I hear your careful explanation of how it's a dance, and not always the cheating spouse's fault, but I respectfully disagree. Let's leave off the whole subject of children, for a moment, and imagine a guy who is always rebuffed by his wife. She treats him shrewishly and never makes him feel like a man. It's been a year since she's been intimate with him. He works hard at his job and there is a lovely, wonderful, single woman in his office. They have worked alone together on many occasions. They are getting to know each other and really hit it off in ways he never did with his wife.
There you go, right? The perfect scenario. Oh, and this could be changed from husband to wife if you like.
The correct thing, the absolute moral thing to do, is for the husband to legally separate from his wife. He could try marital counseling with her first, if he so desired. But the right thing to do is NOT to cheat on the wife, to break the marital vow. Legally separate and then do what you want. That seems like a more decent thing to do.
And since Dennis Prager said just now on his show that infidelity is not involved here, maybe he is doing the decent thing.
(Oh, and I have never been involved in any sort of cheating spouse scenario. But I do see how it devastates others, and it is one of the Big Commandments.)
I don't advocate cheating at all. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
I don't blame a spouse in the situation you raise for growing alienated from their poor spouse. I don't blame them for rejecting the poor spouse and taking a better romantic companion. Those are, I think, good things and not bad things.
I agree, the tactic of cheating is wrong. The goal of finding a better spouse is a good one, though. So the failure is one of tactics, and not of mandate. In that respect we agree - the tactic stinks.
I'm not listening to the show and am glad to hear infidelity isn't the issue. That being said, that doesn't preclude the possibility of being married to a dreadful person and rejecting them (which I do maintain is a morally defendable thing to do).
I think cheating is awful, but I don't see it as a simple dynamic of one person being good and the other being bad. I have never seen it in any instance of my life that way. I have never cheated, but I have quit on people who I think deserve being quit on.
Trust me, there is nothing wrong with quitting when appropriate.