Card29 IX - New Year, New Card

[Mozza]

As a LBS who's W cheated on him five years ago and is now sleeping with a colleague 10 years my junior, I'll side with Card29 at the moment. I've known of the current episode for over two months and it still wakes me up at night, giving me crying fits that I can't calm down without help.

Everyone is different, but we can't underestimate the impact of finding out your W slept with another man. Given that Card29 wanted to wait to be married, I'd expect him to see physical sex with someone else as special, as much as we discussed his "porn problem" here.

(Controversy alert) By the way, it is a problem in as much as his W decided it was -- there's nothing illegal about his behavior and there are people who are ok with their spouse leaving them alone and finding satisfaction elsewhere without touching or getting involved with other people. The problem is the misunderstanding between them, not that he was watching porn. So to me, this is not: "You were watching so much porn, you have to repent." It's: "You have failed your W sexually in very hurtful ways by not communicating with her." On that point, by the way, she seems to share part of the blame, not to mention that she dropped the big words (violated, cheating, etc.) AFTER BD and while she was being dumped by OM. It's still possible that she was inflating her reaction to prepare the stage for confessing her A. Card29 suggests as much when recounting how she reacted to porn years ago.

This is in the end a question of morals between two individuals. It is for Card29 and his W to deal with, without any external moral judgement as to how much what kind of porn is reasonable in a M. Our role is to help him find the contours of his W's morals and the impact of his behavior, but not to project our own limits or morals on them.