Okay, What the Heck?

First there’s the CIA director… okay, that wasn’t first.  First was the Afghan military commander, then Petraeus, now the Af-Pak theater commander.  What the heck is going on in the Army?

The FBI probe into the affair involving a former commander of the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of war has apparently led to the exposure of his successor.  Reports overnight from several news sources say that investigators discovered tens of thousands of communications between General John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Jill Kelley, whose friendship with General David Petraeus allegedly triggered a bout of e-mail harassment from Petraeus’ mistress Paula Broadwell…

This is almost depressing, given the culture of discipline in the Army.  There are always rumored stories of the breakdown of soldiers at the individual bases, and the addition of women to the front lines hasn’t appeared to help with any troop decorum (quite the opposite if the stuff I’ve heard from friends is true).

Okay, it’s really not just the Army.  Here’s an article I read yesterday, and wasn’t going to note in the hopes that the author was just batty…

As someone who reads people’s sex diaries professionally- for my books and website, The Sex Diaries Project, I collect thousands of them – I am here to report that former CIA Director David Petraeus is really just a talented guy who, considering his marital and work history, is a typical American male.

Petraeus has been married for 38 years. Very few human beings sleep with just one person in a 38-year period. Most people simply aren’t married that long. According to the Census, the majority of marriages end long before the 38th anniversary mark (the average divorce occurs eight years after the wedding), and of the marriages that stay intact for 38 years, approximately half involve at least one other sexual partner.

I’m depressed.  I thought that marriage was supposed to be a commitment to a partnership, in part a commitment that the couple would work to make the marriage last.  And here even the “committed” marriages involve infidelity every other time?  I’m going to just pretend that every other house in the neighborhood isn’t going through… oh, never mind.

I mostly mourn for the breakdown of  society that is so blase about this.  Most of the comments I’ve heard from people is that everybody does it, but the circumstances caused problems.  Folks, everybody doesn’t HAVE to do “it.”  You can remain committed in a stable relationship, or you can otherwise choose to tuck things back in.

When we address the problems at the basic level, maybe we won’t be so surprised at failure.

Updated: I should point out that General Allen appears to be mostly guilty of e-mail panky with someone as opposed to an affair.  I don’t mean to besmirch anyone’s name any more than they’re doing it on their own.  I still stand aghast at what some spouses do to each other.