Why Do Partners Cheat?
Questioner: Namaste, Acharya ji. Actually, I’ve one question for my friend, she didn’t want to reveal her identity. She just wants to ask that what should we do if a partner is cheating on us? My question is: when should we decide to stop putting effort into a relationship and let the other person go, even in friendship?
Acharya Prashant: What is the definition of cheating? Cheating, by its very sound, conveys something inauspicious, something harmful and unethical. What is the definition of cheating?
Questioner: In her case, it’s like making a commitment to her while being with someone else.
Acharya Prashant: Commitment of what nature? What does it mean to 'be with someone else?'
Questioner: Means if I’m committing someone that…
Acharya Prashant: That?
Questioner: I will be totally.., the commitment will.., means my commitment is for you, and I…
Acharya Prashant: Commitment of what kind? Commitment of money? What?
Questioner: No, that I will be for you, and nobody else would be a part of my life.
Acharya Prashant: In what way? In, in, in what way, “I’ll be for you?”
Questioner: In a romantic way, of course.
Acharya Prashant: What does romance mean? I want to understand. When we say, 'I’m committed,' and when I say, 'The fellow is cheating,' what exactly does the act of cheating comprise of? When do you conclusively know that a fellow is cheating?
Questioner: If I’m not being true to that person.
Acharya Prashant: No, no, these are big words. Let’s come to the fact.
Questioner: Lies.
Acharya Prashant: What is the very definition of cheating?
Questioner: Lies.
Acharya Prashant: If somebody lies to you, would you say he is cheating? Come on. Your husband or wife lies to you all the time, that’s a fact, do you say the fellow is cheating? No. No. No. Even kids lie to their parents all the time, are they cheating? No. What is the definition of cheating? And why do you want to avoid the obvious definition?
The fellow is with someone in a physical way. The fellow is sleeping with someone— that’s what you call as cheating, right?
Questioner: Yeah. Yeah.
Acharya Prashant: The fellow is sleeping with someone. So, why? Why did we avoid it for so long? Lies or romance, all that, is not the thing.
So, a fellow is with someone else, and that’s breaking the commitment, the commitment that was a part of the marriage vows. So, what were the marriage vows about, then? What is, what is the whole institution of marriage about, then? If cheating is about having sex with someone, and that breaks the commitment of marriage, then what is the marriage about? What is the marriage about?
Will it take us an equal length of time to come to the obvious again? What is, what is marriage about, then?
Questioner: That, I’ll be with you only.
Acharya Prashant: No, 'with you'— what does 'with you only' mean? Let’s use the word — sex. So, marriage, basically, means that now onwards, I’ll have sex only with you. Was this a clear understanding?
Questioner: Yes.
Acharya Prashant: Was this the clear understanding: that marriage, basically, means nothing else but that I’ll have sex only with you? And if that is the foundation of marriage, it’s a very shaky foundation because sex is not merely physical. More often than not, you will not even discover when your spouse is having non-physical sex with someone.
What else is pornography? Do married people don’t watch porn? That too, would come under the definition of cheating. Do married people not enjoy an actress’s body on the silver screen? You’re watching a movie with your husband or your girlfriend, is he not enjoying all the gyrations on the screen? And the way she is going about doing her attractive and lascivious business? That, too, is cheating, by that definition.
Marriage that is founded on the body itself is bound to suffer from cheating, and that is the punishment such a marriage deserves. Why did you marry on the foundation of the body alone? What you are saying is, “Our marriage means — you have sex with me, I have sex with you, and it’s exclusive. You will not go to someone else; I’ll not go to someone else.” You can have such an agreement but this agreement cannot last.
But, the breaking of this kind of agreement will give a lot of pain. That pain is the punishment. It’s a punishment for not understanding where that kind of agreement came from in the first place? Why will I go to someone and say, “You know, your job in life is to have sex only with me?” It’s such an indecent thing to say to someone.
