Adultery Is Killing the American Family

Illinois Leader ^ | 9/22/05 | Nathan Tabor

[Petronski]

LOL, Stretch. Nice.

[vetvetdoug]

I had no idea a tongue in cheek statement would garner so much response. I only wish There would be a system where divorce (ie no-fault) is not easy on the betrayer.

Sincerely,
Atilla the Hun aka Abdul

[Petronski]

Don't call yourself Abdul! Biblewonk will email a screed to his buddy to post for him that will try to paint you as racist as he is.



On second thought, that would be fun.

[newgeezer]

You wish.

I just call 'em as I see 'em, Hypocrite.

[TheForceOfOne]

You may find this article interesting and related to this problem.

Poverty: All in the Family
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=9219
by Terence P. Jeffrey
Posted Sep 21, 2005

Excerpt:
According to Census Bureau data, the relative levels of poverty in America are best predicted not by race, but by family makeup.

[Petronski]

Aw, now you're signing your e-mails 'hypocrite.' How honest of you.

[stumpy]

Unfortunately, my former wife did not feel way, and traded my two sons and I in on an older, wealthier model. Apparently they had an affair for quite some time before they decided to destroy two families and four children.

[Trust but Verify]

That is just terrible. I will never, ever understand a woman giving up her children for a man. Never. I hope you and the boys are managing on your own. Sounds like you're a good dad and someone those boys can count on not to abandon them.

[TheSpottedOwl]

I recognize that it is an irreconcilable difference of interpretation between Roman Catholics (which I was) and many Protestants. It doesn't lessen my respect and admiration for my Catholic friends who so believe, though I don't share the belief. If anything, I take issue with the fallacy (IMO) of the workaround of annullment. Annullments are given to those married for years, even with children, as though the marriage never happened. And I'm not just talking Kennedys here. I find that a bigger affront to the Creator than remarrying after being dumped by a spouse. But again, a difference of opinion.

Funny you should mention anullments. I married my ex 27 yrs ago. We divorced in 2001. Because of the kids, I kept my married name, and didn't file for anullment. Guess what? Pyscho dude hauled me back in court. I'm not going into it in public, but I'm changing my name back to my maiden name, and my cousins are looking into obtaining an anullment for me. If I had been able to escape soon enough, I would have qualified for a civil anullment as well.

The pain of a spouse's unfaithfulness is indescribable. I still remember overhearing a conversation between my ex, his brother, and a friend, detailing liasons with the company tramps. I was 7 months pregnant at the time. It was like a hot knife went through my heart. When the kids are old enough to realize what's going on, they resent and feel disgust for the cheating parent. All in all, a horrible situation.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

According to Playboy magazine, 2 out of 3 women and 3 out of 4 men have sexual thoughts about their coworkers, and about the same number follow through on those libidinous impulses.

At last we're finally taking advantage of peer-reviewed, highly respected, scientific journals. /sarcasm

[Nowhere Man]

It's all a complicated, confusing stew of morals and choices (and amoral choices!) coming out of the moral relativistic, feel-good, do what's best for me attitudes the left has--successfully--been foisting on us for two generations. Now you have millions of people who reflexively say, No one can tell a woman what to do with her own body!

I never really believed in the "it's my own body arguement" to abortion either but I could never put it into words until recently. The body is like a temple and the true owner of them is God. We are supposed to take care of them as best as we can, now I'll admit that I can always do a better job, I mean I practically live on caffeine, provides fuel for my job at work, but I don't drink, smoke, etc. Of course, being male, I cant experience an abortion, not that I want to, but abortion is really a very huge offense against the body. Of course in the case of the baby, the baby is killed but it is also stressful on the woman's body, there could be complications and/or if you get too many, you will not be able to have children. Our bodies, the way I see it, are like rental cars, we will have to turn them in as our souls depart them as we go meet God.

[Publius6961]

The pain and suffering caused by adultery is immense, especially for children. They are more likely never to marry, or to later divorce, if they had divorced or cheating parents.

This is a bizarre paragraph.
It implies that there is no difference whatsoever between an honest faithful divorced person and a faithless one.
As if the morality involved is meaningless. That is a mind-boggling assertion.

