From the time I had my first teenage relationship, one thing was clear: If a boy ever cheated on me, I would be gone long before he had the chance to do it again. In my 20s and much of my 30s, I felt exactly the same way. Nothing but the pronouns changed when I began dating women instead of men. There was no doubt in my mind that anyone who had an affair was a horrible human being, could never be trusted, and didn’t deserve to be with me.  Now that I’m married, things feel a little different.

It was easy to believe I would never get over a betrayal and my love would die immediately for someone if they cheated, but the heart is more complicated than that. I don’t know what my reaction would be, but at this point in my life I’m no longer sure I’d walk away. If, for example, my wife had set up an Ashley Madison account in a moment of weakness but not acted on it, I wouldn’t leave. I’d want couples’ counseling to help us sort through why it happened and how to rebuild trust between us. If she’d acted on her thoughts, I’d need to reevaluate. But it still wouldn’t be an automatic divorce.  Sharing a life and children takes away those absolutes.

I have a friend who is a lawyer, and a client came to her with doubts about her husband. The client asked my friend to look into whether her husband was on the Ashley Madison account list. My friend and her client live in the same neighborhood, so for my friend to pull up the name of the suspected cheater, she had to pull up the data for her whole neighborhood. Now she is in possession of information she wishes she didn’t know. The suspicious husband was, of course, on the list, but so were many of their neighbors.  Now she has to choose whether or not to stay connected to the horrible cheaters and feels pity for their spouses.

But maybe the situation is a little more muddy than that. All of us betray those we love in small ways, even if we never physically cheat. It’s easy to think of myself as above all that but I can imagine scenarios in which alcohol and a need for validation could lead to a flirtation, a kiss, or more. My mother used to say that once a married person gets herself into a position where she needs to say no, it’s already gone too far. While I agree with that in theory, I also know that many married people have close calls and these Andy Grammer lyrics ring true for a reason:

So nah nah honey, I’m good
I could have another but I probably should not
I got somebody at home,
And if I stay I might not leave alone
No, honey, I’m good
I could have another but I probably should not
I gotta bid you adieu
To another I will stay true

Marriage is a long, bumpy road, and there are going to be times that people look for ego strokes outside of the relationship. I’ve been with my wife for eight years, and there have been times that tested our vows. I admit that I’ve gone online to Google exes when my ego was fragile. I never made contact, but just the act of Googling or Facebook searching is, in itself, a small emotional betrayal.

The jump from Googling an ex to infidelity is a big one, but it is no longer inconceivable to me. I cannot jump on the boat that says all cheaters deserve to be outed and have their names on public walls of shame. Who knows what causes these people to make their bad choices. Maybe they just want to know if they “still have it” or if anyone would be interested in them now that they are no longer young with full heads of hair or abs of steel. Maybe it’s a late night after too much wine and a fight with a spouse. Maybe they have an open marriage.

The point is, we have no window into other people’s marriages or motives, and we all live in glass houses. As a society, we are obsessed with knowing which celebrities and politicians are cheating on each other.  In the wake of the Ashley Madison scandal we have the data on our very own neighborhoods. Let’s be careful how we use it.