Let me admit, I am not good at this and I do not even have any experience. It’s not that I never had the itch. Many times, but my partner faithfully kept scratching every time she noticed me getting the itch. She was so good at noticing it that at times she scratched even before the preliminary chemical initiation of the itch had started. And she made it be known to me that she had noticed. However, the itch never gives up and one has to be careful. Now it is 14 Years of marriage. It means the seven year itch back with a vengeance in double the strength and some. More so, if one resisted the temptation in the seventh year. My research on why men cheat has thrown up some interesting stuff.

First a folklore:

A man was convinced that his destiny was to one day catch a rainbow. The man spent his lifetime chasing rainbows. He was committed and dedicated to his purpose, even though he was miserable most of his life. In the end, he did not succeed, in catching the rainbow, that is. He dies with his empty palm outstretched towards a rainbow. Goes to heaven and asks God, what his life’s purpose was. God tells him, “I am so disappointed in you. I had planned such a beautiful life, full of success and glory for you, discovery of anti-matter, The Body/Mind Connection, the bigfoot, ESP, aliens. You could have saved the world, only if you had stopped chasing those stupid rainbows.”

The moment the story got out, leaked by an unscrupulous employee in the heavens, all the men against whom the universe was conspiring, in the looooooooong but till then successful marriages, started feeling like they were chasing a rainbow and started doubting whether their life’s purpose was to stay committed. All around they saw women who may have been meant for them and they had been ignoring them. What if, they are with the wrong one? The question started haunting them. This story has been passed down by word of mouth for generations.

I said looooooooong. It is really funny that the first thirty years of life pass by so fast that one does not have any qualms about spending the next thirty in marriage. After all how long can thirty be. It wasn't much the first time. Sadly the brutal truth is that the years after marriage, especially the ones after the first couple of 'em, are longer, much longer than the ones before marriage.

Probably that is why all people remember their marriage anniversary. Counting days, not the ones that have passed but the ones that are left to be spent in hol(lowe)y matrimony. I don't remember anyone remembering any other occasion so vehemently year after year. When the years get too long, the man starts seriously feeling that his marriage has indeed slowed down the earth's movement around the Sun.

During this time the men do meet other women who make their hearts beat faster, time passes by swiftly with them and intuitively the men know that the only way to make the years shorter is to indulge themselves with other women and soon the idea becomes an addiction.

It is a fact that many men, have not done very well with cigarette addiction. Many times people, after giving up, have started smoking because they know that they would not be able to hold on to their resolution for too long. So why suffer and be miserable for the ensuing period? Might as well satiate their desire.

It is also a fact that the number of women in the world is far more than the cigarette stalls. Now considering the fact that the solar system starts acting up immediately after a man’s marriage, making the years much longer than they used to be, the man starts wondering how long he would succeed in warding off, what starts looking to him, an inevitable happening. I mean it is one thing surviving the relationship, it is entirely another warding off the prospects of hastening the speed of the earth. A slow earth! Is that the earth his kids would want him to leave for them?

Another fear which starts haunting him is that if he continued in his faithful manner the earth might slow down further and maybe come to a complete halt one day, putting an end to the life on earth as we know it. The men start panicking. I mean, who wants to be responsible for the end of the life on earth. It is this guilt of having somehow been responsible for slowing down the earth that the men know that they have to at least try, if not for themselves, then for the good ol’ earth and for their kids. You may call it cheating, but they are trying to save the world.