Saturday, March 07, 2009

Adultery

The title of this post: now that's one subject that fascinates me a lot. I am sure it fascinates a lot of other people as much as it puts off many others. But what is interesting is that you never know who is fascinated by the thought of adultery and who is not. Most often, those who publicly treat the word 'adultery' like a contagious disease are the ones who take sips from the sinful potion on the sly. While those who keep plotting or dreaming of illicit sex, actually never gather the courage to indulge in it. And it is so much fun when you read their expressions: their eyebrows say something and their eyes something else.

Now, why am I writing about this subject tonight, even though I am too drowsy to even keep my eyes open, thanks to the two injections I received on my butt a few hours ago for a throat infection? That's because I want to take some load off my chest so that I can sleep in peace. Thoughts about adultery -- as a subject, I mean -- have been fermenting in my head during the last few days after conversations I had about it with a couple of friends -- both happen to be women. The conversations, in both cases, began with my posts on Shivani and then one thing led to another and in the end, I found a hand-grenade lobbed at me in the form of a set of questions: "How can one think of another man or woman while being committed? Doesn't commitment mean anything? And if you have to think of other men and women, why get committed in the first place?"

The answer, my friends, is simple. It is only after you get committed that the thought of other men or women crosses your mind. When you are single and footloose, the word 'other' is redundant and meaningless: all you are looking for is someone who could suit you the best in the given circumstances. Only after you make the commitment that this demon (maybe angel, in some cases) called adultery pops its head into your cosy tent.

So the argument -- that if you can't keep a commitment, then don't commit at all -- holds no water. Because when you make a commitment, you do so with the best of intentions: you have no clue at the time that, five years from now, you might be cursing yourself for having made that commitment in the first place. At that time, commitment must have felt like a secure palace, with the passage of time, it just might become a prison. You suddenly envy the people roaming freely outside.

What do you do then? Walk out of the prison? Many people strongly believe that if you can't keep a commitment, be honest about it and walk out, but don't cheat. If only it was that easy. If there is a small hole on your wall, you don't desert the house and build a new house, do you? You merely get a mason to plug the hole. And then, you go on to live happily ever after.

Adultery, according to me, does not have to be always about getting physical and making things messy. It can be about fixing that little emotional hole in your life. And masons are never hard to find.

14 comments:

Frustrations Amalgamated said...

NIce .. that was aptly said. you hit the nail on the head. Wonderful Bishy.

Anonymous said...

really!! lol

Sabarmati View said...

Well, logic doesn't come easily to me and i believe there are different layers to emotions... which can have its manifestations at different levels. Nothing is absolute in life, there's no absolute death, no absolute love also. BG, one of the best posts of yours this one, i must say. You have really evoloved...
Cheers
Deepika

Anonymous said...

Excellent! Very well said...:)

Anonymous said...

Lucky you BG...You have found a mason..)
I am stuck with my wife.
She wont go anywhere without her mother and her mother will go anywhere...LOL

Anonymous said...

another great post BG.

my 2cents to this,
The reality is that infidelity is almost always a symptom of internal conflict within the cheating spouse which has little to do with non-cheating partner and most often the cheating partners are running away from themselves.

Sadly, while the cheating partner may appear to be enjoying himself, by not facing his problems he is condemning himself to repeating them. In short, he's emotionally stuck.
Complicating matters is that men and women tend to have different needs based on continually reinforced gender role socialization. Women are raised to value relationships, therefore they often want affection, conversation, openness/honesty, financial support, and family commitment, while male worth is based on production. Men usually require sex, a recreational companion, an attractive spouse, peace and quiet after a hard days work, and admiration.

Sadly, this is all avoidable is each partner develops a deeper understanding of relationships and is willing to engage in a little introspection and truly understand their motivations for being in the relationship. Cheating is ALWAYS a symptom of other issues, and each partner must begin to acknowledge and work on the unresolved aspects that lead to cheating behavior in the first place.

Anonymous said...

I guess in a world of moral degradation, it's hard to find someone who's man enough to call a wrong, a wrong.

I feel hurt.

Bishwanath Ghosh said...

Anon@3.25 pm:

What is right?
What is wrong?
Who decides?

Anonymous said...

It's nice too see the old Bishwanath back in action...:-)

- you know who

Soumya said...

Masons may be easy to find, but the patches are usually visible.

Maya said...

I wonder how many little holes you have that need plugging ;->

Anonymous said...

Ha... call it what you want.. its still cheating...!

jessieL said...

A mason is easy to find and patch it up. unfortunately, the more holes you make eventually it will leave a scar that will be too hard to mend. You will be found out at some time. You may find a quality your wife/husband is lacking in a woman or man that you like. But is it worth it? If this person has 25% of the qualities your spouse is missing and the spouse finds out, was it all worth it for 25%?

Anubhuti said...

Your last paragraphs are usually most enchanting. Loved this one.