In sickness and in health doesn’t evidently mean shit when applied to a woman. And that’s been documented by various studies. Women who leave sick men are awful whores, but the men who leave behind bedridden or war-wounded soldier wives, for example, are simply disappeared just the way men who murder their children are.

This dude didn’t even try. He’s an asshole several times over, and whether or not she’s better off without him, he made promises he didn’t keep. I hope she divorced his ass and took him to the cleaners.

Love is not a feeling alone - it is also actions.  In fact, love may be well expressed through the concept of duty.  Duty freely acknowledged and freely done is not the antithesis of love.

Jake

The question that I present to you is, “Yes, the husband is a dickwad, but what kind of dickwad exactly is he?”

Under these circumstances, it almost seems to me like trying to differentiate types of turds.  But I think it’s safe to say that whatever “love” may be, it was not present in significant or even detectable amounts there.

The reason outsiders and society talk about duty in relationships instead of love is because its sometimes difficult to tease out who is the one with the small heart. 

The lack of love isn’t always this obvious, but the usual way you can figure out it isn’t there is by measuring the person up against minimum expectations.  So I think it often comes out to the same thing.  Someone who loves you does the right thing for you no matter how hard it is for them and someone who doesn’t, doesn’t.

Yeah, I’d say “Why would she want him back in the first place?”  If she does, she needs to have her head examined.

I think we can all agree that the letter writer is better of without the guy.

I completely agree, and the kid is certainly better off without him too.  Sometimes it’s better to just have one loving parent than to have a a loving parent a parent who resents you.  For an adult, sometimes it’s better to be single than to be with a spouse who doesn’t love you, possibly resents you, and only tolerates your presence out of a sense of duty.  I know these sound like some crazy radical ideas, but sometimes being a single parent isn’t worse than all other options.

@ginmar:

studies like this one

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/?hp

my parent the endocrinologist says that, anecdotally, the same thing holds true with chronic illnesses like diabetes.

Essentially I agree with Amanda, people stay in relationships for all sorts of reasons, but unexpected stresses like rape, pregnancy, cancer or diabetes can trigger a reaction that makes those reasons less compelling. Women are trapped by social expectations into staying dutybound if not lovebound through the hard shit.

Garner accused the woman of being self-absorbed, but says nothing about the mans wallowing in self pity. I’ve got to agree, this is not the way a person who loves another person behaves. It is the way a person who feels “obligated” and is fed up feeling that way behaves.

Wait-What? THe letter writer wants her husband back after he ABANDONED HER when she was raped and pregnant?

Husband: Satan
Letter-Writer: I am not voting for dickwad, because having an abortion is a huge deal, and there are MANY MANY people who feel it is wrong to snuff out a potential life. A fetus is NOT a person with legal rights-but if it is inside a woman and she feels that it is a life that she would be wrong to abort- well that is why we call it CHOICE.

I am just sad that she was in a position (probably financial) where she would even THINK she wanted him back. I am with you, Amanda: He dropped her off for repairs. I had a suspicion that the child of her rape will end up loving her more than Dickweed Husband ever will, in the long run. Is the Husband bad because he ran out on his duty? Yes. But that wrongness was just COMPOUNDING the wrongness of his not actually LOVING his spouse in the first place, because, you don’t run out on the person you love when they are raped and pregnant. I also know a LOT of men (and women) who have “Raised other men’s/woman/s children” ( Women using egg donation, stepfathers, adoptive parents, GRANDPARENTS, the list goes on) and I DO NOT think it is a huge deal if you LOVE your spouse and are open to the idea of LOVING a child. Not loving a child because it is another man’s (or woman’s) is SO patriarchal, it is like VOMIT, it just is revolting and smells.

I hope she finds a decent partner.

“I think we can all agree that the letter writer is better of without the guy.”

100%. If he does (or ever did) love her, he would have stood by her. He decided to pity himself instead of his wife.

I’d say he is a “giant fist shaped dildo” type of dickwad.

The question that I present to you is, “Yes, the husband is a dickwad, but what kind of dickwad exactly is he?”

The husband is a dickwad because he presented her with absolutely no help in resolving a dilemma that was not of her making, choosing instead to leave her in the lurch. That’s not the behaviour of a good spouse or a good friend or, for that matter, a good person.

Of course, the dilemma would have been less pronounced had anti-choice types (like the husband) not been so opposed to safe and shame-free legal abortion procedures. The bottom line is that he behaved like an arsehole, and she’s better off leaving him out of her life completely.

BTW, I also read “get him back” as “get revenge”—why someone would actually want this creep back is beyond me.

This is a paradox of sexism - women are deemed “the weaker sex”, but when they show any weakness that limits their ability to be sex, cleaning, and cooking appliances, like cancer or even diabetes, men leave them.  Women with disabilities are also much less likely to be able to find partners than men with disabilities.  Men with a disability are seen as “bad ass”, whereas women who are not completely mobile/functional are damaged and worthless.

I just wonder why she wants anything to do with the husband.  He failed to treat her like a decent human being and support her in a time of difficulty, and would probably fail her in the future during medical treatments and such.

She’s a victim, and she will continue to be victimized if she doesn’t get some help.

I did suggest that if a woman and her husband agree that they won’t be having children, and that if she gets pregnant, she’ll get an abortion, then if she changes her mind, I can’t fault the guy for wanting out.  But that’s not the situation here, since he was not supportive of her abortion, either.  He just was not supportive in general.

Of course, I think if you get someone pregnant and she keeps it, even after a previous agreement not to, then you are still on hook for child support.  But she’s not the person she presented to you, and you’re not a bad person in that case, you’re not a bad guy if you can’t love someone who presented one face and then turned out to be someone different.  The right of people who are childless to value that in our lives is not nothing.

Ginmar, there was an excellent column in the Boston Globe a while back by a radiation oncologist.  She wanted women and girls to know about “purse holder” husbands.  These are the guys who would accompany their partner to each and every appointment.  They came from all walks of life, but the pattern was the same: their partner would head into the radiation suite, and they would hold her purse in their lap until she returned.  Dutiful and completely unembarassed to do so.

Not all men act like this.  Why the ones who don’t have that potential get any attention from women is beyond me.

Oy. The comments at Hugo’s are a joy.  A perfect distillation of male privilege all wrapped up in Waaaahmbulance language.  Puke.

I find it hard to fault people for not loving someone. Romantic love isn’t even an issue here, really. The husband was a dickwad simply because he failed to show basic compassion and support for another human being. Whether he was “in love” with her or not, this is a person in a very rough spot who needs support. If she had been my coworker, neighbor, acquaintance, whatever, and I learned of her situation, I would help her however I could not out of romantic love but because it’s just the right thing to do. And jesus, how hard is it to just go with someone to a clinic?

As for the duty thing - I remember having an argument with this guy once about prenups. I’m for them, but this guy was arguing that they make it too easy to leave a marriage, like only the threat of financial ruin will keep men from straying/leaving. Ignoring his very irritating assumption that women don’t have any wealth of their own to protect, what woman wants to “keep” a man who’s only there because leaving her would be too expensive? Duty, price, whatever - I don’t want anyone around who doesn’t truly want to be there.

Actually, I am less sympathetic to the woman than I assumed I would be. There is something incredibly weird about the letter/situation as described—and as described and analyzed by the advice columnist.  There was something really wrong with that marriage from the get go—“he didn’t want to hear talk about conception dates?” sounds like he wasn’t sure that she wasn’t planning on aborting *his* child.  She decided to keep the child and the “decree nisi” took place at the same time as the birth—that’s only seven months after she told the husband about the rape. 

I agree that the husband is an ass—not least because he left her and left her in the lurch instead of leaving her but offering her the financial and emotional support we’d offer a *former roomate* if the roomate got raped and decided to have a baby and needed support.

Here’s where I don’t think the “love” issue enters in.  People owe a duty to each other of lovingkindess/respect regardless of their romantic or sexual feelings.  That isn’t to say that they owe those things to former love partners to the point of self immolation, but they do owe them something.

This woman sounds absolutely delusional, to me.  And to that extent I think the advice columnists advice is good—she needs to work on herself and not imagine that she can recapture a former relationship with this guy.

I’m horrified that this woman was raped on the business trip. I’m horrified that she didn’t get the time she needed to work through it and that her husband was unable to take the abortion/not abortion situation and somehow turn it into a golden opportunity to be a father.  But I think the timeline was pretty crushingly speedy. Neither of them could figure out the right thing to do and he left because he knew or believed that he hadn’t signed up to become daddy dearest to a child he wasn’t sure he could love. That, in my opinion, was actually pretty responsible of him.

aimai

Not all men act like this.  Why the ones who don’t have that potential get any attention from women is beyond me.

Cue one of our PUA apologists to explain that it’s because chicks love callous jerks. You see, being a really NiceGuy® our apologist wants to be a “purse-holders,” but he never gets rewarded for it because those fickle gold-diggers and ice queens only put out for “bad boys.”

There, I’ve saved them some time.

“I flinched, because I’m sensitive to the idea that anyone should ever be in a romantic relationship out of duty—-it violates my strong, though obvious radical commitment to enthusiastic consent as the minimum standard when it comes to sexual, and therefore romantic, relations.”

You don’t have to stay in the romantic relationship if you don’t want to.  If this is the crisis that made you realize that you haven’t loved them for years and you’ve just been coasting on comfort, you don’t have to keep pretending for another couple of years just because you feel duty-bound to do so.

<u>But</u>:

If you’re a huge part of the social support network of someone you up until yesterday claimed to love, you pretty much do have a really fucking big obligation to be as much of a help and support to them as necessary and possible while they’re getting through that crisis.  You don’t have to remain in a romantic relationship.  You don’t even have to wait until after the dust settles to tell them that you want a divorce or whatever.  But you do have to go to the clinic and hold their hand and help take care of them while they recuperate and be sensitive to the fact that their life has just been turned upside down through no fault of their own.  This isn’t some super-special obligation that only attaches to romantic partners; most people would expect the same of close platonic relationships.

Here’s another question: if somebody won’t “hold your purse” for you, do you have any business having kids with them? 

I know business partners who will help each other through struggles like these.  Isn’t marriage supposed to be a partnership? How you define that partnership is really up to you, but it is still a legal partnership.

I think there’s some value to hanging onto the idea of duty and here’s why:  because even good people can have a moment of weakness.  I think about the case in Pennsylvania where the parents of a severely disabled child brought him to the emergency room hospital where he had been admitted multiple times before and left him, saying that they just couldn’t cope anymore.  They came back the next morning and were promptly arrested for child abandonment.

Now, really, what happened?  Were these parents awful, evil monsters who should go to jail?  Or were they stressed-out people who couldn’t get the help they needed and reached a breaking point where they did something stupid?

I agree that the woman is not thinking clearly—at the very least.  It’s seven years later.  She’s raising a child who is about to start school.  Presumably, like most parents, she has invested a lot of time and effort in that kid’s happiness, which she is about to throw away by inviting her ex-husband into their lives.  And that’s assuming he’d be interested.  Seven years is a long time.

No, Aimai, it wasn’t the “responsible” thing to do, unless the husband recognized what a dickwad he was, and wanted to do what he could to help by getting out.  The responsible thing to do was to stay with the woman as a supporter and helper at least until the child was born, just because he was (we presume) her friend and her lover, and because he had a contractual obligation to help her when she needed help.  Yeah yeah, I know, people fail to meet obligations all the time.  That doesn’t make it right.

Not all men act like this.  Why the ones who don’t have that potential get any attention from women is beyond me.

Plenty of women have been carefully trained to believe that good men simply don’t exist, and they should settle for jerks because that’s just how men are.  Or, they’re taught that good men have something wrong with them, like they’ll only hold your purse because they expect to get head later for it, or they’re secretly gay and they’ll leave you as soon as they find the right man.

I think that there is definitely a place for “duty” in a marriage. Love and wanting to support someone will generally come into conflict with one’s own desires and preferences. Most common example is dealing with in-laws. Your spouse may find your immediate family grating, tiresome… s/he may have that special patience when your 2-year old nephew throws tantrums and punches anyone he can get near enough to. You may not be in a position visiting your family that places you in an area of trauma, where the support of your spouse is done so out of love and an attempt to help you through the distinct trauma of family (ok, as the holidays approach, I do see the irony of this, but I swear there are people out there who look forward to spending time with their family. Really!) And from your spouse’s point of view, there are much better, more pleasurable ways to spend a sunday afternoon than listening to Aunt Marge recount her trip to the ThriftMart on Thursday and how rude the bagboy was. But doing so will not be traumatizing, and attending for the sake of your spouse would not be something that would require a level of sacrifice from you that could only be asked of someone that you really truly loved because they happened to need you. So you grit your teeth, steer clear of the nephew, try to say as little as possible to the in-laws without being rude, and do the family duty thing with your spouse.

If you didn’t do so, I don’t think most people would assume that you didn’t love them. Nor could sitting through dinner be evidence that you do love them. But the selfishness of dismissing that person’s family would be a sore spot, and actions like that pile up. Duty is a sort of everyday glue of love. It shows respect for the person, which is a building-block of love.

While I don’t think that someone could assume you didn’t love them because they begged off of in-law trips, I do think that if you started to tally up your spouse’s dereliction of duty and began to realize that they had a fundamental lack of respect or consideration for you, then it’s not a far leap to realize that they don’t love you.

This case is so completely over-the-top I don’t think you need that middle step. The husband didn’t love her, period, end of story. When your spouse has been attacked and needs to get a surgical procedure as a result of that, you nut up and help them because you love them. Duty plays no part in that decision. If there are lingering issues, you go to counseling together or separately to get over the duty issues.

BTW, a dear friend of mine had split from his girlfriend of a year or so.  When she was raped in a home invasion, she still had his information as an emergency contact. 

Despite their having broken up and her having moved 1,000 miles away eight months prior, he came to help.  He moved her stuff to a new apartment (provided by the sympathetic land lord) of a weekend.  In other words, he was a FRIEND and a HUMAN about it.

In other words, he was a FRIEND and a HUMAN about it.

Purely as a matter of personal ethics, if almost anyone I knew called me under such circumstances needing help, I’d probably do it or at least do whatever was in my power to do.  Though myself, I try to be a Vulcan about things in general.

@ blue Jean
Whether she is emotionally better off without him is not the only issue at stake.  in this society when a woman ends up as a single parent all sorts of other challenges present themselves.  (most of the time.)  She will earn less money, society will condemn her which has an emotional effect, etc. 

So I think that her wanting a man back who is a dickwad is not completely understandable in certain contexts.  We don’t know her context, so suggesting she should get her head examined is really inappropriate. 

It might be more productive to say that, given her feelings of wanting someone who is probably emotionally damaging to her, or possibly her feelings of being overwhelmed, she may want to pursue counseling to help her get through these issues.  (which I believe is free in the UK?)

I also flinched a bit when I read Hugo’s entry, but i couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  I haven’t yet come to an internal conclusion of what I think about that part of it.

I will also make a stronger statement.  Saying someone “should get their head checked” is never appropriate.  it is rude to the individual and also rude (and continues to marginalize)  to those struggling with mental health issues. 

gah I started this comment when there were only five other comments.  then had issues logging in.  boo.

The ex is a shallow asshole.  I agree that he never loved her, because when you really love someone, you stand by them when they are hurt.  Even when you want to run.

Getting divorced isn’t necessarily indication of his assholishness, though.  She was pregnant and deciding what to do with that pregnancy affected him.  I can invision situations where what is right for the wife to do is something that the husband can’t live with (either way: either carrying another man’s child or aborting a BAYBEEE could be a dealbreaker for him).  But ending the relationship doesn’t mean he can’t support her while disagreeing.  Not if he loved her.  Not if he was even a decent friend.

Instead, he not only failed to support her when she wanted an abortion, but he failed to support her when she continued the pregnancy.  She was the one who was attacked, but he played the victim card b/c someone damaged his houskeeping/sex appliance. 

He’s worthless as a human being.  However, wanting him back after 7 years is really indicative of someone who needs therapy.  She should have gotten over him by now and moved on, and the fact she hasn’t screams depression/other mental issues at me.

Despite their having broken up and her having moved 1,000 miles away eight months prior, he came to help.  He moved her stuff to a new apartment (provided by the sympathetic land lord) of a weekend.  In other words, he was a FRIEND and a HUMAN about it.

And I would argue that in that situation he had—yes—a duty to help her.  He didn’t have to fall back in love with her, but in light of their former relationship, some obligation to her remained and, because he’s a decent human being, he recognized that and went to help her.

I think that’s where people get confused:  “love” and “duty” aren’t the same thing.  You can have a duty towards someone you don’t love romantically.  Heck, taking care of our cats is a duty we accepted.  Do we love them?  Sure.  Do we love having to scoop their shit out of a box of dirt? Not especially.  But we do it because it’s part of our responsibility—our duty—as pet owners.

Plenty of women have been carefully trained to believe that good men simply don’t exist, and they should settle for jerks because that’s just how men are. Or, they’re taught that good men have something wrong with them

It’s important to make a distinction between this contention, with which I agree, and the PUA/NiceGuy™ version, which emphasises “nature” (i.e. bogus evo-psych or the will of God) over nurture (i.e. conditioning by a patriarchal society).

After a while a smart guy learns to stay away from women (like the one in this story) who’ve been conditioned like this and haven’t been able to break free.

Whether or not love and duty have any common ground—I think they can, or cannot, and it is all a question of semantics and definition. Duty has such terrible connotations in our culture, because it is too often used as a cudgel to inflict guilt and abuse.

But the term itself can also mean a moral obligation—the obligation to do well by other people on earth, because they’re humans. I’d argue, as some others have above, that love or no love, the husband had an obligation to treat a person in distress decently, and offer what help he could.

Do love and duty coexist at all? Not sure. If someone does something for a partner that they would otherwise not like to do, because they want to provide their partner with happiness or comfort, well…that’s not exactly drudgery.

I may not Desire, with a capital D, to spend holidays with my partner’s family (I end up missing my own family a great deal). But I do want him to be happy, and I want us to spend time together. If the price of that is spending some holidays away with his folks, well…seems acceptable to me.  Some people might shorthand this to: “well it isn’t perfect, but that’s my job as a partner.” Which makes it sound more awful than it is.

We all know infatuation isn’t lasting.

But I find that infatuation is replaced with a real love, a firm desire for that person to thrive and do well, and a desire to make that possible.  We all get tired and cranky and have bad days, but the urge to dump someone because they’re having a rough spot?  I don’t get it.  I do, however, understand dumping someone who is having a rough spot and won’t do anything to fix it.  There is a limit that everyone has.

We all get tired and cranky and have bad days, but the urge to dump someone because they’re having a rough spot?  I don’t get it.

Not to dismiss this statement—truly—but this could be as much a function of your particular temperament as anything.

Some people are impatient. Some have quick tempers. Some respond to anger with a flash of desire to remove the source of anger. Now, sure, decent grownup people don’t ACT on this stuff. But they do FEEL it, and that means that during a particularly bad spell the thought “God, I just want to get the hell out of this” will go through my head.

It’s a kind of duty that keeps me in the relationship despite those fleeting thoughts. NOT the duty to STAY, because we aren’t married and certainly I can leave if things go south. But the duty to HANDLE MY OWN SHIT, and not inflict needless suffering on someone because I had a brain twitch.

(Moreover, needless suffering on someone about whom I care very much, and expect to care for even when the relationship is no longer intact.)

“The husband was a dickwad simply because he failed to show basic compassion and support for another human being. Whether he was “in love” with her or not, this is a person in a very rough spot who needs support. If she had been my coworker, neighbor, acquaintance, whatever, and I learned of her situation, I would help her however I could not out of romantic love but because it’s just the right thing to do. And jesus, how hard is it to just go with someone to a clinic?”

This.  Even if he didn’t love her, he owed her basic compassion as a fellow human being. Which apparently he was not capable of. Thus, dickwad.

Love is too vague and broad a term to be useful in any rigorous analysis.  I would use the term “love” to connote feelings I have for any number of persons in my life, from my immediate family straight on through to my closest friends, and on to a number of other people depending on situation and context.  I love the basset hound, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t really love me.  I experience very similar emotional symptoms to the same ones I experience when I think of some of these people and things when I hear certain pieces of music at certain times or in certain places.  The variations on these themes are almost limitless.

I have been in a number of relationships where I loved my partner, and they fall into a hierarchy where I am pretty comfortable saying I loved one more than another.  Nor is any love “eternal” in my experience: I have loved only to later come to complete indifference as to the person or thing.

