All the brouhaha over Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert’s divorce got me to thinking….
Side note: I really don’t care one bit about their divorce. Personally, any time a marriage is held up to the spotlight as fairy tale perfect like theirs was, you’ve got a recipe for disaster. But I digress.
There are rumors that Miranda cheated on Blake, and there are rumors that Blake cheated on Miranda. So it sounds like there was cheating involved. Probably not a shocker. It is almost universally assumed that if a spouse cheats, a divorce is soon to follow. But does it have to? Is infidelity an absolute deal breaker?
My husband and I long ago made a deal that if either one of us ever cheated on the other, we would never, ever tell each other that we cheated. We both really believe that telling your spouse you cheated is only to relieve the cheating party from their guilty conscience, and if you cheated, you should have to live with that guilt as your consequence for cheating.
Some people think that’s a ridiculous deal. They talk about vows and honesty. I get that. I made vows on my wedding day just like everyone else did. And if I screwed up those vows, I have to live with that for the rest of my life. And don’t get me started on honesty. Honesty is the best policy? I call BS. How many little white lies do we tell every day? Sometimes honesty is just plain mean and hurtful and should not be spoken aloud. Case in point: I’m a teacher. But I’m also human. Do you think I like every single kid I have encountered in my 25 year career? But more importantly — do you think any kid I didn’t like KNOWS I felt that way about him or her? Absolutely not. How crappy would it be to be honest and tell a kid or a kid’s parent that I kinda find a kid annoying? Some things deserve to be tucked away and never spoken of.
So, what if one day my husband changed his mind and decided to come clean and tell me he cheated or I discover it because he didn’t cover his tracks appropriately? (For the record: he has NOT cheated on me — or at least, he has covered his tracks really well if he has!) I can tell you, the way I feel right now at my kitchen table typing this, it would hurt but it’s not a deal breaker. I’ve spent almost 25 years married to this guy, more than 25 years being in a relationship with him, a bit over 21 years raising a child with him, and if I’m being truthful, about 3 years being really, really great friends with him. I want to scrap all that over sex? I’d rather understand what led to the infidelity and then figure out how to keep that from happening again. My marriage is made up of so much more than just sex. The history is too rich to let one thing destroy it.
Maybe Blake and Miranda don’t have that because they were only married for 4 years. Maybe there isn’t enough glue there to keep them from breaking apart. But I think that glue comes not from the years put into the relationship but the attitude a person takes about the relationship. Divorce should not be taken lightly. Sure, there are some things that are big “nopes” in my marriage. If my husband was an abusive asshole, he’s getting a big ol’ goodbye. But I’ve never had the attitude that my marriage is disposable, even in the early years, which were kind of rough for us. I’ve never thought of infidelity as a reason to end my marriage.
Maybe that’s just me. And maybe I’m an idiot about this. But it seems to me that there really are worse things.
The View from the Cheap Seats 
All i can say to this is that you don’t know what it is like until it happens to you. You don’t know how you would react to something like this. I was completely unprepared for amount of hurt involved. It isn’t just about sex, the pain and devastation that is caused by infidelity is unliveable. I think you should visit some of the blogs by betrayed spouses to see what I am referring to.
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You are absolutely correct. I don’t know what it is like because I have never been through it. I may feel completely different if it does. It is a huge violation of trust. For some people, divorce might be the best option. For some, divorce might not be. I don’t think anyone is wrong if they choose to divorce as that is very much a personal decision. But I also don’t think infidelity MUST end with divorce, either.
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It’s usually not even the sex it’s the person you trusted most in the world lying to you – to your face over and over again making you doubt everything – that’s what hurts the most, you end up wondering ‘who is this person?!’
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I can absolutely see that.
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Also maybe what you’re saying might work for a one off night stands but if it turns into a full blown ongoing affair it will start to affect your relationship that’s when you’ll start wondering what the heck is going on and want to know everything!
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My initial response was “Who the fuck are Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert?” Then I realized, I don’t care.
While I understand the underlying gist of what you’re saying, at the same time – you’re relying on internal guilt to be punishment enough for cheating. I just don’t see that as being a deterring factor; at least not with (most) guys. It seems as you both have a permanent open door policy so as long as you hide it really, really, well.
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Yes, I am assuming guilt is enough. But even if it isn’t, I just don’t see any reason to “come clean” since all it does is hurt the other person. Just keep it to oneself and whenever the cheater feels shitty for cheating, well, good. It’s interesting that you said it sounds like we have an open door policy. I guess I never thought that it sounds that way! But I operate on the assumption that Jim is going to stay faithful, and I operate on the assumption that I am staying faithful. There’s no expectation that either of us will go on the prowl. But we do have the agreement that if we do, nobody says anything. It is entirely possible that I am simply talking out my ass on all of this. Lord knows it has happened before.
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