All Ye Faithful

I recently caught a couple episodes of True Hollywood Story on E! that focused on the wives of superstar men. One of the episodes featured wives of major league baseball players, and the other told the story of the wives of some rock and roll legends. While it is obvious that playing a sport and playing an instrument are physically different talents, those who reach the upper echelons of either discipline encounter many of the same fundamental challenges as a direct result of their professions. Consequently, the wives of celebrity athletes and rock and roll gods face similar dichotomies of existence created by the lifestyles and career demands of their megastar husbands.

On the one hand, there is the incredible power, wealth, and status that comes along with being married to a pop culture hero. On the other, there is a life filled with loneliness, nearly-single parenting, and suspicion of a husband's extracurricular activities while he is away from home. As the shows explained the pros and cons of being married to a public icon, there was one topic that interested me more than the others: fidelity within the marriage. Because both professional athletes and rock stars spend the majority of their lives traveling away from whatever semblance of a rooted "home" they have, a natural question arises about the likelihood of these pop culture stars remaining faithful to their wives and families in the face of temptation. And not just any temptation. Temptation the likes of which none of us "regular" people have probably ever encountered. Rather, a daily onslaught of beautiful, willing, adoring women ready to give themselves up at a moment's notice just to live out a couple minutes of what is likely a lifelong fantasy. How could any warm-blooded man (famous or not) resist that forever?

What surprised me most was that all the men who were interviewed claimed to be faithful to their wives. Perhaps they have grown out of the "hit-it-and-quit-it" stage of their early stardom and are not interested in one-night stands with groupies anymore. Perhaps they fear castration if their shockingly-dynamic and overwhelmingly-intelligent wives ever found out about an episode of infidelity. Interestingly, I think rock and roll icon Alice Cooper summarized it best when he explained that he had never cheated on his wife in 31 years of marriage because, to him, no other woman had ever been worth giving up years of happiness for a few minutes of empty ecstasy. His marriage is simply more important to him than chasing fleeting bliss. I was impressed by his grounded assessment and mature response, especially given that rock stars are by nature some of the most immature performers in existence. Their profession demands an emphasis on youth, reckless abandon, and unbridled passion, and many rockers ride the fame train all the way to their own demise. Those who step back from their egocentric lives for a reflective moment, however, may realize that life can be filled with more than sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and that they can find happiness and fulfillment in an honest marriage.

Being newly engaged myself, I ponder the concept of fidelity often. A lifetime of pop culture conditioning suggesting that fidelity is obsolete forces me to examine my situation frequently so as not to be caught off guard by any secret transgressions. Thankfully, I have never been given a reason to doubt the security of my relationship with my fiance. I often recognize how fortunate I am to have found a perfect match for myself, someone who shares the same outlook on life, the same values, and most importantly, the same emphasis on honesty and full disclosure within a relationship. I don't consider myself a terribly high-maintenance partner, but I do insist on knowing that my fiance and I can trust each other 100% of the time. No doubts = no problems (or at least no major ones...all relationships have challenges, of course). As my fiance and I embark on the next chapter of our lives together as a team, I embrace the imminent adventure of the future knowing that we are both faithful to ourselves and to each other. If Alice and Sheryl Cooper can do it, so can we.