Moving For Love: Infidelity

When in a relationship with someone from another culture and your living in another country the situations that come up and how you handle them differ tremendously.

The subject of infidelity may have a whole different set of rules and your culturally built in system of right and wrong regarding this situation can be taken to the test.

I was brought up with two value systems when it came to relationships, the one of my American father flavored with that of my German mother. I pretty much liked my father's values best they went better with my romantic ideals of what a relationship should be. Exclusive! He’s mine! I reveled in the songs that verified this astounding state of mind, and listened while I read the latest romance novel.

A partnership is exclusive! Nothing to discuss here, it’s a given. Follow this rule and you will live happily ever after. Break them, and you shall be kicked to curb, and treated with disdain by all who know you and an entire nation. You have sinned not only biblically but also culturally.

The American culture I was brought up in finds this whole behavior abhorrent. I read somewhere only incest rated higher on the scale.

However, when you look at infidelity in American culture, it is a public display! We revel in it. We make it headlines and no one is safe from this production even those that sit in our highest offices.

The television show that deals with catching a partner cheating and humiliating him in front of millions of viewers verifies those feelings. Takes us back to our Puritanical roots and depicted so well in Hawthorn’s “The Scarlet Letter”. A large red "A" pined to your chest to display to your neighbors what a vile creature you are. We are leading the world in “cheater detection equipment" and entertaining them with stories of it, on the web, television, newspapers and magazines. Even here on Hubpages "How to get your partner back" and how to deal with cheating are often the subject of many Hubs and forum discussions. We have a cash cow with this subject.

On the other side of the cultural coin

I don’t live in America at the moment and other rules are in effect here. If you deal with the problem of infidelity not only do you have a relationship problem you may also have a culture clash.

In the culture I am living in personal privacy is of utmost importance. They find our American fascination with sticking in our nose in other people's bedrooms laughable. When their President had an affair and left his wife for another woman it got a few paragraphs in the paper and life went on and so did his career. Without a hitch! Of course there were some smirks in high society and a few words about disgrace from the older Catholic generation, but the subject was closed almost immediately after it happened. It’s about them! Nothing to see here. No one here ever could understand why there was so much fuss about our former president’s behavior and why it should be of interest to anyone but the three people involved.

The subject of infidelity is a different one here. Even though I know of few people who are thrilled at the idea of their partner having an affair, it is accepted and partners seem to look away and say that’s your thing has nothing to do with me. These people don’t break up permanently, because as the stats say, the wandering partner most often returns. Drawn back by a shared history, children, financial considerations and a million other reasons the major one being the love for their partner is still there and their itch has been scratched. Time to get back to real life.

My German mother gave me this advice when I was younger “When one has McDonald’s every day, maybe they just want a change and sample something from Taco Bell, most men go back to their wives". The statistics do back her up.

However I am torn here. My American upbringing rules my emotions, but my German logic tells me it’s a not about you situation, live your life, let your partner live his and let fate determine the outcome.