Sunday, September 21, 2014

Difficulties with Trust


This topic was prompted by a question that appeared in the Philanderers' Forum. On 2 June 1999, "Totally" posted the following message:


"Is it possible for a man that has had a few affairs to ever be faithful?

I'm asking because I am now facing a long term relationship with him.
And I know I'm a hypocrite, cos I've been having an affair with him for the last 8 months. I just don't know how I feel about trusting him."


I suspect that the most popular answer from philanderers and from those virtuous folk who never have affairs would the same: Don't trust him! However, there is more than one route which can be taken to arrive at this conclusion. Let's consider some of the differences here.

Coming from a non-philanderer, the advice that Totally shouldn't trust her lover assumes that we all know what trust is. Moreover, it assumes that trust is an inherently desirable and even necessary quality in the relationship. Why, then, should it be that so many relationships (including that of the last eight months between Totally's man and his regular partner) are characterised by duplicity and betrayal? In the ideology of fidelity (in its late 20th century, Anglo-American form), this is explained through a simple division of the world's population into two groups: the good people (who can be 'trusted', are 'faithful', etc) and the bad people (who can't and aren't). In other words, trust is individualised: it becomes 'trustworthiness', the quality of an individual who is more or less capable and deserving of a Proper Heterosexual Relationship. In this view, Totally's lover is one of the bad guys, a man who can't and shouldn't be trusted. Is Totally herself also one of the 'bad guys'? Perhaps, though the high value she places on fidelity and trust suggests (according to the conventional view) that she might be a candidate for reform, perhaps contingent upon sincere repentance and a renewed commitment to her primary partner (if she has one). Taken to its logical conclusion, the non-philanderer's advice "Don't trust him!" must be heard as an bleak instruction to Totally to ditch her lover now while she still has a chance to redeem herself.

Now let's look at how a philanderer might approach the question of trust differently. This time, the answer "Don't trust him!" can be reached without assuming that we all know what trust is. It can also do without the assumption that trust is inherently desirable and necessary. Here, the important aspects of Totally's problem are differently emphasised. The questions are not "can he be faithful?", "can she trust him?", but "why would she want him to be faithful?", "why should she want to start trusting him - at least in this particular way?". While the non-philanderer is effectively saying "Don't trust him - he's a bad guy", the philanderer's advice can be heard as saying "Don't ruin a perfectly good relationship by bringing trust into it".

This is not an advertisement for open relationships. The official organs of open relationships (also known as polyamory: check out www.lovemore.com) counterbalance their sexual liberalism with an unusually heavy emphasis on notions of 'trust' and 'honesty' as the key to success. In a nutshell, the polyamorists take the moral high ground despite their liberal sexual practices by portraying themselves as even more trustworthy and honest than the boring old monogamists. They excuse their extramarital sexual adventures by placing them in a context of a carefully-negotiated marital arrangement which preserves and upholds honesty (in the form of confession) and commitment (sexual licence is bought at the cost of a renewed emphasis on staying permanently married).

The seasoned philanderer has no truck with such a philosophy. What the polyamorists miss, and what the philanderer knows is this: Trust is an over-rated virtue. One can find both liberation and security with a partner who is entirely untrustworthy.

Suppose that for the last eight months Totally and her man have been having a perfectly happy affair. What if the philanderer were to list the sorts of things that Totally might, in that time, have found to love about this relationship?

(1) The man has not promised to be faithful to Totally and so she is exempt from having to make the painful discovery that he has been cheating on her (a form of diplomatic immunity not shared by his primary partner).

(2) He has not vowed to live with her until death parts them and so she is exempt from ever having to deal with the unpleasant surprise of being suddenly deserted (again, his primary partner is not so lucky).

(3) He knows how to look after his own interests and personal happiness and has the initiative to conduct discreet extramarital relationships where this is an appropriate move for him. Thus, even if she were to become his primary partner, Totally is unlikely to find herself in a situation where she believes she has sole responsibility for entertaining her man romantically and sexually. This advantage is not to be underestimated. How many readers (especially women) know the burden of feeling solely and permanently responsible for their faithful partners?

Additionally, it is worth noting that Totally and her man know that the other is capable of lying - effectively and continuously for months on end, if necessary. Thus, as a couple they are released from the moral imperative to be honest with each other. This is a unique blessing. Perversely, in the rhetoric of Proper Relationships, honesty, as a performance of blunt truthfulness, is made equal to a loving concern for the emotional welfare of one's partner. Conversely, lying (including lying by omission) is equated with acting maliciously. This is strange, because in most cases of marital deception the opposite principle is demonstrated. We lie to our partners about our infidelities because we want to protect their feelings. Similarly, we conceal our thoughts whenever we find our partner unattractive or tiresome because to reveal those thoughts would be positively spiteful. We might go so far as to say that most marital lying involves telling your partner what they want to hear. Lying may be an essential ingredient in a successful marriage. If this is the case, Totally and her man are on the first step to a happy future. Because they know that they are both thoroughly untrustworthy, they are free to love each other with silences and fictions as well as kisses and confidences. They are free to care for each other emotionally without being compromised by principles of honesty or notions of accountability and guilt.

In short, the philanderer's version of the advice "Don't trust him!" can be heard as a variation on the old truism "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Trust and fidelity are not presently ingredients in the relationship between Totally and her man. Indeed, since it has the status of an extramarital affair, it is positively distinguished by its lack of those traditional virtues. And so far, it would seem, the relationship has been going rather well. So, a seasoned philanderer might ask, why rock the boat? To introduce honesty and trust into the relationship now would surely be to usher in deception and betrayal at the same time.

A final comment remains to be made. Astute readers may be asking themselves on what grounds Totally can trust the philanderer's advice. How can anyone be sure that the philanderer's account of trust is not itself a lie or a kind of deception? The answer: you can't, or to put it another way, you don't have to. It could be a pack of lies (and probably is). Best not to be taken in. ©

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