Let me preface this by saying, my writing this time is more of a mind gym rather than condoning or sponsoring any ideas.
Recently I learned what it means to compartmentalize. The children’s book, Color Monster, provides a good visual of what it is. But if you never read it… Well. Basically, since we humans have complex feelings most of the time, it might get mixed up and one feeling might affect the others, for better or worse. Compartmentalizing helps you untangle the mess and tidy up your feelings… So to speak.
An easy example I can come up with, that I think you might be able to relate better, is when my father passed away. It was a difficult time, cos I was thousands of kms away from them, I couldn’t visit, I couldn’t be there for his funeral, and plus I have two small kids to take care of and life has to go on. So I had to put my sadness and grief into a metaphorical box and close it, to access it another day when it’s safer to do so. And then the time came for me to access it—It was night time, the kids were asleep, I was watching through a video call when they closed my dad’s coffin. It was safe to access the sadness and grief, so only then I let it out. Then the day after, I put everything back in the box and close it, to access it again some other time.
So that’s called compartmentalizing: Stepping back from your feelings and deliberately making decisions and choices. A kind friend once said, this makes us effective, but less moral. You’ll probably see why if you keep reading.
People change. That much we know is true. Sometimes in a long-term relationship, the people in it could have different experiences that would make them gain new perspectives and change the way they are. Sometimes it can be minimum, unnoticeable, and business may proceed as usual. Other times though, the changes can be more significant, and eating away at relationships.
I’m thinking, more particularly, about Dead Bedrooms.
For reasons I wouldn’t disclose but you could probably guess, this is a subreddit I frequently visit. It’s dark, it’s depressing, it’s full of people in agony and misery due to the lack of bedroom activities. Some people choose to stay in the dead bedroom relationship because their lives are too intertwined with their spouses. Most of the time there are kids involved. And it’s not uncommon to see people saying things like, “Other than the lack of intimacy, everything else is great.”
People who choose to stay in the Dead Bedroom, or perhaps are stuck in there, would understand that lack of intimacy is way more than just lack of sex. It’s missing being desired, being adored, being wanted… It can corrode your confidence, make you question yourself—What did you do to make your partner not want to touch you? What is lacking from you? Is there anything wrong with how you look? How you smell, maybe? Is there anything you’re not doing that makes your partner decide to withhold intimacy?
So you keep trying to fulfil your partner’s needs, and beyond. You make sure they have everything they want, in hopes that they would give you what you want: Touch. Desire. Intimacy.
Most of the posts in Dead Bedroom subreddit are stories about how it just simply never works. A lot of people have just given up on trying, albeit continuously building resentment over their partners. A lot of people eventually cave into the temptations of extramarital providers.
In a situation where leaving a marriage is almost impossible and may cause more sorrow than good, adultery becomes an option.
It’s a common unspoken consensus that if you do commit adultery, you do it as a way to make you a better partner for your spouse. That way you can have the stability of marriage, but at the time get your needs taken care of, without having to pester your spouse for sex. Or validations. Or romance. Or whatever other reasons that make you choose to seek affairs.
Now comes the next problem. As we all know the theory of love, the more effort you spend on someone, the more attached to them you’d feel. In other words, there might be feelings involved. Love, even. So how does an adulterer reap the benefits of having outside providers, but also at the same time maintaining the stability of their main relationships and their home? The answer is, of course, by compartmentalizing.
To be a ‘successful’ adulterer, let’s look into non-monogamy for a little bit. There is such a thing called ethical non-monogamy, which is a type of relationship with more than one person, but everyone involved agrees to it and is honest about it. Therefore it is respectful and consensual.
There is also a type of non-monogamy relationship called DADT, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Partners agree not to disclose details about their other relationships to each other. Sometimes even if it’s not explicitly discussed, the underlying principle is that there’s a mutual understanding to keep certain aspects of their non-monogamous relationships private from each other. Because of the nature of secrecy in DADT non-monogamy, it is questionable if this type of relationship is respectful and consensual, and therefore people might argue that it is not ethical.
In the same nature of secrecy, comes adultery. Although of course, in adultery, the main partner’s consent is completely disregarded. Therefore it is a violation of trust, honesty, and respect within a committed partnership. However, relationships are full of nuances, and the justifications of adultery can be context-dependent. For example, in situations where there is abuse or neglect within a relationship, or where leaving the relationship entirely would cause more harm than good, people might dip into adultery as a means of self-preservation.
Then it becomes the question of if it is justified to trade off ethical considerations such as honesty and integrity with personal happiness and general well-being.
Like I said before, relationships are full of nuances. We have monogamy, ethical non-monogamy, DADT non-monogamy, and adultery… Why isn’t there such a thing as ethical adultery?
But anyways, now let’s leave the questions about the ethics of adultery. In this writing I would like to just focus on the nature of the non-monogamy relationships and adultery, which is having multiple partners in addition to the main partner.
So how does that work? As a monogamous person one might think they don’t have enough space in their heart or mind to have more than one partner, as it might affect their commitments and feelings for their main partner.
However, people in non-monogamy relationships and ‘successful’ adulterers compartmentalize their primary relationship from their extramarital relationships. So that their partners aren’t necessarily competing with each other, but rather are providing different things.
For example, think of a marriage that is great but it is between a kinky person and a vanilla person. The kinky one felt unsatisfied because their kinky needs aren’t met, and to top it all off, it’s a dead bedroom situation. In this case, the kinky spouse could seek a kinky relationship that could help them in exploring or expressing their authentic self, but not necessarily take from or replace their marriages.
That way the unsatisfied spouse is less bitter about not having their needs met and fulfilled, and therefore is able to be a better primary partner for their spouse. Their extramarital partners are just providing missing pieces for their jigsaw puzzles, and not changing the whole picture.
It works for some people. Although again, whether adultery can be justified or not would depend on individual perspectives and the specific circumstances involved. And yes, I raise an argument that adultery can be justified, or even ethical.
But that’s the thing about compartmentalization, as a friend kindly said to me: When you step away from feelings, you become more effective, but probably less moral. And when you get to that stage you might even agree that the less damaging option is most probably the better one for everyone involved, even if it involves some dishonesty.
Because the ends justify the means.
Forever a Pretender 