Dialectics: Love And Faithfulness

When in love, it's now assumed (for men and women) that both partners remain faithful to one another. Regardless of the circumstances, if they are continually bound by a serious relationship, they would be looked down upon for being unfaithful.
In writing my short story, however, I explore the mind of someone who falls out of love, and someone who could very well become unfaithful, but is bound to his partner by guilt.
In this situation, love has been lost. It is still fresh in his memory, he knows it was very valid, but he feels he has to put on a mask to be a faithful "lover" of sorts. When one is engaged to someone, the common understanding is that the two should be in love, like these two. But when put in this main character's position, one may likely choose to bury their emotions, and stay faithful. This is commonly the nature of how we act; when we discover we are in love, people frequently hide it for a while, waiting/hoping that the person with which they are in love will turn up and proclaim their feelings for them as well, and when someone falls out of love, they may bottle it up for the sake of (take your pic) kids, their economic future, the relationship/freindship as a whole, and the possibility of a change of heart.
But, in seeing this, we know that being faithful does not always mean we have to be in love. Just as some people in love will choose to be unfaithfull because they are, say, sex addicts, some people with no mutual feelings will be faithful. They may do it just because the idea of having a real functional relationship, regardless of emotion involved, means more to them than to be in a relationship in which love is truly a foundation, without which it cannot stand. The knowledge of having a relationship is worth more than the love that comes with it, in other words. That, at least, is the shallow possibility.
In trying to find a solution to this, one would be dealing with matters of he heart, AKA (almost) uncontrollable chemistry, chance, and how attractive you can possibly at any given moment without looking like you're trying too hard. Also, faced with the knowledge that one's partner no longer feels love for them, but is remaining faithful (for whatever their reason meay be, as explained above), one would likely NOT do what is recommended (end the relationship, realize that there are more fish in the sea) and decide to stay with his/her "lover" until the ship can simply noo longer stay afloat. What they don't know is that it's likely it already has sunk, and they're both just waiting for it to simply become too uncomfortable for a relationship to exist. Many of us can relate to this from experience, but still don't exactly which action is right--work at a relationship and really try to keep it going withouu exploring other avenues, or end it because the love simply isn't there anymore.
I deny that the time during which someone has been in a relationship really matters in the decision-making; one can be in a relatinshiip for less than a month and find they are in love regardless.
I deny any feeling that would suggest exploring other people is a good decision; an honest, true, and faithful break is better for people's affection cordiality than anything else (at least, this is what we mostly find to be truth.)
So what should one do? How can these two terms, these two states of being and action, exist together without any faults? Can we make a general statement and rule in the best interests of ever relationship? Well, as some famous person once said, "for every complicated problem, there is a simple, and wrong solution." I, for one, agree with this wholeheartedly. Every relationship must solve its problems individdually, as they are all different (if only incredibly slightly) and they all deal with different personalities. So, there is not one solution for everything, for maintaining that love and faithfulness go together, and one is not left without the other. But, some guidelines may be good to keep in mind:
-Do not cheat. Do not. You hhve made a commitment and even sociopaths should know this is morally wrong.
-If you're going to say "I love you," you'd better mean it. A lie as big as that can not go down well, I believe many people can tell you.
-The person you are in a relationship with hopefully loves you just as much as you do them. If this is not the case, one has to let go. Maybe then, they may see what they were missing, and maybe in leaving them, you will see what you were missing in the outside world.
Maybe.
And this is where love always gets messy.