High Infidelity

So here is the paper I have been talking about and just turned in yesterday for my Courtship and Marriage class. We'll see what grade I get on it soon. So, enjoy!

The concept of fidelity, or more so, the lack thereof is a quite significant one in regards to creating relationships as well as the destruction of relationships. In American culture, at least, a majority of relationships are monogamous, thus being between only two individuals. Monogamy is extremely important to many people, making infidelity a very touchy subject for most even despite the emphasis on loyalty. I will discuss and explain as much as I can about infidelity and provide examples of such in the films High Fidelity and Burn After Reading. I chose High Fidelity because it focuses on the building of a relationship in regards to the topic of fidelity and commitment. In other words, how a relationship can grow and become stronger with the presence of commitment. Burn After Reading features several instances of infidelity and the ending of those relationships. Thus both films portray the notion that fidelity is very significant to relationships.
Betrayal, infidelity, unfaithfulness, disloyalty all boil down to one simple word everyone knows, cheating. Cheating is the act of engaging in a relationship, sexual relations, or even an extensive amount of time, effort, and interests put into one or more persons that are not your partner. Every individual has their own definitions of what makes up cheating as well as the differing circumstances, situations, and people involved make the definitions vary. Some people may not consider kissing as cheating whereas some do consider it so. Some feel that extensive time spent communicating with someone online or on the phone can be a form of cheating. Other examples of cheating include sexual intercourse, flirting, giving of your phone number or other contact information, looking at another person desirably, and some may even dismiss any sexual or intimate activity that occurred while under the influence of alcohol or drugs as cheating. Just as relationships can be complicated, infidelity can be a difficult thing to define for each relationship.
As previously stated, monogamy is a relationship between two and only two people. In a monogamous relationship often there is the expectation of primariness, this means that a lover expects to come first in the other’s life. Therefore, this exempts any other person from friends, family, and even other possible, even unknown, lover(s) from being the number one in that individual’s life. Generally, when the expectation of primariness is violated it can lead to a troublesome relationship and even divorce if the couple is married. If that expectation is violated due to a birth or adoption of a child in that relationship, cheating and/or divorce may occur. A new child in the couple’s life is an excellent example of this violation. A couple who have no children spend a majority of their time together and may be equally each other’s priority, but a new child can drastically change that and by choice and even demand. It is interesting that such an event can further lead to cheating; the spouse that feels his or her expectations have been violated may find someone else to put their time and effort into, someone who will need and want them as much as they desire. This will usually cause a divide in the relationship because the couple does not engage in communication about these expectations or the violations of them. Instead of talking, they do actions which will hurt the relationship more than had they discussed any issues including even desire to cheat. Some say that actions speak louder than words. In this case, it is completely true, for cheating is a choice made by the culprit. As I will continue to emphasize throughout this paper, cheating is a choice. In this situation, talking about what is on the individual’s mind in regards to the expectation of primariness with his/her lover is best to do prior to making the decision to cheat. Moreover, that expectation is wholly dishonored when the lover does cheat regardless of circumstance or reason. The individual breaches that mutual agreement of monogamy and further puts the individual with whom he/she cheated with as their priority over their partner.
To commit to a person is to be loyal and have a sense of fidelity to one’s partner, a person’s intention to remain in the relationship. Commitment is a choice so much as infidelity is a choice. To choose to be with one specific person is to examine all rational and emotional options and reasons in doing so. To choose to cheat is no different. As for the sexual aspect of infidelity, which is commonly the case making it the first thing that comes to mind when one hears of infidelity, there are many reasons a person engages in sexual activity. First, sex displays affection and communicates approval and enjoyment of the other. Engaging in sex is engaging in arousal and receptivity. Sex can involve obligation and pressure, where there exists different feelings and approaches to having sex. Curiosity is another reason for engaging in sex, where fantasies and experimentation arise. Finally, sex can be circumstantial where the loss of control occurs for one reason or another, this can involve rape or unwanted sexual activity. Sex and relationships are not as simple as one might think.
