A friend of my family has been left by her husband of 38 years. Until I learned of this yesterday, I would have called him a friend of the family, too.
The reasons I currently hold D. in contempt are five-fold:
1.) As a child who has been messed around by her father's romantic decisions, both as a kid and as an adult, I am offended that D. would behave with so little regard to the feelings of his adult children.
2.) As an atheist/UU who is often asked where my moral compass is if I don't have a god, I am offended that D.'s church-attending Christianity, supposedly the moral center of his life, will not be held responsible for his selfish behavior.
3.) As someone with very dear friends who are gay, I am offended that D.'s casual disregard for the institution of heterosexual marriage is what the so-called "defenders of marriage" are fighting for.
4.) As someone who has spent the past year studying marriage and preparing to get engaged and then to get married, I'm offended that an institution I've learned to value so much -- an institution which I'm preparing to enter in less than six weeks -- is being shitted on. Unilaterally ending a 38-year marriage -- maybe dull, maybe unhappy, but certainly never violent, abusive, or corrupt -- is akin to murder.
5.) As someone who abhors cowardice, I'm offended that D. made no effort to fix his marriage, secretly packed his car, and left one morning. That might disgust me more than everything else combined. It reveals a very poor quality of character.
