Married, Happy, and Cheating
It’s ok to be happy.
The challenge of understanding a cake-eater isn’t about the juxtaposition of having an affair and having a happy-homelife.
I think that it is about understanding the definition of what it means to be happy, both in the perception of self (I am happy), the perception of how others see you (you are happy), and how those two are inter-connected.
From an early age, we are raised to believe that happiness is a duality. We’ve all been bombarded with statements like “why are you sad, you should be happy.”
I think it’s because, as a society, we have been pre-programmed to chase happiness and to believe that the lack of happiness is a bad thing.
If you’re not happy, then you are sad; where sad = bad.
If you are not happy then something is wrong.
This either/or fallacy is similar to the anti-cake-eater argument:
You are in a happy marriage/relationship.
You have no reason to cheat.
No one needs a reason to cheat.
One makes a choice to cheat, and then gives that choice a reason. People might not agree with the reason, and that is a valid opinion, and other’s opinions are not personal truths for the cheater.
The whys of one’s cheating is neither here nor there. The outcome is the same, an affair takes place.
Looking at it from this perspective equalizes all cheaters. No more comparative suffering. One’s sexless marriage is equal to another’s partner’s lack of exploration and it’s equal to just having an urge to have sex with a person outside of their primary relationship because they want to.
How I learned about this was simple: I was in a happy/stable relationship and when a friend offered more sex, I accepted.
So I cheated.
Because I bought into the “reason” argument, I also started to look for a reason… and quickly found a litany of age-old excuses:
- This is the kind of sex I don’t get at home
- I want to feel (this type) of lust and desire
- She (lover) understands my sexual needs
- etc…
Looking at that relationship through the rearview mirror of time, I am able to admit that all those reasons were bullshit. What really happened is that it was my first cake bite.
And I loved it.
My lover and I both had our reasons to step out. My lover had been my on/off girlfriend for a couple of years after high school. She was dating someone that was currently cheating on her, and she ended up returning the favor by inviting me over to vent and then we had sex.
My side of the coin was that I liked her as a friend and we had a history of fun sex, and I wanted (more of) that sex.
People choosing to have an affair do so because it brings them some level of joy, some type of personal satisfaction. Key word being personal, because every type of affair is personal. The meaning of happiness, in the end, is (highly) personal.
Our affair ended when she broke up with her boyfriend, moved out, and then one day after sex asked me: “So what’s going on with you and your wife?”
“Nothing?” I responded. Nothing out of the norm is going on. Nothing had changed between us. We still lived together, still had the same friends, still talked, still having sex. Things were, for me, going well.
We lay quiet for an eternity, the silence held a pregnant truth that was now long overdue.
She got up to put on her clothes. “I don’t think we should do this anymore” she said with her back to me.
I reached out to close the gap between us but it was too late. This reality was no longer acceptable to my lover. Once she was single, our dynamic changed. She was fully dressed when she finally turned and asked me to leave.
I blurted out “What do I do?” Dumb question.
“Do?” She was angry. “I just let you fuck me.” she said, arms crossed, taking a moment to let the truth of her words puncture skin before a cut.
“Now you’re going to go home and probably also try to also fuck her.”
There it was. Our affair no longer brought her personal satisfaction.
I think that she assumed that I was unhappy. I think she thought that our affair was established with a common enemy: unhappiness.
I wasn’t, and at that moment, it didn’t feel right that I wasn’t unhappy.
Which goes back to the original point of this piece. Why is unhappiness a requirement for cheating?
Our affair ended that day and so did our friendship.
She eventually started to date someone and a few years later was married. She sent me a text one day, to say hello and exchange some personal news and other etceteras that fill a conversation. I was happy to hear from her. We made no effort to rekindle anything.
We said our good-byes. She found her happiness, and I was happy for her.
What I learned from that affair is to draw cleaner boundaries: my lover’s sadness does not invalidate my happy home life. Both can exist simultaneously as long as everyone is up front about their intentions, which again, looking back, I don’t think either of us made an effort to clarify our intentions.
This is the lesson for living an adulterous cake-eating life. Be up front about intentions and be happy with the outcomes.
An open and communicative cake-eater will live their lives as they see fit, leaving others to live their lives as they need. Outside of an anthropological study, there really is no need to understand a cake-eater. That energy should be better used to learn more about one’s own path to happiness.
As for me, I’m married, happy, and learning how to live happily with my cheating decisions.