[Nowhere Man]

As an adopted child who was born out of wedlock - I THANK YOU!! Pisses me off when people bitch about unwed mothers and call the children bastards, and then wonders why the world is so rife with abortions.

Yeah, if I may chime in, the children who are born out of wedlock are truly victims and just come to the world through no fault of their own. Many times in history, the children born out of wedlock were treated harshly and that was wrong. I think there is a time to reach out to unwed mothers and their children with help and the idea of redemption and getting them on the right path. Yes, there are times you need to send a message where that is wrong but to keep it up and demonize them will just drive them away from getting on the right path.

If you want a good but sad book about all of this, try David Graham Phillips' "Susan Lenox, Her Rise and Fall" where the central character was a "love child" where her mother died during childbirth and it was up to her aunt (she is the mother's sister) her uncle and her cousin Ruth. Well, to make a long story very short, her aunt and uncle seem to think she is "going the way of her mother" so they marry her off to some cad of a sharecropper farmer, she runs off and the adventure begins to where she has a hard life. She eventually becomes a somewhat famous actress, but it seems her life is empty and deviod of love to the point to where her gains in money and fame seem like a "pyrric victory. In the beginning of the book, a lot of young men in her school and town would have loved to get to know her but would have nothing to do with her, never take her dancing, courting her, because she was a "love child" even though she was of good character. Shame really, the book kind of hit me hard, I guess being a bit of a geek growing up and bullied because I was more into space and electronics than sports and stuff, I had a lot of empathy with the character because of my own negative experiences. If I was a young student in the scenario, I would have been happy to get to know her, take her to dances and if things clicked down the road, marry her. There was one young man who did try to court her but he was just looking for an "easy target" and the town buzzing about them and so on was one of the catalysts that kicked it off.

[marajade]

Honestly, I took my marriage vow before God seriously.

[marajade]

I just disagree with your interpretation of that scripture.

[Asfarastheeastisfromthewest...]

Honestly, I took my marriage vow before God seriously.

That's great and that really is one of the first steps to having a successful and affair proof marriage (there are also other important steps that come long before one gets near the alter). However, one's life has to be kept going with that relationship to God. Note that in the verse below in Matthew, it does not say that you will be kept from temptation because you love your husband. It says that you need to 'watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation'. This essentially says that there is no person alive who on their own can handle temptation (if not affairs, then something else) - the devil is just too powerful. If there is any doubt about that, check out how 1 Peter characterizes the devil and his objectives. However, by praying for help and guidance, one obtains the strength of God and that far exceeds the strength of the devil. And contrary to what you said the other night, you can trust God even when you can't trust yourself. This has to be the case because otherwise one believes that they can manage on their own just fine - this is the original sin of pride and it heads for a fall.

Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

[ConservativeMind]

Your vow is not in Scripture. There is no place in the Bible that says "Until death do us part".

That is your personal covenant. Christ says marrying a divorced person is adultery.

You are bound by your vow to God regardless.

[aberaussie]

bttt

[Asfarastheeastisfromthewest...]

Your vow is not in Scripture. There is no place in the Bible that says "Until death do us part".

I think that you are splitting hairs here with marajade. You are correct that the wording of the typical marriage vow 'til death do us part' is not mentioned in scripture. However, there are several places where divorce is mentioned in scripture and the conditions under which it could be applied. It is certainly made clear that it is only for the case of adultery and even there, it is not automatic as the couple still should work things out under a spirit of forgiveness. One is left with the distinct impression that while there is a tiny 'out', it would be incredibly rare if scriptural instructions were followed. So, if divorce is something that should never happen, that automatically implies that when people get married, they are doing so for life. If the understanding is that they are getting married for life, then a vow that states 'til death do us part' is simply vowing to do what the Bible is commanding us to do isn't it?

[Alberta's Child]

But a major factor is the easy availability of cheap and plentiful Internet pornography.

This is nothing more than baseless speculation on the part of the author, unless he/she has statistical evidence that shows a marked increase in adultery after the Internet became readily available to most Americans.