I snooped around my wife’s phone recently and discovered dozens of text messages to her coworkers and some of our mutual friends, all saying horrible things about me and airing petty grievances about our personal lives. Among the topics of the texts was my unemployment. I recently gave up my successful career of almost 10 years in real estate to move to a new city and state so our daughter can go to a better school. I haven’t decided on my next step yet, but I have been actively applying and interviewing for jobs. I have received several offers, but none has been the right one.
My wife’s text messages portray me as a loser and she questions why she has stayed with me, lamenting the burden it has been on her. I’ll point out that our mortgage and mutual bills have been paid for the last six months with the proceeds from the sale of our house when we moved, so my unemployment has caused you zero financial burden. I can’t get over the things she said and the betrayal I feel, and I’m considering asking for a separation. But I’m afraid to bring it up because of her invasion of privacy that led me to discover the texting. What is the ethical path to follow? — Name withheld
From the ethical:
“It was very good of God to allow Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle to marry each other, thus making two people miserable and not four,” novelist and longtime bachelor Samuel Butler wrote to his friend Eliza Savage in 1884. No doubt this was so. unfair to Thomas and Jane. But he will understand what you brought to mind: neither you nor his wife are models of how spouses should behave. Each has betrayed the trust of the other.
That his wife assumed his messages were private is established precisely because of their brutal content. You made your shocking discovery while violating her privacy. However, the fact that you have wronged her does not deny you the right to complain about what she has been doing. Your sins are not the same.
What your wife has been saying is beyond exasperated venting. The specific way in which he has been talking bad about you, in fact, hits the core of a marital relationship; she is impugning your character, your value as a person and the value of her marriage. Some very toxic air needs to be cleaned. Apologize for your wrongdoing and ask her if she wants to stay with the slacker she described in those texts. If you don’t bring up the idea of a breakup, she may get ahead of you.
readers respond
The question in the previous column was from a reader whose daughter recently got married on a snowy day. There were no assigned seats, and a guest with pink hair sat along the aisle near the front. The reader shared, “In the video and most of the photos taken from the ceremony, against the background of white snow, the friend with the bright pink hair distracts your gaze so much that it takes your focus away from the wedding – the bride. and boyfriend. Would it be ethical to digitally replace hair with more neutral colored hair? Or would it be disrespectful to the pink-haired guest?
In his response, the ethicist noted: “Colors have properties such as luminance, chroma, and saturation, which affect their appearance. Someone with the relevant experience could surely preserve the pink, which is something you remember, while reducing the degree to which it is attention-grabbing, giving images that are more true to what you witnessed. … Any reasonable choice you make when editing the images that mitigates the problem is one you could defend to the guest. You would not be disrespecting this person; you would be respecting your event experience.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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As a graphic designer, I loved the ethicist’s detour into reproduction and color perception, and the quirks of both. I agree that toning down the pink is a respectful solution. A less laborious solution is to convert the photos to black and white. Don’t delete the originals! — Brian
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To the author of the letter: Ask your daughter. These are photos from her wedding, not yours. She may have been delighted that someone with pink hair was at her wedding. It is her taste, not yours, that must be respected. If she wants the pink to be toned down, do so. — Acquaintance
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It seems that there are two Competing “rights”: the right to self-expression and the right to have no one (intentionally or unintentionally) dominate a shared experience. The photos are for the married couple and you need to determine how to balance these two. — July
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how absolutely wonderful answer. This is a beautiful middle ground that allows for both maintaining a personal choice (pink hair) and the desire to accurately capture a memory. I especially like the way Prof. Appiah took on the best of all parts. The guest, he presumes, did not wish to outshine anyone, and the author of the letter did not wish to erase the guest’s personal choice either. — Cristobal
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The ethicist focused much about ways to adjust photos to best represent the memory of the letter writer’s day. But everyone remembers events like that differently. Pink hair may be fondly remembered by other people, potentially including the bride and groom, and it could be detrimental to those whose memories of the day included loving the guest’s pink hair downplaying it or removing it from pictures. — bennett
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