De parejas y de infidelidades

The perfect couple model promoted in our culture combines companionship, friendship, sincerity, love, mutual help, and sexual desire, all in the same relationship.

Unfortunately, this requirement is very difficult to fulfill for several reasons: the main one being that human beings, as social beings that we are, need multiple connections to enrich our existence and that of others. Healthy couples are those that do not absorb each other, but rather understand this human need, and each person maintains their individual field, which can be shared, but not displaced. Thus, in a healthy relationship each one has friends, has activities, and has areas that are their own. Sharing them with the partner is a consequence of the trust that has been forged and arises as a result of it. The worst mistake is to consider that this sharing must come from an external rule that obliges us to do so. It's the first step towards destroying the couple and infidelity. And watch out, there are many forms of destroying a couple and many forms of infidelity. A destroyed couple can maintain all appearances and rituals of a happy couple, but it is an empty shell sustained only by stereotypical behaviors, it does not have the internal spiritual fuel that is love. And infidelity is not necessarily sexual, because any betrayal of the shared project is in itself an infidelity. In fact, the same lack of sincerity and trust is already infidelity, i.e., one has stopped being faithful, having faith in what is supposed to be expected of that couple.

It's true that the deeper a bond is, the more nuances are discovered, the more complicity, companionship, more pain for the other's pain and more joy for the other's joy. But I insist, this comes as a consequence and never as a cause. Many people think that if I impose certain rules and rituals on two people, then I have a couple. Then it is molded first... The concept of what the couple should be like, as if someone were making a standard shoe and then looking for who it fits. And the problem with this procedure, so widespread in our culture, is that perhaps the shoe will fit perfectly for some, but others may find it too tight or too loose, and these people will eventually take it off after suffering. The wave of divorces and breakups we see every year is a consequence of proceeding in this way.

And it's because the healthy process is the opposite, first come the people, and they are who will shape their common dance step, the one that fits them both to measure. What may be good for one couple may not be for another, because the garment is woven to the measure of the individualities found in that common project.

Another big part of the problem is the belief that if I love you, then I desire only you, and if we discover our partner looking at, thinking about, or fantasizing about someone else, then we believe it's because they no longer love us. The truth is that love and desire are very different things. You can love without desiring and desire without loving. It's true that love adds complexity, companionship, concern, and occupation for the other person. In healthy couples, this is a great opportunity to explore and exploit infinite variations that allow them to enrich their love and desire. The problem is that in the rigid model of couple that our society idealizes, these concepts are related in such a way that they end up confusing each other. And this is a huge problem when we discover that the other ingredients of the couple (friendship, companionship, etc.) are choices that obey cultural patterns, while desire obeys instinctive and biological patterns with which cultural patterns can deal differently: channeling, repressing or Disguising. Many of the couples that cling to the culturally imposed unique scheme end up denying their desires, entangling themselves in an unconscious mechanism of guilt and reproach. We deny our desire and blame our partner for the frustration that this denial produces. Others prefer to assume the desire, but individually, resolving it on their own without involving the partner and against the explicit pact, their behavior follows a different track: we are unfaithful, go to prostitutes, have lovers. So, we split our need in two, the one of protection, companionship, and containment is satisfied by the husband or wife, and the one of desire and sex is satisfied by the lover. The problem with either of these two positions is that both constitute modes of infidelity that empty the content of the sense of the couple. They lead to formal relationships without substance, where the mutual project suffers from honesty retrenchments that ultimately destroy it, whether or not it is externalized in a breakup.

The healthy way to deal with desire then is to channel it. We assume ourselves as sexual beings, assuming that no matter how much love we have for one person, other people or situations will still heat us up. We put it out there and share it with the partner. And from there, we see what serves us best. Maybe the answer is monogamy, maybe it's swinging, maybe it's posting on Poringa!... thousands of variants that allow the couple to strengthen their bond through honesty. And if a couple has agreed, for example, the inclusion of third parties, or allowed ones, even when those behaviors involve having sex with other people, we cannot consider them infidelity, because there is no denial-reproach, no deception, but rather they operate within a framework of honesty, starting from the basis of acceptance of each individuality and the common dynamic that both share. The bet on honesty. requires maturity to question the imposed models from outside, capacity for self-knowledge to find the parameters that help us grow in the relationship, and fundamentally sincerity to know that it is fair for our partner to know at all times how we feel. Both must have the ability to dialogue, emotional intelligence to understand each other, and empathy to always see the other as a similar being, a neighbor, a subject. Also, a sense of justice to know that the couple should be equal, hiding cards and cheating to gain an advantage and have privileges that the other does not have due to my behavior, also destroys the couple.

The current crisis in relationships is actually a crisis of external stereotypes extrapolated to diverse individuals, it's a rebellion against sincerity that has decided to stop accepting certain formalities by social norms that are not practiced. It will probably scandalize some and destroy a way of doing things, giving rise to a new type of couple, much more united, friendly, companionable, and tolerant, where the desire is to stay and not escape through deception or denial of individuality.

The couple will then be a place of realization, and there will no longer be room for infidelity, because desires can be expressed and common patterns can be modeled to deal with them. Currently, if we see a friend kissing a girl who is not his wife at a bar and he tells us he's faithful and loves his woman, we look at him with irony and even complicity. But maybe in a very near future we'll get used to the truth, honesty, and such situations won't seem strange.