ajecphotos, does that mean you are closing the subject? I have thoughts, but I maybe not have time to express them before Christmas. So many thoughts! Particularly because I have been in your sister’s shoes - very, very lonely in a long, bad marriage. I can tell you about that, but I don’t’ have time to compose the words. Just a few thoughts for now.
Do you think maybe they are playing with fire? You know human nature. If she is in love and lonely, and her lover is, and they are allowing a little touching and holding, then doesn’t it get to be pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to not let nature take its course? Unless your sister is a particularly de-sexed sort of person. For normal people, its another matter.
So saying yes to how things are now means that sooner or later they *will *get sexually involved. And then its much, much harder to stop. And the life complications multiply exponentially!
One complication is a hostile husband can feel justified in becoming far more hostile, and it can reach a crisis. If he decides to leave and break up the family, he will surely turn the children against her. He can play a martyr role, wronged by their mother, its her fault, he’d say. She could risk losing the children in divorce with this love affair as ammunition.
Same for her lover.
In this early stage of infatuation they are free to enjoy the intoxication of adultery in their minds, while also enjoying the goods of their respective marriages. As long as they continue to deceive their spouses, and as long as they are able to keep hiding their actions from them (God sees, but the spouses don’t), they can enjoy having their children in an intact home, enjoy their spouses income, and the real stability that comes with that. Perhaps the lover’s wife takes care of his children so he can earn a living, and not pay a babysitter or housekeeper. And he can spend time with your sister thanks to her! So, she is useful, as long as she remains deceived. Also they can keep their pleasant place of “intact family” in society, and avoid the social disapproval of breaking up their families.
Yes, they can keep enjoying these “goods”,* as long as *they keep living in deceit.
But one can only keep up deceit so long. We all know this. Its the same theme we see in all drama, books, plays, movies, and real life. Deceit makes life very complicated, and its not a good foundation. Lies get heavier and heaveir, and it all comes tumbling down. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive!”
Does the end justify the means? The Church says no. Will God say to them, and to you, who supported them, "Well, yes, I said that for* other *people. But you are an exception!"
When they get sexually involved, they will get sloppier in covering their tracks and they will be found out and all will be exposed. Then divorce and custody battles. Right now it seems that it would be so wonderful to be free of bad marriages and in each other arms, but when lives get ruined and they have to deal with the lies and accusations of the spurned spouses (who may well “deserve” to be spurned - however, they are still the spouses they vowed to forsake all others for, and that is what others will see - most won’t stick around to listen to how the spurned spouse was actually a very bad spouse!). The result could easily be irreparably ruined relationships with their children. Then also the grandchildren someday who will adopt the attitudes of their parents. Your sister and her lover may well regret the lack of self-control at this juncture for the rest of their lives.
And then there is you. You are a key person in this juncture. Your sister is seeking your approval and understanding, she would like you to stand by her and see God as *only *merciful, and that He is rather flakey in the justice department. Surely God didn’t really mean it when He said “Though shall not commit adultery” and wrote it on a stone tablet for Moses? Surely Jesus didn’t mean it when he said that just simply lusting in your heart is adultery? Surely God and Jesus really didn’t mean to say those things. They shouldn’t have said them! They just aren’t *useful *in *this *case!
Someday you will have to answer to God for these conversations with your sister, and give an accounting of your influence on her in this vital crossroads of her life. The deeper she gets with her lover, the harder it will be to leave. What does God want you to do or say to her, here and now?
If God thinks she is wrong, and that you are wrong for not standing for God’s way when she asks you to validate her actions, who might God judge more harshly? She, who is caught up in hormonal excitement of illicit love after so much loneliness? Or you, presumably blessed by God to be in a situation to see more clearly?
