Wait or Commit

In the American culture, particularly television and magazines, a lot of gossip about celebrities are spread out to entertain the public. Outside of the ‘who’s dating who’ and ‘who wore the ugliest dress to the Grammys’, one of the juiciest gossips out there are the rumors spread about cheating scandals and affairs. Infidelity is looked down upon and might even be taboo for many people of the older generations but it is arguably one of the major contributing factors for the skyrocketing numbers of divorces in the United States. Extramarital affairs bring terrible consequences, this is why people should never commit infidelity in a marriage. Otherwise, they should hold off marriage until they have found the right person to be their spouse.

Infidelity is the act of “Unfaithfulness to a sexual partner, especially a spouse”. Some people see sexual relationships outside a marriage or relationship is more immoral than a romantic or platonic relationship out and it could be debated from either perspective. However both actions would bring brutal consequences to a dedicated relationship such as that of a marriage. There are many different causes for a person to cheat and sometimes its more than mere lust. Some reasons that people have provided for the reason they cheat include Becoming closer with a certain friend, going away on a business trip, running across an ex, getting revenge on a partner who committed such acts before them or an rampant sex drive . Out of all these circumstances, most of these relationships are found to be nothing more than one night stands which were made with an unclear mind rather than long lasting affairs, and most of these relationships are more based on lust rather than emotional connections. However lust and sex are difficult to be put into one definition for infidelity since monogamy in itself if already hard to understand.

One of the things to be considered however are the consequences that is often left in the wake of these relationships. According to a survey done by National Opinion Research Center, 17 % of women in marital relationship have committed adultery while 25 % of men have had extramarital affairs. Notably, the emotional strain upon the person who had been cheated on is greatly affected; and even if the victim is able to forgive their partner for the immoral acts, the trust and the relationship just isn't the same anymore. Also for the person who committed the act of infidelity, they would later find out that the sexual relationships they found outside of their marriage or commitment would not only not satisfy their needs in the long run, it would bring more havoc into their personal lives. Families would be torn apart by extramarital affairs and physical problems such as the risks of catching STD’s are greater when there are multiple sexual partners in the picture. Not only that, the public opinions to the person who is caught in an affair would greatly affect how they are viewed by the public. Something like this is also not just confined to the Cheater and the victim of an extramarital affair, the woman/man on the side would also have to deal with the same problems as the Cheater. He or she would be giving up their moral ethics to have a continuous affair and he or she would also be risking health and public opinion to stay in the relationship.

If a nasty affair involves a child, the decisions the child’s parents made would later on take effect on their kid. Because young minds such as those of pre-teens are affected by whatever goes on with their families, learning that their father or mother was seeing a person besides the other parent would not only confuse the children, the children would be forced to accept that their families would most likely fall apart one day. The child of the cheater and victim would have to face the cold reality that his or her mother or father didn't see his or her happiness and family as more important than momentary thrills of an ‘affair’. Chances are if the child, who might be young, is exposed to and becomes used to this type of lifestyle, the possibility of the child doing the same thing in the future might also be likely. Extramarital affairs tend to lead to divorce and its either one parent has to burden all of the stress of taking care of the child, or the child has to go in between seeing the parent who had been cheated on and the parent who now lives with the man or woman he had an affair with. This could be psychologically damaging to the child on many levels, affecting the child’s personality and mental growth.

A solution for people to avoid infidelity in a marriage is to stay single or to not get married until they are tired of messing around and dating or if they are positive that they would stay with the person they plan to marry until death and would be willing to hold the marriage vows. Researchers from the University of Denver had conducted a study which showed that from a sample of 993 unmarried heterosexual individuals, about 14% had had sex outside of the relationship after dating for about 20 months. It is common for confrontational couples to break and look for new partners because they hadn't made a lifelong decision to stay with their partner. According to an US study, men tend to cheat with younger women while young and low income women tend to cheat with older men who have more stability and income. This is something embedded in the human instinct to want to find a mate that would provide and take care of future offsprings or in the words of evolutionary biologists, ‘Shopping for better genes for their children’.

Although there is never a definite answer for why infidelity happens and how it could be prevented, it is a collective opinion by most people that it is one of the most immoral things a person in a relationship could do. So to save the pain for people who are looking for a committed relationship, it is best for both parties to either wait for the ‘Mr./Ms. Perfect’ to come into their lives or to stay committed in the relationship that they will later find themselves in. Because it is much more painful and heartbreaking to find out that what was meant to be a lifelong commitment could be put aside by a mere attraction or lust. There are only two choices laid out, wait or commit.