The State of Affairs summary

Most people build their identities around relationships. Love, partnership, trust – without them, most of us would be utterly lost. An act of infidelity can call these things into question and shake the very foundations of our identities.

Indeed, that’s why infidelity hurts: it threatens our sense of self.

Literature is full of love and betrayal – and, of course, jealousy. Indeed, jealousy propels the plots of many classics, from Euripides’s Medea to Shakespeare’s Othello. So why do Western self-help books that purport to address all aspects of love and betrayal leave out this crucial component?

Well, in Western society, jealousy has become taboo.

In the West, love and lies are often seen as mutually exclusive. If you’re in a committed relationship, you cannot lie to your partner, especially not about infidelity. It might be painful, but, no matter what, it’s your moral duty to come clean.

This, at least, is what we’ve learned to believe – but it’s rarely so cut-and-dried.

If you’re unfaithful, there must be something wrong with the relationship you’re in, right? Maybe you and your partner aren’t the perfect match. Otherwise, why would you stray?

It may seem counterintuitive, but infidelity isn’t always a symptom of an unhappy relationship. In fact, you can be contentedly partnered and still have an affair.

It may sound strange, but it’s not unheard of: an otherwise stellar and exemplary spouse, rather than having sex with his or her loving partner, starts visiting sex workers.

Why would someone do this? Why would someone in an apparently harmonious relationship pay for sex?

Infidelity is often regarded as the apotheosis of moral failure. As the Bible says, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” No other sin works this way. Infidelity is the only sin that you can commit by merely thinking about it.

Westerners have inherited this Judeo-Christian ethic. Indeed, we tend to regard infidelity as the ultimate form of betrayal.

The word “relationship” tends to conjure images of a somewhat traditional arrangement: two people who are exclusively committed to each other and who, sometimes, struggle to stay faithful.

But this is by no means the only model available. Indeed, plenty of people have proposed alternatives to the monogamous approach to partnership, and one of the most popular counter-proposals is consensual non-monogamy.