(Untitled)

[leaoness]

There's this couple at my church who are getting a divorce due to the wife's infidelity. She's now with the other man and it makes me want to throw up. Infidelity usually gets me this way, but in this case it's more so. I've known this chick for most of my life and she WAS my older sister's best friend. She was notorious about "finding the one"

Comments

[cohen]

i don't know. i feel differently about that situation, though it is a sad one. i've basically grown up on dan savage, savage love, and though it may be extreme to some it really shaped how i see life/love. and not like it is a guide for me, but more so it opened my eyes to a world of perspectives so i'm a ridiculously open-minded individual i think in part to reading/listening to it for about ten years. and i think that breaking up a family if you are unhappy is not a bad thing. and i know it sounds really selfish and i'm not defending this women, because i don't know her or her situation, but in a broad and general sense i think if you put yourself in a situation you thought was one way and then slowly changed, like how some marriages/relationships just start strong and fizzle. and you know in your heart there is someone else that makes you feel love rather than resentment it's okay not to cheat, but explore that. and i think if you stay in a situation where you are depressed or no longer enjoy life, than it will have a negative affect on those around you. and i think kids benefit more from happy parents than married parents, i have misgivings on the fact that my parents are still together because they fought so long and often that i thought it was okay to stay in an abusive relationship for five years because i thought marriage was grinning and bearing it. i digress, i just like talking opinions and perspective with you because often we are on way different sides, but we are both such loving and compassionate people that it is fun to see other sides with you.

[leaoness]

I don't feel being unhappy in a marriage is reason for divorce. But I'm also not saying that one should grin and bear unhappiness in a marriage. Counselling, talking, spending time with each other.
Take arranged marriages, for instance. Tons of them work--the marriages end up being successful and the couple learns to love each other because they are facing each trial and struggle as a team. (However, there are others that don't end so well.) I think too often we place love on a pedastal. Love is just love. And sometimes love is not enough; it happens all the time: people who "still love each other very much" get divorced. So obivously, love has little to do with a successful marriage. Sure, it should be there, and typically, you should grow to love that person. But it won't be a constant. Love will not keep two people together. Love takes work.
This girl in particular, I think, thinks that love is how it is portrayed in the movies. People commonly call it New Relationship Addiction. It's the thrill of falling in love, of being with someone new. But they are unable to accept what's left of the relationship when everything becomes old.
This is what Hollywood has done to our generation's ability to have successful relationships based on realistic expectations. I mean, Twilight? Come on.
So yeah. I don't mind talking about this. But I'm just...divorce isn't something I take lightly, you know? Two of my siblings have gone through the struggle of facing infidelity in their marriages. It was a hard, hard battle--but studies show that if a couple struggling with the aftermath of an affair chooses to work through the problem, then 5 years later nearly all of them consider their marriage to be a happy one. And I've seen it with my own eyes. It's...really amazing.