Fidelity
I wonder if I can be faithful. I certainly have a shitty track record.
I hope that my infidelity is a measure of how unhappy my relationships have been, and how unsuitable they have been. Understanding my pathologies about men has been a major task for the past year, so I feel as though I have a grip on how everything up until now has been a variation on a theme.
It started with my dad: inappropriate sense of boundaries; expected everyone else to take care of him, dismayed when he was not the priority; low level of life functionality (managing finances, especially).
I functioned as a caretaker. He depended on me for his emotional well-being. How I felt didn't matter if it competed with his needs. I was taught to value responsibility to others as the highest virtue.
And I've paid the cost with a succession of shitty relationships, a failed marriage, and feeling like an orphan.
Thankfully, I know I've changed a lot in the past year. Hugely.
I'm out of a bad marriage. I've reversed a lot of my backwards thinking, and put responsibility to myself as my first priority. I know and honor myself. I tell the truth, even when someone doesn't want to hear it or may not respond in the way I hope.
I hope it's enough. I really don't want to be unfaithful ever again.
Do you think it's contextual to the situation you find yourself in? Or is it an inherent, immutable character flaw that can't be escaped?
11 Comments:
I think we all need to find our own comfort zone with the mistakes we've made, adaptations we've made to others, and the person we have become in the process. The good thing is that you can always take some time, reassess what the hell it is you think you're doing with your own life, and focus on positive change. I think that's where I am now, and it sounds like you're in a similar transitional period while you meld a new life.
One step at a time, Wry; that's what I'm doing. And all the best, sweet girl.
XO
Contextual totally and utterly. I have a good friend who cheated on every guy she ever dated, but now she's with someone who really satisfies her (sexually and otherwise) and she's not strayed at all in the 5-6 years they've been together.
I guess contextual. if you respect who you are with you will honor the commitment to fidelity. even if the ride gets rough you stick it out or decide to end the relationship before starting another.
no one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. every situation is unique, with its own set of circumstances. don't beat yourself up over past events, concentrate on learning why you did what you did and what you can do to change so that you won't repeat your mistakes.
I would answer that it's contextual. In every instance that I know from close up, infidelity has always been because of something lacking in a relationship, so I wouldn't say it was some inherent character flaw. The question is what's lacking in the relationship, why, and how important that is. Infidelity could even be a reasonable response in some situations, and I wouldn't want to say that it's always wrong.
Fidelity.
Being true.
The only person you need to be true to is yourself. If you are not true to yourself, then you are cheating on the person with whom you claim to be attached.
Take care.....
You are hopelessly fatally flawed. Find an orange robe and some gasoline.
*chuckle*
Any time you understand that you have to respect yourself before anybody else will -- you're on the right track. I'm impressed.
Sorry to chime in anonymously here; I promise I'm not here to rip you, at any rate. . .
"Do you think it's contextual to the situation you find yourself in? Or is it an inherent, immutable character flaw that can't be escaped?"
I don't think it's either one, to tell the truth. I mean, fidelity - faithfulness - is really as simple as keeping your promise. If you say that it's contextual, you're saying that some promises you don't really need to keep, which kinda renders the whole idea of 'faithfulness' empty, doesn't it?
But, neither is it an 'inherent, immutable character flaw'. It's a choice, is what it is; you always have some choice in the matter of 'will I keep my promise?' Just because I kept, or failed to keep, Promise X, doesn't have any necessary connection to whether or not I'll keep Promise Y, does it?
You are, as the philosophers say, a free moral agent, with all the dignity implied by that. And what you do with that will be up to you. . .
You guys are, like, swell. Thanks for the input.
Perhaps consensual non-monogamay is for you? Fidelity to truth can trump sexual exclusivity as the dominant interpratation of fidelity.
I think it is both. On one part, it is somewhat a characteristic of one's being in that they need the diversity of multiple relationships. On another part, I believe it is somewhat contextual in that the diversity one requires all depends on the primary relationship in which one is engaged.
I guess the trick is, to find a relationship that is diverse enough to satisfy that need.
Of course some need diversity more than others, and for the high-need people (like the air signs of the zodiac typically) it can be quite difficult to find a sufficient temperment of stability and diversity in a mate.
And YES, Shamanatrix said it well suggesting that "consensual non-monogomy" might be right for you.
Take a look at the contract a few posts down on my blog. you'll see what I mean. ;)
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