Permission to Cheat

(www.postsecret.com)

"I regret giving my husband permission to cheat

But I really hate oral sex.”

To me, this secret is the regret of an insecure wife. I believe that she loved her husband but did not feel adequate enough for him, so she allowed him to cheat. I think disliking oral sex is a cover up for her feelings of insecurity as a whole. In my personal experience, when you love someone, you want the best for them, and that means sacrificing your own happiness. In this case, the wife hurt herself to save her husband. She may have originally thought she was being heroic, but in the end she realized that her heroic suggestions caused her marriage and trust in each other to crumble and now blames herself.

This relates to society because many people have good intentions for others that are also detrimental to their own well-being. This brings morality into question. We are selfish creatures, so why would we put others’ happiness before our own? Although I have no real answer to this question, I believe that love, passion, closeness of friends and family, are forces that cause us to act on impulses and do spontaneous actions that we would normally not do. I know for a fact that I would “take a bullet” for my family, boyfriend, close friends, even if it leaves me worse off. But once again, this is an unexplainable feeling because as much as I think about it, I cannot think of a concrete reason as to why I would do this other than “because I love them.”

Another relation to society is feeling guilty for doing a good action. If my friend asked me to borrow $1000, and I gave it to her but then found out she bought drugs with it and never repaid it, I would regret my good intention. Although nothing could have stopped me from doing the action, I would blame myself for losing money, just like the wife blames herself for wanting her husband to be better pleasured.  Can it be said that if we do a good action, we expect one in return?