“Today onwards, you’ll have sex only with me; and in return, I’ll have sex only with you,” it’s a highly vulgar thing to say to someone. Why did you start off in this particular way, that’s the question in the first place. And if you start off this way, you will meet the pain of cheating.
And I said, “Cheating is not merely when you are caught sleeping with the neighbour’s wife or with the pizza delivery boy,” you know what I mean. Men will understand better. Everybody is cheating all the time; just that some forms of cheating are more tolerable. You cannot keep objecting to everything, you know.
You went with your hubby to the market, and he was found peeping down the salesgirl’s cleavage, you cannot serve him a divorce notice merely on that because he is anyway doing that all the time. Even with the housemaid, he is doing the same thing. Is that not cheating? This kind of cheating is the punishment for not understanding where our social institutions are coming from.
If a man and a woman have to be together, they must be together on the foundation of love and friendship, not on the basis of this kind of a vulgar commitment. And if love is really fulfilling, if friendship is really uplifting, you find that most probably, the two people will have fewer and fewer reasons to look elsewhere.
If I’m already fulfilled, and do you know 'who I am?' I am an unfulfilled consciousness in the first place. If I am with someone who is serving to fulfil my deepest need, which is not sex, man’s deepest need is not sexual. By man, I mean both man and woman, the human need. Our deepest need is the veiling of our consciousness — the unfulfilled consciousness.
So, bring someone into your life who serves to heal your consciousness, and then you will find that you have, as we said, fewer reasons to look towards other people. But if you will marry someone just on the basis of the body, that fellow is 99% certain to look for other bodies as well because one body can never satisfy anybody. Thousand bodies, even they cannot satisfy anybody because satisfaction cannot come from bodies. Even thousand bodies will not suffice.
What do you think, one extramarital affair brings the need to have affairs to a closure? No. It’s a spree, extramarital spree, not one extramarital affair. Because your wife didn’t satisfy you or your husband didn’t satisfy you, even the neighbour’s wife cannot satisfy you. You go to some other country and find five other women, even they cannot satisfy you, nobody, because your satisfaction belongs to another dimension — bodies cannot provide that.
You’re looking for someone else but you married by looking at someone’s body. At that moment, the bodies were probably quite young and luscious. So, you could extract a promise from the other—“You know, you look at my body. How do you find it?” And he says, “Top class.” Say, “I will give you my body only if you do not look at other bodies,” and the fellow will say, “Fine, fine, fine.”
In that moment of physical excitation, probably, he will give you that promise, you have, you have extracted it from him, but that promise will be very easily forgotten because, you know, how much can the body amount to? The problem is the marriage itself. And even deeper problem is the one who is marrying. Not only is his marriage flawed, everything that he does is equally flawed.
He does not know even how to buy socks. He does not know how to get the right pair of jeans for himself, how will he get the right wife for himself? This fellow who is going out in the market to marry is not well within. He does not know how to make choices. From the smallest choice to the biggest one, all his choices are flawed. And all his choices are physical, that’s why they are flawed.
Anything that he does is based on physicality. Marriage is based on physicality. And later on, he starts crying, “My wife is sleeping with someone else.” There is no solution. This kind of cheating is the obvious result of the flawed arrangement called the blind marriage. I’m not surprised when someone says, “My partner is cheating,” I’m surprised when someone says, “You know, my partner is very loyal.” I say, “How innocent are you! How innocent! May you stay innocent.” As they say, “Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is bliss.”
And those who have not managed to lay their hands on the neighbour’s wife are just afraid of her husband. The moment the opportunity presents itself, nobody is going to resist it, take it from me. Those who have managed to behave in a moral way, are the ones who have been denied of opportunities. Given an opportunity, who would not avail it? Man, woman does not matter, everybody except the one who is no more looking for a body.
Be the one who is no more hunting for a body. And then neither will you stake an exclusive claim to your partner’s body nor would you be found running after your neighbour’s wife. You would be free, your partner would be free, and both of you would be holding your freedom very sacred. You will not want to use your freedom for something as frivolous as sleeping with someone.
