The Risks of a "Slip"
02/24/2006


If you ask around among Cubans many will tell you that a slip is a mistake in life, a wrongdoing, a date with a married woman, an unforeseen pregnancy or to be unfaithful to your couple; for some others is only to fall.  

Doctor Elvia de Dios Blanco, master in sexuality, uses the term with mockery, but if she associates it with the issue of adultery she takes it with more seriousness. 

Adultery is not cause for divorce, asserted the specialist to the readers of La Consulta (The Appointment), although she notices that infidelity generally brings sadness, pain, loss of trust, anger, and aggressiveness, even homicide. It’s a phenomenon that generally affects couples a lifetime, although it has been overcome.  

For these reasons she encourages people to establish a relation of steady couple -where each part is responsible for their harmony and spiritual enrichment - and alerts on the consequences this phenomenon brings to the family and especially children.  

- What is the infidelity? 

- To define infidelity is needed to consider fidelity first, which could be defined as the constant dedication to a person, the need, and disposition of being next to that person in good and bad times; the grammatical definition of fidelity is the firmness of affection, truthfulness of fulfilling this commitment, therefore, infidelity would be to break that commitment. 

"From the point of view we are analyzing which is the erotic love, other terms are used to name it, such as: adultery, risks, romance, slip, slide…"  

- Is it the same infidelity and adultery?  

- Either in the scientific as in the popular literature, synonyms are generally used, however, we think that the grammatically correct term to speak of couple's infidelity, is adultery that means to have had intercourse outside marriage and infidelity is a much wider term that embrace the breaking of the commitment of affection for any sort of love (roots, erotic, patriotic or other) 

- Which could their possible causes be? 

- Surveys generally show that one of the most known among men is breaking the routine, the desire of living a new experience, to live something new. Women frequently show the lack of affection or understanding on behalf of their husbands and normally infidelity in women has a tendency towards sentimental, and affective feelings. 

"As justification to infidelity splittings are mentioned, the long absences from home of one of the spouses; the compensation of character flaws, that is, seeking in another person what it’s missing in our couple and we should be prepared for this, since it’s very difficult to find a person that gathers all the conditions we wish. Other reasons could be the decline of sex appeal and the sexual failures, sometimes minor or sexual dysfunctions, of one of the spouses. 

"Changes in the body image, is another of the causes of infidelity and this should be highlighted because with the passing of time modifications occur in the body image. This cause is more repeatedly outlined by men, which meets the fact that within the list of characteristics men seek in woman when falling in love, the first one is physical attraction. 

"In the last years with the peak of genetic studies has been published that the habit of keeping zealously the couple is related to the antidiuretic hormone or vasopressin whose receivers are abundant in the brain of prairie mice, these being monogamous different from the swamps mice which are polygamous. 

"In the human being it not been defined yet a gene related to fidelity but Spencer’s studies in London show evidences of a genetic component in this attitude which is stronger in a pair of identical twins, with a probability of up to 55%, nevertheless a high importance is given to the influences of educational, social factors, as well as cultural ones, playing a key role in the fidelity-infidelity pair the example of parents. 

"There are many other causes and pretexts, either for men as for women, to be adulterous, I’ve just mentioned the fundamental ones which surface when an investigation of this type is carried out." 

- Which are its consequences?  

- The strongest and most frequent consequences are sadness, suffering, loss of trust, anger accompanied by verbal and physical violence, the desire of vengeance, the eye for an eye policy. 

With less frequency infidelity wakes in the deceived a long for killing himself that can get up to committing suicide, homicide fantasies and in a smaller percentage, homicide. 

The most dramatic issue is family suffering, children, since sometimes the dimension of infidelity constitutes a true family suffering. 

"Sometimes it doesn’t have greater transcendence because both members practice infidelity or the relationship is in a 'terminal phase' and what they want is splitting, no matter the motive or the way.  Just not to be absolute, some few report that they solved their problems this way." 

- Is infidelity a negative or positive experience?  

- For the three quarters of victims, the betrayed person, it constitutes a negative experience and in many cases infidels experience feelings of guilt and guilt is a negative feeling. Now then, for the functioning of the couple cases of improvement in the relationship are seen after the infidelity of one of the spouses, fundamentally in those marriages that have to separate for professional reasons.  

"In long lasting marriages prone to boredom or marriages with propensity to conflict, infidelity could be a warning, that something is wrong and become a motivation for the progress of the relationship, but this is not the rule, repeated infidelities of one or both members of the couple or when a parallel relationship outside marriage, which is durable and not willing to break, determine the wreckage of the marriage. 

"There is a very interesting study carried out in Beltz, the United States, which describes the observation for five years of five couples who requested aid for infidelity of one of the parts. Four couples took the pattern of open marriage, that is, to allow relations outside marriage mutually and they ended up in divorce. A couple interrupted the outside marriage relationship and returned to family and was the only one which improved and gained the perception of individual happiness." 

- Is infidelity a way of infection of STD? 

- Promiscuity is a risk factor for sexually transmitted infections, including AIDS. 

- Why does it have more social acceptance in the case of men? 

- Because we live in a patriarchal, essentially macho society, where in spite of changes occurred in the equity of genders, the sexual revolution that claimed women’s right to the sexual pleasure, the center of society is still the man and the phallus. The female population in spite of its conquests is still discriminated against regarding the male one and consequently adultery is sanctioned in the woman and accepted in the man. Socially, man's force is so overvalued that when a woman is unfaithful to him society values it as ridiculous, however, when he is been unfaithful to a woman society takes it in with compassion.  

The Appointment thanks doctor Elvia de Dios Blanco who will continue responding other questions addressed to this editorial. 

Cubasi Translation Staff
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