“We are never unfaithful, we are just sometimes faithful in ways we don’t like.”
Adam Phillips, Monogamy
I would add, “and sometimes, in ways our partners don’t like.”
But, yes, I like his point.
Every relationship is a relationship. Sometimes, one member of a couple likes to imagine, upon discovering something they hadn’t known about their partner, that they’ve been “betrayed.” Without letting myself, personally, off the hook for any of my own betrayals, I think this, ultimately, represents self-deception.
When we look back over our relationships honestly, inevitably, we can see that whatever betrayals we think we’ve suffered actually represent fidelity to aspects of our partners we have tried hard not to acknowledge. In other words, the betrayal isn’t the betrayal itself, but rather, the emergence of the betrayal into conscious, symbolized, undeniable, shared reality.