Point being: even within romantic relationships, the feelings and expressions of love differ so dramatically from person to person and from relationship to relationship that I am not really certain it is possible to offer the general concept of “love” and derive any useful universal conclusions about duty or right action.

This isn’t that different from what others have been saying, but…

It strikes me that there’s a continuum:  roughly, I’d say duty, obligation, sympathy, love.  They all have to do with mutuality and reciprocity.  Duty sounds like a slog and love sounds like a joy.  But really these are degrees of intensity for the feeling that leads you to do things for other people.

I have zero intention of reading the original text but I know about a similar situation where the guy believed his girlfriend had consensual sex with someone else when she said it had been a rape and there was a lot of jealousy + rage+ loathing girlfriend + seething because he said he believed her at first and all of that equaled callous dumping. It wasn’t pretty. The question was what kind of dickwad; dickwad who thinks he has been cheated on? Or maybe someone who believes that if his girlfriend has sex with or is raped by another man she is damaged goods or that their intimacy is now null and void now that another man has entered in on it. I’m thinking of something off The Shield which was all about crazy macho bullshit. Anyhow, both explanations describe a pretty ugly way of thinking but they make more sense to me than he thinks she is literally an appliance.

If you’re a huge part of the social support network of someone you up until yesterday claimed to love, you pretty much do have a really fucking big obligation to be as much of a help and support to them as necessary and possible while they’re getting through that crisis.

Yes, this, and the other things preying mantis said as well.

The thing is that if you develop a close relationship with someone there’s a trade-off in benefits for both of you; you become part of their social support network and they become part of yours. (Presumably. I’m not talking about emotional leeches right now.) Close intimate relationships by their nature means you become a really big building block in that network, and you derive corresponding benefits. So yeah, I’d argue that you DO have an obligation to behave like a decent human being, not because it’s a husband’s duty or a wife’s duty or whatever but because it’s wrong to derive support from someone, and presumably be willing to take that support when it’s offered to you, but not offer it to the other person when they’re the one in need.

I think for most non-sociopaths, though, this doesn’t ever have to manifest as an idea of duty or obligation, because as Amanda says, most of us will WANT to do the right thing and it will manifest as a desire instead of something we have to talk ourselves into doing because of an obligation.

Fuck romantic duty. This guy failed on basic human duty. Basic compassion is the duty of all of us. It applies to people on the street and casual acquaintances, and it damn well applies to people we’ve shared our lives with in the most intimate ways.

I don’t necessarily fault the guy for getting divorced or even for not having real feelings for his wife. Marriage and emotions are complicated, and it’s impossible to say how another person should feel or act about them. But it’s really, really easy to say the guy owed his wife the basic compassion and support required to walk into an abortion clinic with her.

Is Hugo still letting the MRA trolls infest his blog comments in a futile quest for affirmation from men who’ll never let him in their club? Because if so, the disconnect there between what he professes and what he allows them to say about women in his comments is just too jarring.

I think that last paragraph is very revealing.  I suspect when she said it wasn’t really rape, that wasn’t exactly what she meant.  As in- he did force himself on her and she was unwilling.  More likely she is alluding to having a crush on him, going to his room and making out with him.  Which, although I will still call what he did rape, I would call her part of it cheating on her husband.  For those who believe that only intercourse is cheating (probably her belief before this happened), she should be OK.  But- for those who believe that going to someone else’s hotel room and making out with them is still cheating, even if the penis remains in the pants, it appears she cheated.

Sure- it’s possible he overtook her without any consent in a public place, but that is far less likely than a passionate tryst that she thought better of.

Either way- it’s obvious that they were both immature and not good with communication.  Probably neither has been completely honest with the other, and probably with themselves.  I can’t defend either one of them.  Sure- he’s a total tool, but she has all sorts of issues herself.

As a woman, I doubt I’d remain with a man who did nothing more than kiss and grope a woman on a business trip, and I see no reason to expect a man to remain with a woman he can’t trust.  Those of you with open marriages- that’s a fine thing, as long as you both agree.  I’m not in one of those, and neither is my husband.  If you want to call that owning someone’s body, go ahead.

Yeah, well, there’s a reason people question the ethics of somebody who lets people question the very humanity of whole groups of people. Sorry, that’s not up for debate. Maybe it is for a guy like Hugo, who can’t seem to grasp it why it troubles women, but as a woman, thanks, I get that every fucking day. It’s pretty clear that some men don’t want to give up the perks of being a guy, and to do that they have to sell out women to other guys to a certain extent. All that shit about ‘not knowing what the husband’s state of mind was’ is just transparent crap coming from guys who I suspect would not have any problem at all divining the very thoughts of a woman they wanted to bitch about.

The husband’s behavior speaks to his state of mind: he’s an asshole. If somebody trips somebody who’s on crutches, it’s stupid to make up possible excuses for his behavior—-did he possibly have a muscle spasm? No, he’s an asshole. Did he intend to hurt the person on crutches? Who gives a shit? It’s an after-the-fact excuse; the fact is, any person with a brain stem could see such an action would cause harm. The husband in this case was an utter tool, and there’s too much wishy-washy bullshit going on in his name.

Wow, drachonfire, what an absolute sterling job of sexist myth usage and victim blaming. Bravo!

I think “duty” in this context is kind of the same as “work”, which we’ve talked about so much before. Looking at marriage as a dispassionate observer, in the abstract, it’s obvious that married people have duties o each other and that sometimes they have to wrok to make sure they make space for the best fulfilment of these duties. But that’s social analisys, not relationship support.

We can all agree that people who eat together have a “duty” (OK, maybe “responsibility”) to not gross each other out, share the food fairly etc., and that they need to put in all kinds of “work”, from cooking to making conversation to helping clear up to just pain old doing the emotional work of making sure everyone has a decent time. These things are all there, and psychologists and behavioural aconomists etc. look at them all the time - but it’s not really how we think our Thanksgiving family dinners go down. 

So this guys may have had an abstract duty to support his partner in a tight spot, but the reason he, as a specific person in a specific situation, didn’t follow through on that is not because he’s just irresponsible, but because he didn’t love her enough to over come his irresponsibility.

I’m a great believer in personality tests and trying to figure out how the inside of one’s own head works, but I reject the notion (a very Oprah kind of notion - there’s a bit of self-serving learned helplessness in it) that the effort is purely exploratory - you can look at the nuts and bolts of your personality, but you can’t touch. That’s nonsense, and if it were true then people with personality disorders that really do screw their lives up would have no hope of ever recovering. You get to grips with your own personality in order to be better able to make the changes that will let you have a better and more fulfilling life. And when you love somebody, then making those changes for them doesn’t look like such a huge or burdensome task.

In summary people who say “that’s just the way I am and I can’t help it and you have to put up with me” don’t love you. Maybe it’s not that digital and they do love you but just ont enough, but there is definitely something going on when they refuse to make a small cange that will be a huge benefit to you, be it a one time thing like supporting you through a tough time or an ongoing thing like workin on their temper and communication style.

This never would have happened if she hadn’t been damaging her man’s ego by earning money on her own.  What a bad wife!

Nakedthoughts,

So I think that her wanting a man back who is a dickwad is not completely understandable in certain contexts.  We don’t know her context, so suggesting she should get her head examined is really inappropriate.

And I think encouraging her to spend her life pining after a dickweed who obviously doesn’t give a damn about her “is really inappropriate”.  There are plenty of other people of both sexes who might be willing to give her love, friendship, and support she needs, but she’ll never know if she doesn’t give up the fantasy of reuniting with this loser.

I will also make a stronger statement.  Saying someone “should get their head checked” is never appropriate.  it is rude to the individual and also rude (and continues to marginalize) to those struggling with mental health issues.

As one who’s struggled with “mental health issues”, I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em.  Therapy has helped me and it might help her too, but she has to face up to the problem first.  Telling her that it’s great to spend her days sighing for the jerk who left her is ultimately far more damaging to her and and her child than telling her to get her head checked, or get some therapy or whatever polite euphemism you prefer.

ditto Blue Jean

@ TheLady:  I think “duty” in this context is kind of the same as “work”, which we’ve talked about so much before. 

Excellent point.  I think Amanda rightly wants to reject the idea that people should ever feel _forced_ to do things for others—because it sounds like a coercive set of demands inflicted from above.  But she wants to preserve the idea that people should _choose_ to do things for others, because it’s fair and just and natural and good and decent and loving to do so.  Of course moral philosophers have struggled for centuries with the challenge of figuring out why people do make that choice, whether it’s against self-interest or harmonizes with self-interest or altruism for altruism’s own sake or what.

...he didn’t give her support when he dropped her off at the abortion clinic because that makes as much sense as stroking your car with concern after you drop it off at the mechanic to get the clutch fixed.

I totally do that.

Yes, it’s kind of repugnant when stated flat-out, but it’s also not just a historical artifact; try being an unmarried versus a “successfully” married woman with a late-life disability, for example.

That has a lot to do with social networks, too, though.  Being part of a couple is being part of a social network and (at least in theory) it expands your network because your partner’s friends become part of your network, too.  There is something to the notion that your partner/spouse is your friend of last resort—you may not be able to get your best friend to come over and change your bedpan, but the person who actually lives with you should be willing (or at least able) to do it.

I think we do have higher expectations for our spouses/partners.  The question may be whether those expectations are too high and we’re putting much more onto our partners/spouses than is really fair to them.  We already know that women have way too much emotional work shoved onto them, but I don’t think the solution is to force men to take all of that shit work, too.

He’s worthless as a human being.  However, wanting him back after 7 years is really indicative of someone who needs therapy.  She should have gotten over him by now and moved on, and the fact she hasn’t screams depression/other mental issues at me.

Exactly.  Repeated for emphasis.

It strikes me that there’s a continuum:  roughly, I’d say duty, obligation, sympathy, love.  They all have to do with mutuality and reciprocity.  Duty sounds like a slog and love sounds like a joy.  But really these are degrees of intensity for the feeling that leads you to do things for other people.

Are you sure you’re not me?  That’s pretty much what I was thinking as I was driving to work.  Because we live in society, we all have duties:  I have a duty to pay my taxes so everyone can have things like fire stations and road repairs.  I have a duty to my co-workers to show up on time and not goof off too much (ahem).

We all have duties towards one another that increase as the relationship gets closer.  Trying to say that being in love with someone removes the social duties that you have towards them seems to overly romanticize “being in love.”  People deciding that basic politeness is no longer necessary once you’re living together can cause some pretty major tension in a relationship.

There is love, which creates loyalty, and even when the love is no longer enthusiastic or strongly active, the loyalty can activelyremain.  The loyalty is an unselfishness that grows along with the love, while the love relationship is active, and, if all parties to that love have remained true to their love instinct along the way, then there likely is enough loyalty remaining to stand by your woman.

To hold too rigidly to a standard such as enthusiastic desire is to be ideologic, often a mistake of relative youth.  I’d count myself lucky to have loyal friends and former lovers as I grow old, and hopefully someone currently ‘enthusiastic’ to be with me.

I believe in duties of love, duties of friendship, and duties of family. Ideally, all three should apply to a marriage. There’s a crucial difference between walking away from a failed relationship vs. bailing on someone you still love. At the very least, you have an obligation to try to make your marriage work in the face of a crisis if you think the underlying relationship is still alive.

I seriously doubt that the husband stopped loving his wife because she had another man’s baby. This is not the first time in history that a married woman has born another man’s child. People have successfully coped with this scenario in the past. Sounds like he got it into his head that he COULD NOT COPE with the idea and bailed as a result. If he’d summoned the courage and the maturity to try to stand by his wife, he might have been surprised what he was capable of. Maybe it would have been a disaster, but at least he could have said he tried.

Even if you decide that you can’t be married to a person in a dire situation, you still owe them friendship and help to the extent that they still want it.

@ Mnemosyne: 

Are you sure you’re not me?

Ha, I was about to write the same thing, because the only thing I ever talk/write about is building and expanding social networks.

@ Lindsay Beyerstein:  That list of kinds of duties sounds familiar but I can’t place it.  Is it Rawls?

“Is Hugo still letting the MRA trolls infest his blog comments in a futile quest for affirmation from men who’ll never let him in their club?”

I have no background with Hugo’s blog to answer this specifically, but this:

“I don’t think that the husbands situation is so different from that of a women faced with choosing to abort or not.”

and my personal favorite:

“If the woman as pro-choice and decided to keep the child then that could be reasonably be interperted as a way of saying to her partner that he is genetic scum. Good enough to support her and her progeny but not good enough to breed with. In other words, “I like you as a beta but you are no alpha”. This is not complicated.”

Is pretty much indicative of the comments from dewds over there.

It’s basically them using pro-choice language to excuse the husband’s selfishness and cruelty.

Garner, competing for the title of the worst person alive, suggests that the victim of the rape is lying

Well, but the reason Garner suggests she was lying is that she asks whether she should stick to her old story or tell the truth, and she says that the truth was that she wasn’t exactly raped.  I don’t think Garner qualifies as the worst person alive for taking that as a sign that she was lying about being raped.

Because we live in society, we all have duties

And I think the other way around is also true:  “society” is defined by the set of people you’re willing to encompass in some form of reciprocal obligation other than just plain Do No Harm.  Of course it gets distorted by political boundaries and such.

“society” is defined by the set of people you’re willing to encompass in some form of reciprocal obligation other than just plain Do No Harm.

Agreed. Were I feeling especially pithy, I might coin something to the effect that all civility is based on duty, but love makes duty fun.

“If the woman as pro-choice and decided to keep the child then that could be reasonably be interperted as a way of saying to her partner that he is genetic scum. Good enough to support her and her progeny but not good enough to breed with. In other words, “I like you as a beta but you are no alpha”. This is not complicated.”

Wow.  That’s right up there with that opinion piece (on moms.com?) from a few months ago saying that pro-choice women had no right to mourn when they miscarried wanted pregnancies.  ‘Cuz nothing says “pro-choice” like “you don’t get to have an opinion about your own reproductive life unless you qualify for conscientious objector status.”

Well, but the reason Garner suggests she was lying is that she asks whether she should stick to her old story or tell the truth, and she says that the truth was that she wasn’t exactly raped.

Eh, her description of “the truth” is still coersion by decent peoples’ definitions. (The boss was forceful, too strong for her to fight off, and, you know, HE WAS HER BOSS.)

That Garner decides to agree that this is “not rape”—and use it as a way to shame the LW—is pretty shitty.

“If the woman as pro-choice and decided to keep the child then that could be reasonably be interperted as a way of saying to her partner that he is genetic scum. Good enough to support her and her progeny but not good enough to breed with. In other words, “I like you as a beta but you are no alpha”. This is not complicated.”

This is a whole new family of victim blaming. “You wanted it on the genetic level.”

*shudder* But no, they don’t hate women.

Purpleshoes, as I’ve said, I get dewds questioning my humanity every day. It’s kind of a non-negotiable issue with me, and it ought to be with my so-called allies. If I complain to said allies about it and they absolutely refuse to get it because dewds matter more to them than actual women, then that’s an indication that they….actually, that they’re really like the husband in this case. They talk the talk but their actions, well….They still don’t value women.

And, Gypsylee—-‘genetic scum’? Because, you know, in a rape and pregnancy situation, it’s all about him. And I bet this commenter is totally getting called on it, too!

Hugo used to host the most awful, horrible MRA, woman-hating trolls—-much like Amp—-but when women got offended at them, their language, and their view of women, he’d get upset at the women—-much like Amp. Boys are important, you know; girls have cooties. Full disclosure: I was one of those. Saying one thing and doing another, especially in this case….I’m sorry, thanks, let’s just get rid of the pretense, shall we?

Ah ginmar- it’s fine if you believe that women are always honest and open and incapable of lying.  If you want to define her as a victim and then trash everyone else around her, go right ahead.  I don’t and won’t ever work that way, but it sure is simpler. 

I see a very confused woman who has definite trouble communicating.  I see a couple that probably didn’t love each other, instead of a wonderful lovely woman who has been used by her boss and rejected by her husband for exceedingly shallow reasons.  I see a woman who has an issue with the truth- she seems to have a tough time in that letter keeping her story straight, and that is what the original answer is referring to.  She is the one who felt the need to clarify in the last paragraph, not the people reacting to her clarification. Probably you would be happier had she never written that last paragraph.  It would fit your narrative much better. 

Who knows- maybe it’s having seen countless divorces, rarely has there been a “victim”, but a usually a couple that didn’t support each other, and were each working through their problems on their own.  I somehow doubt that her husband was an amazingly wonderful caring person who just had a personality change.  If he was, she didn’t mention it in the letter.

FlipYrWig, I don’t think it’s from Rawls.

If the woman as pro-choice and decided to keep the child then that could be reasonably be interperted as a way of saying to her partner that he is genetic scum

I do not think “reasonable” means what he thinks it means.

I think this discussion has been helpful.  I think that being with someone does require sucking it up and doing your duty in the moment—-going to in-laws, holding someone’s hair while puking, etc.  But I am uncomfortable with the idea of staying in a relationship out of duty.  That’s crossing a coercion line when it comes to sexual relationships that I won’t stand. 

In other words, there’s a difference between using duty to get through those less than ideal moments, but extending that to a duty to stay is not something I’m comfortable with.  I wouldn’t want someone who didn’t love me to hang in because of duty.

“Boys are important, you know; girls have cooties. “

I have to say this certainly seems like the case since pretty much every comment from dewds over there is about the cost versus benefit analysis re:the husband, i.e. why should he be forced to support someone else’s child, etc.  With not even a passing consideration for the raped and abandoned wife, except to blame her for something thereby making it possible to say it’s okay for the scum husband to have abandoned her.

The husband is a dickwad because he presented her with absolutely no help in resolving a dilemma that was not of her making, choosing instead to leave her in the lurch. That’s not the behaviour of a good spouse or a good friend or, for that matter, a good person.

One critical aspect of being a good friend or moreso, a good spouse is to not flake out on providing help when it is most critically needed.  By failing to do so by bailing like that, this husband has proven that should have never entered a relationship in the first place until he has matured first beyond being an immature self-absorbed jackass. 

Moreover, if I knew of such a person who behaved this way….I’d make it a point to avoid having any dealings that required my needing to count on him/her in a crisis/critical period as unreliable flakes like him tend to really screw things up for everyone else and life’s too short to subject oneself to the aggravations and pains which come with relying on them.

The husband should have stood by his wife in her decision to have an abortion.  His refusal to go to the abortion clinic is proof that he’s a dickweed.  He made it obvious that he didn’t think she should have an abortion, then when she had the child he refused to help raise it, making him a dickweed’s dickweed, a suitable centerpiece for a bouquet of assholes. 

Why she would want him back is the real mystery.

Y’know, after reading the letter, I have to concede that is an odd story and not so simple. So I’m re-considering how much of dickhead the ex-husband was.

I came home from a work trip abroad and told him that I had been raped but that I didn’t want to report the incident because of the disruption it would bring into our lives. I liked my job, and my husband was in the middle of building a business.

She must’ve liked that job a whole lot to constantly have contact with her rapist. “Awkward” doesn’t even come close to describing the situation.

I’m being facetious, of course. More likely, she was bringing in the bulk of the household’s income while her husband was building his risky startup, and she understandably didn’t want to endanger the income stream. Say good on her for being responsible in a bad situation.

However, it was her decision to keep the pregnancy that resulted from the rape secret for two months (and the rape itself even longer)—a situation she didn’t consult her husband on until he noticed her mood. It’s a legitimate decision considering her own trauma and other factors, but one that had consequences.

He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he “didn’t want to hear me talk about conception dates”.

Ok, he’s not an anti-choice arsehole after all, just a mild douchebag. He drove her to the clinic, and left the decision to her after spending 2 months giving her his input in “all-night” talks. It wasn’t his baby or his body, and he’d already offered his opinion of how her keeping the baby would impact him.

Then we had to wait a couple more weeks for my appointment for surgery. During that time I changed my mind, and my whole world fell apart.

For reasons she doesn’t describe (but presumably have nothing to do with her husband being “genetic scum”), she changed her mind—she can’t exactly blame her ex-husband for that one. Choice is wonderful, but it doesn’t come without consequences either way. Anti-choice people like to live in a fantasy world where keeping a baby has no negative consequences.

My baby was born healthy despite all the stress, and my decree nisi came through a few months later.

