Blaming Others for Your Lack of Fulfillment

I have been watching more TV than usual as I recover from surgery. Joy Behar was talking to Valerie Bertinelli the other night. Joy, the host, said something like,
“Wasn’t there some messing around involved in the breakup of your marriage?” I know nothing about Valerie’s past, so I may have the details wrong, but this was the line that I clearly heard Joy say and then Valerie agreed:

“When there is messing around with someone else it means the marriage was already in trouble. You find somebody else because you were not being fulfilled by the relationship within the marriage.”

Immediately, I started thinking up arguments against Joy Behar’s statement. It is the kind of thinking that leads to one divorce after another. Whenever someone cheats on his or her spouse, it is wrong to blame the cheating behavior on not being fulfilled by the marriage. It is wrong for at least two reasons.

First, when we got married, we promised to take the other person as a marriage partner “for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live.” In other words, we made a pledge: “I will love you unconditionally.” Not, “I will love you as long as you make me feel fulfilled.”

Second, the person who goes outside a marriage to find another sexual partner is not reacting to a lack of fulfillment in the marriage. He is reacting to a lifetime of emptiness and fear within himself or herself.

The lack of fulfillment was there inside before there ever was a marriage. When we don’t have an adequate supply of real love inside ourselves, we reach out for anything that will take away the pain. Sexual pleasure can be one form of imitation love meant to ease the pain. Praise from another person or power over another person can also bring temporary relief from inner pain.

Why is it important for us to learn this truth? Because we never help ourselves by blaming our lack of fulfillment on other people: our marriage partner, our friends, our church, or our job. If we will tell the truth about our emptiness and fear and learn not to blame our bad feelings on other people, we will open ourselves up the flow of God’s love. That flow comes through many human channels, and God’s love, real love drives out fear.