Just want to clarify some things that came up in replies to my first Tiger Woods Post:

http://alphamaleplanner.com/blog/2010/02/tiger-woodss-4-biggest-mistakes/

I have three points I want to empahasize:

1.  I am not advocating that we make promises to women and then break them.  I am saying we need to be very careful to promise only what we can deliver on. Most young adults don’t have a clue what they’re doing when they stand there before the preacher, hormones flooding everywhere, and promise to be faithful for the rest of their lives.

Because of this, . . .

2.  We, as a society, need to re-think the kinds of promises we allow young people to make to each other.  Allowing people to promise lifelong monogamy when under the influence of peer pressure and hormones seems completely irresponsible for society to allow. 

Think about it the next time you’re at a wedding, looking at the over-confident bride and groom who think the statistics won’t apply to them.  Most older adults know better, and I think it’s shame that we let young people do this to each other.

If you think it’s a good thing to allow those kinds of promises, please make your defense below by leaving a comment.  If you want to use Bible verses, fine, however, because I’m directly calling into question the Biblical morality on this issue, I’m really looking for good reasons outside of Bible verses.

We can surely come up with better alternatives to those kinds of promises. Marriages that last 3 years and then must be renewed to continue?  There’s an idea. That would solve some of the problem.  Open marriages?  Might work for some. More structure to the contract, so that if one feels trapped one can get out?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that Marriage is the last remaining slavery contract allowed in the western world.

3.  What do you do if you already made a “lifelong monogamy” promise, and now you feel helplessly trapped?  That’s a hard one.  It’s easy to say Tiger should not have married in the first place.  It’s easy to say that he should have only made promises that he could keep.  But he was a young idealistic foolish kid (like all of us were at one point), and he did the deed.  What now?

I don’t know.  I think you should always be able to re-negotiate at some point — and without the full weight of social judgment falling down on you for it.  Tiger should have tried renegotiating before cheating.  I will agree with that. 

But I won’t agree with those who say: “it’s just “too bad, you might have been young, foolish, under the influence of hormones, and under the influence of peer pressure, but, too bad, you have to be miserable the rest of your life, because a promise is a promise.”

Your thoughts?

Tyler