It certainly is...
Posted on 06/09/2008 9:23:11 AM PDT by BoneHead
Having an affair can help to save a struggling marriage, according to a new, controversial self-help book. Mira Kirshenbaum, who has over 30 years' experience as a marriage therapist, says the 'right kind' of affair can be a positive thing, acting to "jolt people from their inertia".
The author of When Good People Have Affairs, published this week, argues that because society has so far failed to have a sympathetic discussion of infidelity, the positive sides of cheating have been ignored.
However, she insists that most cheating spouses should never own up, because revealing the infidelity is more damaging than keeping quiet.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Most philanderers are good, kind people, she argues, who are seeking real happiness and love.
And my favorite:
"You could think of it as a radical but necessary medical procedure. If your marriage is in cardiac arrest, an affair can be a defibrillator."
Well of course I thought the UK, Then I read the author is American from Boston.
You can't make this stuff up.
Such stupidity does not amaze me anymore.
Reads like a confession.
(1) Defiling your marriage will save your marriage.
(2) Adulterers are "good people."
Truly Satanic - a term I do not use lightly.
I think a more appropriate medical analogy would be taking a Jawbreaker for a tooth ache...
I had an affair once with my wife's sister. We enjoyed it very much until my wife found out. The affair cost me a broken jaw (my wife was in the Marines), a divorce and every penny I had them. Three years later from all that I can proclaim with utter confidence that your advice really sucks.
“she insists that most cheating spouses should never own up, because revealing the infidelity is more damaging than keeping quiet.”......
More damaging for sure when your wife cracks 20 pots over your head!
Well, I won’t advocate an affair, but the fear of a spouse straying certainly can have positive motivational effects to resolve issues that may be leading one to it.
Fear is a great motivator.
I’m calling BS on this one.
Well she’s right in one respect. With my first wife it did “jolt me out of inactivity” When I found out about her boyfriend I invited her to move out, when she did I invited myself to be single again. I accepted.
Luckily my wife doesn't know her way around the kitchen!
“Good” people do NOT have affairs.
Well I hope it’s cool to wear condoms.
“she insists that most cheating spouses should never own up, because revealing the infidelity is more damaging than keeping quiet.”......
What? And spoil the fun when you find out your spouse knew anyway, and the investigator has insured you support him/her for life? ... and a whole generation raised on Dr. Phil and Ruth Westheimer comes of age.
Every time I wore one I got hot and sweaty
Tearing down the nuclear family one rung at a time..
If I ever have an affair my wife will be a widow - right after she kills me in my sleep..
You need the super-ventilated ones.
They’re cool.
Ping.
Anyone remember a Laurel and Hardy movie called Sons of the Desert? Near the end, Stan’s wife starts taking plates out of the cabinets and he says: “But Sugar you don’t have to leave tonight!” She then proceeds to throw every plate at him while he sits in the middle of the room with a pot over his head.....
Here we go again, redefining evil as good.
(1) Defiling your marriage will save your marriage.
(2) Adulterers are "good people."
Truly Satanic - a term I do not use lightly.
Our visiting Pastor, in his sermon yesterday, talked of a parishioner he'd counseled due to a standing affair he'd been having. When asked why the man had this affair he replied "I believe God told me to do it".
The Pastor naturally responded "Are you sure it was God who told you?"
As the Pastor noted, God will never ask us to do anything that goes against His Word. And if what we come to do does go against His Word, then we can rest assured the thought process behind it did not come from God.
I suspect this is a concept the author is unfamiliar with...
“Ms Kirshenbaum, clinical director of the Chestnut Hill Institute, a psychotherapy and research centre in Boston,”
___________________________________________________________________________
I’d like to know more about this Chestnut Hill Institute, any relation to the Kinsey Institute? History is full of people who dedicated their work (art, writing, psychology, anthropology, law, legislation, religion, etc.) to justifying their own personal behavior.
Alfed Kinsey to Margaret Mead to Joseph B. Smith, history’s full of them.
14 "You shall not commit adultery.
Final word
I have run into plenty of folks who broke up after the first affair. To a person, they all said that “it wasn't the affair, it was the lying”.
Trust is the basis of marriage. Carrying on sexual relationships with others, with or without a spouses knowledge, undermines that trust both consciously, and perhaps more importantly, unconsciously.You start to hedge yourself and your investment in the relationship.
Because nothing says “I Love You” like giving your wife Clamydia.
Amen. Divorce before adultery.
Wrong.
It certainly is...
One’s marriage really isn’t the point of an extramarital affair.
I would contend that your statement is not always true.
People who are generally good and decent make mistakes and do bad things, including the having of affairs. For instance, I would consider a one-night stand as a slip to be less of a betrayal than an ongoing affair, which requires ongoing premeditation.
However, we can say with complete authority that when people have affairs they are not “doing good.
- Mira Kirshenbaum
"These people are suffering terribly and need to be relieved of their sense of guilt and shame because those emotions are paralysing," she said.
So now I'm confused is it a defibulator or a payalysis machine? This lady is talking out of both ends!
Oh I forgot! Its all about how they feel.
A one-night stand requires premeditation as well.
As for the "ongoing" part, it depends on what the meaning of ongoing is. :)
“Truly Satanic - a term I do not use lightly.”
Yep, evil is good; good is evil.
This is amazing crap. People just want to hear this so they don’t feel guilty about the affairs they are having.
What was the line? “Vipers whispering what people want to hear . . . “
Definitely full of it. Another book destined for the bargain bin.
Right on!
********************
Imagine what a help she has been during that time.
Far better for married couples to go to a priest or other clergyman.
A guy having too much to drink while out of town on business and getting carried away with the wrong woman is quite a different thing from a month’s or year’s long “affair.” Doesn’t make it right, but it is very different.
BTW, something has always bothered me about the use of “affair.” I believe it is short for “love affair,” yet was universally applied to the Bill and Monica relationship.
Even by the depraved standards of the media, is there any rational reason to call their relationship a “love affair?” Isn’t that an insult to all real love affairs?
Or a non-struggling marriage.
An affair means that your word has no value and your spouse has no value either. Who would want to stay married to such a person?
Keeping your underwear on may not save your marriage, but dropping it will doom it. Yes you may stay married on paper but the trust, security and emotional intimacy that are a necessary part of being a true pair of souls traveling through life together is gone. You become two people who just happen to live in the same house.
\oO/ (think bill the cat)
Don't know quite what to make of that
I think you're missing the point. These people are feeling guilt and shame not because they've had an affair, but because they've been brainwashed by society to think having an affair is something you should feel guilt and shame about.
Her book will allow you to have all the affairs you want, but never feel guilt or shame.
Don’t know. But their website is full of help.(Chestnut Hill Institute)/sarc
Oh gosh what an awful book. She even goes so far as to suggest the cheater lies about it.
You just don’t cheat in marraige and if you can’t handle that then don’t get married.
Yes.
Large extensive website. With all the psychobable you would expect. I couldn't find a donors list. Looks like they make their money on speaking engagements.
“Trust is the basis of marriage.”
I believe that to be true of any relationship, from coworkers to friendships to dating to marriage. Once someone has betrayed that trust with me, I find it is nearly impossible for them to earn it back. I have not yet been married, but in the relationsips where I have entrusted them with my heart, their abuse of that trust has been devastating. Inevitably they ask for another chance and I find that I can’t stomach that risk again.
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