Marriage is a sacred bond

Adultery is a sin.

It destroys family, because family is rooted to and grows from trust.

If the marriage stops delivering emotionally or physically then its time to end the marriage, but to fuck someone else with excuses is pure simple CHEATING.

Fidelity or divorce are the only two honest options. Anything else is covering for one’s deceiving nature.

Marriage is a sacred bond based on fidelity. Human values like fidelity and honesty do not get outdated. It’s a choice to remain married or not, but bringing another person into a marriage is cheating. Fling isn’t anything more than fucking is maybe an American point of view where flings aren’t acceptable behavior and not really considered sexy or brilliant.

If the marriage is unfullfilling one can exit it, but to keep the marriage for material gains while having a lover is using the spouse. Most people marry and remain married - at least in the US - to remain faithful, and cheating creates the same social revulsion whether its Bill Clinton or a common man.

Life is about hard choices, not sneaking around choices

I’m not basing my ethics on soap opera, but real life people - educated, well to do - in the US who marry only when they decide it’s time to settle into a monogamous, committed relationship. And once that choice is made then there is no room for flings because marrying implies end to flings, beginning of permanence.

Since 1986 I’ve been part of the very affluent, very progressive social set in California and Washington and in all those years I’ve not met any who condone cheating or known anyone personally who has cheated on their spouse. Similarly my wife is from an elite part of South Bombay society yet she holds marriage as being sacred in which there’s no room for a 3rd party - and when that happens marriage should end because without honesty, trust there’s no marriage.

I come from a family that has for long worked for women’s emancipation and equality, so this is not about suppressing women. It’s about keeping marriage unsullied by adultery - like it should be unsullied by violence or abuse. Its a beautiful thing needing to be kept beautiful, so an amicable split or an honest walk out are the strong, honest choices. A cheating husband is a bad husband and a dishonest man, and in 21 years in the US I’ve never personally known a man or a woman who has a lover while being married, so I am using that as a socio-moral standard. (Can’t say the same about India where most uncles and aunties at the Gymkhana were doing one another)

Swingers exist - but aren’t the norm. Flings happen, but they break homes, because they violate trust.

Its hard being honest, but its important being honest. Because in the end the most a man can give his wife is total, absolute trust that she knows will be steadfast even when during their lows. And that is what makes marriage sacred - total faith and trust, always.

God, Love, Truth, all require courage and strength, and all are essential (steps) to becoming a human being living up to best human potential. I wish to become a man that my parents, my wife and my staff can be proud of, so fluid morality is not my option.

And being as imperfect I am I’ve set certain thresholds I will not cross - stealing, cheating, violence are a few of them.

I don’t want to be preachy, I don’t want to be puritanical I just want at my age to be a man my wife trusts implicitly, therefore the stand. I’ve been through the party circle in US and Europe and throughout a long history of trysts craved for someone I would belong to totally. I don’t need freedom to wander, I need the freedom that comes with bondage of love. Marriage is the hardest work - but nothing spectacular is easy.

Maybe because the US has seen the break of family for so long that now we cherish family, though I can’t understand the Indian Page 3 glamor associated with married people having affairs - there’s nothing cool about having a fling outside marriage. Julia Roberts doesn’t, nor does Angelina Jolie and neither does the pre-school teacher cheat on her husband, and Nicholas Cage, Mitt Romney and the software consultant are all faithful to the woman whose ring they wear.

Because I love passionately I can’t imagine a loveless marriage? Because marriage isn’t and shouldn’t be a convenience - this is where love makes us transcend the ordinary - where judgments collapse, acceptance rules and family begins.

I can’t describe how I cherish home and family - a 100 women can’t, couldn’t give me what my wife does - dignity, solidity, and the road map to being a better man.

A solid marriage is the basis of a solid society - ask children from broken homes.