The decree nisi is usually a mutual decision—both parties agree to wait a specified amount of time before the divorce becomes official. So the husband didn’t just take off—he followed the law, and in the process stuck with a new mother (though perhaps not on the premises) throughout that period before conclusively deciding the situation wasn’t for him (although I suspect he had decided this much earlier).

Now she’s changed her mind (again), and hoping against hope that they’ll get back together—mainly because she’s lonely, and because her boy needs a father. The ex just happens to be a known-quantity good guy.

And then we have this, tacked onto the end:

What happened on that trip wasn’t quite rape but I wasn’t exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn’t fight him.

What is this if not rape? The fact that she can’t recognise this, and the rest of her letter, indicates that she’s living in a state of deep denial and confusion (which is not the same thing as lying).

It sounds like the husband was guilty of being squeamish about his partner’s gynecological problem, but reading the letter that’s about his only dickwad move. Otherwise, it sounds like he didn’t agree with his wife’s choice not to have the abortion, and didn’t want any kids whether or not they were his. And it seems clear that they had major communication problems.

In short, I was incorrect at #11 that the dilemma was not of her own making. Make no mistake: the rape certainly was not her fault, but the decision to keep the baby that resulted was her choice (as it should be). The husband did give her a way of resolving things, going so far as to drive her to the clinic. She didn’t take it and now she wants him to buy into her fairy-tale ending.

Again, all this is based on reading the original letter to the Agony Auntie. It’s not an occasion for blaming the victim but, as is always more appropriate, pitying her.

Haven’t read all the comments, but while I understand Amanda’s instinctive dislike of the concept of duty within relationships—especially since it, like most oppressive relationship burdens, falls on women more than men—there would be very few of who make it to the end of our lives never having been cruelly abandoned without it.  There’s no way for most of us to sustain any kind of long-term connections without spoken or unspoken transactions, times that we give a little or do a little more just because it will help preserve something we value, and not because we wholeheartedly (or even halfheartedly) want to do it.  I don’t want to romanticize sacrifice in any way, but up to a point it does help strengthen personal bonds (just like self-discipline builds character, or exercise strengthens our bodies).  I don’t think any of us can do more than try to navigate the territory Amanda described, hoping that self-awareness and honesty will help us avoid misery while still enjoying strong personal relationships.

Oh, and the husband is worthless—while I’m not a fan of bearing rapists’ children, I’m not sure the woman would have been better off continuing her ex’s genetic line either, especially with him in residence.

I’ll offer my more temperate approach.  I’m with everybody here on one point: the ex-husband is a douchenozzle for refusing to go into the clinic with her.  I don’t think that makes him worthless as a human being or even a failure at compassion or whatever—not necessarily.

Imagining myself in his shoes, I imagine my (hypothetical) wife coming home and telling me that she was raped by a co-worker on a business trip and doesn’t want to do anything about it legally because she likes her job and doesn’t want to make waves.  On paper I’m willing to support any decision she makes to help her get through this trauma, but fuck no!  I’m really concerned for her if she thinks it’s a good idea to continue going to her job and seeing the man who raped her day in and day out, and I guarantee that somewhere between several and many arguments would be had over this.  I’ll probably say some things that are wrong and some things that are inadvertently condescending (to be fair, of the two of us, I wasn’t recently traumatized), but I would be extremely dissatisfied if these conversations ended with her still in her job getting her paychecks signed by the man who raped her.

Then I fast-forward to the abortion clinic.  Unless I’ve got something really important to do (it’s possible, but unlikely), dropping her off is a bad move.  I’d like to think better of myself, but it’s possible that it’s the sort of bad move I might make if I was still grousing about the lack of pressed charges—even then only if one of those arguments was happening in the car on the way to the clinic, at which point it might be easy to convince ourselves that me holding her hand wouldn’t be of much help.

So combining a situation I find unacceptable with my own fuckup later on, then dropping the bomb that she’s going to keep the child?  I’d leave.  I wouldn’t be proud of it and I’d know I could have handled it better from the get-go.  Would I want to go back?  Would getting back with me be good for my ex-wife?  I could raise another man’s child, but if that man was my wife’s rapist?  I really don’t think so.  I can put myself in his shoes and I can see myself, as a pro-choice feminist, making those mistakes.  Of course, he might actually be a complete and total dickwad, entirely undeserving of my Devil’s Advocacy.

In any case, the columnist was way out of line for not reinforcing to the woman, “no, as you describe it, you WERE raped.”

Gracchus, thanks for saving me the time!  At least he had the option to leave…

Why wouldn’t he? The presence of a child that isn’t his own had no impact on that option from a legal point of view.

“Though myself, I try to be a Vulcan about things in general.”-Felix Culpa

Yeah, careful with that felix; i try to do the same thing, and end up pissing a lot of people off, especially if they expect you to be on their side. apparently objectivity is hard to grasp for people, and they seem to live their lives through knee jerks and impassioned speeches influenced at least partially by ignorance. still, it’s fun when chatting with religious people, especially when they’ve never had to verbally duel before : ). Though I have to say that being a guy helps when it comes to remaining objective and withstanding people being mad at you, as (and i don’t know how true this is of women) men have the ability to rather easily detach themselves from their emotions in order to make hard decisions or come to logical conclusions. doesn’t mean we have to like ‘em, just that it helps us reach them.

Ah, because I’m thinking more of societies like my original one, where double murder followed by execution for taking out a more powerful, better-connected man is the norm.  Or simply raising the child as one’s own.  Lower-social-status for men is indeed the “gift that keeps on giving.”

From what I’ve seen, there are two social-status spectra that are enforced in patriarchal tribal, priest-ridden cultures: one for men, and one for women. And usually the high end of the female spectrum starts where the low end of the male spectrum ends.

We may not be a classless society or even a particularly just one, and it’s difficult to break out of those patriarchal thought patterns and recognising women as equals with agency and desires of their own. But Enlightenment culture and Rule of Law goes a long way toward getting us all there.

Though I have to say that being a guy helps when it comes to remaining objective and withstanding people being mad at you, as (and i don’t know how true this is of women) men have the ability to rather easily detach themselves from their emotions in order to make hard decisions or come to logical conclusions.

Because the penis is the wellspring of rationality?

The Gray Train: Well, I’m being mostly facetious about being a Vulcan…though on the other hand, I am the only person I know with a Star Trek tattoo…

As for it being easier to detach from one’s emotions as a male, well, this would appear to be “stereotypically” true, but I am much more inclined to ascribe this to programming and social expectation rather than any biological cause.  People in general appear to have no problem acting on emotion, and certainly no problem acting on irrational impulses…it’s mostly a question of the socially acceptable ways this finds expression.

“there would be very few of who make it to the end of our lives never having been cruelly abandoned without it”

Great point latts. This was my first reaction to this post and a poignant one due to recent life events. The idea that one would stay in a relationship merely out of duty (duty devoid of love or a myriad of other emotions) is wrong, this I agree with. However, sacrifice is a word that is not in the vocabulary of most who consider themselves in adult relationships and I fear that these fickle minds interpret anything resembling hard work, self-sacrifice, or struggle as “duty”. These are the folks that you need to watch out for.

NB of course coming from a minority religious community within that traditional society, men of my community have always, always raised the rapists’ children as their own. You have no social or juridical power, no abortion, and, well, it’s all about the child at that point anyway.

As bad as it is for the men in that situation, it’s far more horrible for the women. Which should go without saying except that you didn’t say it.

her description of “the truth” is still coersion by decent peoples’ definitions. (The boss was forceful, too strong for her to fight off, and, you know, HE WAS HER BOSS.)

Well, (1) if she says it wasn’t rape, I’m not inclined to argue the issue with her, (2) when she admits that version #1 wasn’t true, I am skeptical about the details of version #2, and (3) version #2 is suggestive but not conclusive—the issue becomes whether the boss could reasonably have believed from her statements and conduct that she was consenting, and her story #2 doesn’t conclusively answer that, particularly as she says it wasn’t rape.  And yes, he was her boss, but it is perfectly possible to have consensual sex with your boss.

So I guess I conceptualize the problem of romantic love as a component of the free-wheeling nuclear family to be a problem of too little mutual obligation with other people, not too much. The idea of people as completely atomized free agents all the time is terrifying to me; it’s one reason why people from my background tend to become socially conservative if no one intervenes.

I agree with you there—it’s ridiculous that we’ve somehow gotten to this idea that the nuclear family is the be-all and end-all and no other social networks are necessary.  Human beings have organized themselves like that, well, pretty much never in all of human history, and I really don’t think it’s good for us as a species.

As bad as it is for the men in that situation, it’s far more horrible for the women. Which should go without saying except that you didn’t say it.

Thanks, Gracchus…

I note that it’s pretty fucking awful for the children, too…

Though I have to say that being a guy helps when it comes to remaining objective and withstanding people being mad at you, as (and i don’t know how true this is of women) men have the ability to rather easily detach themselves from their emotions in order to make hard decisions or come to logical conclusions.

You know, it’s funny that the more emphasis a guy puts on how “logical” a decision was that he made, it always turns out to have been a very emotion-driven one and not logical at all, but somehow he’s convinced himself that it must have been logical because he’s a guy and not driven by his emotions.  Pro-lifers who insist very “logically” that a fertilized egg is the moral equivalent of an infant aren’t being logical at all, to use just one example.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that romance and duty can be separated. Duty is bound up into every part of every social interaction – with strangers, with parents, with partners and spouses.

The most basic duty of every person who wishes to live in a safe and well-ordered society is a negative one: to not cause intentional harm to another individual without necessity. (Even most petty criminals recognize this duty when they argue, for example, that shop-lifting from some mega-store like Wal-Mart is a “victimless crime.”)

That particular duty runs through romance just like it runs through every other kind of interaction.

And the marriage contract – especially if one counts the vows as legitimate parts of the contract – implicitly includes that basic negative duty, as well as a bunch of affirmative duties such as to stick with a spouse when times are tough, to raise children jointly, and to remain monogamous (unless otherwise stated up-front).

The husband not only failed at his most basic social duty, but he also helped to create a “no-win” situation for his wife. He then left her for failing to “win.” 

What kind of dickwad is he? The selfish-idiot kind who contributes very little, if anything, to any sort of social relationship. He wouldn’t make a good marriage partner. He wouldn’t make a good business partner. He wouldn’t make a good neighbor. He wouldn’t even make a good enemy.

We’re talking as if raising a child that’s not genetically yours as if it’s the worst fate in the world. Are adoptive fathers lesser and stepdads lesser men because they willingly raise children that aren’t theirs by blood? Being a dad is so much more than being a sperm donor. If he’d chosen to stick it out and raise that kid, the child would have been 100% his son in the most important sense of the word.

Of course, the guy’s a human being with feelings. The prospect of becoming the father of a kid sired by his wife’s rapist is obviously traumatic. But if he feels entitled to leave just because he’s squicked or morally outraged at the idea of raising another man’s kid, that makes him kind of a jerk.

If he was leaving because he never wanted to be a dad in the first place, that would be one thing. But if he was generally amenable to the prospect of parenting, he should have at least tried to rise to the occasion.

I wouldn’t want someone who didn’t love me to hang in because of duty.

Re: the original case in question: the husband had no duty whatsoever to remain married to the LW. He isn’t a douche because he left; he’s a douche because he didn’t treat her decently. Her humanity itself gave him that obligation, and his professed affection for her makes his refusal to acknowledge her humanity that much more disgusting.

But I really like how you articulated things in this last comment. Duty is necessary and admirable in the moment, but a relationship itself should never be a pure product of duty. Whenever “suck it up” outbalances “awesome!” by a significant measure for a significant time (this is key), the relationship should end.

We’re talking as if raising a child that’s not genetically yours as if it’s the worst fate in the world. Are adoptive fathers lesser and stepdads lesser men because they willingly raise children that aren’t theirs by blood?

It’s not quite the same thing. In the case of adoptive fathers and stepdads, they’ve willingly decided to raise children who aren’t theirs by blood. In the case of the letter-writer, the ex-husband wasn’t a full partner in the decision (and, even worse, neither was the raped woman).

But if he feels entitled to leave just because he’s squicked or morally outraged at the idea of raising another man’s kid, that makes him kind of a jerk.

Agreed. But, reading between the lines of the letter, my impression is that the ex-husband didn’t want any kids at all with this woman.

“Though I have to say that being a guy helps when it comes to remaining objective and withstanding people being mad at you, as (and i don’t know how true this is of women) men have the ability to rather easily detach themselves from their emotions in order to make hard decisions or come to logical conclusions.”

LOL.  Ah, yes, the “I’m logical because I have a penis” argument. Never tire of that one.  Nevermind that what most “guys” call “logical” is really privilege and the blind heartless that lends the privileged.

And thanks, nekouken, for making it clear that it really is all about you boys.  Not a single moment’s consideration for anything but how it affects you.

“It’s not quite the same thing. In the case of adoptive fathers and stepdads, they’ve willingly decided to raise children who aren’t theirs by blood. In the case of the letter-writer, the ex-husband wasn’t a full partner in the decision (and, even worse, neither was the raped woman). “

Which makes him a far worse person than someone who merely didn’t want kids.

Regardless of the excuses, regardless of the mealy-mouthed justifications, he abandoned someone he (at least presumably) said he cared about at a critical time. He can rot.

@ rea, note that I didn’t say it was rape, I said the situation as described in your #2 is coercive by most standards.

It is possible to have consensual sex with your boss, but “I wasn’t exactly willing” (the LW’s own words) doesn’t sound like a good standard for “consent.”

And granted, it’s hard to know for certain from the scant information available whether this is her true meaning, but certainly all of us can think of a situation where “it wasn’t really rape” means “he didn’t beat me half to death in an alley.” The LW says “it wasn’t rape but I didn’t want to have sex with him.”

I agree that it’s up to the woman to decide, for her own situation, whether she was or wasn’t raped. But the situation as described IS sexual assault, so as far as extrapolating hypotheticals goes, we should treat it as such.

“In this situation, if my wife changed her mind like this I would 100% leave. “

You’re right, she’s not a baby.  But you clearly are. This hypothetical wife didn’t do what you wanted her to do, so you’re taking your tiny tiny balls and going home. 

Good riddance, coward.

“He isn’t a douche because he left; he’s a douche because he didn’t treat her decently.”

This, I think, is an important distinction.  I don’t think anyone’s said he was obligated to stay married to her.  He certainly was not.  But his behavior was reprehensible.

I hope the guys airing their privileged assishness here don’t have wives. Or if they do, I hope the wives are reading it so they at least get a warning if what they’re in for if they ever get in a horrible situation where they might want or need support.

In this situation, if my wife changed her mind like this I would 100% leave.

Buh-by. If you’d leave because your wife changed her mind about such a personal and important matter, then you’re not mate material. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

I wonder how many other women that boss has not-exactly-raped in the past 7 years.

Garner is a piece of work. She assumes a bunch of stuff that’s not in the letter (which really doesn’t offer a lot of information) so that she can slag the writer rather than just saying “Move on, if he wanted to step up, he would.”

But I think that the letter (especially filtered through 7 years of memory) may not offer enough evidence to convict the ex of being a complete asshole on a sustained—rather than short-term—basis. Yeah, he was wrong not to go in to clinic to support her by lying either about the date of conception or about the identity of the father-to-be.  After that, who knows?

And come on, people! I can’t believe we’re quibbling about whether sex the woman says she didn’t want, with her boss, was rape or not! What? We live in a patriarchy where women are not free to say no to sex because men have more power than we do, and said men take advantage of that? And we live in a patriarchy where women are confused about what rape is and often don’t describe coercive sex as rape because the social penalties for saying we were raped are so high? SURELY NOT! I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.

I’m not saying that a man should be obliged to raise another man’s child. I like to think he would be open to that, and I think that this guy is an absolute dickwad for not being willing to do it, but no one can or should hold a gun to his head.

I have a really big problem with this.  First of all, if I were ever raped and found myself pregnant from it, I’d want an abortion yesterday.  I wouldn’t want to bring the product of my rape to term, and, if I were in any forced to give birth, I would fear resenting, if not outright hating, that child.  I could easily see my general moral outrage toward rape even applying to a child born of a rape even if I wasn’t the victim.  It would be best for all involved (if, say, a relative was raped and gave birth to the child) for me to stay as far away from the situation as possible.  And, no, that doesn’t make me a bad person, thank you very much.

There are also many people out there who have an aversion to raising children that aren’t theirs.  People like that who are responsible don’t date single parents.  They aren’t bad people either.  There are people like that, however, who choose to date and marry! single parents and then proceed to treat their spouses’ children like shit.  Those people ARE bad people.  THEY are the scumsuckers in this equation.

No one is morally obligated to care for children they don’t want; whether we’re talking about a woman who chooses abortion or a man who’s involved with a woman who gets pregnant, no matter if he’s the biological father.

Woman comes home from a business trip, and tells her husband she was raped but doesn’t want to press charges.  Two months later, she figures out she’s pregnant.  Her husband takes her to an abortion clinic, but doesn’t want to go in with her because he doesn’t want to hear discussion regarding the circumstances of the conception.  Seems fairly reasonable.  The letter writer doesn’t indicate that this made attending the appointment any more difficult for her.  She still went to the appointment and scheduled the abortion, but in the two weeks before the abortion was scheduled she decided to keep the baby.  Letter writer doesn’t explain why.  The letter writer doesn’t indicate why she and her husband got divorced, only that the divorce was finalized a few months after the baby was born.  She refers to her pregnancy as having been a stressful time, but doesn’t explain how or why it was stressful.  She comes clean, at the end, that it maybe wasn’t exactly rape (sounds like a “probably rape”, but I’d get her to explain exactly what happened before I really committed to that conclusion), and that, in any case, she wasn’t forthcoming with her husband about the circumstances. 

I think it’s too hard to get a handle on what’s happening here.  Marriages are hard.  There’s a lot of not getting along.  A lot of buyer’s remorse.  This isn’t two perfect people, with a perfect love that was torn apart.  It’s two flawed people, with flaws we don’t know about, in a story with too little detail to really know what happened.

The one thing I think is that pro-choice advocates use abortion in the instance of rape as a case where abortions are particularly legitimate.  In the same way that enduring a pregnancy that results from rape seems particularly offensive, raising a child that is the product of your wife having been raped while she was married to you is pretty hard to swallow.  And it’s all amplified by indications that their marriage might have been shitty to begin with. 

My wife comes home and says she’s been raped, but I get the sense she’s being a little shady about the details.  She insists she can’t press charges, and that she’s going to continue working for the rapist.  That, alone, would be near-impossible to swallow.  Then she decides she wants to keep the baby.  I don’t know.  I can’t fault the guy for saying, “if that’s your decision then you’re going to have to do it without me” (which we don’t even know if that’s what he said, because she doesn’t come out and even claim that’s the case).

You’re right, she’s not a baby.  But you clearly are. This hypothetical wife didn’t do what you wanted her to do, so you’re taking your tiny tiny balls and going home.
Good riddance, coward.

I don’t think anyone’s said he was obligated to stay married to her.

YOU just did.

“And, no, that doesn’t make me a bad person, thank you very much. “

Are you sure about that?  You’re not only focusing all your rage and blame on an innocent child, but abandoning loved ones in favor of your righteous indignation.  That’s not only selfish, it’s outright cruel.

That’s not being a bad person?

Are you sure about that?  You’re not only focusing all your rage and blame on an innocent child, but abandoning loved ones in favor of your righteous indignation.  That’s not only selfish, it’s outright cruel.

That’s not being a bad person?

Staying would make me a bad person.  Does your hypocrisy make you a bad person?

I think absorbing the idea that someone who refuses to even try to come through for you simply doesn’t love you makes it easier to move on.

I agree 100%. This was what I had to get through with my ex-husband. Once I was able to process the HUGE burden of hurt, rejection, etc. (and for sure it went both ways so I’m not blameless in any way - it does take two) That this is a main ingredient in a relationship that I would WANT to be in - not merely duty although I can see why some would want to wait it out and see if that’s all that’s left - if love can be “re-kindled”... blah blah.
Yes, that husband was a massive ultra-mega douche but better he should make that clear sooner rather than later - say 20 years down the road.

“YOU just did. “

really?  Care to point out where I stated clearly “he must stay married to her no matter what”? 

I said he’s a disgusting jerk for abandoning someone he presumably claimed to care about.  I said nothing about needing to stay married.

I said he’s a disgusting jerk for abandoning someone he presumably claimed to care about.  I said nothing about needing to stay married.

You insulted lemmy caution for admitting that he wouldn’t want to stay.  Ergo, you think all men married to women who keep pregnancies the men don’t want are obligated to stay married to those women.

