When the cable television host and national correspondent for MSNBC, Joy Reid, tweeted that words like ‘family’ and ‘church’ are from a bygone era, it grabbed my attention. I read, re-read and considered what she wrote.
Rather than ignoring her and dismissing her tweet, I took what she said to heart. It struck me that for many, Joy Reid is right.
When MSNBC listens to her, she has something to say that their audience wants to hear. When she has a following, someone is listening to her.
For some of you, valuing family, home and church makes you a relic from an earlier age. I am one of those dinosaurs who values them as well.
She follows many social issues, so her comments and thoughts aren’t easily dismissed. When she says that just the word ‘family’ is from a bygone era, she’s expressing the values of herself and many others.
With all the redefinition of family and marriage, she may be onto something.
You’d never guess that she is married with three children herself.
This presents the problem and where she is right. She has a double-standard when it comes to family. She says one thing and does another.
She says what her followers want to hear. Yet when it comes to her private life, she lives different values.
This is where she is right. What she says and what she does are two different things.
I’ve seen this with cheaters as well. They say one thing about marriage and family, yet do something totally different with the affair. They say they value family, yet damage it with the affair.
Rather than making attempts at making sense out of the paradox, I realize that’s just where many of you are. You are caught up in mixed up contradictory worlds. The world of the affair and the world of the family shouldn’t co-exist, but they do.
Living in such a co-existence is crazy-making. It requires some heavy duty compartmenalizing on the part of the cheater and their spouses. It’s like having a foot in two different worlds.
If you are tired of the existence of saying one set of values and living another, it’s time for making changes. The video, “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery” is a good way to create some consistency in valuing family and marriage.
You can start saying your marriage is important and making it important at the same time.
Best Regards,
Jeff