Sounds counterintuitive, does it not? We believe that if we want to have moral action from a human being, we must put restrictions on him — totally wrong. If you want ethical action from a human being, give him freedom.
If you give him restrictions, the result will be cheating. If you give him freedom, the result will be celibacy. Celibacy is the natural and beautiful result of absolute freedom.
When you have restrictions, then you somehow want to violate restrictions, don’t you? In fact, the pleasure lies not in the neighbour’s wife but in the fact that you scale the fence, and jump into her bedroom in the dead of the night, and cheat her husband. If cheating has happened, you have actually cheated on her husband not the wife, and that’s where the pleasure lies —“I could fool her husband; he didn’t even know.”
Restrictions result in? Cheating. Freedom results in? Celibacy. What does freedom mean? I am already free, so why must I use someone for fulfilment? All fulfilment is ultimately about freedom. If I’m already free, why do I need to use someone to get fulfilled? Fulfilment and freedom are the same thing. I will now no more, look at someone as a thing to be consumed. I’m alright. And some part of this rightness has probably come from this fellow I call as my husband or wife or friend or boyfriend or girlfriend, and I’m grateful. I’m grateful, he or she could teach me something. Now, that should be the foundation of marriage.
Marry someone who can teach you something. Marry someone you can look up to, not someone you can bring down, not someone you can just lay on the bed. Have someone who can teach you how to be awake, not someone who intoxicates you.
Are you getting this?
This might sound bitter but take it from me, if you will bring a person in your life—marriage or no marriage, boyfriend or husband, just on the basis of the body, your punishment will be cheating, cheating from both sides. He will cheat, you will cheat.
And if you do not actively or physically cheat, you will get frustrated, and you will vent your frustration on your husband. Have you heard of the term “the henpecked husband?” What does “henpecked” mean? Do you have some experience with the chicken or a hen or a rooster? When they get frustrated, they just…(gesturing with pecking movements on palm). They will come to you and start doing this…(gesturing with pecking movements on palm). What is this? The beak. You won’t really bleed; the beak is not all that sharp but it still hurts. We had one. This one — Jeetu. And he was so adapted doing this, he would just chase people and then…(gesturing with pecking movements.)
“Henpecked husband,” why? Because typically the wives display more moral behaviors because they have been subjugated more throughout history. So, the entire burden of morality is upon the woman. And the punishment is more severe for her if she deviates from the path of morality. So, they are compelled to be more moral. So, they don’t physically cheat. Because they don’t physically cheat, they get more frustrated. And then, the pecking. (gestures pecking movements.)
I know it’s a contentious statement, and you can fight it all day, you may. But please understand, the body wants to have as many partners as possible, that’s the command of the badi maa, mother nature. Marriage is social; promiscuity is natural, physical. And what is social is a very small thing in front of what is prakritik, natural. Society may turn you, you know —“Be monogamous.” But the mother herself is telling you, “Go and fuck around with as many people as possible.” Whose commands will you obey?
Now, the only thing that can sublimate this tendency to keep looking for more and more bodies is inner fulfilment, self realization, not marriage. Your association with the other person should be on the foundation of your inner fulfilment, not your body.
Be with someone who will bring upliftment to your consciousness, and be with someone who is vouched for by your uplifted consciousness.
Are you getting it?
If even your peak attentiveness endorses a person, then let that person enter your life. Usually, it is our intoxicated selves that recommend a person. Does that not happen? Your highest self, your clearest self should vouch for a person, and then that person should enter your life. And that person should enter your life on the promise that he is entering your life to uplift you. But that does not happen in marriages. As you sow, so shall you reap. If you marry in a flawed way, you’ll have to suffer the curse of cheating and all those things.
Remember, even if you get your partner in the most ideal way possible, it is still possible that the person actually physically goes towards someone, but now, it would hardly matter because, anyway, your association with this person is not exclusively physical.
