The talk that started this thread does assume that both parties
don't want to cheat on one another and that the both consider it to be wrong (dare I use the word sinful?) The speaker does also give some sound advice on guarding the heart, I generally give the the same sort of advice to the guys going over there, including the necessity of being willing to be different from all the other guys in your unit on several levels.
Obviously, it is not easy to be separated from one's spouse, especially when there are overwhelming pressures both within the society and within the military culture attempting to tear your marriage apart. It used to be that society worked to a certain extent to keep marriages together, and in some societies that is still the case. Now exactly the opposite is true in the USA. We are awash in porn, no fault divorce, workplace affairs, low views of marriage, and a spreading amorality regarding sex.
I commented to one maternity nurse that when my parents had their last child my father received a wrist band from the hospital that said "Father," now I receive a wristband saying
"Significant Other." The nurse replied, "well honey, you have to understand around here, a married couple where the husband is the biological father of the baby isn't the norm." And from our observation she was right, the place was crammed full of young girls with useless and uncomfortable looking gangsta "boyfriends" who hold the baby as though it was an alien, spend their time watching their girlfriends TV, and then cut out as soon as possible. One maternity nurse apologized but said that if she and the staff got their way, the wristband for them would read "Sperm Donor." She said that she has learned to treat the Grandma in the way she would the father, because in her experience is that it's grandma who ends up "raising" the child anyway.
But, I'm told this is what "progress" looks like and that it's much better than biblical ethics or the kind of marriage and child-rearing that the bible teaches. Apparently progress means that we look and act more and more like a pack of wild dogs every day. Well society, no thanks, I'll pass on progress and stick to the old paths.
As I said, it is difficult, and near impossible for military families to stay faithful and raise up children, but it is possible. I've seen it done and can point to families that have succeeded in spite of careers spent in the military. My experience has been that here as in salvation the key is contained in
Matthew 19:26.
- SEAGOON