“Staying would make me a bad person.  Does your hypocrisy make you a bad person? “

Staying would make you a bad person. . . why? Are you saying that you feel you can’t focus on anything but yourself in this situation?

Where have I been a hypocrite?

“You insulted lemmy caution for admitting that he wouldn’t want to stay.  Ergo, you think all men married to women who keep pregnancies the men don’t want are obligated to stay married to those women. “

I don’t enjoy convulted bullshit sandwiches, thanks. You can stop trying to ram it in my mouth.

And, by the way, your “you’re taking this out on an innocent widdle child” comes straight out of the anti-choice playbook, particularly from the anti-choicers who won’t even support abortion in the case of rape.

really?  Care to point out where I stated clearly “he must stay married to her no matter what”?

Well, this:

Which makes him a far worse person than someone who merely didn’t want kids.

strongly implies that he’s a pretty shitty person for not wanting to stay with her and raise the child. Not exactly the same as “stay married to her no matter what” but pretty damn close.

I don’t enjoy convulted bullshit sandwiches, thanks. You can stop trying to ram it in my mouth.

Then explain yourself.  Why is lemmy obligated to raise a child that isn’t his, but the letter writer’s husband is not?

“And, by the way, your “you’re taking this out on an innocent widdle child” comes straight out of the anti-choice playbook, particularly from the anti-choicers who won’t even support abortion in the case of rape.

Guilt by (tenuous) association fallacy. You’re original example was about a child born of rape, not a pregnancy as a result of rape. Ergo, you would be taking your “general moral outrage” out on an innocent child.

In sickness and in health doesn’t evidently mean shit when applied to a woman. And that’s been documented by various studies. Women who leave sick men are awful whores, but the men who leave behind bedridden or war-wounded soldier wives, for example, are simply disappeared just the way men who murder their children are.

ginmar - Newt Gingrich being the prime example. (but you knew that)
There are many more right-wingers who prech one thing (either from a pulpit or the House or Senate) and do another entirely .
Of course I read “The Family” and am now reading “Republican Gomorrah” back to back so all that horrible crap is pretty fresh in my mind right now.

Which makes him a far worse person than someone who merely didn’t want kids.

As I said, I don’t think he did want kids of any sort—at least not with her. It sounds like they had very different priorities in a number of areas, and had serious communication problems in non-crisis situations.

And from reading the letter, he didn’t really abandon her. The timeline is hazy, but he remained married to her throughout the pregnancy and the immediate aftermath, and perhaps not soley under the terms of the decree nisi. He also supported her decision to choose whether to terminate or carry, although he obviously disagreed with her final choice.

He wasn’t anti-choice (quite the opposite), he didn’t refuse to discuss the issue (he did over a period of 2 months in several long conversations), he wasn’t an insensitive jerk (he noticed her change in mood and asked her about it), he didn’t blame her for the rape.

He doesn’t deserve laurels for all that, but he doesn’t deserve to be pilloried, either—he gets a cookie, but nothing more.

And yeah, he should have gone into the clinic with her like a decent person, but that he didn’t really strikes me as the extent of his douchebaggery as far as this situation goes. He talked things out with her, reached a point of irreconcilable difference over this messy issue, and went through the proper channels to end the marriage.

Lots of marriages end when one partner decides he wants kids and the other doesn’t. The unique thing here is that the issue came to a head in a particularly ugly way.

Staying would make you a bad person. . . why? Are you saying that you feel you can’t focus on anything but yourself in this situation?

I’m doing the exactly opposite of focusing on myself.  Children are worse off being around people who don’t want them.

</blockquote>- but I’m comfortable calling anyone who bails on a pregnant lady with whom they had a sexual relationship just because they don’t want to parent douchey. </blockquote>

I guess you’re free to do that. But like Amanda noted upthread, the rights of the child-free to live the way they CHOSE TO LIVE ought to count for something.

“Why is lemmy obligated to raise a child that isn’t his, but the letter writer’s husband is not?”

Sure, I’ll repeat myself again: “Regardless of the excuses, regardless of the mealy-mouthed justifications, he abandoned someone he (at least presumably) said he cared about at a critical time.”

In case this is still confusing, this does not say: “YOU MUST STAY MARRIED AND RAISE THIS CHILD”?

It says, dropping someone you presumably claim to care about during an traumatic time is a shit move.

Guilt by (tenuous) association fallacy. You’re original example was about a child born of rape, not a pregnancy as a result of rape. Ergo, you would be taking your “general moral outrage” out on an innocent child.

Are you kidding?  So what’s the point of not forcing women to give birth to a product of rape?  The welfare of the CHILD (being raised by someone who doesn’t want it) doesn’t factor into this?  What is wrong with you?

Purpleshoes, I’d feel differently if she had pressed charges.  Or, at least, quit her job.  I’d feel more strongly that she’d had this tragic ordeal, and if their love was genuine he should have stood by her, and been a loving father to her child if she decided to keep it.  She’s not going to press charges, she’s going to keep seeing him everyday, and she’s going to have his kid?  That would be more than I could absorb.

My wife comes home and says she’s been raped, but I get the sense she’s being a little shady about the details.  She insists she can’t press charges, and that she’s going to continue working for the rapist.  That, alone, would be near-impossible to swallow.

WTF, Wallace? It would be impossible to swallow what exactly here?

Not that some dude RAPED THE WOMAN YOU LOVE and would presumably be getting away with it? Not that she, presumably, is faced with swallowing the impotent rage and fear of continuing to be around him and knowing he’ll get away with it? Not that she is now stuck in a situation where there is no easy decision and will probably second guess herself over for years?

No, out of all that, what you can’t swallow is that she’s not making the decisions you think she should. Like I said, I sure hope she’s reading this.

Gracchus you are far more charitable about this than I am, clearly. 

++

“I’m doing the exactly opposite of focusing on myself.  Children are worse off being around people who don’t want them.”

Agreed on the second bit.  In your original example, however, you were talking about even the children of other people.  Presumably, these would be adults with whom you had a prior caring relationship.  Shunning them for their choice is hardly the reaction of a friend/loved one.

AGH. “She should have pressed charges.” “She should have wanted an abortion.” “She should have quit her job.” “She should have known to define it as rape.”

Look, rape victims react differently to trauma. By saying that you can’t respect her trauma unless she acts in one of these ways you are policing who and who isn’t a victim, what and what isn’t rape, and what and what isn’t trauma, in VERY problematic ways.

Though perhaps I’m reading “bails” too stringently. Is leaving at all “bailing”? Or is it just “leaving in the lurch without child support”?

Because the first is entirely defensible. I don’t want to be forced to raise a child, so I’m sure as fuck not going to demand that someone else do it. But there are ways to leave that do not involve treating someone poorly.

Shunning them for their choice is hardly the reaction of a friend/loved one.

Who the fuck is talking about shunning them?  I’m talking about not taking care of their children, and hopefully getting them to leave me out of their will as a possible future caretaker.

“Are you kidding?  So what’s the point of not forcing women to give birth to a product of rape?  The welfare of the CHILD (being raised by someone who doesn’t want it) doesn’t factor into this?  What is wrong with you? “

LOL. Wow.  I underestimated the desire to justify. 

You’re ONCE AGAIN trying to shove your bullshit sandwich in my mouth.  We’re not talking about forcing a woman to give birth. We’re talking about a woman who CHOSE TO give birth and your strong desire to justify abandoning such a person due to your personal issues with her choice.

What’s wrong with you?

She should have known to define it as rape

Whoa—I hope that isn’t how you read my post. I don’t mean that in any way. My post was meant to say that just because she didn’t use the word “rape” doesn’t mean she didn’t feel traumatized by what occurred.

Someone upthread came close-ish to suggesting she didn’t call it rape because it in truth was a consensual affair. I merely maintained that what she described was unwanted sex, and if her description was true than it is a potentially traumatic and awful thing to have happen, whether she calls it rape or not.

If she had said, “I didn’t want it, but I don’t care, and it didn’t bother me” that would be altogether different. But that’s not what she said.

“It would be best for all involved (if, say, a relative was raped and gave birth to the child) for me to stay as far away from the situation as possible. “

This wasn’t about severing contact with them? That’s certainly how it reads and what I was taking issue with. 

++

“I don’t want to be forced to raise a child, so I’m sure as fuck not going to demand that someone else do it. But there are ways to leave that do not involve treating someone poorly. “

Exactly, thank you.

Gee, Drachon, it’s not sexist at all for you to put these particular words in my mouth:

it’s fine if you believe that women are always honest and open and incapable of lying.  If you want to define her as a victim and then trash everyone else around her, go right ahead.  I don’t and won’t ever work that way, but it sure is simpler.

You must be a joy to work around, with these mind-reading talents of yours.  I always love it when dewds do this on feminist websites, because when they demonstrate their psychic abilities, it’s funny how the shit they claim women actually want benefits men isntead of women.

Especially after this: I suspect when she said it wasn’t really rape, that wasn’t exactly what she meant.  As in- he did force himself on her and she was unwilling.  More likely she is alluding to having a crush on him, going to his room and making out with him.  Which, although I will still call what he did rape, I would call her part of it cheating on her husband.

Nope, never mind that rape victims are often reluctant to call it rape, no, the bitch is a lying whore who probably wanted it.

Asshole.

Love is not a feeling. Love is a behavior. Confusion about this is what gets a fuckton of people into a fuckton of misery.

Mandolin@141, no kidding, I cannot believe some of the bullshit victim-policing I am reading here.

There is a reason the rape conviction rate is fuckall percent, and a big part of that reason is that the only “real” rape victim acts in an extremely narrow set of ways after the rape, behaviors so rigidly and narrowly defined that no one fits them 100%, and therefore they can be used to deny rape in whatever situation it may be convenient. Which is exactly what the people using these bullshit excuses are doing here.

Gracchus you are far more charitable about this than I am, clearly.

It’s a very vague letter, peppered through with a lot of self-delusion and confusion. And we’re only hearing one side of the story, which happens to be very sympathetic to the other side. Charitable is what’s called for here.

Well, what?—no, I thought your post was reasonable on that subject.

There’s just a certain undercurrent of “Well, if I’d been that dude, then I’d have expected my raped wife to behave X from trauma. And if she didn’t show those behaviors, then that would be insufficient for me.” that I find very troubling.

I have a close relative who was raped at gunpoint when she was in her twenties. She once lent me a belt and remarked as she handed it over, “That’s the belt I was wearing when I got raped.” It was weird. Why did she keep it for 35 years? Why loan it out? Why say that at all? Why say it so casually?

I know she still blames herself for being raped, and acts in ways that contradict the traditional narratives about how rape victims are supposed to digest their rapes. And hers was a case of rape that played into most of our narratives for innocent victims. She was young. He was a stranger. He robbed her before pulling out the gun. Hell, they were even of significantly and visibly different social statuses.

But that doesn’t really matter because trauma is individual.

So, yes, LW kept working with her boss. That shouldn’t be hard for someone to swallow to make it possible for them to treat her like a real victim.

@148 PhysioProf: How does a “fuckton” convert into metric?

Felix, the imperial fuckton is multiplied by 2.213 to get a metric shitton (which is identical to a megassload).

Gosh ginmar- you must have some amazing psychic abilities of your own to know me based on nothing but your reading of my posts.  I’d imagine you are equally a joy to work with, because intentionally putting words into people’s mouths and misreading posts is something that can obviously only work one way.

You are wrong on all accounts about me.  But- I don’t expect you to believe that.  Anyone who calls someone an asshole based on exactly two posts has some serious issues of their own to work through.

I’m seriously not trying to thread jack but after reading the post and the comment thread I’m wondering why this guy is a dickwad and not a douchebag? Or a dickwad and not a tool?

Sarcastro:  And this same unit can measure both amounts of people and amounts of misery?  Though come to think on it, that makes more sense on second thought than it did at first blush…;-)

“after reading the post and the comment thread I’m wondering why this guy is a dickwad and not a douchebag? Or a dickwad and not a tool?”

Both/and blog.

Heh, now drachonfire is all offended.  Have you considered posting things which aren’t cruel and stupid?  That might get you fewer nasty responses.

“It’s a very vague letter, peppered through with a lot of self-delusion and confusion. And we’re only hearing one side of the story, which happens to be very sympathetic to the other side. Charitable is what’s called for here. “

What I meant was that your assessment of the timelime seemed to presume no small amount of good faith on the part of the husband. 

IMO, he established himself as unsupportive (to say the least) from nearly the start and there is little reason to think he did not continue such behavior through the subsequent months.

That she is sympathetic is *his* side is no real surprise. We’re all feminists - we’re all well acquainted with that sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

Which, to be clear, is not me saying that you’re wrong to be charitable. Just my explanation as to why I’m not.

“Anyone who calls someone an asshole based on exactly two posts has some serious issues of their own to work through. “

LOL.  Got that Gin? It’s all YOUR FAULT!!!  You’re shocked, I know, to find him blaming you for the problems he created.

@157
 
eh- I find that people here are looking for trolls, and trying to fit me into the troll category might turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy from anyone who disagrees.  Definitely feels better that way.

Sadly, y’all have misread me, just as I very well have misread what actually happened in the original story.  Or- maybe other have misread it.  Honestly, I cannot tell, and have no need to argue about something that is at the levels we are arguing pure speculation.

Mandolin and kristin, I don’t think the context is what the victim should or shouldn’t have done, or what she was or wasn’t entitled to do.  The issue is to what extent the husband is or isn’t a douchebag for not sticking by her.  And I don’t think it’s as simple as saying he left because she decided to keep the baby.  She doesn’t come out and say that.  The far more insulting thing, to me, would be that she continued to work for her rapist.  I could support her on the other decisions, but I’d have a hard time accepting that one.  It would be a daily source of hatefulness in my life, knowing she was going to see him everyday. 

I mean, I can see why that point of view is offensive to you.  But I don’t think I could get over it.  “I want you to quit that job” would be a daily fight.

Certainly it is a distinction with little difference, but I’d rather someone do it out of love than duty.  But the words and the end result may be the same, so it’d be hard to tell the difference, even though the difference is there.

Certainly loveless dutiful marriages are not fulfilling nor destined to last.  Even if he had done his dutifulness doesn’t mean he’d still be with her.

And I think there could be other reasons he could not stay even if he loved her.

But I think that if someone is pining after another after seven years, something is seriously wrong with the pining.

I find that people here are looking for trolls, and trying to fit me into the troll category might turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy from anyone who disagrees.

“Nice comment thread ya got here. Shame if something were to happen to it.”

The far more insulting thing, to me, would be that she continued to work for her rapist.  I could support her on the other decisions, but I’d have a hard time accepting that one.  It would be a daily source of hatefulness in my life, knowing she was going to see him everyday.

I mean, I can see why that point of view is offensive to you.  But I don’t think I could get over it.  “I want you to quit that job” would be a daily fight.

Right, because, of course, she was raped, which means the important thing would be what you would find hard to accept.

And of course having a daily fight over her decision re: her job would be SO helpful to her in dealing with, you know, being raped.

”  The far more insulting thing, to me, would be that she continued to work for her rapist. “

Wallace—It’s not that I don’t hear what you’re saying because I *completely* understand why you would have a problem with your raped wife continuing to work for her rapist. I have been in situations where I could not stay around people who were, for instance, staying in an abusive situation, because I was not able to both love them and watch them be beaten up on a regular basis. Withdrawing from those relationships has been some of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do and I’m not proud to have done it, but I do think that it was necessary for me once my mental health started to become affected by their situations.

But at the same time, I think you’re having… some issues getting out of your own head here. It’s an “insulting” thing? To what, to you? Really? Is that how this needs to be expressed?

It isn’t that your whole position is wrong per se. It’s that there’s privilege showing in the way you’re expressing it.

Your inability to deal with her choice to work for her rapist, for instance, is your problem. It’s *your* inability. Framing it as her problem, or her insult, makes it seem like you’re trying to frame yourself as the victim of her rape. (In the hypothetical where you are the husband of a hypothetical woman who is in LW’s position.)

What I meant was that your assessment of the timelime seemed to presume no small amount of good faith on the part of the husband.

Well, she was raped on the trip, came home, and didn’t tell him for a few days, but he noticed that something was wrong and asked about it. That doesn’t seem to be an unsupportive thing to do.

They kept talking it over for the next 2 months, during which time she suspected she was pregnant and took tests to confirm it was the rapist’s child. Again, she kept him informed and engaged in the discussion, and he wasn’t unreceptive. Still not seeing a particularly heartless guy, but more someone willing to talk things through and give his wife the benefit of the doubt (perhaps the child is his).

So she makes a decision to have an first trimester abortion (we’re now coming up on 3 months post-conception), and he drives her the clinic for a consultation. This indicates to me that he’s not an anti-choice arsehole who thinks his wife’s body belongs to him (as I originally thought), and that he’s probably on-board with her decision as a solution to this dreadful problem. He’s respecting her choice.

Now he doesn’t want to go in and deal with the details, which is slightly douchey but doesn’t indicate bad faith like, say, “drive your own damn self to the clinic”  or “your soul will be condemned to Hell” would.

He waits with her for a couple more weeks in the lead-up to the operation, during which time she changes her mind on a major life decision that will affect their marriage. If he hasn’t already started to consider ending the marriage (which I suspect pre-dated even the rape, now 3 months in the past), he’s likely doing so now.

She spends the next 6 months carrying the baby and giving birth, during which time he’s still in the marriage, if not in the house. No abandonment yet.

The decree nisi comes through “a few months” after she gives birth. A quick scan of Google says the standard decree nisi period is no more than 3 months. My guess is that they decided to start divorce proceedings in the fortnight before she gave birth. So he’s still in the marriage during at least the first months of the child’s life.

All this just doesn’t add up to a cruel and heartless man acting in bad faith. And 7 years later, she doesn’t seem to bear him any ill will.

@168

One- I am not defending the assertion that you are putting into what I said.  I can see what people read into things- both what they read into my writing, and what I and all the rest of us are reading into that written by the original letter writer.

I in no way insist that I am right- which I fear puts me into a unique category at the moment.

My main assertion- which you are free to disagree with- is that I read her rape distinction to be the difference between his coming up on her for no reason whatsoever and her being somewhere sex made sense but she refused to have sex with him.  Others see her issue with calling it rape to be entirely different.  Me- I figure that no one is confused when someone comes out of nowhere and rapes them, but I’m fine if others see things their own way.

In no way have I ever said she deserved to be raped, nor have I at any time said I don’t consider it rape the way she has described it.  I also consider it rape had she gone to his room, made out with him and not wanted sex- that would still be rape.

Why do I assume she was an unfaithful wife?  That’s a good question.  My answer comes in the way things went down, and how I would react under similar circumstances.  Had my boss raped me out of nowhere, I would be devastated and quite my job, and probably need years of counseling.  I could never even consider having the baby- every time I looked at that child I would be reminded of the rape.  Carrying a rapists baby would be my worst nightmare, and I have a hard time understanding anyone who would choose to do so.  Assuming that she had a crush on the boss is the only possible way it makes sense to me.  If it makes sense to you in a different way- that’s fine. 

That’s my reasoning, and if you don’t like it, that’s fine.  If you want to call me more names, have at it.

I’m not defending the ex, and I don’t think I have at any time.  My effort has been trying to understand her- she’s the one who wrote the letter, and the only one who has had a voice in this whole thing.

By the way, if you want my “read between the lines” guess as to the nature of the marriage, it’s one between a grasshopper (the husband) and the ant (the wife). The former is initially appreciated by the latter for his spontaneity, risk friendliness, and the fact that he brings out her soft side. The latter is initially appreciated by the former for her stability and focus and willingness to pull him back from the brink. It seems workable because both are focused for the first few years on business and careers rather than children, and they likely agree not to have kids yet, if at all.

Winter eventually arrives, though, and the ant starts casually considering how she’ll get through it. Unfortunately, she developed a crush on a raging arsehole who managed to get her alone in a hotel room using his authority.

Just a guess, FWIW.

“Now he doesn’t want to go in and deal with the details, which is slightly douchey but doesn’t indicate bad faith”

That presumes that she didn’t need him to go in with her, for whatever reason. This woman does not come off as the most stable, self-assured person.  His not going in might have been taken as disapproval, which could have derailed her resolve.  We simply don’t know how much good or bad faith there was. 

You’ve emphasized a few times now that LW seems to bear no ill will towards this man. Indeed, she’s seeking to get him back.  So, of course,  the letter will be skewed to lessening the negatives on his part. 

