Way, way back in the message pages I found this comment from Lonelymom:

"I have three girls and fear the day they get engaged. It is a cruel world and someone , somehow, has to raise the standards of marriage, trust, faithfullness and committment before the whole country is one big divorce."

I have three daughters too and also find it difficult to have much hope for them having happy marriages.

IMO our culture is practically breeding adultery and even NPD.

Sites like this one are great for helping us heal after adultery rears it's ugly head, and maybe evne save our marriages.

But what can we be doing to proactively PREVENT adultery from being so widespread in the first place? How can we counter those very pervasive factors in our current culture that are agressively at work to foster adultery?

Sometimes when I'm in one of my "why me Lord" moods I think that God allowed this to happen to me because he wants me to DO something about it! And I don't just mean about my specific situation. (Anyway my marriage really is quite dead now and I don't even know if I'd want my WXH back if/when he gets a clue) But what can be done to stop this horrible tide of destruction - to save other families from going through this needless and disgusting trauma?

We have Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Alcoholics Anonymous, DARE, etc. Why not an organization specifically to counter adultery?

Adulterers want secrecy, they need secrecy to maintain the thrill and to hide from the shame. But things have gotten so bad that some don't even care who knows. Their rationalizations work so well (on themselves) that they have no shame and think they're not doing anything wrong.
So how about a public education campaign to address the damaging consequences of adultery? And how about public education bits showing how common (in both senses of the word common) the excuses for adultery are?

If adulterers are intent on acting like idiots then why shouldn't we expose their idiocy for all to see for what it really is?

I totaly agree. I wish there was some law or legislation that would punish adulterers, but I guess it would be too hard to prove. Maybe they would think twice, but probably not.

Adultery is definitely accepted now a days and some, like my WH, could care less who knows.

Unfortunately, destroying people's lives with adultery is considered by many to be a 'personal choice' issue, whereas running down kids whilst drunk etc is against the law.

I'm not saying that adulterers should be stoned to death, but it would be nice if courts at least would recognise the damage it does to kids when deciding custody cases etc.

My heart bleeds for my girls, and the legacy of unrepentant adultery their father has left them. DD13 and DD6 were 100% certain that their parents would be together forever - we were so happy!

How can they ever trust a man now? Oh, I know they will probably fall in love and get married, and be happy for a while. But their father's utterly selfish and bizarre behaviour has blighted their chances of a happy, lifelong relationship for good.

I hate him for that.

Alph.

Alcohol and cigarettes aren't illegal either but that hasn't stopped caring people from very aggressively combatting those problems with public education ads and programs.

Look at all of the websites dedicated to adultery and helping BS'. If all of us got together we would make a formidable group and probably would be able to get legislation passed.

How did the no fault laws get passed?

We probably need someone to fight the no fault law in a divorce case, etc . . .

There is also some laws concerning suing the OP, it's difficult to prove intention, but it can be done. I think most people don't sue the OP because it's too late by the time they finally decide to divorce and they just want it to be over.

I was agreeing with you, meremortal! I was only responding to one of your examples, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Did you read the rest of my post?

Alph.

There don't need to be laws against adultry.

The divorce laws need to change. I live in California and I find it appauling the only two reasons for a Divorce are: irreconcilable differences and insanity.

I say fine to no fault in a sense unless there was adultery.

If there was adultry then it becomes fault. The adulterers fault.

Heck the fact that in most states Adultery isn't even considered in child custody. WTF is that about. There are ways it will be included like if the childeren were harmed or embarrased directly by the A.

How about if you have an A and you spend time away from your children to do it you are not a good parent. That isn't brain surgery.

So what is the biggest consequence for adultry? Divorce. But since it won't be held against you who cares.

Yeah, it makes me sick.

At least here in the UK I was able to D my cheating H citing adultery, and I was able to name the OW in the papers as well.

It was a fault divorce, but it doesn't mean anything when it comes to custody.

What gets me is if the OW had caused the same amount of mental agony to a kid in her class (she's a teacher) as she has to my children by taking their father away from their happy home, she would be thrown in jail. But because she's done it 'all for love', it's perfectly fine to cause them permanant emotional trauma???

Alph.

meremortal,

If you look closely at this board you will see that the infidelity portion is actually a small part of what is here. There are discussion groups for Per-Marriage and the early years, resolving conflict, negotiating in marriage...

Most people find this place after adultery has happened, but the basic concepts can do much to affair-proof a marriage. The same things that help restore love also help to build love. POJA, Radical Honesty...these are things that make a marriage stronger, even if it is not weak to begin with.

