Friends

Forgive my intrusion in your day, but I am sure you have seen there is a somewhat divisive issue on these boards lately - that of affair marriges getting support from marriage problems they experience.

I believe there is proof that such is very disheartening to BS and FWS of good heart, and ENCOURAGING to active waywards.

Others believe either that it does not cause hurt, or encouragement OR that a religious viewpoint should be adopted or imposed.

In order to gauge the opinions of the wider forum users I will try to post a poll.

Now these can be hard to accommodate all attitudes in a few simple questions, so I apologise in advance if someone feels misrepresented.

I have included all the proposals I have seen on these boards. if I have missed any , please vote OTHER and add it below by adding a post to the thread.

If you feel able, please answer the questions from the heart. It will be anonymous unless you also leave a post on this thread.

Many thanks and God Bless you.

* edit to include some definitions requested by togetheralone


Define 'supporting' . " lending support to " "abetting"

Define 'A-marriage' " An affair that results in the ending of at least one marriage as a result, and the infidels subsequently marrying each other"

Define 'vulnerable'. " Those readers who are highly likely to becoming downcast and lose the will continue the difficult fight against an affair if they see an affair marriage presented as being acceptable for marriagebuilding support"

Define 'hurt' . "a reduction in hope or happiness and/or an increase in fear regarding their life or marriage"

Does supporting A-marriages on GQ 2 hurt Vulnerable readers? single choice
	Yes
	No
Votes accepted starting: 05/26/07 05:06 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

Does supporting A-marriages on GQ2 encourage wayward spouses and OPs ? single choice
	Yes
	No
Votes accepted starting: 05/26/07 05:06 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

If affair marriages are to be supported on these boards they should: single choice
	Be supported on GQ2 like any other marriage
	Be supported like any other marriag ebut have an "affair marriage2 warning in thread titles
	Be supported in a quiet place where they get teh help they want from sympathetic posters
	Not be supported on MB at all
	Other ( please add your suggestion in a post)
Votes accepted starting: 05/26/07 05:06 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

i just totally think some of this stuff has gone far enough.

this man came to these boards for help and i am surprised he is still around.

upon initial reading of his points do i understand why some feathers got ruffled? yes. HOWEVER, here is my view:

at some point there HAS TO BE FORGIVENESS. it is not up to us to judge, but our maker to do the judging. if we don't like zogs stance or the fact that he is here asking for help of what was initially an affair marriage, than DON'T READ HIS POSTS OR THREADS. pretty simple.

my dad and my stepmother's marriage is an affair marriage. they have been married over 20 years now. there have been MANY ROCKY TIMES in that marriage. my step mother has gone through ****** with my father. he was a drinker and a controller. i think number one, my mother and i were much better off without my father during those years he had these issues, and i think number 2 that my step mother got a good taste for many years of unhappiness with my father. however, believe it or not, once she was married to my dad she believed in it being forever and she stuck it out with him. maybe she did it because she felt she deserved what she was living with. i dunno. i know she has apologized to me many years ago for any pain it might have caused. i just know my parents were better off NOT together. my mom remarried and it is a much healthier and happier marriage. if my dad or step had come on here after 20 plus years of marriage, affair marriage or not, i would hope someone would have advised them. after 20 plus years does it really matter anymore how the marriage started? the affair part is done and over with and water under the bridge for the ex at this point.

and, it seems to me that zog is remorseful for what happened 20 years ago and wants to make THIS marriage right. it is too late for his first one.

now, my ex lives with (one of his many) ow. if he were to marry her how would i feel? well, i don't give a rats a** anymore what he does, but initially would i want them to be happy. ****** no. BUT, for me, this is something i have turned over to God and know he will tend to. not my issue anymore. if my ex came here 28 years later after marrying ow and wanted help with the marriage because she was cheating what would my reaction be? probably would depend why he was here. initially i would probably be like "oh, boohoohoo, you made your bed now lie in it" but if he was here because he was truly remorseful for effing up his first marriage (the one to me) and for having the affair to begin with and didn't want to go through another divorce and really wanted to make THIS marriage work, i would offer what i could for advice.

