MJM, that comment about free pass hit a nerve for me tonight, because it is more than just a free pass.  It is a “you poor thing.”

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (July 19, 2019 10:02 pm)

Religion again:  annnnnd, probablyba little rant from me today—

One thing TGT has done for me is to really help me clarify “what morality is.” 

In my church, we focus a lot on free agency and making choices—and the idea that we make choices to become Godly. This is absolutely foundational in my church—the very reason for everything is that God wants us make choices, and we exercise our free will in ways that not only show our desire to choose good, but that by acting, and choosing, we are accountable, and that means we are  more Godly.  And then Christ makes up the difference when our choices—even in our best efforts or our worst—cause harm.

But!  Then when it comes to standards of living (call them commandments-plus, encompassing my church’s norms and interpretations and emphases):

When it comes to living standards, it gets down into lists of do’s and don’t’s, without a lot of emphasis on the why that underlies it all. Thenlist becomes more important than everything else. I mean, if you work for a company or go to a school or belong to a volunteer group or HOA, there are rules. And usually the “why” of those rules is emphasized so that you can make choices that fit the group values.

So I think God is this way too—the rules are for reasons, and those reasons are more important than the rules themselves. Consider the reasons always. focus on the greatest two commandments on which “hang all the law and the prophets”: to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. When it is unclear what to do, focus on the reason behind the rule. This is the very nature of the legal system and higher court interpretations of law as well, and it also encompasses feminist criticism and other kinds of social constructs and the entire field of philosophy. Etc.

So why when it comes to religion, do people put the cart before the horse?  Making the rule into their God instead of allowing God to breathe life into our rules and social mores?

Anyhow, I really get bothered when we emphasize the act of sex itself as the thing that is important. We talk about “morality” and we mean sex!  We talked about “virtue.” And we mean sex!  We tak about “modesty” and we mean sex!  NO!  It is how we treat people, and sex is a part of that, and can be used for good or bad. What is essential is valuing another person’s agency. Valuing a person's Individuality enough to let them make choices to direct their own lives.

If someone is falsely imprisoned, it is a huge huge travesty because then as a society we have taken away their ability to make choices and direct their own lives. Murder, kidnapping, hostage taking—these are different flavors of the same thing—taking away someone’s ability to direct their own life.

I also get bothered by the distortion of compassion and forgiveness and restitution and reconciliation. I am a compassionate and forgiving person!  Granted, I am kinda angry right at this moment, but I am just so exhausted by me not mattering—like everyone deserves compassion but me. And reconciliation requires two people—not infinite concessions from me until I cease to exist.

So my point is that although in some ways, religion has possibly kept me in this mess longer than I should have stayed (destructive relationship before I knew about TGT)—the very basic premises of my religion are much more clear to me and because of my lived  experience, I better understand why the biggest evil is taking away someone’s autonomy. In my religion,, the most hellish part  of hell is that you are in “prison,” no longer able to choose for yourself.

I am not even being careful to tie up this little rant in a nice little bow—except to say that I understand through my own life now that the  fundamentals of morality are not about sex or any specific rule: they are about love. Love requires honesty and respect and personal responsibility and empathy. Or it is not love.  And I understand that much more than I did before, and appreciate all the things that—through my religion—have come back to me about the value of each soul—including MY soul—as I have been going through this time of feeing imprisoned, and knowing that no Matter how surface nice my jailer appears, the effect on me has been destructive in my core.

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (July 21, 2019 5:38 pm)

Lily, thanks for responding to my post.  I think we are getting at the same thing really.  I absolutely agree with you that no one really can choose everything.  I honestly do not think someone can choose their orientation.  We cannot choose our parents or the place or situation of our birth.  I also see how, in politics, focusing too much on free choice gets distorted--what I mean is that when we assume that everyone is free to choose, and therefore they get what they deserve--that is not true.  People's circumstances mean that things are inherently unequal, and that is the constant push and pull of public policy: Where does one person's freedom to choose butt into someone elses?  And, can we--and should we--make efforts to help people whose circumstances make it difficult for them, to "even out the playing field."

