corrvin | Bitchy, intolerant anti-cheating message to follow.

Springboarding off something

sappersgt said regarding his understanding of the plot of Brokeback Mountain:

"If a guy cheats on his wife with some chick, he's a bastard who deserves whatever happens to him. Unless of course he's really good-looking in which case, it's OK.

If two guys cheat on their wives for 20 years with each other, it's a tragic love story. And Oscar-worthy. The only thing they could have done to get more Oscars would be for them to be Retarded Gay Sheepherders."

Of course, that got crossed in my head with Of Mice and Men and the whole "you petted the mice too hard and killed them" and I got a mad giggle fit. But there's a more serious issue here.

Falling in love with someone who's not your spouse is not a Tragic Love Story. Or, maybe it is, but only for your spouse.

Marriage is a set of promises-- it's the most serious, intricate set of promises you'll ever make to any other person. Legally and spiritually, you become able to make almost every possible decision for each other. In order to do that without eating each other up like Kilkenny cats, you need to be able to trust and respect each other.

And that's what marriage comes down to, really-- trust and respect. Pretending that you have to be in love to stay married is a bunch of horsecrap. Every time you get a case of hot pants over somebody new, and your spouse doesn't look so cute anymore now that you've held their hair while they puked, and seen them in their bathrobe and with bed-creases on their face, it's easy to pretend you've "fallen out of love" with them and it's "not anybody's fault," which is a direct line in stupid logic to "we're not in love, therefore this marriage is over and it's ok to cheat." Stupid logic, I say.

No, marriage is about trust AND respect. You trust someone to make decisions where you can't, or when you're not there-- you respect what they say and think and do. You can't fall "out of trust" or "out of respect" without their doing something massively wrong-- and if they HAVE done something wrong, you ought to respect yourself enough to tell them about it, not just use it as a hall pass to get hot pants over somebody else.

And while I'm at it-- you make promises when you get married. Those promises are between you and your spouse (and God, if you're religious) and you make them on your own honor. If you break ANY of those promises, or fail to put your spouse's welfare first, you're cheating. It doesn't matter whether there's sex involved, frankly. If you're eating lunch every day with your co-worker, and thinking all the time about how you want to do naughty things with them, you're cheating in your head. It's not any better than cheating in your pants, it's just harder to get caught at. You're cheating because you're devoting time and energy that you promised to your spouse to someone other than your spouse.

So, what are you supposed to do about cheating? What happens if the new guy or gal in the office is cuter and hotter, loves the same sports team as you, and you can't help thinking what it would be like to go home with them some night? Gosh! You ought to tell someone-- and, seriously, if you're married, you've already been provided with someone you can respect and trust with your deepest, darkest secrets. You need to tell your spouse, even if it's embarrassing, even if it makes you look bad, and even if it pisses them off. It's better to piss them off by telling them the truth than to save their feelings by lying to them. And then, you can decide as a family what you ought to do about these thoughts of yours-- change departments at work, change your lunch habits, take your spouse to the ballgame instead, buy new lingerie, send the kids to bed early, take up a hobby together, or even turn the lights off and tell your spouse that you'll pretend to be that hot movie star if they'll pretend to be your hot co-worker.

A lot of people seem to think that just because my chosen relationship isn't one-man-one-woman that I must have a different view of cheating than a traditionally married person. Except that I can't spell it out as "cheating on my husband," that's not the case. I don't screw around and lie about it; I don't think sexy thoughts about other people and try to "hide" those thoughts or the resultant desires from those I'm closest to. I don't do the things we do to be close to each other with other people-- there are things set aside for family alone, and so they will remain.

Finally, cheating is a disservice to everyone. If you're gay and you cheat on your partner while whining that you ought to have the right to marry, you're dragging the cause through the dirt for everyone who doesn't want to make a mockery of marriage. If you're straight and you cheat on your partner, you're helping deny the rights and privileges of marriage to those who work hard to uphold them. If you're bi and you cheat on your partner, you're advancing the cause of "we just can't HELP what we do when we're attracted to someone!" (And yes, you can help it. You can not sleep with them. You can tell them the truth. You can tell your spouse the truth. And you can behave as if you mean not to cheat on them.)

And if you're poly and you cheat, which means picking partners without consulting your current family, doing things you promised not to do without consent-- you're just as much a liar and betrayer as anybody else in this list. Stop it. Stop it now. You're not SPECIAL because you're poly, you're not SPECIAL because you're gay, you're DIFFERENT. And different doesn't mean you're exempt from the same morals that everyone else is bound to.

I will not cheat. I love my family more than that, and I love myself more than that. I think everyone ought to be able to make a simple statement like this, and mean it. It's difficult, it's embarrassing sometimes, but it's the right thing to do.