As long as we aren’t talking about criminal behavior that harms some other person, then my friends lives are their own business. Their relationships with other people are, therefore, their own business. I honestly don’t think you understand wht I meant about my keeping a greater distance from my friends than you do from yours. The type of closeness you apparently engage in with friends is something I reserve for family. My concept of “friend” probably equates more closely to something like “social acquaintance” for you. These are people I see socially, or at work, and with whom I chat and occasionally go out for a drink. I don’t consider them qualified to pass moral judgement on me nor I on them.
where are the good old days were one would give the cut direct to someone who flaunted societies rules?!?
i would go with cool politeness. he knew what he did was wrong, he did it anyway, he lives with the fallout.
To answer your second question, I’ve never been very successful at cutting people out of my life if they were part of my social circle. I’ve tried - in cases where I don’t feel the person was a great human being (one guy I thought came on to me, he was married - in retrospect, that was “just him” and his has a higher level of flirting than I’m comfortable with). You need to give up the whole circle, or be willing to snub them. There are people I don’t go out of my way to talk to when I run into them at parties…and adultery is one of those things that I shun, unless I know the extenuating circumstances (and yes, they exist)…as is abuse of spouse/s.o./or children.
Our circle has cut out a number of people over the years…one guy in particular chose to beat up his girlfriend during a group weekend away. None of us has seen him since except in passing. Another woman my circle dropped was a welfare cheat (well, perhaps that is strong language, she was probably best described as a single mom who continuously made poor choices and thought other people should pick up the bills – her friends, the government - we got sick of it). In most cases of cheating spouses (significant others) it hasn’t been the cheating that has taken one or the other away, its been the “division of friends.” Then again, no one I know has started cheating on their pregnant wife and decided being a Dad was “too tough.”
We have lost someone from the circle who decided being a mom was too hard and left her husband and kids (far as I know there was no one else, just a dissatisfaction with the responsibility she had). But we aren’t shunning her as much as she’s moved to a different “I’m single” place and we are still married with kids (and he was the original friend).
I wouldn’t associate with him or the woman he committed adultery with, and about 6 months ago, I did cut a friend out of my life because of her behaviour during her divorce. Here’s my back story.
I do consider adultery very wrong or sinful. It’s as bad as bigotry, cruelty, or deliberately breaking one’s word, in part because it includes the latter two. I have no problem with open marriages, although it took me several months to wrap my mind around the concept when I befriended a couple who were in one. I have other friends who are in open marriages, as well. To me, the difference between an open marriage and adultery is both people in the marriage are aware of and consent to the affair. In adultery, the spouse who isn’t participating is not aware and has not been in a position to give consent. Unless a person’s marriage vows, public or private, included becoming sexually and/or emotionally involved with someone outside the marriage, having an affair is deliberately breaking those vows.
Let me tell you about a man I met several years ago. We met at a weekend gathering sponsored by a group I wound up joining. It was a wonderful weekend, and we wound up in each other’s arms at midnight doing bad Boris and Natasha accents from Rocky and Bullwinkle. He was clearly attracted to me and I was attracted to him. I had a blast and I regretted leaving before I could give him my phone number. A few months later, I went to another gathering in a different city. He was there and immediately attached himself to me. I was considering getting involved with him, so I asked around to find out if there was anything I should know about him. I was told there was. He was married. He’d never mentioned this small detail to me. I’ve been told that technically I didn’t dump him because there was nothing there to dump. I did wind up confronting him in a hallway in the hotel and telling him nothing was going to happen between us. He told me he loved me, that I was the most wonderful woman in the world, and that he’d never felt that way about anyone else. My response was, “Tell that to your wife.” He suffers from clinical depression and he was giving off body signals that read, “You’re supposed to take two steps forward and hug me now because I’m so pitiful.” I wouldn’t. I would not and will not participate in behaviours I consider immoral. By the way, in the intervening years, I became friends with a woman who did take up with him. Apparently, he has a habit of doing this.
