Do you find yourself in a place where you know or suspect you have a cheating lover on your hands? And, even worse, is it a trusted spouse that you have been involved with for years?

The only hurt that may come close to it is the death of someone you love. And, in some cases the dimension of pain can move beyond even that.

There is nothing quite like having that trust violated. When it comes in the form of a cheating lover or spouse, the confusion and pain is off the charts. A crack forms in reality and nothing is ever the same.

But, for this blog entry I want to examine a bit the role of authority has in our lives and relationships and ask what role it may play in the act of betrayal.

First, we are all born into this confusing place. Most of us come from families that are dysfunctional, from one degree or another. Most of our parents (although many are well-intended) were swallowed by the confusion, never were able to sort it out, and passed it on to us as children. No fault or blame. The same thing was done to them. This is the movement of time with very little escape.

And then we move into adulthood with our culture’s mythology of love. Love is the thing that will remove us from our pain, connect us to our lives, and make life whole again. This one relationship becomes our savior. With it, everything is possible. Without it, we are next to nothing.  So we are taught. So we believe.

The Cheating Lover and Authority

Such is the mythology of love. And, because the power of love is so immense and far-reaching, we easily hand over the personal responsibility we have for our lives. We don’t sign it over so much to the person of our affections, but more to the structure of our cultural myth.

Looking for authority seems almost an ingrained cultural experience. It happens for the most part in a natural way with our parents, moves further to our teachers, churches and government. We are all looking for someone to take care of us and tell us what to do. Perhaps you even stumbled on this blog seeking answers to relationship trouble you may be experiencing.

It’s easy enough to note how often we look for gurus in this field or that to give us the advice, the map to follow, that we lack. “The authority” knows, and we do not. The world is much too overwhelming for me to take it on. I also believe that lesson is taught to us in many subliminal ways throughout our lives. There is great intent behind it.

The Cheating Lover: When the Colours Fade to Black and White

Personally, when I “fell in love” there was magic in the air. A dull world came to life with color. I was jolted into a dimension I had not known before. I had never experienced anything quite like it.

But something else happened along with mystery of “love.” I assigned over the responsibility of my personal well-being to the object of my affection. She was now in charge for taking care of me. My trust in her, in this mythology, was that off the charts with a full faith.

Of course that is immediately problematic. The personal responsibility for my well-being does not belong to someone else. That is my sole responsibility. And, when I handed it over to another, I immediately marked the relationship for failure. It was inevitable.  I cannot ask another to do something for me that I cannot do myself. Perhaps the notion itself gives birth to the cheating lover and makes surviving infidelity so damn difficult .

I’ll close down this post before it gets too long. Perhaps I’ll continue it tomorrow, wrap up a few loose ends.

“Your Cheating Lover and Personal Accountability, Part II” coming tomorrow (or thereabouts) in a theater near you.

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Tagged as: cheating lover, relationship trouble, surviving infidelity