SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Why is that?

The short answer is because as a whole, society has made it acceptable to be lazy entitled people.

Not EVERYONE is like this...but I see it more in my generation then any other.

You dont HAVE to have cell phone at 8 years old. You dont HAVE to have those Nike shoes. You dont HAVE to have that fancy car to get to work.

I think parents want to give their kids better stuff then they had, which is great, but they forget that just giving something to someone will not teach them the value of what it took to get them in the first place.

My kids are 4 and 2...and they know that they have to work to get what they want. You want chocolate milk? fine, first you have to ask polietly for it, then get the milk and chocolate syrup out for me (and then the kicker) put it away when we are done with it.

I dont think the kids I grew up had much demanded of them. And it goes into many aspects of life.

I do agree that we are a have more generation., but what I think is missing is that we are no longer grateful for what we do have.

In church just last week it was on this very topic how we need to show appreciate for what we have, to thank God, to thank people. I also think that people think that having more will make them happy. I believe we have lost what happiness is. It is not the next big thing we buy, or the fancy car, or the greatest vacation.

And maybe that is were this comes in.

generation had far far less then we have now...and yet they were more content.

I was born during WW2. My father was “Called Up”. He rarely talked about the war when he came back. My parents lived in an industrial area which was a target, and finished up having most of the town center flattened. My mother spent the war with relatives, in a rural area. She had one small child and she went through the pregnancy with me alone.

What I do remember post war, was that no-one around me was expecting “someone” to fix everything for them. Most people were getting on with their daily lives and not expecting someone from the government to come and blow their noses for them. Hard times can bring out the worst and the best in people, we all know that.

One of the “advantages “ of the war was that it did take women into the work world, of necessity, and generally that continued afterwards. It must have been quite an adjustment if the husbands came home, and if they didn’t, the women were better able to take care of themselves.

When I was a teenager, I could spend an evening with my friends and walk the mile or so home at 11:00PM and not worry. It is not safe to do that now. Around that time, CND was formed, and with the egotism of the young I was ranting off to my mother about world destruction. She quietly said, don’t you think we thought the end of the world was coming during the last two wars. They had chemical war fare, they had nerve gas. There was unspeakable destruction caused by firestorms, both in England and Germany.

As for Leopold’s view – no generation is perfect. We are still polluting the planet. We kill 60,000 people with an arthritis drug before it is taken off the market. We use our science to pollute the gene pool in plants, and then fine farmers who’s crops are contaminated by said modified plants.

I just saw on TV an item about a 16 year old girl getting drunk and being sexually molested in a party. There are hundreds of bits of video taken on cell phones by other teenagers at the party now posted on the web. No-one tried to stop it or call the police or at least an adult. Apparently this type of thing is getting quite common.

I could go on.

In the future people could look back and see the negative or the positive of this period in the same way as on this thread. I don’t think selflessness and independence will be one of the overriding impressions though.

Okay...so I have really thought about the many good responses to this post.

I must admit...I believe one of my motivations for posting this is...I am of this "spoiled" generation of folks. I have been tempted to act very selfishly, thought very inappropriate thoughts about being with other women....some in a carnal, lustful way...some in a "how good would it be to be with a woman that stood by her man" holistic way. Both of these attitudes are weak...but I was tempted to take that route. I was tempted to act like a spoiled boy and act in ways that "John" would not have.

...and I think some of society would have supported me in this.

That is why it is important for me to have boundaries and be mindful of who I associate with. Left to my own accord I would quit my own journey, effetively stopping my growth in an area I need to grow, I desire to grow....but I get tired, I get selfish, I stumble.

Think this post was my way of processing through my struggle some more.

I do regret that I made at least one person feel bad, offended her.

Thanks for the well thought out responses. This confirms the theory that being kind to someone doesn't mean you agree with them.

Thanks for being kind to me.

God be with us all.

I dont think the kids I grew up had much demanded of them. And it goes into many aspects of life.