First of all, the probability that this person will now roam around has reduced, but even if it does happen; to be physically attracted to someone, it will not be so painful now, because physicality is now only a small part of the relationship — five percent. So, even if that five percent is compromised, you’ll not be shattered. Ninety-five percent of the relationship is about something else, and nobody can spoil that ninety-five percent, so you are secure. Otherwise, you see how insecure we are about our partners. Entire companies exist just to teach girlfriends how to break open the mobile phones of their boys. He will not even come to know, and you can crack his password.
Questioner: Is it really happening?
Acharya Prashant: Yes, of course. Just google for it. Because that mobile phone is the final thing in sleeping around, everything is there. All the pics are there, and the chats are there, and recordings are there. If you can somehow have a sneak peek into what’s in there and if you do not share the password and the..., whatever, with your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend, then see, how deeply insecure that person will feel.
“Surely, there is something cooking. Why is he not showing me what’s in there?” This insecurity is so troubling, is it not? And this entire insecurity is about physical association. “Will he sleep with someone else? Will he sleep with someone else? Is there a romance budding somewhere?”
Even romance is not a problem, you see. If the romance remains a romance, nobody will object that much. The problem is, romances very quickly turn into sexual activity. And if sex is everything, then you’ll be deeply afraid of sexual activity happening somewhere. That’s the problem, for most people sex is everything. In most relationships, sex is everything. And what is sex? Our physical, animal nature coming from the primordial mother herself — Prakriti.
We are beasts; and for a beast, sex is a lot. If our marriages are based on sex alone, then they are very beastly affairs. Are they not? And we claim to be civilized people. If you tell someone, “You know, marriage is based on sex alone,” they’ll say, “No, no, it’s about companionship in the old age.” Come on, get real. Come on, come on. “No, no, no, I’m just friends with my wife. It’s not about sex at all.”
Even the law says that if you do not have sex for six months, you are entitled for divorce. Even the law says that the term “consummation of marriage” means sex. If you don’t have sex with your wife, the marriage is not even supposed to be consummated. Even the law knows that sex is everything in a marriage. If your marriages are about sex, then your marriages are just an expression of your beastly origins. And beasts we are, by origin, yes, we are. But why stay a beast? Why not sublimate? If you must have a person in your life, why can’t that person be an agent for upliftment?
A lot of people get very upset. They say, “What do you think? Why are you always talking of sex?” “My wife is my sister.” Then, why do you have a wife? Why must your partner be of the opposite sex? If your marriage is not about sex, then, sir, why did you look for a woman? The very fundamental criteria is that you are looking for someone of the other sex, then how is your marriage not about sex? Go and marry a man. But if someone marries a man, then you make fun of him.
Is it not obvious? If someone can come to you looking at your body, that fellow will go to someone else as well, looking at another body. Is it not? Come on!
You go to buy a dress at a retail store. There’s one particular dress you have finalized on. Suddenly, some other dress catches your attention, what do you do? What do you do? You keep this one down and go and pick that one up, that’s marriage. This one looked good for so long, fine. Now, that one looks good. But if that other one happens to exceed your budget, you will return to this one. Now, that’s called loyalty.
If you are physical, if you are bodily, if you are beastly, no loyalty is possible. Don’t even expect loyalty from someone who is not awakened within.
Loyalty is not something so cheap that you can be loyal to your husband or wife on the basis of marriage vows. Loyalty is fundamentally spiritual.
A fellow who dislikes the Gita, the Upanishads, Vedanta, how can this fellow be loyal to anybody? Yet, in your ignorant and intoxicated state, you thought your boyfriend will treat you like a princess or a goddess, and will worship you with great devotion and loyalty all his life.
Why will he do that? Come on, get real! Why will he do that? That fellow is not loyal even to the highest Truth. That fellow is loyal only to his own body. Why will he be loyal to another body? He will look around for forty bodies. And then, you will be heartbroken. I’m sorry if what I’m saying is disturbing, but if Truth disturbs you, that should tell you something about yourself. No?