doesn't mean that i don't think he should be initially shown the error of his ways. i would imagine a few "well, what do you expect of an affair marriage" to be said or "are you kidding me coming to this board after what you have done!" but after that i would hope people would get to know him and see WHY he was here, his true feelings and feel him out for remorse.

zog seems truly remorseful to me. his first marriage is done dead and over. it has been almost thirty years. i think he wants to make THIS marriage, be it an affair one, right. i think we should help him as such.

there comes a time for forgiveness and for not judging folks. if the threads bother you, don't read them. christ even says we can forgive a person but it doesn't mean we have to have them be our friend or that we have to hang around them. so, don't hang around those threads if it bothers you. those of us whom it doesn't bother, or who can look at the WHOLE PICTURE can do the best we can to advise zog.

jmho

mlhb

and, just to add. if this was an affair marriage that was only maybe 2 years old or something, i think i may feel differently. but 28 years? i think the issue of this being an affair marriage is not number one on my list for a marriage that old. again, just my opinion

I think the biggest difference between my husband and me is he believes in remarriage and I don't. He was willing to have an affair on me and said he was open to marrying her if things didn't work out with me.

There's a reason why the marriage vows say "forsake all others." I think that acceptance of remarriage, especially acceptance of marriage from an affair, is an affront to the meaning of marriage.

If my husband hadn't been open to remarriage, I think our marriage would have been different. He never really thought in terms of trying to figure out what would work for both of us. Instead, I was the obstacle to his happiness.

As a side note, I heard Harley on the radio saying that a couple from an affair did attend his seminar. He said that commitment in these marriages is based on the passion that they had during the affair, and it can be difficult to sustain without the commitment to care and work through conflict. Affairs are based on deceit and disregard for the feelings of a person to whom you made a life-long commitment to care. People who break marriage vows to have affairs and then remarry their affair partners have chosen passion over commitment. If someone else comes along, the commitment to the affair partner, now spouse, can be tossed aside once again.

I recognize that I hold an extreme view. I don't think remarriage is appropriate except in the case of deceit or some other factor at the time of the wedding vows. My marriage is not one that I would want to be a model for our children. If it ends, I won't remarry unless my husband dies. In the end, I hold commitment to my wedding vows as paramount even in the face of abuse, infidelity, and neglect. Separation -- yes; divorce -- yes; remarriage -- no.

I don't think support of affair marriages is consistent with MB principles that you make a commitment to care for a specific person for life and then create a mutually enjoyable life by meeting each other's needs in a way that works for both and resolving conflict in a way that works for both.

Cherished

Perhaps I am biased since I'm still in the early stages of grief over my WH who will be moving in with the OW next weekend. But definitely supporting A-marriages hurts me. In fact, I can't imagine ever coming to accept my WH's relationship with OW. I've already told him that she doesn't EVER come to anything that's mine - DS's graduation/wedding or whatever. Now, if they break up and he finds somebody else, I could handle seeing her with him. But the A-OW - no way. And I can't accept anything that will promote this relationship either. What they did was wrong. The whole foundation of their relationship is wrong. While they are both in the "addiction" stage, neither one understands this, but the rest of society does (or should). Undermining this just paves the way for general acceptance of this cheating behavoir.

Bob, until Harley sets up MB as a 'first marriage' or 'subsequent marriage that didn't start as an affair' forum, I feel people can come here for support for any kind of marriage. I think if there was a special category place within MB for affair marriages, then people could choose to view/post there as they please. If Harley counsels people who are in affair marriages as part of his business, then I think it is his call.

I believe that our response to someone else's marital situation helps us gauge our own degree of healing.

If my husband and I were to divorce because of his unfaithful heart - I still love him enough to want his happiness and I know he would carry his problems to the next marriage - whether that was the person he cheated on me with or not. I would want him to get that help and it doesn't come at my expense, just because I was the one he betrayed.

