Once upon a time... it seems like it was a long time ago... I once had a romantic relationship with a married man. “I’m like stolen air to you,” I said ironically. He agreed... Today, looking back at that story, through the prism of those relationships, I want to reflect on the problem of infidelity and what our contribution is to the fact that a loved one begins to cheat... There are many theories explaining the nature of betrayal. One of them is anthropological and is related to the evolution of humanity. From the point of view of this theory, people are polygamous, and fidelity as a phenomenon arose simultaneously with the emergence of private property. A man must be sure that the inheritance goes to his children, the successors of his family. The only “reliable” way for a man to get his own child as an heir is to strictly control and limit the woman. A man is genetically programmed to fertilize as many females as possible in order to continue his lineage and the survival of the most viable and adapted individuals. And he may be physically unfaithful. However, if he falls in love with another, then this means a real tragedy for the family - because the family loses its breadwinner once and for all. A woman can fall in love as much as she wants, she can suffer from love, “sing serenades under other people’s windows,” her heart can be occupied by someone else - as long as she is physically faithful. A woman’s physical fidelity guarantees that the inheritance will go to the man’s legitimate children. This is why a woman’s virginity upon marriage is so important for men - as a marker that a woman can control her sexual impulses. From a psychological point of view, the infidelity of one of the spouses can be a way to increase the distance between oneself and a partner, to gain some space for yourself, for the development of your own personality. That is, betrayal is a reaction to “super-intimacy”, which is difficult to bear, and the third person allows you to increase the distance between spouses and keep the family system in balance. For one of the spouses, too strong an attachment of the other may be painful. Each of us has a need for our own personal space, our own circle of interests, our own social circle. And when we feel too much of another, even a very close person, a feeling of stuffiness and a need for “stolen” air arises in our space. The higher the unity in the family, the higher the desire for distance is expressed in it. “Unbreakable ties” are good only in novels, and real relationships do not turn into shackles only in those cases when there is a feeling of another, dissimilar and different from ourselves. People who try to attach and control their loved ones to themselves because of the fear of not “having” them in the future risk ruining their relationships in the present, not to mention the fact that they simply cannot enjoy them. For how can I enjoy life with you right now if I spend time and energy worrying that you might stop loving me or leave me? Naturally, without emotional fusion there is no love, without the loss of one’s own boundaries there is no spiritual intimacy, without Feeling like one with your partner does not provide full sexual intimacy. However, in a healthy relationship we can be together with our partner or apart. Any close relationship between a man and a woman is a search for a place that is comfortable for both of them on the axis between “being together” and “being apart”; it is the establishment of relationships at a distance that is convenient for both partners and this is the experience of exploring this distance. If there is no distance, then there is no space in which the desire to meet can be formed. I want to finish my thoughts about fidelity and infidelity, about space and distance, by quoting the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Someday we must realize that even between the closest There is infinity between people, and the wonderful life of two can continue if they are able to maintain the distance between them in love.