How are you? Well I hope. Still on the level? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

On another thread you wrote:

I've read and re-read this trying to see what you mean. So, so far, count me in as one of those who fail to understand in a broad context.

When I come across these type "truths" (pun intended) I can't immediately sign up with, I test the corollary:

"There is a responsibility that goes along with un-truth that many people fail to understand."

I propose that no one will question that!

So, wanna elaborate?

I'm reminded of the anecdote of the medieval King who asked his court wiseman to propose a Kingly statement useful in both good times and bad. The result: "This too shall pass."

WAT
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I'd rather go hunting with [censored] than driving with Ted.

On another thread you wrote:

The responsibility would is to NOT USE TRUTH/HONESTY as an LB. Also you are responsible for any damage you cause with the truth. Are you using the truth as a weapon or with a heartfelt desire to help someone? I believe these are some of the things this quote refers to.

I can go along with this a bit in specific contexts, e.g., attempting to deliver truth to an active WS who is not ready to hear it. That could indeed be a love buster. A BS doing this would indeed have "responsibility" for the expected consequence of pissing off the WS.


Again, I'll apply the corollary test: "Also you are responsible for any damage you cause with un-truth.

Works again! A no-brainer!

To avoid getting into wasteful philosophical arguments - pending Gimble's response - I'll agree that in limited specific contexts, delivering the truth in unsophisticated ways can cause temporary disadvantageous results to all concerned. Indeed, the truth CAN hurt - but assigning "responsibility" to the truth teller in a global sense seems misguided to me.

WAT
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Frequently becalmed.

Okay, well I'm not Gimble and I certainly don't want to argue wastefully...but since it's you WAT, I'll bite...

"Indeed, the truth CAN hurt - but assigning "responsibility" to the truth teller in a global sense seems misguided to me."

Our bigger responsibility on this earth is to "do no harm".

Suppose I go and tell my crazy neighbor that his wife is effing around on him, and he then shoots her and her lover.

Am I partly responsible? I knew my neighbor was a little whacko, and if I didn't perhaps I should have done a little research to find out if he was capable of going nuts with the info and killing them.

weaver, I think your hypothetical situation is quite an exception and we are talking about generalities. A rule is defined by generalities, not exceptions. The exception does not negate the rule.

Nor is it a realistic hypothetical you offered because if the H is an unstable homicidal killer, then it is likely the WIFE would know this and would not screw around. If she was not worried about it, and she knows him, why would the neighbor be concerned?

The fact of the matter is one should be responsible when delivering the truth, but that does not mean, as a general rule, that one should adopt a SHOOT THE MESSENGER policy. Using that principle, no one would ever get the truth and evil would prevail. That is a very misguided policy and ends up hurting people.

I doubt that a wife would know her husband is capable of murder in advance...and even if she did it does not negate us of our responsibility in the matter for telling him.

In a domino effect we are responsible.

And it has nothing to do with "shoot the messenger" from what I can tell, it has to do with the messenger taking responsibility for delivering the message.

I am very much for giving someone the info they need to make decisions regarding their life if I have that info...but I better be damn well ready to accept the responsibility which goes along with giving that info to them.

If I go over and tell someone that their husband is having an affair, she then falls apart and can't take care of her children, clean the house, function...would it be my responsibility to make sure that these things are done?

According to me, yes.

If I couldn't do these things then I wouldn't tell her, unless she asked and then I would have to.

Okay, now I'm out of here...I just hate arguing. Why oh why did I read this thread. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I think it's neighborly to offer to help. I wouldn't view it as responsibility but rather as the act of a good neighbor. When you said responsibility, I thought you meant CAUSE, so I think I see where you are coming from.

Exactly. We have a responsibility to provide the truth to someone who needs it, but there are other responsibilities which go along with that, and we better be darn clear of what they are first. And the biggest of those being "do no harm".

It's unfair for sure that knowing the truth about something which effects other people and their lives carries a way bigger burden than simply telling it...at least I think that is what Gimble meant, as I read it.

While I think one has a responsibility to tell the truth, there is not an inherent responsibility outside of that. If I know the person, sure I will help the person deal with the truth, but not because I am responsible, but because I am neighborly.