On the other hand, if the OW came here, I would go away. It's my own boundary for myself - not that I am hurt by her presence, but I simply won't have contact with her. If things had gone that far (and that is a huge leap, because Harley helped Kasey break this off all on his own), and Kasey had actually married her, I still wouldn't have contact with her - it wouldn't matter the years. So if they both came here, I'd leave.

But it would have to be the characters in MY PERSONAL SITUATION that would have to be here. And NOT because I'm hurt by them - but because of my no-contact boundaries. And I WOULD leave.

If OW in my situation came to this board now to work on her own marriage that ISN'T an affair marriage, I would still leave - because I've promised myself no contact. I'm not giving up the ground I've gained in my recovery to go back to that dark place where I wanted to help her or support her and she didn't need or want my help - (we met on a recovery board for addicts/spouses of addicts - and she wasn't there to gain support for herself as much as she was there to help others recover - there were issues and problems there that couldn't be addressed from that place - and I'd hate to see that come to this board)

Bob - you've worried me a few times. How is your own personal healing process going. When it hurts you like this after two years or more of healing, it's like the surgeon left a piece behind and it's festering. If you're open, I'd be happy to share some of the resources I've used to work on myself so that I was clear what was at the bottom of my pain.

if someone has the callousness of character to enter a marriage by commiting the cruelty of an affair

that very callousness indicates a notable lack of concern for the well-being of others

when (not if), years later, the affair marriage hits the excreta fan

that very same callousness toward the feeling of others provides a predictable shield of indifference to the pain/horror their marriage may cause others on the forum

they are a fountainhead of hurt

the betrayed's feelings are of no concern, unless they themselves are the betrayed

Bob Pure - I personally have stayed off of Zog's thread for reasons that are my own.

But your poll would seem to be "meaningless" on at least three fronts.

First, as the Zog thread should have shown, there ARE many others who feel that helping even an "affair marriage" person is sometimes justified, and with the number of posts, your poll has already been answered.

Second, your poll is, imho, just another attempt to "impose" the "anti help at any time anyone who may be married to someone they had an affair with" regardless of past circumstances, "age" of the first divorce and "age" of the current marriage, etc.

Many who want to call "it" an "affair marriage" and then go on to say that it is "illegitimate" are missing the "salient point," even in their protest of "affair marriages." They ARE marriages, "legitimate," "illegitimate," "affair," "2nd-3rd-4th-however many."

Third, your poll seeks a definitive and concrete "always" bias and/or conclusion. If the questions were phrased "CAN" instead of "DOES," I would vote "yes they CAN." But not in all cases and not for everyone.

Once again, we all have opinions, and we sometimes have diametrically opposed opinions. But this system remains OPEN to all to post and everyone has the individual right to read or not to read, to post or not to post, to not have someone else(other than the system owner, administrators, and moderators) decide who can and cannot post and what can and cannot be posted.

You all, the same group as before, are at it again, it would seem. Trying your best to "punt" someone off the system or "banish" them to some dark corner of the system where no one visits (or would even be aware that someone had a need).

I UNDERSTAND you, and the others with you in your "not post" camp ARE offended. I understand that you think you are "protecting" others by your actions. But the last time I checked, everyone on MB is an adult and quite capable of making choices for themselves, especially if what someone posts "offends" or "hurts" them.

Would you care to see the arrows in my back from MEDC? And those from a brother in Christ.

Some like to continue to use the Scripture (even while taking me to task for doing the very same thing). The most common refrain is "go and LEAVE your life of sin" as somehow meaning DIVORCE your "illegitmate marriage." I see it differently. It is not a "physical change" that is being spoken of but a "mental and heart change." "Go and sin no more" applies to everyone, and especially to believers. But NO ONE is capable of not sinning anymore. So that is extrapolated to a "affair marriage" being continued "adultery." Differences of opinion CAN be held on this point, but I personally take my lead from the Scripture where a BELIEVER has ALL of their sins forgiven and becomes a new creation in Christ. For unbelievers, none of their sins are forgiven, so the issue no longer becomes "just" one of an "affair marriage," or any other sin for that matter. It becomes an issue of Forgiveness of Sin that comes with acceptance of Christ or the fact that NO sins are forgiven apart from Christ.




