What a weird scenario
by ndtnguy (2019-09-02 11:03:54)

In reply to: This is going to be a weird poll question  posted by p.s. I am not a crackpot

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A few thoughts, in which I will try to do something other than simply replicate things already said:

1. If you marry a person, and that person then goes out and cheats on you, that's one thing. You made a promise, and the promise isn't conditional; if both parties intended to keep their promises when made, they're still binding even if one party acts in a manner incompatible with them. That's part of the deal. Marriage isn't like a contract for the manufacture of widgets, where A's obligations are discharged by B's first material breach.

2. But this scenario is different: John and Ellie got married when Ellie had cheated before and John didn't know it. That goes to the premise of the marriage; John probably doesn't need to settle for divorce, he probably has grounds for annulment based on fraud. The question he faces isn't just "should I stay married to a person who wasn't faithful," but "would I have been willing to marry someone who already wasn't faithful and who had hidden that from me"?

Obviously only John can answer that second question for himself. Certainly if---as is entirely reasonable---his answer is "no," then he should do as he is doing.

3. (Cue tangent): at the same time perhaps people generally oughtn't to date for seven years before getting married. I guess if John and Ellie were high-school sweethearts and spent some time dating long-distance during college that wouldn't be as long a time as it sounds. But without running through an entire set of assumptions, I bet they're not 24, and that this might have played out differently had (a) they gotten married years ago or (b) they had thought more carefully about the question "do I want to marry this person" from the outset of their relationship.

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