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A journalist from a small town must go to the big city to cover a story but isn’t familiar with the city at all. The spouse calls a friend to pull guide duty in that city. When the journalist and the guide met, sparks flew. No touching, no hand holding, just looking deeply into one another’s eyes and lots of meals together. It was like a high school romance. Is that cheating?
A woman is thinking about going to her thirty year high school reunion and by chance reconnects with her high school flame. She knows he’s married, he knows she’s married, but they flirt back and forth through their Facebook accounts becoming obsessed with each other. Just before the reunion, she convinces her husband and children to go with her. At the reunion, she shies away from her old flame whom she notices didn’t bring his wife. Is that cheating?
A wife went to lunch with some friends and met a man friend of one of her friends. They hit it off, making each other laugh and told each other secrets and became best friends in a very short amount of time. She knew she could tell him anything without any recriminations or judgments from him; and she even told him things she would never tell her husband. They talked and texted every day, several times a day. When her husband finally met his wife’s friend, he was uncomfortable at his good looks and his familiarity with his wife. He asked her to quit seeing and talking to him. She reluctantly agreed to do so. Then, within a few days, she went back to lunching with her friend, and talking with him, but keeping her “best” friend a secret from her husband. Is that cheating?
All of these stories are told as true in the current Redbook magazine. Are your surprised that most respondents to the poll said the first account was not cheating, the second one was not cheating, and only concerning the third account did more respondents say it was cheating saying that sharing secrets that you do not share with your spouse is cheating.
Seriously?
In a 2006 Pew Research poll, the only issue considered more morally wrong than cheating on taxes (79% consided that morally wrong) was 88 percent of the people said cheating on your spouse is morally wrong. However, sex between unmarried adults the respondents were split 35 percent morally wrong and 37 percent saying it wasn’t a moral issue at all with 22 percent saying it was morally acceptable. Albeit that was six years ago, the General Social Survey has been asking the same questions on their surveys for 40 years and that Survey says basically the same thing. In fact, since 1973 there is a 10 percent increase in the number of Americans who see adultery as morally wrong with 14 percent of woman reporting infidelity and 20 percent of men reporting their infidelity.
With so many voicing this view, why are we subjected to so much infidelity and homosexualism on TV and in movies? What is wrong with the entertainment industry as well as the marketing industry that we are subjected to offensive content which is not in harmony with our inner most feelings about moral behaviors? Do entertainment and marketing execs have their fingers on the pulse of America or are we actually being hypocritical when we answer those poll questions?
What is our moral obligation? Should we tell our best friend that her husband is cheating on her? Should we tell our boss that we saw his wife out with a good looking man, their heads close together and their feet playing footsie?
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'Refreshment in Refuge' Copyright 2012 © Gina Burgess. 'Refreshment in Refuge' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with their complete bio and a link to www.liveasif.org/ 2) 'Refreshment in Refuge' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.
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