Is there any action more worthy of the metaphor “shoot yourself in the foot” than cheating on one’s significant other? To call infidelity one of my pet peeves is to sell it short. I have no sympathy for people who engage in this behavior, and I wish them all the worst. The only way one of these stories ends well for me is if the antogonist endures piles and piles of misery. We should suffer for this kind of mistake.
The latest episode of This American Life explored infidelity. The most jarring part of the hour came at the beginning of Act II. Host Ira Glass, whose mother was a psychologist specializing in couples with an unfaithful partner, cited several statistics:
50% of couples will have one or both partners cheat. (Most are never detected.)
56% of men and 34% of women who cheat are happy in their marriage.
How do these figures jibe with my vitriol in paragraph one? Am I wishing hurt on a large segment of our society? Is it such a common occurrence as to change how we should feel about it? I suppose we all do things we regret, even though we know better. Human nature has its base side, but indulging that shouldn’t be a default. Infidelity is one temptation that hurts so many, so deeply that we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Go ahead and have too much cheesecake, and smoke a pack of Camels if you need to, but let this one err on the side of caution.
