Dear Abby and Ann Landers

In my August 13th post I mentioned Dear Abby and Ann landers:
“I used to collect interesting advice columnists answers to questions sent in (Dear Abby and Ann Landers etc). As their daughters took over their gigs and as time has passed I have found that I rarely read them for the questions and answers are too liberal for my liking.”

Coincidently last night I read an article in the September 2008 Focus on the Family magazine in the “thoughts from Dr. Dobson” section. The title was:

“Dear Abby, What are you teaching our children?
Many of you probably grew up reading the “Dear Abby” column, which appeared in newspapers since 1956. It was originally written by Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips, under the pen name Abigail Van Buren. Phillips retired in 2002, but the column continued under the tutelage of her daughter, Jeanne Phillips.

I’m sorry to report that while “Dear Abby” remains the undisputed champion of advice columns, in recent years, both prior an subsequent retirement, its reputation as a source of solid, homespun, traditional wisdom has been seriously tarnished. In 2007 the Culture and Media Institute conducted a study revealing an ongoing trend toward advice that is steeped in postmodernism and incompatible with biblical teaching. For example, 30 percent of Abby’s columns in 2007 dealt with sex, and 53 percent of those columns offered distinctly nontraditional views on sexual morality.

Specifically,”Dear Abby” does not encourage unmarried adults to abstain from sex, and she rarely finds adultery to be wrong. Abby also fails to tell to tell sexually active teens to cease their promiscuous behavior, and she finds homosexuality to be perfectly acceptable. In 2007 alone, the column also demonstrated a permissive attitude toward a wide range of questionable sexual behavior, including stripping, nudism, and cross-dressing.

The Culture and Media Institute summarized its study of “Dear Abby’s” 2007 columns this way: “as many as 20 million of Abby’s readers are under the age of 18. Millions of young men and women are forming their views on sex and relationships under the influence of a libertine advice and columnist who is advancing anything but traditional values.” For the full contents of the study, see culturalandmedia.com.

Abby reportedly receives more than 10,000 letters and e-mails every week. Her responses run in 1,400 newspapers worldwide every day, reaching 110 million readers daily---nearly three times the combined daily audience of ABC’s, CBS’s and NBC’s news programming. It is regrettable that a column that continues to be revered by millions of readers has, over the years, increasingly embraced the lies of moral relativism. Now, more than ever, those of us who espouse biblical principles must be discerning in the cultural voices to which we listen.”

I had also noticed the same moral slide in the “Ann Landers” column over the years. The original author, Esther “Eppie” Pauline Friedman Lederer (The identical twin sister of Pauline Phillips) morally slid faster and further than her sister’s column. When Eppie Lederer died in 2003 the Ann Landers name retired. Her daughter Margo Howard soon started writing under the pen name of “Miss Prudence” in syndication and in “Slate” on the internet.

The same comments by Dobson about Dear Abby could be applied to Miss Prudence’s advice as well. For many years one of my local papers, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, carried her column. I remember one day thinking, "I can’t read this anymore". Shortly thereafter the paper cancelled her syndication. Frequently, a provocative titled article from “Miss Prudence” shows up on my internet home page, and I ignore it. The few times I have looked at it confirms how damaging her advice is.

Scarlet Letter - Infidelity - Part Four of Four

Even as a single guy I have found the book "His Needs, Her Needs" to be a great read. I have read it multiple times. His basic premise is that if you don't meet your spouses needs they will get their needs met elsewhere.

An on-line Christian bookseller summarized the book:

"It's no surprise - men and women have radically different priorities. Describing the ten most important needs of men and women, Dr. Harley teaches you how to "affair-proof" your marriage. Learn how to sustain romance, increase intimacy, and deepen your awareness year after year."

Her needs:
1. Affection
2. Conversation
3. Honesty and openness
4. Financial Support
5. Family Commitment

His Needs:
1. Sexual Fulfillment
2. Recreational Companionship
3. An Attractive Spouse
4. Domestic Support
5. Admiration

If you don't meet your spouses needs and you spouse strays, his advice for surviving the affair:
Step 1: Ask yourself "do you want to survive the storm?"
Step 2: Don't put up with it another minute.
Step 3: Know what to expect
Step 4: Start meeting each others needs

In the last chapter he says:
"The Cure for incompatibility: Getting Down to the Full-Time Business of Meeting Each other's Most Important Emotional Needs.

