posted
See, since both are sins to me, the reason I chose "B" is that it is a one-time sin, vs. sinning every day, and there are only emotional/moral consequences, not the long-term health damage (not only to him, but to me-- I'm asthmatic and cigarette smoke is a severe trigger-- and to our kids, born now and unborn.) Not to mention I could live with a man I did not completely trust any longer; I could not live with a smoker.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Well for a lot of us, taking up smoking without intention to quit means that the relationship is over.
I don't care what other qualities a woman has, if she a regular smoker, I am not interested.
So now that we've determined that A means the relationship is over, B almost wins by default. So long as there is a chance that the relationship survives with B, it wins over A.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
A. if I could get her to cut it down to no more than a couple of times a week, I think. Maybe.
Of course, if the cheating were with another woman, and it was videotaped, and I got to watch...OK never mind. LOL
I don't know, there are a lot of variables. Why did she cheat? This says a lot about whether or not it could happen again, and under what circumstances. I once read something that said that it's much easier to forgive cheating if it's a special situation, like your spouse is halfway across the world without you at a one-time event, versus it happening in the normal everyday course of life. I might agree with that.
If it really were under special circumstances, B.
Clearly I suck at making up my mind.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I could never stay with someone I did not trust. That sounds like it would kill your soul.
Of course, if you want to game it, you can absolutely, fundamentally trust your partner from this point forward; the terms of they hypothetical clearly state that the cheating is a singular, never-to-be-repeated event. You effectively have foreknowledge that they will never, ever cheat again.
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quote:Not to mention, I'm pretty sure that I could convince a spouse to quit smoking relatively soon after she started.
Now there's some hubris.
How do we define trust, or even adultery for that matter? Jesus said to even look on another with lust is adultery. Most people say this is impossible.
Anyway, I used to say if my husband cheated on me, I'd just kill him, but I'm in a happier place now.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think someone who will betray you in one area would happily do it again in another.
I don't think that's automatically true, but I do think that someone who has betrayed you once has a higher likelihood of doing it again.
To piggyback on what Noemon said, the circumstances of the hypothetical are what make it the prefereable choice to me in a way, but it's what also makes it an entirely unbelievable hypothetical. Barring the use of psyhoctropic drugs or magic, I don't see how you'll ever be able to totally assure someone that it was a one time event never to be repeated. No amount of promises or reassurances are going to be able to make up for the doubt that would spring forth after such a betrayal.
But given the circumstances of the question, I think that's why many people chose B over A.
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posted
I'd choose A. Sure, if she chooses to do so, we're gonna have to have some ground rules to protect the children.
From my perspective, it's two-fold. I don't think smoking is necessarily wrong. Unwise, sure, but not objectively wrong. Lots of "wrong" reasons why one might start, but all subjective in my opinion. Cheating on a spouse is objectively wrong in every case. So given no other information, that's the worse choice.
The other fold of the two is again from my perspective, with which many people will not agree. Smoking is going to directly affect the smoker and many people around her, but it's affecting the part of people that does not last. Cheating on a spouse affects the part of a person I believe is (or can be, depending on how one defines things) eternal. I believe my spouse would be more seriously and permanently damaged through cheating than merely the physical damage of smoking.
Neither would of itself be a marriage breaker for me, but either one would result in a whole heck of a lot of conversation. My guess is that neither one would occur out of the blue as long as our lines of communication are regularly open (which they are), so I'll be likely to have warning of the possibility of either.
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Smoking is foul and obnoxious. But cheating poisons the lives and hearts of all affected. You can air out a room a lot more easily than you can purge the pain of cheating from your life.
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posted
I'd have to leave my husband either way -- but it's all point of view. I'm a non-smoker and so is my husband. We both grew up with fathers who smoked and hated the stench. Both of our fathers have quit but the memory lingers. For one of us to pick up smoking would be as bad to the family as cheating because it would show callous disregard for the expectations, desires, and needs of the family.
But marriages are negotiated. Some people are ok with smoking and even like it. Technically, some people are ok with cheating but I don't think that could ever be healthy. Cheating can be overcome, but it's effort. Smoking can be a part of a normal, healthy marriage.
