The road to good life experience leads into and through use
of and participation in dynamic, causative and effective groups as
servo-mechanisms of the will of the individual towards achieving his chosen
goals. See earlier blogs for more discussion on this. A thorough understanding of this can easily
be rolled into a self-dedication towards
improvement of self in this area. If your spouse has gotten to or can be gotten
to such a point of self-determined understanding and self-dedication then it should not be
difficult to get them to agree that:
1)
not everything in the area of groups is
completely under control of a particular individual, but some things are.
2)
There is no excuse for allowing any such area of
complete control to fail in any fundamental way.
3)
Any such fundamental failure in an area of
complete control would severely compromise the individual's ability to gain
good life experience as a group member, and so thwart, or limit to some degree
his opportunity to gain good life experience and to grow as a spiritual being.
4)
Marriage and family are the fundamental groups
to which a spouse belongs. The form of a group is defined by policy or
agreements by all group members involved. A fundamental policy of the “marriage
group” is being true to each other-- not cheating with another woman by the
husband, or with another man by the wife. Maintaining agreement with this policy is completely under the
control of the spouse. Since it is such a fundamental agreement of the
marriage, and since the marriage is such a fundamental group, and since the
spouse can always fully control it, it should be seen that any violation of it
would have severe repercussions on the ability to face up to and participate in
groups. It would severely “rock the boat” and destabilize the ability to face up
to, agree with, support, maintain and carry out group policy in any context.
Well, if you can get the above points in with yourself and
your spouse you can stop right here and be satisfied with having stabilized
that part of your life within the context of the existing marriage paradigm.
However, some of us have shown ourselves to have a pioneering spirit. Can this
paradigm be improved upon? Possibly, but there must first be certainty on all
sides that the above points are in.
For the “pioneer spirit” here is a proposed improved
paradigm:
1)
The wife should be able to maintain full
confidence that the other half is not cheating. This confidence would come from
her knowledge of the husband's unwillingness to screw up his life further out
in the area of groups by breaking such a fundamental agreement in the marriage,
and by the fact that a hope of any such desired activity could exist until the
moment of its (possible) cancellation.
She could maintain the security of her marriage by periodically checking that her
spouse was still motivated by and making good progress on his purpose of group
participation and use and by maintaining
the following points:
1.
Each
spouse should be kept fully informed of any outside interest of the partner or
towards the partner before the fact of action taken.
2.
Each spouse would have full veto power over any
such wished for, proposed or planned activities.
3.
A man
would never be forced to say “No” to an interested party (although, of course,
he could still do so), but the interested party would be required to meet the
wife in person, meet any of her requirements/conditions/stipulations before
obtaining her consent or receiving her rejection.
4.
Any interested party would have to be willing to
participate as a subordinate activity to the original marriage in a way that
does not undermine its validity.
5.
The wife could veto before such a meeting but
should not do so before hearing the details.
6.
If the meeting takes place the husband should be
present.
7.
His loyalty should be primarily with his wife.
8.
He should be willing to and able to guarantee
the physical safety of both parties. If there is any doubt regarding this he
should reject the advance solely on this basis.
9.
The man should be completely willing to accept
the decision of his spouse. He should value her security and her ability to
control her life and view her decision as a way to maintain it.
10. The
wife might want to take into account that, since her gender has been lax in
applying themselves as civilizing influences, other women may be experiencing
that “good men are hard to find”. At the least, such a request should be a
reminder that she has found one.
2)
The above points would apply in a mirrored
fashion in the case of a wife having an outside interest with the husband as
vetoer.
3)
This improved paradigm would “dissolve” into the
traditional paradigm simply through both parties exercising continuous veto.
4)
In some cases and in some economic conditions
child rearing might be managed easier with more than two “parents”.
5)
If the new paradigm can be directly “stepped
out” from the conventional paradigm while maintaining and securing the base
relationship then it will have a greater chance for success.
Remember, the active ingredient required to make all of this work is a strong self-determined reach on the part of the spouse towards stronger groups to use as a servo-mechanism to achieve self-determined purposes and goals.