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Tell Me About It: Don't think marriage will end your infidelity

 
Published Oct. 14, 2014

Don't rely on marriage to end infidelity

Q: I'm recently engaged after dating my lady friend for a few years. It's exciting and overwhelming, and most days I feel I'm happy — or at least I should be. But I'm writing because I sent flowers to a woman (not my fiancee). She works in my office complex, and we've become friendly through months of elevator run-ins, shared lunches and walks to the metro. I keep telling myself what I'm doing is not inappropriate, but I don't think I believe myself any more than you probably do.

For background, there was some pre-engagement infidelity on my part that my fiancee doesn't know about, but I believed that was out of my system and I was prepared for marriage.

So my two questions are: Why am I doing this, and what is the right thing to tell my fiancee? Help me, please, before I really screw things up.

Engaged and Flirting With Infidelity

A: Why are you engaged — why this woman, why now?

What do you think marriage will do for you that the past years of dating haven't, as far as dousing your interest in other women?

What do you get out of your interactions with the office person — both the woman specifically and the idea of her generally? This is surely more about you than it is about her, as was that "pre-engagement infidelity," too.

And about that straying: How many times did you cheat, was it with more than one person and did you know the person(s)? Do you have a history of cheating on girlfriends?

How do you define "prepared for marriage"?

These questions are for you, to help you figure out who you are and why you're dragging a fiancee into an apparently long-standing, and ongoing, struggle with women — and with yourself. The answers would help me figure you out, too, but I don't need them to point out the following:

The idea of getting infidelity "out of my system" is a crock. People are ready for monogamy when they are mature enough to say no to outside temptations and happy enough with someone to keep those temptations to a minimum.