Some folks can't or shouldn't offer help to the victim to deal with the fallout. For example, was the policeman who told me my son was dead somehow responsible for taking care of me? Of course not. Did his inability to help me mean he shouldn't have told me? Of course not. That would have been completely inappropriate.

And what about a BS who is told the truth by the OW? It would be completely inappropriate for her to offer help to the victim.

We have an obligation to be neighborly when we see fit, but it is not inherent in the act of delivering bad news to someone.

WOW !!! Reading the post above actually leaves me speechless. I don't know what to say to you that that could possibly be within the new "guidelines" of the board. So I will try. !

It is a good thing that I personally don't have the same sense of "responsibility" as you Weaver regarding OTHER PEOPLE's ACTIONS......Last night I had to tell a guy and his wife of 47 years that his abdominal pain was not indigestion or a gall stone like they thought, but that it was wide spread metatstatic liver cancer that had went to his lungs, brain, and bones. His wife unfortunately "passed out" with grief after hearing the news and had to be admitted to the internal medicine service.

The family (all 15 of them in attendance) are ofcourse devestated with the news and were in shock and were painfully grief stricken. Should have I waited to tell them? Should have I sugarcoated things and told them that we still had more "tests" to run to buy some more time? Do you think I should have waited till I believed they could have handled the truth? Should have I even NOT told them and him so they could have a few more days of devestation free life? Should I feel "responsible" that their lifes are going to be forever changed with the news that their husband, brother, father in law, grandpa is probably going to succumb to this in the very near future. IF the man's wife is stricken with depression and needs to be placed in a nursing home, is that my responsibility?. After all, technically, it was the news delivered BY ME that will have set her off into a hole of despair and depression. IF I would have gotten one my partner's to give the news instead, would that have absolved me of the "responsibilty" of telling the truth and for the fallout after? Did I NOT think this through enough before telling them last night, given the horrible reaction they had to the news?

I am trying so hard to possibly understand how you can "think" like this, so without being argumentative or abrasive, I ask you to answer my questions.

What is different about my situation above in telling them the truth than a BS telling another the "truth" that could be equally devestating to them? Please explain this to me, because right now, I am clueless to how you have the opinion above..so I'd like some more information as to how you formed it, and how you use your beliefs for actions in the other things you do in your life.

Respectfully,

Lemonman, MD

Should I feel the same sense of "responsibility" for her hospitalization because the truth (albeit bad news) affected her this way?

Just shaking my head here and trying to close up my gaping jaw. Just must be me I guess.

Lem <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

I hope Gimble himself comes by to answer this.

But I have to say, when I read this, it resonated a great deal with me. To me, it seemed that Gimble meant this:

[color:"red"]Each of us has a responsibility to judge whether the other has the inner resources to handle the 'truth' before we tell it.[/color]

If we judge they don't, we may want to do what we can to get them some help and support before we hit them with something thay may not be able to deal with. Even if we think they're tough enough to take it, we still have a responsibility to make help available in case they're not as tough as they look. We may even decide that it's best not to tell.

This has huge personal importance to me.

On d-day, in the space of less than a hour, H hit me with the truth that

- he had lied to me for nearly twenty years about his relationship history;
- he had been visiting prostitutes for the whole 17-year marriage;
- he had multiple As, some with women I knew;
- he had had PA and EA partners in our home, even taken one to visit members of his family

...and much more.

This was told to a woman who was utterly innocent, trusting, had only slept with one man, and who at the time had little family suppport (only child, father then very ill, mother proving a great burden), and who had given up her job and financial independence in a desperate bid to 'save' the marriage.

I had no resources, beyond spiritual faith, to support me through something as crushing as this.

In the first couple of months, I came horribly close to suicide. I simply didn't have the resources to deal with what had happened in my life. If it hadn't been for this forum and the wonderful IC that I managed to find, I really don't think I would be alive today.

H was so scared I would kill myself that he left me a suicide hotline number one night.

In the past year, I've known two people who hanged themselves following the revelation of their spouse's infidelity.

If we're tough ourselves, and have been through a lot of difficult stuff, it's hard to understand or sympathise with someone who's led a sheltered existence, and hasn't built up their real-life muscles in the same way we have. We get hard and impatient and intolerant.

