Reply to Would you look the other way on cheating if everything else was perfect?

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[quote=Anonymous]We've been watching the newest season of the Crown and therefore discussing extra-marital affairs a lot lately.

The Charles/Diana situation is interesting because had it been 100 years earlier, they still would have had a miserable/unhappy marriage, but no one would have had a real problem with them both carrying on their affairs once the heir and the spare were born. It could even have been a relatively happy marriage without having to keep up the farce of being committed -- they could have happily coparented and performed public duties, while both maintaining their own private relationships and sex lives. Lots of royals have done it.

But because it was the 80s and attitudes about "marrying for love" have shifted, even for people from aristocratic families, it was viewed as unacceptable and in the end there was no real way out other than separation and all the messiness that followed.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it's all about expectations. I, like most people I think, expect monogamy from my marriage because I married for love and that exclusivity was part of the deal. At a minimum, I would expect my husband to come to me first if he wanted a different arrangement, and I would want to be given the opportunity to choose an open relationship if that's what we both decided made the most sense. But cheating, and the attendant lying and sneaking around, could not possibly coexist with the expectations I have for marriage.

But in prior generations, where marriage was often less about love than convenience, or money, or stability, or children? I could easily see some people being willing to just look the other way and not even be that worried about it. Because the marriage had different meaning or purpose for them. It wasn't necessarily about monogamy or the close bond between husband and wife. And who am I to judge that?[/quote]

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