One reason my position was as firm as it was was because an old friend of my father’s had recently walked out on his wife of over 40 years. His excuse was he’d fallen madly in love with another woman and he could not be happy without her. As a result, his wife, who had no clue what was going on, wound up wondering what happened and if she was an unattractive, hopeless old hag. His action devastated her.
I’ve also spent the past year seeing an old friend through a divorce and its aftermath. This time, there was no adultery involved – he and his wife are the couple in the open marriage I mentioned. Instead, she diagnosed him with a mental illness neither he nor his therapist at the time believes he has and one I haven’t seen any evidence of him having. She made demands which would have destroyed him. It was my couch that he slept on when he moved back to town. As things worked out, I was able to go up to the state he and his wife had been living in to help him move the rest of his stuff back. I was on the sleeper bed in the living room when I heard him and his wife have their final confrontation in the kitchen. She never explained. She said she couldn’t. She said she’d e-mail; that was 6 months ago and she hasn’t yet. This man is one of my closest and dearest friends. I’ve held him while he cried and been by his side when he realized that, despite it all, he still loves his wife, even though she’s accused him falsely of being the worst kind of scum. The day we left, the day after the confrontation, I refused to hug her good-bye. As far as I’m concerned, she deliberately and willfully destroyed her marriage and nearly destroyed her husband. It’s a long story which isn’t mine to tell, but there’d been a point the summer before when he’d been at the point where he’d thought he might have to leave her because of severe mental illness. A friend of theirs was encouraging him to do so. He chose to stay with her because she and their marriage meant more to him and he saw her through that bad patch. Several months later, when that same friend encouraged her to leave him, she did so.
I’m at least honest. My friends know my views on adultery and on divorce. If a person chooses to damage their marriage by committing adultery, then I, too, can choose not to associate with that person.
CJ
**Originally posted by Siege **
I am not here to champion the cause of adultery. However, I think it’s a far lesser thing than bigotry or cruelty. Those are active evil; adultery can be actively evil (as it seems to be in C3’s story) but I don’t think it is necessarily so.
In the tale you told of the time you resisted committing adultery, I’m sure you were very tempted…right up until the time you found out the guy was lying to you. But suppose he was someone you had gotten to know well over a period of years, and you knew him as a decent and worthy person who was staying with his wife for the sake of the kids although she was a verbally abusive alcoholic who could not hold down a job? Better yet, suppose you were the married one in that situation. If someone you knew were to show you kindness and affection during such a time, I think it’s possible that you would weaken. Let me rephrase that, as I don’t know you well enough to say such a thing: You might understand that someone in that situation could get into a relationship outside of his or her marriage.
That is the situation I got myself into, and although you may think me cruel, my husband never knew about the affair. My biggest mistake was in trying to stay married because I thought my son needed his father, although his father was a worthless piece of shit.
This is not the place for my tale of woe, so I won’t go into it again here…all I’m saying is that there are shades of gray.
I think you’re on the right track, C3. I think that is pretty much what I would do - I would move an adulterer to a much further away level of friendship. I make friends with people that have similar integrity and morals to mine; cheating on a spouse shows me that the person does not have the integrity that I thought they had. I realize that sounds pretty high-handed, but cheating and lying are really big deals to me.
No offense, but what makes you think his wife wants him back? If I had a husband who cheated on me and was intending to carry on his affair behind my back and never let me find out, I’d kick his ass to the curb. There would be no “fixing this marriage.”
Now, of course there are two sides to every story. However, his side:
Sounds like bullshit. Having an affair when his wife was pregnant, then continuing when their child was born with health problems? If it was “too hard” he should have at least have had the balls to divorce her in the first place, rather than run around behind her back. Marriage and parenthood aren’t supposed to be “easy.”
Dung Beetle:
Then I’d try to encourage him to leave her and sue for custody. Staying together “for the kids” only creates a really messed up situation and it’s not a healthy environment for the kids to grow up in-especially if their mother is a verbally abusive drunk. I’m sorry you were in that situation, but you should have gotten out of it before starting an affair.
