My Op-Ed Piece About the Tiger Woods Divorce & New Studies on Cheating

*I apologize if this is a few days late, but I tried to get it run as an Op-Ed piece first. No one took me up on my offer

Relationship Status: It’s (Not That) Complicated

There’s been a lot of talking in the news lately. On Monday, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren formally divorced. Just last week, a new study on why men cheat was released and made national headlines.  According to Christin Munsch, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, men are more likely to cheat when their female partner makes more money than them.  This finding seemingly makes sense as many men may feel emasculated and cheat to regain their manhood.

But if men cheat because they feel powerless, what about the men that cheat because they are powerful, like Tiger?  There’s no secret that celebrities, elected officials, and CEOs are prone to stray because they are constantly travelling and surrounded by women looking for a sugar daddy.

But why stop there?  Let’s not forget that some men cheat because they have an opportunity to date a more attractive woman.  Some men cheat because they lack self control.  Many men cheat because they have more options in the age of the Internet.  Some men, like Gov. Mark Sanford, get married without even taking a vow of fidelity.

Men do not need a reason to cheat, so why waste time trying to find the root cause of it.  Relegating fidelity to a science only leads to ridiculous results.  For instance, according to Dr. Phil, some men cheat because they have the “cheating gene” manifested by a ring finger that’s longer than your index finger.  While people may disagree about whether someone can be born gay, the desire to cheat should be universally understood.  Let’s face it, there are a lot of at women out there.  Monogamy requires a man to turn down every woman for the rest of his life.  Many, dare I say most, men are not up to the challenge.

Thus, I believe, the real inquiry should be into why men do not cheat.  If researchers would focus on why men do not cheat, then sociologists would be able to put together more comprehensive data on monogamous men (i.e. age, viewers of pornography, occupation).  I have read countless studies which attempt to create profiles of male cheaters, but never one on men that are faithful.

Another reason why there should not be studies on why individuals cheat is because monogamy is rooted in contractual, not biological, principles.  All relationships are contracts.  When a man enters into a relationship he expressly or impliedly agrees to be faithful in exchange for faithfulness from the other person.  As a contract, relationships are influenced by external social factors.  A recent study found that people are more likely to get divorced when someone close to them divorces.  The same reasoning applies to cheating

Unfortunately, if you look on television or even in your neighborhoods, you will see men that have failed in their responsibility as a husband and/or father.  It has come to the point where many people have given up on monogamy.

Losing faith in monogamy will only make the problem worse. I often hear women talk about how people make mistakes and how they should give men a second chance. If a man suspects that his significant other would take him back, he’s more likely to take that risk. It’s time for women to stop giving men a separate standard for fidelity. When we enter a relationship each party need to have the attitude that they won’t cheat.  There was a time when we used to expect exclusivity and commitment.  I subsequently added ReExpect.com to my domain name because we need to return to these expectations.

So how do we rethink the way we view infidelity? I believe there’s strength in numbers.  Many men that do not cheat feel persecuted by society because we often measure a man’s masculinity by the number of sexual partners he currently has.  In order for men to be able to be more outspoken about fidelity, we must first foster an environment where it’s cool to be monogamous. Men will think twice about cheating if they are surrounded by men that make them feel bad about it.

The first step is to start looking at the influences of society as a whole instead of the individual.  Some of the greatest romantic films of all time – Casablanca to The Notebook – have infidelity at the root of the story.  Also if we truly want to save monogamy, we must get to root of why men defy culture and choose to be faithful rather than devising scientific theories which seemingly justify infidelity.