Just to continue a bit here off of pinks thread if that's ok.I have nothing really helpful to say to her.

I don't know how long exactly you had been talking to her.I got the impression that she was only here since last summertime? when you and I among other's first started posting to her when it was her first time here(if I remember correctly).I remember I questioned you about your advice too.Something along the same lines here.How much we refute these adulterous relationships and when they turn into a marriage that the same should be held accountable.

The A itself is bad enough but when it results in the destruction of a family and marriage,hurting children and introduicng them to more hardship whether that be financial,emotional,moral,physical,and everything else including other people such as affair partners(puke)I just cannot see having anything but contempt.Adultery is an act of selfisness and pain.I just cannot see ever coming to an understanding that accepts any marriage born from this beginning.So people may try to be the once loving,honest and best possible spouse they can be NOW that they are in their new marriage but that to me is also a joke.

I find it insulting to think of their "marriage" ever being MB material.To me it will not.I see what you are saying however the difference is I don't respect this woman.I would had she first not got involved with a married man(thankfully there were not children involved there)or even if she "found out" he was married and then ended it and never saw the man again.I do have respect for OP whe they make decisions like this that do not hurt people.But in all honesty,to me she was just as selfish by continuing with this married man all the way down the line until he was divorced and another marriage was wrecked.

I appreciate how you want to help this person.I don't fault you for that at all.We are just different that way.I hold no ill will for this person but I cannot wish her the best or support or give her my respect.I find no respect in what they did.

Anyway,thanks for listening.I respect your opinions. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Thank you for sharing your very deeply held opinion. I really do understand where you are coming from and how you arrived at this conclusion.

If we were talking about abortion how would this conversation be going?

TO ALL OTHER READERS.... PLEASE DO NOT DEBATE YOUR ABORTION STANCE ON THIS THREAD >>> I AM USING THIS ABORTION ILLUSTRATION AS A TOOL ONLY, AND DO NOT WANT TO INVITE A DIFFERENT SORT OF DEBATE THAT MOVES AWAY FROM THE TOPIC OF MARRIAGE BUILDING!!!!! IF YOU WANT TO DEBATE ABORTION, START YOUR OWN THREAD!!!!

If you are not an anti-abortion person, pretend for a minute that you are. Let's say that your position on abortion is not a social or political issue, but a moral issue. OK? Let's say your view of abortion is this ---> that it is a sin against an unborn child, and a moral lapse.

If someone you know had an abortion in their past (let's make up a name, Marge), Time passes... then later Marge becomes pregnant. And because of her current pregnancy .... Marge starts to think about her abortion. After reflection, Marge begins to CHANGE her stance on abortion. Marge begins to regret her past decision as a sin, and begins to feel that her prior decision killed a baby. She decides that her decision to abort killed her baby, no less a child than the one she's now carrying in her womb.

WHAT would you tell Marge to do about her current pregnancy? How can Marge be a good mother to one baby after killing her 1st child in utero? Should Marge ever allow herself to fully enjoy the full pleasures of motherhood because she had a previous abortion? Does Marge even deserve to be a mother?

What is Marge's best option to amend her past?

Marge is struggling with herself.

What would you advise Marge to do TODAY, even though you hold contempt for her past decision to abort a pregnancy?

Marge is trying to decorate her very first nursery, but her heart is heavy with her shame and regret about her 1st baby she denied a life.

ALL OTHER MB'ERS....THIS THREAD IS TO DISCUSS RECOVERY FROM ONE'S PAST BAD DECISIONS. HOW CAN WE FIX THE PAST THAT CANNOT BE UN-DONE? STICK TO THIS SUBJECT PLEASE!!! WE ARE NOT DEBATING ABORTION

Pep

<small>[ January 29, 2005, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

Pep, your illustration was a very good word picture for me. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> I hesitated to post on TPP's thread because of my past interaction with her but I think I saw the same thing in her thread that you did. The opening of her eyes to the damage she did and the hope of a successful M. I see quite a change in her from just a couple of months ago when she felt the need to attack another poster from the OW POV. I prefer to sit back though and let her put some actions behind her words.

Yes, we all make mistakes. I do not want to be defined by the world by those mistakes because I have evolved into a much better person. I do think we need to let TPP do the same.

Pep...

the problem with your analogy is that the greatest afront committed was against Marge's baby....that was the victim...

and no matter the remorse or regret...or lack there of remorse or regret....nothing marge does has any affect on the baby ...it's already been removed from the equasion...

affair marriages are NOT removed from the injured parties.....
they can be within their reality either peripherally, or full frontal....

marge's action no matter what they are can not hurt the first baby...

affairs marriage OP have great potential to hurt the first 'family..wife...etc...some by action some by inaction....

having said all that...
I am not sure that I disagree with extending assistance to marriages that stem from an affair...

