Another Attack on Marriage (UK Version)

[smac97]

19 minutes ago, Calm said:

So you wold be okay with the break off sects still secretly practicing plural marriage as they 1) believe they are following God’s divine commanded, 2) have been highly persecuted, and 3) if they regulated it so as not to be abusive, involving only consenting adults, etc?

I would not be okay with that on religious grounds (as I am likewise "not okay" with sex outside of marriage, adultery, consumption of pornography, same-sex behavior, and other violations of the Law of Chastity). 

I am generally indifferent to polygamy on legal/social grounds, except insofar as there are substantial social ills baked into polygamous communities and/or individualized situations, such as the allegations - yet to be established - referenced here.

19 minutes ago, Calm said:

Ignore the fact the Church has declared them apostate since they feel the same way about us.  There is no way to empirically demonstrate who is right.  Just judge by what standard you describe here.

I frequently differentiate religious disagreement with legal/social disagreement.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

17 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

He and the early Saints claimed the practice was a specific divine commandment, not a personal moral insight or lifestyle preference. That claim is either true or false, but it is a different kind of claim than “I have a right to pursue happiness outside my marriage.”

Why do you see there is a right to privilege deeply held religious ideology, but don’t give the same respect to deeply held moral ideology?

I'm not sure what you are saying here.  What "deeply held moral ideology" are you referencing here?  Who is espousing it?  What are the tenets of this ideology?

17 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

A person who secretly cheats because they believe it will make them happier, or because they think they have a duty to have children outside the marriage, may sincerely believe their actions are justified. That sincerity does not erase the breach of the wedding covenant or the deception involved.

Why is an identical moral duty not respected by you as much as the same religious duty (to raise good children who will then help others and make the community, faith or social) better?

Again, what "moral duty" are you talking about?  

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I frequently differentiate religious disagreement with legal/social disagreement.

But are you arguing in the beginning of this thread on religious grounds against this so-called attack on marriage (I used “so-called” because I don’t see it as a reasonable interpretation of the guidelines, the criticism seems to me written by someone who does not understand the purpose and methodology of mainstream psychotherapy)?  Or are you arguing from a social stance…our societal norms/standards of marriage?

Edited Thursday at 08:56 PM by Calm

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure what you are saying here.  What "deeply held moral ideology" are you referencing here?  Who is espousing it?  What are the tenets of this ideology?

Again, what "moral duty" are you talking about?  

Thanks,

-Smac

Just like a man may feel a moral duty to defend his country, he could feel a moral duty to strengthen it by having children he raises to be contributing citizens.  

[Analytics]

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

No, that is not what I am doing.

I’m not “rationalizing infidelity.” I’m acknowledging that Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage was secretive and caused real pain — especially to Emma — while also recognizing the historical and religious context in which it occurred.

Hold on. Let’s get our terms straight here. “Marriage” is a socially recognized union between two people that establishes a set of mutual rights, obligations, and expectations. This social recognition can come from law, customs, or even religion. But two people can’t call their secret affair a “marriage”--there has to be a recognized status that creates some durable social, legal, religious, or communal rights and obligations. Even if the marriage isn’t disclosed to the general public, some sort of Church or legal authority needs to recognize it and the spouses need to undertake genuine marital duties and obligations. When a secret marriage violates the laws of church and its main covenant is lying to everybody about its very existence, the marriage isn’t a real marriage in any real sense.

If one of the marital obligations is “the single promise at the heart of every wedding, to forsake all others,” and one of spouses breaks that single promise, it is called adultery. 

Now, somebody could try to renegotiate the terms of their marriage so that it becomes some sort of open marriage or whatever. That’s between them. But when somebody secretly breaks those vows, it is adultery. Full stop. 

With this understanding of these terms, it is abusing the language to call Joseph Smith’s actions the “practice of plural marriage.” His actions weren’t a type of marriage. They were a type of adultery. Calling it a type of marriage is a misnomer. Semantic inversion. Orwillian doublespeak. Newspeak. 

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

Plural marriage is acceptable only when commanded by God and practiced righteously. When motivated by lust, political ambition, or practiced without restraint, it leads to heartache, idolatry, family division, and spiritual downfall (as seen with David and Solomon). Modern revelation (D&C 132) reaffirms that the principle is tightly controlled by God.

According to D&C 132, it is about lust, or at least about “desire." 

"if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another...” (D&C 132:61)

The full verse says:

"And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else."

