The Monogamy Mystery: Natural / Unnatural?

First and foremost, let me say that as a born-again believer and senior pastor of the New Life Baptist Church (NLBC) in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, I am not a proponent of divorce. I believe in the sanctity and the institution of marriage! Yet, I have found myself with a biography that factually asserts that I have been married and divorced twice. In the process, I was blessed to have fathered two boys, both from my first marriage. In my capacity as senior pastor of NLBC, over the last twenty-two years, I have counseled many prior to marriage, during marriage, during the breakdown of the marriage, during divorce, and post-divorce, and I have addressed a plethora of issues plaguing these relationships, marriages, and lives?the most constant of which has been, by far, infidelity. Infidelity has been a destructive force to the institution of marriage. Many husbands and wives find themselves in the middle of extramarital affairs, not because they want to destroy their marriages, not because they do not love their spouses, and not because they are inherently evil or bad-intentioned. In many cases, persons admitting to infidelity have no explicable reason to offer for examination. They genuinely regret the behavior and the hurt it causes, yet they may find themselves in the same situation again and again. In counseling many of these people, I have understood them, I have cried with them, I have sympathized with them, and I have empathized with them. I have counseled them on the best ways to prevent infidelity going forward and how to survive infidelity in marriage; yet at the root of the problems that keep rising to the surface, a question consistently resonates: Were we really designed to be monogamous? I am of the firm belief that knowledge is a door, and information is the key. If persons are adequately armed with the correct information, they can make more informed and intelligent life decisions to their benefit instead of to their detriment. Moreover, having lived the majority of my adult life between the United States of America and the British Virgin Islands, the dual-cultural experience has provided me with a lifetime of sociological experiences, both in an individual and professional capacity and from two different societies and cultures from which I can draw my conclusions. My total life experiences have brought me to a place where I have formed the view that it has become urgent to unearth some necessary truths and understanding about monogamy and interpersonal relationships in an effort to stop, correct, and guide future generations of persons who opt for committed relationships in their ultimate pursuit of happiness. I therefore decided to embark on an exciting and truth-seeking journey to encourage a dialogue on this issue of monogamy that has remained a mystery to so many of us for far too long. In communicating the findings of my journey, I was assisted by my writer, Ayana S. Hull, and I express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to her for lending her talent, her time, and her management skills; and for the relentless effort, encouragement, assistance, and dedication she employed in the process of helping me bring this idea to fruition.