I try to be protective of both sides of the coin...

it is definitely a case by case issue...

and some things can't be fixed or changed as we all know..

ark not really sure what my point was.... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" />

If you take MB's stance that an affair is an addiction (I don't, I think of it as an affliction), then you must extend this belief to the OP as well as the WS.

If an addiction it would be treated as a disease, one which affects the OP every bit as much as the WS.

To me the affair as an affliction (a soul in pain, troubled) would be an acting out to avoid that pain, represented by a loss of the ability to make good decisions. And this can change and should be supported when/if it does.

If a WS goes out and drags an OP (duck) into his troubled marriage inflicting great damage on the OP and her/his being and family, then why should that WS be supported to marriage build, with all the blessings that entails here on MB? He has damaged another and brought destruction into the OP's life. Shouldn't that WS be held accountable and shamed even though he went back to his marriage? If that is what we are going to do to the OP and a marriage which resulted from an affair.

In my case I feel I was the victim, of a troubled man taking his troubles outside of his marriage and bringing them into my home. But feeling a victim destroyed whatever chance we had once he was divorced and came looking for me. I took the victims stance when I should have shed it. But that is another story all together.

Infidelity has many victims.

O, if I had married my XMM would you feel differently about me? Would my marriage disgust you? Maybe right now it would but I think when your healing as progressed more with time, I don't think so.

And I value and respect your opinion just as I do you.

I support Pink (now) because I know that there is an intense pain growing in her because of the infidelity she was a party too. And I do not want to see another destruction due to infidelity. Why compound more destruction when one marriage has already been destroyed. She made an error in judgement as did her husband and they will forever be less because of it, and only because that is how they will view themselves internally.

Such is the price of sin against another.

weaver (believing that I too had a point when I started this reply <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> )

I liked your analogy Pep, it does illustrate the pain of dealing with the consequenses of something that cannot be undone regardless of a later ephiphany.

Octobergirl, I prefer not to get into theological discussions on this forum but your postion appears to have its roots in a lack of understanding about importance of forgiveness. Your position toward TPP as she is right now, deletes forgiveness and thus the power of the Cross. When the adulteress was being stoned by the crowd, Jesus asked them to look into their own hearts. They apparently did and were shamed by what they saw because they ceased throwing stones.

He told the adulteress to "Go forth and sin no more." TPP and her husband have been married for three years and have a child together. They are a family. TPP and her H do not have the option (from a Biblical standpoint anyway) to reconcile with their previous spouses (Duet.24:4) and TPP is attempting to "go forth and sin no more." I am sorry that you consider this to be a joke, because Biblically speaking it should not be. KB

10Girl, pep, weaver, ark,

I find this thread to be very discomforting( partially due to the abortion issue..I know it is being used as an analogy) and because some of my most respected members of MB have waded in on almost opposite sides of the debate.

I definitely see 10girl's position and agree with it BUT I also see the futility of trying to unring a bell( the previous M and the A).

It reminds me of the issue that raged a few years ago in regards to human experimentation done on concentration camp detainess by the Nazis during WWII. The controversy was whether to use the results and papers coming out of those horrific occurences or to destroy them as they were an affront to our humanity. Powerful arguments can be made on either side as to the wisdom and morality of the use/non-use of those experiments.

I guess what I am trying to say is sometimes ABSOLUTES can not and must not exist in our world. The word NEVER may be the most hopeful and also the most cruel word that can be uttered by any human.

"Go forth and sin no more"!
That's all point and every discussion will lead to this conclusion.

Octobergirl, I understand your hurt, been there and still sometimes am, but... I have a kind of concern... for your kids!... from your posts, and once I think you mentioned how you are going to raise them... please don't... don't be so strict... and don't 'transfer' that mind to them... and, moreover, don't except the same from them... I don't mean OF COURSE not to raise them to be decent honest people, but not to be so rigid, exclusive and irrevocable judging... for they as we are - just human beings prone to sin, this way or the other...
Or, hope so, everything will be different once you put your own pain behind and set yourself free by (kind of <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> ) forgiving

BTN, knowing that I didn't explain this properly, and hoping you'd somehow understand me... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I guess what I am trying to say is sometimes ABSOLUTES can not and must not exist in our world. The word NEVER may be the most hopeful and also the most cruel word that can be uttered by any human.

Very true.

Along the lines of the concentration camp human experimentation stories. I once read a story of a female prisoner who had been tortured by a female doctor ultimately resulting in her slow death. Before dying this woman un did the religious medal she wore around her neck, reached up and fastened it about the doctors neck, saying a prayer for her.