I simply don’t feel that this is enough of a reason to think he did nothing wrong.  Or that he’s merely “slightly douchey”. 

He wasn’t supportive - at the very least not supportive at a crucial moment.  I find it hard to believe that was the once and only time. And staring divorce proceedings as she’s about to give birth?

It’s a good thing the marriage ended, it seems, for both of them.

You know, it’s funny that the more emphasis a guy puts on how “logical” a decision was that he made, it always turns out to have been a very emotion-driven one and not logical at all, but somehow he’s convinced himself that it must have been logical because he’s a guy and not driven by his emotions.  Pro-lifers who insist very “logically” that a fertilized egg is the moral equivalent of an infant aren’t being logical at all, to use just one example.

Mnemosyne, I just want you to know that I have come to the perfectly logical conclusion that you are awesome and I adore you.

Also, I notice that guys also tend to um, get especially emotional when I am out-logic-ing them.  And tend to react by calling *me* the emotional one.

****

Why has society come to the conclusion that emotions and logic are always the exact opposite of one another?  Certainly they are often on opposing sides…but they aren’t always on opposing sides.  My belief in the humanity of women, for example, is both extremely logical and extremely emotional.

Corrollary:  the fact that I am showing emotion does not suck the logic out of my arguments.  It sure as hell doesn’t automatically make them less compelling either.

“I just want you to know that I have come to the perfectly logical conclusion that you are awesome and I adore you. “

I would like to second that!

“Why has society come to the conclusion that emotions and logic are always the exact opposite of one another?”

Girls have no penis therefore they have no logic.  Which means they have only emotions. And those are girly, so their wrong.

makes perfect sense, no?

It sure as hell doesn’t automatically make them less compelling either.

That depends on how the emotion has been integrated into the logical argument.  A logical argument passionately made can be a beautiful thing.  On the other hand, passion which merely pays lip service to logic and rationality—such as the “pro-lifers” who insist on the logic of moral equivalence between an infant and a zygote—is not logic at all, but an attempt to cloak ultimately irrational argument in the respectability of intellectual rigor.

In short, logic and rationality are what they are, and a logical or rational argument ultimately succeeds based on how logically persuasive it is…and not on how teary eyed the arguer becomes.  Which is why, for example, Glenn Beck will not be invited to debate at the Oxford Union, where passionate and rigorous arguments are often successfully made.

Girls have no penis therefore they have no logic.  Which means they have only emotions. And those are girly, so their wrong.

Illogical.

I wonder, are there support groups out there for people who find out they are the product of rape? what are these people’s experiences?

In the old-fashioned conservative point of view, “love” is codified in their minds as “need”.  So if a man has a sexual need for a particular woman, that is love.  If he has a need for a mummy figure, or somebody to take the brunt of his pain and do his emotional work for him, that, too, is love.  However, some things may repulse him so much—like the thought of his wife being raped by another—that he falls out of “love”.  He no longer feels like he has the same need for her.  That is when she has to go it alone.

That presumes that she didn’t need him to go in with her, for whatever reason.

Which is why it’s douchey and a bad presumption on his part. But it doesn’t make him unsupportive overall. To use your assumption (which I believe is valid):

This woman does not come off as the most stable, self-assured person. His not going in might have been taken as disapproval, which could have derailed her resolve.

A woman in that state of mind might have taken it the same way if he didn’t drive her at all, or if he came in but didn’t go into the consultation room, or any one of a number of missteps. It might be that he didn’t know the protocol. I certainly don’t, and although I’d like to think I’d ask I wasn’t in his rather odd position. I’d offer to walk her inside at a minimum.

We simply don’t know how much good or bad faith there was.

Exactly my point. You’re assuming bad faith, I’m assuming good faith. And going by the letter, which is all I can do, she’s attributing more good faith than bad. I’d agree that a lot of it is seen through the rose-coloured glasses of someone who’s in deep denial about the past, but that’s her problem that we need to address, not his.

I simply don’t feel that this is enough of a reason to think he did nothing wrong.  Or that he’s merely “slightly douchey”.

And I don’t see any evidence that he was a raging dickhead about the whole thing. According to her he was sensitive toward her mood, listened to her, talked with her, considered the possibility that the child was his, respected her choices, etc. I think most spouses (especially those who aren’t anti-choice nutbars) could clear that low bar easily after 4 years of marriage.

He wasn’t supportive - at the very least not supportive at a crucial moment.  I find it hard to believe that was the once and only time. And staring divorce proceedings as she’s about to give birth?

Perhaps divorce was an agonising decision for him as well, and only the fact of the impending birth made it “real.” We don’t know. But the timeline does bear out how long he went through that decision-making process with her. Cold and callous abandonment is a very different process, and I see no evidence of it here.

It’s a good thing the marriage ended, it seems, for both of them.

No doubt.

Is it possible, without being a rape apologist and without being a dick, to sit back and say,
“you know, leaving out the slimy reply by the columnist and the douchetastic misogyny thrown LW’s way, and just looking at the letter itself I feel that there’s something that doesn’t fit right, here” ...?

I’m sorry, but to admit to oneself that the numbers of false rape claims is microscopic (especially when one factors in the estimates of unreported real rapes) is to also admit that every bloody blue moon one is going to get a bogus allegation.  I’m not saying that this one is, because I don’t have enough information.  But there’s something about that letter that gets my antenna twitching when they almost always accept a claim of sexual assault at face value.  I’m not saying that she’s not telling the truth, I’m just saying that her ongoing work relationship with her alleged assailant and willingness to be around him her reluctance to address the issue outside of conversations with her husband as to her pregnancy and her decision to keep the rapist’s child even at the cost of her own marriage make me at least wonder whether there’s more here than meets the eye and we’re jumping to conclusions.  That’s all: a statement that there’s something about this that makes me want to dig deeper before I leap to ANYBODY’s defence.

I admit that my judgment might be coloured by the <b>one</i> certifiably BS rape claim that I’ve seen or heard of in 20 years in any law firm or clinic that I’ve worked in or from any Crown or defence lawyer that I’ve known was one laid by a co-worker of the accused who did it to cover up her affair with a married supervisor and thus keep her lover and a great job and get rid of the one person who could blow their secret and get them both fired and lose their pensions.

@ Lindsay #66:  I think I was thinking of the “Hierarchy of needs” and got it all mixed up with Rawlsian principles of justice or something, neither of which was particularly germane to the discussion.  My bad.  But I like the taxonomy of duties.

You know, I understand people who don’t want children at all, or only want their own biological children, but I’m really annoyed by the “raising another man’s child” bullshit.

It’s her child, too.  If you really love someone, then you tend to love their children, too.  That’s why stepparents exist.  And babies are about the easiest people to love, if you don’t just have a thing against children in general.

I get why people feel differently about this issue, but the whining that no man could possibly be expected to raise another man’s child is pissing me off.  It’s her child, too, and many men could and do step up.

Her ex’s failure to want to raise this child does not make him a douche, however.  It does make the divorce the responsible thing to have happened and she needs to realize he’s not the answer to her lonliness.

——————

Also, STFU everyone who claims this is not rape.  Seriously.  Go back to Feminism 101 to figure out why a woman might not be able to admit a rape was rape, even when it’s her drunken boss forcing himself on her.

Go back to Feminism 101 to figure out why a woman might not be able to admit a rape was rape

This thread looks like is has a lot of n00bz, who probably have yet to take Feminism 101.

Jesus fucking christ Felix Culpa,

Did you miss the “automatically” or did you just for some (other) reason think I still needed to schooled on everything you just said?

Or did you perhaps mean to expand on what I said rather than come across as refuting/but!-ing it?  In which case was there perhaps some other way you could have phrased that response?

(and really, you go from anti-choice arguments to Glenn Beck, but stick “teary-eyed” in the middle of that?)

I don’t think the husband was a douche for leaving, he had every right to leave if he no longer wanted to be in the relationship. 

I do have a problem with the way he left, not because he had an obligation to stand beside his wife, but because he made his leaving her fault.  He wasn’t adult enough to admit his own weakness and say “I’m not strong enough to deal with this, I don’t want to be with you anymore.”  Instead, he made it seem like there was a certain group of choices she could have made that would erase all of his conflicting emotions and bring everything back to square one.  Then, when she did not willingly fall into his set pattern, he blamed her for making him leave.

“We’re talking as if raising a child that’s not genetically yours as if it’s the worst fate in the world. Are adoptive fathers lesser and stepdads lesser men because they willingly raise children that aren’t theirs by blood? Being a dad is so much more than being a sperm donor. If he’d chosen to stick it out and raise that kid, the child would have been 100% his son in the most important sense of the word. “

No, it would not have been.  Human memory lasts what, a few generations?  How many of you know anything about your great grandparents?  Your great-great grandparents?  What were they like?  How were their marriages?  Did they really love each other?  But yet, despite their memories being gone, you are still there, the only truly real representation of their (presumed) unions.  Life continues over the scale of billions of years.  Memories last hundreds, maybe thousands for very exceptional people. 

So, it is a truly horrible fate, when it’s done deceitfully.  You’re being cheated out of the only, very limited, pathetic shadow of immortality human beings are offered.  Not only that, you’re putting your resources into ensuring someone else’s immortality. 

This man did the rational thing.  Had he stayed with this woman post-pregnancy, he would have been on the hook for a lifetime of child support for another man’s child.  Even if he had found out post-birth that the baby was not his, he would still have been on the hook for child support.

“So, it is a truly horrible fate, when it’s done deceitfully.”

And it’s really not so bad for the woman. After all, it’s her genetic material that’s getting passed on, so she gets to be immortal. And all it took was a little rape.

@187:

This child would not, necessarily. mean that he and this lady would never be able to have another child of their own who would be able to transport his DNA into the far, far future.

Also, child support?  Really?

Praises to all my Jewish ancestors who stuck by their raped wives. And fuck you to all the goyim rapists, some of whom are probably, unfortunately, genetically related to me.

Let me make it clear:

In no way, shape, or form did I even remotely imply that the guy’s unwillingness to be kind was anything short of evil.  Everyone has a duty to be kind.

I was talking about the narrow question of whether or not one has a duty to stay in a relationship and fake affection you don’t have for a person who is suffering.

Her husband takes her to an abortion clinic, but doesn’t want to go in with her because he doesn’t want to hear discussion regarding the circumstances of the conception.  Seems fairly reasonable.

No, that’s a dick move.  At every point in time, one should say, “So what? At least I wasn’t raped.” Jesus.  Do you think the woman wants to hear it?  No. But she has no choice.

That’s right, PeterZeroOne @187, they’re all gold-digging deceitful bitches looking to get your wimpy arse on the hook for child support while they screw the alpha baby-daddys behind your beta back. And when they do it, they laugh and laugh about how they’re denying you your “immortality.”

With such bitterly paranoid attitudes toward women, is it any wonder that guys like PeterZeroOne turn to PUA gurus and hookers to get laid?

I was talking about the narrow question of whether or not one has a duty to stay in a relationship and fake affection you don’t have for a person who is suffering.

I think the answer so far has been, “Yeah, you kinda do.”  You don’t necessarily need to stay married/living together, but withdrawing all support for your spouse/partner who has cancer is a pretty extraordinarily douchey thing to do.  It’s not so much “duty” as “not adding to the person’s burden unnecessarily.”

I suppose you could come up with an extreme circumstance where an abused wife who has finally gotten up the courage and money to leave finds out that her abusive husband has cancer, but if we’re talking about the ordinary sort of falling out of love, leaving someone when they’re sick is pretty low.  Otherwise, you end up saying that Newt Gingrich was totally right to try get his wife to sign a divorce settlement after she gets out of cancer surgery because if he didn’t love her anymore, why should he be forced to stay and fake affection?

Otherwise, I’m sympathetic to your arguments, Wallace. I don’t know if I’d be so quick to think someone is full of shit about being raped, but there is something to be said about how marriages fall apart even when people mean well. But I think that it’s pretty much across the board understood that abortion is one of those events someone should go out of their way to offer moral support during.  Especially if you purport to love someone.  I can imagine some women saying they’d rather be alone—-I might, depending on my relationship (though in my current one, I can’t imagine wanting to be alone)—-but a man should always, always offer.  And offer to pay, if he’s the father.  You know, since it’s the least he can do when his uterus isn’t getting scraped.

I was talking about the narrow question of whether or not one has a duty to stay in a relationship and fake affection you don’t have for a person who is suffering.

A duty? No, not in an equal relationship. And while it seems like it would be a kindness when done voluntarily, faking affection is a tricky game.

To be clear, affection != support and being supportive != being a doormat. And from what I’ve seen in this letter, the husband was generally supportive with the exception of one apparently douchey move.

I have a close relative who was raped at gunpoint when she was in her twenties. She once lent me a belt and remarked as she handed it over, “That’s the belt I was wearing when I got raped.” It was weird. Why did she keep it for 35 years? Why loan it out? Why say that at all? Why say it so casually?

Maybe she just liked it. Who knows?

Who the fuck is talking about shunning them?  I’m talking about not taking care of their children, and hopefully getting them to leave me out of their will as a possible future caretaker.

You’re talking about shunning a child that your friend chose to have because of the circumstances of its conception.  You’re saying that the child is to blame for its father’s actions so therefore you should be allowed to shun it.  How is this different from someone shunning a child because it was born to an unwed mother or because it’s mixed race?

“That’s right, PeterZeroOne @187, they’re all gold-digging deceitful bitches looking to get your wimpy arse on the hook for child support while they screw the alpha baby-daddys behind your beta back. And when they do it, they laugh and laugh about how they’re denying you your “immortality.”

With such bitterly paranoid attitudes toward women, is it any wonder that guys like PeterZeroOne turn to PUA gurus and hookers to get laid? “

Wow, beautiful.  That’s some nice tu quoque right there, Gracchus.  You’re 100% wrong.  It’s wrong for men to be raising children who are not biologically theirs if they do not know this to be true. 

You make fun of my concept of immortality.  Well what the hell do you believe in?  Actually, who cares.  Long after your last breath has been spent, your bones have turned to dust and every thought and effort you have put into humanity has been washed away into irrelevance, life will continue to perpetuate itself essentially forever.  Your ideas, in the long run, your opinion, is irrelevant and all that matters is that these children live and continue to have children of their own and so on.  Anything else is magical thinking.

I have to say that this one detail from her story keeps bugging me:

He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he “didn’t want to hear me talk about conception dates”.

Given the sketchiness of a lot of her details, that can be read a lot of ways.  Like, it’s possible that he thought the child could actually his but since her mind was set on an abortion, he didn’t want to be a dick and try to get genetic testing before she aborted to be sure.  If that’s the case, I could see not wanting to go in, especially since it’s for the initial exam, not the procedure itself.  It’s not like he said, “I’ll sit out here in the car while your uterus is scraped.”  He said, “I’ll sit out here in the car while your doctor does a pelvic exam to try and figure out the gestational age of the fetus.”

“Maybe she just liked it. Who knows?”

Right. The point being there wasn’t a single, correct course of action for her to take about how to deal with the belt to make her a real victim. My external guesses about what she would or should do are irrelevant.

FTR, I suspect she kept it because the thing cost money and what, do I think she should throw money away?

You’re being cheated out of the only, very limited, pathetic shadow of immortality human beings are offered.  Not only that, you’re putting your resources into ensuring someone else’s immortality.

That is a load of rank horseshit and if you actually believe it, it goes to show what a pathetic tiny person you are.

You know how we become immortal? By influencing the next generation in some way, and the way that leaves the deepest impression is NOT genetic.

If the only way you can do something that lasts after you are gone is to squirt less than a teaspoon of genetic material into a woman, you’re a fucking loser. You just don’t want to face up to that.

Wow, beautiful.  That’s some nice tu quoque right there, It’s wrong for men to be raising children who are not biologically theirs if they do not know this to be true.

That’s obvious—as I just mentioned, I’m not a fan of deceit, even the well-intentioned kind. But it has zero relevance to the current discussion, and indeed to the vast majority of parenting situations on the planet. To obsess over it as a common occurrence is ridiculous.

[and tu quoqe is the incorrect fallacy to cite: I don’t come close to promoting your attitude toward women, and I have the strong sense that you do live your life by that twisted philosophy—hence the post]

You make fun of my concept of immortality.  Well what the hell do you believe in?

I believe in being as good a person as I can during my time on this planet, and doing my small part to contribute to its betterment without any expectation of immortal reward. It’s a modest goal, I’ll acknowledge, but we can’t all be superstar sperm donors like your unappreciated self.

So, let me get this straight, Seeker. You’ve seen one bona fide fake rape claim in twenty fuckin’ years and you’re willing to be suspicious of women because of this?

Asshole.

And Drachonfire, sweetie, it’s not the quantity of posts that matters, you dipshit: it’s the quality. Or lack therefore. Asshole.

  I find that people here are looking for trolls, and trying to fit me into the troll category might turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy from anyone who disagrees.

“You bitches just look for things to be upset about!”

  God, is there a playbook being handed around?

Wow. I think you’re so right on this.

I do think of duty in relationships sometimes, but it’s really shorthand for telling myself not to be all about me, because, well, sometimes one just doesn’t feel like doing things. And I don’t just mean romantic relationships, I mean phoning grandma or arranging a surprise party for a friend which includes someone they like but you find somewhat annoying.

But if someone has a really *strong* impulse not to do something, and just can’t see past themselves… then there probably isn’t a lot of love there. Because love means the other person’s feelings are really important.

I think the idea that mere duty isn’t a valid reason to stay in a relationship is also a good argument for getting the state out of the marriage business.  If a person can’t wake up in the morning, look at their partner(s) and choose to stay with them for another day because they really want to be there, then there’s something seriously screwed up about the whole circumstance of that relationship.  Legal marriage puts up all kinds of obstacles to leaving a relationship whose time has passed (that is, additional obstacles above and beyond the emotional/financial/logistical/etc. difficulties).

I really can’t fathom the appeal of any notion of immortality that I’m not, you know, around for.  Do I like the idea that I might leave the world a good legacy through my daughter?  Sure.  But that legacy is from raising her, not sharing her genes, just as I am my father’s legacy despite not sharing his.

Frankly, if my biological father is out there thinking of me as his “immortality” despite contributing nothing to my existence beyond ejaculation, he’s even more of a dickwad than I have previously been led to believe.

No, ginmar, I’m not willing to abdicate my rationality and assume that a person that I’ve never met providing me incomplete information from one side of the story in a foreign newspaper is necessarily giving us the complete story on a puzzling and upsetting situation.  Your position essentially boils down to “believe everything that you’re told by a complete stranger, give her the benefit of the doubt or you’re an asshole”.

If you had troubled yourself to read the very careful wording of my post you couldn’t honestly say that I’m “willing to be suspicious of women because of this”; I said and I’m saying that in this one instance I want more information before I take a position one way or another.  If, in your view, I’m an asshole because in one instance in 20 years I don’t take a rape story “as told” then there’s no course of action that would meet your satisfaction save for my nodding my head up and down like a bobblehead doll every time anybody tells me something that you feel strongly about.

“If the only way you can do something that lasts after you are gone is to squirt less than a teaspoon of genetic material into a woman, you’re a fucking loser. You just don’t want to face up to that. “

No, I am a biochemical reaction just trying to perpetuate itself, like a virus or an amoeba.  So are you.  You just don’t want to face up to that. 

Poor fool, you think you matter?

keshmeshi, you are almost certainly right that both the child and the child’s mother would be better off without you.  However, if I were your sister/cousin/friend, and you chose your righteous indignation over being there for me and my child, I would not think it a credit to you.  Nor would I think it a credit to your pro-choice commitment that you would apparently cut me out of your life for not making the choice you thought I should.

One of the other lessons that can be drawn from this saga is that women should never express any doubt about themselves.  It’s human to question oneself after a crisis—hell, I recently saw an episode of aircrash investigations, wherein the British pilots were questioning themselves as to whether the loss of four engines had been their own doing.  (It wasn’t—they’d flown through volcanic dust.)  But women should never question themselves.  To do so invites trolls—or advice columnists in the form of trolls—to leap upon one’s ass and make one all to blame for everything that has ever gone wrong.  Bleeding (self-questioning) attracts sharks.  Learn from this, and do not do it.

I really can’t fathom the appeal of any notion of immortality that I’m not, you know, around for.

But don’t you see, a distinctive portion of his DNA will still be around,—a dozen generations from now! Immortality!

