Unfaithfulness to whom, to which, to what?
January 30, 2007
First of all I must say I have had more wine glasses than is decent, but my mind is quite clear nevertheless. Or at least that is how I feel.
We have been hearing and reading how faithfulness is a trait we all must preserve. How we must be faithful to our partner, to our country, to our family, to our friends, to our whatever. And that is something that deserves our profound consideration.
Must we?
Is our partner, our country, our family, or are our friends, or is our whatever, worth being faithful to? Are we sure we must be on the alert just in case our everyody as detailed above is in need of our help? Or must we consider ourselves individuals with a clear conscience that we must take care mainly and exclusively of ourselves? Are we afraid that people around us think we are selfish and therefore we behave in a way to convince those people that we are not? Or are we conscious that we care a fig what those people think of us?
Sociology is a science someone invented to study the people’s relations and their sociological counterparts, and those in charge of developing that science are believed to understand those subjects destined to their analysis. Nothing farther from the reality.
In principle we are all not loyal. Loyalties are determined by the degree of love a person may feel for another person, so loyalty may disappear simultaneously to the disappearance of that particular love. So may we liken loyalty to love?
I think that in fact they are the same and one coincidental trait. Love must be a partner of loyalty. But is it so?
Yes, it is. If a person loves another person, truly love her/him, then that love carries implicitly along the sense of loyalty, otherwise it is not love, or is it?
We can be faithful and love. But is the love f0r a partner complicit with loyalty? Is that coexistence, or rather must be that coexistence synonym with loyalty? Or must that love be so exclusive as to dismiss any temptations that may jeopardise loyalties?
Are there moments when we forget love and loyalty? If so why?
As I said at the beginning may be I am staggering off the path of my thoughts. If so, my sincere apologies.
Political, Human, Environmental Respect 
What have you been up to, Jose ?!
Great to see you posting again – drunk or not !
Well, Richard, I was just joking. You may know I cannot drink too much because of my heart. But I just celebrated in my way those expressions of friendship I got here.
Thank you again, friend.
Wow some big questions there Jose.
We do forget our loyalties sometimes. Man, I fear, is condemned to weakness.
Good stuff, good read. Food for thought. Thanks and nice to have you back again 🙂
Thank you, friends, for your kind words.
“This above all – to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
– SHAKESPEARE: “Hamlet” I.iii
Sometimes, when we’ve had a glass or two, it’s easier to speak from the heart.
I think we have to be loyal and true to ourselves before we can be those things for our loved ones. Sadly, many of us are not loyal to our own feelings and therefore, we are never truly fulfilled.
So glad to see you’re blogging again Jose.
I like that, Earthpal – couldn’t have put it better. Thanks.
You’re welcome Richard. Thanks.
Yes, Earthpal. Because if we know and are loyal with ourselves it will be easier to know and be loyal to our family and friends, and if you press me, anyone else.
But an aspect of loyalty is the sine-qua-non condition that it must be mutual, I am as always speaking under my point of view, and honesty is a main trait in this connection. We must be honest to ourselves and to everybody else we are in communion with, in the first place, but those “everybody else” must also be honest to us.
I have the great asset that so far my friends here have honesty as their main identity, and that is priceless.
No apologies needed Jose.
Intoxicants are a blessing that open the mind (sometimes). In this case I think so.
I think we are loyal, and faithfull to ourselves ultimately. I think we are programed genetically and inclined environmentally to look out for number one first, above all else.
Unless of course, we love someone or something so intrinsically, that they or it become just as important or even more important to “us” than ourselves.
I made sure not to read the comments here before myself commenting on this thread…. And now after reading them I’m left with the feeling that you guys and gals are pretty smart cookies… I must say. Howdy.
Good topic Jose.
If we could all love each other the way we “should” love ourselves the world would be an easier place to live in for sure.
Peace.
You make me think with your post, 1 loneranger. Because it deserves a longer consideration than at this time of the morning, here, I will be able to do. I promise to deal with it later in the day, perhaps better for you because of the time lag between GMT (my time) and your US time.
See you.
