Lorena Bobbitt, John’s wife who dismembered him, and Amy Fisher, Joey Buttafuoco’s mistress who shot his wife, committed crimes of passion because of philandering partners. This happened during the ’80s and ’90s. Such incidents are now misplaced in this age of relaxed dating rules and a general pervading permissiveness among middle-aged wives. Lorena and Amy come from an era of high drama and high stakes in the arena of ownership and trespass. Today, however, I find that the virtue of fidelity has been increasingly lost on the younger generation. It seems to have been reduced to a lesser offense, a misdemeanor if you will, by a younger public that upholds the parameters of non-exclusive dating practices. The human drama previously associated with infidelity has since been replaced by a momentary temper tantrum from the aggrieved, followed by an unceremonious walkout and then a hasty moving on to other preoccupations, other partners. Adults today may have finally figured out that the ratio of three men to one woman was most probably calculated by a man and that the word "single" is not synonymous with "spinster."
I remember stories from my youth – overheard from huddles of women at parties – about a wife who, after stalking her husband and catching him in the midst of an affair, cut all his trousers at knee-length to prevent the man, vain and self-absorbed, from leaving the house in improper attire. In those days, made-to-measure tailoring took anywhere from three to four weeks to finish, so the husband was confined to the house and the wife had her three weeks of peace.
Another juicy story is about a philandering husband but this time, the wife’s weapon of choice was not a pair of scissors but the insect spray Fleet. She fogged his entire closet with Fleet and it took a whole month of airing his clothes to eliminate the smell of fumes. No amount of expensive French perfume or dry cleaning could solve the problem.
There is one about a termagant wife who trailed her husband directly to a rendezvous with his paramour at a five-star hotel. She brazenly knocked on their hotel room door, answered "Chambermaid" when asked "Who is it?" then barged in as it was opened, heading straight for the other woman, whom she socked in the face and knocked out cold. The husband, who was predictably overcome by awe and surprise, went back home with his wife and, together, they sat down to dinner.
If and when erring men own up to their indiscretions after an attack of the conscience and attempt to make amends, do their partners and their relationships ever recover from the ravages of betrayal and deception?
My friend Claudia, upon hearing such stories, philosophized that what actually happens when men come clean and confess their infidelity is "transference of guilt." The guilt that originally belongs to the man transfers to his partner and evolves into a crippling emotion that slowly feeds on her sense of self, security and peace of mind. "I definitely don’t want to be burdened with that. I’d much rather not be told," she said. But that only works for men with a conscience and conscience isn’t much in vogue these days, so those who don’t possess one just keep at their game.
A college classmate of mine, Holly, said, "Maybe when a man cheats it’s best for a woman to work her way back to his heart by shaping up and going to the gym or cooking him gourmet dinners," to which my other classmate, Kristen, said, "Of course not, the only way to a man’s heart is through his chest and with a sharp knife."
Peggy Vaughn, author of The Monogamy Myth, published for a third run in 2003, claims that 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. I think the reason for male infidelity has more to do with how men feel about themselves than how they feel about their partners. It seems to me like a quest for something that no one else can help them find. Male fidelity has nothing to do with aesthetics and whether it compels or prevents them from keeping their trousers zipped. Case in point: Princess Diana, Elizabeth Hurley and Halle Berry. If their kind of gorgeousness doesn’t strap a man’s hands to himself, then I’m at a loss as to what kind will.
Many claim that affairs are a cry for help. Why don’t they just cry "Help!"? They should scream all they want in private, in public and into their pants that they are unhappy, that their wives are bitches and that they want out so they can start anew.
Others claim that affairs are symptomatic of an ailing marriage to begin with. I wonder why men of normal intelligence who claim to be unhappy in their marriages don’t go to marriage doctors known as counselors for a diagnosis of the ailment and for prescribed treatments. Can clandestine meetings with a third party cure a relationship in crisis?
There is a scientific school of thought that says men have insatiable and primal biological urges therefore random dalliances are meaningless, should be overlooked and charged to nature’s designs. But aren’t members of Homo sapiens considered higher animals precisely because of their human faculties – will power, self-control and ability to reason?
Romantics on the other hand say with sentimentality that some men have affairs simply because they fall in love, which should be a perfectly valid reason. Isn’t the most logical solution to this a clean break from the existing relationship before embarking on the next? Or will this eliminate the thrill and the fun of illicit couplings?
If this should happen to an honest woman she should spare herself and her partner the theatrics, the high drama, the time and the energy. She should just sit him down and ask him to shape up or ship out. If he opts for the latter and walks out, then the best thing to do is to lock the door.
But if she is not an honest woman and has other agenda – like a bigger house, bigger diamonds and bigger implants – then she should just look the other way and leave the monkey to his business.
In any affair, the parties involved have clearly made a personal choice. They are consenting adults and a wife or girlfriend, driven to counteraction by the old adage "fight for your man," and who hatches sinister plots to break up the liaison, will at best end up being the poster girl for dementia.
What about the 40 percent of women who have affairs as well? This is a totally different issue, which, in the interest of fairness, is best addressed by a man.