International Diplomacy

[Asforme&myhouse]

Is there a requirement to have two or three witnesses who say there was indeed a wasp on the other wife’s face?

 

[Mojo]

Is there a requirement to have two or three witnesses who say there was indeed a wasp on the other wife’s face?

Hmmm. I wouldn't think so. But that opens up another can of worms if you can't trust them to tell the truth.

 

[steve]

“......but I thought it was a wasp!”

“Umm, it’s the fifth time this week! I know , seventy times seven, but this is getting old!”

 

[andrew]

Thank you. I think I have both a problem expressing myself in what I'm actually thinking in my mind and what's coming out on the screen, and an unsophisticated development of dialectical logical patterns. It's been years since I was exposed to that, and that's all it was...exposure. Thanks for being patient with me.

I just prefer to have a few select set of absolutes in my household and life and that's what I'm trying to express. Having those absolutes and established consequences makes administration much easier. However, even those absolutes are very broad categories. We have an expectation of "respect" in our household. It's a broad term that allows me to maneuver around, but it's still an absolute principle.

So, the concept of abortion being murder, and a slap in anger being unacceptable under any circumstance are personal expectations, not something I would expect of someone else without trying to persuade them of my reality (which would not dwell in the realm of an absolute for them. Confusing? It makes sense in my twisted mind.

That being said, other than trying to swat a wasp off another wife's face, what explanation would justify one wife slapping the other wife in your household?

Well, it took us a few rounds to get there, but I think we’re finally converging. Thank you for your patience and your willingness to keep at this until we find some kind of connection.

I get what you’re saying about absolutes within your house, and then persuading others outside of your house, or at least I think I do. As a comparison, I would say that honesty has the same kind of absolute status in my house. I will listen to someone explain to me why they ‘had’ to lie, but the odds that I would cut them any slack are insignificant.

My thoughts on physical violence and corporal punishment are complicated enough to kick off a different thread, but for now I’ll say two things. First, I see a slap in the face as more of an insult and an act of defiance than an act of physical aggression in the way that, say, a punch to the throat would be. Second, and more importantly, the more egregious or aberrant someone’s behavior is, the more carefully I’m going to investigate and be sure I understand everyone’s story before taking any action.

 

[frederick]

Proverbs 18:13, He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.
And v:17, The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbor comes and examines him.

 

[Mojo]

Yes, as I said, a slap in the face is a violation of respect and personal dignity (or insult and defiance as you say).

I can try to hear the matter in my household, but fat chance there will be a justification worthy of absolution of consequence with slaps to the face. I will always give wife and kids an opportunity to explain, but the shades of absolute are pretty dark.

I am not a court of law, so I generally presume guilt when it comes to absolutes like respect and honesty, unless you can convince me otherwise. They can cnvince me, but it usually only happens about 10% of the time.

 

[andrew]

Well, back to the OP, I think the idea was to keep the peace so that all of this talk of face-slapping (why am I picturing the Monty Python fish-slapping skit?...) would be strictly hypothetical and sort of far-fetched. And the best way to keep the peace and prevent the war, imo, is to love and accept each wife the way they are and truly understand their pov so you can help each wife understand the other. And I submit that the way you know you have reached that level of understanding is that you can effectively argue your wife's case from her pov because you can see things the way she sees them.