Coldplayed

By now everyone on the social media planet is aware of the poor choices of two people who decided to cheat on their spouses and got caught snurgling at a Coldplay concert. My first reaction was pretty much like everyone else’s – BUSTED!!  LOL!!  Hahaha, etc.  Then the more I thought about it and saw how it was absolutely exploding everywhere from political ads to priests joking about it, to lawn decorations and advertising, I started to get really disgusted. Sure, it’s funny how they got caught and who they are (millionaire corporate types in high level roles), but funny really only ends there. The hard reality of this is that there are now two families destroyed by the STUPID decisions of two adults. Stupid not because they got caught and it was smeared all over every glowing screen, but that neither one of them had the sense to stop an affair before it started. That is stupid. Neither of them in their passion of cheating really truly down where it counts actually cared about what it would do to their families. Behind all the laughs, the memes, the drama, the press releases, are four children and two spouses having to deal with the fallout. Two families torn apart. This would all be horrible enough if they were caught in the lunchroom and outed that way, but heap onto this the public humiliation for these innocent family members to deal with. It makes you want to just throttle them both and ask them if it was really worth it, and how can two clearly otherwise intelligent people, be so utterly stupid.

Here's why.  Because society glamorizes cheating. In movies, on tv, in novels, in music, in every aspect of our entertainment, it is romanticized and glamorized to the point of rooting for the cheater becomes the expected response in many cases without even realizing it. Movies like The English Patient depict a passionate extramarital affair, shown as epic and tragic, overshadowing the morality of the betrayal.  In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett is married to different men, but all the while pining away for Ashley, while he returns his affections in subtle ways when married to Melanie. In The Titanic, Rose cheats on her fiancé with Jack, and we root for that relationship through the entire movie.  In music, songs like Me and Mrs Jones, If Loving You is Wrong I Don’t Want to Be Right, Saving All My Love For You, Lyin’ Eyes.... the list goes on and on. They ALL wrap the immorality of cheating in the silky satin of romance and somehow we fall in love with the song and sing it over and over, not realizing that we are only perpetuating normalization of cheating. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I freaking melt when Daryl Hall belts out Me and Mrs Jones, every single time. I know it’s wrong, and yet it’s a great song, and so well done.  Don’t get me started on TV shows – the list is long and endless. Millions tune in every day (does anyone actually “tune in” anymore? Hmmm...) – they watch every day something that contains themes and characters cheating on each other, and twisting us to root for the cheater, and have vague pity for the cheated, if that.

The world loves sin. It’s not a shock or a surprise. Infidelity is as old as dirt. While not married to God, Satan turned away from his Creator and chose evil. It is as old as recorded human storytelling. The Code of Hammurabi (~1750 BCE, Babylon), one of the first written legal codes where adultery laws were strict — women caught cheating could be executed (men had more leeway). Even then adultery was common enough to need regulation. And in the Bible, 2 Samuel 11: King David and Bathsheba, David has sex with Bathsheba (another man’s wife), then arranges her husband’s death. A clear and condemned act of adultery. 

So now what? We can’t change the world. We can’t change our fallen human nature, or those who use their free will without regard for those closest to them, or even for their own souls.

We need to live in this world, yet not be of it. We can support those in challenging situations with love and understanding, yet not accepting of sinful behavior. You know, don’t go on a double date with your buddy and his girlfriend, while his wife is home with their child. Avoid moral numbness by making excuses for the cheater – his wife is always with her girlfriends, she doesn’t pay him any attention anymore, she’s not fun like she used to be.  Engage art and culture critically, as an opportunity for moral reflection, and don’t allow it to suck you into the acceptance trap, but use it to build your understanding and resolve of what is wrong and know it when you see it.

All this to say – my heart is crushed for those left in the dust and debris of stupidity and bad choices. The children will suffer the most. Every child should have a stable home. And no one should ever have to see their mom on a jumbotron with her breasts in the hands of a man who isn’t their dad. It’s all so sad. This is our world. This is where we have to live. We don’t have to like all of it. Pray for the wounded. And for the stupid.