This Unfortunate Chain Of Misconduct

If you don’t want your children to be untrustworthy, don’t model untrustworthy behavior for them. Again, the example of parents is relevant. The descriptive norms children absorb from their parents can be incredibly powerful. Turning back to infidelity specifically, there are certainly instances in which cheating occurs to the surprise and shock of the immediate social circle. This was the case, for example, when a couple my mother had known for forty years split up in the wake of adultery. Perhaps in the urban jungle social norms condone cheating, but it certainly seemed to be a scandal in my mother’s Florida retirement community. And in general, if illicit behavior is somehow triggered by the illicit behavior of others, who started this unfortunate chain of misconduct? The truth is that while the behavior of others can facilitate certain bad acts, we don’t need the example of friends and neighbors to act treacherously. Perhaps cheating is not so much a matter of breaking the rules that we see everyone breaking, but rather human beings simply following their natural biological impulses. But more than their elegant necks or lovely white plumage, swans win human esteem in romantic matters because of a peculiar aspect of their behavior. Unlike most creatures, swans mate for life. They form pairs at two or three years old and usually maintain them until they die. When the female lays eggs, the male defends the nest.

Make That Connection

Both swan parents help rear their young once they’ve hatched. Remind you of anyone? But the truth of swan behavior is more complicated than the illustration on a Hallmark card suggests. Swans, it turns out, fall short of total monogamy. In other words, swan females are unfaithful, as are the males siring children outside their primary family. Indeed, if humans look to nature to reinforce our values regarding fidelity, we’ll be disappointed. A psychologist at the University of Washington, was quoted in the New York Times describing a variety of flatworm, Diplozoon paradoxum, as the only truly faithful creature in nature. Males and females meet each other as adolescents, Barash told the Times, and their bodies literally fuse together, whereupon they remain faithful until death. I call this conception the Primal Scream model of infidelity. Evolutionary biologists argue that much of human behavior, particularly that related to infidelity, is essentially an often unconscious attempt to achieve reproductive success. Men and women, given their different biologies, go about pursuing reproductive success in different ways. Men are able to sire a theoretically unlimited number of children. From a reproductive success point of view, it’s much better to mate with ten potential mothers than to take a chance with just one.

Hold On To Your Hat

To torture a phrase, it’s not evolutionarily effective for a male to put all his sperm in one basket. Their opportunities to achieve reproductive success are thus relatively few. According to the Primal Scream model of infidelity, the drive for reproductive success explains not only the fact that men and women cheat but also the specifics of how they cheat. Women, on the other hand, cheat based on their own set of reproductive success criteria. Again, this fits a model that places the impetus for infidelity in a woman’s drive for impregnation. Furthermore, researchers have found that women are actually more thoroughgoing in the use of contraception with their husbands than with their partners in extramarital affairs. There are obvious flaws with the Primal Scream model, of course. How does a man cheating on his male lover with another man further his reproductive success? Or a woman cheating on her husband with a woman? Yet placing biological urges at the core of infidelity does account for one puzzle that surrounds cheating that other models leave unsolved. I’ve known my share of individuals who have sabotaged seemingly terrific relationships with attractive, intelligent people through infidelity. When we observe such behavior, it doesn’t make sense. The Primal Scream model affirms precisely this response. Infidelity doesn’t make sense because it is at its core not about reason but about animal instinct.

Ever Decreasing Circles

Cheating may at times appear absurd through the lens of logic, but through the lens of reproductive success, it can be seen as something close to reasonable. As we search for the sources of betrayal generally, or try to pick up the pieces when we ourselves are betrayed, we often come to wonder whether there is some fundamental element of human nature involved. It’s easy to suspect, also, that this element may not be limited to a manifestation of reproductive urges. Maybe part of us is just, well, bad ? Freud pointed to something like this in his identification of the death drive in the human psyche. And history, particularly recent history, furnishes more than enough examples to indicate that at least some element of human nature is inclined toward evil. Perhaps we betray one another just for the sake of betrayal. However painful our relationships, however badly behaved our neighbors, however loudly biology squawks in our ear, we retain control over our behavior. On the other hand, whatever accounts for the many forms of betrayal, at some point, we will likely encounter one of them. I can still remember the first feelings of despair while my heart stopped beating. Within moments, I felt devastated, destroyed. My world crumbled in a moment and it seemed as though everything I thought to be true about my marriage and my life was nothing more than an illusion. A split second later I fell into the deepest despair I’ve ever felt before and never felt since. The emotional pain in my heart became physical. A mental anguish that was as painful as the worst torture one could imagine. This description might seem overblown, but given the context, it has the ring of cold truth. As Alan suggests, the damage betrayal causes occurs on many levels. Psychologists and family therapists can actually have a hard time compiling a complete list of all the kinds of harm and potential harm broken trust can wreak.