How many of Joseph Smith’s plural “marriages” satisfied all of these conditions? How many were virgins, had vowed to no other man, and were entered into with the full consent of Emma? His behavior wasn’t nearly as tightly controlled as you are trying to imagine.

Jospeh Smith’s secret non-monogamy is a case study in secret non-monogamy, and people who are saying it is categorically different than other examples of secret non-monogamy are being very selective in their judgmentalism.

 

Edited Thursday at 09:48 PM by Analytics

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Hold on. Let’s get our terms straight here. “Marriage” is a socially recognized union between two people that establishes a set of mutual rights, obligations, and expectations. This social recognition can come from law, customs, or even religion. But two people can’t call their secret affair a “marriage”--there has to be a recognized status that creates some durable social, legal, religious, or communal rights and obligations. Even if the marriage isn’t disclosed to the general public, some sort of Church or legal authority needs to recognize it and the spouses need to undertake genuine marital duties and obligations. When a secret marriage violates the laws of church and its main covenant is lying to everybody about its very existence, the marriage isn’t a real marriage in any real sense.

If one of the marital obligations is “the single promise at the heart of every wedding, to forsake all others,” and one of spouses breaks that single promise, it is called adultery. 

Now, somebody could try to renegotiate the terms of their marriage so that it becomes some sort of open marriage or whatever. That’s between them. But when somebody secretly breaks those vows, it is adultery. Full stop. 

With this understanding of these terms, it is abusing the language to call Joseph Smith’s actions the “practice of plural marriage.” His actions weren’t a type of marriage. They were a type of adultery. Calling it a type of marriage is a misnomer. Semantic inversion. Orwillian doublespeak. Newspeak. 

I understand the definition you are using, but I do not accept that it settles the historical or religious question.

Joseph Smith and the women involved (and later the Church) treated the sealings as marriages under what they believed was divine authority and priesthood keys. They involved covenants, obligations, and (in many cases) the expectation of eternal relationships. That is not the same as a secret extramarital affair conducted with no claimed religious authorization or marital intent.

You can reject the validity of that authority. Many people do. But once you grant (even for the sake of argument) that Joseph claimed and the participants accepted a religious form of marriage authorized by God, the category shifts. It is no longer ordinary adultery as the term is normally used. It becomes a disputed religious practice whose secrecy and implementation caused real harm — which I have already acknowledged, especially regarding Emma.

Calling it “adultery, full stop” requires dismissing the participants’ understanding of what they were doing and the religious framework they operated under. That is a coherent position if one rejects the possibility of such authority. It is not the only coherent position.

I am not engaging in doublespeak. I am distinguishing between:

• a claimed religious ordinance (however imperfectly and secretly introduced), and
• ordinary secret sexual betrayal of a monogamous marriage.

Those are not the same thing in the historical record or in the belief system of the people involved. We can disagree about whether the claimed authority was genuine. That disagreement does not make the distinction itself an abuse of language.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

According to D&C 132, it is about lust, or at least about “desire." 

"if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another...” (D&C 132:61)

I really don't think "desire" as used here is equivalent to "lust" (that is, "intense sexual desire or appetite / uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness").  Rather, I think "desire" here just means "to wish or long for."

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The full verse says:

"And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else."

How many of Joseph Smith’s plural “marriages” satisfied all of these conditions? How many were virgins, had vowed to no other man, and were entered into with the full consent of Emma? His behavior wasn’t nearly as tightly controlled as you are trying to imagine.

Jospeh Smith’s secret non-monogamy is a case study in secret non-monogamy, and people who are saying it is categorically different than other examples of secret non-monogamy are being very selective in their judgmentalism.

D&C 132:61 does set conditions, and you are right that not every one of Joseph’s plural sealings clearly satisfied every element listed there (especially Emma’s full, ongoing consent and the “virgin / vowed to no other man” criteria in every case). The historical record is complicated, and faithful scholars such as the Hales document the irregularities and the pain they caused.

That does not collapse the entire practice into ordinary secret non-monogamy.

The section as a whole presents plural marriage as a priesthood law that can be authorized by God under specific circumstances. Verse 61 is one statement of conditions; the larger revelation also addresses sealings for eternity, the continuation of the Abrahamic covenant, and the principle of agency and consent. Joseph and the participants operated under the claim that they were acting under that broader revealed authority, even when the implementation was imperfect and, in some instances, secret from Emma.

