This American Life: Infidelity
Is there any action more worthy of the metaphor “shoot yourself in the foot” than cheating on one’s significant other? To call infidelity one of my pet peeves is to sell it short. I have no sympathy for people who engage in this behavior, and I wish them all the worst. The only way one of these stories ends well for me is if the antogonist endures piles and piles of misery. We should suffer for this kind of mistake.
The latest episode of This American Life explored infidelity. The most jarring part of the hour came at the beginning of Act II. Host Ira Glass, whose mother was a psychologist specializing in couples with an unfaithful partner, cited several statistics:
50% of couples will have one or both partners cheat. (Most are never detected.)
56% of men and 34% of women who cheat are happy in their marriage.
How do these figures jibe with my vitriol in paragraph one? Am I wishing hurt on a large segment of our society? Is it such a common occurrence as to change how we should feel about it? I suppose we all do things we regret, even though we know better. Human nature has its base side, but indulging that shouldn’t be a default. Infidelity is one temptation that hurts so many, so deeply that we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Go ahead and have too much cheesecake, and smoke a pack of Camels if you need to, but let this one err on the side of caution.
This American Life – Season One
I am glad you listen to this podcast! I knew you always talked about OTM and sent you a message once recommending this one but I was not sure if you listened to it because you have never talked about it on MMA SS. That same statistic was pretty crazy to me as well, I can’t imagine how you can say the vows of marriage and allow something like that to happen. Did you listen to the 2 episodes on health care? Those ones were really eye opening as well.
Those health care ones were good, and so were the first Planet Money tie-ins. Listen to Giant Pool of Money if you haven’t. If it was still available as a free podcast, I’d do a post on it.
Rod! Tone down the controversy! It’s like you’re poking a wasp nest with a tease stick! Taking a bold anti-adultery stance?! What’s next…your radical thoughts on puppies and their cuteness?
Ha. I heard that episode of TAL. And other than my mancrush on Ira Glass, I was struck too by the 50% statistic. It does make my mind wander into the areas of “marriage is an outmoded construct” and “we are still instinctually animals” thinking. I don’t fully support those ideas, but it’s intriguing.
Those are ideas are intriguing, which is absolutely frightening. There but for the grace of God go I?
Oh, the controversies will only continue from here. Just wait till you hear my take on child abuse.
The sheer variety of people I know who have engaged in this activity – youth leaders, model fathers, church leaders – leads me to believe it’s an affliction that knows no boundaries.
I hated drinking, condemned it, and judged those who indulged. Then I became an alcoholic. (Or my alcoholism came forth from within me. Whatever.)
Not saying you or anyone else is *gonna* cheat. Of course not. But I do think most people are capable of most things. Put another way, nobody’s infidelity would ever surprise me.
In my counseling training, I’ve been forced to disregard my disdain for this practice a number of times, so I have put myself in the place of he adulterer and tried to understand their perspective. I am not very close to accomplishing this, but the statistic you presented leads me to believe that if we do in fact value the institution of marraige, we should work to find the root causes of this behavior, and find ways of addressing it, even if we disdain it and couldn’t imagine commiting it ourselves.