Liar, liar, pants on fire … so goes the old nursery rhyme.
It takes a lot of effort and careful orchestration to maintain a lie. Keeping all of the stories straight. So many ordinary couples swear they don’t have time in their busy schedules for sex. I’m amazed when I hear how people having affairs simultaneously juggle several partners so adroitly.
But the question I’ve been hearing discussed most is how does one’s higher judgment become hijacked? How can values be pushed aside for a “morality of convenience”? There are many couples who practice “Ethical Consensual Non-Monogamy”, but that is not what is going on here. When couples cheat, it humiliates your life partner, hurts your family and disappoints so many others, all in the service of self-gratification?
Maintaining a secret affair requires energy to deny consequences and perpetuate the fractured, destructive, powerfully reinforcing charade. Over time, the part of us that contains the secret grows larger, leaving a less colorful, less interesting real self to interact with those in our immediate environment.
When individuals split their affection, they sometimes lose track of their real self. Which part contains the person’s heart, loyalty and devotion? If you’re living a double life, there is often no authenticity in either relationship. Both involvements are false to some degree because no one has the whole person. Everyone loses.
Sexual exploits are obviously not new, but when they occur in public officials, they stimulate a predictable voyeuristic fascination. Although we aren’t naïve enough to believe our political leaders are above moral reproach, we wish that they were and that they would bring more honor and less shame to their elected offices, their trusting constituents, their families, and our nation.
But when these so-called demigods tumble from their idealized pedestals forced to face public castigation, the rubbernecking that ensues feeds the media frenzy. As many couples sit at home watching the news, sucking their teeth and shaking their heads in disbelief, others are wiping their sweaty brows fearing it is only a matter of time before their own sexual misdeed gets exposed.