I have already said the secrecy was a serious flaw and that it caused real suffering. I am not claiming the practice was cleanly executed according to every ideal condition in the text. I am saying that a claimed divine commandment, administered through priesthood keys, in a context of extreme external pressure, is still a different category from a private decision to break monogamous vows for personal reasons while publicly maintaining the appearance of monogamy.

One can acknowledge the gap between the stated conditions in D&C 132 and the historical practice without concluding that the two phenomena are therefore identical. That is not selective judgmentalism; it is an attempt to describe the actual claims and context involved.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Calling it “adultery, full stop” requires dismissing the participants’ understanding of what they were doing and the religious framework they operated under. That is a coherent position if one rejects the possibility of such authority. It is not the only coherent position

But the context is not a religious discussion on the marriage, but the standards a therapist should be using.  
 

And if you insist that the term adultery, etc, do not apply to JS within that context, do you agree you are providing your own personal religious beliefs to argue such?

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Quote

Quote

Quote

I think Joseph’s case is different in several important respects:

1. He and the early Saints claimed the practice was a specific divine commandment, not a personal moral insight or lifestyle preference. That claim is either true or false, but it is a different kind of claim than “I have a right to pursue happiness outside my marriage.”
2. The historical setting involved extreme external pressure — persecution, legal danger, and the real possibility of the destruction of the church. Secrecy was framed as protection of the community, not merely concealment of personal desire.
3. The practice was later regulated, limited, and eventually discontinued under the same prophetic authority that introduced it. It was never presented as an open-ended right to non-monogamy.

So you wold be okay with the break off sects still secretly practicing plural marriage as they 1) believe they are following God’s divine commanded, 2) have been highly persecuted, and 3) if they regulated it so as not to be abusive, involving only consenting adults, etc?

Ignore the fact the Church has declared them apostate since they feel the same way about us.  There is no way to empirically demonstrate who is right.  Just judge by what standard you describe here.

I frequently differentiate religious disagreement with legal/social disagreement.

But are you arguing in the beginning of this thread on religious grounds against this so-called attack on marriage (I used “so-called” because I don’t see it as a reasonable interpretation of the guidelines, the criticism seems to me written by someone who does not understand the purpose and methodology of mainstream psychotherapy)?  Or are you arguing from a social stance…our societal norms/standards of marriage?

My disagreement with adultery is both religious and legal/social.  I acknowledge that the former disagreement is more subjective than the latter, so the grounds differ (but also overlap in some ways).

As regarding polygamy, I disagree with it on religious grounds because I believe the Lord has prohibited it.  I also disagree with it on legal/social grounds because I do not believe it is too fraught with challenges arising from modern society.

Adultery is, in my view, categorically wrong, whereas polygamy is provisionally/conditionally so.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Calling it “adultery, full stop” requires dismissing the participants’ understanding of what they were doing and the religious framework they operated under. That is a coherent position if one rejects the possibility of such authority. It is not the only coherent position

But the context is not a religious discussion on the marriage,

We're on a message board pertaining to the Church.  I think there is a religious dimension to most discussions here.

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

but the standards a therapist should be using.  

Is there a "context" in which a therapist should affirm/normalise adultery?

"{U}nder a GSRD affirmative approach, nonmonogamy is an equally valid form of relating to monogamy, and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway."

"{T}he key issue with secret non-monogamy is its non-consensual nature and the secrets, lies, and deception which are involved."

"Thus the goal of therapy is not to stop the non-monogamous person or people from being non-monogamous – just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person from being gay or trans – rather it is helping them navigate their relationship..."

"It can be hugely helpful, with secretly non-monogamous people, to normalise how incredibly difficult lifelong monogamy is ... and how many diverse ways there are of navigating non/ monogamy."

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

And if you insist that the term adultery, etc, do not apply to JS within that context, do you agree you are providing your own personal religious beliefs to argue such?

The original discussion was about therapy standards, not a theological debate about Joseph Smith.  Analytics brought Joseph into the conversation to raise a charge of "irony," namely, that a Latter-day Saint criticizing modern secret non-monogamy is inconsistent given Joseph’s history. Responding to that charge required explaining why I (and many other Latter-day Saints) do not place the two in the same category.

Yes, that explanation draws on my religious framework — the claim of divine authorization, the historical context of persecution, and the distinction between a claimed priesthood ordinance and ordinary breach of monogamous vows. I am not pretending otherwise. I am a Latter-day Saint; those are the premises from which I am speaking.

