“My husband’s past with brothels”
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I think people can and do change. Not all of them, of course. But I believe humans are capable of reflection and change. I believe he could have visited brothels and now believe that type of activity isn’t okay.
If he doesn’t explain his side, she’ll only know this part and it is likely going to fester and infect the good thing they have (if they do have that.)
She knows more than she has a right to know, Ron?
Really?
Presumedly, if a woman had a frequent abortion habit, she probably wouldn’t marry a vehement pro-life Neanderthal.People have a right to know the person they married. Clearly, he doesn’t want her to know more, or respect her enough to care about her feelings and questions. That doesn’t mean she’s out of order for wanting to know.
What are you talking about Northern star? It sounds like you want to tar and feather this dude because he went to a brothel in his past. Now he is a cheater. There was no mention of any girlfriend in Australia. Her issue after dissecting his past messages in a violation of HIS trust was that he frequented a brothel. Zero about cheating.
But if fidelity is important, you ask. Before you marry. “Hey boyfriend, ever cheat on a past girlfriend?” I’ve asked that question. If prostitution is a deal breaker, you ask. Not “hey girlfriend here is a list of all my past sins and infractions you may or may not be interested in. Please star the ones you want me to account and atone for.” What the fuck? And for the record, you can have a conversation about an issue without hearing the naughty details about someone’s past.
You get to choose, as a fundamental right of individuality, what you share of yourself, with whom and when. No one can know absolutely everything about another person. All of us choose everyday what to share and with whom. None of us owe a full accounting of our lives to anyone. Ever.@Dinoceros, you so elegantly put what I think I was trying to say.
I don’t think we can cosign each and every person who seeks out sex workers to the “bad person” bucket. And I think its certainly acceptable to not be okay with it and not to be with a partner who doesn’t share that viewpoint, its not as easy as good person vs bad person. It’s about what you personally are comfortable with and finding somebody who is on the same page as you.
And, I don’t think people are obligated to share their personal histories, but if you have engaged in or have a particularly strong viewpoint about something that is a flashpoint in our society (so sex work, abortions, casual drug use, stuff like that), it *is* kind of your responsibility to make sure you find a partner who is not going to have a major incompatibility with you on that.
That’s not to say you have to tell them you personally have had an abortion, or visited brothels, but you do need to find ways to get at where they stand on those issues.
Yeah, knowledge gained by snooping is illicit knowledge — knowledge she has no right to possess. It was a GROSS violation of privacy.
“Frequent abortion habit”? Get serious. To these guys one abortion made you a convicted baby killer, even using contraceptives would be seen as way more than a bit morally derelict. Are you going to tell me that you don’t know dozens of people (male and female) with this point of view. Perhaps it’s a generational thing or perhaps you just don’t know any traditional Catholics or Evangelicals. The world is made of many people with very different viewpoints, especially on issues of morality. People who can’t see grey just mess with our whole ability to function as a society.
One thing I’ve learned: most people live their lives according to a moral framework. Their framework may not be at all similar to yours, but they believe it and live accordingly. So everyone has things they react viscerally to.
LW would probably be doing her husband an ultimate favor to simply leave him and get a divorce. She has no sense of grey.
“Presumedly, if a woman had a frequent abortion habit, she probably wouldn’t marry a vehement pro-life Neanderthal.”
I’m not so sure of that. Every stat I’ve seen says that ‘good Catholics’, ‘good Evangelicals’, and residents of deep red states have just as many abortions as the blue state sinners. Women who think of themselves as anti-abortion, when pressed up against the wall of need, have abortions and take their daughters to have abortions. Then they get on with their lives, having no more favorable view toward the idea of personal choice in making the abortion decision than they did before they or a family member availed themselves of a legally available abortion.
A friend who has worked as an anaesthesiologist during abortions tells of seeing a very strident woman picketing the clinic on day one, bringing her daughter in for an abortion on day two, and going back to the picket line to scream insults at women entering the clinic. Ironically, well less than half of the women entering the clinic were coming for anything to do with abortion. Most sought long-lasting contraception. The picketer was also opposed to contraceptive availability, especially for unmarried women like her daughter. it was against her religion, which she was able to set aside for one day, whe she felt she had to.
I mean, if a woman is a hypocrite – thinking abortion is morally acceptable for her/her family and murder for anyone else, she kind of deserves to get her dumped if she partners up with someone who has pro-life values.
If the LW’s husband thinks that prostitution is morally reprehensible *but* for himself, then yeah sure, he deserves to have his ass dumped too for misrepresenting himself to his wife.
