In/fidelity debate...

26 Oct 2009,

I forgot to write this down but last weekend when I was chilling with my family there was this debate among my family members as to some recent news.

So what happened was that a woman had decided to go to Rio de Janeiro, by herself although she was married, and the husband was worried about this and inquiring further with a lot of suspicion about the details of her trip.
This same husband had cheated on this woman several times and caused his wife a lot of pain. I'm not sure if he knew that his wife was aware of this infidelity or not. Because __ was saying that the husband would only be so distrustful and suspicious if he felt guilty, because if he knew that their relationship was healthy and that he had been loyal to her, he shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Then someone else said that still, this is improper behavior as a married woman, calling her a mulher descarada = impudent woman.
And someone else said that "no, if the husband could do this why can't she?"

And the debate went into the whole men's animalistic instinct to cheat and then it got even more heated.
It was rebutted by some more about women and men's equality and why there shouldn't be different standards.

And then they asked me what I thought. Oh I always get nervous when i'm asked about something because I have a fear of pushing someone to change their thoughts just by saying my own. But I think I have made steps to overcome this. I don't think that any statement of opinion is necessarily pushing my ideals from my experience/education onto anyone else, and it's assuming that my thoughts are inherently better so people would agree if they heard them--which is not the case, so I said what I thought.

I said that I personally wouldn't want to be in a relationship with more than one person at a time, although in other people's relationships if it is an agreement from both parties that they can both see other people simultaneously then that's fine. But I don't condone deceit or infidelity because if it is not mutual and it's behind people's backs then it's betraying people's trust.
And I don't think it's fair to the loyal person. And I don't believe that the animalistic instinct is justification because we are capable of a higher consciousness as people--men included--and therefore aren't required to have sex with every person we come into contact with or even everyone we are attracted to.
So it pretty much didn't answer the question as to this particular situation, I think I just answered that I don't think I would have stayed with that husband if there was still such little trust, and therefore there would be no cheating from my part either, why stay in a relationship if both parties are intentionally but secretly cheating?