Should infidelity be criminalized?
My friends would say ‘have you gone nuts ?(polite version of F*** OFF), if I confront them with this question especially in front of their other halves. Infidelity is betraying the trust one owes to his or her partner. Now, this partner can be a spouse, fiancée or girlfriend/boyfriend. Having a partner does not bar you from maintaining contact or going out on a dinner with any other person neither does it imply giving up close friends/associates who belong to the opposite gender. Relationship that stifles a person’s existence fails to nurture love and understanding among the partners. Hence, when you love someone...you are not falling but flying in love. Now during these flights of the all pervasive love, infidelity causes a few fatal accidents (the flight crashes).
One of the prime reasons people quote in support of their philandering escapades is ‘ drive for adventure’. As you spend more and more time with a single person, monotony is bound set in. The walls of mystery and the excitement to unearthing new facets of the relationship come to an end. You know what the other feels like, what he or she will eat at a party, how he/she behaves under certain circumstances. Holding hands, public displays of affection, ‘Good Morning, I love you’, anniversaries, greeting cards and simple courtesies of saying thank you and sorry.....everything goes out of the window. That’s where a kind of tacit understanding gives birth to boredom. In pursuit of adventure, many of us falter. A new person brings new set of hopes and the drive to explore sets us in motion. Everything about the new him/her seems attractive, the mind rates him/her ten on ten and the faults of our existing partner become irksome. The fresh breeze of air is also welcome though it can leave you with a bad cold. After sometime, we might regret and would love to come back to the known, comfortable and the monotonous lifestyle.
Another well tailored explanation given by infidels in a weakness of the human heart or the onetime deviation from the heavenly path of trust. They love their partners and are happy with the arrangements of things around however; once upon a time they had a little misendeavour where they cheated (sounds nasty) on their partner. Now out their ubiquitous love, they do not own up their mistake and with no intention of hurting either the existing or the newly found partner, they live a dual life. And when caught they are not guilty and present t you with their honest feelings of not hurting their loved one. They were not prepared to lose either one of you and hence chose the path of infidelity.

Is barring freedom an answer to curbing infidelity? I definitely disagree with this one. As mentioned in the first few lines, love requires lack of restrictions and freedom of space. The foundation trust cannot be laid over the debris of curtailed living. So now for the trust to sprout, the partners need to know each other better. This may lead to the mentioned monotony in the relationship. So, can we not rediscover love every now and then. With little effort, we can keep the spark glowering. The guy who woke up all night to compose the birthday song when his girlfriend turned twenty ,can put in half the effort by singing it on her fortieth birthday and make his (now)wife smile twice as much. In my humble opinion anyone who says romance is bull shit, should be hanged. The eighty year old man you chuckles and gifts a diamond ring to his wife (SBI pension plans advertisement) on valentine’s day, refreshes his vows to love. ‘ hire koh kya maluumm tumhari umar’ he adds, winking at the wrinkled beauty. Whether it the chivalrous and gentlemanly dinner invitation extended by the man to his wife who used Ponds Age Miracle or the live in girlfriend who fills the room with scented candles on his arrival from a long business trip, its the little efforts of doing something special for your loved one that can never let the monotony set in. Cherish love and with these gestures you will fuel up the intimacy that will take you to a higher plane.
Now, in my opinion infidelity can surely be prevented and if still seeps into the relationship, there must be some cracks in it. Forgiving your love or forgetting your love is a personal choice. It is based on individuals’ perception about the whole issue. Plagiarising from Gautama Buddha’s line of thoughts, I suggest forgiving the person and forgetting that anything ever existed between the two of you. Move on but without the baggage of anger and hurt. Keep flying...