Unofficial Tex Murphy

It's no picnic.

-Fred

sam10100 wrote:Well do you define faithfulness as not performing the physical act of cheating or do you define faithfulness as being loyal in your mind/heart.

Perhaps without even realizing it I was actually en facto asking for a definition of faithfulness.

Or perhaps I was just using the wrong word.

Let me put it another way: Does Woman A deserve an "attagirl" or a pat on the back for not cheating on her husband even though she's not sure she's happy with him? Does the fact that she "did the right thing" by not cheating outweigh whatever "wrong" she did by really wanting to bang the guy in the first place?

She did nothing wrong. The whole concept of feeling guilty for thoughts and emotions is a weird western culture thing that's arisen. It's something that's risen out of various forms of archaic christian teachings, and a major reason for why I loathe religion.

If people learned from scratch that it's okay to have various emotions and thoughts; as long as they DO. NOT. ACT. ON. THEM the thoughts and emotions are completely natural to have.

Example: Woman A and B both consider this new man, in spite of being married. Nobody has done anything wrong, it is completely natural to consider it, even if it's just on a subconscious level, and no harm has occured.

However, if either woman decides to act on their thoughts and/or emotions, before breaking it off with their established husbands; then there is harm done. To the woman in question. Her conscience might no longer be clean. If she then breaks the news to her husband afterwards, harm befalls him as well. The harm in question is emotional.

For some weird reason, and especially among Americans, people tend to think that their emotions and thoughts have weight in the real world. As in, "Oh no, I've been thinking of banging my secretary/nanny/babysitter/in-law/co-worker/random person every day this week, I must atone for my sins!"

No sin has occured. It is natural to be attracted to other people, even after marriage. The sin does not occur until one acts upon one's impulses.

It pisses me off something terminally that in some olden days, some religious old men tried to control people's minds by saying the thought itself was a sin, and if you had it, you should come tell them and confess to get right with some made-up deity. While in reality all that happened was that powerful men had even more control over you because they knew your secrets. Because you were dumb enough to go tell them because of your fear of a stay in some made-up horrible version of the afterlife. Whether the religious old men did this to try preventing people acting on their emotions or not is irrelevant in this day and age. We should have outgrown such petty control systems.

The result being that even today, there are people who are afraid of their own thoughts. And that sickens me.

-Fred

Dang Fred's on a tirade today.

Well your argument is valid for many people but not for everyone. I would argue that some people learn to be ashamed of their thoughts first and foremost from your parents regardless of religion. There are also secular, societal influences at work too.

I believe we are all born with an innate ability to judge right from wrong before society/churches/parents begin the process of brainwashing us.

When we are kids, we want everyone to like us. We want to be friends with anyone. It's starts on the playground when we first learn, "do play with that kid, he's got XXX" or "she's no good, she dresses funny". Then parents start moving in by getting the little boys interested in sports and the little girls interested in looking pretty. By the time churches get to you, you've already been talk to discriminate against people who are different and there are gender roles that people want you to conform to.

Never having been religious, I can tell you I learned to be ashamed of my thoughts from elementary school and by my parents. Religion never had a chance to get it's hooks into me.

I just wanted to say that even if there isn't an objective external morality by which our thoughts can be judged by a deity, there are practical reasons aplenty why our thought life shouldn't be let to run completely unchecked just because, "Hey, at least I'm not acting on it." Sure, it seems harmless enough to daydream about running bad drivers off the road to their doom, but most of us don't really entertain that thought fully -- we may feel rage and even voice things like, "DIE IN A FIRE!", but I should hope we don't actually envisage the end of their earthly existence. Or maybe you do!

But what about other kinds of harmful, "sinful" thoughts? Things like daydreaming about seducing beautiful women despite their blissfully happy marriages? Is that cool? Many would say, "Sure!"

Then we take it to the next level: what about daydreaming about raping beautiful women? I certainly hope most of us would think there was something amiss in that kind of mind. But then again, some might respond, "It's safer in the mind than in the real world, and maybe masturbating it out would be an outlet that could keep them from really doing it." I daresay most of us wouldn't go so far as to call that person a rapist just because they excuse the idea enough to fantasize about doing it.

Ok then, one more: what about someone who likes to entertain the thought of seducing pre-pubescent children? Now, I'm not talking about violent behavior, just making the child think they want to "play doctor"? Is that a healthy daydream? Would we call them a pedophile if they didn't actually do it?

Please note that I'm not at all making a moral equivalency between adulterous thoughts, road rage, and pedophilia. Instead, perhaps my point may be made a little more clear by the following. How much do you trust someone who nurses the fond wish that they could murder you? Would you be glad to leave your wife alone for long periods with someone who wants your wife so badly that he'd seduce or maybe force himself on her? Would you hire that pedophile-in-mind-only as your babysitter?

