I understand the scripture the same way. I'm not talking about forgiveness. I'm talking about condemnation. No one on this thread is in a position "to forgive" the car pool buddy's father. There's a distinction I'm drawing in my posts to this thread.

I know the harm my mother did to my family goes deep, striking at the very root of the marriage. The threads of destruction run through two families - eight children and the marriages (or non-marriages) of those children.

I can only imagine the woman, saved from a stoning, but also feeling the rebuke "Go and sin no more". Would that all adulterers would feel the rebuke and follow it's instruction.

I post on this thread in hopes that people start to see there is always a side to a marriage that is not public - but that a child's response to a parent's cheating on that marriage is very telling.

I could never "celebrate" my mother cheating as Tabby's car pool buddy seems to be his father's affair. Evil behavior NEVER brings about happiness - not long term, and this man's affair will bring him pain. But perhaps the son doesn't know that yet.

I was blessed to have the gospel in my life at critical stages of my development - it has made all the difference in how I see things. But I was also willing and ready to receive the lessons that the blessing brought to me. I don't know that this car pool buddy has been given that blessing yet.

I'm wondering why this had to degrade to scriptural discussion. I still think that you are losing sight of the fact that the cheater is defrauding the loyal. They are taking what they want from the marriage, even if the marriage is bad, and using lies to do it. If that happened in any other context it would be a crime, with prison time.

Interesting choice of words - do you have issues with your faith right now? I wonder why that might be...

Your point is well taken though. In any other contractual relationship, there would be allowance by legal means for a remedy to that breach of contract and fraud perpetrated on the betrayed spouse.

I think though - you are missing my point. My father wasn't loyal. He may not have had another woman. But he was not loyal to the marriage relationship. He defrauded my mother by behaving like a sweetheart through courtship and then doing a bait-and-switch after he had her trapped by marriage. He did not deliver what he promised!

Why would a child celebrate a parent's fraud on the marriage?

Either the adulterer's son has no moral compass - hence the scriptural reference (- which you interestingly called "degrading" - what bit your conscience, man?) or he knows there's a balance of fraud in his parents' marriage.

KaylaAndy,

I'm atheist, I didn't mean to demean your beliefs, I meant it was degrading the conversation. I think it degrades the conversation because people were talking about scripture instead of why affairs are wrong.

In the case of your father, he may have been disloyal and certainly sounds horrible, but he was not defrauding your mom. She knew very well what her deal was. I don't think you said he forced her to stay with violence or threats of violence - which is certainly as wrong as fraud.

I'm trying to get at why we all know affairs are wrong, I think the reason is that it is equivalent to stealing through fraud. I really think that is why we say that the brave and moral people leave the marriage honestly. They are also breaking their vows, of course, but it is from a place of honesty. I do think that the non-cheating spouse should be compensated for the fraud, in some way.

I especially think this in the case of a secret OC, where the WW lets the man raise the child as his own. But it always applies, it's just in the case above the WW is committing a fraud on three people.

You really don't think my father defrauded my mother - behaving one way, implying that he was a kind, tender person during courtship, and during into a vicious mean abuser immediately after the "contract" was sealed?

There's nothing in the marriage agreement that allows for verbal abuse or violence. And that wasn't what he promised in his marriage vows.

Outright FRAUD!

Today, she'd divorce him immediately. But we're different as a society now than 62 years ago!

KaylaAndy,

Perhaps it was fraud, but she should have left the day she found out. Claiming fraud years and years later does not seem honest to me. Instead of leaving she decided to conduct some fraud of her own. Both people were in the wrong here, but at the time she was lying to him, she knew the whole story on him. He was no longer being dishonest , she was. She went on to have children knowing the truth of him.

It sounds like I am defending his behavior, which I am not. I am saying the right thing to do is to leave. Maybe that was impossible 62 years ago, but I think it was just very difficult.