Wow what a great thread.....I posted the first reply to Leigh-ann's question, just before I went to bed last night, and then this morning there are four pages of posts. Great responses, what a conflicting area this "infidelity thing is....
I guess the bottom line, about infedility, is not so much about someone having sex with someone else, it's about the unfaithfullness to the intimacy and uniqueness of what partners share with one another. Whatever kind of relationship someone has with someone else, they like to think it is special (a one shot thing), they like to think that they are number ONE, they like to think that they fulfill all of their partners needs (even if it is only "every four fuckin years) and they dont want their positon as number one, threatened by anyone else.
Its all about being the most important person in someone's life and not having that position threatened.
The relationships Ennis and Jack had had with women had not come between them or made them doubt either one's connection to their own relationship....but a man, may be thought of as a threat to not only their relationship, but also to them being the number one lover.
The perception of where and what your postion is in someone else's life is usually your own fabrication...in a faithful union, you feel safe and comfortable and trust that your partner has the same perception.....its when you discover that it wasn't as you perceived, then you are hurt, feel decieved, and are jealous.
Almas thought she was in a faithful union with Ennis, and when she found out she wasn't she was hurt and angry. Alma knew, because she saw it with her own eyes, Laureen, probably suspected, but maybe not until Jack's death did she really know that she was not number one with Jack.
Like I said in my first post......infedility is a very hypocritical pastime....can be looked at as right or looked at as wrong, depending on whoever is doing the looking at it.
I have a friend, who has had a few extra marital relationships, and she used to tell me, that although she was unfaithful to her husband, she would never be unfaithful to her lover, nor would she tolerate her lover being unfaithful to her. Hypocracy at its best, and yet in some ways, justified. Maybe its all an ego thing. Maybe its just that we want to be loved and made to feel special, even if its wrong.