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| Even this won't protect you from heartbreak. |
It's tough enough dealing with your own betrayal without adding in such a deluge of news about infidelity and so many opinions about the ubiquity of cheating. And it can feel near impossible to believe that your relationship won't simply offer up more pain when every Web site, newspaper and radio show is discussing who's cheating, where they're cheating and with whom. What's more, the glee with which the topic is tackled – the giggles and the nudge-wink – seems incredibly insensitive when others' gossip is our reality. Cheating isn't a punchline. It's painful.
So it can be easy to feel defeated by all of this. To believe all the chatter. Having seen first-hand how our own husbands – guys we believed incapable of such deceit – betrayed us, we can easily begin to believe that fidelity is an impossible dream, a sort of mirage that shimmers seductively but that turns out, upon closer inspection, to be nothing more than wishful thinking.
It's a dangerous way of thinking however. Cynicism isn't the same as being realistic. Being realistic is understanding that some marriages will experience infidelity – the stats vary from 40% to 75%, depending on who's conducting the survey. And yeah, that's a lot of cheating. Cynicism, however, is believing that cheating is everywhere. That all men are scum. That all mistresses are whores. That marriage is a sham. That all betrayed wives should just get with the program.
Cynicism wears the face of resigned truth but is really a mask for fear. Cynicism masquerades as sophistication, as blasé acceptance of our more baser instincts. Behind it, however, is the fear of once again being caught off guard. If we accept that cheating is the norm, then we're less likely to be disappointed when it happens again, whether with our existing partner or a new one. It's a twisted logic but makes sense in the wake of our betrayal when so much of our pain seems tied in with our conviction that our marriage was somehow safe from infidelity. If we hadn't placed so much faith in our vows, we believe, we wouldn't have been so trusting. And if we hadn't been so trusting, we wouldn't be so devastated.
It can be hard to fight off cynicism. Shortly after my own D-Day, a friend announced her wedding. It took every ounce of self-control I had to resist sharing my derision and suggesting she just save us all the hassle of pretending they were any different from the millions of others who find themselves in our club.
In fact, it took me years to move past cynicism. I wore it like armour, protection against sentimentality, against disappointment.
I paid a high price for this mock protection, though. It left me one step removed from any genuine emotion. When you're cloaked in cynicism, you can't give yourself over to your feelings, whether joy or pain. In fact, you can't feel much of anything.
There's no un-knowing what I've learned about betrayal. I see the world through different eyes now. But I've managed to shift my gaze from one of routine suspicion of everyone and everything to something closer to peaceful acceptance. I no longer scoff at anyone's earnest desire to commit to another but instead recognize that the path will likely be harder than she expects but that doesn't make it worse. Or more to the point, that doesn't make it unworthy of undertaking in the first place. The same, of course, holds true for me, too. Life offers me no guarantees.
Too often, our culture responds with a cynical glee to something like the Ashley Madison hack, or news of another celebrity's affair. Monogamy is a myth, crows the headline. Everyone's a cheater, claim the cynics.
Cheating is far more commonplace than most of us ever knew. Statistically at least, it's not that surprising that we're here. But cheating isn't inevitable. "Once a cheater, always a cheater" is the lie of the cynic. Divorce is not the only acceptable response to betrayal.
We have the choice when faced with betrayal to decide how we'll respond. Even when our partner leaves us, we get to choose how we'll move forward.
Will we develop a hard shell of cynicism with the false sense that it will somehow protect us from future pain? Or will we allow the breaks in our heart to let in the wisdom and self-compassion that can take root?
Cynicism wears the face of resigned truth but is really a mask for fear. Cynicism masquerades as sophistication, as blasé acceptance of our more baser instincts. Behind it, however, is the fear of once again being caught off guard. If we accept that cheating is the norm, then we're less likely to be disappointed when it happens again, whether with our existing partner or a new one. It's a twisted logic but makes sense in the wake of our betrayal when so much of our pain seems tied in with our conviction that our marriage was somehow safe from infidelity. If we hadn't placed so much faith in our vows, we believe, we wouldn't have been so trusting. And if we hadn't been so trusting, we wouldn't be so devastated.
It can be hard to fight off cynicism. Shortly after my own D-Day, a friend announced her wedding. It took every ounce of self-control I had to resist sharing my derision and suggesting she just save us all the hassle of pretending they were any different from the millions of others who find themselves in our club.
In fact, it took me years to move past cynicism. I wore it like armour, protection against sentimentality, against disappointment.
I paid a high price for this mock protection, though. It left me one step removed from any genuine emotion. When you're cloaked in cynicism, you can't give yourself over to your feelings, whether joy or pain. In fact, you can't feel much of anything.
There's no un-knowing what I've learned about betrayal. I see the world through different eyes now. But I've managed to shift my gaze from one of routine suspicion of everyone and everything to something closer to peaceful acceptance. I no longer scoff at anyone's earnest desire to commit to another but instead recognize that the path will likely be harder than she expects but that doesn't make it worse. Or more to the point, that doesn't make it unworthy of undertaking in the first place. The same, of course, holds true for me, too. Life offers me no guarantees.
Too often, our culture responds with a cynical glee to something like the Ashley Madison hack, or news of another celebrity's affair. Monogamy is a myth, crows the headline. Everyone's a cheater, claim the cynics.
Cheating is far more commonplace than most of us ever knew. Statistically at least, it's not that surprising that we're here. But cheating isn't inevitable. "Once a cheater, always a cheater" is the lie of the cynic. Divorce is not the only acceptable response to betrayal.
We have the choice when faced with betrayal to decide how we'll respond. Even when our partner leaves us, we get to choose how we'll move forward.
Will we develop a hard shell of cynicism with the false sense that it will somehow protect us from future pain? Or will we allow the breaks in our heart to let in the wisdom and self-compassion that can take root?
