When one aspires to write articles for women’s magazines, one has to sometimes buy and read those women’s magazines. I think that is quite a logical assumption. So lately I’ve been strolling through the magazine section of any store I was in, looking for a good chick-lit-like, glossy magazine to buy.
Amazingly every cover has been screaming about the same theme for a long long time:
“Monogamy, an overrated illusion”
“The drunken mistake: why you should never tell him”
“Me and my boyfriend: non-exclusive but happy”
“The secret fling before you walk the aisle”
Every issue of every magazine I saw offered at least one or two articles about infidelity, unfaithfulness, not being monogamous, cheating. And weirdly enough not about how to take revenge on your misbehaving partner, but how to simply deal with it, even that we should just accept it. I was intrigued at first, but then I got pretty furious.
I’m not naïve. I don’t believe you should desperately wait for the love of your life before you ever lay a finger on anyone: I’m a serial monogamist. I know things happen sometimes. I know the statistics. What was it again? 70 percent of us have cheated at least once in our lives. I’m also aware of the fact I’m probably hiding for a certain truth. But should I be prepared for, no, more like brainwashed and conditioned to accept such a thing before it even happens?
Do I need to be taught how the shit smells, long before either my boyfriend or I are unable to resist pooing?
I was raised with, or maybe even born with, the vision that the purpose of a woman is to love and serve her man. And vice versa. This ideal does not involve cheating. In any way. Physical non-exclusivity is a serious problem, if not a deal breaker. Secretly fancying someone else is something that warns you something needs to be done in your relationship. It’s something that should be left to fade as time goes by, not something to act on.
I recall a conversation I once had.
I asked: “What if you’ve simply really fallen in love with someone else?”
“My man will have to accept the risk of losing me and will have to fight for me,” she answered.
No way! You will have to accept the fact there’s a huge risk he will leave YOU for it. And that you will have to fight for HIM to stay. I expect I’ll need to grovel, cry, crawl for Matt if ever such a situation would occur. And I will make him do the same if it was the other way around.
Even more fascinating: why is infidelity such an issue these days? And why do we apparently want to be told that it is not such a big deal?
Are we so scared of losing our loved ones that we have started to accept unfaithfulness in advance? To soften the blow? Do we think so low of our own will power and loyalty that we have started to accept the fact that we will probably fail? That we won’t be able to control our own physical desires?
Being brainwashed like this only leads to being numbed into a certain kind of indifference. And exactly this indifference provokes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you stop caring whether he (or she, I know…) cheats on you or not, then why would he care if he does? If you don’t seem to be bothered by your partner’s feelings and actions, then why would he?
I’m sick of us accepting things just because they ‘are’. Have we stopped cherishing ideals about love? Who could possibly benefit from constantly being told that there is no such thing like true fairytale love? Who would not get depressed at first and indifferent in the end?
Well, fuck the statistics. Fuck those magazines. Fuck all the apathy concerning the intention of eternal love and affection. Fuck everybody in a relationship that only thinks ‘me, me, me’ instead of ‘us, us, us’. Fuck the fact that this so-called ‘realism’ scatters people’s dreams and hopes on love. Fuck it all.
Because I believe. I believe in true love that lasts a lifetime without the interference of uninvited third parties. I believe that true love results in infinite happiness and is something to fight for. I will do anything to have it and to maintain it. I will show the world what love can be.
So instead of a women’s mag I decided to buy myself one of those opinion periodicals. I went home, gave Matt a beer and a kiss and got to reading my magazine. It was quite alright.
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I completely agree Cecile! These people are writing from a very narrow perspective that doesn’t view the rest of the world. I believe that you may have more than one great love out there, but when you find one of them you hold on to them forever.
And as Tim Gunn would say, “Make it work!”…..
Left by Ashlie on Monday, December 10th, 2007