You’re right, of course - she probably wouldn’t take him back. But maybe he could at least try to fix the divorce? Apologize, or maybe agree to mediation so that they could talk about what steps they’ll take now. He could maybe act regretful about the choices he made. I don’t know. It’s probably an irredeemable situation. So very sad.
You’re absolutely right, Guin, and I learned it the hard way.
It seems to me the judgement has been made, and the sentence passed. Your heart has shunned him, whatever politeness might require of you among your circle of friends. He has not sinned against you, but you have already lost a friend, and stand to loose a few more as I see it.
I feel a great guilt. A heart wrenching feeling that everyone would shun you, if they only knew. Let it go. Give judgement to the Lord, and really try to love the sinners who share this poor tired earth with you. Even yourself.
With love, and concern, I hope you find a way back to the love you felt before you let sin take it from you.
Tris
I haven’t read through all the responses, so if this has been said, forgive me.
It takes three, sometimes four, people to have an affair. (Husband-Wife-Lover-lover’s SO, if applicable.) Maybe he outgrew his wife or she was too absorbed in the kids and lost her identity. Maybe they just lost that lovin’ feeling. Maybe the thrill is gone. Maybe he is addicted to the high of the secret? Maybe he thinks love is always about that personal high? Maybe she is menopausal and sex ain’t happenin’ anytime soon again in the next 10 years. Maybe she is overbearing at home? Maybe we don’t know the entire detail of what went on in their house. Maybe he is a raging bunghole. Maybe she is a harpy shrew but only too him. Until the mini series of the week comes out, we will never know.
Chances are they weren’t exactly happy in their marriage and if he’s been seeing the other women for two years, its probably a pretty solid thing instead of a fling. She was probably happy in her own little bubble of a world and if she looks back on it can probably see the clues that were staring her in the face.
Your friend cannot hold onto what is already gone. The last two years have already been a lie to her and that has gotta hurt. He has lost some major credibility and just may not recover easily. yes, you can smite him, but he still has children to feed and that is something we all sympathize with.
Does it suck that he lied and is deceitful? Yes.
Does it suck that there are kids involved and are scarred? Yes, but if they didn’t have kids he probably wouldn’t have felt trapped. Kids are pretty resilient,too.
Really, it isn’t anyone’s business unless he did it to them directly.
My philosophy, to show you how mature I have become from my “Hang him by the balls” mentally of years ago, is keep them both as friends and act normally. Don’t burn bridges. A friend, even one not in the inner circle or next circle of friends, should be maintained because you never know when they can help you out when you need it the most.
The hardest part of it all will be the first couple encouters with Him. And the girlfriend. she’s gotta be feeling like shit for falling for a married man, but love is like that. Love is a bitch. Just keep the convo topical and light.
Who knows. Maybe they divorce and he marries the girlfriend, who after the honeymoon period is over, realizes he is a total bunghole and divorces him and he is left with nothing. Meanwhile, his first exwife has gone on to either find the love of her life or something and is over him.
You can speculate all you want ( it is fun, admit it.) but really, it is no ones business.
CE , been there, done that. Your solution is good.
C3 . Dammit. I’ve got to start previewing. :smack:
I’m sorry. I really don’t want you to think I’m saying you’re an immoral cheater, or whatever. Just that the idea of cheating, to me, is just SUCH a turn off. Let’s say I feel in love with a man, then found out he had a wife. Now, this may sound odd, but I’d probably love and respect him more if he stayed faithful, because if he attempted to start something with me, it would kill any feelings I had-because the idea is just so repugnant. Otherwise, I could still think of him fondly, but go on to find someone else.
Does that make sense?
I know you’re not talking to me, but you make complete sense. Yeah, you can’t control who you love, but you can control your actions. Taking up with a married man is never a good action, much less a smart one, regardless of the circumstances of his marriage.
Ethics, aside, I wouldn’t want to be with someone who would be with me under those circumstances. I don’t want to date a cheater, and I don’t want to date someone who isn’t 100% sure he wants to be with me (proven by a divorce). Girls, don’t set yourselves up for failure. Relationships are hard enough as it is.
I am a Christian and forgiveness if required of me when someone hurts me or someone I love.
Sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that I have forgiven that person already. Then I have to forgive myself for letting the hurt build back up.
I can be “friendly” to almost anyone. When kindness seems to be out of reach for me, then I try to at least be civil.
Certainly there are people that I don’t want to be friends with. People who are physically violent with children make me ill. People who are intentionally cruel, emotionally shallow, controlling, self-important, or lacking in integrity are not people that I feel comfortable around. But I have no need to plan ahead how I will shun them.
Remember, you have heard only a filtered version of the husband’s side of the story. And we have heard only a filtered version of that version. I’m not excusing his behavior. I’m not commenting on his behavior at all. It is not up to me to judge him, excuse him, forgive him, control him, correct him.
I am responsible for my own behavior and no one else’s. I have no right to try to control anyone else’s life or business and no one has the right to control me. Any attempt to do that is immoral.
How is not associating with someone, or even telling that person what your opinion of their actions is, controlling them? I’ve certainly had people tell me they don’t agree with something I did. I had the option of either agreeing with them or not, changing my course or not.
This is the scenario I’m imagining: My husband, child and I get invited over to our friends’ house for drinks and cards. We get there, settle in with our glasses of wine and the kids go downstairs to play. A few minutes later, the “guy who cheated” walks in, says hi to everyone, and comes over to the table to sit down with us. At the beginning of this thread, my plan of action was going to be to have a private word with him at some point during the evening and let him know that I think maybe he should try to somehow salvage his marriage and I’d probably try to make some suggestions or give some support in this vein. If he was there with his girlfriend, though, my plan was to have a quiet word with the host and just say I wasn’t comfortable, thanks for having me, and go home (my husband could stay or not - that would be his decision). Now that this thread has progressed (and also, because I’ve had some time to digest this all), I’ve decided to stay, be polite to him, but not really engage with him or the girlfriend. Not once did I say that I would be aggressive toward him or her, or even uncivil, even in the original scenario.
I’m still not sure that hanging out is the best action. Frankly, it feels lazy. It’s the easiest thing for me to do because it requires zero backbone. Like I said above, this isn’t about me forgiving him (he didn’t do anything to me). To me he falls into all of your categories (people who are intentionally cruel, emotionally shallow, controlling, self-important, or lacking in integrity) that you list for someone you wouldn’t be friends with. From what I can tell from your posts and some of the others who are leaning in the same direction, you’d sit at the table with him and act as if you were friends with him, but in your heart, you’d know he wasn’t your friend. I’m probably interpreting that wrong, but I guess I’m having trouble seeing how your opinion plays out in a practical sense.
I’m sorry, but I’m pretty confused by this last sentence, Thank Ye Sai. What do you mean?
You are not his mother, his pastor, or his babysitter. And you should certainly not pull him aside to state your disapproval or belief he should save his marriage (its his marriage, after all) at someone elses social event. If you feel the need to talk to him, you need to call him up and talk to him - not pull him aside at a social function.
You cannot leave a party where you are almost certain he will be a guest immediately after his arrival. That would be rude. And when you make your excuses to leave, you cannot involve him - the kids need to be someplace, you promised your mother you’d stop by, not “I’m not comfortable around Tom.” To do so would be to force the host to make a choice between you and him - which is unfair to the host (who has already decided not to shun this person). And I think its unfair to your husband, too. You have a responsibility as a guest to be at least icily polite - you don’t need to go out of your way. But guests who can’t be polite don’t get reinvited. If you truly can’t be comfortable in a room with him, drop the circle of friends (which I think, again, is unfair to your husband).
Yeah, I think you’re right, and at this point, fairness to my husband is what it’s coming down to. I can’t see not socializing with this group of friends because they’re my husband’s lifelong friends. He prefers, when he’s at a party or whatever, to have his wife there with him (thankfully). My first priority is him, so I’m going to do what you’re suggesting.
I do think this whole thing, though, raises some interesting questions about morality and friendship. Although I’ve decided how I’m going to address this particular situation, I’m still interested in this subject in an academic sort of way.