The Garden City Telegram
What ever happened to trust?

By John Peaspanen
December 11, 2001 

Marital infidelity is nothing new. But apparently, it has increased to the point of becoming big business. One Washington-based company makes suspicious spouses its bread and butter. In fact, they've got it down to a science.

For years, husbands and wives hired private investigators to peep through seedy motel windows and follow suspected straying spouses. Today, many still resort to those methods to uncover cheaters, but those days may be coming to an end as technology takes over.

Infidelity Today has taken the erosion of the modern marriage into a new arena - the home. It has introduced its new  "infidelity kit" called CheckMate. Sold on the Internet, the product promises reliable proof of unfaithfulness by way of testing for bodily emissions.

Anyone who doubts the strength of their vows can play junior chemist and go in search of the ugly truth. A spouse can test their loved one's garments in a matter of just five minutes. If a purple stain appears, eureka! Evidence of sexual fluids, the source of which remains to be determined. Shirts, blouses, bedding, even car interiors can be tested for the evidence of potential guilt. And for $86, the kit has seemed a bargain to the reported thousands who have already purchased the product.

"I ordered your kit and found semen. I feel justified with this to take our four kids and divorce (my husband). This is great ... now I can make his life hell," one satisfied Californian woman testified on the company's Web site, www.getcheckmate.co.uk.

Relationship counselors say the kit is a bad way to sort out relationship problems and could make the situation worse. According to them, proving guilt long suspected did not usually make for a happy ending. No kidding?

If one has to test clothing for semen, they don't need evidence. They need help. The lack of trust involved with gathering chemical analysis on the sly is more than a small indication things are on the rocks. Putting a face with the crime will not make it go away, if that is what is indeed occurring.

Trust is the foundation of any relationship. As that factor crumbles, often so does the rest of the bonds that hold two people together. Talk, not testing, will reveal the true problems at the core.

The CheckMate kit, while original and certainly decisive, gives those who have drifted apart a way out of a troubled situation that is too easy. You would think that something once special would be worth trying to salvage before resorting to cutting-edge forensic science.

Couples should try talking to each other before they break out the beakers and test tubes. What they have to lose is often so much more valuable than what they have to prove.