The quickest cure for incompatibility and fastest road to becoming irresistible lie in meeting each other;s most important emotional needs. Happily married couples are already aware of this principle and have learned how to make marriages a full-time priority. But these couples not only put out the effort, they also put out their effort in the right places.

I have seen this principle work in many different situations. For example, I once managed a dating service in the Twin Cities area. A dating service is designed to help people with common interests and objectives meet each other. Soon after I opened the service I began to see a very real problem. Those who had enrolled---some five hundred---needed more than an opportunity to meet each other. Almost without exception these people lacked skills in meeting the needs of others. Yet each of them eagerly sought someone else who would be highly skilled in meeting their needs and could care for them. They complained that they only met selfish and insensitive people. Of course they could not see their own selfishness and insensitivity.

So I reorganized the dating service. Rather than than help my subscribers meet eligible people, I helped them become eligible people to meet, developing skills and other qualities that that would make them attractive to the opposite sex.

A number of the dating-service bought in to my new concept and took the pains necessary to become skillful in meeting the needs of other people. For these men and women, my dating service was a roaring success. In fact, they found they no longer needed a dating service to introduce themselves to anyone. Their newly acquired abilities made them attractive to the opposite sex wherever they went. Many of them married within two years.

I believe that our societies failure to train people in meeting the needs the needs of others---especially the needs of the married partner---has caused much of our high divorce rate. Marriage is not a simple social institution that everyone eventually enters into because he or she "falls in love and lives happily ever after". As long as we fail to to see marriage as a complex relationship that requires special training and abilities to meet the needs of the opposite sex, we will continue to see a discouraging and devastating divorce rate.

Children should be trained at a very young age to to learn how to meet the needs and expectations that will be laid on them if and when they enter marriage. There is no reason we must see so many marriages that barely hold together or drift into affairs."

His comments about singles is so true. I see so many others that are looking for someone to meet their needs and not trying to meet the needs of others; I am also guilty of this.

Scarlet Letter - Infidelity - Part Three of Four

Scarlet letter-letters to Ann Landers

I used to collect interesting advice columnists answers to questions sent in (Dear Abby and Ann Landers etc). As their daughters took over their gigs and as time has passed I have found that I rarely read them for the questions and answers are too liberal for my liking.

But here are two from my archives:

Dear Ann: “His Wife in Maryland” had a solution to the problem of infidelity – a common one – blame the Other Woman. This scenario is played out frequently on daytime talk shows. The wronged wife tears her hair and screams at the Other Woman. The husband sits there like the moron that he is and says absolutely nothing while they fight over him.

I find this extremely troublesome. These cheated-on wives should stop blaming the Other Woman. They are not the problem. She is the symptom of a troubled marriage. If a husband is having an affair the wife should look at herself and her husband and find out what went wrong with their marriage. The best way to do this is by talking with a marriage counselor. – Voice of Experience

Dear Voice: I hear you loud and clear. I hope others will, too. You make a lot of sense.
July 7, 1997 Ann Landers

Dear Ann: You have printed many letters about extra marital affairs; here are some things your readers should be aware of:

*About half the men and about a third of the women who are cheating say they are perfectly content and there is nothing wrong with their marriage.

*Being religious does not prevent infidelity.

*Women are as willing as men to have an affair

*Fewer than 10 percent of those having an affair will divorce their spouses to marry their lovers. A large percentage of those who do often have another divorce.

*People who have affairs are more likely to be divorced, distressed and disappointed.

*The chemistry that drives an affair lasts anywhere from a few weeks to three years before it cools down.

Infidelity can happen to anyone. Here are a few tips for your readers to affair proof their marriage. I call it them “the four P’s” for prevention:

*Be protective of your marriage. Avoid risky situations such as long lunches with a co-worker or drinks for two after work. Most people don’t plan on being unfaithful.

*Be positive. Look for what is right in your spouse, and tell him or her daily. People who have love affairs are often looking for appreciation and affirmation.

*Be polite. Always talk with your spouse with respect. Be careful what you say to each other and how you say it. Show courtesy and caring in the way you treat each other.

*Be playful, and make fun, sex and humor a mainstay of your marriage. Schedule times to play with one another, and have a “date night“ at least once a week.

