March 13, 2006
Shooting The Messenger
I am writing to object to your one-way, no alternative advice when it comes to infidelity. While other long-term advice columnists--such as Abby and Ann Landers--always recommend counseling, you two go to the other extreme of "forget kids and family, let's divorce immediately."
Every case is different! How can you be so judgmental? My guess is, it is based on your personal experience. The divorce rate is high enough. Please stop trying to increase it!
People change over the years; people grow apart; sometimes it is possible through hard work to grow back together. This can be a wake-up call. A heartbreaking, devastating wake-up call! I only ask that if one person recognizes they have made a mistake and wants to reconcile with their spouse to whom they pledged "till death," don't be so one-way and adamant in your advice!
Violet
Violet, the narrator of Daphne du Maurier's novel "The House on the Strand" is a man named Dick Young. At one point Dick says, "Truth is the hardest thing to put across." We agree, and we would define truth as that which corresponds to facts. Truth is not what we wish to be true or what we would hope to be true. Truth is what corresponds to facts.
The most obvious question about adultery is, Why is there such a strong taboo against it? The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle grouped adultery--along with procuring, poisoning, assassination, and desertion of a comrade in battle--as an act which must always be wrong. Jesus of Nazareth in the Sermon on the Mount listed it as a case where divorce is permitted.
Virtually all religions and legal systems make adultery the one instance where divorce is allowed. Why? There must be a reason deep within us. Cognitive scientists use the term "unconscious" to describe brain structures we cannot view directly, but which we know by their effects. Is that where this taboo comes from?
Who taught the 16-year-old girl to feel jealous when another girl gives her boyfriend attention? Who taught the 16-year-old boy to feel sick to his stomach or angry enough to fight when an older boy moves in on his girl? No one taught them. Those feelings are innate, and there is no evidence counseling can change innate brain structures.
Last year was the 75th anniversary of marriage counseling in the United States. If there is someone under a bush or in a cave who doesn't know about marriage counseling, we'll leave it to the 99 percent who know about it to inform them. But we won't imply that marriage counseling can do more than it can do.
People may stay together for financial, religious, or social reasons, but we never get letters from people who say they "got over" their partner's infidelity. The letters we get are from those who feel the pain of betrayal decades after the fact, or even years after the death of a spouse. Why? Because, as humans, we want love from someone who loves us to the exclusion of all others. Infidelity is the proof we don't have what we most deeply crave. There is simply no way around that.
People need to hear they don't have to put up with a spouse who violates the most basic tenet of the marriage contract. Strong reasons from religion, law, and cognitive science support leaving. If one person knows the other won't leave no matter what, then that party has enslaved the other.
We agree with you that the divorce rate is high enough, but we also believe in dealing with reality. We could give the traditional yadda yadda yadda answer which implies everything can be fixed, but that would fail the truth test.
Truth is that which corresponds to facts, and as Daphne du Maurier's character said, truth is the hardest thing to put across.
Wayne & Tamara
Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.
Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.
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Posted on Mar 06, 2006 by Site Admin
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