One more example: if you are faithful to your spouse, would you be completely fine with the fact that they'd rather have a relationship with some other person? Would you feel like your faithfulness to one another was balanced so long as your spouse's thoughts were never acted upon?

All this to say, Fred, I don't know which nefarious "religious old men" that you were referring to, but one particular religious young man in the olden days advocated keeping our thought life in check for one very good reason not at all related to the scenario you imagined. A very practical reason: "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart." In other words, keep your thought-life in check, because it has the potential to influence your behavior. Subtly, slowly, insidiously, the thoughts you excuse are likely to take hold in a place in your heart. We all see people who were completely normal as young people grow up to do awful things, and we think, "How did that happen?" The answer is that they let it slip, thought by thought, year by year, until it shaped who they were and what they were capable of. The woman who commits a harmful and/or violent act in her heart has set herself on a path that may well end up somewhere she doesn't imagine it will go when she began. Have you ever seen Breaking Bad?

Does this answer the question originally posed? Not at all. But let me suggest that Woman A is being faithful to her belief that she should not cheat, and in so doing is being faithful to her husband through more trying circumstances than the happily married Woman B who finds her commitment to her husband to be the clear choice. So their faithfulness is to two different things, one to her ideals and one to her husband, and the strength of their faithfulness has not been evenly put to the test in the given scenarios.

OMG steve did have post a book! you are getting as bad as fred

plumgas wrote:OMG steve did have post a book! you are getting as bad as fred

I can only daydream that one day I will be as bad as my man Fred.

You make valid points all around, Steve. I'd just like to point out that there is a difference between managing/being in control of your thoughts, as opposed to THOU SHALT NOT HAVE THUNK IT!

I agree one should stay in control of oneself. But I also believe you are not automatically a bad person for having a negative thought.

Negative thoughts, plural, that hound you night and day, however? That's an entirely different box of pills!

-Fred

Fred Buer wrote:I'd just like to point out that there is a difference between managing/being in control of your thoughts, as opposed to THOU SHALT NOT HAVE THUNK IT!

I agree one should stay in control of oneself. But I also believe you are not automatically a bad person for having a negative thought.

We're in complete agreement. Temptation and even falling into temptation are on one side, while embracing and accepting those temptations as normal is the path to the Dark Side.

I would dearly love to be tempted to go on to the dark side but I just don't have that energy anymore!

plumgas wrote:I would dearly love to be tempted to go on to the dark side but I just don't have that energy anymore!

I know what you mean. I barely have the energy to get through the day, much less get into trouble.

I'll just chime in and say that doing something behind someone's back is wrong.

Bjyman wrote:I'll just chime in and say that doing something behind someone's back is wrong.

Which sums up my thoughts on proctology perfectly.

-Fred

Wow, I really invoked some good discussion on here! Thanks everyone for the participation!

Time for me to fess up: Woman A is actually a man - me. My wife and I were having serious problems a few years ago. At a point where I was 90% sure I wanted out of the marriage I met and fell for another woman while I was away on a 2-week business trip (which meant I got to spend the whole weekend with her alone). I sensed that she was also attracted to me. She probably wouldn't have SLEPT with a married coworker with a daughter, but still, there was a legitimate romantic connection there.

I *did* specifically think to myself, "If I pass up a chance to be with this woman and end up getting divorced anyway I'm REALLY going to be PISSED at myself!"

The reason I asked the question I asked is because, quite frankly, the only reason I *didn't* pursue anything with the other woman was so that I could honestly say I didn't cheat on my wife or my marriage. It CERTAINLY wasn't because I was "so happy in my marriage". It CERTAINLY wasn't because I didn't really want to be with the other woman or think I'd be even happier with the other woman. I had taken a wedding vow, I *wasn't* 100% sure I wanted to leave my wife, whatever problems we were having she hadn't done anything to deserve to be cheated on, so I didn't.

Fast-forwarding to today, my marriage isn't perfect but my wife and I have put a LOT of effort into it over the years. Today if I were in the same situation I believe I wouldn't even consider cheating.

By the way - that's a whole other philosophical question - if two people have to fight so hard to make a marriage work, is it a good marriage? I can't answer without bias, but having fought for mine, I'm very very very happy I'm still in it.

I appreciate everyone being my anonymous sounding board - sometimes you need truly unbiased observes for certain topics.

Very interesting confession!

They always say that you have to work at a marriage and you will have good days and bad days but presumably it's knowing you can take the rough with the smooth that gives you that confidence and trust that the grass isn't greener elsewhere.

Interesting reading the views and input from everyone too.