This resonates with me undefinabl13.

I was not expected to make my bed, help with dinner, or many other things.

I was expected to have manners. I was expected to do outdoor tasks...but as I think about who put that expectation to me...it was my Grandpa, who lived next door. He was part of The Greatest Generation.

In fact, many many times in my life I have got through trials by thinking of Grandpa. He died when I was 10...so the fact that he is still a factor in how I deal with life is a credit to his character and proof that kids at a very young age pick up life skills (or don't).

This realization should help my wife and I be better parents....help prepare our girls for the road rather then prepare the road for our girls.

Even though I have selfish desires within me...I get very excited about the good our family can achieve through this trial of infidelity. I take peace in that feeling.

Peace to us all.

I do agree that we are a have more generation., but what I think is missing is that we are no longer grateful for what we do have.

2oldforthis...I feel this is a truth. I think it dates back to original sin. Adam and Eve had everything they could have ever needed in the Garden of Eden...maybe even similar fruit on other trees that grew on the "forbidden tree". And yet, what did they fixate on? That which they did not have. They ate it thinking it would satisfy them (like our spouses reasoned to themselves why they are committing adultery)...they discovered that it did not do as they had imagined and they actually found themselves in a worse spot then they were before (just like adultery has done to everyone it affects).

So this is not unique to our generation...it is as old as time. BUT, we are very slow to call sin sin. My own journey away from pornography is a prime example of that. It is sin, but for decades I fell into believing where society is at with regards to it...the attitude "Yeah, porn can be bad but it isnt sin. I mean, every man does it. Its natural. My wife and I still have a healthy sex life so its not like it is hurting my marriage...she even watches it with me sometimes."

It wasnt until I admitted it was sin was I able to repent and change my ways.

So this struggle is as old as Adam and Eve, but each generation appears to be weaker and weaker with regards to having the stomach to repent and change their ways for the "greater good"...seem to be more and more content to live for themselves.

It is human nature to do this.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 8:38 AM, October 18th (Friday)]

I want to add my two cents, since I just read this.

My great-grandmother, who died when she was in her late 90s in the early 1980s, used to often say "There is no such thing as the good old days, don't let them tell you otherwise." She told us about how hard it was living without the things we took for granted. And she was a very modern woman since she divorced her first husband long before it was acceptable. He beat her, she refused to live her life like that, and divorced him. And even she admitted she didn't necessarily do it the right way because she met the love of her life and was pregnant before her divorce. She said the same things happened in her time, and people still talked about them, but as they got older, they just liked to pretend it was the young people doing those things.

I think it's simplistic to say that the generations after the 60s are, in essence, lazy quitters, or that we're entitled. Technology has made instant gratification the norm.

I also read an article I think last year about happiness and how our definition of what it means to be happy has changed. In the past, people were often happy with what they had, because it wasn't as available, or it was expensive, or they knew how it was to go without. Now, as a society we're tied up in needing something else other than what we have in order to be happy. I see this a lot with other parents I know who think they should be spending $500+ per kid for Christmas, and that you can't go to Disney without it being a weeklong $6k+ extravaganza, even if they are putting themselves in debt to do it.

This got me thinking how the affairs themselves are a type of quitting. My H, quietly, and without letting me know, kind of gave up on the idea of having a key element of the marriage he wanted and needed right before he started the affair. So, in a sense, he quit. (Which, ironically, is not like him at all.)

But, it was temporary, if that makes sense. Once forced to make a choice between the OW and our marriage, he made it decisively, and has not wavered. For that, I am immensely grateful.

As for me, I always thought cheating was a dealbreaker, but to be honest, I never seriously considered not reconciling. I knew we had too good of a marriage; that he was too good of a man, underneath his flawed behavior.

Ironiclaly, that original act of quitting, has opened him up to be 10x the husband to me that he was, and I am a far better wife, as well. It is crazy.

