Am I crazy?

[CharlieBrown]

DQ,

Thanks for your thougths. Actually, no, fortunately my wife has not done this to me and I have never cheated on her. We are working through SSM issues and I posted here because this is a group with lots of experience with affairs.

Your advice is what I will probably do, but I do want to play devil's advocate a bit.

Isn't part of the reason our standards as a society have declined is because of a lack of a willingness to judge something to be wrong. And by standing by in the face of it, are we not signally a judgement that it is correct?

As an example (and I realize this will make me sound really old even though I am 39), when I was in high school, I hardly knew any guys who had sex and we had two girls in our school get pregnant in my 3 years there. When they did, they suddenly were gone for the rest of the year and reappearred the next year. I later found out that they went to live with relatives and their babies were both given up for adoption. Today, there are a dozen girls pregant at the school at any given time. Instead of a negative stigma being attached to it, they are given baby showers and it is celebrated. While that may seem to be a nicer and less judgmental way to go about things, I think the byproduct is the epidemic of kids having kids.

I realize this is not a perfect analogy, but I see some comonality. If affairs were still seen as committing adultry and shameful, would as many people have them or would they work harder addressing the issues in their marriage that are leading them to the affairs? If a mistress or mister (is that the proper name for the man who has an affair with a married woman?)was still viewed as a "homewrecker" would they be as eager to participate?

A good friend of mine had an EA/partial PA with a coworker a few years ago and after he told his wife that he was leaving her, his family was the most harsh on him. They didn't tell him that everything was great and feel free to bring woman #2 to family events, they told him that he had a responsibility as a man to his wife and that if he chose to not work at it and honor his responsibility, they would not support him. At the time he really resented it and was pretty upset with his family, but after a couple years of counselling and his marriage being better than ever, he is appreciate of what they did.

In the end I will probably just smile, shake hands, and move on since it is appropriate to the occasion. But I will feel like a coward.

CB