Yesterday I wrote about Nithyananda and mentioned that he might not like to leave his guru life because only in this position he has the possibility to have several women at the same time. This however was the reason for his big scandal in the first place: he slept with married women, not only with one but several of them.
With this on my mind I yesterday read news about a dating website. It is not a normal website where singles can meet though, but a website where married people can search for someone to have an affair with. It is a website that helps people cheat safely. The owner of the website gives a money-back guarantee to all serious participants. If they don’t find a partner who is ready for this betrayal, he will pay them back their membership fees. The website says they have more than 10 million anonymous members.
Where is our society going? This is a reflection of our society. It means there are so many people who wish to cheat that it has become a lucrative business for others. We see this everywhere around us. Why wouldn’t somebody have the idea to bring these people together and start a website on which they can meet? They earn their money by encouraging others to cheat on their wives and husbands. This website is not like a normal brothel and it is not like a swinger’s club. It is the business of bringing all those together who have the wish to cheat. They bring them together and earn money from it.
This is the internet and how it gets used. In earlier times it must have been more difficult to cheat. There was a friend of a friend and if you had a night with that woman, you were afraid that your wife may get to know because your wife’s sister was the best friend of the brother of the woman you had an affair with. Or the man whom you met in the bar, who seemed like a stranger and a safe choice to have wild extra-marital sex with turned out to be a colleague of your husband! When someone had an affair, it was more risky. This kind of websites however makes it more secure. You can choose someone who is usually far away but most of all, the other person is surely also married. So you keep each other’s secret and are sure the other one won’t tell anybody either.
With my counseling work I meet many people who share their experiences. There were husbands and wives who were shattered because their partner had sex with another person. There were others who were ashamed of having had an escapade. There were people who suspected infidelity and others who were sure but did not know what to do now. I wrote a lot about cheating last year due to all those experiences.
There is one thing that I can say: it never works and never makes you happy. It doesn’t matter why you are cheating, it won’t make you happy. Are you missing sex in your relationship and have unfulfilled sexual desires? Or are you actually searching for love? Whatever it is, don’t go out and search a solution outside your marriage, it won’t solve the problem. Talk with your partner about it instead. Show your husband or wife that you cherish the love in between you and that you won’t do this step that others have done in your situation.
Cheating always hurts someone. It is natural, a devoted partner cannot be indifferent about a third person in a place where there should be only two. Jealousy, a feeling of having done something wrong and most of all the trust which is lost in your relationship is the prize.
The business people who run this website may only see the money but not the pain that they cause with this service. If you make cheating easier, more people will do it. You increase the problems in relationships which could have been solved if the partner was more afraid of doing this step. Everybody has to take his own responsibility but I believe we should not support cheating.
Don’t cheat and don’t help others cheat. It only hurts and causes pain.
Here are some links to older entries about cheating:
Willpower for stopping cheating
Cheating starts with a Feeling
Infidelity – You cheat your Partner and yourself
Freedom is no Excuse for Cheating
How can you cheat and not want to get hurt yourself?
Cheating Rules – only Sex with other married Person
In my society there is a pervasive culture of avarice spread by mass media which says that much of life should be spent pursuing and indulging pleasures of the senses. Under this influence, especially when young, people under influences of raging inner fires and momentary passions make marriage decisions that they often regret later. I trace this all back to a collapse of traditional value systems and educational training which can help with leading to crucial reflections on the long range consequences of choices. With the collapse of these value systems, some people in desperate efforts to restore some needed value structures to their lives, have turned to fundamentalist and extremist dogmatic religions, which lead them just to different kinds of trouble, dogmatic cages of fear and ignorance. Hopefully we will again find our way back more to Middle Ways between these extremes of either cultures of avarice or retreat to backward dogmatic religious mind sets.
Interesting analysis and definitely true. The picture media presents of relationships is one that does not put any emphasis on values like trust and love. And maybe that is why so many people cheat in their relationships.And others flee into religious extremes but are not much more honest in those. They condemn everything earthly but in the end that is not the solution either.
This is disgusting… it makes me sick since i’m a kid… :((u’re right Swami.
Trust is very important in a couple and people who encourage you to cheat for money are “bad” people. Is everything justifiable for money ?
Disgusting statement about the world we live in, we are it seems sinking in a quagmire of filth that continues to drag society downwards….
It’s very sad that people have such a difficult time being faithful to their lovers. Or simply being honest with their partner in explaining what they lack from the relationship. If they were very honest with themselves, they would realize that it’s better to leave a relationship that doesn’t work for you than to hurt the other person by cheating on them to satisfy your needs.
I have spoken with a few younger males about relationships and marriage… some of them think that if you avoid marriage or monogamy/exclusivity, then you can avoid the need to cheat on someone. But this is clearly just an excuse because they are afraid to commit to a relationship! What many people who have the desire to cheat must realize is that relationships are difficult for a reason– it is how we grow and learn about ourselves. Rather than running from these lessons and cheating on our partners, we should embrace the challenges of relationships as ways to grow. And if the relationship is really that bad, then leave the person rather than cheating on them.
Where is the morality of the one, who started this website? How can you make business out of such bad things? How can you enjoy this money, if you know that you are only holding it, because somewhere else a heart is broken now?