wrap my
head around the idea that not everyone values honesty and
transparency to the degree I do. However, you have made it pretty
clear that your relationship depends on maintaining a level of
ignorance that has the potential to cause real harm, regardless of
the cultural backgrounds or personal predilections of the people
involved.
You
admit that if you knew your lover's wife – or even saw her
somewhere! – you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. Your
relationship is thus contingent on treating a fellow human being as
an abstraction, not a person. It's not just about keeping your world
separate from hers: you actually need her not to matter. But she is
a real person, and she does
matter.
We're
all wired to behave as though the humans we know matter more than
humans we don't know. That's fine, because it has to be fine: at
present, we aren't capable of re-wiring ourselves. However, when we
actively cultivate thoughtlessness – when we refuse to set foot in the
sweat shop, because we want to keep buying the shoes – we know we
are behaving unethically, by our own subjective standards.
I
want to leave you with a story. It's the summer of 2000, and my
married lover and his wife are on the verge of divorce. For months,
they've been in couples counseling, but it isn't working. At home,
safe in my own bed, sleeping beside my sweet, supportive,
totally-in-the-know husband, I'm having recurring nightmares. In
these dreams, I am always in her house,
and she knows. So I'm
hiding in the blueblack dark of the upstairs TV room, hoping she
won't find me. I hear her come in the front door, talking angrily.
Then she climbs the stairs. Then she walks down the hallway. When she
enters the room, I can't hide any longer, and I know I have to save myself:
it's kill or be killed. So I step out onto the balcony. She follows
me. Then I scoop her into my arms and toss her over the railing.
Night after night, when she hits the ground, she fails to die.
You
didn't ask for my advice, Janice, but I'm going to give you some
anyway: make love, not war. You can put a hippie headband on the old
cliché and disregard it if you like, but I think it's imminently
applicable to your situation.
Hearts
& stars,
Viny
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