Muddle's Waters III

[MuddleThrough]

I think this last thing is horse hockey. I really doubt that a marriage exists where all the needs of both partys are met. when WAS use this to excuse thier affair, I say "Horse Hockey"

Muddle, were all your needs met prior to the bomb? prolly not, did you go pick up and babe, do the nasty, then go beat the wife over the head with it using the excuse "you didn't complete me"? so I think us LBS can take the moral blue ribbon here

Ok, I'm not saying that ALL one's needs can be met in a single relationship. I'm saying that it's likely that neither partners' most important needs are being met, therefore, when the opportunity comes along to experience this extreme happiness, the feeling of entitlement to fulfilling those needs arises utilizing the justification of neglect by the spouse. I am not saying it's objectively justified, I'm simply saying that we all, as people, have the ability to choose how we act and circumstances and perspective (both of which are transitory) can influence how decisions are made, and certain decisions can be far more appealing because of this. I think it is a basic human emotional response when your needs are not being met - to have them met however they can be - AND the importance of the neglected needs are elevated to supreme importance, totally out of proportion with all other needs.

I think there are people who are predisposed to tossing aside their values to pursue meeting their needs elsewhere because they have not been honest with themselves about the part they play in their own happiness. This, I think, prevents them from being honest with themselves and allows them to cloud their decisions with ideas like fate or external circumstance controlling them. I think the same person in either happy or unhappy states of mind will make a different decision when faced with this opportunity. I'm not saying that you would have made the same decision a cheater did, I'm saying you COULD have, given the right circumstances. In fact, at the time of the A, I'm not sure I would not have been tempted, or done the same. I wasn't out looking for anything, but neither were any of them, right?

I think what makes us moral and *good* is not that we chose NOT to have an A, but that we are choosing to see the value in the M and in our families. We are choosing to maintain the importance and value of the other person, who we could easily condemn as evil or bad or devalue and find utterly useless. It's making the choice to fight through all of our negative emotions, against the adversity of the situation, act with true integrity (all parts of your being in a symbiotic state) and do what's right, according to our ideals. That's honorable, not some intrinsic ability to withstand temptation that the WAS does not possess.

Muddle, you're a good guy and don't deserve abusive treatment. when we're down, it's easy to make us feel like since we didn't always help with the laundry and then write a poem for them, it's our fault they lie, cheat and abuse. "Horse Hockey"

You're absolutely right. This is something I fight with too. I don't want to take on more than I own, but I also don't want to fool myself into beleiving that I own less of it than I do. So, isn't it better to take on what might not be my issue, struggle with it and improve and then realize that I improved myself and it had no impact on the situation than to leave that stone unturned because of an error in my judgement? Damn right I don't deserve abusive treatment, and it's going to stop. I'm going to find a way to stop it, one way or another. I wish she didn't want to act like she does, and I think on some level she really doesn't. But, right now, and maybe for the rest of her life, she has really poor impulse control. She acts on her feelings far too often and too easily. I will change this dynamic starting with me.

Ford, thanks for your opinion, it really got me thinking. I'm not taking what she feeds me as truth here, rather, I'm trying to look at this phenomenon objectively and see the common human threads. It's the idea the we are so different that causes us see each other as enemies, protecting what makes us different. This isn't conducive to reconciling, is it? In fact, I think it damages our world view to protect and try and own something - it is a way of trying to find value through external sources. The value's there, in everyone - even the people who make bad choices.