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posted
I asked my husband this question and his response was that I would never be able to smoke several packs a day. We are too poor. And he would find any cigarettes and destroy them.
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I think that once you have kids, A becomes more of a negative and B less of one, just because raising them apart (or without) then gets factored in. I'm not saying that having divorced parents is worse or better than second hand smoke, and of course it would be bad for kids to have parents who couldn't trust each other. But I think it provides an incentive to do your best to work things out -- not to put on a charade of fine-ness, but so the children can live with the two people who mean the most to them.
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That's how I feel, pooka. It may not be what it was after one person cheats-- but it can still be a family. I've screwed up in other ways, and been forgiven. I hope that we would be able to have forgiveness and love still, if not necessarily trust (at least not right away.)
I've known women whose husbands cheated and who divorced, and women whose husbands cheated and who stayed (and their husbands confessed and stopped cheating, of course. I'm not talking about women who stay with a persistant cheater.)
I've known women whose husbands had a Word of Wisdom "problem" (aka, substance addiction) and divorced, and women whose husbands were addicts who stayed (both those who tried to overcome it and those who didn't.)
Thinking of all those women, I would rather my husband cheat once (in the hypothetical) than smoke, because I could still try to have a family in that case (no guarantees it would work but I could try.) I couldn't if he persisted in smoking.
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posted
Which would you rather have then? A perpetual cheater or a perpetual smoker? Someone who cheats once or someone who smokes in only one instance.
Posts: 339 | Registered: Apr 2008
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Just a generation or two ago, *everyone* smoked. And judging from the responses I got here and on another forum, all it's taken is, what, 50 years? for it to become as bad or worse than one of "The Big Ten."
I'm not sure "The Big Ten" is the standard you want to use on this one. Where do you think smoking stood compared to taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's possesions 50 years ago?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by manji: Which would you rather have then? A perpetual cheater or a perpetual smoker? Someone who cheats once or someone who smokes in only one instance.
That wasn't the question.
I'd rather have my husband smoke only once than cheat only once. I wouldn't be able to live with either a perpetual cheater or a perpetual smoker. I consider those two probably equally unliveable (though smoking might be worse day-to-day, I couldn't live with either.)
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Yes, but judging from the responses, people seem to be pretty evenly split on it. So not so skewed as to evoke a unanimous response.
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Taking up smoking means my husband has made a conscious decision to harm himself. Yes, it will affect me and the kids, but I could find a way to live with it by insisting he smoke outside, and keep his clothes downstairs in the laundry room away from mine, which he pretty much does anyway, because while he's not a smoker, he IS a firefighter and a plumber and both professions can cause clothes to smell. I find a way to live with clothes that smell, because...well...they're just clothes. He usually keeps clean clothes downstairs in the basement, goes straight there when he gets home, and changes and washes his smelly clothes immediately (and takes a shower) before coming upstairs to eat dinner, and it works okay.
But cheating means my husband has made a conscious decision to destroy our marriage. And to betray a sacred trust with both me and our children. That's not something that I could live with, nor could he live with me doing it with him.
Smoking = horrible, terrible thing but something I could work with.
posted
I've been thinking this over, and I'm not sure that this demonstrates that we think of smoking as a sin that's as bad or worse than adultery. I've thought of something that would anger me more than either smoking or one-time only adultery that did not result in STDs or a pregnancy:
Getting a cat and insisting on keeping it in the house.
I'm allergic to cats. It would make my life miserable and would probably put a strain on my body, since I get an asthma attack around cats. Of course, there's nothing morally wrong with owning a cat. It's not frowned on by society. The sin here is ongoing disregard for the comfort and health of one's spouse.
I'd argue it's the same thing with smoking. I'll grant what Belle said about minimizing the effect on the rest of the family, and in that case I might prefer it to adultery. But on the whole, I'm not sure it's smoking per se that people are reacting to, but the way it affects others. I suspect that the perceived health risks of secondhand smoke have a lot to do with why smoking is so much less acceptable than things like drinking or gambling.
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I'm with Ic. I'm pretty surprised at these results. My perspective is more or less the same as Papa's.
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