There's been some talk on the television shows lately of giving men a cheating pass in marriage, the idea being that women should accept that men are going to cheat no matter what and that it's better for everyone if they have permission. Well, I know that men and women cheat, but I'm not sure a pass is a smoking hot idea. I mean, it's kind of in the category of let's play with the toaster in the bathtub. Adultery seldom has to do with mere sex. It's about excitement, romance, love, and feeling alive -- things that fade in some long-term marriages. I don't think the idea of your spouse having sex with someone else thrills anyone. But it's a lot less hurtful than the aforementioned qualities.
A pass doesn't acknowledge this dynamic. Most people subscribe to the partnership/friendship idea of marriage, a collaboration between equals who love and respect one another. What's lost is the mystery of love, the painful chills and thrills of newness and the tenderness that comes from not knowing someone well. If you could give someone a pass for this feeling, would you? I know I sure the hell wouldn't. Better to preserve the mystery in your relationship, the mystery that threatens to leach out with every mundane minute. In the words of Joan Jett, love is pain and I'd do it again. A pass for that sort of thing? Not possible.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable." The Wizard of Oz
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Thanks for the bar votes -- I definitely like all the ones mentioned. I've even been in the one in the French Quarter about a million years ago. Yes, I have. It's time for me to see New Orleans again. And yes, beautiful Jodi, I love the Irish coffee bar despite our bad reputations. Ha! We are never ever pains in the ass. Happy Thursday!
7 comments:
You say the old man gets a cheating pass but what about the old lady. Is it grounds for divorce if she goes outside and has a bit on the side?
Personally I think that the longer the old lady and i are together the less reason there is for wandering eyes, hands, zippers and what have you because number one everything we own is in her name and two why in the hell would an old man want with someone twenty/thirty years younger even for a night or a month?
I can just hear the intellectual conversations that would pass between snaps of chewing gum. earlier today I asked a 21 year old mechanical engineering student if she knew who Ronald Reagan was? Can you guess the answer?
No who was he? I recommended she change her major to history
Sex is a very complicated arena and depending on what degree of love you can share gives different desires. You can have sex with someone physically and share nothing of who you are and be nothing more than a sporting event that is the kind of man described when the blanket term all men cheat comes from. That type of man will cheat as there is big hole inside that can never be filled, but will just keep trying. The hole inside is the other phase, people cheat as there is something missing in their marriage. The reason men are more stereotypical of affairs is more men are incapable of a high degree of love from their upbringing of having to be tough.
If men and women give each other passes for this, then why not just take another step and devo into a strange orgiastic society?
One would guess we would have to then be a matrilineal society (ha! the spell checker hates that word...), as that would be the only way to track family history in such a case. But that's beside the point.
Love is so rare now that often people don't know when they really have it, or strive for it when there is no hope. If one has it, keep it, cherish it and worship it every night and day you can get.
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The nice thing is not all 21 year old girls snap gum, speak of inanities, or are clueless about what country they happen to live in.
August 12th and Halloween have taken on a whole new significance!--Pope Julian
I suppose some folks have an "open" type marrriage but it wouldn't work for me.
Marriage is like a door. What's the point of it if it's open ?
An accurate quote from the Wizard of Oz, of course. Fortunately neither of us need passes. We're lucky to be completely content with one another. VERY lucky.
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