[Two Pronged] Is she bound to be unfaithful?

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer:

Please call me Eric and I have a problem.

It is time for me to get married but I am always scared that my wife may be unfaithful to me, that she may find someone else while I am away at work. This is always what enters my mind when I think about getting married.

I have had many girlfriends. Some were serious relationships, some not. Some had children, some did not. When my relationships got too difficult, I broke it off and just masturbated.

Sometimes I masturbated as many as four times a day and am wondering if that is abnormal.

I am now going out with a woman who has 3 children. Our sex life is out of this world! We have done things to each other I have not done with anyone else, things I would never have thought of with anyone else!

We make love about 5 times a day when we’re together. Sometimes, I have a fever but she insists and so off we go again!

I already like her a lot. Our sex life is incredible, but I don’t know how long this will last. So many men seem to like her. They give her many gifts. I cannot do so because I am not as rich as them, but she doesn’t mind.

I am in love with her. But something is telling me, at the back of my mind, that perhaps she is not faithful. I love her, but I cannot marry her.

Please tell me what to do.

Eric 

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Dear Eric,

Thank you for your email.

You unfortunately have given us very little information on which to base our response. All you tell us is that your girlfriend (let’s call her Dani) has 3 children, you have a great sex life together, many men like her and she gets lots of gifts. 

That you like someone with whom you have turbo-charged sex does not come as a great surprise but in the absence of any other detail, we are left wondering under exactly what circumstances this mother of 3 comes into contact with so many generous male benefactors.

After all, unless you are a hermit, everyone crosses paths with other attractive people – in the street, in the mall, etc. – but while this may allow us to appreciate their beauty it scarcely gives rise to an opportunity to lavish gifts upon them, gifts which presumably are given in anticipation of receiving something more than a dazzling smile in return, unless Dani has cornered the market in altruistic admirers.

But perhaps none of this really matters. Your worry that any future wife will be unfaithful predates Dani and so it is any possible wife, rather than just Dani herself, that causes you concern.

It is problematic that you give us no hint as to why you think this way.

Is it that you lack self-confidence? Have you a long history, personal or family, of infidelity? Are your choices of partner taken from a section of society where fidelity is not prized or not an option (e.g. working girls)?

Quite simply, we do not know and you have chosen not to tell us. However, what is clear is that you need to examine the root causes of your preoccupation with infidelity and take steps to resolve your issues if you are ever to achieve your desire to get married.

If you want further assistance with this, please write to us again.

All the best,

JAF Baer 

Dear Eric,

Thank you very much for your letter.  I will not discuss Dani too much since I feel Mr Baer has – in his usual funnily, “Britishly” ironic (though some might call it snide) way – dealt with the most immediate issues surrounding your relationship with her.

What I would like to focus on is your concern (which predates Dani) that any woman you choose will be unfaithful to you. This is not the kind of fear men have before marrying the woman of their dreams. Among other reasons, if any other man has doubts about a woman’s being unfaithful to him, he would not consider her marriage material to begin with.

Mr Baer had given us several hypotheses regarding the cause/s of such anxiety. He mentioned lack of self-confidence, your choices of partner (like Dani) being the type of person confirming your suspicion that women are unfaithful, etc.

Presented this way, this concern about infidelity may be about commitment – with infidelity a mere excuse (in which case something else, like “having to share one’s wealth and time with the one committed to” could replace infidelity as the reason).

In other words, taking the example of Othello who killed his wife Desdemona supposedly primarily out of jealousy, scholars believe that the jealousy was merely a byproduct of his real tragic flaw, which was gullibility.

It is possible that a preoccupation with infidelity (which is more sexual jealousy as opposed to emotional or pathological jealousy) is not your primary concern but merely a manifestation of the anxiety that expresses itself through said jealousy.

It seems the real issue with you is that “ayaw mong maisahan” (you don’t want anyone to get the better of you), whether it manifests itself through sex and/or promotions, and/or recognition etc.

One possible reason Mr Baer posited – which for me, given the kind of preoccupation you have, is the most likely reason – is your having “a long history, personal or family, of infidelity.”

Example: Your former girlfriends liked making you insecure for a myriad possible reasons: because feeling this was a way to keep you keen, needing your insecurity to keep herself keen, having a cruel streak, etc.

A deeper reason – thus more difficult to know for sure or confront – is that it was your mother (major caretaker) whose ego needed you to always be beside her, otherwise she would take care of another baby, etc.   

I do not know what the real answer is to your dilemma, or – indeed – if the two hypotheses I presented above even come close.

What is important is that first, you see a different way to analyze your situation, thus realizing that (2) there are many ways to look at a problem leading to (3) finding the necessary resources within to face whatever demons lurk behind this fear.

I hope this column has helped you, if only in the first of a thousand steps. Please write us again if we can help you in any other way.

Take care,

MG Holmes

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED.Unfortunately the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.