Marriages can and do survive affairs, and many become stronger having weathered the crisis but not without pain and a genuine desire to recommit. – L.S. Ph.D., Seattle

Dear Seattle: thanks for a good letter. Your suggestions for “affair proofing” marriages were especially useful. I am glad you wrote.
October 4, 1997 Ann Landers

Scarlet Letter - Infidelity - Part Two of Four

Adultery - Part Two - More quotes and articles:

Research say that 65% of women and 64% of men know about their spouses fence jumping infidelities. One researcher said "People tend to know what they want to know".

Married woman who admit to pollsters that they have had extramarital affairs, half say, "But only to one man," or words to that effect.

The chances of a husband venturing out is directly related to his income. If morality has anything to do with it, that doesn't show up in the statistics. They indicate, simply, the more money he makes, the more likely he will cheat.

Professor Gwynne Jones of Leads University in England, "one in four wives can be expected to engage in extramarital romance". It's his notion that "numerous women - exposed to so much 'I'm worth it' advertising - have set out to prove they're as desirable as they have been told." Clearly they are.

Women's midlife crisis. A common phenomenon is where a woman in her mid forties, who has never flirted with another man, decides to have an affair. The researchers say a common reason given, "I am tired of trying to be perfect".

Usually, those disenchanted with their marriages first test themselves with convenient partners thereby. Not until they've passed their own tests do they go out in earnest to find partners they might actually marry.

Women in extramarital affairs take them more seriously than men do. Relationships have changed considerably, and they are changing ever. But nothing has happened to change that old generality. Studies prove women are far more vulnerable and far less casual in romance.

One scientist claims that there is only one mammal that has been proved to be absolutely monogamous, the California Mouse. And to think it is in California.

Scarlet Letter - Infidelity - Part One of Four

I have friends, both married and divorced, where their spouses, or ex-spouses, cheated on them. I have also seen this in the work place, with customers, with friends, family and in churches I have attended. The frequency of this subject in the news with politicians, movie stars, athletes, ministers and executives is shocking. Also the amount of time given to this subject on television and in movies, surprisingly given in a positive light, sickens me.

I can't imagine the heartache this causes the families involved. I am also amazed at the ability of these married people to find willing partners. Just today an aspiring politicians career was shot down by a past affair.

Today's post will be from my articles and statistics file, collected on adultery, some of the below saddens my heart:

Newsweek quote, August 11, 2008 issue:
"In a divorce filing, Alex Rodriguez says his wife's claims that he is a cheater are "immaterial." Legally? Maybe. In the court of public opinion?, nope"

Fox News 08/08/08 reporting on John Edwards infidelity with Rielle Hunter:"He told ABC News that he didn't love Hunter, 42"

Depending on the study, the percentage of partners that stray has been around:
Men: 25%
Women: 15%
A recent study said the average for both men and women is now 23% so the incidences are rising.

Literary lady Jessamyn West: "For a woman, there are no 'great' lovers. there is only the man she loves. And she does not have to be a mathematician to feel that the more he is a 'great lover' the less he is hers"

In a twin study, if one twin exhibits infidelity, the other twin strays 55% of the time, higher than the national average.

In wives that stray, 42 percent of them commit their extramarital misdeeds during less than one year of their marriage.

Multiple scholars say that primitive man was promiscuous.

Decades of research say that infidelity healing is very difficult but a wife recovers more quickly than a husband in the same straits. It is almost invariably more difficult for a husband than for a wife to recover after learning the spouse has been unfaithful.

When a husband or wife is unfaithful, "it's the husband who's most likely to admit the infidelity later"

If a mother needs help with the kids, the father tends to stay with her to give that help. If she doesn't, he doesn't. It's a scientific claim about all animal species: The male is usually monogamous, if the woman is reliant, and usually polygamous if the female is self-sufficient".

Adultery has been taboo and severely punishable in almost every society for one simple reason, says a sociologist. In an uninhibited free-love culture, it's difficult - sometimes impossible - to fix responsibility for the care of the children.

The writer Ben Hechtsaid said he has known a lot of men that chased women, and he has concluded that most of them were looking not so much as more bedroom activity , but for more masculinity in themselves. He said, "they were fellows of dubious lust."

More information coming in part two, three and four