[troutman]

Originally Posted by Torture

Heard him on the radio this morning. I see what he's trying to say, and if you've talked about it with your partner and it works for you, that's great for you. I don't know that I agree though.

One of his comments was that what you look for in a relationship (safe, comfortable, etc) is the opposite of what you're aroused by (risk, something new, etc) so most couples set themselves up for failure. He figured if you each only cheat on the other 2-3 times over the course of your marriage you're doing pretty well.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but that doesn't really sit well with me. I see marriage as a lifetime commitment (for better or worse) and sleeping with whomever gets you excited and saying you "only did it 2-3 times....and hey, you did it too!" doesn't seem like much of a commitment or very respectful of the person you love.

I refer to Joseph Campbell often:


“Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair is a totally different thing. A marriage is a commitment to that which you are. That person is literally your other half. And you and the other are one. A love affair isn't that. That is a relationship for pleasure, and when it gets to be unpleasurable, it's off. But a marriage is a life commitment, and a life commitment means the prime concern of your life. If marriage is not the prime concern, you're not married....The Puritans called marriage "the little church within the Church." In marriage, every day you love, and every day you forgive. It is an ongoing sacrament – love and forgiveness.... Like the yin/yang symbol....Here I am, and here she is, and here we are. Now when I have to make a sacrifice, I'm not sacrificing to her, I'm sacrificing to the relationship. Resentment against the other one is wrongly placed. Life in in the relationship, that's where your life now is. That's what a marriage is – whereas, in a love affair, you have two lives in a more or less successful relationship to each other for a certain length of time, as long as it seems agreeable.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth