[QUOTE=John Carter of Mars]
People have affairs all the time. That’s their business. What I don’t like is all the Holier Than Thou condemnation crap that been thrown at RSSchen.
You never know what some other person is going through and a third party on the internet is hardly in a position to pass judgement. If you don’t want an affair, do like I do and don’t have one.
[/QUOTE]
Just out of interest, what do you think of RSSchen’s most recent offering in that thread?
Still willing to give her the benefit of the doubt?
[QUOTE=DianaG]
And that’s certainly your right, but in my opinion, that makes you an unethical person, and not to be trusted.
[/quote]
Yeh, me sneaky, mon!
You’re basically right, but people in this country are fed a load of bullshit about monogamy and marriage from birth, so I don’t think they enter those contracts rationally. Plus, there are the complexities I elucidated, but which you prefer to ignore.
WhyNot, I wasn’t diagnosing – I was rather trying to point out that it kind of takes a certain… kind of person… to follow through with this kind of thing. Yes, people fall in and out of love. Few, however, follow through on these feelings in quite this way AND justify their actions like this. I’m not saying the lady in question has a psychiatric disorder.
What I am saying, however, is that she’s not the saint she’s pretending to be. She’s making herself out to be this noble creature who is out to harm no one… and I’m calling out “narcissistic bullshit”. Is all.
And no, I’m not a shrink. Daughter of one, sure, but not a shrink.
Not true. Every conversation here affects the participants and the lurkers in one way or another.
Chances are very slim. When people are pushed like this, the are much more likely to harden and push back, not relent. Calling the poster in question mean names makes her less likely to consider your viewpoint, not more.
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
To me, the worst part of this is the implication that RSSchen is only staying with her husband because she doesn’t currently have a job, she’s a SAHM, so if she left the marriage she’d be in a bad financial state. That’s fucked up. She should just get divorced, like half of America has, bite the bullet and get a job. Work out custody of the kids, figure it out like everyone else does. Then she’ll be a single, self-sufficient woman and can do whatever she wants with a clear conscience. But leeching off the man you married, for whom you have nothing but disdain, and having an affair on his dime? Fucked up.
[/QUOTE]
Oh come on, LoverBoy is in love with her and her soul mate! I’m sure he’ll happily take on herand her kids. He’ll fully support them in every way, let her stay at home, work his butt off to make it work. Then they can live on the moon in a space ship fueled by love. :rolleyes:
I agree that her attitude is what is striking in that thread. What I find absolutely reprehensible is the same thing I think in all cheating situations: if she’s going to continue fucking her husband, she’s putting his health at risk (I mean, I seriously doubt after that many years of marriage they use protection, although they may). If you love someone (even if you aren’t IN LOVE with someone), you would never want to hurt them like that. Unless you’re a complete selfish bitch who is only looking out for #1 and no one else.
And divorces can be hard on kids, but not if they are taken care of, loved, and somewhat smart. I remember knowing that mommy and daddy were much happier apart. What would be worse than mommy and daddy getting a divorce, is learning that mommy is really just a huge fucking slut that was fucking some other dude on the side, while daddy worked himself to death to take care of her ass so she can sit at home all day fucking her buddy for middle school.
My dad got heart disease and went batshit crazy from depression in the 1980s, making all our lives sheer misery. That’s changing the deal quite a lot. My mom never had an affair, to my knowledge, but had she had one I sure wouldn’t have blamed her. At same time, I could understand her not wanting to get divorced because she felt an obligation to see my dad through his illness, which she did.
[/QUOTE]
I understand this, but, frankly, your opinion doesn’t count. You, being the child, did not enter into a contract specifying monogamy and honesty. Your mother and father did. Only they can renegotiate that contract. The only one who can give your mother permission to ethically take a lover is your father (and her other lovers, if you want to complicate things.)
If my parents were in a similar situation, I wouldn’t berate or scold my mother for having an affair. I would understand why she was doing it, and perhaps even feel she was justified in doing so. But I wouldn’t think she was being ethical.
This seems to be coming up a lot in my posts the last few days - we may not always choose to do what’s most ethical. That includes me. The unethical choice might be the most attractive and serve us better than the ethical choice. But that doesn’t magically transform our unethical choices into ethical ones.
I agree with you in general terms about monogamy being a bad choice for many people and the ethical quandaries of presenting it to our kids as the only REAL love. (My husband and I love to giggle at tortured love triangle storylines in movies and TV. “Problems with that pesky Monogamy? Now there’s New and Improved Polyamory! Try it today!”) But it works as least as well as polyamory for at least as many people. And, again, any renegotiating needs to be done with honesty.
Elenfair, “narissistic bullshit” I’ll take, and agree with, even! I just don’t think we have the evidence or training to declare it pathological. Yet.
Yoohoo! Aeschines!! Remember me and how I politely requested your further explanation of that post I misunderstood? I’m sure you just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but if you don’t mind and have a moment, can we clear that up? Thanks so very much.
Yoohoo! Aeschines!! Remember me and how I politely requested your further explanation of that post I misunderstood? I’m sure you just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but if you don’t mind and have a moment, can we clear that up? Thanks so very much.
[/QUOTE]
Post #23, bro.
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
To me, the worst part of this is the implication that RSSchen is only staying with her husband because she doesn’t currently have a job, she’s a SAHM, so if she left the marriage she’d be in a bad financial state. That’s fucked up. She should just get divorced, like half of America has, bite the bullet and get a job. Work out custody of the kids, figure it out like everyone else does. Then she’ll be a single, self-sufficient woman and can do whatever she wants with a clear conscience. But leeching off the man you married, for whom you have nothing but disdain, and having an affair on his dime? Fucked up.
[/QUOTE]
This was basically what I posted in the other thread. Along with a helping of “Are you sure Lover Boy is going to want to marry you, since he knows from experience you can’t be trusted?”
I have all the information she provided, which is that her husband, while not lighting her fire anymore, is a good, faithful partner and father, who supports her both emotionally and financially, and she’s cheating on him. Not complicated.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
If my parents were in a similar situation, I wouldn’t berate or scold my mother for having an affair. I would understand why she was doing it, and perhaps even feel she was justified in doing so. But I wouldn’t think she was being ethical.
This seems to be coming up a lot in my posts the last few days - we may not always choose to do what’s most ethical. That includes me. The unethical choice might be the most attractive and serve us better than the ethical choice. But that doesn’t magically transform our unethical choices into ethical ones."
[/QUOTE]
Not sure what you mean by “ethical,” if something can be both “justified” and unethical at the same time, per your quote above.
My basic system of ethics is pretty simple: Don’t hurt people. Do keep promises.
But sometimes we make promises that are unrealistic. One side may think it’s fulfilling the terms of the deal while the other disagrees. And I think we have a society-wide “promise problem” when it comes to marriage.
I’m curious how this whole debate will seem in 100 years. There is no stuffing the genie of the sexual revolution back in the bottle, and once people taste freedom they are unwilling to give it up. More and more, as in Europe, we are seeing people quite leery of making the marriage promise. There is some type of trend in the world, but I don’t know where it’s leading.