1. Partner
2. Own children
3. Friends
4. Family
Would that be the scale of precedence? In all the cases, as you well say in your post, 1loneranger, I also think genetics has much to say, but if we consider it in a general way – which is very difficult to assert – then the order of one’s affection and love might remain as I itemise above.
There are indeed very many cases to also be considered, so many that it should require the knowledge of an excellent psychologist and I am afraid I am not anybody even approaching those qualifications, but what I can say is what I have observed along my 73 years of life.
Depending on the degree of closeness to the loved person your loyalty could be unconditional or conditional. In the case of partner and children, the former in normal circumstances the latter in all cases – that loyalty would be completely unselfish and irrespective of anything that is not sheer love.
In the two remaining cases, i.e. friends and family, I would say that, generally speaking, loyalties are dependent on what we receive and give, and the exchange should be permanent, otherwise links would be broken and become mere acquaintances.
And, yes, I agree with you that if we loved one another then the world would be more peaceful and worth living.
We can dream, can’t we?
Man, I am having a great time talking with you wonderful people.
Dream away………… It is all we really have to ourselves.
partner
kids
friends
family
I’ve been giving a lot of thought about the order of the first two. Being married with no children….. I’ve often wondered if the link with my offspring will become stronger than the link with my partner.
After all, they will be blood and my partner (as far as I know…. I didn’t grow up in West Virginia after all) is not blood. ( That was a bad American joke, that might not come across here, we’ll see )
This idea of producing children and that respective bond becoming stronger to me than the bond with my spouse has made me tentative about having these hypothetical children. I’m very possesive of the bond I have with my wife and wouldn’t want that to diminish with the introduction of children.
However, I am beginning to realize that that bond with my wife will become even stronger after making a child together. But, I haven’t been there yet…… so I’m not sure what it will look like. All I can do is observe others around me………….. and frankely, that hasn’t left me with a great sense of opitimism. But, as someone wiser than myself once said…
I ‘yam what I ‘yam. We’ll have to wait and see.
Sorry if this has gotten off topic and into the personal realm so fast ladies and gents….. the bond thing just got me thinking.
It makes me think of Chimp and Bonobo societies. Chimp societies are patriarchal and male chimps kill each others’ offspring. As well only higher level male chimps have the “right” to procreate with the females.
Conversely, Bonobo societies are matriarchal and every one has sex with every one else. I mean everyone else….. dudes on dudes.. gals on gals and everything in between. There is not much murder and warring in Bonobo societies…….. there is quite a bit in Chimpland.
I think it goes without saying which is more likely a happier, more tolerant and more productive society…
If we speak of these things, 1loneranger, we must in a veiled way or just openly introduce in them our experience, so no worries about you doing the same.
As a man twice married with four children born of the first marriage and none of the second one, I gather in myself both situations. The first marriage was not solidly bonded so the children did not help in making it more solid, on the contrary they were another cause of dissenssion.
The key factor in a marriage couple is that that bond be so strong that whatever comes after will only contribute it to be still stronger. If what comes after is children or if it is only difficult, hard times. What you see about you that discourages you from having children is no other thing than what I say exemplified.
My mistake was wanting children to consolidate a marriage that was already sentenced to failure.
Among animals it is normal that a new male partner kills the offspring of the old one. It also happens with lions as I have been able to see recently in a documentary of the National Geographic Society. It seems the new “lord” wants no impediments to his love-making affair. Conversely I have seen many human marriages in the same circumstances where the male partner gets to love his wife’s children of another marriage. This circumstance is not so clear when it is the husband who takes his children to the new marriage, mainly if his children are female.
In conclusion I would say that once the marriage bonds are believed to be perfectly consolidated is when the couple should start making arrangements to procreate.
But as always happens with the human being, our intelligence is not really our forte. In love matters, as is natural, it is the heart that commands.
Wow, thank you for sharing those thoughts with me. I will have to chew on them for a while. Also, it is time to take said wife out for the Valentine’s feast.
Cheers
I am pleased I can be of help to you. Enjoy your time.
