One of the mankind's greatest dilemmas: "To cheat or not to cheat?"

It would be rather peculiar if you haven’t, at least once in your life, thought about infidelity. You’d have to be either a sinless angel or a devil itself. It is in our nature to think about the forbidden fruits.


So, how should we define infidelity? Who deserves to be more condemned for infidelity and is cheating ever justified? When can we have an excuse for cheating? And who is guiltier: someone who has spent a careless passionate night with someone of whom one will never think again, or someone who spends every day with one person, but at the same time thinks of the other one? Is infidelity primarily physically or psychologically defined ?

Disney's movie Hercules. Megara 

Our thoughts on this topic surely link up with the very roots of our concepts of love and relationships. One person, who inspired me to start thinking more deeply about this topic, defined men as beings who are not monogamous. Therefore, it is their nature to have various partners and distinguish emotions from physical needs. In that person’s opinion polygamy is a natural state of being. My dilemma is this- if it is as such defined by nature, why is it a matter of society’s judgment? It should be quite clear that what is determined by nature and cannot be changed and controlled, cannot either be condemned. If it is a state of being, and not the state of mind and a matter of choice, then we must not judge to the ones who simply cannot control their impulses. Another question that has triggered my imagination was this one- If sex is an impulse, a need, isn't it justified to have options to fulfill that need in various ways? We tend to stigmatize one as extremely weird or odd if he , for instance, eats only spaghetti, watches only science fiction movies, listens to only one musician etc. So, how would we characterize a person who always sleeps with one person only, all the time? If sex is a need, isn’t it weird to satisfy it in a one way only? With one person only? The truth is, I have no clue. What we think is normal and sane is strictly the matter of our culture, the values that we have accepted and the knowledge we have acquired. And of course, and above all, it's the matter of our individual characteristics. 

Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.-Woody Allen

I read this quote so long ago... I wrote it down, although I never liked it, because I never really thought it is true. But the last time I read it, it made me wonder: Have moralists invented love to justify their primitive sexual instincts? Or, is an intercourse as such only beautiful once there is love in the story? Those would be shallow questions of me to ask, since there are many examples which prove that love and sexual instincts can stand on their own individually. (this quote gives an obvious one) If love can exist without sex, and sex can exist without love, then why do people so often tend to bond these two?

Many relationships fall apart because of infidelity. So, it is almost natural to wonder what is the core of our inability to forgive cheating? Why do we judge to it so hard? I’d say that it because of our fear that to someone very important to us we are simply not ENOUGH. Our someone needs someone else as well. Whether we are going to forgive in the end, I believe depends on how easy it is for us to live without that "someone".

So, finally, which path are we supposed to choose? What are the right answers?  Careless games or patient persistence in waiting for the RIGHT person to come? Or both at the same time? Can the right one be the right one if he cheats? Do we really love someone if we dare to cheat? Does someone love us if he cheats on us? What are the true indicators of love? Can we truly ever measure it? And is our everything ever enough for somebody?

Endless questions. No clear answers. But I guess that's what makes relationships, love and above all, life, so complicated. Sometimes, some questions are meant to be left open.