What is a relationship? I like the caveats that I found on marriage.com. It lists several items that are part of being in a relationship. They are: understanding each other; admiring each other; having fun together; being affectionate with each other; accepting responsibility to take care of your relationship; being a team. To me, the most important are the last two. After all, they are really synonymous with each other. Think of being in a relationship as being on a sports team, or in my case, a military fire team. You spend massive amounts of time together, learning the most intimate details about the other people (or person). You endure incredible hardships of which you learn to put your life, sometimes literally, into the hands of the other person.
Conversely, there are times that you despise the people in your team. You fight and argue, even use your knowledge of them to do the most emotional hurt. Yet, despite all of this, you stick together. You grow closer, and eventually an amazing bond forms. This bond still requires you to nurture it. If not, it is easy for it to be replaced with a new group. You will always have feelings and loyalties to your old teams, but your current one will always be the one you are most committed to. This is because of one reason. It is the relationship that you are accepting responsibility to care for. Once you stop this focus your loyalty to it starts to falter.
Of course, that is the difficult part—responsibility. It is hard, especially when you are in a relationship, to look into the mirror when there is someone else who you can readily blame. When we are speaking about romantic relationships, this can be even harder. Social media has created a world where all we see is the faux awesome lives of others. Online, no one has any vices or idiosyncrasies that would drive others crazy. In the minds of those who live in this world, the grass is always greener on the other side. Little things that seem cute and endearing at first can easily start grating on your nerves. With online dating and social media showing only a positive view, it always seems as if you are potentially missing out. The truth is that all relationships are hard. They take an immense amount of work, especially once the newness wanes.
So, let us introduce USA Network’s newest reality television series, “Temptation Island.” The premise is, “Four couples who are at a crossroads in their relationship have decided to embark on a journey to answer the question, are they meant to be together?” At the beginning of the first episode the couples all sit there, looking at the camera, restating that same question in their own words. The couples are brought to an island where they are introduced to “twenty-four single, men and women, all here for one reason: to find love.” Over the course of the season, the single men and women will attempt to pull the couples out of their relationships and into a new one.
Admittedly, I watched the first episode and was not disappointed. The entire show is based upon the same premise that I spoke of above. In the legal world, there is something called the Reasonable Person Test. This is the test used to establish liability for a person’s actions. Simply put, the test explores if a reasonable person in a certain situation would act with the same prudence or should they have known better. For example, let’s say there is a gas leak in my house and I tell my wife that she should light some candles to burn off the gas. At the murder trial, the prosecution will state that the outcome of my actions was so obvious that I should have known better. The same thing can be said of this show. Even though I have only seen the premier episode there is no doubt where this is headed.
All of the couples who are on this island are in some way or another contemplating the legitimacy of their relationship. So, their way of validating their love is to go to a place where their significant other will go on dates with people who are only there to break them up? According to the Reasonableness Test they are all morons. Is that too harsh? It is probably not harsh enough.
I am hoping that all these people are stooges and actors. If not, then maybe men and women who are only pretending to be couples in order to fake their way onto the show. I cannot imagine that someone would put their relationship on the block in this sort of way. How can you profess your commitment to each other but then go onto a show where the entire point is to date other people?
Towards the end of the episode the couples sit down to eat what they will soon discover is their last meal together until the end of the show (twenty days). At this point, the host states, “The element I am going to keep bringing up to you guys is the element of the lightning strike. When I met my wife, I locked eyes and went, ‘Oh God, my number is up. And I don’t even want it to be up.’ Right? And there is nothing you can do about that. So ****, what happens if, you’re like, ‘I’m all about ***…and then one of these girls, like, ka-pow, and the lightning hits you?’ Are you prepared for that?” The problem is, of course that moment is going to happen. Someone new comes and starts paying attention to you. Someone with whom you don’t have any baggage. Someone that is doing their best to show you only their best face. Of course you are going to have that moment. The point is, people who are committed do not put themselves in that situation.
I am not trying to infer that everyone that finds themselves in this situation would cheat. I am stating that those who would willingly put themselves out there like this are much more likely to do so. I would never leave my wife for another woman, and there are several reasons for this. First off, I love her deeply. She complements my weaknesses directly. Having her in my life makes me a better person. She is amazingly driven and wonderfully successful in her career. We have a shared vision of the future. Most important to our marriage, she is equally committed to fighting for this relationship.
Of course, the couples are not the only ones that I take some umbrage with. Why would the single men and women on the show want to break up a relationship in order to date someone? How could they actually trust that person? There is a statement that I am sure everyone reading this has heard of: Once a cheater, always a cheater. I can only imagine that this would be in the minds of these people. If you can steal him or her away from their significant other, then what is going to happen to you once the newness wears off? I would imagine distrust would begin to enter into the relationship.
To me, ultimately, this show is about respect…or the lack thereof. If they respected their significant other, there is no way that they would allow themselves to go onto this show. But maybe that is the way of this generation. Why respect someone that is so easily replaceable? Kathryn, from Temptation Island, stated, “There is so much temptation out there, that is why you need to take care of your man or you’ll lose him.” There is some truth there, Kathryn, but should not he be reciprocating that care? Maybe she should instead think of a quote from singer John Lennon: “We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.”
Where do you stand with respect to relationship integrity?
