Thread: Would you change yourself for your partner?

Originally Posted by cmind

You could have made a much better example. The one you gave is silly because it presumes that "cheating" is universally morally wrong. Do you really classify adultery with theft, rape, or murder?

It seems I picked the perfect example, as it elicited such an unusual and defensive response from you. My example in no way "presumes that cheating is universally morally wrong" and who said I was even beginning to attempt to "classify adultery with theft, rape, or murder?" It was just a random example I picked that I assumed would not be too "heavy" or complicated.

I certainly don't equate adultery with rape or murder, but I believe it can be as bad, or worse, than theft. At minimum, if your partner is loving and monogamous, it's completely breaking the trust of a person who is supposed to be closer to you than nearly anyone else on this planet, and in rare cases, you could be (hopefully) unknowingly infecting your spouse with a potentially fatal disease (absolute worse case scenario, of course).

However, none of this is the point, as I was simply choosing what I thought to be a simple example that fits the bill of an action which is nearly always wrong, but one that many people commit without remorse until they learn the error of their ways and the full repercussions of their actions. Only sociopaths think it's perfectly fine to cheat on a partner who is completely faithful, honest, and under the impression that they are one half of a monogamous relationship.

In interest of continuing a discussion on the OP's question, I'll ignore the fact that all of your responses have been extremely telling and offer a different example with which you might not take so much personal issue. How about a family intervention for a drug addict? If the family begs, pleads, and even guilts the addict to get help for their addiction, is the addict's change for their loved ones always "unhealthy" as you have claimed? While it's a fact that an addict will not truly change unless the change comes from within, the initial spark of motivation might very well not come from within the addict, but rather grow into true personal change once sourced from change FOR others. I believe you'd have a hard time arguing that it is "unhealthy" for a meth addict to kick their addiction, regardless the source of the initial motivation.