Monday, March 1, 2010

The Dark Art of Infidelity

By Kevin Murphy,
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist,
Dublin, Ireland.

There’s been a lot of it in the news recently, the subject of cheating men. Men that, for all intents and purposes, appear to have good relationships with their current partners but who seek out excitement with other women. They are not the first and they will not be the last. And it is not confined to the rich and famous.
The expectation might be that one would question the actions of these men, probe their motivations, assess their ability to engage in trusting relationships. But the analysis of what causes men to act on the belief that the thing they do not have is the thing they really want can often seem more philosophical than psychological.
There is another, perhaps more interesting, side to this that usually gets less attention. Consider the women – wives and long term partners, mostly - that are cheated on. And consider, in particular, the pattern of forgiveness that is usually a feature of their approach to the relationship problems they face. Not that forgiveness is a bad thing; once we are clear on what and who exactly is requiring forgiveness. And once the extent of the hurt and pain caused by being thrust into the role of victim has been fully understood.
If we accept for a moment the old maxim that we are a product of our time, the era in which we live, then we could profitably look for a moment at the expectations that contemporary western culture places on women. They must be attractive at all times, they must be independent, liberal, intellectual, and resilient. Then when it comes time to settle down and have a family, if that is what they choose, they are then required to be good mothers, faithful to their partners and makers of happy homes. That’s something of a shortcut, I know, but you get the idea.
The ideals that contemporary women are required to live by also dictate that when it comes to matters of love, that they be, well, flexible. If a man, or should we be more specific and say ‘the’ man, in their lives turns out to be less than ideal, a great deal will be sacrificed before that becomes an impediment to the relationship. That’s probably due to another cultural requirement under which women live – being without a man is particularly unacceptable. No one wants to be alone, that is not in question. But the stigma that attaches to a woman without a man is nothing short of unbearable for very many women.
Which, I suppose, brings us into the territory of psychoanalysis itself. Why is it that being without a man might be an unacceptable prospect, a fear so strong that it would lead women to live out lives in relationships that are demeaning to them or perhaps diminishing them? It might not be stretching it to say that each of the women in the most recent public cases have been demeaned in some way. Yet each in their own way have shown varying degrees of willingness to soldier on. In one case, the relationship was ended by the affronted woman, having had enough of repeated infidelity. But the other two women have chosen to remain in the relationship.
Now popular thought would have you accept that women in love do these kinds of things. It is, after all, their choice. It also suggests an important positive quality: despite public humiliation they have chosen to forgive. But remember the men they have chosen are young, attractive, financially successful and therefore powerful in their own right. These men fit the perfect equation that results in an ideal relationship and an ideal life. And let’s be honest, nobody wants to give up on an ideal, no matter how tough it gets.
Psychoanalytic theory, on the other hand, has long proposed that once we have made our choice of lover based on the ideal we are working towards, then something else happens. From that point on we almost unconsciously seek to become the thing that will guarantee us the maximum emotional return from the person we have chosen as our love object. This is why we often see women putting up with unacceptable behaviour from their partners, or agreeing to what would normally be considered unacceptable demands within the relationship or accepting assurances for poor conduct that are often facile and insubstantial, or engaging in behaviours that they are simply not comfortable with. And remember this is happening at a time in history when Western women are essentially at their strongest.
There is a profoundly strong drive within us, not simply to please the other person, but to subtly transform ourselves into what it is we believe will ensure they continue longing for us. The theories of teacher and analyst Dr Jacques Lacan call this process the dialectics of desire. Having a name for it doesn’t mean to say that people don’t get hurt or that the powerful attraction of an ideal is an easy one to deal with. No, the challenges that are intrinsic to human relationships always remain. But when viewed from this perspective, it allows us question why a woman who might be a loving partner and whose sole intent is to engender love, trust, security, fidelity and companionship in her relationship can still be deemed inadequate or insufficient in such a fundamental way.

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