That does not make the distinction irrelevant to the therapy discussion. The BACP guidance is a secular professional standard. My critique of it stands or falls on whether therapists should be instructed to treat non-monogamy (including discussions of secret non-monogamies) as “equally valid” to monogamy with “blurred boundaries.” One can evaluate that professional claim without settling the historical or religious status of Joseph Smith’s practice.

I am not asking anyone to accept my religious premises in order to question the BACP language. I am simply not accepting the premise that my religious view of Joseph automatically makes any critique of modern secret non-monogamy hypocritical.

Thanks,

-Smac

[MustardSeed]

Polygamy, imo, may have been less about lust and desire and more about power and possession . 

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Polygamy, imo, may have been less about lust and desire and more about power and possession . 

Could you elaborate?  What sort(s) of "power and possession" do you think were being sought?

Also, Brian Hales' article, "Joseph Smith's Personal Polygamy," raises some interesting questions about whether Joseph had in mind "dynastic” polygamy, that is, plural marriages that were primarily about creating eternal family links and priesthood connections rather than (or in addition to) earthly cohabitation or romantic/sexual relationships.

• Joseph Smith sealed himself to a number of women who were already married to other men (polyandry). Hales argues many of these were dynastic or eternity-only sealings.
• The purpose was often to bind influential families or individuals into Joseph’s eternal family network through priesthood sealings, thereby creating a web of eternal relationships and priesthood authority.
• In these cases, the sealing was understood as an eternal ordinance. Earthly (sexual) relations were not necessarily expected or practiced.
• Hales distinguishes these from the smaller number of plural marriages that appear to have involved conjugality.
• The dynastic interpretation helps explain why some sealings involved women who remained with their legal husbands and why documentation of sexual relations is absent or ambiguous in many of those cases.

Not all of Joseph’s plural sealings were about establishing concurrent earthly households. A significant portion appears to have functioned as eternal, dynastic connections meant to link families in the eternities under priesthood authority.  This is one of the central interpretive tools Hales uses to make sense of the more complex and controversial sealings (especially the polyandrous ones).

Thanks,

-Smac

[MustardSeed]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

of "power and possession

Power and possession in general.  You know, the kind of power that Satan wanted .  That humans crave and can’t seem to get enough of. We all have a relationship with power even you. It’s like food, we can’t do without it.  But some of us allow those cravings to get away with us.  
 

Polygamy is very much about power.  Isn’t that obvious to you?  Look at evidence of that in modern day polygamy.  Is it not obvious to you that women have very little power in polygamous  relationships? 
Collecting women is about possession and the power that men feel when they accumulate. 
 

Edited yesterday at 02:11 AM by MustardSeed

[Calm]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Is there a "context" in which a therapist should affirm/normalise adultery?

 

Apparently yes if you accept there are appropriate religious contexts for what other people see as adultery because they don’t believe God commanded it, but the client is of the religious belief God commanded it, correct?

If for example, Joseph and Emma had gone to couples counseling over the practice and the therapist was nonLDS, it would have under that standard been appropriate for that therapist to encourage Emma to look at it from her husband’s POV, to trust him and not push for details if he didn’t believe it was right to share them because Joseph believed he should obey God and Emma should support him in that.

——

Do you see that others argue against plural marriage and they define it as adultery because they don’t believe God would inspire anyone to live that way and therefore it’s the polygamist’s own wishful thinking or family pressure or whatever, not the Spirit, that convinces them…therefore they see no difference between that and someone convincing themselves it’s right because of other forms of wishful thinking?

Edited yesterday at 02:32 AM by Calm

[Analytics]

14 hours ago, smac97 said:

I understand the definition you are using, but I do not accept that it settles the historical or religious question.

I don’t know what “the historical or religious question” is. The topic of this thread is secret non-monogamy, the way people rationalize their secret non-monogamy, and whether British Psychotherapists specifically and society in general should facilitate people rationalizing and normalizing this behavior.

Joseph Smith made a sacred vow to cleave unto his wife Emma and unto none else. He broke that vow. You think this is categorically different than other people who broke the same vow, because Joseph’s motivation was sincere religious belief and not lust.

If we want to categorize Joseph’s secret non-monogamous relationships, the category they best fit in is sexual abuse in cultic circumstances, as described by Hava Dayan in her paper “Sexual Abuse and Charismatic Cults,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 41 (2018): 25–31. DOI: 10.1016/j.avb.2018.04.004. Let me know if you’d like me to provide a sample list of religious leaders who convinced sincere believers that God wanted them to have secret non-monogamous relationships with them. 