I have tried to do that many times in the past on this very topic. I am doing so yet again. Risky, I know, but there it is for me.....forgiven in Christ or not forgiven in Christ. Some have disagreed with me, and have taken their disagreement to the level of a virtual vendetta against me or anything that I might post in yet another attempt to "silence" someone they disagree with.

Bob, I think you are very sincere in your opinion on this topic and you feel it intensely. I do NOT "check my morality" at some "moral relativism" door. I, as with all who I post to, evaluate each situation and decide to post or not post, to attempt to offer help or leave helping up to others.

I would be curious, though, as to whether or not some "types" of "post first marriage" marriages should even be allowed to post because of some potential feelings others might have, even including feelings of "entitlement" in their own lives.

For example. Suppose someone was a serial cheater, someone who had more than one affair, especially more than one "Class II" emotionally involved affairs, and wound up divorcing their first spouse. They continued to "play around" and then married someone who was not one of the many "affairees" when they WERE married. Now it's a few years down the road and they come here seeking help because their current spouse has now cheated on them (the "Karma" thing, I guess). They "illegitimately" divorced their first spouse and ARE living in a marriage that some would call an "adulterous marriage" that, even though their spouse is not an affair partner from when they were previously married, but is nonetheless a partner "made available" through their ongoing "affair mentality" that resulted in the divorce from the 1st marriage. As the Bible teaches, they have "committed adultery" in so remarrying, and, according to some, are continuing to commit adultery every time they make love to their current spouse. Do they "merit" help?

What if they did all the "bad stuff" when they were unbelievers? Maybe they even remarried while still an unbeliever, and subsequently surrendered their life to Christ. Accepting Christ would make them intimately aware of their past sins. Should we help them or shun them?

This is NOT an "easy" subject or an "easy" decision. But is a decision that each individual should have the right to make, to help or not to help, to post or not to post. But NOT, imho, to "impose" my will or feelings on others. Be sensitive to "newbies" who might feel hurt, to talk with them too, but not to exclude someone based on "feelings."

Yes, I understand that some might want to try to turn that around and say, "but you are trying to impose your feeling that they should be allowed to post everywhere on MB." My response to such a statement would be simple. It is not up to me, as a MEMBER of MB, to decide who can and cannot post, or where on the system they can and cannot post. That right belongs to those in charge of the system. My right starts and ends with who I choose to engage in posting with and who I choose not to. That is the extent of my "right to choose" in this instance.

Just my opinion, of course. But it is as you asked, from my heart.

God bless.

Bob

I do not think YOUR poll meaningless unless YOU declare it so

obviously, it has meaning to YOU
or you would not have bothered

Bob, I recognize and respect that everyone has their own opinions and a right to that.

However, for me, it is personal value, moral, condition, whatever label you put on it. I do not feel that this is a matter of forgiveness at all. Forgiveness implies, (for me) that there is an admission of guilt and repentance.

And while it is not up to me to 'forgive' a WS as that is the BS's right to do so. To stand by MY own personal beelifs and values, I cannot and will not condone, enable, assist or in any way recognize an A marriage as legitimate.

imvho, to stand silently by and assist in any way, is a further betrayal of the BS. And for me, it has little to do with whether the BS has or has not forgive, accepted or moved on or whatever place they are in.

If Adultery is wrong, time does not change that betrayal. So an A marriage does not change the intial wrong.

That is my principle, my boundary, my value.

I do not beleive that the WS and OW are evil through and through. But their CHOICES to be such selfish, cruel creatures is changed only by the amends and the repentance.

