On Love, Infidelity, and Polyamorous Relationships

I’ve seen it a million times. Clients who show up in their tarot cards as struggling with infidelity issues (their own or that of their partner). There can be a lot of shame around this subject. Some are trying for honesty with their partners by declaring themselves polyamorous or in an open relationship. In these recent readings, I became clear about the real meaning behind some people’s tendency to stray. And it’s probably not what you think.
Psychologists might say this is an unmet need for attention from the opposite sex or unmet sexual needs. Sometimes, that is correct, but it seems to me to be a lot more profound than this.
A Course In Miracles, and many other spiritual texts, explain that our whole purpose for being in these human bodies is for spiritual work around Relationship. We are here to solve the problems around all kinds of love: family, friendship, and everyone’s favorite, the lover. Most of us on a spiritual path will know that we are one with the God-Source, and that separation is the human condition and illusion. We spend so much of our lives feeling alone, separate and incomplete, seeking THE ONE to be the other half. We are always trying to get back to God, in essence, but we usually try to do this through a sexual partner. The sex act itself is that two-become-one idea tangibly expressed, if only temporarily.
My clients and others wrestling with infidelity issues and/or finding balance in an open relationship are, at base, just wanting to know love. We want REAL love. True love. Holy, sacred, fulfilling, uniting love. And here’s the thing: at the same time, we know that to go there is to enter into a relationship that deeply scares the shit out of us. First off, true love takes absolute vulnerability and honesty. It takes bravery, and it takes work. It also takes the belief that you are lovable– which is too much for many right off the bat. It takes dropping away from the egoic “I” to become a “We.”
The person who strays is afraid of going that deep because they are afraid of being hurt. They don’t trust love because they haven’t known it to work for them too well in the past, and maybe never had very many good examples of what successful love looks like. So, they allow the distraction of another to take the attention off of the terrifying reality that true love might be in the palm of one’s hand and demand your full attention or even heart- and back-breaking work. I think of how someone once explained his ADHD to me, saying, “It’s a very serious condition but…Oh, look, a butterfly…” Distractions and addictions are such a great way to not have to think about your problems.
I don’t think anyone commits or marries a person with conscious designs to cheat. It may undoubtedly be a failing and weakness in character if done in dishonesty. But the person who strays is not evil, not usually, anyway. Instead, this is someone who is in love with love but also scared of the demands of the real deal: how it might change them, what might have to be sacrificed, and other ego-based ideas that have nothing to do with real love.
I like to point to the Bible’s definition of love in I Corinthians, Chapter 13. It is not about passion or drama. To a lot of people, this summary might even seem a bit boring:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I think that “fully known” bit is a big deal. Not all of us are ready to be fully known. We keep our secret corners. We keep some self for ourselves, but we must understand that this gets in the way of complete love. It takes work always to be conscious as life changes by the minute, and what was complete yesterday might be incomplete today.
I am not here to debate if it is possible to be in true love with more than one person. I think there are different kinds of love, to be sure. But the commitment to one person for romantic love is collaborative work and a potentially massive opportunity for both people to grow.
My husband Tom and I have been married for 22 years at the time of this writing. Recently, he said to me, “We are better together than apart.” I know this to be true, and I know that he fits every definition of love in I Corinthians. Every day of our marriage is a work in progress, a collaboration, and sometimes, yes, even effort. But the result is great and I am better with him.
I hope that in whatever way you practice love, you will go to the vulnerable, deepest spaces in your own heart. I pray you will be faithful in loving yourself, so that you can be faithful to others in all the expressions of love you seek.
I love the heck out of you all.
A COURSE IN MIRACLES, BIBLE, FAITHFULNESS, GUILT, I CORINTHIANS 13, INFIDELITY, LOVE, OPEN RELATIONSHIPS, POLYAMOROUS, RELATIONSHIPS, ROMANCE, ROMANTIC LOVE, SHAME, SPIRITUALITY