So, I don't know how this fits in with your original post BS -- I do very much value sticking with him, at least until this point. H worries that I will give up, because sometimes it is incredibly painful. But I feel incredibly strong in this regard, and 100% sure today that I/we are doing the right thing. So, I guess I am not a quitter.

But part of not quitting is also being present, being vulnerable, and expressing my hurt. These are things the Greatest Generation placed no value on at all -- at least from what I know. They stuck with things out of duty or societal pressure, which can be its own kind of prison, too.

Just some thoughts. I appreciate the conversation.

I too have a very difficult time calling men and women from that time The Greatest Generation. My parents were children post WWII.

My mother is Japanese and somehow missed the internment camps by some miracle. After the war, she and her siblings were ostracized in their Cleaver neighborhood. Children were encouraged to call her a murderer or a filthy Jap who hates America by their parents. All by the age of 6.

My father is also another minority. He built a successful business in his early 20's by 1962. He was told he was a lazy 20 something who only got lucky because he wasn't white (sound like anything we hear these days?) and people felt sorry for him.

My mom also told me so many horror stories of abuse and infidelity because the neighbor wives would gossip. Divorce wasn't "proper" and it rarely happened due to not wanting to cause a scandal. It was better to take the bruises and deal with the alcoholism than be a single mother.

Women would have affairs too but they were seen as cute and justifiable. The poor little house wifey in her apron type thing. E

Every generation has their good and bad so we have to keep that in mind.

Peaches2013...that was worth a dollar!

Thank you for commenting.

Technology has made instant gratification the norm.

I fish and float streams...I love to do it...my wife enjoys it too. A good friend of mine were talking about this...he has some grand children he tries to take fishing...they are not very into it.

His take is the natural world can not compete for attention from minds of children who are being affected by rapid fire electronic stimulants. Video games and instant search engines that bring so much stimulation to them, so quickly with so little effort. He feels it is setting a stage for an even more unhappy generation of people.

I don't know if I totally agree with this...but this easy access to "instant gratification" is a cause for concern.

Like I mentioned...pornography viewing is a from of instant gratification...primaly it feels good...but creates a void in a person that simply can not be filled by it. I feel A are in a similar vien.

It appears to me that the most fullfilling parts of my life are those that came with delayed gratification....my children, my career, our journey out of debt, my M to my wife (even though we are struggling now).

Thanks again for commenting.

(((bionicgal)))

I am tempted to quote your entire post. IT IS SO HOW I FEEL!

But part of not quitting is also being present, being vulnerable, and expressing my hurt. These are things the Greatest Generation placed no value on at all -- at least from what I know. They stuck with things out of duty or societal pressure, which can be its own kind of prison, too.

Yes, we know better so we can do better. Like other posters have pointed out...there is good and bad within each generation. It is a good goal to look at each generation honestly, try to harvest their wisdom, recognize their short-falls, and find solutions to those short falls....combining their positive solutions with our own "new" solutions to issues where they came up short...and move forward as a culture.

God bless you.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 8:54 AM, October 18th (Friday)]

I was not expected to make my bed, help with dinner, or many other things.

My mom is a baby boomer and while she gave my brother and me many things she didnt get...we worked for it.

I dont think i made my bed, but we did pretty much everything else. Clean, laundry, cook, dishes, mow the lawn, pull the weeds..and that was at the house.

The farm was a whole different can of worms.

Cleaning a barn is no joke LOL...but we had cows to milk, hay to cut/bale/and stack. We had fences to mend and babies to birth. There was literally something to be done at every second of the day.

After I left that to go to college, i got really lazy - and its only been until recently that I have been pulled out of lazydom with the horses.

I have to EARN that stupid horse every day LOL..he makes me work so hard for his attention - but man, when I get it - i soak it in.

Blakesteele, I just wanted to say Bless you for your work with Honor Flight.

