Good becoming evil. Evil becoming good.

While doing my regular cardio at the gym, I usually bring a book to help pass the time. The other day I knew I was going to have a shorter workout so I figured I'd just grab a magazine from the rack at the gym. In my laziness I grabbed the closest one - Cosmo. Not really my magazine but it was better than staring at the time slowly tick away.

This particular copy of Cosmo had a brief article that caught my eye. It was about the reasons why women cheating on their spouse/significant other is becoming more commonplace. One piece that I found especially disturbing was about a dating website devoted entirely to people that are in relationships and looking to cheat. The name of the organization sounded familiar but I was still curious if it really existed. Sure enough, I went to the website and underneath the name was their trademarked tagline: "Life is short. Have an affair." They call themselves "The world's premier discreet dating service with more than 3,245,000 like-minded members." I've never been good with numbers but over 3 million people? That's a big number.

I did a little google-ing to find additional articles about this site. Because of the nature of this topic, I am not going to post links to the articles, websites, or news clips on this particular site (their ads are a bit inappropriate). With the little research I've done, the information has been astounding.

The CEO of this particular agency/website was interviewed by CNN. The entire time this guy was talking, all I heard from his mouth was a whopping serving of rationalization with a hefty side of justification. He claims to just be in the business of making money. He has convinced himself that he is by no means counseling people to cheat, making them do something they otherwise wouldn't do without the aid of the website, nor is he perpetuating the destruction of marriages. The CNN interviewer asked him how he felt about what his business does. The CEO replied, "We have always maintained that we are on the cutting edge of something [internet dating]. We are in a time when the institution of marriage is being redefined. Just look at the situation in California." The interviewer promptly interrupted him at this point yelling, "You're not redefining the institution of marriage, YOU'RE RIPPING IT APART!"

This CEO as well as articles I found about this and other sites like it say that people who are going to cheat are going to cheat regardless of the means. I don't agree with this. I feel it's like saying, "People who want to work out will work out regardless if they have a gym." It's only partly true. The more available the means people have to make anything happen will further propel them to do it. Anyone who has ever tried to work out regularly knows how much harder it is to do it on your own as opposed to having a gym nearby. You may still have the desire, but having the encouragement, acceptance, and availability of a gym makes accomplishing your goals that much easier. As is the same with cheating websites.

I heard a statistic that put the divorce rate something like: first marriages 50%, second marriages 60%, third marriages 75%. So how does this work? You're in an unhappy marriage, so you cheat, the marriage ends, you move on to someone else, get married again and end up even MORE unlikely to make that marriage work? The availability of allowing people to cheat only further instills in couples and subsequently their children, that cheating is an answer, that cheating is a solution to a problem, and that faithful marriages/relationships are archaic and temporary.

Life is short. Have an affair. Seriously?!?! Is that what we are telling ourselves and what we are teaching our children? Life cannot be fulfilling if spent married to the same person? Well, as for now, I'm done with this rant. It's just further evidence of the destruction of the home. The most troubling part to me has to with what is becoming acceptable in our society. Being "open-minded" is being mistaken for the dissolution of once-universal moral truths.