The post My Father Made Me Want to Cheat on My Husband received a great many comment that talked about how responsibility one individual is in the midst of a multitude of influences for their behavior choices. Here is one view. See more here.
This from MJH88:
There is a lot of talk on here about ethics and responsibility. The way I read this article is that the author IS taking responsibility for her actions. Responsibility is not something cut and dry. You can sit behind your computer and dish out all the moral idealism you want. Frankly, down in the real world nothing is ever that easy. The author was thrown into a situation that she, over the course of her life, had to work out and deal with.
This author in my view is a clearly ethical person. I mean that in the sense that she always had an ever present sense of guilt, which just shows how morally upstanding she actually is. Think of this article being written by someone who said “I married my husband, cheated on him, and felt no remorse and I would do it again.” That is the truly unethical person.
This author dug deep inside herself to try to find out how it was she could be a more ethically responsible being. I think she did that not because she thought marriage as an institution should be respected, but rather because she truly loved her husband and her children and feels a responsibility to them to be a better parent then her parents were for her. She understands what true morality is about, which is that we can always be more responsible. She is working at that. I think it takes a great amount of insight and courage to admit and then write down and share the things that she did.
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photo: kmk7702 / flickr
I’ll agree with you that life is full of difficulties and its difficult to figure out where responsibilities lie. In this case however, it is pretty cut and dried. She’s married, she willingly entered a relationship where fidelity was expected. She did not chose to look for someone to cheat with, but when she found a man she was compatible with she did chose to ignore the fidelity her husband could reasonably expect. She uses her father as an example for why she chose to cheat. What she is overlooking is this: at some point her mother found out about… Read more »