I was at Arlington National Cemetary a couple years ago and saw a group of elderly gentlemen in wheelchairs and the men and women guiding them around were wearing t-shirts that said Honor Flight and we asked one of the attendants what that was. We were told it's a charity that raises money to fly veterans to DC to visit the memorials/Tomb of the Unknowns, and we were just so touched by that. We got a business card from one of them and I went home and ordered 2 of the men's t-shirts that read on the back, "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran." This is a wonderful charity and I'll probably order more shirts soon.

Bless them all.

Thanks for letting me threadjack.

I just wanted to say Thanks to BS for starting this post. It is so thought provoking getting everyones perspectives. It also made me ponder alot of what was said about A's and our decisions to try to R or D.

I know I could write a book on the FOO/present issues in my own family. I have often pondered the notion and have been told that I should. The facts are that my story is no more painful, inspiring, insightful, etc..than anyone elses. I have seen this ever since I started posting on SI and trying to process my own life with the help of others and attempting to give back some support when I could.

I agree that every generation has it's own hurtles to overcome.For example, We look at our own children and think why don't they get it, just like all the generations did before us. As BS pointed out it has been going on since the beginning of time and it will continue until the end of time. Children born in the last 20yrs have it just as hard as we had it, but in other ways. They now can't afford to move out of their parents home where we moved out after graduating high school. The reason is that they don't want to give up the things we think of as luxuries, like cell phones and laptops. The fact is for them to fuction in tody's society they have to have those things. Where we look at them as luxeries, they see them as necessities. With that technology comes bills that we never had growing up or in our early years getting started into our adult life. We could work a minimum wage job and still get by on our own without starving to death. No, we didn't have everything we wanted, but we had what we needed.

However along with the technology that we all now need, comes the increased threat of an A. Websites, text, IM, porn, FB, twitter, etc...are all open game for anyone seeking it. It really all comes back to morals within that person at a given time.

I have desired many times to have a real life SI meeting...and the response to this post has me once again desiring that.

I know there are GTG gatherings...and may some day be strong enough to attend without risking improper bonding. I really do enjoy thought provoking discussions...and have started to have them again with my wife (something we lost the ability to do, gave it up, whatever). However, their is still awkwardness between us....concerned that real life contact with another woman where I dont have the awkwardness from the betrayal could lead me down a bad path.

This is another reason why this site is valuable. I can connect with others, normalize my feelings, mature my thoughts with other adults and still keep firm boundaries in place with minimal temptations.

Thanks for everyones inputs...loved the diversity within it and the maturing of my original thought that has been derived from it.

God be with us all.

My parents were part of The Greatest Generation. My father was born in 1916, and my mother was born in 1922. They both lived through the depression.

My father was an alcoholic and he was verbally and emotionally abusive to my mother. He also cheated on her more than once. She stayed for 2 reasons - 1) she never finished high school and had 4 children to support, and 2) she was worried about what "everyone" would think. So she suffered in silence and the dysfunction in our home was visited on my siblings and later me.

I was born in 1960 - the baby by a long way. I was spoiled rotten. I didn't have to do a thing around the house and subsequently had to learn everything from scratch when I flew the nest at 18.

My mother, who was already in the clutches of dementia when my marriage broke up said the following to me, "Your dad and I didn't always have an easy road, but we stuck together." I told her that I tried to stick it out but my XWH was determined to divorce me and move on to the "love of his life" - there wasn't much I could do about it.

Before the A and D, I (we) raised our children to be hard working - they had chores and were expected to do them. We didn't have a lot of money so they had to work and earn their money. They were disciplined and loved. They know it takes work to get along in this world and I wouldn't call either of them quitters.

Some say that the current generation is lazy and wants instant gratification. But I also see another side. I see (some of) them being more kind and tolerant of people who do not speak, look, or act just like them. They are less judgmental. And they are bright.

NL

[This message edited by Newlease at 1:17 PM, October 18th (Friday)]