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I think my mom agreed to this vacation so that she could talk about bikinis. Pink flowered bikinis. She has pointed out at least 17 pretty pink bikinis since we got to the beach three days ago.
This makes mom happy. She never gets to talk about bikinis -- or the shape of women in bikinis -- because my father is oblivious to any woman who is not my mother. In order to get my dad to notice a buxom babe in a bitty bikini, Mom and I would have to jump up and down behind her and set off firecrackers in her ears.
All dad would say is, “Watch it with those matches.” That's the kind of guy he is -- the original "One Woman Man."
So I was surprised to hear him come to the defense of Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, the four star general at Ft. Monroe who was fired for committing adultery.
Dad, a retired Air Force fighter pilot, thought that the guy shouldn't necessarily get fired, court martialed, or lose his retirement after 35 years in the military. Dad thought the guy should retire without the ruffles and flourishes and just go away.
That set me off. My float bounced up and down in the water as I went off about how important faithfulness is to a family. How hypocritical and untrustworthy it is for a commander to be spouting rhetoric against adultery to his subordinates when he is doing it himself.
“Faithfulness is one of those watertight doors in a marriage,” I proclaimed. “It's like how you treat alcohol and drugs and money. You leave one of those watertight doors gaping open in a hurricane, and that ship is going to sink!”
Dad just swung his foot in the water. He does not bring emotion to an argument, only logic. He hardly even brings words.
“It isn't that simple,” Dad said after a bit. “Usually it takes two with that kind of thing.”
At first I thought he meant “two” as in the guy's lover. That it took two to tango. But then I looked at him again. He meant sometimes the wife was bad, too. Sometimes there might be extenuating circumstances that ought to be counted.
I waited a minute, considering. “Did you know guys in your squadron who weren't faithful?” I probed.
Pause. “A few.”
“A lot?”
Pause. “No. But some.” And the way he said it, I could almost see the march of men across his memory. Men who were good pilots, good officers, or good NCOs who were not very good husbands.
From this distance from his career, my father could consider that maybe a man could do a good job, an admirable job, and still fail at marriage. Not every guy can be a one woman man.
I don't know if I can see that. I don't know if I should. Because my dad doesn't recognize that one of the foundations of my life has been his faithfulness to my mother. The rock solid nature of him taught me to like men, to trust them, to expect the most out of them.
Sexual faithlessness in a man or a woman is a weakness and a flaw. Like so many other flaws, the older we get, the deeper the flaw goes. The more likely it is to crack the whole. The more certain it is that the flaw will affect other people, change them, shape them, form them. Adultery affects more people than the two who lie down together.
My dad has to know that. But he sees himself as lucky at this stage of life. Perhaps he knows, in a way I cannot, that faithfulness runs along that notorious bell curve. Maybe some men run along the far right side of the curve, oblivious to all but one woman. Others are behind them, devoted certainly, but appreciative of a bikini babe. Others run more along the middle, serial mongamists. The rest trail to the left, each in his own way.
That seems like a sad truth to me. I want all couples to be as lucky as my own parents, safe the clang and woof of faithfulness. That is why I still think we should still require ourselves, and our partners, and our leaders to strive for faithfulness -- even if it doesn't come easy.
Every marriage will have its destined storms. Every family will have its 17-foot seas or hurricane force winds. Fidelity is only one way to batten down the hatches.
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© 2005 Jacey Eckhart. All opinions expressed
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