NOT by time or apathy of others.

MY pet peeve is the folks that say, it's not my business. It's time to get over it. Whatever. It's an excuse and just is the atmosphere that adultery flourishes in. No cconsequences and apathetic acceptance of the wrong is a breeding ground for Adultery.

Of course that is not a popular or easy way to live. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> BUT I would rather live hard than live wrong or betray my own values.

and that does not change over the passing of years

repercussions from adultery may last a lifetime

like the physics of a bolder being tossed into a still motionless lake

the displaced energy causes a disturbance for a very long time

I posted this article a few days ago. scripturally free to marry?I think it is relevent to the topic of A marriages. This topic pains me. Why? First if my H had m'd the OW I would have cut off direct contact with him for life. I would have done everything in my power to keep my children away from the homewrecker and ensure my own peace of mind by not coming in contact with her as well. Anything else IMHO would seem as though I was "accepting" what they had done as ok. XOW had written me a "why can't we be friends" letter a while back, yet another attempt at getting me to normalize the betrayl and that fact that not only did she have my husbands child but she took my IL's away from me and my children as well. My mother m'd her OM 30 years ago. It has always been an uncomfortable situation. My father still hates him and I understand why. He bears no ill will toward my mother though. Now, ironically I find myself in the postion of supporting my mothers OMH because she has been diagnosed with Alzheimers and he needs support. I forgave my mother years ago for abandoning me, not quite sure what to do about my R with her H.

a fountainhead of hurt

BP,

Before you shun me on this I just want you to know I have pre-emptive shun measures in place just in case. I agree with you much more than I don't. I appreciate your meaning here. I'm glad you lay it out there. I liked FH's post. It was a good defensive move. It was meant to self-justify his own ramblings. He can always look back and say "see what I said?".

Oh and if you ever think what a good idea it would be to get rid of certain people on MB, just think of me and realize what a useless cause it is.

For the poll, yes MFZ is still and always be an idiot. Yes there are posters who cannot paint themselves out of a corner (they prefer to crawl on their shuns - I mean shins). Yes I can always (unlike KiwiJ) refuse to read a thread.

So, for my money, stay strong and stay after it.

Plan B = a form of shunning

I fully approve

I rarely respond to polls unless they're obviously for fun, or are genuinely trying to canvas opinion. I haven't responded to this one.

I'm far from clear that this poll is 'genuinely trying to canvas opinion', rather than 'finding a way to claim affirmation for a personal position'.

Asking people to respond to questions like 'Does supporting A-marriages on GQ2 hurt vulnerable readers' is an exercise is funnelling people down a tunnel.

Define 'supporting'.

Define 'A-marriage'

Define 'vulnerable'.

Define 'hurt'.

Assuming that everyone concurs on the meaning of these terms strikes me as something of a salesman's trick.

A better question to explore is why it hurts to think that an a-marriage (defined as a marriage arising from a relationship initiated while still married to one or more unknowing spouses), might survive for many years before running into trouble?

The a-marriages (see definition above) that arrive here are by definition the schadenfreudal failed ones. Are we actually bothered by the idea that out there may be many a-marriages that last fairly comfortably for a long time?

For very newly hurt BSs, this may be too painful to think about. For those who feel they have reached a place of relative serenity, isn't it a question worth exploring?

If we face the fear, we might find something worth learning.

TA

Sigh. Pep, of course it has meaning to Bob. That's why I put the word in quotations. Perhaps you'd find more comfort or acceptability in "non-binding opinion" as an alternative phrase?

I am very comfortable, thank you for your concern for my wellbeing.

piojitos - a long time ago you requested that I not post to you, about you, or on any of your threads. I have honored that request.

Don't you think it's about time you honored the same and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you?"

In addition, you can stop trying to put words into my mouth. I am quite capable of speaking for myself. We have divergent opinions, don't you think it's about time you stopped attacking the person rather than simply stating your opinion on a given topic?

You're quite welcome Pepperband.