Sex and marriage, specifically, definitely becomes a bit complex. Extramarital affairs, or sex with someone who is not your spouse, can devastate the entire family. Cheating is a harsh enough experience when a family is not involved, imagining the consequences of possibly just one night can break up a family in an instant. Unfortunately, seventy percent of men will cheat and sixty-four percent of women will too. In regards to marriage, a national survey presented that the most common reason for divorce was infidelity (Lauer and Lauer 345). There are several grounds for why adultery occurs; this does not excuse the fact that cheating is a choice nevertheless. There are macro and micro reasons, meaning general overall factors and intimate individual factors. On the macro level, economic recessions and depressions can cause a person to cheat, to possibly gain some sort of control in their life or distract themselves from the harsh realities of their situation. Some view cheating as a natural part of marriage, that it is something that happens all the time and is even accepted. The anonymity of urban life can provide a thrill to cheating as well as it may cause a person to think they will never get caught. As for micro reasons, the individual may be pursuing or having conflicts with his/her social role. For a man, it is nearly socially expected for him to cheat just as well as it is accepted, I will discuss this more later. The need for emotional satisfaction may motivate one to cheat if they are not getting such at home. The desire to try different experiences may push someone to cheat, to create a different flow of their daily life or even just for a one time thrill. Cheating may occur as an act of revenge and retaliation to the partner or to others, for a vast array of reasons such as cheating on a partner because that partner has previously cheated. Unfortunately this causes a horrendous cycle of maltreatment to all involved. Finally, cheating may be a way out of the marriage for some people who are unhappy and chose not to talk about it or cannot effectively terminate the marriage in other ways.
In regards to the social roles, there are traditional sexual scripts for each gender that specify formal and informal social norms. Unfortunately, for the male and female gender script there exist a double standard which means there is a complete contradiction in the expectations of the sexes which generally result in more pressure on women. It is not necessarily condoned for a man to have sex prior to marriage, it is found to be acceptable and even expected. Whereas if a woman has sex before marriage she usually will be labeled a slut. Obviously a contradiction lies within this, how can a man have sex before marriage as expected when a woman is not? The same exists when it comes to cheating; if a man cheats it is nearly acceptable because “he’s just a man,” but if a woman cheats she unquestionably will not have a second chance.
When it comes to homosexual relationships, gay men tend to be less monogamous than married heterosexual men (50). Generally, an agreement between partners will be made of whether they want a closed or open relationship, in other words, whether they will allow sexual activity with multiple people or not. As a result, emotional commitment is emphasized more so than sexual commitment when it comes to the concept of fidelity in the case of open relationships (51). This further exemplifies the varying definitions of cheating across different couples.
Infidelity is the lack of or disruption of commitment, therefore the concept of commitment is so ingrained in that of infidelity that I must discuss it further. Commitment, as I have stated, is to be loyal to that person of choice, but also to dedicate, attach, and promise (187). It means a “promise of dedication to a relationship in which there is an emotional attachment to another person who has made the same promise” (187). Obviously commitment is one of the main ingredients of keeping a relationship going just as the absence of it can easily destroy a relationship. Unequal levels of commitment between partners can cause problems between the two people. Generally, the individual who has the most commitment and effort put into the relationship is the one who has more to lose once the relationship is ended. The person less interested and less committed will not be as affected as much as the other, which also gives more power to this person. Commitment to a relationship results in fewer problems, a sense of security, stability, satisfaction, to name a few of its effects (187). Unfortunately in marital cases, the varying types and levels of commitment can cause problems as well. Men who cohabited with their spouse prior to engagement have lower levels of commitment than men who did not or did after engagement (188). There is a tendency for couples to stop really committing and putting their all into the relationship once they have become comfortable. To keep a relationship satisfying and stable you still have to work at it and not just assume you got the other person and they aren’t going anywhere. More work should be done, rather than the opposite; this goes the same especially for marriage.
