Last week we looked at it from a woman’s point of view. This week JILL CAMPBELL MACKAY finds adulterers come in all shapes and sizes
BY STANDARD definition, a cheating partner is one who goes behind his or her partner’s back to indulge in the sexual favours of another. The typical scenario is the same: a sneaky partner, an illicit affair, a jealous and betrayed partner sitting up late at home, waiting to be fed generous dollops of somewhat implausible excuses. But is it always like that?
“I had a draining board stacked with different plates and assorted crockery. Every day saw one or two women ringing my door bell either carrying yet another fish pie, flask of chicken soup, or there to collect a dish. There was no question about it, I was being treated as fair game and yes I did take full advantage of the situation,” said George, a fit, good-looking 53-year-old whose first infidelity occurred last year, one week after his wife returned to the UK to care for her ailing mother. “It wasn’t as if all these women were after me but one did literally offer herself ‘on a plate’ so to speak. I wasn’t looking for anything, but I thought why not?
“To be honest, the sex wasn’t all that great, it was just the sheer novelty of it all, of being able to play the role of lover again, and no, my wife never found out. Anyway, it wasn’t really adultery in the true sense of the word as it was just a bit of fun sex in the end.”
Costa at 32 admits to going out once a month to buy sex. “I visit a cabaret and pick a woman. Then we go and get a room, have sex, then I come home. It’s purely functionary, nothing to do with my marriage. Buying sex relieves me of the effort of chatting up women or of taking them out. That’s a waste of time as far as I am concerned. At least with the girls from the clubs you are guaranteed to have your every need taken care off it.” Costa declined to comment on whether he also was guaranteed a sexually transmitted disease but did say as his parting comment: “these foreign woman know all the secrets of the bedroom. Our women don’t and anyway, some of these things you don’t do with your wife and mother of your children.” Costa admitted his father also played away from home and was the one who introduced him to the joys of ‘paid-for-sex’ by hiring him a prostitute when he reached puberty.
IT’S true that nothing unites men and women better than sex yet, at the same time, nothing divides us more. Many of the men I spoke to still held fast to the old double standards which allowed them, but not their partners, to indulge in extra-marital affairs. They said men are better able to remove themselves from emotional attachment; to go solely for the sex rather than women who, in an adulterous relationship, would end up getting emotionally involved and spoil everything.
This approach was backed up by earlier laws, which looked upon adultery as a violation of property rights. As such, the laws were only applied to women as both the qualities of female chastity and virtue had serious property value and these were always held by the husband. In the good old days married men could have all the extra-marital sex they desired. Adultery only existed for them when they were involved with a married woman, as then he was infringing another man’s property rights.
The interesting aspect of these interviews was the insistence by 80 per cent of the men that casual sex was not viewed as a threat to their marriage; in fact they believed it to be an act that had saved many a relationship, making them feel needed in a way that their long-term partners had long forgotten.
“Sex with my wife is now purely a matter of sexual release,” said Peter, a 55-year-old German who now spends a good deal of time playing away from home. Marital sex, he told me, has become a habit. “My wife wants sex more than I do. Since we have been in Cyprus she seems to take great delight in telling people about how she misses having a great sex life, so that makes me feel even more impotent. The thing is, I still care for her, but now I am wondering if my decision to marry for a second time was driven by love or just sentimental exhaustion. I don’t want a divorce, I do want sex, but not with my wife, so I enjoy a relationship with another woman and that has been going on for the past year.”
I asked Peter how intimate the relationship was with the other woman, or was it just for sex? “It started out that way, but now I have an emotional bond with her that I would find difficult to break. I intend to try and keep both women in my life because that suits my needs.”
THE men I spoke to provided an uninspired view on marriage, which after many years together, they portrayed as at worst a good business deal with bad sex, but one that few, if any, wanted to break up.
All agreed that there was plenty around to tempt a man, saying that one just has to look around if a chap fancies a bit on the side. “I was swept away by the sheer adventure of it all.” “It just happened and now I can’t have enough of her.” “I was bored in my marriage and this woman paid attention to me, she listened and seemed to understand me.” That last statement is the one that will send a chill to the heart of any woman who has caught her husband out with another woman. Fooling around with some bimbo to prove his masculinity is for many women not the end of the world, but, when a relationship ceases to be a ‘quickie’ and becomes a long-standing arrangement, the intimacy is then deeper and with that comes the inability for a man to easily break off this relationship.
Even if affairs are never exposed to inquisition that follows being ‘caught out’, emotional costs are still involved as an adulterer always deprives their partners of both energy and intimacy. By the very nature of the act they have to deceive and so become, on a daily basis, dishonest about their feelings and their actions.
The fact that adultery has become so commonplace has softened society’s perception towards the act. We won’t ever return to the times when adulterers were put in the stocks and publicly humiliated but society, it seems, is unable to enforce a rule that many of its citizens choose to break and infidelity is so common it is no longer considered deviant behaviour.
