Hello. So last week I went to a school reunion for the 20th anniversary of my hometown school. I’m not the kind of person who enjoy this kind of social events, but for this time I made an exception. My old friend from that time asked me to go and I thought I would be funny (spoiler alert: it wasn’t funny). After the event and speeches, all my classmates and I went to a restaurant. I sat in front of a girl that I had a bit of a crush on when I was a kid. During the dinner I was mostly in silence, they were talking about gossips, old memories, relationships, comparisons… At some point she talked about a boyfriend she had. She said that she cheated on him like 10 or 20 times, she didn’t know the exact number. The thing is… She was laughing about it, and so the others. “I told him I cheated on him, I don’t know how many times…” She said, like nothing happened. My ex girlfriend told me that she also cheated on his fiancée some time before the wedding. She always said that infidelities are always there, like it is normal… But is it? I’ve been thinking about it for some time now, because I know some other cases. But I don’t understand… There is no sense of morality ot loyalty or empathy?
The “infidelities are always there” part sounds like a cope. I’m not a great authority on relationships or marriage as I’ve mostly opted for single life but I have spent a lot of time around the various aspects of substance abuse and the way you describe this discussion sounds eerily similar to people with substance-use issues saying “everybody drinks” or “everybody uses drug x.” It might be true of the people they surround themselves with but it’s not representative of the broader population as a whole…
-On a seperate note you’re really making me want to attend my 20th reunion next year. /s
-Lastly I just want to clarify that i’m interpreting the term “cheating” to being different than a poly/open-relationship. As I understand there’s an element of deception or lack of communication when it comes to “cheating.”