Thursday Therapy: Inolvement with Married Men

One of my readers, one whom I consider a friend, occasionally engages in email conversations with me when public commentary seems less than desirable for the conversation. Recently, regarding my post on Monday, this reader sent me a couple of emails that I thought were worthy of serving as the basis for this week’s Thursday Therapy session and after being granted permission to do so I share them here. I have not reproduced the entire emails below, but only the parts that addressed the pertinent issues. For ease of reading, and to keep from getting too confused as you go through this, my reader’s email comments will appear in blue while my writing will remain in the normal black. Hopefully, this will help you keep straight who is saying what.

"As far as J’s marriage is concerned, I feel that it is up to him as an adult to make his own choices." {Here, of course, the reader was quoting from my blog post}

I think, if you step back from that, just a bit, and take your own self off to one side of the question, you'll see what a dodge that is. Even if it is J's 3rd marriage, and he has clearly established his own, shall we say 'lack of punctilious respect' for the institution of marriage. Marriage doesn't just exist between the two spouses, to do with as they please; it is, in its essence, woven into the larger social fabric, and there is an implied mutual support between the marriage and the society. Marriages/families are the fundamental building blocks of a society/culture. When marriages and families are strong, the society is strong; when marriages and families fail, the society is in trouble. . . (OK, end of the sociology lecture. . .)
In my opinion, that is a simplistic way of looking at things. I think that J has, rather than a lack of respect for the institution of marriage, a habit of choosing unwisely whom to marry. I won’t begin to go through all the pathos behind that but just to point out that while marriage may well be a fundamental building block of a society, ill-conceived marriages make staying within them extremely difficult and, dare I suggest, not even truly plausible.

My point is, we owe each other, even if only as fellow-citizens (although there is certainly much more to it than just that), respect for each other's marriages. And if J doesn't respect his own marriage, you owe him the encouragement and exhortation to do so, not collaboration in undermining it.
Here I just flat out disagree. If J chooses not to respect his own marriage then there is something wrong within the marriage, whether it be J, his wife, or a combination of both of them. If he chooses to undermine his marriage that is his choice, not mine. I hold at least as much respect for his marriage as he does. I have turned down many more offers to be with him than I have accepted. I have tried to talk about putting his marriage first. He does not wish to do so. I am done trying to convince him. I suppose I could, and probably should, just walk away from him at that point, but I don’t. I bow to my weakness and give in to my own desires of wanting him. Yes, I hold myself responsible for my actions and what I do to undermine my own relationships but not to what J does to undermine his.

I'm frankly a little surprised and dismayed that someone who is as solicitous of her neighbors' well-being as you are (and I do sincerely respect that about you) would so seemingly casually wave off responsibility to honor and respect and support her friend's marriage.
Again I will just say that although it may appear through the blog that I have casually waved off responsibility I really have not. J and I have many conversations about the situation, and I do try to encourage him to do the right thing. The problem is that he tries to encourage me to do the wrong thing and is either more persuasive, or I’m more swayable, or both.

Plus, there's The Golden Rule, if nothing else. . . (as Kimba pointed out, you didn't much like it when it was done to you; altho not, I suppose, to your marriage. . .)
This is the part that I really want to address because it seems to me that many people have misunderstood my feelings or read into my feelings something that was not there or something. In any case, I really want to set the record straight on the whole BJ/Serenity issue. While I think that some see Serenity as the villain in that whole scenario I never did. I always saw BJ as the villain in that scenario. BJ was the one who betrayed me. BJ was the one who went behind my back. BJ was the one whom I always held responsible for his decision and his actions. Had BJ truly loved me he would not have been swayed by Serenity or any other woman. As it was, he was always ripe for the taking. There was not one day in our relationship when I could have honestly said that I trusted that he wouldn’t find someone else who, for whatever reason, was better. With regard to The Golden Rule, would I have wanted Serenity to act differently? Not really. She went after a man she wanted to pursue. That’s fine. I have no problem with that. There are two things I do have a problem with:
(1) The way BJ tried to blow me off with a “Goodbye Jane” email. I definitely think that showed cowardice and a lack of respect for The Golden Rule.
(2) The way that Serenity bashed me on her blog afterwards, particularly since I counted her as one of my internet friends. I would have been perfectly happy to stay friends with her, even had she and BJ stayed together, had she not turned on me and kicked me when I was down.  I have wondered if perhaps she did that anticipating that I would be angry with her for stealing my man and went with the "a strong offense is the best defense" theory. I don't know. For that I struggled to forgive her, but for luring BJ away I have never held her responsible for that. BJ did that all on his own. BJ could have said “No” but he didn’t.

Every strong marriage strengthens my marriage, even if only by example - 'look, there's a strong marriage; this marriage stuff really is doable, and worth persevering for'. And conversely, every marriage that fails has an analogously deleterious effect - 'wow; X & Y broke up; maybe it IS better to just cut our losses, when it gets hard. . .' Of course, none of this is determinative; but every marriage has an effect on every other marriage, either encouraging or corrosive. And that touches on what I was saying about the 'social dimension' of marriage. . .
Here I agree that every marriage has an effect on every other marriage. Both the good and the bad marriages have an effect on every other marriage. J’s marriage is not a strong marriage, nor is it an example you would want to show your kids and say to them to follow his example. He married a woman because she needed rescuing. He is the classic save the damsel in distress guy. It is much more of a relationship where he takes care of her and her son because nobody else will than it is a strong marriage. He does not love her. I would hope that others would see his marriage and use it as a cautionary tale not as an example of what marriage should be. If anything, I think we need to encourage people before they marry to make really damned sure they are marrying someone who they really want to be with for a lifetime. It is way too easy to jump into a marriage without really understanding what you are getting into. I would hope that people seeing J’s marriages would look on that not as an endorsement for bolting when times get tough but for being more careful who they choose to marry in the first place.

To wrap things up I want to say that while I carry many burdens of guilt around with me one that I do not carry is one for not working harder to support J’s faithfulness to his marriage. That’s his deal, not mine. It is his choice to continue to step outside his marriage to get the intimacy that is lacking in his marriage. While I respect the opinions of others who see things differently, I must say that this is one issue on which we will just have to respectfully disagree.

Also, one last point of clarification, if I were to implement a “no married men” rule for myself it would be just that – for myself, for reasons of my own well being, and yes I will admit there are many good reasons in my own best interests not to be involved with married men (and something which I am working on in therapy with Freud). It would not be because I felt I owed it to society in general or fellow womankind to ride herd on married men and keep them from cheating.  The men need to buck up and deal with that end of the issue.