Reminder: While I'm sure _some_ users on Ashley Madison betrayed faithful spouses who thought their marriage was a sacred contract, it won't have been that way in all cases or even a supermajority of cases. I'm not just talking about explicitly recognized open marriages. In many kinds of "monogamous" marriage there are socially obligatory lies, expected and demanded by the listener, among people mostly driven by conventions who would be very unlikely to sit down and work out an exotic and unusual way to be honest with each other. So everyone in the Ashley Madison datadump remains innocent of actual ethical violations until proven guilty.
Yes, contracts are sacred to me, but a contract requires contractual capacity. Children are not committing betrayals when they lie to parents who hold all the cards and power, they are acting as their parents force them to act. If a police officer asks 'Do you know what speed you were going?' and you answer 'No' then you are hardly deceiving them or betraying the innocent trust that they held in you; you are responding to a governing system that has chosen to impose punishments for being naive enough and socially unskilled enough to tell the truth in a place where honesty and trust doesn't enter into it.
I don't really understand what a relationship looks like when there's all these things that people tacitly know and aren't supposed to admit, or when A knows B knows X but A doesn't know that B knows that A knows that B knows X. But I know that a whole lot of marriages were never built on innocent trust and sacred bargains to begin with... and that this is a normal state of affairs for human beings.
In particular, please don't go gloating over $EnemyX being revealed to have an Ashley Madison account, on pain of my rolling my eyes pretty hard especially when you start sanctimonizing about how very, very wrong cheating is in general.
Now if open relationships were openly considered normal and total sexual monogamy was a special commitment that had to be renewed every 3 years for a $100 fee, then the people signed up for Ashley Madison would indeed be much more evil on average. And there wouldn't be 28 million of them. A law that half the population disobeys isn't a law, it's a pretense hiding the real rules, and this is as true for marriage as marijuana.
Are you proposing between-the-lin
Yes, all marriages and relationships are different and have their own implicit clauses added to the contract, and in some there's a 'don't ask don't tell' attitude to infidelity. But you know if you're in that kind of marriage of relationship, and if you're not sure, you're probably not.
Consider a situation in which I am married but am, for whatever reason, interested in sex and/or romance with someone other than my spouse, and have the following options, which I honestly believe have a high likelihood of leading to certain outcomes.
1) I could remain faithful to my spouse. However, I fear that my resentment for not being able to pursue other relationship(s)
2) I can communicate my exact situation and desires to my spouse. However, I fear that it will be too great a burden on my spouse, and I doubt my/their/our ability to successfully process the sort of hurt feelings, insecurity, distrust, jealousy, etc that I expect will arise, and so it seems likely the marriage will eventually fall apart.
Now, I know, many would either say that we would either be able to sort through the emotional complexities of 1 or 2, or we shouldn't be married. That's easy to say. I myself am pretty prone to saying it. But, when I remind myself that option 3 exists (at least, I'm highly willing to believe that many cheaters honestly believe this option exists):
3) I indulge in the sexual and/or romantic relationship I desire, without telling my spouse. I honestly believe it is possible to keep my spouse in the dark, thus sparing their feelings, and I honestly believe that this affair will allow me to be a better spouse, as I am happy and satisfied in ways I otherwise wouldn't be. My marriage survives cleanly, and everyone is happier for it.
Like, make what arguments you will against the beliefs/
(Sudden temptation to ramble about Battlestar Galactica and various attitudes towards marriage contained within only barely averted)
