Sudden flashes of insight about the way things really are under a big drift of rhetoric and hypocrisy, new thoughts about what's behind the walls of what we need to feel alive. Read it through, it's not what it seems cause it's all new to me.
Let's say you're not the most cynical person in the world...and not the least. You do honor values and treasure character, but you're no fool and realize that most folks don't live up to any of them completely, yourself included. Tangentially your darker sense of humor balms the disappointment there, but honest expectations are seen as both naive and cynical by folks that are distracted, numb, bankrupt or wounded...? Apathetic snark is cooler for them you're told. Smells like spiritual impotence to you...a sorrow-sown laugh is preferred to hamstrung magical thinking.
Anyway...values like fidelity to others and reason over desire, joy through sacrifice...you like them, love them even; monogamous marriage their best expression. Those values are on the pedestal consciously, after considering the alternatives. You figure that's the right way (as taught) to unlimited possibility for rapture with another, the way everyone is trying to move forward even if its fits and starts and wrong turns. One day though, while watching the adulterous parade that touches almost everyone you know...Flash! Maybe wrong. Fidelity seems to be actually not much more than a convenient cover for lurking selfish ("I have to be true to myself, just being honest, keeping it real") and not on most folks' list of ought-to even then. The word is shaped and uttered, vows taken so that others can imagine lasting virtuous and good, but when push comes to shove, even when the foundation is very right, the fatigue of life-work and need for feelings undefined and fleeting pleasures overwhelms any sense of commitment there so easily, it's as though it never really existed. Begs the question: Did it? Real lasting commitment seems to be to vague need, and the moral, ethical, social consequences of that trade are conveniently downplayed, the behavior hidden. Responsibility? Only to your want. Accountability? Zilch, not your fault you want it. Authority? You self-define character (if you care about such antiquated things), and thankfully it always seems to fit your choices. Like I said, convenient.
Hold on though, this is no sermon and I am opening these ideas for good honest reasons. So what if you're a Greek among Romans and you just figured that out. The cultural value of fidelity is superficial, the appearance of it is all that matters till its time to 'redefine' it. Sneak, don't get caught (to spare feeling, treason isn't wrong, it's just misunderstood...it would be inconsiderate not to deceive)...he/she is married? "well, I didn't take that vow and they are willing, that relationship is over, they told me so, so it will all work out". Commitment reduced to legalisitc expectation. Surprised and dismayed to be so far from the herd...but you know it's the way it is cause it's in your face every day, plenty (most?) of near and far folk are doing it, whole cultural slices are nothing but...insert cliché that breaks the heart...but does it have to be? Specifically in committed marriage?
There are lots of ways to invoke the values defined here as 'marriage'; lots of things can be married very well in lots of ways. In the case of mated marriage between sexually monogomous-sworn couples, those folks that choose to initiate what you define as extra-marital affairs (possible to have one in the marriage after the years do their work? yes) are preternaturally adept at finding every reason in the world that it's ok; some rationalizations from another world too. Heavy Christian poseurs for instance commit adultery after re-interpreting the commandment to suit (all biblical lawyers when they sin, hedging and hair-splitting, Hell isn't for sinners, it's for non-believers), self-described 'gentlemen' hover and hint as enablers during home-wrecking play dates, wives take boyfriends on as survival issue revolving door of whose-next-I-deserve-more-and-more. Sounds pejorative, but maybe it's not. Maybe you're just wrong, and that's the way it is/should be, or at least a matter of choice; i.e. don't expect your tribe to change for you, conform to them.
If so, you may find that your funding fidelity has been a waste of time and resources in your current circles, and you should get in the lustful game; be part of the herd and not a stray. It's a social function after all; saints live alone, the rest of us work together. Marriage evolved to put the brakes on this sort of thing, but really...rusty calipers, worn pads, and the rotors haven't been turned. So driving traditional romantic marriage off the cliff (or making it conditional on age or slavery to changes happening to you, go ahead and teach your kids that, you'll get what you deserve)...what about monogamy in affairs? Or biogamies and sharing? Jealousy is still a very real threat, and it seems obvious that once one fidelity is shot in the head, a significant new challenge will be to trust a 2nd or 3rd built just for you from your co-conspirator(s) to last long-term as they have shown you plain that they can/will sidestep it with extreme prejudice. Can be done, but of course most roll this script on faith: this is different, I'm/we're special, this is not like that...cue chuckle, sure, ok, raise curtain on the real possibility of Deception Act II. The lie of fidelity is in the intent and action, not the word. If someone prates on and on about "I'm not that way, I don't want to be like that", don't get hypnotized by wishful thinking, watch what they do and take notes, you'll see it all again. Again though, so what?
If that has no waspish sting, if you de-fang the negative feelings that might rise up about it... do explorations in affair for everybody become palatable, as spicy as people must find them? even folks already in an affair or two, also for folks that have never considered it? Shedding devotional loyalty and inhibition at the same time...does it expand living and experience in so positive a way that the risks (documented in copious amounts) and collateral damage (ditto) are easily ignored or accepted? Should we all spin up to play? Grasshopper-thinking about flutters today with fantasy happy endings vs. the subtle power of compound love interest, unassailable trust and life building. Enough, skip to the end...it's not an unpredictable circumstance from where I stand; I think it all gets confused because there are in fact so many relationships that should end, that are more harm than good to everyone involved for as long as they exist, that the distinction between that and rough patches and growing pains among truly meted and mated folk is lost. For those of us that have always voted 'no' to the questions this para-posed above, a puzzle indeed. 
Pieces missing in this area, judgement suspended, more to do and say to get this figured.
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