But, we have to remember, most people have never had any NEED to build up those muscles...it's not their fault that they're soft.

Sometimes we need to break things GENTLY to people - they will eventually get to the tough place they need to be, but they're starting from a place of childlike innocence.

Some of us, I suspect, are so far from that innocent place that we forget what it felt like to be there.

TA

Lemmonman,


I'm sure that was tough, but I'm also sure that you took responsibility for the way you handled delivering this information. Did you waltz into the room with a funny hat, hand everyone a cigar and then go into gleeful, gruesome detail about how painful it was going to be, how systems were going to break down, and how just generally awful the experience was going to be?

Of course not.

You had information. You needed to give it to them. You understood that you were responsible to convey the information accurately, compassionately, and completely (and possibly even repeatedly because people under a lot of stress tend to get confused easily).

And, when the wife passed out, did you point and laugh? Or did you call for appropriate medical services to get her the help she needed?

*grins*

You're not fooling anyone. I think you understand better than most the awesome responsibility that comes with conveying truthful but difficult information.

Mys

Well guess what, you failed..on the abrasive and argumentive level.

If I thought for one second you really gave a damn about how I come to my beliefs I would tell you, but from the tone of your post and your "gaping jaw", I can tell you don't.

We are talking about affairs here, not about a doctor telling a patient what is medically wrong with him...which is the reason they are there in the first place, for medical help. I would however hope that when you deliver the news you take some kind of humanitarian responsibility to see that they get whatever is needed and that the best care going forwarded is delivered to all involved.

My mother died in ER BTW (after a week in a coma) because not one single person working that night bothered to intibate her, until her family doctor arrived 20 minutes later. Do you think the people working in ER that night had a responsibility to make sure they could handle emergencies, especially intibation for a person in heart failure? Do you think they had a responsibility to tell me or my dad that they were sorry they didn't know how to do their own job, and that my mom died because of it? Do you think that my mom had a right to emergency care by the emergency room personel?

Edited to add: Do you think that because the deplorable treatment we rec'd afterwards from these people and mom's death had something to do with my dad starting to drink again and subsequently killing himself eight months later? Can you say DOMINO EFFECT? Or how about "for every action there is a reaction", or how about "we are our brothers keeper".

Your posts just causes bristles of anger to shoot through my body...maybe because you are an ER MD, or maybe because you are rude...not sure which.

Do you see how the story about my mom's death relates to being the messenger in an affair? No?

Good because I see NO correlation between what you posted to me and telling someone that their S is having an affair, when they didn't ask me to tell them.

Did anyone ever argue that the truth shouldn't be delivered in a thoughtful, careful way? I think that goes without saying, doesn't it?

Lemonman

In the situation where you had to break bad news, and the wife collapsed, there are several things I observe:

1. This is your job. You are required to break bad news. If you failed to tell the truth, you would be fired. However, the way you break the news is down to your own personality and the skills you possess to interact empathetically with people. If you're a blunt kind of guy who doesn't 'get it' why people are so soft, I guess a lot of wives are likely to collapse around you. If you could get fired for the percentage of unfavourable 'bad-news reactions', would you do it differently?

2. If something like a 'living will' was available, where people could specify whether they wanted bad news a) fast, b) insinuated gently over the course of a few weeks, even if this meant their condition went past the point of cure, c) not at all...just let me die puzzled but accepting - would you think differently of this man and his wife? We have birthing plans and living wills for a reason - people want to determine that they're dealt with in a way that best suits their own temperament. Legally, option a) seems to be the only way that's permissible these days - but is it best for every patient, every time?

3. You were breaking the news in an environment where a wide range of supportive professional facilities were readily available. You knew that any reaction the woman or her H showed would be dealt with by people who were trained in just this kind of thing. When breaking the bad news of infidelity, there is no such ready support structure. The only way the 'victim' will get any support or help is if he/she is strong enough to seek it out (like not being unconscious or too much pain from your heart attack to get to a phone), or if he/she gets lucky and friends and family rally round. Most times, a BS is left floundering and shocked, with no idea of how to get help, and no preparation for dealing with betrayal and its repercussions. When the woman collapsed, did you step over her and walk out of your office?

