ARCHIVE POST: Tuesday, August 14, 2007
(I know this is long but it is worth reading. I promise.)
Most of you that know me well know that I love to write. It is a backseat dream of mine to be published someday, but I definitely have a lot more to learn before I can add more to my leadership and evaluation of character knowledge. I digress.
Something recently sparked my interest or "hit a nerve" as some people say. I was a little curious so I decided to look up the word marriage up on Wikipedia. Some of the phrases I found were very interesting to say the least. Think about this:
"Sex with a married person other than one's spouse, called adultery, is universally condemned by all major world religions, and has often been criminalized. It is also against the governing law of the U.S. military. Nevertheless, three recent studies in the U.S. using nationally representative samples have found that about 10-15% of women and 20-25% of men engage in extramarital sex."
You are probably asking yourself what compelled me to inform you of this statistic. Last night I went to have some dinner with a friend, and he just so happened to be with another long time friend that I had not seen in years. I had heard that this guy got married and I started asking him about it. He said that he was divorced now. I said, "WHAT!?" He proceeded to tell me that he had caught his wife in bed with someone that she worked with, and was a friend of both of them. I buried my hands in my face, and mumbled to myself, "not again.."
You see, in the last few years of my life I have closely encountered FIVE, yes 1,2,3,4,5, of my friends (and family) that have been cheated on INSIDE a marriage.
Ladies and Gentlemen is this how we were raised? This is just mind boggling to me.
The bottom line is this. If you are married you need to know that there is always going to be someone out there that is more attractive than your spouse, and you will meet someone in your life that you feel that you may initially connect with more. There are millions of people out there, and whoever said that we have but only one true love in this world is an idiot. There are a lot of people that we can connect with deeply. I believe that some people may not love anyone else more than the love of their life, but that takes a special kind of person to think like that. And those that don't think like that need to know that they made a commitment to someone and need to practice a little self control.
What is very damaging to me is the effect that it has burned into my head. Now I am a strongly apposed to bringing outside baggage into a current relationship, but all that has happened to me has made me not want to get married anytime soon, but I do know that is because I have not been with or dated the person I am supposed to end up with. That's the tri-factor in my life.
One of the most amazing people I have EVER met is an author and speaker named David Coleman. In one of his books, "Making Relationships Matter: Nine Ways to Stay in Love for Life" he takes extensively about cheating. He says that, "cheaters search for someone, anyone, who can fulfill their self-precieved needs, voids, and desires. Victims are not hard to find since wounded souls are easy to spot." Cheaters prey on these victims. I've met David Colemen about 3 years ago at a conference in Chicago. He looked right at me as he was signing my book and asked what my troubles were. I was going through a rough time and I told him, "Its complicated." I will never forget what he told me because it cut me to the bone. He said, "It doesn't have to be." WOW!
In summation I know that I will be a good husband. I will be a good father. Nothing will keep me from accomplishing that. It has killed me to see what my friends have gone though, and I pray that doesn't happen to me, and I pray that doesn't happen to you. So I am asking you to be part of the solution.
"If you choose to cheat, you choose to lose me." –David Coleman
Please post your thoughts and comments..
- Nick Gray
(I know this is long but it is worth reading. I promise.)
Most of you that know me well know that I love to write. It is a backseat dream of mine to be published someday, but I definitely have a lot more to learn before I can add more to my leadership and evaluation of character knowledge. I digress.
Something recently sparked my interest or "hit a nerve" as some people say. I was a little curious so I decided to look up the word marriage up on Wikipedia. Some of the phrases I found were very interesting to say the least. Think about this:
"Sex with a married person other than one's spouse, called adultery, is universally condemned by all major world religions, and has often been criminalized. It is also against the governing law of the U.S. military. Nevertheless, three recent studies in the U.S. using nationally representative samples have found that about 10-15% of women and 20-25% of men engage in extramarital sex."
You are probably asking yourself what compelled me to inform you of this statistic. Last night I went to have some dinner with a friend, and he just so happened to be with another long time friend that I had not seen in years. I had heard that this guy got married and I started asking him about it. He said that he was divorced now. I said, "WHAT!?" He proceeded to tell me that he had caught his wife in bed with someone that she worked with, and was a friend of both of them. I buried my hands in my face, and mumbled to myself, "not again.."
You see, in the last few years of my life I have closely encountered FIVE, yes 1,2,3,4,5, of my friends (and family) that have been cheated on INSIDE a marriage.
Ladies and Gentlemen is this how we were raised? This is just mind boggling to me.
The bottom line is this. If you are married you need to know that there is always going to be someone out there that is more attractive than your spouse, and you will meet someone in your life that you feel that you may initially connect with more. There are millions of people out there, and whoever said that we have but only one true love in this world is an idiot. There are a lot of people that we can connect with deeply. I believe that some people may not love anyone else more than the love of their life, but that takes a special kind of person to think like that. And those that don't think like that need to know that they made a commitment to someone and need to practice a little self control.
What is very damaging to me is the effect that it has burned into my head. Now I am a strongly apposed to bringing outside baggage into a current relationship, but all that has happened to me has made me not want to get married anytime soon, but I do know that is because I have not been with or dated the person I am supposed to end up with. That's the tri-factor in my life.
One of the most amazing people I have EVER met is an author and speaker named David Coleman. In one of his books, "Making Relationships Matter: Nine Ways to Stay in Love for Life" he takes extensively about cheating. He says that, "cheaters search for someone, anyone, who can fulfill their self-precieved needs, voids, and desires. Victims are not hard to find since wounded souls are easy to spot." Cheaters prey on these victims. I've met David Colemen about 3 years ago at a conference in Chicago. He looked right at me as he was signing my book and asked what my troubles were. I was going through a rough time and I told him, "Its complicated." I will never forget what he told me because it cut me to the bone. He said, "It doesn't have to be." WOW!
In summation I know that I will be a good husband. I will be a good father. Nothing will keep me from accomplishing that. It has killed me to see what my friends have gone though, and I pray that doesn't happen to me, and I pray that doesn't happen to you. So I am asking you to be part of the solution.
"If you choose to cheat, you choose to lose me." –David Coleman
Please post your thoughts and comments..
- Nick Gray
No comments:
Post a Comment