The secret non-monogamy of the leaders of new religious movements fits into the broader category of secret non-monogamy in general. Some people rationalize this behavior as coming from God. Others rationalize it because, in the words of Atlantic Starr:

Secret lovers, yeah
That's what we are
Trying so hard to hide the way we feel
'Cause we both belong to someone else
But we can't let it go
'Cause what we feel
Is also real

Personally, if a British Psychoterapist is going to give a moral pass to somebody who breaks their marital vows because they are trying to obey God, I don’t know why she shouldn’t also give a moral pass to somebody who does it because the love they feel for their secret lover “is also real."

If anything, having a secret non-monogamous relationship motivated by sincere religious conviction with the leader of your New Religious Movement is worse, because it is less consensual. The question isn’t whether the girls sincerely believed God wanted them to do what they did. The question is were they able to freely consent? “God commanded me to marry you. If you do, your family is guaranteed salvation. If you don’t, an angel will kill me with a flaming sword. It’s your free choice though.” That type of manipulation is sick, regardless of their sincerity and regardless of whether God really was sending angels with flaming swords.

[Analytics]

12 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

Power and possession in general.  You know, the kind of power that Satan wanted .  That humans crave and can’t seem to get enough of. We all have a relationship with power even you. It’s like food, we can’t do without it.  But some of us allow those cravings to get away with us.  
 

Polygamy is very much about power.  Isn’t that obvious to you?  Look at evidence of that in modern day polygamy.  Is it not obvious to you that women have very little power in polygamous  relationships? 
Collecting women is about possession and the power that men feel when they accumulate. 
 

I think it’s obvious. If you do this you’ll be part of a powerful dynasty. You’ll be a king. You’ll be a god!

[MustardSeed]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

I don’t know what “the historical or religious question” is. The topic of this thread is secret non-monogamy, the way people rationalize their secret non-monogamy, and whether British Psychotherapists specifically and society in general should facilitate people rationalizing and normalizing this behavior.

Joseph Smith made a sacred vow to cleave unto his wife Emma and unto none else. He broke that vow. You think this is categorically different than other people who broke the same vow, because Joseph’s motivation was sincere religious belief and not lust.

If we want to categorize Joseph’s secret non-monogamous relationships, the category they best fit in is sexual abuse in cultic circumstances, as described by Hava Dayan in her paper “Sexual Abuse and Charismatic Cults,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 41 (2018): 25–31. DOI: 10.1016/j.avb.2018.04.004. Let me know if you’d like me to provide a sample list of religious leaders who convinced sincere believers that God wanted them to have secret non-monogamous relationships with them. 

The secret non-monogamy of the leaders of new religious movements fits into the broader category of secret non-monogamy in general. Some people rationalize this behavior as coming from God. Others rationalize it because, in the words of Atlantic Starr:

Secret lovers, yeah
That's what we are
Trying so hard to hide the way we feel
'Cause we both belong to someone else
But we can't let it go
'Cause what we feel
Is also real

Personally, if a British Psychoterapist is going to give a moral pass to somebody who breaks their marital vows because they are trying to obey God, I don’t know why she shouldn’t also give a moral pass to somebody who does it because the love they feel for their secret lover “is also real."

If anything, having a secret non-monogamous relationship motivated by sincere religious conviction with the leader of your New Religious Movement is worse, because it is less consensual. The question isn’t whether the girls sincerely believed God wanted them to do what they did. The question is were they able to freely consent? “God commanded me to marry you. If you do, your family is guaranteed salvation. If you don’t, an angel will kill me with a flaming sword. It’s your free choice though.” That type of manipulation is sick, regardless of their sincerity and regardless of whether God really was sending angels with flaming swords.

I think secretly breaking a marriage vow is one of the most cruel things people can do- and the levels people will go to to justify it (and yes, I have heard people say that they believe God sent them their lover) is inane. 
I think on a cellular level people understand how fundamentally wrong it is to break a marriage vow of monogamy, and they know how painful it would be if their partner were to discover it so in order to rectify the cognitive dissonance, they have to come up with some very good reasons. And I’ve heard a lot of of them.
 

Hard to argue with “ God told me to” 

 

[MustardSeed]

Deleted, sounds defensive

I. 

Edited yesterday at 04:33 PM by MustardSeed

[smac97]

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

I think secretly breaking a marriage vow is one of the most cruel things people can do-

I quite agree.

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

and the levels people will go to to justify it (and yes, I have heard people say that they believe God sent them their lover) is inane. 

