I once had a short-term relationship with a woman named Michele, who at the time that we got together was with a man named Bob. She said afterwards that we were children because we had laughed about beauty and nature while we hurt another human being. This bothers me. This bothers me because we are seeing here a double standard. In business world people hurt one another all the time as they compete with one another. Whereas with relationships we see this impossible standard that no human being can meet. I know an older couple to whom I will refer by their initials, D. and V.. D. was in a relationship with a man whom she does not now hold in high esteem; then she met V., at that time a science student, and they fell in love. They got married, and they raised a highly successful family while remaining with one another now into their 80s. According to some people, V. stole D., and their relationship is illegitimate. However it has been to the benefit of everyone that D. be with V. rather than with that man, and that the children be raised by V. rather than by D.'s ex-partner. One claim we hear is that you don't build happiness on others' misery. Business does all the time. As for relationships, in most of these situations it is the former partner that is building his happiness on the partner's misery. I have known many situations in which a person would give the partner everything that they have only to reap nastiness and brutality. Such situations are ones of exploitation. One party gives and the other party takes without compensating the other appropriately. What we have here is theft. And people practicing theft from their partners have no business using moral arguments. Why is it more legitimate to perpetuate abuse than it is to destroy situations of abuse? Why are relationships based on deception and violence more valid than relationships that help a person to get away from such things? Are we completely insane, or are we having our values dictated to us by players? The same people who used the skills that they used to con a woman into a bad situation, to convince everyone else that they are in the right? D. did the right thing by going for V. Here was a man who was honest, hard-working, responsible, intelligent and of ethical character. He rose to a high position in American science. Her children had the good fortune to be raised by a genuinely good father, which would not have been the case if she had stayed with her former partner. So it is time that these attitudes be re-evaluated. That something comes before something else does not make it more legitimate than something else. D.'s relationship with her former partner was not more legitimate than her relationship with V. V. did a much better job of raising the children than her former partner could have possibly hoped to do. And it is wrong that her ex's claims on her be held in greater esteem than her lifelong marriage. So it is time to confront this kind of thinking. Is it, or is it not, valid to compete with other businesses and build your happiness on other people's misery? Is it, or is it not, valid for people to practice relationships of exploitation and theft? And is it, or is it not, valid for people instead to fall in love and start relationships that are based on genuine passion and goodwill? I think it is up to all cultures to have this debate. As for me, I know what and whom I am supporting. I want to see the player role done away with, and relationships happening to be honest. And if that means breaking relationships based on dishonesty and supporting ones starting in passion and caring, then that is fine with me.