And he’s only onto the DNA thing because the darned feminazis wrecked the whole patrilineal surname thing with their damned hyphens and lesbian adoptions grumblegrumble

No, I am a biochemical reaction just trying to perpetuate itself, like a virus or an amoeba.

Yes, we all are. And many, I would say most, of us advance a little bit intellectually beyond that identity to make the world a better place. You apparently haven’t. Sad little man.

Long after your last breath has been spent, your bones have turned to dust and every thought and effort you have put into humanity has been washed away into irrelevance, life will continue to perpetuate itself essentially forever.  Your ideas, in the long run, your opinion, is irrelevant and all that matters is that these children live and continue to have children of their own and so on.  Anything else is magical thinking.

Anything else is magical thinking? You’ll simply be bones and dust in a forgotten grave, but it matters - oh, there’s no objective source of value or morality, but it fucking *matters* - that your own personal genetic material continues on in someone else who doesn’t care who you were and would have turned out just the same even if a completely different guy had been his great-great-great grandfather.

It’s hilarious to find nihilism co-existing with that kind of narcissism.

“Her husband refuses to go into the abortion clinic with her, which probably has a lot to do with why she freaks out and decides not to get an abortion.”

What is the foundation of that supposition?

On another subject, totally off-topic… I personally am tired of seeing relationship/marriage advice from people whose longest relationship was shorter than the amount of time it takes to make a decent Parmesan cheese.

“I was talking about the narrow question of whether or not one has a duty to stay in a relationship and fake affection you don’t have for a person who is suffering.”

I don’t think there are too many people out there who would seriously and sincerely put forth the idea that you should act your way through a sexual relationship and fake romantic affection you don’t actually feel in order to spare your partner added grief.  But generally falling out of love with someone or deciding that love isn’t enough to make it work after all doesn’t result in the person doing the dumping going “Here’s all the shit you left at my place, never call me again.”  You’re still going to have some residual affection for them, and you’re still going to have a friend-level relationship.  If you’re leaving a long-term romantic partner in a lurch in a way a decent person wouldn’t leave a well-liked roommate, there’s a problem.

No, I am a biochemical reaction just trying to perpetuate itself, like a virus or an amoeba.

I know you’re being literal, but a nasty virus actually is a spot-on metaphor for you. Fortunately, you’re easily swatted away with the rhetorical equivalent of children’s Dimetapp.

Poor fool, you think you matter?

She does, but unlike you she has healthy relationships with other human beings.

Yeah, seeker, because you say there was one bona-fide false rape claim by someone else you get a tingly feeling in your Spidey sense that this bitch is lying I totally shouldn’t think you’re an asshole for thinking a totally different woman who you have no reason to distrust is also lying.

Asshole.

There are no direct descendants of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.  Gosh, if only there were some other route to immortality than having genetic descendants—then they wouldn’t be completely forgotten today.

(shrugs)
I knew when I did the first post ginmar that you’d get nasty and ad hominem so the fact that you did so isn’t surprising; it’s pretty much s.o.p. for you when somebody says something you disagree with on a thread that you feel strongly about.  That you’d be especially eager to put vicious, hateful words in my mouth that aren’t there in the posts was also predictable. 

Did I say she was lying?  No.  “I don’t know” =/= “this bitch is totally lying” and it’s slimy debating to posit that it does.  I said only that I was reserving judgment because (a) there were oddities about it which made we want more information; (b) it matched up pretty closely with the one verified false allegation that I’d seen in twenty years.  (Think about that. I’ve said that in twenty years of legal practice and dealing with Crowns and defence attorneys all the time I’ve seen one bogus claim, <b>one<b>.  That’s it, but in your eyes that I’ve seen one at all makes me an asshole. 

Post all you like in response, but I’m not engaging any more.  You’ll just ramp up the language and and become more vicious and inflammatory and mischaracterize I said because it’s more comfortable to you than actually reading—or giving a shit about—what I actually said instead of what you said I said.

PeterZeroOne, let me heap more scorn on the concept of immortality. There is no such thing. Deal, or get religion to console yourself.

You’re right, human memory doesn’t last. Human genes dilute pretty fast, too. Think about it: Even your bio-grandkid only has 1/4 of her genes in common with you. With every successive generation your contribution gets diluted by half: 1/8, 1/16, 1/32… (Assuming no inbreeding.)

If you’re living your life for posterity, you’re wasting your life. One relationship with a son or daughter you know and love is worth infinitely more than the knowledge that some stranger will be wandering around with 1/128th of your genes long after you’re dead and buried.

<blockquotes>With every successive generation your contribution gets diluted by half: 1/8, 1/16, 1/32… (Assuming no inbreeding.) </blockquotes>

Let’s leave the Ptolemys and the Hapsburgs out of this, thank you very much.

(Man, I am HTML Fail personified tonight.)

Aw, look, seekie’s psychic, too!

So you knew you were being a victim-blaming asshole, but that’s not the real problem here, just that you knew that I and I alone would have a problem with it?

Yeah, seekie, that’s just great but…no.  Asshole.

There are no direct descendants of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.  Gosh, if only there were some other route to immortality than having genetic descendants—then they wouldn’t be completely forgotten today.

5 minutes of Googling yields these also sadly forgotten individuals:

Rosa Parks
Alan Turing
Susan B Anthony
Marie Curie
Siddhartha
St Paul
Pliny The Younger
Sappho
Adolf Hitler
Mao Zedong

Oh, if only they had procreated, and then, for better or for worse, they would have had an impact on our society today instead of being consigned to the dustbin of obscurity!

In what circumstance does Duty every have a place?

“every”=“ever”

So this poor woman had been raped by her boss - either that or not exactly raped, “What happened on that trip wasn’t quite rape but I wasn’t exactly willing either,” but anyway she’s not going to quit her job and stop working with this rapist boss of hers five days a week, because her job is so swell and all, so professionally fulfilling.  And she wants an abortion, but she doesn’t want an abortion.  So she’s going to have this baby and continue working for this rapist/non-rapist, and meanwhile Hubby can continue to be married to her, but she wants him to know absolutely for God damn sure that this child who is going to be living in their house had nothing to do with him in any biological sense, it is definitely the offspring of that other guy, you know that guy that she plans to spend all day with five days a week because she can’t be arsed to go find another job, who went on overseas business trips with her, and presumably will do so in the future…

The original letter writer, who was married to this guy for four years, thinks well enough of him is willing to consider getting back with him; but the omniscient pundits of this weblog comments thread, who know him from seven paragraphs of text (which she wrote) know him ever so much better.  We take every word she says at face value, and at the same time, she must be nuts to regard him so highly.  No, it’s perfectly clear that this nameless ex-husband of hers was, unquestionably, an emotionally stunted arrested adolescent, worthless as a human being, a contemptible, shallow asshole.  We can be absolutely sure of this without ever having heard his side of the story, in complete ignorance of every other detail of their years of marriage together, and without knowing anything at all about what they said to each other during the period between her visit to the gynecologist and the date of their divorce, because he didn’t supply her what she wanted out of him, whatever varying thing that may have been at any given instant, that he should have known what it was at that moment by telepathy.  Everybody pile on him, he sucks!

You know, you all actually could be correct.  The ex might have been a complete dick.  But it evidently doesn’t occur to you robotic haters that you are founding this blanket condemnation on a fantasy of your own, based on a seven-paragraph story fragment from a blatantly unreliable narrator.  Doubt, skepticism, what are those things?  Crap for wimps!  Bring out the lynching rope!

W, you’ve missed the point of advice columns.  It’s part of the genre to take the story on face value, unless there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  It’s sort of useless as an intellectual exercise if you start off by assuming the letter is all lies.

Working with what we know—-which is what is in the letter—-we come to these conclusions.  If further evidence is admitted, perhaps we will rewrite our opinions.  See, simple?

Aw, look at the bingo! Sniff. Usually they’re so much more subtle.

W. Kiernan, you’re fantasizing at least as hard as anyone else. That part about how she wanted to go on working for her boss forever? Not in the letter. What she does say is that her husband was trying to start a business and, later in the letter, that the business ultimately failed. So, it’s probably fair to infer that at the time she was raped, the family wasn’t exactly raking in the dough. Maybe she was supporting them both.

Willingness to go to the police is no indicator of the strength of a rape allegation.

You know one reason why women don’t report rapes by men they know, or even strangers? Because they don’t think anyone will believe them. They’re afraid that if they come forward, someone will suggest that they just made the whole thing up to cover for their own infidelities. So, a victim is faced with a choice: Come forward and risk my marriage, my job, and my reputation with no guarantee that justice will be served; or let it go.

I know women who’ve fought in the courts and women who’ve let it go. My undying admiration goes out to those who fought for justice. They’re truly brave. But they’re often the first to tell you that the process is hell and the results are uncertain at best. From a coldly rational perspective, sometimes it’s better to let it go and try to make up the difference in therapy later.

I should say, sometimes for some people it seems better to let it go. It’s not the kind of decision that lends itself to neat prescriptions. My larger point is that the fact that someone doesn’t want to involve the criminal justice system has no bearing on the merits of her rape allegation.

I am working with what is in the letter, some of this:

...Bioy Casares had dined with me that night and talked to us at length about a great scheme for writing a novel in the first person, using a narrator who omitted or corrupted what happened and who ran into various contradictions, so that only a handful of readers, a very small handful, would be able to decipher the horrible or banal reality behind the novel… (Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius)

which continues:

...From the far end of the corridor, the mirror was watching us; and we discovered, with the inevitability of discoveries made late at night, that mirrors have something grotesque about them…

But I’m game!  If I must make up a world from those seven paragraphs, then I conclude that in that world they should get back together, the ex-wife and ex-husband.  She hasn’t erased his mobile number, so we know how she feels.  If he hasn’t moved on and found somebody new, then obviously (see me too “make an ass of u & me”) he still pines for her.  Maybe it’s no ideal situation but the ideal is enemy to the real.  One only lives so long, waste no more days with no one in your arms.  I foresee their love, informed by mutual sorrow, returning deep, slow-flowing, tannin black.

Piss on the haters, what do they know?

But, Amanda, if you don’t pluck suspicions based on thin air out of your ass, then women might not be slagged off left, right, and center as the lying whores they secretly are. Won’t someone protect the men from the rape victims who have good reason to avoid the use of the word ‘rape’ and may not have the casual ability to walk away from a job and starve?  Won’t someone ignore the realities of the thousands of rape victims who never reported, or who did report and still had to live within sight of their freed rapists? Won’t someone think of the double standard that asks us to trust some suspicious dipshit because he says he knows of one case where the bitch lied, while at the same time applying a totally different standard to a woman we have no reason to doubt, barring hatred of women? And last of all, won’t someone think of the jerkoffs who think that having their genes running around makes up for their total lack of worth?

It’s deeply creepy to read guys on a rape topic, making justifications for why the letter writer must be a lying bitch while at the same time demanding to know why the whore didn’t go the cops, huh, that proves it! It’s not like cops themselves aren’t sexist assholes. It’s not like charging rape has been described by numerous victims as a ‘second rape.’ No, it’s that these guys know oh so much better what it’s in womens’ heads than women, and strangely enough, it exactly matches all the sexist hate myths that men have told themselves for centuries about women, to justify actual rapes and justify hating rape victims who do speak up. This victim spoke up. Look what happened.

I have to say that this one detail from her story keeps bugging me:

You know, a couple other things she says:  She says it was two months of all-night talks.  And she wonders if “so much hurt” can ever be completely healed.

It just sounds deeper to me than “douchebag dumped wife because she decided to keep baby”.

jennygadget @ 185: Well, if you’re going to be like that, it’s because you didn’t know how to spell the word “corollary.”

jennygadget @ 185: Also, because none of that stuff you were complaining about was in any way clear from your entry.  Because emotionalism actually can, in many circumstances, make your argument not only less compelling, but actually completely goddamn stupid.  Take your pick.

Rosa Parks
Alan Turing
Susan B Anthony
Marie Curie
Siddhartha
St Paul
Pliny The Younger
Sappho
Adolf Hitler
Mao Zedong

Pedant alert on/*

Kristin,

If this is the list off famous people who have no living descendants, you definitely want to take Mao Zedong off that list as I do know for a fact that he has at least one grandchild Mao Xinyu who also has two children. 

*/Pedant alert off

Right, exholt, noted. Apparently my Googlefu failed me. Thanks for the heads-up.

“We’re talking as if raising a child that’s not genetically yours as if it’s the worst fate in the world. Are adoptive fathers lesser and stepdads lesser men because they willingly raise children that aren’t theirs by blood? Being a dad is so much more than being a sperm donor. If he’d chosen to stick it out and raise that kid, the child would have been 100% his son in the most important sense of the word. “
No, it would not have been.

fuck you. seriously, fuck you.

my husband is my children’s stepfather, but he is their father in every way that matters. he has raised them and supported them and loved them. actual people—already born and here and everything.

i don’t care about hypothetical great-great-great-grandchildren, at least not in terms of my legacy (or my husband’s legacy) as a human being. they might never exist. after all, you don’t know if your kids will have kids, or their kids or anything else on down the line.

what matters is what you do, here and now. not “blood lines”.

you are a pathetic, sick fuck and a sad excuse for a human being. and that won’t change if your descendants outnumber mine.

Sophiefair, thank you very much.

These guys think of fatherhood and being a husband as being an owner, not anything to do with an emotion. “Descendents”? Genes? Bullshit.

“Well, if you’re going to be like that, it’s because you didn’t know how to spell the word “corollary.” “

‘tis true.  My mother despairs of my ever learning how to spell.

(you got any other oh-so-clever arguments/comebacks up your sleeve? ‘cuz you know, that one’s not old at all)

“Also, because none of that stuff you were complaining about was in any way clear from your entry.  Because emotionalism actually can, in many circumstances, make your argument not only less compelling, but actually completely goddamn stupid.  Take your pick.”

So you *did* miss the “automatically?”  Or are you simply trying to turn the slightly asshole scented cluelessness into all out assholeness?

Or…

Maybe you just aren’t one of those people whose had to deal with guys being all “OMG! she’s crying!  she’s being emotional! end of argument!”  Or accuse you of being emotional and overreacting when you are, in fact, doing nothing of the sort.  Or accuse you of being “scary” just because you call guys on their shit instead of getting all flustered or simpering and giggling.*

Maybe you’ve never been been on the recieving end of period jokes, been ordered to smile by strange men passing you on the street, or otherwise had it made clear to you that your emotions are not there for your benefit any more than your body is.

And so therefore for some reason you thought that anyone here needed to be told that people may react negatively to emotions (that are different from what they would like/expect).

Just in case this isn’t clear to you already, we need that explained to us like we need to be told that we can “catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

You may have highlighted a male right wing pundits and a right wing group in your comment, but you also made sure you mentioned “teary-eyed” - and it’s not like the all the anti-choicers being all emotional are male.

And aside from that, the whole thread of that particular conversation was questioning the status quo (“why are men supposedly the logical ones anyway?” - M “yeah. and why is emotion always treated as a bad thing or like oil to logic’s water?” me - paraphrased, of course) - and you come and defend it without hardly even giving a nod to the idea that the status quo needs to be questioned.

Worse you do it in a way that strongly suggests you think I’m incapable of realizing that people might be turned off by strong emotions.  Which is especially rude and illogical considering the conversation as a whole.  If I’m unaware that people can react negatively to emotions, why would I be questioning when people do it?  If I’m unaware that certain emotional displays can sometimes fuck up an argument, why the hell would I include “automatically”?  Wouldn’t “automatically” be an illogical qualifier if I am unaware of everyandanything you said?

You are either

1) agreeing with me, and then going on a tangent on a related point in which case: why start off with “that depends…” instead of “yes, it depends on…”?

2) disagreeing with me because you think you’ve thought of something I haven’t, in which case: wtf?

*I’d just like to note that I don’t actually blame women who do this, especially as I know it’s often a nervous and escape-making gesture.  And, you know, I’ve certainly done it myself.

Right, exholt, noted. Apparently my Googlefu failed me. Thanks for the heads-up.

Kristin,

No problem. 

I remembered hearing about Mao having grandchildren but still needed to doublecheck to be sure before I made the pedant comment…and I should have known better as I grew up listening to older relatives in my Chinese-American family discuss Mao and specialized in modern Chinese history as an undergrad. 

my husband is my children’s stepfather, but he is their father in every way that matters. he has raised them and supported them and loved them. actual people—already born and here and everything.

Unfortunately, the acceptance of the concept of one being a parent from one’s support and love of one’s children…whether biological or non in the larger societal narrative is an extremely recent one as my father experienced as a child in the 1930’s-40’s when he lived the stereotypical life of a child hated by his stepmother because he and any other siblings were not biologically hers. 

This concept has also not seemed to gain wide acceptance even in US society if the widespread accounts of how adopted children are often treated less favorably compared to their biological counterparts I’ve heard about in the MSM, college classmates, and from friends/acquaintances are any indication.

Okay, the dudes who keep going on about how this woman not quitting her job and going to the police is deeply suspicious can just stop now. That happens. That absolutely happens. It happened to me (except it was a teacher, not a boss). There are times when you absolutely cannot handle more trauma - and the kinds of explanations needed to change your life enough to get away are too traumatic. All I would have had to do was change which foreign language I took - and I could not do it. It was easier to sit in three years worth of classes than to risk having my parents and classmates start questioning me.

I would probably have slit my wrists in preference to going to the police.

Gypsy Lee: “And thanks, nekouken, for making it clear that it really is all about you boys.  Not a single moment’s consideration for anything but how it affects you.”

I did no such thing and it’s flagrantly unfair of you to insist that I did.  This entire conversation has been solely in judgment of the ex-husband on the basis of his actions as described by this woman in her letter.  My post was my take on the situation, and I can’t help but feel you didn’t really read it if you think that calling him out on certain actions and characterizing the man’s entire series of decisions as mistakes is just consideration for how it affects the men involved.  What I wrote was my perspective on a series of actions taken by the ex-husband and imagined a possible series of corresponding emotions that might explain—not justify—his actions.  I said he was wrong not to go with her into the clinic, and that in the unlikely circumstance that I, in his shoes, would have done the same thing, I would also be wrong.

In this particular case, I can’t do a similar treatment of the woman because she already provided it.  The series of actions performed by the woman are paired with a corresponding series of emotions already by her.  Unlike a lot of the men who have been called out on this in this thread, I did not in any way second-guess the woman’s description of what she was feeling or thinking at the time of any one of her actions.  I, instead, took her at her word and constructed a consistent narrative for her ex-husband that at no time conflicted with her report. 

It’s funny, reading your posts; I had apparently mistakenly thought that feminism was meant to create a scenario in which men are the equals of women, not the lesser.  Both genders, in my experience, are capable of poor judgment, especially in situations that are fraught with emotion as I can only imagine this one was.  In the situation where the woman was raped but refuses to press charges, find a new job or abort the pregnancy, however understandable any one or all of those decisions may be to an outside observer, you seem far too willing to strip the husband of his right to even have an opinion on the matter or even the slightest single selfish impulse.  I’m all about it being her body, her life and her choice, and I, as a guy at his computer reading a letter am unwilling to say that she’s wrong on any count—I don’t know; I would have advised against all of her decisions had she sought my counsel, but she seems happy with the outcome, so what the fuck do I know?—but as he’s also someone with an emotional investment in the family they were building together ostensibly as partners, I’m not all about him not having the right to end the relationship if he feels his trust has been betrayed or his feelings are being ignored.  This is heat-of-the-moment stuff and you’re condemning him to the trash bin of humanity for something he did when he was probably feeling angry and hurt because you’re unwilling to risk hurting the feelings of any rape victim who might be reading by saying that it’s understandable—not reasonable, not right, but understandable—for the husband of a rape victim to feel he has an emotional interest in how she responds to it.  Sorry, but we’re people, and we do stupid things all the time.

Nekouken, have you had your stupidity measured? Because that’s breathtaking. “Oh, you won’t do what I want to even though you’ve experienced a horrifyign sexual attack that almost always is done by men to women, but Nekouken won’t mention that because, hey, in his little universe, no details like that muddy up his straw feminist clear waters.

  You tenderly give the hubbie all this benefit of the doubt right here and ignore that there’s a simple Occam’s Razor explanation: he’s an asshole. His wife was now damaged goods. He doubted her. You don’t want to deal with that, or with reality, or sexism, or the fact that women might be better judges of mens’ behavior than other men, simply because we have to survive said behavior.

No, go right ahead, though. Your denial is sort of….entertaining.

