How to shake up spouse without having an affair?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Promise, schmomise.

Is it really right to keep a promise for the sake of the promise? I don’t know about that.

And therein lies your problem.

You think your ex-husband did not know that about you? You think others don't?

And let's take your first example and where you go with that.
The justification for not making or valuing promises is because you've worked with women in violent relationships? What you failed to say is that on the other side of things is probably another (broken) promise not to be violent again, or abusive , or whatever.

So, is it okay, for example, to commit an attempted rape or commit rape? There is an attempt to dance around these words, but that is really what is going on (from a legal standpoint). And so, what I've accepted, not as an explicit promise I've made, but an implicit acceptance of the situation I deal with, is the request and the demand not to commit any sexual act upon her body. Are you saying, as a male in this situation, I should not respect that request and demand?

On your second example, it is clear (to me) that your uncle is BEING in integrity (whole and complete) with whom he says he is in the world. A path to that way of being was through priesthood AND as is demonstrated by what you describe as his current situation, there was another path to accomplish the same thing.

And your words give the appearance that promises have little, if any, value to you. They are situational. Yet, who you are is your word, who you say yourself to be.

And you don't wish to be bound by your own words. Fine. That is a choice you are free to make.

It is not about "doing," whether it is the same thing over and over again, or not. It is about being and the way that you BE.

I have chosen a way to be consistent with the promises I've made. I have found these circumstances lacking a degree of completeness which I've explicitly expressed. that explicit expression has fallen upon deaf ears and it does not register. So, I feel (and it just a feeling) that I've ended up in some sort of blind alley with no real solution that is intuitively obvious. However, I can also hope that there is some outcome that might be worth it.

Sometimes that just takes time.