Angel Criado

I genuinely appreciate the detailed response Will, and I agree at the root of everything here is a fundamental philosophical difference that informs our orientations. I am Christian, but I suppose I have a different interpretation of what we are called as Christians to do. I believe accepting and alchemizing suffering is a major part of being a Christian, and I have no trouble enduring it for a just cause. I would die for my faith. Where I part ways is including marriage in this equation, especially when the woman in question is operating with indifference or malintent. I do not believe that men are serving God in any way by allowing a woman (who is not serving God herself in these cases) to abuse and extract from them. The roles and attitudes a married couple should have are outlined in the bible clearly, and I deem a pattern of ignoring them to be an abandonment of vows; de facto, if not de jure. It is not a matter of selfish, individualistic maximization to leave in these scenarios. Evil entities work through people to parasite off of the energy of others; accordingly, I consider remaining with a bad faith woman akin to feeding a demon. I judge this interpretation to be correct, because of the fruits. The more you give these women, the more they take, and frequently the more vicious they become. I do not think you believe this matters, however, because you believe the spiritual path for a Christian man is to suffer for Christ, and you have tied staying in your marriage to serving Christ. You believe that a man should be the best husband he can be (we agree on this), but if a woman does not reciprocate or indeed abuses her husband this doesn't matter - a good Christian man cannot leave without disobeying God. It is better for him to stay and suffer, and treat his marriage as a "cross to bear." This glorifies him, and God in the process. Putting aside the obvious fact that a torture rack is an utterly unpersuasive vision of marriage for Christian men, I find it pernicious on some level that suffering for Christ is being conflated with suffering for a woman's ego, in the same way I find the incessant worship of women's feelings, rather than truth, to be a form of idolatry. Christ was a truth-teller - he made enemies, he overturned institutions, he died rather than lie - yet men are somehow shamed for rebuking their wives for their bad behavior? Catering to a woman's dysfunctional patterns and taking it on the chin doesn't make you a good Christian - it makes you a coward; it is a form of lying; not only in words, but in actions. Even if you felt divorce was a spiritual violation for these men, you could still encourage them to separate, and deprive these women of their energy and attention. There is notably no biblical prohibition against that, and in most cases it would have a similar effect. I don't understand doctrinally why it is not a tool in the toolkit for you. But my real problem with the assertion that "staying in a marriage is a biblical command," is that biblical marriage, or indeed marriage as outlined in Catholic doctrine, does not even exist in society anymore. It cannot exist anymore, regardless of the continuity of the term "marriage" or what church claims, because there is no legal or cultural framework anymore to support it. That these self-evident support beams of the institution were not specifically noted by Jesus or the church fathers does not mean they should be ignored as irrelevant, any more than it needs to be said that the color of the sky is blue. Their absence vitiates, because since they've been gone the structure has collapsed. During Jesus' time there was no conception that a woman could be anything but obedient to her husband; it would have been considered laughably absurd for a woman to be able to divorce her husband and take half his assets (or more), as well as the children, on an emotional whim. Yet this sort of behavior is not only allowed today, it is normalized and even publicly encouraged. Men were prohibited from divorcing their wives in the past (absent infidelity) because these women depended on them for survival; wives were a husband's responsibility because he had total authority over them. This was moral and just. Additionally because of this power dynamic, husbands were also told to cherish their wives; women in turn also had social and practical incentives to be good wives and respect their husbands, since their happiness depended on it. Yet now it is the complete opposite: men have no authority in marriage - except that which they create with their own will (which you would deny them) - and women have no intrinsic incentive, socially or economically, to comply. This means, to the extent marriage remains a sacrament as you said, it has been defiled. Modern marriage has become the equivalent of the eucharist being dumped in a toilet bowl someone just took a shit in. Our relationship to it must change, because it has changed. That does not mean of course that there aren't holy marriages today, but the spirit of God lives in these marriages for one and only one reason: because of the way the man and woman act within it. They sanctify the institution themselves out of its current default, corrupted form - and they only do this by transcending the lower consciousness emotions of the ego, like vanity and shame. But the only way they get there sometimes, Will, is by being willing to lose the marriage and the distorted form it currently exists in. That is the only way for both people within it to move up in consciousness, towards the love and peace Christ told us to embody. Perhaps the fact that I'm willing to go there does make me a pragmatist, but my goals are not material gratification at the end of the day; sex is just a signal I'm on the right path with a guy. The real goal is a spiritually profound union that God is very palpably present within, both inside the bedroom and out. And I'm sorry, but that sacred phenomenon simply does not exist in a marriage where the woman is so caught up in her own ego she will hardly sleep with her husband, let alone respect him, no matter what he does or how much he pleads. No one feels it; it's absurd to state it. That man may have the comfort of God in his pain, but that marriage itself does not have God's blessing. At any rate, we will not agree, because we do not only have different metaphysics but ultimately different goals, so I do not think there is anything more to say on the matter. The world is changing fast, and I do not care to support any structures in this world that bear barren fruit, regardless if their terms (not the substance) has biblical support from a different time and place. I do not think we have this luxury. The Church must have answers to modernity's problems, and when it comes to the problems between men and women, right now it doesn't. Right now you could argue it is part of the problem - and as a Christian, this is a problem for me, because it means the essence of the faith will be eventually lost in doctrine's brambles. Men will move on from Christianity if the deadwood crowding the trunk of its truth isn't burned off. So I am happy to play the role of arborist - or if you prefer, arsonist - to test and see what interpretations endure the stress of these times. Many men will not agree with me on this, or on my approach towards life and marriage. They will agree with you that doctrine and dogma should be elevated above consciousness and results. Since I cannot help these men, because I do not share their constraints, I welcome them to work with you. You are a good man Will, and while I disagree with your view of the matter, you heart is in the right place. I wish you nothing but prosperity and success.