Last night driving in my car I heard a radio ad for Ashley Madison.com, a website where you can register yourself for willing participation in a marital affair. The advertisement was upfront regarding the idea that married people need to have affairs in order to save their marriages. The announcer went on to explain that having an affair was now normal and that everyone is doing it……..so why not you etc etc. Not a bad sales pitch given how people like to follow the crowd and generally want some form of relief if their marriage isn’t really making them happy. I get the motivation and I see the Edward Bernays advertising style. I get it in one way but given I look at the bigger picture, I’m not getting it on a much more important front.

I’m not about to start judging people who want to have affairs but I will weigh in on the subject, regarding why we as a society insist on participating in systems and rituals that obviously don’t work or maximize our satisfaction. I might also add that placing your emotional needs above your partners’ or to believe you’re the only one feeling like you need to switch it up in the relationship is actually part and parcel of clinical psychopathic behavior. (basically only considering yourself and not others….especially your life partner) This comes as no surprise as many of our early childhood education systems (and mass media influence in general) are weighted heavily in the pursuit of perceived status and wealth above the consideration of anything or anyone else. With children being exposed to societal values that place protection of self and others (and any living thing) secondary to the pursuit of perceived status, wealth and the acquisition of material possessions etc the subconscious mind is programmed to lack empathy for self…which again is THE primary characteristic of a psychopath.

In reality it doesn’t surprise me that some partners inside a “supposed equal” relationship are placing their needs first, lying to their partner and lacking the empathy to envision what it would be like emotionally to be treated in the same manner. Any research into the behavior of psychopaths will easily expose that placing your needs first to the exclusion of anything else is psychopathic in nature. If two adults agree that both are equally open to the idea of both having relationships outside the marriage than an adult based agreement is obviously in place (and I believe everyone is free to govern themselves as they see fit) but I don’t believe every person registering on AshleyMadison.com has been truthful with their current partner(s) about their need to gain love/sex/connection etc outside the marriage only to return home pretending everything is perfectly normal.

The main point to be made here is that it doesn’t really matter what we do as individuals other than the fact that what we do as individuals become trends inside our society and these trends become avenues of thought, which the society then easily applies in other similar or even non similar situations. Sort of like, “well if it worked over there…why can’t it work here?” Sort of like, “if I lie to myself about my marriage then I can lie to myself about my finances or how much alcohol I drink etc“. Someone who lies to themselves in one area can easily start to lie to themselves in all areas. It’s a slippery slope.

With Ashley Madison.com hitting 20 million members I’m pretty safe in concluding that as a society we are now in a deep pattern regarding avoiding what we really need to do to solve our current problems and how to increase our general life satisfaction. I see the pattern here as truth avoidance, action avoidance, lying, solution avoidance, perpetuating our dissatisfaction etc…….and all to protect the institute of marriage that obviously doesn’t measure up to the amazing fairy tale stories we’re told as children.

The fact is, we aren’t children anymore and we should be more interested in teaching our children the truth about everything coming their way and how to solve problems efficiently and effectively as adults. The systems that don’t work inside our society need to be dismantled if they’re not working and the longer we avoid this, the greater the dissatisfaction within our society. Adults solve problems. Kids hope a parent, the government or someone else solves the problem for them. So are we acting like children or adults? Does the real problem rotate around the fact that our society is designed to keep the majority of people inside a child like frame of mind and way of living?

As I mentioned earlier, this pattern of avoidance and fairytale perpetuation not only can be found inside the marriage institution but it can obviously be found in other major institutions that impact our standard of living and general life satisfaction. We currently have a health care system that produces disease. A justice system that produces innocent victims and the protection of criminals. We have an economic system that produces debt, a military system that is now turning on its’ own citizens and we have an education system that destroys intelligence. The issue isn’t that some people in your town are having sex in the bathroom at work and kissing their partner like everything is great when they walk in the house after work……..the problem is that we’re acting like children and missing out on stepping into our true adult selves regarding solving these very solvable issues. If it doesn’t work, fix it and in saying that some of these systems need to be dismantled completely because there is no reform possible inside most (if not all) of these institutions. Out with the old and in with the new…or more importantly……out with the old and in with the true.

In short, it’s time to grow up into our full adult selves and tell our children more truthful fairy tales so the next generation has a better chance of living a more satisfying existence and dealing with the problems they will face in an adult like manner.