> So, let's not pretend that we know what is going on here.
Absolutely. When we make bold assertions like "X would Y" we are bringing a huge amount of personal bias, baggage and most of all ignorance to the table. It blinkers us to the vast range of possible realities that our impoverished imaginations (and our imaginations are always impoverished) are incapable of conjuring.
As an exercise, before posting "X must be Y" it is very much worth-while thinking of half-a-dozen movie scripts that could tell a story that would fit the known facts. In the present case they might look like:
1) Basil Fawlty-like character goes off the deep end upon discovering child from before his marriage
2) Uptight wife divorces husband for youthful indiscretion
3) Husband's former double-life as a spy revealed by accident of genetic testing
4) Husband's former criminal life revealed by accident of genetic testing
5) Christian wife divorces when accident of genetic testing reveals husband was not a virgin at marriage as he had always claimed
6) Radical feminist wife leaves husband when she finds out he once patronized--and impregnated--a prostitute...
The only thing we can say with any degree of certainty is that the reality is far weirder than anything we can imagine. It almost always is.
In none of the above cases would the marriage necessarily be describe as "not strong" prior to being put to the test.
To claim that "a strong marriage should have survived this" is vacuous tautology: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1087. It is true that a marriage strong enough to survive whatever happened would have survived whatever happened. It is also true that a big enough blow will disrupt anything weak enough to be disrupted by that blow (http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/hymn_strain.html)
Absolutely. When we make bold assertions like "X would Y" we are bringing a huge amount of personal bias, baggage and most of all ignorance to the table. It blinkers us to the vast range of possible realities that our impoverished imaginations (and our imaginations are always impoverished) are incapable of conjuring.
As an exercise, before posting "X must be Y" it is very much worth-while thinking of half-a-dozen movie scripts that could tell a story that would fit the known facts. In the present case they might look like:
1) Basil Fawlty-like character goes off the deep end upon discovering child from before his marriage
2) Uptight wife divorces husband for youthful indiscretion
3) Husband's former double-life as a spy revealed by accident of genetic testing
4) Husband's former criminal life revealed by accident of genetic testing
5) Christian wife divorces when accident of genetic testing reveals husband was not a virgin at marriage as he had always claimed
6) Radical feminist wife leaves husband when she finds out he once patronized--and impregnated--a prostitute...
The only thing we can say with any degree of certainty is that the reality is far weirder than anything we can imagine. It almost always is.
In none of the above cases would the marriage necessarily be describe as "not strong" prior to being put to the test.
To claim that "a strong marriage should have survived this" is vacuous tautology: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1087. It is true that a marriage strong enough to survive whatever happened would have survived whatever happened. It is also true that a big enough blow will disrupt anything weak enough to be disrupted by that blow (http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/risk_essay/hymn_strain.html)