Then for YOU I think it’s very important you are clear about this with a potential wife prior to marriage. I know it’s an uncomfortable topic, but it’s still important to you. So you are compelled to say something about it – right?
People generally learn rather fast that I am reluctant to something as a lie but when I actually do, then that something is off limits.
It’s easy to opine on this when you aren’t married and think you know what you would want – but until you actually have a spouse and you know them, you can’t really say.
Correct, but you could bring it further and say if you haven’t cheated or been cheating on, then you don’t know how it feels or what you would do or want to be done to you.
You may feel strongly about this now, but then life happens and you have a wife who is so sweet and loving and yet for whatever reason you stray – you wouldn’t hurt her for the world. For those of us married souls on this thread, we are just saying what our experience teaches us – and not the actual experience of cheating, but knowing our spouses and what it would do to them to tell.
Yes, I understand. That is an important factor to me as well and this is why I am not criticising anyone who didn’t or wouldn’t tell. I know myself, however, enough to know I’d rather be told. I’d rather know the truth and face it and help her face it as well, then not know and have her suffer it alone, together with all the trauma of the perceived constant lie.
I am actually opining that this is coming down to sheer giving and selflessness. If you would hurt your spouse so badly as to betray them through adultery, it’s selfless to keep it to yourself and not hurt them further. You already know how badly you have hurt them in your heart, and you SHOULD suffer it alone.
I understand the reasons, but I am not sure about the years of building a pretence which that would result in.
For someone like Chev he seems like he would really want to (almost need to) know. And his future spouse should know that up front.
Actually I’d rather have people follow their conscience faithfully than follow my own choices for my sake. Besides, as I said, I wouldn’t want for her to deal with it alone and I wouldn’t like to risk the rift a secret like that would cause.
Well he stuck by his initial statement prior to marriage over 12 years ago. Actually make that 14 years ago – he told me this when we were dating first. He reiterated prior to marriage (about the time I said if we had children I would be staying home to raise them). Either way he said “I would divorce you the MINUTE I knew about an affair. I would divorce you just as well ten years later. I would be so angry knowing I was played a chump – especially if anyone else knew about it. That may be pride, but that’s the way I feel.”
I then brought up Paul’s opinion. He said at first he doesn’t believe Paul, that he believes Paul would end things upon hearing the news – be it immediate or ten years down the road. He thought about it for a while then said "well maybe, I could see his point, he would rather know immediately than find out he was played. I would divorce YOU either way, but I could see how he came to that conclusion. This is why I don’t like hypotheticals --and why I don’t go on message boards!
"
A divorce does not end marriage, save the civil one, and the civil one is not primary and the sacramental one secondary. It’s not like sacramentally married people can “end it”, leaving just an impediment to future sacramental marriage. The marriage persists. Separation from bed and table is allowed. A notion of ending the marriage is not. The wedding ring still stays on the finger, metaphorically speaking.
Yes, but you are a teenager and are not married, you know not of which you speak. It isn’t a great marriage out of guilt, it’s a bad marriage turned great due to someone straying and realizing where “home” was. They act better to get their marriage to a better place. That isn’t false. Even if they harbor one secret, the goodness is by far very real.
But we know that ends don’t justify means. As long as the secret’s moral value depends on extrinsic factors, then that’s fine. But if we, as a result of our discussion, were to conclude that something wrong is with the secret itself, then we would have to conclude that the secret is not justified by the good it is supposed to achieve.
Have you ever known any Bishops or tribunals to address any issues of an individual couple ?? Or take the time to investigate any accusations or circumstances?? All I have know is them saying let the civil (courts) deal with it, then come back to see us about the annulment. It would be good to hear that somewhere the Church is involved before the divorce.
Relying on civil courts is an American custom and it is not default in other countries. Properly understood, an instance of infidelity is at best evidence pointing to the possibility of there being simulation - defect of consent relying on exclusion of fidelity when entering into marriage. On its own, it does not point towards nullity, nor is seeking a declaration of nullity the automatic consequence or even the best choice. All too often the declaration of nullity is not seen as a declaratory finding of facts, but rather as a constitutive decision - ending the marriage and erasing it retroactively if there’s enough ground to justify that. And that’s not true.
)