Regarding religion, I always feel a little anxious posting about religion because when I do, I really dive in.  It has been such a part of my life and just a huge part of my family traditions, and I choose to believe in God, and I choose to pratice that through my particular religion, although sometimes it drives me crazy.  However, I also find that exploring any ideas, any religions, any philosophies helps me clarify what I really believe, and I am never afraid to think about something.  So then my actual religion is a place for me to have community and continue to learn and grow and be challenged.  I try to teach my kids that God is bigger than any religion, and that we are just humans, and we cannot understand God at all, and it is a lifelong pursuit to try to access the divine.  I also accept that religion itself springs from the psychological need for creating order and meaning.  And the fact that there are similarities between religions--whether Christian or other--speaks to me of the commonality of the human experience, and I try like you do--with the book you mentioned--to see "what is that common human experience?"  What is the common yearning, what is the common conception of life, of a greater being, etc. 

I like the work of Sophie Burnham, and tend to be like her, where I finally decided that I believed in something beyond myself, and I needed to choose a way to access that.  She talks about spokes on a wagon wheel, and how you can continue to stay on the outer rim, or venture a little down one spoke, then another.  She would, I believe, include any construct of finding meaning in life as a spoke on this wheel.  A spoke could be an organized religion or not a religion at all.  She said that after spending her career researching belief, she finally returned to practicing the religion of her childhood because it was familiar, and she wanted to choose one spoke hoping to get closer to the center of the greater meaning.

Back to how this intersects with your ex and the questionnaire/book you read and morality, and connecting this together with my post before yours:  I agree with you--my husband if taking a test on morality--would respond in the same ways probably.  He knows the answers, and he seems to apply them to other people.  He is very moved by television dramas!  However, emotionally when it comes to his actions toward me, and when it comes to having any empathy for me, not only does not feel any personal responsibility, he just does not even recognize it.  In fact, it is even more destructive, because he seems set on believing that I am the one who trapped him, that I am the one hurting him because he told me he loved me and I believed him.  Which is all very mixed up and dumb and makes me mad. 

I also get really mad at his assertion that he is incredibly moral, because I think he is holding onto "having actual skin to skin sex with another person" as his definition of morality--saying "I have never acted on it!"  Well, I don't know that I can actually believe that skin to skin denial in his case, because he has lied to me about other things.  However, if I take him at face value, I still think he just has a warped view of reality and a warped view of morality.  Because withholding affection is an act.  Searching gay porn and hookup sites for decades is an act.  And these are also sexual acts.  Not touching genitals with someone besides me does not mean he has not betrayed me sexually, and it does not mean he has not betrayed me emotionally and spiritually and morally.  And the biggest way he has betrayed me is by keeping me imprisoned in a false reality, and then punishing me for it, and twisting it like I am the person responsible for his imprisonment. 

It is one thing to say "people cannot choose their circumstances, so everyone is constrained."  It is quite another thing to actually constrain someone else--to actually take away someone's ability to make informed choices about their own lives.  To do that knowingly or because of shame and fear--the result is the same for the person imprisoned.  Doing that is the height of immorality, at the most foundational level, and that is what our GID spouses do not seem to be willing to face--that they are using us and imprisoning us and taking away our ability to direct our own lives.  I think we agree on that?

Now that I know though--and the confusion and fog the GID spouse creates is immoral too, I think--now that I know, I can act.  I can get out of the prison I did not know what there before.
 

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (July 22, 2019 12:23 pm)

deleted.  Sorry was so long.

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (July 26, 2019 9:23 pm)

cmrboe, you have a good case if you have evidence that he had no intention of fidelity and also he kept his orientation secret so you could not give full consent. I wouldn't hesitate to go forward with an annulment when your divorce is final.