This woman is carrying around enormous guilt from the rape and has not dealt with it.  Her desire to get back with a dickwad ex husband who, as Amanda competently points out, probably never truly loved her is most likely from harboring a significant amount of self loathing.  I feel very badly for her and completely understand.  She’s tried dating others and it hasn’t worked out.  No one is going to measure up I would think.  Her last memories of being happy with a man seem to be with the ex and this desire to get back with him is an escapist desire to live in the past…a time before she had emotional scars of this magnitude.  After all, I wouldn’t expect her to realize this man never loved her if he keeps texting her back and giving her reasons to hope.  She seems to need his absolution because of her feelings of guilt which makes me sad.

She is better off without him.  The supposed “advice” she is given is pure crap, except for the suggestion she should work on herself and become a healthy happy individual.  That I agree with.  It will help her forget the ex (she should lose his #) and ignore shitty advice from uneducated columnists.

Ginmar, maybe you should bottle those ad hominem and straw men and sell them to the internet, because I hear there’s a shortage and you could make some serious bank.  Oh, wait, no; I’m thinking of something else.  Your decision to respond to an earnest argument with insults and mischaracterization is the most common thing on the fucking planet.  It’s ignorant and boring, and as long as it’s all you’ve got, so are you.

“‘Oh, you won’t do what I want to even though you’ve experienced a horrifyign sexual attack that almost always is done by men to women, but Nekouken won’t mention that because, hey, in his little universe, no details like that muddy up his straw feminist clear waters.”

Actually, this is pretty fucking muddy.  See, one of the things about being attacked is that it’s traumatic.  Is the value of an independent woman’s sense of unbridled autonomy tantamount in this situation, or should the fact that she entered into a familial partnership with someone perhaps enter the picture and bring us to the conclusion that sometimes a woman—one who has been traumatized or is in shock—needs the man in her life to step in and help the woman even when she doesn’t want it, just as the man might occasionally need the woman to do.  That’s pretty muddy from a feminist perspective, but it’s something I’m willing to admit does happen and has to happen from time to time, because equality doesn’t mean every exchange in every relationship happens with both people on an equal social footing, but that there’s a give and take involved.  The right response to every situation in a partnership is NOT “whatever you think is best, dear,” and showing support for someone in crisis doesn’t always mean giving them their space.

“You tenderly give the hubbie all this benefit of the doubt right here and ignore that there’s a simple Occam’s Razor explanation: he’s an asshole.”

Occam’s Razor says that the husband is a human being with complex emotions and justifications, just like his wife.  Human beings, in my experience, can make bad decisions without being unrepentant assholes.  He was an asshole when he did what he did, but why?  People do things for reasons, but you seem unwilling to acknowledge that, even though we’re talking about a situation where the woman is admittedly traumatized and confused, but the man’s actions have no underlying explanations.  You can imagine him swilling beer in front of Manchester United in response to hearing his wife tell him she was raped, jerking off into a sock when she tells him she’s pregnant and teaching himself the banjo while his wife is in the abortion clinic, but I prefer to have him do things that make sense in my scenario.  “He’s an asshole” reduces this person to a singular descriptive noun, but if we’re going to judge him for his actions in this scenario, that’s the worst possible thing we can do.

“His wife was now damaged goods. He doubted her.”

That’s possible.  Or maybe he doubted her when she didn’t want to press charges and wanted to keep working for her rapist because she liked her job.  That’s not a position I can imagine anyone having a problem with, unless you include EVERYBODY.  It may have been the end result of a lot of hard conversations, but even if it turns out to be the best possible course of action, do you expect everyone to be happy with it?  You’re denying the human experience just so you can call the ex-husband an asshole.

“You don’t want to deal with that, or with reality, or sexism, or the fact that women might be better judges of mens’ behavior than other men, simply because we have to survive said behavior. “

You’ve proven a terrible judge of my behavior so far, so perhaps there’s a third possibility.  Like that some situations in an equal partnership, taken out of context, might look sexist because you’re cherry-picking for the moments when the man has to be supportive.  If that man, just a week before, needed his wife to console him because his attempted home business failed, you can’t even imagine it even though it’s an entirely realistic possibility, or the week before when his mom died, or the year before that when he contracted walking pneumonia.  Maybe he’s not asserting his right as master of the house, but stepping into a support role because his partner has been traumatized.

Maybe I’m wrong about all of this.  I probably am, truth be told, but maybe I don’t need to imagine that because this entire thread has been nothing but scenarios in which the husband can never be forgiven for the one thing we know about that he did.  Which is so completely and totally useful, I might add.

PeterZeroOne:

Ah, yes, I remember you from (at least) one previous thread about birth rates/population levels. Your alarm at the notion of people in western, developed countries choosing not to have children, and the consequent falling birth rates in those countries, suddenly makes a lot more sense in the light of your somewhat hysterical declaration here. It’s not about the problems of supporting an ageing population, or increased immigration, it’s about teh sperms! I should have known.

Personally, I don’t understand why anyone would care so much about leaving behind a measure of ‘immortality’ (whether that means being remembered or simply passing on genetic material, akin to, as you put it, a virus); you’ll be dead, so why would it matter whether or not there’s anything left of you? But then, I don’t plan to have children anyway, so evidently this bit of the evolutionary imperative passed me by. Guess I didn’t get the right chromosomes.

I still fail to see, however, why a couple raising one child that is genetically related only to the woman should preclude the possibility of future children containing the genetic material of both of them, if that’s what floats your boat. It’s not like her eggs are going to run out any time soon. I can understand finding the prospect of helping your wife to raise a child of rape painful, because it reminds you of her suffering; I cannot, however, understand the core squeamishness about raising a child ‘not your own’. People do it all the time; it’s called adoption.

To everyone else who’s decided that it can’t really have been rape because she didn’t report it to the police, or didn’t quit her job, or decided to continue the pregnancy:

Please, please shut up before you embarass yourselves further. Your privilege is showing. Unless you’ve been in her situation, you CANNOT SAY HOW YOU WOULD REACT - whether you would flee everything that reminded you of it, whether you would fight back to the full extent of the law, whether you would be afraid about ‘making a scene’ because you can’t afford not to work right now, whether you’ll worry that it was your fault somehow, or whether you would sink into denial and try to convince yourself it never happened, going back to work because dealing with it is just too painful. Because goodness knows no-one who’s ever gone through a traumatic event has ever subsequently acted in ways that look ‘illogical’ to the outside world.

If you haven’t had to deal with her pain, count yourself lucky; but stop pretending that there’s a correct way to deal with a situation like this that will magically solve everything, turn your SO into a model of perfect understanding and patience, and also make it obvious to the whole world that You’re A Good Girl/Boy And It Certainly Wasn’t Your Fault What Happened.

Grow. Up.

PeterZeroOne is a libertardian. He sees all relationships in terms of economics and power. I’m really not surprised that he chooses to reduce parenthood to the “selfish gene” level.

(you got any other oh-so-clever arguments/comebacks up your sleeve? ‘cuz you know, that one’s not old at all)

No, it was intended to be an irrelevant and inappropriate emotional response to your irrelevant and inappropriate emotional response.  I note it didn’t impress you.  How interesting.

Your attacks are an army of straw men and pure ad hominem insult.  It certainly doesn’t relate to anything I said or even implied, and it is pretty obvious you want to have an argument against someone making all of the assertions you ascribe to me.  In which I would support and defend you.

Since it’s obvious I have to explain myself in detail: my original point, which I intentionally phrased in a non-confrontational and “supplementary” way, was that you are in many respects correct, but you appear to be making a categorical error.  “Emotion” and “logic” are indeed not “opposites”: they are completely different things.  When you make the assertion (or really, rhetorical question as you did @173) of “Why has society come to the conclusion that emotions and logic are always the exact opposite of one another?” you are both arguing against a proposition not in evidence, and furthermore, that fails to define its terms adequately, or at all.

The unstated category you are broadly positing is “argumentative strategies,” of which logic and appeal to emotion are both potential subsets.  They’re not opposite, they are different things entirely.  They can be intermixed, even successfully and without distorting an argument.  An argument’s emotionalism has nothing to do with its deductive or inductive validity: only its emotional persuasiveness.  This is a nuance which you originally did not set out.  Not knowing you, I don’t pretend to know why: clearly, the fact that I pointed this out upset you, so I assume you took it as an assault on your intelligence for me to do so.  It was not: nor do I appreciate the assaults on my character.

You may have highlighted a male right wing pundits and a right wing group in your comment, but you also made sure you mentioned “teary-eyed” - and it’s not like the all the anti-choicers being all emotional are male.

I really don’t understands the point you’re trying to make here.  I think it’s pretty clear I was referencing Beck’s infamous “crying” episode, and only pointing out that display of emotion is by no means an indicator of correctness of reasoning.  I was not making any extensions of the point to gender at all.

And aside from that, the whole thread of that particular conversation was questioning the status quo (“why are men supposedly the logical ones anyway?” - M “yeah. and why is emotion always treated as a bad thing or like oil to logic’s water?” me - paraphrased, of course) - and you come and defend it without hardly even giving a nod to the idea that the status quo needs to be questioned.

I wasn’t addressing the question of whether the status quo needs to be questioned.  I was addressing the subject of the relationship, if any, between emotion and logic.  I was not attempting to apply these concepts to popular psychological gender theories.  In fact, if you had read me carefully, you would see that I rejected any such notion above @ comment 95.  (I should point out my disagreement with The Gray Train there is actually a deal stronger than the way I expressed it…but as I said, I like to be nonconfrontational as long as everyone else is.)

Worse you do it in a way that strongly suggests you think I’m incapable of realizing that people might be turned off by strong emotions.  Which is especially rude and illogical considering the conversation as a whole.

. . .

You are either

1) agreeing with me, and then going on a tangent on a related point in which case: why start off with “that depends…” instead of “yes, it depends on…”?

2) disagreeing with me because you think you’ve thought of something I haven’t, in which case: wtf?

As I stated just now, I thought your original post lacked nuance as to the subject of the actual relationship between emotion and logic, which are definitionally different things.  I think you are conflating argumentative strategy and empathy with logical rigor.  (Neither sex has a stranglehold on any of these things, just to be absolutely clear.)  Some of your larger points I in fact agree with, so it’s actually a combination of both one and two.  In so arguing, I repeat, I am not questioning your intelligence, and I wonder why you jumped to that conclusion.  I have reviewed my post @ 176 both last night and now freshly this morning and not found any of the gender issues or the personal attacks you wish to ascribe to me.  Certainly, they were not intended: my point was quite limited in intent.

So if you’re angry with someone, it’s really not me.

As I stated just now, I thought your original post lacked nuance as to the subject of the actual relationship between emotion and logic, which are definitionally different things.

Part of the problem is that many people—especially the annoying d00dz many of us have had to deal with IRL—do treat logic and emotion as opposites of each other.  If you’re emotional about something, you can’t possibly have thought logically about it, and if you have a logical argument, you can’t possibly feel strongly about it.  As you said, it’s entirely possible to have an argument that’s both logical and emotional.

As I said, what’s most frustrating about getting into arguments with guys who condescendingly tell you you’re not being “logical” if you get emotional about something is that 90 percent of the time those same guys aren’t being logical themselves, but they think that they are because they have the cultural belief that because they’re guys, they’re ruled by logic and not emotion, so any emotion they feel must actually be logical in that situation.  In other words, your emotional reaction is driven by feelings and doesn’t make any sense, so they don’t have to respect it; their emotional reaction is based in logic and must be deferred to because logic is always superior to emotion.

One example:  pro-life d00dz who insist that a woman shouldn’t be allowed to abort a late-term pregnancy if the fetus has fatal birth defects because the fetus is alive, QED.  Clearly, their argument hasn’t taken reality into account (like, who’s going to pay the several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of healthcare to keep a doomed infant alive for an extra week?) and is based solely in emotion about the helpless baybeez, but they will absolutely insist that their argument is based in cold logic and anyone who points out the flaws in their argument is just being emotional.  If you point out the psychological damage done to someone who’s forced to continue that pregnancy against her will, again, taking someone’s emotions into account isn’t logical, so they can claim that it shouldn’t be taken into account.  Et cetera.

I guarantee you that if you asked any of those guys about Glenn Beck’s crazy emotional outbursts, they would insist that Beck is being perfectly logical and, if you can’t see that, it’s because you’re blinded by your emotions.  Seriously.

  familial partnership Please tell me you’re not talking about the rapist here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, give the hubbie the benefit of the doubt. Except he hasn’t earned it but by God people—-meaning men—-are doing their damndest to give it to him. Actions speak louder, etc., etc.,  You’re making excuses for a guy who dumped his wife when she was raped. I bet you make excuses for rapists, too.

Mnemosyne: Thank you, that’s fair comment and I agree completely.

ginmar: “familial partnership” means what the words in the phrase mean: it means a partnership of a familial nature—a husband and wife coming together to build a family.  So no, I’m not talking about the rapist, but honestly I shouldn’t have had to tell you that.

Your position at large comes from a bizarre place; you’ve taken me to task for addressing the question posed in Amanda’s post: what kind of dickwad is he?  I disagreed with the growing sentiment declaring him the “dickwad for the sake of being a dickwad” kind of dickwad, and decided to investigate the question from the only position I can: what if it was me?  I concluded that while I wouldn’t be likely to do it, it’s not impossible, and if I did what he did I would, from my lofty, objective perch here in the non-hypothetical, consider it a mistake.  I’m unclear how this constitutes making excuses in any regard.

“I bet you make excuses for rapists, too.”

Tough talk, coming from someone who writes Holocaust slashfic.  I know you probably don’t, but I pulled that from the same orifice you pulled yours, so we’re even.

From my experience, any attempts at logic end when either woman or man get emotional about it.  It’s a bit of the nuclear option in an argument, in that fighting emotion with logic is completely futile.

My favorite is when they insist their argument is logical and they’re not being emotional when they’re transgressing on your personal space to get the height advantage on you.

As I said, what’s most frustrating about getting into arguments with guys who condescendingly tell you you’re not being “logical” if you get emotional about something is that 90 percent of the time those same guys aren’t being logical themselves, but they think that they are because they have the cultural belief that because they’re guys, they’re ruled by logic and not emotion, so any emotion they feel must actually be logical in that situation.  In other words, your emotional reaction is driven by feelings and doesn’t make any sense, so they don’t have to respect it; their emotional reaction is based in logic and must be deferred to because logic is always superior to emotion.

I don’t even understand why there is a cultural belief that men, who comprise 90% of all murderers, and are culturally *expected* to fight with each other physically, and are considered not-men if they never get angry, are not emotional.

It’s as if we’ve all forgotten that anger is an emotion.

If the dumbass stereotype were to be taken seriously in the first place, we would have to say that men are angry and women are sensitive, not that men are logical and women are emotional. Of course, even that’s bullshit—plenty of women are as sensitive as rocks, and plenty of men can control their anger very well and are perfectly capable of expressing sadness and love—but EVEN IN TERMS OF THE EXISTING STEREOTYPES, it’s wrong to say women are emotional and men are not, because stereotypically, men are ANGRY.

As for this situation:

If I was raped by my boss, in a career that I loved, in a situation where I felt he had enough power that I could not easily change jobs and remain in my career, I might stay in my job. Or if the benefits were really good and we were depending on them. Or if I was so depressed by the rape that I couldn’t bring myself to do the work of looking for a new job.

I would abort the child of a rapist in a heartbeat because in my personal system of belief (which, ironically, is kind of similar to PeterZeroOne’s, in that I do view genetic immortality as one of the only kinds we get), rapists should not be permitted to breed. But I am a person who couldn’t bring myself to abort a child with the man I wanted to eventually have kids with even though we were financially incapable of handling a baby at the time, because I believe that abortion isn’t morally neutral and that you are destroying a potentiality; if I didn’t so strongly believe that rapists should be denied genetic offspring by any legal means possible, I might succumb to feelings of guilt over aborting a child conceived by a rape. Particularly if I blamed myself for the rape (which I think I’ve absorbed enough Feminism 101, plus my lifelong raging self-centeredness, to avoid, but most women aren’t as egocentric as I am.)

So I can, in fact, understand how a woman can end up in a place where she was raped by her boss, but doesn’t want to quit her job, and decides that she can’t go through with an abortion. I can also understand why a husband would leave rather than stay to raise a child conceived by his wife’s rape, especially if he wasn’t ready for kids. I do, however, think he was kind of a douchebag for doing so. I mean, people can do the best thing they can by leaving, given their own limitations, and it can be a good thing because those limitations would have harmed a child, and it *still* doesn’t change the fact that they’re being kind of a douche; I know a woman who absolutely did the best thing for her kids, given her own inability to manage stress without lying, in leaving her kids with her ex-husband and running away, but that doesn’t make her a good person for doing it.

I think he’s a lying dickwad, lying with actions and probably by omission as well as with words to portray himself to her as loving her much more unconditionally than he actually did.

He’s a fair-weather dickwad, without making that clear to the woman he married.  He couldn’t be bothered to do a small thing for his wife (who had just been RAPED!), and then he took off, leaving her to shoulder much bigger burdens than what was too much for him.

Also, he’s a proprietary dickwad who won’t “lower himself” to loving or even supporting a child that he can’t see as an extention of himself.  He can’t even love that child as his wife’s child, no, it’s “some other man’s.”

In other words, a “me me me me me, the universe and my family must revolve around ME, or I’m LEAVING!” dickwad.

And absolutely she is better off without him.

I just finally read the actual letter and it really is weird from a narrative standpoint.  The first time through, I was reading it and thinking, wow, this bastard is ice cold; his wife told him she had been raped and he didn’t even walk in the damn door of the damn clinic.  Then I got to the end, saw the point about how it was a particular kind of assault—the harassing kind—and thought, Wait, why didn’t she just begin with that, _because the husband would still be a dickwad for being unsupportive_? 

Amanda retells it beginning like this:

The story is simple: A woman is raped by her boss, and becomes pregnant by him.

But as you read it, the story is still simple, but different:  A woman is raped [by someone], and becomes pregnant by the rapist, and the husband can’t deal, and at the end the twist is that the rapist was her boss.

The letter is set up to make you first think it’s one kind of rape, and then realize it’s another kind of rape.  But rape is rape.  It’s still a sympathetic tale to say “I was raped by my boss but didn’t tell my husband what happened, and it led to all these awful feelings.”  So why organize it to put the boss part last?  Is it because this organization makes it more clear-cut that being raped by a stranger vs. being raped by a boss shouldn’t be considered qualitatively different?  (I.e., starting with the identification of rapist and boss might provoke criticism about why she would continue to work with the man, which is beside the point and we don’t need to know her reasons, so she wants to arrange the letter to anticipate that reaction and head it off?)

Please note, I’m not questioning whether she’s telling the truth or denying the nature of the act or suggesting she should have handled it differently.  I study literature, and I’m curious about what’s happening in terms of narrative strategy.

FlipYrWhig, could it just be because she knows that there’s lots of people who will regard what her boss did to her not as rape, but as her cheating on her husband and later regretting it enough to try to cover the whole thing with a false rape accusation? I mean, as my own example demonstrates, that’s not something you have to be steeped in feminist theory to understand.

<blockquote?It’s not like he said, “I’ll sit out here in the car while your uterus is scraped.” He said, “I’ll sit out here in the car while your doctor does a pelvic exam to try and figure out the gestational age of the fetus.” </blockquote>

A doc (in the US at least) might do ultrasound, but they’d start with “do you know the date of conception” or “what was the date of your last menstrual period?” I’m not sure whether rape is a necessary-to-report crime under such circumstances, but regardless of the legalities I know I’d hate to be the husband listening to “Oh, I’m pretty sure the conception was on XX/YY, when I was on a trip out of the country.” I’d do it if it needed to be done, but neither of the people in this couple seem to have been much for confronting disaster head-on.

@ Aaron, that was my thought too—that’s the gist of what I mean in the “I.e.” bit above—but it looks like that choice is what drew the skeptical-to-hostile reaction from the advice columnist in the first place.  It seems like mentioning up front the fact that the rapist was the boss would have drawn _more_ sympathy, because it wouldn’t leave her open to the charge that she was leaving out key facts.  It seems like the advice columnist felt jerked around, and then the columnist started to imagine the _husband_ feeling jerked around, which gave rise to that objectionable bullying tone in the reply.  The unusually-shaped quality of the narrative and the timing of the crucial disclosures played a big part in leading the columnist to be _less_ sympathetic. 

Of course the columnist could just be a dickwad too.

