On three separate occasions over the past 3 weeks, I’ve found myself engaged in conversation, with women, surrounding the myth of male fidelity. Two of the times it was with co-workers –who know me fairly well, and the other time was with people who’ve known me for a while and whom I’d consider friends.
The conversations started out centering on the normal Mars/Venus type debates. Unfailingly, at some point, one of the ladies would find a reason to assert the ideology that “All men cheat”.
Before we continue, I want you guys to stop reading for a second, and answer the question for yourself: Do all men cheat?
Back to the conversation. For some reason – possibly a sort of male solidarity – that assumption, that all men cheat, didn’t sit right with me. My first response was to attack what I saw as an extreme generalization. Usually, when a large generalization of that sort is made, the person who made the statement will back a way a little when prodded. Not on the issue of male fidelity – when I said – “you can’t mean all men!?”, the response was “yes, all men cheat”. My next response was to try to frame the question. I figured that it was easy to make a general statement like that, when you aren’t attaching a face to the cheater…
“So that means, you think that I’m going to cheat”. The response, in all three conversations – with my co-workers, and with my friends- was the same…”Yes, you’re going to eventually cheat”. This was news to me. I agreed, that it was in a man’s nature to, at some point, desire companionship outside of their relationship. I always thought that desire could be quelled through discipline and hard work. I found myself humorously wondering - what was I waiting for – if I’m going to cheat anyway, I might as well stop wasting time and get started now, while I’m still in my prime…lol.
Seriously though, here I am speaking with young, successful, career oriented women of color, who have everything to offer, and not a single reason to desire anything but the best, but have essentially accepted infidelity as a natural component of romantic relationships. And therein lays the rub: the acceptance. When you answer the question “do all men cheat” with a “yes”, and then enter into a relationship with man, that “yes” still intact, you are – in some ways telling him that it’s ok to cheat.
Imagine this scenario: You’ve been dating a guy for 3 or 4 months and the two of you are just starting to contemplate making the step toward commitment. In the course of dating, you have what seem like fun, harmless conversations like the one we’re having now, and at some point, you express to him nonchalantly, your belief that all men cheat. Three months later you guys decide you’re going to be in a serious, monogamous, relationship. He’s probably not thinking about cheating, at first, but as the relationship progresses, the newness wears off and temptation starts rearing it’s ugly head (as it always does) – the fact that he knows – somewhere in the back of his mind – that you expect him to cheat, is not going to be a helpful deterrent – on the contrary.
Send some feedback, and we’ll continue this discussion with part 2 in the coming days…
July 11th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I think you’re right. It’s all about what you expect. I am a 35 year old Black man, married for 11 years. In our parent’s generation, it was generally EXPECTED that most marriages should stay together. Everyone had problems, but the expectation was that people would work out their problems.
Now, the unspoken expectation is that its ok to get a divorce at the first sign of trouble. The divorce rate is ASTRONOMICAL.
Same thing with infidelity. We cannot allow negative thoughts to dictate our thinking. Of course I have been tempted with the desire to see other women outside of the marriage but my desire to raise a strong Black family is greater than my desire to ruin it.
July 12th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Part 2?
September 18th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Females speak about men going out of their relationship to cheat, but in reality females do it too…difference is females and males cheat for different reasons…
Some females just need to stop pointing the fingers…
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
This is not specific to any topic necessarily, I am a black male, & I just want to make a comment, over the years I have watched & listened to many programs, whether they were radio or tv shows, and many of the shows were not dealing with anything to do with black issues necessarily. I just wanted to ask this question. Why is it that whether I am a show on black issues or not, black people male or female, is always mentioning the fact they work & or went to college or have a job. Why don’t other groups mention these things when describing themselves or their situation. I as the listener could care less if the person descrbiing their issue went to college or is currently married or not. Y can’t black people just describe whatever they are having a problem with & just keep their person/educational acomplishments to themselves & simply describe the problem.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
To answer this question as a black man without getting into my educatonal background & whether or not I WORK (I DO BTW)) No all black men don’t cheat I don’t but my woman has in the past, don’t know if she is now I don’t snoop on her, thats not my style, but I don’t feel the need to get revenge & I never have felt the need to get revenge. I told her & I still tell her, just because you may have cheated does no mean I have to do the same, & I don;t feel the need to check on her cause I aint a private eye or her daddy. I am the sort of guy, who is into the things I like to do, ie WORKING OUT whether at home or at ballys, sports specifically footballl, cloths for me (shopping for myself)I don’t have time to focus on ANYBODY else & what they may or may not be doing. I am the most important person to me, maybe if most men thought like that, there would be less stalkers out here & less abuse of the ladies. She can leave me if she wants to, she works, she makes good money & so do I so life can go on without her if she wants to leave me for some other dude. The way my mind works & I tell her this, it would hurt, but I could get over it, because I am into ME so I can get over some one leaving me in a relationship. See sometimes its good to be stuck on yourself.