As for my own personal input about infidelity, I have zero tolerance for it. Luckily I have never been cheated on, that I am aware of, but if it were to happen I will not continue to pursue the relationship. I had this conversation with many of my friends before and one in particular who has been married for nearly two years and has been with her husband for about eight years. I had asked her what she would do if such a situation would occur that he cheats on her, although we could not imagine him ever doing so. She told me she would stay and continue to make it work. A couple weeks after that conversation, I brought it up again. I mentioned a lot of what I have already discussed in this paper, including the fact that cheating is a choice. My friend had put more thought into it since we first talked about it, realizing that she no longer agrees with the initial statement she had made. She came to the same conclusion that he would really have to make the choice to deliberately ruin their relationship and that it cannot just happen.
Many films portray the complexities of relationships and the plethora of situations of infidelity. I will discuss the two films I have chosen to further exemplify the power of fidelity. The film High Fidelity displays a great example of, well, fidelity. The main character, Rob as played by John Cusack, has trouble committing and once his girlfriend breaks up with him, he seeks to examine his past relationships. Asking his ex-girlfriends why they broke up with him, he starts to realize that he had some misconceptions of these break ups. His girlfriend, Laura, discussed that one of her main reasons for dumping him is that he doesn’t change, that he is still the same person and states that she is changing. This is revealing as the movie progresses you see that Rob has a problem with commitment; therefore he stays the same in relationships, never taking the next step or further building upon existing connections. You are eventually informed that Rob had cheated on Laura as she did continue to stay in the relationship for some time after that. Rob later states that he always had one foot out the door, always keeping his options open. He further explains that he has been listening to his guts since he was fourteen years old but has just come to the conclusion that his guts have “shit for brains.” Rob and Laura get back together and things go really well but he notices his inner desire to seek others, to put his foot back out the door. He faces this issue with his realization of the mentality that he holds and he proposes marriage to Laura. Not taking it seriously, Laura laughs it off, further revealing that Rob is not the type of person to make such a commitment while she also does not want to get married. The movie closes with them happy, Rob committed, and seemingly much more progressed in the relationship than they had been initially. When examining these occurrences, you can see the fact that Rob’s lack of commitment, including the act of cheating, has the power to weaken the relationship and thus drive it to an end. While once the couple gets back together and Rob works on his commitment issues, the relationship grows stronger.
Burn After Reading depicts multiple instances of infidelity and the destruction of the relationships involved. Two main relationships I focus on are those of married couples, Osbourne and Katie Cox and Harry and Sandy Pfarrer. Katie is cheating on her husband Ozzy with Harry, Harry is cheating on his wife Sandy with Katie and many other women, and Sandy is also cheating on Harry with another man. Although this film is a comedy, it still depicts some realism. The realism being the amount of cheating and secrecy that floats about this film. None of the individuals named are aware of the cheating of their partners but both relationships fall apart completely. Katie is in the process of planning to divorce Ozzy and desires to be exclusive with Harry, both events that Ozzy knows nothing of at first. Meanwhile Harry is pursuing multiple women that Katie is unaware of. Unbeknownst to Harry, his wife Sandy is with another man and eventually shares with Harry her wish for a divorce. As both relationships show a great deal of low or no commitment and fidelity, they dissolve completely as the movie ends. This is a great example of what I have described to be the effects of the lack of commitment and the act of cheating.
To conclude, commitment is an extremely vital and necessary feature for a relationship to be a healthy, stable, and long lasting one. Considering the numbers of the sexes that cheat and the high rates of marital problems in regards to cheating, I cannot stress the severity of commitment. If one notices the change in commitment or satisfaction in a relationship whether it stems from themselves or the partner, communication must take place to either save the relationship or the individual’s dignity while smartly ending the relationship prior to further possible damage. Once again, cheating is a choice.