She forgave and even prayed for her tortuer/murderer. There must have been a place this prisoner got to where her pain and fear was replaced with acceptance and belief in a divine goodness which includes all, no matter what our sins.

October is still in a great deal of pain. We all change our opinions along the way, as we heal.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> ALL OTHER MB'ERS....THIS THREAD IS TO DISCUSS RECOVERY FROM ONE'S PAST BAD DECISIONS. HOW CAN WE FIX THE PAST THAT CANNOT BE UN-DONE? STICK TO THIS SUBJECT PLEASE!!! WE ARE NOT DEBATING ABORTION
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It is hard for the people that have been cheated on to help the cheaters. I can understand it. It is personal to them. They might *feel* like it is helping the OW in their own case, maintain a marriage with their their own XH.

If the marriage ended...and the affair partners married...and they came to the site wanting help ..what would you say to the BS that still posts here? Would the BS be expected to help this couple in their quest for a great marriage?

I think that is where the distinction lies.

It might be harder on the ones whose marriage has ended and a remarriage has taken place.

JMHO
committed

Committed I agree and I empathise.

However this board is not title "BS recovery board", it is called "infidelity" board. I take that to mean it is a safe place for all who have suffered from inifidelity, at their own hands or at anothers.

This would include pink, myself and many others who were not the BS in a marriage.

It should be safe and helpful for all who wish as Pep said "to recover from past bad choices".

We just have to remember that there is alot of pain here, so to tread carefully. Both to others and to ourselves.

I am just now at a place where I feel comfortable here and think I can post without getting personal. It's hard but necessary.

I would like to have a good marraige someday and if I get back with my ex fiancee I would hope that we would be supported. Not saying that would happen but if it did, I would be extremely hurt if I wasn't supported. However I very rarely post about him (well I don't even know where he is and I am trying to move on) because I fear retribution from some of the BS's here.

edited for poor spelling... don't think I got them all

<small>[ January 29, 2005, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: weaver ]</small>

I think that Paige, and all OP who later marry their formerly married affair partners, have to accept that their marriage is always going to have a certain smell to it that nothing can wash away.

Paige and others like her want the XW to absolve her and wash away the stench, so that Paige and her now-husband can pretend their marriage began in the same way that a non-affair marriage began and they're really no different from any other couple.

Sorry.

This is the price anyone pays for intruding in someone else's marriage and being part of its destruction. You wanted it -- well, you got it, but it's a little pricier than the "regular" marriage that begins in honesty and innocence.

It's too late to complain about the price tag now. Do the best you can, sure, and maybe it will last -- but the price is something you're just going to have to learn to live with, and nobody can do that but you. It's not the XW's job to clean away that smell.

Good luck.
Mulan

Highly controversial issue.

Looking at the statistics... 3% of relationships started as an A..have a chance of survival.

I think the part that continues to get overlooked, is that we're not talking about someone that broke up a marriage, has felt remorseful, removed themselves from the situation...and has moved forward in life and has a NEW RELATIONSHIP.

We haven't moved FORWARD with anything..still the same relationship, built on lies and deceit. I think that's the fundamental difference here..when speaking about absolutes.

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this issue. I've written to several spouses who were in marriages that began as affairs. I've watched them struggle with the ups and downs, watched them try to ride out the currents. Some of their marriages make it, some don't.

I can't give them an easy answer -- can't tell them "do this and that and the other and you will be ethically whole and your marriage will be ducky."

The more I've thought about it, the more I believe that there is no single ethically sound answer to the question of an affair marriage.

At least one person in the marriage has broken solemn vows and promises. That has done great harm to that person, as well as to the person or people who were on the receiving end of those vows and promises.

On top of those broken bonds, the new spouses have made further vows and promises -- to each other and perhaps to others. Those, too, will be harmful if they're broken.

I know three people who've woken up in the middle of affair marriages and gone, "Oh my god. What am I doing here? Oh my god. What have I done?????"

It makes me as sad as anything that ever happens here. Sometimes these people have had children with their new spouses. Sometimes they've moved across the country. Sometimes they've changed their entire lives, given up literally everything, for the new spouse.

Penny Tupy proposed the only solution that I find even marginally palitable: Find and work toward the greater good.

There are, likely, many people involved in the destruction of the first marriage (or marriages). There are the former spouses. The kids from the previous marriages. The current spouse. Current kids. Friends who tried to intervene, friends who were accomplices. Family members on all the possible sides. I'd expect that even the simplest of these situations would involve harm to 20 or 30 people. The complicated ones? Lordy, I don't want to think about it.

