August 20, 2010, 9:22 am
Relationships and the quest for love. Is love eternal?
Aren't
we just a little tired of "Kiss and Tell?" Don't we have enough bedroom
antics in the the soaps, movies, romance and erotic novels to feed the
voyeur that lurks in some of us? Haven't enough careers been ruined,
families shredded and airwaves contaminated by the public airing of
intimate, personal experiences that occur in bedrooms between
consenting adults?
I don't care if power, fame and celebrity have their "price." That
price does not need to come from the bedroom. If you and I didn't
listen to, talk about, watch and exclaim over the newest affair,
divorce, or scandal, no one would bother writing about them. I don't
think it's my imagination. The 5:00 news has become as scandal-ridden
as the magazines at the check out stands in the grocery store.
It isn't just the scandalous reporting that concerns me, it is also
the "tell all" that seems to envelope the other woman or other man in
their own celebrity, regardless of their obscure roots. I wonder where
they left their character development, their class, their discernment
for right and wrong behavior when they go on national television and
interview with talk show hosts to "justify" their role in the
destruction of a career, a marriage, and a child's future concept of
right behavior.
I certainly believe that people who engage in sexual encounters and
relationships outside marriage are as responsible for their actions as
the person with whom they are involved. Additionally, marriage is not
the same for all people. Some married couples have understandings about
their lifestyle and each other that work for them. I do not judge the
decisions they make in the privacy of their own homes. It's none of my
business.
However, that does not release those involved to "tell all" when the
agreements and the parameters change. Private and intimate matters
should remain that, private and intimate. Intimacy is a form of trust.
In some respects, a relationship is a matter of trusting another with
your life, whether that relationship is inside a sanctioned marriage or
outside. The responsibility of that trust does not end because the
relationship ends or pieces of it are accidentally revealed. Stop
there. Reveal no more. Deny what is possible to deny. I firmly believe
that "telling" purges any remorse from the teller and transfers the
burden to the recipient who may have wanted the facts, but surely
didn't need to be haunted by them in repetition.
To the age old question, "If I know my friend's spouse is having an
affair, should I tell my friend?" my response is "no." To the question,
"should I tell my spouse that I was unfaithful but am now over the
mistake," my response is "no." Go to a professional counselor and
unburden yourself. What a spouse suspects is much easier put aside
without a picture in audio and living color rotating in the mind.
"The public needs to know." No, they don't need to know. So far as I
know, my qualifications for my job performance do not in clude a
measurement for my parnerships in life, inside or outside of marriage.
If I behave in a manner that reflects poor judgment and poor character
to some people, I could put my work in jeopardy. It is my
responsibility to keep my private life private. It is my responsibility
to use good judgment in relationships, friends or lovers. When I make
errors, it is best to keep them private and personal.
I am not, however, a name in the limelight on which people focus to
escape their own humdrum or decadent lives. No matter what, they have a
standard against which to measure their own lives. How much better if
that standard represented a person not of perfection, but of character.
Apparently, instead of a moral compass, people use money and their own
few moments of fame to guide their actions. The consequences of their
momentary gain are not a consideration. I find the television
interview, the book deals, the reality shows and the celebrity afforded
those who "kiss and tell" reprehensible. I find it much more degrading
and representative of no class than the actions that gave them their
stage.
I hunger for a time of civility when "honesty" was cloaked in
respectability. Yes, we were aware of the lives people led who were
considered hedonistic or outside the realms of accepted societal norms,
but at least bragging about it on the Internet, in revealing books and
on national television would have been considered tacky and without
class.
Instead, let's accept the fact that we have different values and
changing societal norms; we are each governed by our own moral compass,
different for everyone. With that understanding, let's keep our private
and intimate moments exactly that, private and intimate. Let us
comunicate with each other with respect and acceptance that does not
require a tour of bedrooms and the details that shred lives and
careers.
Don't buy the "reveal" magazines; turn off the news that repeats
scandals with looping disgust; don't buy the "tell all" books and don't
watch those who reached their moments of fame by abusing the privacy of
others. Of course, that won't happen. It seems when someone else drops
their moral compass, it gives us a chance to evaluate our own and pass
judgment.
We walk this earth but once that I know; we each choose a path
according to our needs and wants and resources. Mine is different from
yours and I hope we don't judge each other because of those
differences. I hope we find some joy along the way and share it with
others. In the same vein, I hope that we take no joy in someone elses
pain and do our part to make painful experiences less consuming, both
for ourselves and others. Relationships make life's journey a richer
experience. When they end, that ending needs to be as private as the
intimacy with which they began.
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