Juventud Rebelde

17 de diciembre 2005 

 

 

No te daré un consejo,

pobre amante celoso, pobre mujer infiel:

Ya sabrás que el amor es un espejo,

que solo te devuelve lo que pones en él...

 

(I will give you no advice,

poor jealous lover, poor unfaithful woman:

You will get to know that love is a mirror,

that only returns what you put in it...)

From Cuartetos de un transeúnte (Quatrains of a passer-by), José Ángel Buesa)

Infidelidad (I)

A maze for three

By: Mayte María Jiménez

A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

 

She’s been married for three years, maybe more. Before that she had been seeing someone for a number of months. Some time ago she saw him again, and since then they’ve been going out. She loves her husband, but also feels attracted to the other one, and even likes him more. He’s married too.

 

Love triangles like this have been reported to our Sexo Sentido mailbox, some of which have been described in the Ask Upfront section. Desperate readers look for an encouraging voice, an explanation, or a way out of this controversial situation, as geometrical as it is human.

It’s difficult to make everyone agree on this topic that is perhaps more noticeable now from a social viewpoint, though it’s been certainly recorded by history and mythology for centuries, given that an acclaimed Casanova or a tempting Venus have never been absent. Suffice it to remember [Knight of the Round Table] Sir Lancelot’s fabled stealthy love affair with Queen Guinevere, the infidelities of Roman emperor Claudius’s wife Messalina, or Zeus’s countless concubines.

 

According to Italian psychologist and researcher Walter Riso, who is now living in Colombia and devoted himself mainly to Sexology, we human beings are unfaithful by nature and monogamous by vocation, in a struggle where everyone decides which way to take.:

“We men are more unfaithful than women, but not way ahead of them anymore”, said Riso in an online interview. “Men seek sex and reach love; women seek affection and reach sex. If everything’s fine they meet in the middle; otherwise they crash into one another”.

 

He believes that human beings harbor two opposing forces: the search for a family and stability on one hand, and variability on the other. Some scientists point out that such variability or promiscuity has its most remote origin in males’ need to spread their genes around and females’ concern about feeding their offspring.

 

To Riso, therefore, fidelity is by no means absence of desire, but a display of self-control to dodge a compromising fix before it’s too late. If this rule is violated, trust, a key mainstay in any relationship, will be destroyed, since in general we like neither sharing our partner nor loosing him/her.

 

WAIT OR INSECURITY?

 

Laura is 22 years old, and says to have just finished a three-year-long romance that brought her a great deal of distress. Then she found a very nice young man, intent on leaving the country because his girlfriend, with whom he keeps in touch, lives abroad.

 

He opened up to her new friend and told her he’s still in love with the absent one, ergo he wants nothing steady. Laura feels bad, beguiled… another three-people state of affairs where one must wonder: can he love them both? To what extent can someone feel insecure when faced with a ‘leave-her-and-suffer-or-keep-her-and-suffer’ dilemma? 

 

Dr. Riso explains that some individuals spend their whole lives in the ‘process’ of separating from their old partner, a fact particularly common in Latin culture, where ‘women find it easier to split up, for they’re braver and not so scared of being lonely. “Men have to be thrown out”, underlines the expert.

 

But taking this step means breaking up with a partner after both have built something together, and maybe even have children. What could justify such decision? Novelty, passion, escaping routine...? Who can tell the new choice will be better?

 

With his six-decade-long experience, reader Juan Carlos says there’s more virtue than loss in overcoming obstacles and temptations to preserve a safe marriage under any circumstances.

On the other hand, Mercedes, another reader, thinks that when a couple is worn out it’s pointless to cling to something that makes us unhappy while there’s a chance to feel better. “I believe we must take into account the views we usually have and convey about life, at times so strict that we have no room for diversity”.

 

One thing is certain in these cases: all three ‘points’ of the triangle are suffering, each in his/her own way, so long as a solution is not at hand. Hence, Dr. Riso’s advice to whoever is having an affair with someone who says to be in the ‘process of separating’ is to take drastic action and say, “Call me after you finish your ‘process’ and are free. If I’m free, fine; if not, I’m sorry. You will run the risk, not me”. 

 

DECEIVING FORCES

 

Since most messages we received came from adults, we decided to size up opinions from several youths in Havana, whose answers showed all-out rejection to infidelity, at least from the ‘victim’s perspective.

 

“He cheats on me, I leave him and never set eyes on him again”, replied some young women. “You see, men believe they do have the right to date two girls and that it’s no big deal”, said another. “If she loves me she will have to do without him: I don’t play second fiddle”, stated a young man in turn.

 

Threesomes, together with lack of affection and of communication, are reported every year as breakup’s prime motivators worldwide. In fact, most marriage counseling sessions are requested on grounds of infidelity, proven or not, by one of the spouses.

 

When those who say to love two people at once put them on a scale, the pans remain leveled, underlines Dr. Riso: “I’d say 90 percent of people hide an unmentioned affair under the pillow; an impossible love that could have been but never was... an unfinished shrine”.

 

Nevertheless, he says it’s not bad to treasure such memories. Now, grieving about them would be unhealthy, since that has nothing to do with infidelity: you can love two people or none and in practice be faithful to your current partner.

 

Achieving a good relationship –which includes avoiding lies– calls for balance among six items: admiration, desire-attraction, humor-tuning, communication, sensibility to your partner, and respect, Riso advises.

 

Should one of these be missing, the prognosis would be, as doctors say, ‘uncertain’.


 

Read and think          

 

Adolescence is a stage of rebellion, passion and longing for discovering new things, and is also the main character of this pocketbook where reflections, advice and testimonies provide guidance on how to prepare ourselves to deal with future relationships. Its authors, all  researchers in the Youth Studies Center, suggest topics such as social prejudice in adolescents, drug use-related problems and how to solve them, and assertiveness as a key to success in communicating, as well as the meaning of leisure time and healthy recreation habits, among others.

 

Find it in the network of libraries and reference centers of the Project to Disseminate the Rights of Children and Adolescents in Cuba.

 

 

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