In our consulting rooms we find, depending on the period, certain conditions that relate closely to current cultural prejudices. In our culture, divorce and the reconstituted family can bring both creativity but also emotional difficulty, often triggered by marital betrayal. This paper explores marital betrayal in relation to childhood experiences of fidelity, infidelity and the lack of love. It asks whether there is a cultural prejudice related to marital fidelity, and whether sexuality only belongs in a loving couple, whether this is a patriarchal contract, and what role the anima plays in a loving bond; this is related to ‘altericide’ and need for respect for the other, as the libido seeks ‘living symbols’.