The advice to be upfront with your partner about where you stand on key moral issues (like abortion) and only partner up someone who shares your values applies if you are clear with yourself on where you stand and living in a way that is consistent with your values. If you are living in conflict with your own values, well there can be consequences for living a dishonest life.
I don’t feel bad for hypocrites who get caught in their hypocrisies.
I’m amazed at the number of people who have had the conversation with their partner about their sexual past. We had the “Have you been tested/When was your last partner/You use condoms, right?” conversation early. However, most of the sexual past information I have has come out of regular conversation like, “Oh I dated someone who liked that show” or “M was allergic to lima beans!” It hasn’t occurred to me to give him a sexual past interrogation. I don’t know if he’s visited brothels. I do know the number of partners from a weird buzzfeed quiz we took once where he got my favorite color wrong. That upset me more than his “number,” so maybe I’m weird.
I’m not sure how I’d feel about it if it turned out R had visited brothels in the past. I guess it would depend on the situation – were they legal, etc. I do think the LW needs to get some counseling with her husband. He may feel safer talking about this in a more neutral setting.
ele4phant —
I doubt the woman thought it acceptable for her family. She thought the particular situation her daughter was in made it unavoidable. I suspect she saw it as a very grave sin and weighed 2 from her standpoint very bad outcomes. Perhaps she is just a hypocrite. My friend was so amazed to see her back on the picket line that he carries this tale with him and told it to us with a sense of helpless bewilderment.I look at it this way: in a sense the social conservatives are big bullies who want to control the moral decisions of others, even when those others run their own moral lives by very different precepts. On the other hand, I think they want the extra weight of illegality enforcing their church’s moral teachings, lest they, their families, friends, and neighbors stray from those teachings. Clearly, with the American South and much of the Midwest full of religious fundamentalists whose churches teach that abortion and contraception are grave sins, all of those teachings haven’t yielded a reduced rate of abortion, or use of contraception, or divorce, or people addicted to painkillers. I guess perhaps we are all hypocrites writ large or small. We believe strongly in things in the abstract, but that belief gives way to practicality in the real world. “Do I want my 10th grade college-bound pregnant daughter, whose bf has run for the hills, to birth a child?” Tough questions yield difficult answers.
Deigh:
I couldn’t tell you my wife’s favorite color. I’m not sure she has one. I know that she loves crystalline blue skies, rainbows, and the multi-hued green of fresh tree foliage of different species seen together in the Spring. I’m not sure any of those is her favorite color. I’m not even sure what my own favorite color is. I like looking at the greens of living plants, but dislike green clothing and as a wall color.I look at it this way: in a sense the social conservatives are big bullies who want to control the moral decisions of others, even when those others run their own moral lives by very different precepts.
Right agreed. So if they live their lives in a way that is conflict with their moral leanings, I think they deserve whatever backlash that comes their way if they get exposed.
I don’t think that the LW’s husband is in the wrong here, but sex work is a fraught topic for many, and that’s not a surprise to any adult human that people are going to have very strong, visceral reactions to it. If it’s something that’s part of his past, it’s kind of on him to investigate whether or not his partner has an issue with it.
Not necessarily saying he has to *tell* them he has visited brothels personally, but rather get an understanding of where his partner is on the spectrum. Obviously, not every couple needs to have this discussion because not every person has gone to a sex worker. But he has, ergo, he needs to do his due diligence when evaluating partners.
And if he thinks that sex work is wrong, but somehow made it okay for himself in his mind, then he’s being a hypocrite and kind of deserves what he gets, just like pro-lifers that get abortions in private.
If he morally is okay with sex work, but he knows his wife wouldn’t be, again, I think that’s on him for not clarifying him moral stance (again, just his moral stance not necessarily revealing his personal stance), then he knowingly married someone whom he knew has a diametrically opposed viewpoint on the issue. That’s misrepresenting himself and his moral frame, and yeah, he kind of deserves what he’s getting right now. It’s not about whether his past is right or wrong, or his value system right or wrong, its about the fact that he allowed someone to marry him without clarifying a key shared value.
Exactly. I have a thing, not even going to categorize it here, but it’s something I was raised with, which I KNOW some people will not be ok with. Like it really freaks some people out. I need to make sure any guy I date is accepting of it. That’s my responsibility. If they were to find out without me telling them, they would not be in the wrong at all to ask me about it, where do I stand on it now, how does it fit in my life, etc etc etc. I’d be pissed they snooped, but I’d talk to them about it. It’s not a sexual thing but it’s highly controversial. It’s a thing many people strongly feel is WRONG, too, and I get that. I do not talk about it to anyone, except a long-term partner, and I bring it up when we’re getting serious.
