Marriage, Adultery & “The Ones”

Independent attractive smart romance-seeking women are single because we want to meet the man fully formed. The truth is, after four real loves, I realize some of them were right—maybe I do bail when things get rough. Maybe, like men, we women are also afraid of commitment and people from different cultures are foreign to us, so the adjustment period is one of uncertainty.

I’m the first to admit that women are irrational complicated creatures. We can more easily commit to a hair stylist or manicurist than our future mate or home. The smaller decisions are easier and physical benefits are easier to quantify than emotional. The simplest of notions rings true—that we want what we can’t have and a man that tells you all the things your father told you and wants to include you in his life, gets pushed aside because he’s not quite there yet. And yet the others chose not to fight for you. And so what surfaces again and again is curiosity about long-term polyamory and the notion of a one-marriage per life existence. Why should anyone chose just one, forever?!

The irony is that the same reason you know one man might not be the one for you, forever, because you come from different worlds and live in different environments, is the same reason the guy that just can’t commit won’t ever dive in with you. For whatever reason, that guy that you just can’t get over, he feels like home and that allows you to push aside all the things that show you the two of you have little in common because with him, it’s all so easy. But here you are wondering why many men wouldn’t want a man that can dress like Holly Golightly, work like Mary Richards, and act like Samantha Jones in the bedroom? The easy answer is that there are many just like you. The hard is that many of us missed the boat and now realize we may not be part of the group that can wholly commit to just one person forever, unless, vain and selfish as this sounds, the sex is mind blowing and you have the same religious and political orientations. Because honestly, all the sharing and similar interests bullshit comes after you both get home from work tired, to eat low fat brown rice with some healthy protein, so when the food and booze is limited, and kids come around, sex is the last vice left, but for embarrassing television.

You see that’s the problem with relationships is they are hard work. It’s liking searching for a home or new job—once you’ve done the research and leg work and committed to one, you just hate to throw it away and reinvent the wheel. And that’s why women drink martinis and buy shoes with their girlfriends. Because the hard stuff is difficult to process, but the good news is that for a few hours it can be quelled with a new pair of sandals and a big glass of flavored vodka. Sure, it’s superficial but if we can buy a bit of therapy and share experiences with our girls and support the economy too, well then we’ll gladly do it guilt free.

At the end of the day, after more than three decades on the planet, a sudden but long awaited question arises: is it possible that maybe there is no ONE person for you? That for decades you searched for “the one” because a “values”-based government society told you that was the right and sacred path. And then one day, in your 30s, you realized that when marriage started, the lifespan of most was probably 50% of what it is now. And so why now do people get married if they know it won’t last? That piece of paper is security. It means for the time you are together, you will try to respect each other and remain faithful and you will make some financial arrangements when it is over. Life is tough and life without money is even harder.

It sounds cruel and unromantic and all those coupled people will tell you that you just haven’t met the right person. But the problem is, you meet more than enough “right” people but inevitably get bored or annoyed or disappointed. If only we were allowed to juggle a few “right ones.” The ones that default to the traditional marriage are just opting for the known route but imagine this: if 50% of marriages end in divorce and many people forgive their wives or husbands for committing adultery, how many married individuals actually cheat? Maybe, imagining a life with one, two, or maybe even three husbands isn’t so crazy. We are different people at 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 so to imagine meeting someone that will always be aligned with you, decades later, is quite a feat. Lowering expectations, it seems, may be not only about the people you are dating but what you expect from them and the possible relationship.