Perhaps you’ve played this game. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse lets you have one free pass — one special man or woman who is so attractive and out of reach that if circumstances allowed it, your partner would allow you to sleep with that person. Most monogamous couples feel safe with the free pass rule as it’s more theoretical than practical. Sill, if your partner gave you a free pass, would you use it? On who?

For the short answer see Tuesday’s post. There at the bottom … where the prompt asked about whether it’s ever permissible to cheat?

No.

It’s just not how I roll.  Because even if LightHusband gave me permission (and … uh … I seriously doubt it), it’s still cheating.  There it is.  I feel pretty strongly about this.  23 years ago this August, I made some promises before God and our gathered family and friends.  I take them seriously.  Really.  I do.  And to me, with permission or without permission, once that veil is pierced there’s no going back.

Trust and relationship would be badly broken.  Does it mean that it can never be repaired?  I don’t know.  Frankly though it’s a place I’m not interested in exploring.  I have enough broken, screwed up, hard places in my life without creating more for myself and for my husband and children.  I have so many relationships where trust got broken without the issue of infidelity, that I don’t see how it would be possible.

So there it is.  My inner conservative coming out to play.  There are one or two things upon which I do not ever budge.  This is one of them.  If I were ever to feel as though I needed to wander outside of our marriage, then (in my mind) that points out much larger problems in the marriage relationship that need to be addressed.

None of this is to say that there is not a really special person or love from my past that would not be tempting.  There is, but he is not worth the damage it would do.  Protecting my family and friends from the concentric ripples of dismay and hurt that fan out when relationships go awry and twist in the wind have more value than my selfish desires.

I guess all of this makes me not cool.  An old fart, so to speak.  That’s okay.  I’ve been this way most of my life.  I’ll keep on keepin’ on.  Because that is how I roll.