Kyra just said: “Also, he’s a proprietary dickwad who won’t “lower himself” to loving or even supporting a child that he can’t see as an extention of himself.  He can’t even love that child as his wife’s child, no, it’s “some other man’s.”

I have to put myself out here and ask about this; maybe ginmar is right and I am stupid, but I actually don’t see what’s wrong with this.  I noticed the thread about biology not mattering even a little bit, and I don’t really agree with it; biology does matter to some people, and it doesn’t really seem fair to me to dismiss them for it.

Second, even as someone who could raise someone else’s kid—probably, anyway; I’ve never tried so I don’t really know, but I think I could—I’m still not sure if I could raise the child of the man who raped my wife.  The tone I got from ginmar suggested that I would have no right to an opinion, but I have to disagree with that, too; it hurts me when someone hurts my family, and I don’t understand why it’s not OK for the husband of a rape victim to be uncomfortable or even angry with this.

I’m completely serious here; what am I missing here?  I’ve not encountered many people criticizing men who won’t date women with children, so why is it so much worse to refuse to raise a child that’s not yours who was conceived while you were married?

I’d say he’s a Rape-Culture-Embracing dickwad. Not unlike Garner. And you know they’re just the latest in a long line of rape-culture-embracing dickwads that this woman has chosen to associate with, if she doesn’t understand that the scenario she describes is still rape. I blame this sort of nonsense on Leviticus: If a woman is raped in a field, the rapist is stoned to death, but if she’s raped in a town, both rapist and victim are executed, because she could’ve yelled for help. There are rules as to what you’re supposed to do as a rape victim, and if you don’t adhere to the rules, well, it’s as much your fault as it is his. And the husband probably felt emasculated because a) his property rights were violated, b) he couldn’t do anything about said property rights being violated and c) her body rejected his seed for the rapist’s. So he’s all caught up in feeling sorry for himself and can’t be expected to attend to his wife’s emotional needs, and besides, part of him probably blames her anyway, because she sometimes drinks too much or her skirts are too short, or whatever the fuck. She needs not only a good therapist, but a bunch of gender studies courses.

Biology does matter. It’s not just about immortality. You see yourself in your children. They have, from an early age, obvious physical and personality traits they have inherited from you. It is magical. Having shared genetics with your children makes you feel like you have a deeper understanding of them, that the way they experience the world is akin to the way you experienced the world at that age. To dismiss this as irrelevant is myopic.

For certain, part of the shared experience of childhood with my siblings is sharing a genetic makeup which has predisposed us to certain things.  In an extreme case and crass case, three of my siblings share a birth defect (not obvious, but debilitating) that only occurs in 1 in 10,000 people.  The shared burden and decisions made there could never be equaled in a family consisting of only adoptees.

Blood-ties are inherently special, because unless you’re a complete denialist of the material world, your genetic makeup constitutes are good portion of who you are.

Nobody says genetics don’t matter. We said genetics aren’t everything. If genetics were all-important as Peter claimed and if it were really such a heroic and self-immolating sacrifice as he claimed to raise a child that doesn’t share your genetics, then loving step- and adoptive parents would be very very rare, and obviously they’re not.

Trust me. Don’t climb into bed with people like him, because their views would fit in perfectly with the ancient Roman paterfamilias view that women are portable wombs that men own for the purpose of producing children one likewise owns.

And we all share genetics anyway, on a scale far vaster than any piddly American concept of “family” or “descendants”. I would argue that we have a genetic impulse to see our species survive in general and that this impulse is directly contradictory to the idea that we’re all wired to care only about children we personally directly produced (and fuck the rest of ‘em).

Blood-ties are inherently special, because unless you’re a complete denialist of the material world, your genetic makeup constitutes are good portion of who you are.

Or at least, you have been steeped in this belief and do not imagine it being otherwise.

Alternatively, one might imagine there is inherently nothing “special” within or about the the material or biological world: that we are all almost genetically identical (somewhere over 95 percent) to chimpanzees, just as one example.

Our attachments, emotions, and thoughts about other people are almost if not entirely a function of social programming, and not biological destiny—which is not destiny at all.  My own personal experience is that I dearly love many of the people who share a similar biological heritage to me—and absolutely detest some of them.  (I can’t even stand being in the same room with the single extant person in this universe whose genetic identity is closest to mine.)  On the other hand, I dearly love my best friends—in fact, more than most of the people who share a recent biological heritage with me.  (My best friends are fortunate in that respect—they are at a far lower risk of heart disease and eczema than I am.)

Perferrring a child over another child on the basis of genetics is not a material or biological fact—it’s merely social programming.  In fact, many if not most of the other animal species on the planet do not make the distinction.  Claiming otherwise is projecting personal and societal preference onto the “material” world—which has no such hangups.

“Perferrring a child over another child on the basis of genetics is not a material or biological fact—it’s merely social programming.”

Interesting discussion of this here:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Wild-Animals-705/animals-killing-offspring.htm

Also some good links in that discussion.

If genetics were all-important as Peter claimed and if it were really such a heroic and self-immolating sacrifice as he claimed to raise a child that doesn’t share your genetics, then loving step- and adoptive parents would be very very rare, and obviously they’re not.

From an evolutionary point of view, it also means that our species would have died out millennia ago if we were unable to care about humans who were not genetically related to us.  Even a frickin’ crocodile rushes to the defense of a juvenile even if it’s not its offspring.  We never would have survived as a species if humans were only able to love and care for their own genetic offspring.

Interesting discussion of this here

That theory would make perfect sense if humans never killed their own genetic offspring.  But they do, which kind of brings the theory into question.  Non-biological offspring may be killed more often than biological ones, but biological ones are killed, too.  What’s the explanation for that?

“Non-biological offspring may be killed more often than biological ones, but biological ones are killed, too.  What’s the explanation for that?”

Crazy people?

This, from one of the linked articles blew my mind:

“a child living with one or more substitute parents was about one hundred times more likely to be fatally abused than a child living with natural parents. In a Canadian city in the 1980s, a child two years of age or younger was seventy times more likely to be killed by a parent if living with a stepparent and natural parent than if living with two natural parents.”

In humans, how much of this is social programming and how much is genetic likely cannot be accurately determined.

In humans, how much of this is social programming and how much is genetic likely cannot be accurately determined.

And therefore, imperative statements regarding the supposed privilege of near-consanguinity are premature at best.  In fact, we are in many cases limited to looking at higher primate behaviour and extrapolating therefrom—and looked at broadly, that hardly supports a notion of “perpetuating the individual line” as a genetic imperative.  (I grant you, most if not all higher species do like to fuck for some reason.)

We should also consider the possibility, even given primate behaviour you offer as supporting your position, that it too is attributable to socialization at least in part.  Chimpanzees, for example, are highly social creatures.  Needless to say, human social behaviors tend to be far more complex…and perhaps, far more influential.

Holocaust slashfic? Sweetie, you’re making excuses for the guy’s behavior and blaming the woman. These are classic symptoms of somebody who’s apologizing for rape and not taking the victim’s side, even though there is plenty of reason to do so. That you can extrapolate Holocaust slashfic from setting pen to paper just shows how paranoid your little jumping bean of a brain you have.

Honestly, I kinda agree with nekouken that leaving isn’t necessarily assholeish (or if it is, it’s the kind of assholeish that I can imagine myself being.) He’s not leaving because she’s been raped (I believe), he’s leaving because she is having a child he doesn’t want—I would too. I have no interest in raising a child (my own or someone else’s) so if someone tried to force that on me I’d be outta there too.

And I’d like to think that, like the husband in the story, I too would stick around (at least legally) until the child was born. I wouldn’t abandon someone I (presumably) loved during a pregnancy or anything, but neither would I be a parent unwillingly—to tie it back into the duty discussion, a bit, I would be willing to take on the duty of helping a loved one in distress but I wouldn’t take on the duty of raising their child. For one thing, I wouldn’t love the child (I wouldn’t even *know* the child.) It’s not “abandoning” a child to refuse to take part in its life before the child even exists any more than it’s “murdering” a child when you abort a pregnancy.

If we’re going to treat this woman like an adult who can make her own choices, then I think we have to stick to that. Clearly getting impregnated by a rape is *not fair* and it is terrible, but one’s actions proceeding from that have known consequences: if you keep the pregnancy you’ll likely end up with a child. If you insist on having a child when your spouse doesn’t *want* a child they might leave you. If it’s not their child then they won’t be legally obligated to help you support it. If you know all this and still decide to become a single parent then yeah, I sympathize ‘cause that is crazy-tough, but I refuse to infantilize a woman to the point that I assume she had no idea this wasn’t going to be a party. (It doesn’t sound like he deceived her into thinking he would be there, and that he wanted the baby, and then dumped her and ran the second she gave birth. It sounds like she knew what she was getting into and made her decision knowing that he was not interested in being a father.)

I would behave the same (assholeish?) way towards almost any huge, life-changing decision that my partner made unilaterally. If she went ahead and adopted a kid over his protests he would have no obligation to all-of-a-sudden love it and care for it. If she bought a house even though he didn’t want to why would he sign the deed for it? If she moved to the other side of the world, yeah, he might decide to follow her because he loved her enough and wanted to be with her enough but no one would argue he *had* to or he would be a terrible person. (I see this as different than ditching someone for getting cancer: that is more parallel to ditching someone for being raped, which is not under their control. What he did I see more as ditching someone for getting lung cancer and then refusing to try to stop smoking. Yeah, they have a right to do what they want with their body but you also have a right not to stick around for it.)

It’s not coercion to leave someone if they do something you don’t like—it can be a little bit assholeish, sure, but can’t trying to foist an unwanted baby on someone be assholeish too? She prioritized keeping the pregnancy over keeping her marriage (assuming the marriage would have survived even without the introduction of a baby) and that’s *fine* because that’s what choice is *all about* but you can’t tell me that he can’t respond to her priorities by making some of his own, with his desires being prioritized over childcare. I prioritize my lifestyle over taking care of little babies all the time (I *could* go adopt one of the huge number of orphaned children out there right now, and leave my career behind, but I don’t.) And maybe that’s assholeish. But it’s also my right.

The most common reason for killing one’s biological children is self-interest, as infanticide is common practice when the mother or family unit is unable or unwilling to support a child.  Generally speaking, child/infant welfare greatly reduces infanticide rates, so the practice is not familiar to most of us.  Really though, when it comes down to it, infanticide occurs for the same reasons abortion does, including rape.

And if you’re talking about most of the animal species in the world, I suppose they large majority are insects, and they probably really don’t treat their offspring different than other babies, but that doesn’t really speak for much.  In species with K-type reproductive strategies, like humans, infanticide of non-genetically related children is a fairly well-observed practice, usually when a female takes a new mate so there’s really no question to the male that the offspring isn’t theirs.  Primates are particularly good examples, probably since they’re on the extreme of the r/K scale and their relative intelligence.  It’s worth noting that most mammals enter estrus again sooner if an infant dies than if it lives.  I speculate that this may explain why new males are more likely to kill young infants than older children.  Or maybe killing older children traumatizes the females more.  Anyway, given that plenty of species without much of a social life survive just fine, it’s probably exaggeration to claim humanity would have died out without random altruism.  Depends on how fierce the competition was, really.

Or short version:  Females tend to commit infanticide due to resource scarcity, males tend to commit infanticide to avoid cuckolding.  Giant oversimplification since behavioral patterns vary with the social setups, but there you go.

@ ginmar: Dear, sweet Jesus Jones, you are a collossal moron.  You clearly have no interest in an honest discussion and you’re apparently not even reading my posts.  Apparently I was right the first time: you’re ignorant and boring.  I’m now completely bored with you and I will be until you grow the fuck up and actually respond to what I said.

Have yourself a nice Thanksgiving!

He’s not leaving because she’s been raped (I believe), he’s leaving because she is having a child he doesn’t want

I interpreted it that he left because he didn’t think she was telling him the truth.  She actually doesn’t say he refused to raise a child that wasn’t his.  I read him as uncomprehending of the idea that she would willingly have and keep a baby conceived by rape (especially because she seems to have led him to believe it was a stranger rape rather than a case of date-rape/harassment).  He was supportive of the idea that she would have an abortion, but uncomfortable talking about it in front of the doctor at the clinic, and his feelings of support vanished when she decided to go through with the pregnancy (quite possibly because it made him think that she had made up a false claim of rape).  And now the problem is that she really was raped, but under different circumstances than she said at first, which if he knew he would perceive as validation of his suspicions, even if it’s not actually that (because it’s a different kind of rape, not “not rape,” but I doubt he’d care about the difference). 

I guess that’s another way of saying he refused to raise a child that wasn’t his, but for a reason other than wounded patriarchal pride or failure to empathize.  He empathized to the point where he could only see one compassionate course of action, abortion.  And that’s where he got hung up, and that’s where his dickwadness arises.  But I don’t see him as cold and cruel but as completely uncomprehending of why she would make that decision.  Of course, it’s her call.

It’s worth noting that most mammals enter estrus again sooner if an infant dies than if it lives.  I speculate that this may explain why new males are more likely to kill young infants than older children.

Yes, that’s a surefire way to force women into estrus, so that must be why it happens.

Uh, you do realize that humans don’t have estrus cycles, right?

Addressing #233 and replies, as Kiernan says, if part of the genre is taking the letter as the gospel truth, without doubt, then without question the man is not a dickwad.  We know this to be so, because she wants him back, even after seven years of intense analysis of her situation.  So any story we construct must by necessity see the man as a good person, indeed the best man she’s known in her life, or at least the best man willing to form a relationship with her, and we must proceed from there. 

To admit anything else is to admit that the author’s narrative is questionable, and even if it is, we’ve thrown that possibility out so we can have a discussion on the subject.

Naturally, but postpartum infertility is normal and extended through breastfeeding through similar mechanisms.  I was addressing mammals as a whole there, but even though humans don’t have estrus cycles as such, the same applies.

I would have an easier time helping to raise a child that resulted from a wife’s affair than one that was the product of rape.  It would be much easier to love the child, because that son or daughter wouldn’t be a constant reminder of my wife’s pain and suffering, and of my failure to protect her.

In this case, where the rapist was never even reported, it would be like handing him a massive victory.  Not only did he get a away with rape, but he cuckolded another man, and having the victim and her husband raising the child would undoubtedly the power trip of this rapist’s dreams.  Call me a jerk/douche/etc. but I would find this impossible to stomach.

We know this to be so, because she wants him back, even after seven years of intense analysis of her situation.

People have been known to pine for individuals who are for all intents and purposes horrible/bad for them. To me this guy is an ass, because he got so hung up over his wife being raped, that his irritation wouldn’t let him be in the room if the subject of dates came up with the doctor. He was more concerned with his hurt feelings than her trauma.

So any story we construct must by necessity see the man as a good person, indeed the best man she’s known in her life, or at least the best man willing to form a relationship with her, and we must proceed from there.

You know, by this reasoning, when my cousin fell foul of that last particularly nasty guy in the string of domestic abusers she spent a few years going through, it was wrong of my mom to beat the shit out of the guy, stick a pistol in his face, and tell him that the very next time he laid a hand on any of her relatives, she’d blow his fucking head off. After all, Cammie didn’t want this to happen; at the time, you see, she was sure she was in love with the bastard. So any story we construct must by necessity see the man as a good person, indeed as the best man she’s known in her life, or at least the best man willing to form a relationship with her, and we must proceed from there. The bruises are beside the point.

my mom [beat] the shit out of the guy, stick a pistol in his face, and tell him that the very next time he laid a hand on any of her relatives, she’d blow his fucking head off.

Oh, yeah, and: I love my mom. That is all.

Nekouken’s such a wonderful advertisement for the sort of guys Who Don’t Get It.

Aaron’s story reminds of those stories gun nuts like to tell that ‘prove’  their story. I don’t know where you live, but I’d be surprised if Dear Old Mum didn’t get arrested and charged with assault with intent and attempted murder.

This happened in Mississippi, almost twenty years ago now I guess, and the police never were involved so far as I know—frankly, I doubt they’d have much cared; it would’ve made about the dozenth time they were called to that house that year, and they had seemed no more fond than anyone else involved of any of the abusers who necessitated their presence. I realize it sounds like so much over-dramatized horseshit, and I certainly can’t prove otherwise, but I was there to see it happen.

they had seemed no more fond than anyone else involved of any of the abusers who necessitated their presence

Granted, I suspect this was less because they were domestic abusers and more because they were also no-account bums.

bagelsan:

For one thing, I wouldn’t love the child (I wouldn’t even *know* the child.)

I’m confused. Even as the child’s father, you wouldn’t meet him/her before he/she came out of the womb. How does fathering or not fathering a child affect whether or not you “know” said child until it is breathing the same air as you?

(I don’t mean to attack, here; I genuinely don’t understand what you mean.)

thesmos:

They have, from an early age, obvious physical and personality traits they have inherited from you. It is magical.

Not magic; genetics. But it still doesn’t mean that genetics trump everything. I’m very close to some members of my family; others I barely know. What brings those of us who are close together is not genetics, but shared experiences and similarities of taste and temperament; the genetic relationship provides the context for, or the possibility of, close relationships (family life), but it’s hardly a guarantee.

“Non-biological offspring may be killed more often than biological ones, but biological ones are killed, too.  What’s the explanation for that?”

Crazy people?

Because people who kill non-biological children in their care are perfectly well-adjusted individuals, who are just obeying a genetic imperative? (I know that isn’t quite what you were saying - or at least I hope it wasn’t - but it seems to me the logical conclusion of it.) The statistics you quote about relative chances of being killed are indeed disturbing, but I’m not sure anyone should be looking to the behaviour of murderers and domestic abusers to justify their squeamishness at the concept of raising ‘another man’s child’.

Genetic imperative or not (and really, if you know anything about genetics you know that there are much more complex processes at work than single, unnuanced ‘imperatives’), it’s still reprehensible.

You know, by this reasoning, when my cousin fell foul of that last particularly nasty guy in the string of domestic abusers she spent a few years going through, it was wrong of my mom to beat the shit out of the guy, stick a pistol in his face, and tell him that the very next time he laid a hand on any of her relatives, she’d blow his fucking head off. After all, Cammie didn’t want this to happen; at the time, you see, she was sure she was in love with the bastard. So any story we construct must by necessity see the man as a good person, indeed as the best man she’s known in her life, or at least the best man willing to form a relationship with her, and we must proceed from there. The bruises are beside the point.

You do realize my entire point was that either you must take her story at face value, or you are allowed to read between the lines, and that trying to have it both ways was silly.  All you’re doing with your stories is attempting to refute me by making my point.

Nic_C: I meant that I see leaving a woman who is pregnant as different than leaving a woman with a 2-year-old, for example. I forget who, but someone called what this guy did “abandoning” a child and I disagree, because there wasn’t actually a “child” yet at the time he made his decision. He didn’t get partway into the kid’s toddlerhood and then say “oh, crap, just kidding” as much as he knew even before there was a child that he didn’t want to raise it, and let the mother know that. The “knowing” comment wasn’t so much a point about genetically-related-fetus vs. not-genetically-related so much as the difference between a fetus and a child. The latter I would feel more obligated to than the former, even if neither were “mine.”

(I’m female, btw, so the fatherhood thing is a little abstract anyways. :p)

It would be much easier to love the child, because that son or daughter wouldn’t be a constant reminder of my wife’s pain and suffering, and of my failure to protect her.

The emphasis is where the problem really is, isn’t it? After all, in the original situation, the wife decided that it would be less painful to her to bear the child - yes, there are people who see the child as retrieving something good from a terrible tragedy. But you’re talking about completely ignoring your wife’s feelings in favor of the blow to your manly ego.

I mean, yes, if you couldn’t handle it, best to get the hell out of her life and the child’s; they’re better off.

Not exactly, mythago.  The problem is in handing the rapist the sweetest victory of his raping career.  Not only did he get away with rape, the rapist has made the victim and her husband raise his child.

If the wife wanted to keep the child, then its absolutely her right to do so; it’s not a decision that I would help to enable, though.

Call me a jerk/douche/etc. but I would find this impossible to stomach.

Okay.  You’d be a douche who was more concerned about his own fucking pride than about the welfare of a person you supposedly love.  And we’re not getting into the fact that this is all about your manhood.

Fair enough, Lucy.  But I argue that caring about the welfare of someone I love does not entail raising a rapist’s child for eighteen years.  Not wanting to be involved in that doesn’t require any kind of pride, just a very intense (and I submit understandable) dislike for the father/rapist.