If you read Dr Harley's Basic Concepts, they have little (nothing) to do with adultery. They are a way to build romantic love between individuals. If you follow these things, starting before the marriage takes place and continuing after the honeymoon is long over, you will seldom find that an affair has a chance of beginning.

Catgirl,
A law against adultery would not likely deter anyone that is not dissuaded by a commandment from the Almighty himself against it. IMHO, one of the biggest foul-ups of the past 50 or so years is the idea of moral relativism. (If it doesn't bother you to do it, then it must be OK) We have extended the principal to mean that all truth is relative ("that's fine for you, but I disagree that it is wrong/right")...
We are now at the point that we teach our kids that it isn't possible to say if something is right or wrong, since it is only our own opinion and might offend someone who is less (or MORE) enlightened than we ourselves. Anyone who says they know what is right is accused of being bigoted, hypercritical and judgmental.

Morals and ethics have been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. We now call it a digger or a delver or a geovulvometer, but catch he77 for calling it a shovel and pity the fool that calls it a spade.

In a Biblical view, right is right, wrong is wrong and only God Himself has the right to decide which is which.

In our current world, "what ever you FEEL is right is fine, but don't try to impose it on anyone else."

Sorry...
I'm climbing off my soap box now...

<sigh>
I feel much better now.

There are many things here that can help lower the adultery rate and the divorce rate at the same time. All we need to do is point people to Dr Harley's ideas before they have a crisis. Even some of the things that are meant to recover a broken marriage can help strengthen it. What if we made a continuous Plan A our goal for marriage? (I know, you can't really do it forever) What if we continuously improved ourselves and avoided all love busters? What if we met each other's emotional needs from the day we met and continued to do so till the day one of us died? What if we both agreed to never do anything without enthusiastic agreement from our spouse? What if we were completely, totally honest with each other right from the beginning?

Couple these things with teaching our kids that there are some things that are right and others that are wrong and what the rest of the world thinks is a load of [email]cr@p.[/email] "Raise up a child in the way that he should go and when he is older he will not depart from it"

We don't have to have a marriage broken by adultery to benefit from the Basic Concepts as outlined on this website and what every culture on the planet accepts is proper behavior within society. Teach our children about how we fall in love (per Dr Harley) and stop all the "magic" stuff. Tell them that love can be built up or torn down by our actions and isn't just something we fall into (or out of).

Mark

Perhaps the best way to fight against adultery is to give every newly-wedded couple a copy of 'His Needs, Her Needs'...

Alph.

Alphin,
funny you should say that- I was just going to post that I do that for wedding gifts.

Polls of the American public generally show that 85 percent or more of the general population think infidelity is wrong. Dr. Harley believes that upwards of 60 percent of all marriages suffer from infidelity.

So what's the deal? A lot of people are against cheating on their spouses until the right opportunity presents itself to them, then their convictions weaken and they engage in their own affair.

The fact that our society takes adultery lightly makes for a lack of social stigma that might have prevented more than a few cheaters from making that bad choice.

If you read Dr. Shirley Glass, you might be surprised at how frequently children of divorced parents end up one day getting divorces themselves. Parental role models have an enormous effect on behavior.

Perhaps one way to reduce infidelity would be to return to the lawsuits based on alienation of affection, in which a BS could sue the OP for breaking up their marriage. Many states had these laws 20 years ago; most have removed them from the books.

I agree with Hiker. I wish my state had the alienation law. I would have sued OW's butt for breaking up our family.

Yeah I know it takes 2, but she knew WH was M with 2 kids.

Who knows if that would even deter anyone from having an A. It would sure make the BS's feel a bit like justice was served though.

On a different thread, I stated that we should staple HNHN to the forehead of everyone getting married.

Remember, the fairy tales always end: "They lived happily ever after"

Getting to the romance or getting the girl/guy is the point of the movie/book/song etc. What happens afterward is barely discussed.

Did your parents provide you with the proper discussion about sex? Seeing how much of that we really get, is it surprising to you that they really didn't describe how a M really works?

You can only respond to what you see. Education is learning that there is a better way. So I give HNHN as a wedding gift now. Maybe no body opens it for four years. But if they do, then they have a chance to break the cycle. Before the cycle really spins out of control.

So, those of you with daughters, you do not want them to suffer the same cycle. Give them the book. Nothing wrong with reading it at age 15. Boys can get it too. My son will.

An Insurgency starts small. But it gets larger because it makes sense. Mao called it "The Long March" We can be the foot soldiers on this mission.