Jose,
I am again very appreciative of those words about marriage you’ve shared. Thank you. It was wonderful how you wound up coming back essentially to ‘the heart’ at your conclusion.
I can only respond to the final message…… I assume the heart commands, yet it is not always the most wise command?
The neat things with the Chimps and Bonobos is they are such similar animals. My wife mentioned to me on our walk to dinner that what makes Bonobos more tolerant than the Chimps however, is a gene that is unique to Bonobos and Humans which expresses compassion. I find this quite fascinating in relation to faithfulness and/or Unfaithfulness.
And lastly, being a child of divorce I have observed first hand the ‘consolidation in marriage’ of which you speak.
It is tuff.
Thanks again.
Yes, unfortunately you are right, the heart is not always wise.
I looked up the internet and found this site on bonobos and other apes which I though would interest you
http://williamcalvin.com/teaching/bonobo.htm
I thank you for the information about that special compassive gene shared by both bonobos and humans.
Which may be another start for a new thread.
Thanks for your kind words.
Jose,
Thanks for the link. It is quite interesting. I’ve passed it along to my wife.
Cheers
ps, I see we are getting some coverage on CBC of the start to the trial in Spain today.
My question is, is it the heart or the hormones? Or does one affect the other? What is a ‘soulmate’ attraction to some and not to others, with which looks has nothing to do? Is that still hormones or something much deeper? Why does one arouse our basest desires and another simply a platonic friendship feeling?
Well, let me throw this into the mix. My old mentor who I knew from childhood said something once that never left me: You can lose everything but never lose your integrity If you lose that, you have nothing. (I quote if differently at different times but that’s the main body and the core idea).
At any rate, in that case, I guess we need to define ‘integrity’ don’t we…or do we? I think most of us know when we are bordering too closely on losing it. Staying away from people or things that bring us into the danger zone seems to be the wisest course to avoid heartache later.
Well, CZE, in my opinion it is always the brain, that delicate network up there on top of our body that regulates everything we do or feel. I’ve heard very often that human matching is a question of chemistry, perhaps it is in that that hormones would have much to say, but as to a continuous relationship with all a relationship carries along, that is maybe something deeper. I cannot explain and I believe nobody else can how a union between two persons comes to be effectively attained. There is a series of circumstances sine qua non that contribute to it. But eventually one other phenomenom of our existence. As is also a phenomenom the intensity with which we love because we cannot give any explanation, we are limited to saying that “we love” and that is all.
And yes integrity, moral integrity, is definitive in loyalties.
My opinion of course.
By the way I remember once I saw a film where one of the members of a couple said to the other : “I love you dearly”; and the other answerd: “Then you don’t love me as you should because love does not bear any further complement, I love you, simply I love you, is what would have shown me that you really do”.
And to me it is true, the word “love” is enough to express one’s feelings.
Or at least so I believe.
Very interesting read!
Well, I can tell you this. Only one time in over 20 years of marriage have I been tempted to be unfaithful and that was a great temptation and one I never would have seen coming. Fortunately, through discussing what was going on in my mind and heart honestly with my husband, I avoided big-time heartache. The person would not have been someone I was drawn to physically. In this case, I think it was the absolutely overwhelming intellect, the cultural attractiveness, and the intense pursuit by someone who was way beyond me in terms of IQ, achievement and abilities. In other words, he wowed me and I’m not easily wowed. It was a good lesson, though, in what is possible when you are in a vulnerable situation in any way.
I haven’t seen you personally but I dare say you are too honest to be unfaithful. It’s easy to observe that after your posts. I have read so many of your posts after one year or so that it’s unthinkable to have a different view on your honesty.
Well, Jose, we all have our secrets but it’s true: I tend to spill my guts even when inappropriate.
Yes, character is partly inherited genetically, but surely for each individual it depends most of all upon the start they had in life as babies and very small children. If they are treated consistently and reliably, they will respond with trust, which is the basis of loyalty. If they are loved, they will grow up as loving and loveable people, but if they are ill-treated and abused they will become aggressive and anti-social. It’s obvious, really. One of the best discussions of love is Erich Fromm’s “The Art of Loving”.