Protect your children from the sins of others?

[Guest]

And for what it's worth, I don't think it's a Mormon thing, I think it's a people thing. . . probably even a woman thing.

[Guest]

I have been thinking about this over night. Here are my two sides of thinking.

I have a friend who ended her marriage for reasons that I think were the most ridiculous and frivilous of reasons. I have no say in her decisions in life, but I was still angry at her for ending her marriage. I never told her of my anger (I'm sure she felt it as our relationship cooled at that time for various reasons). But, I had no right to anger. Neither she or her now ex husband are related to me. As much as I disagreed with her decision, it had no impact on me or my life. My anger was from my own sense of right and wrong. I had to learn to let go of the anger.

Had I had children, I can see how my anger would have kept us away from her and her family. Instead of telling her that I was angry at her (for which I had absolutely no right), I might have found some other excuse to avoid social situations with her.

However, in the scenario given, that's the only thing I could understand why family #2 wants nothing to do with husband #1. They just don't want to associate with him because they are angry at him or perhaps even disgusted with his actions/behavior. And sometimes, that anger takes a long time to get over.

Again, if I am wife #1 married to husband #1 and we are working on our relationship, then no matter the feelings from family #2, if they don't want to associate with my husband, then I cannot support that. Even if they are family. If we are having a family gathering (meaning, ALL family), then I will either bring my husband with me or we will all stay away. If family #2 invites us to a get together with them but tells me that husband isn't welcome, then I will tell them we will not be attending. They can work through their anger/disgust/whatever, I can still keep in contact with them, but social gatherings are for my family and as long as he is my family, we will attend or stay away together.

Easier said than done, I know.

Spot on, beefche. My philosophy and advice to the other parties has been that no matter how angry we are at him for hurting his wife, who we love, it would benefit their family most to support them staying together (as long as he's working on recovery and making amends, which he is). I'm standing alone on that island now, but I hope some hearts will soften over time.