The following article highlights the terrible, twisted ethics that society bring to marriage. The story follows the life of a celebrity, high profile New York couple who end up divorcing, and in the process breaking up two families. The wedding of the couple - Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla - received considerable media publicity, but for all the wrong reasons. They are being described as home wreckers and narcissists for the way they have celebrated their 'infidelity' in the media. "The couple fell in love while still married to other people".
This part is hard to believe because most people would challenge the fact that you cannot develop a relationship with another person without cheating of your former spouses. The reality however is that one must acknowledge:
1. Marriage is not a sacrifice - you stay in it only so long as it works, or you believe there is a prospect of it working. The problem is that people don't work on their relationship, so they descend to a point when their collapse is irreversible.
2. Marriage is not a relationship - A marriage is a contract. The values and feelings associated with a relationship are the bricks and mortar. The contractual commitment is the pretense. People who turn a legal document into some sacred parch are deluding themselves.
The idea that these couples went from marriage to marriage is an over-simplification. No one thinks like that; not even 'selfish narcissists' or even 'selfless moralists'. The reality is that people leave marriages because of a crisis in that marriage. People leave because they don't have the skills to resolve the problems. This makes a new relationship more appealing. The fact that both partners looked outside for fulfilment suggests that this was a mutual, consensual decision. The implication that these partners were faking it for the sake of the children. Who would not want to protect their children, and provide a smooth tradition for them.
In the comments section, you can read the vitriol of self-righteous Christians who are all too ready to judge them, and in the process denigrate supposed Christian values. In actual fact, this is not a 'selfish' outcome, its a sub-optimal outcome. Why would a person want to enter a marriage, fail to rehabilitate it, then enter another relationship, which might also fail. This is a failure, its certainly a moral, but how can this be considered in a person's interest. How can modelling a poor, guilt-edged, unrewarding marriage be considered selfish. The problem was that this couple were not selfish enough. They should of got counselling years ago, they should have taken a keener interest in their values before getting married in the first place. But having failed in that regard, then they should of got divorced.
The problem of course is that they made another 'selfless' mistake. They failed to act in their interests by getting married so soon after failing in their first marriage. They are probably destined to repeat the same mistakes. Hopefully by that stage their children will have been grown up. The issue here is learning from your mistakes; and not going from one mistake to another. This offers stability for no one, and one is less likely to make good decisions in a state of transition. I however don't judge (as much as I love to judge) because I don't know these people. Maybe they learnt their lessons from the previous marriage, maybe they got a lot of counselling, and were ready to move on. Maybe they were emotionally estranged from their previous partners, so there was a smooth transition for the kids.
There does seem to be a bit of nominalism in this decision, i.e. That divorce is part of life, so 'smooth transitioning' is the 'new marriage concept', that this is the way to go. This is sub-optimal. It does not always work, but it does work better if there is a healthy self-esteem, good communication, no sense of betrayal, and no one left alone when all is done. So this is a dream situation, because we have high-powered executives, probably good self-esteem, well-educated, wealthy, and they both are living happy-ever-after with new kids. Seldom is this the case. What if there was a disabled child involved, unemployment, a resentful, betrayed vindictive partner and an arrogant, uneducated husband with a penchant for escaping responsibilities, like every good cliche.
If it sounds like I am engaging in some equivocation on the word 'selfish', its intended. The idea that selfishness is doing whatever you want is nonsense. Selfishness is not acting arbitrarily, it is about advancing your life values. The idea that selfishness is acting with no regard or ill-will for others is a altruistic smear. These people have acted with sensitivity or empathy for their kids. Parents who sacrifice their interests for the 'supposed' sake of their kids, will end up doing their kids a grave disservice, because they will be demonstrating altruistic idealism, and in the process that life is about deluding yourself that happiness can come from begrudgingly engaging in hopeless relationships and then castigating others for the choices that you did not have the courage to take. This is the nature of the Christian vindictiveness. Self-righteous moralism.
Such Christians see divorce as inherently flawed. Consider the following poster:
"If the couple had a sense of decency and wished to truly respect the feelings of their ex-spouses, they would have denied themselves the pleasure of having their 15 minutes of fame in the New York Times".
This is very presumptuous and nonsensical because they went to the media together, and their current partners would most certainly be aware. But consider what will happy. The self-righteous Christians will model all kinds of vitriol in front of their kids, so its probable that their kids will be subject to all manner of bullying in the playground because the diminished self-esteem displayed by the children of these 'righteous' Christians.
An ordained marriage celebrant writes:
"Why publish a story that denigrates not only the institution of marriage, but the unceremoniously discarded spouses?".
Where is the evidence of that. This highlights the depravity of the Christian concept of marriage...that they perceive it as an expression of Christian values, i.e. divorced from reasons, causes, intelligibility. They see it instead as mindless sacrifice or servitude for the sake of others (i.e. the kids). Where is the value in that? Well, its in the grace of God, the sacred, intrinsic good of 'blessed god'. Yep, I know, a lot of crap, if you repudiate this nonsensical ethical system, and recognise that there is no god....just a lot of fear and a flawed thought process.
The second part is equally revealing. Why "unceremoniously discarded spouses"? There is no sense that there was anything but regard for their spouses, as they did it together. They did not get divorced with 'shame'; it sounds like they are proud of the conciliation that they were able to achieve. It sounds like they remain friends, moreover because they were both able to move on to other partners.
There is always a resident psychologist who is ready to offer their insights. Consider the psychologist featured on NBC's 'Today Show', who labelled the Vows piece 'the confessional of a couple wracked with guilt'. It is possible they held guilt, but just because a couple or person feels guilt does not mean that the guilt is justified. Guilt can arise because one has a conflict of values. Ambivalent values goes hand-in-hand with divorce, after all most people get married for the wrong reasons....as opposed to the right reasons, which would be the prospect of partners not living up to the partner's expectations.
This was followed by the angry intervention of Bob Ennis, Riddell's first husband, who posted on the Forbes.com website that "people lie and cheat and steal all the time, but rarely does a national news organisation give them an unverified megaphone to whitewash it. You could easily try to brush this off as a ... self-serving act by a couple of narcissistic people who for whatever reason have a need to try to persuade people, except for the fact that there are lots of children involved".
This commentary might be vindictive or justified. But what we do know is that relationships are not always clean breaks. He might feel that way in 20 years, or he might already be regretting those statements. The reality is that we are raised with this notion that divorce. It is, but the failure was at the inception of the marriage, not when we get divorced; at least not necessarily. There is no reason to think that people don't fudge that too, but at least they are, by getting divorced, acknowledging their feelings, and that they have a right to happiness, and to be selfish. Let's get rid of the pious, self-righteous, Christian crappy ethic that says that life or marriage is servitude.
You can read the whole story at the New York Times.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
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