So when I talk to someone who's in a position like this, I ask them to review who's been harmed by their prior actions. And I ask who's being harmed by their current actions. And I recognize that there is NO WAY to move forward without continuing the harm to someone. If you break your vows to your second spouse to return to the first, you harm your second spouse. If you remain with the second spouse, there is no way (well, a good bit less way) to wholly reconcile and heal the relationship with the first spouse.

It's an impossible position, which is why affairs are bad in the first place. Really, this is just a continuation of the problem of an affair itself -- once you're in intimate relationships with two people, ending either of them causes agony. In the case of an affair, though, there is an ethical structure to guide you. (You made your vows to your spouse, not the affair partner.)

So, I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to what to do when you talk to someone who's in a marriage that arose out of an affair. I will, personally, never recommend that someone remain in an affair marriage. At the same time, I'll never recommend divorce, either. I will spend a lot of time examining which courses of action can lead to the least additional harm, and the greatest added good and healing.

And I'll also spend a good bit of time muttering in frustration about why and how such situations come to exist.

Pep,

I think your analogy works better if the FOW is in a NEW relationship with a NEW person/fetus..in which case..of course this is a NEW situation with a NEW set of circumstances and while her history will affect her feelings about her present the FACTS of the situation have changed.

This is not what I saw in TPPs thread, unfortunately.

The analogy I would draw in that instance..is one in which a woman chose to have an abortion..later regretted it, and went about setting up a nursery in DENIAL of the fact that there will be no baby. That the choices she has made negate the probability that she will ever have the ability to ever parent THAT child.

So what I see in my mind when I read her responses and her plans is a very regretfull woman walking around with a corpse in a blanket and imagining what it will take to set up a great college fund. Answer? A miracle, nothing short.

In her situation..I do not think that a miracle is possible..because her situation is counter to scripture in SEVERAL areas and I do not believe that it has Gods blessing.

I'd like to see her completely separate from this unhealthy situation and move on.

I understand of course..that not only will many disagree with my analogy..they will also disagree with my opinion because they do not witness it from the same perspective.

Not everyone who disagrees with attempting to apply MB principles to the marriage does so out of spite.

Noodle

So if a married person goes outside of his marriage, bringing pain and destruction to another, then re-enters his marriage, his marriage is still blessed?

I do not get this line of logic, and I doubt that I ever will.

And I do not get that there can be no redemption on a marriage born of an affair. I do get that the people in that marriage will probably destroy their new marriage out of shame turned inward.

But then like Noodle said, we are all coming from different experiences with different belief systems, so we are bound to have differences of opinion. And this is okay, it is what makes life interesting and keeps us growing. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> So if a married person goes outside of his marriage, bringing pain and destruction to another, then re-enters his marriage, his marriage is still blessed?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think noodle and I had the same view.... the married person re-enters his marriage, the marriage is REBUILT..hence..Marriage BUILDERS... the frame, structure, foundation, all built on truth, honesty, time, trials, tribulations, hopes, dreams... the foundation...is what we work with. You can knock the house down..just like tornadoes... but if you OWN your land..and you still have your foundation..with time..effort..you can have a bigger BETTER house..you haven't MOVED.

With an A based marriage..the foundation, BIRTH of the very union ..is based on lies, deceit, and the ultimate DESTRUCTION of someone who was blindsided one day by checking the pager or cellphone.

There's so mcuh truth and value in the old cliche ... Oh what a tangled web we weave when once we practice to deceive.

Just giving you a different pov <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

A great big THANK YOU to every single person who responded.

This, so far, is an excellent analysis of a very troubling and challenging situation .... one with no absolute answer I'm afraid.

Opinions vary naturally, yet all have been well grounded in the most heart-felt respect for marriage.

I am so proud of everyone <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I respect every opinion.

Pep

<small>[ January 30, 2005, 09:01 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

Opinions vary naturally, yet all have been well grounded in the most heart-felt respect for marriage.

This made me very happy to read this a.m.

I am learning how to communicate honestly and respectfully, and this means not to stuff my own opinions out of fear of not being accepted. This is huge for me.

I often wonder what keeps me on this board (aside from aloneness) and I think it is that there are so many strong women, all coming from different places in their journeys and I need to connect and learn from women whom I feel have reached a greater understanding of themselves than I have.

So many great women on this board, and all on this thread are included as those whom I respect (even the feminine side of Cymanca <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> )

Okay now I need to work on not making every thread about me. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

O'girl, you are very brave to post this topic, much braver than I.

Weaver,

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> So many great women on this board, and all on this thread are included as those whom I respect (even the feminine side of Cymanca </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Being raised by a single mother(my dad died when I was 9), I realize how true that statement is. I am quite proud of that feminine side to my personality. I have always viewed it as one of my greatest strengths.