Or do you despise her for being so weak?

TA

In the old days, a terminal illness was very often not revealed to the patient, for "their own good". The doctor and their family lied to them. So they had the experience of getting sicker and sicker, more and more cut off from support, not knowing.......no chance to make decisions about their care or life, no opportunity to realize that these were the last days..........

Weaver:

Yes, we are talking about affairs here, but so what...the underlying concept IS THE SAME. TRUTH !!!!


A couple of things which I think you are having some confusion with.

1. I WAS not your mothers physician and had NO involvement in her care. So while you maybe very angry (rightfully) about the care (or lack thereof) that she recieved, don't come on here and call me rude and arrogant , when you are more or less displacing your anger at her unfortunate death on ME. How dare you ? For the record I am not an ER doctor.....DON'T EVER CALL ME THAT AGAIN...THAT IS THE ULTIMATE INSULT.

From just hearing YOUR SIDE/VERSION what went on in the ED with your mother...I would answer "Yes" to all of the questions asked by you. However, venting your anger at me here is NOT going to provide you with any recourse...so, if you want to make sure this ED does not do this to someone else, then perhaps instead of displacing your anger here on me as if I was your mothers doctor you should contact a legal representative to see what recourse you may have...just a suggestion. I am sorry to hear about your fathers suicide, but as unfortunate as that is, I do NOT think one can logically place the "blame" on the occurences of what happened in the ED. Yes, ofcourse the death of your mother may have been a precipitant, but in the end, people still need to be held accountable for their actions . "We are our brothers keeper" can be easily misconstrued to believe that we are to be responsible for our brothers actions and choices. We can agree to disagree all you want on this. I am not backing down on this one. If you want to call me rude and arrogant and brash...go right ahead, but look at your own posts and "tone" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> in the mean time.

I think "Myshae" gets it, and understands what my point is about. As a physician who usually has to give bad news to someone nearly every night I am on call, I have become an unwanted "expert" on this. I say this to people here, because it is almost comical how people could realistically think that I would break devestating news to people like I am "perceived" here <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />. You really think that I am gonna go into a room and say "you got cancer, and are gonna die in 3 weeks, don't buy anything big at Sam's Warehouse". Do you think that in today's times that an academic hospital awards professorship to people like this? Do you think families would settle for that kind of treatment? The same people who whine about being judged and disrespected perhaps should look in the mirror. I don't know why the issue of delivery got even brought into this. It is understtod that the kind of truth revelaing would be done with compassion and humanity. Once again, people get more caught up in the messenger than the message. It is my opinion, that that is an error.

I have had to tell people some pretty terrible things in this life (things that someone not involved in this line of work could not even imagine). By and large most people are able to take it and understand and process it appropiately. We don't give enough people credit for what they can handle....and universally, the TRUTH is what is needed. There have been families who have pleaded for me to NOT tell the truth to a loved one about their terminal cancer for fear it would "kill" their spirit. Without question, this rarely if ever happens.

People want to know the truth, they deserve the truth. To NOT tell them is actuially more of an insult and disrespectful action. The truth about the affair of a neighbor, while on a different level remains the same conceptually. My way of delivering it is ofcourse compassionate and humane. I am disgusted that anyone would think differently because I may have a repuation for telling people the harsh TRUTH here and telling them things THEY DON'T want to hear. This is a message board people. This is only a small slice of someone's life and personality.

Weaver, I will not apologize for calling you to task on your statements. Yeah, there was some sarcasm with the "gaping" jaw comment, so I will withdraw that....but that does not change anything. We can ATD on the concept. We are on oppossites sides of viewing life...I for one and fine with my view.

I'll leave it at that.

LM

TA:

I am not going to answer that question. That is a disgraceful thing to ask someone. Clearly from the mere fact you asked that question....I see NO REASON for me to ever answer or reply to another post of yours.

Lem

Sheese. Ask a simple question and start a war. I didn't want that.

So stop. I'll not have this crap continue on a post with my name on it.

I'll request the mods to close this thread right now.

WAT

Unbelievable disrespect from some folks here. The same folks who claim to be advocates of "respect" at all costs. I guess respect doesn't work both ways in their world.