Could you explain what your perspective on the following excerpts from the therapeutic guidelines in the OP:

"{U}nder a GSRD affirmative approach, nonmonogamy is an equally valid form of relating to monogamy, and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway."

"Thus the goal of therapy is not to stop the non-monogamous person or people from being non-monogamous – just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person from being gay or trans – rather it is helping them navigate their relationship..."

"It can be hugely helpful, with secretly non-monogamous people, to normalise how incredibly difficult lifelong monogamy is ... and how many diverse ways there are of navigating non/ monogamy."

Do you agree or disagree with these statements relative to "secret nonmonogamy"?

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I quite agree.

Could you explain what your perspective on the following excerpts from the therapeutic guidelines in the OP:

"{U}nder a GSRD affirmative approach, nonmonogamy is an equally valid form of relating to monogamy, and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway."

"Thus the goal of therapy is not to stop the non-monogamous person or people from being non-monogamous – just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person from being gay or trans – rather it is helping them navigate their relationship..."

"It can be hugely helpful, with secretly non-monogamous people, to normalise how incredibly difficult lifelong monogamy is ... and how many diverse ways there are of navigating non/ monogamy."

Do you agree or disagree with these statements relative to "secret nonmonogamy"?

Thanks,

-Smac

Lol. If you read each of your quotes, not a single one of them has anything to do with “secret nonmonogamy”. 

[smac97]

44 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

"{U}nder a GSRD affirmative approach, nonmonogamy is an equally valid form of relating to monogamy, and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway."

"Thus the goal of therapy is not to stop the non-monogamous person or people from being non-monogamous – just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person from being gay or trans – rather it is helping them navigate their relationship..."

"It can be hugely helpful, with secretly non-monogamous people, to normalise how incredibly difficult lifelong monogamy is ... and how many diverse ways there are of navigating non/ monogamy."

Lol. If you read each of your quotes, not a single one of them has anything to do with “secret nonmonogamy”. 

Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Diversity (GSRD)

Note that Section 4.4 ("Secret non-monogamies") starts on page 49, as follows:

Quote

4.4 Secret non-monogamies

Definitions

A relationship model that is at least as common as monogamy, if not more so, is secret non-monogamy, generally taking the form of affairs or infidelity. Conservative estimates put the rate of affairs in marriage at a quarter (Fincham and May, 2017), but other studies have estimated over twice that much, with higher numbers in unmarried relationships also (Vangelisti and Gerstenberger, 2004). There are popular apps and websites specifically designed for monogamous people seeking affairs. Adding to this the number of people who realise they had different monogamy rules, so it feels to one of them that infidelity happened, then we have a majority rather than a minority of people being nonmonogamous.

Again secret non-monogamy takes a wide variety of forms in terms of number of other partners, frequency of affairs, whether one or both people engage in it, the extent of their knowledge, etc. It may be more useful to view secrecy to openness of non-monogamy as a spectrum. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ arrangements, and situations where another lover is more of an open secret, shade into more open forms of non-monogamy.

Common concerns

With secret non-monogamy it is easy for therapists to become focused on the non-normativity of what is being done: going against the normative rules of monogamy. However, under a GSRD affirmative approach, nonmonogamy is an equally valid form of relating to monogamy, and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway. Given this, the key issue with secret non-monogamy is its non-consensual nature (see 3.8) and the secrets, lies, and deception which are involved. There may also be nonconsensual deception and invasion of privacy on the part of a partner who has ‘discovered’ another’s infidelity.

Thus the goal of therapy is not to stop the non-monogamous person or people from being non-monogamous – just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person from being gay or trans – rather it is helping them navigate their relationship such that non-monogamy can either be done consensually and openly, or the relationship can end or change if partners are too incompatible in terms of where they are at with non/ monogamy for this to be possible.

It can be hugely helpful, with secretly non-monogamous people, to normalise how incredibly difficult lifelong monogamy is (see 4.3), how it is hard – if not impossible – to get warmth and heat in the same relationship (Perel, 2007), and how many diverse ways there are of navigating non/ monogamy (see 4.3 and 4.5).

Could you help me understand why you think these quotes from Section 4.4 ("Secret non-monogamies") "{do not have} anything to do with 'secret nonmonogamy'"?

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

28 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Given this, the key issue with secret non-monogamy is its non-consensual nature

Here you go. Your quotes are telling therapists to not force a monogamist world view on people but instead focus on the problematic non-consent. This is so simple I’d think even you could grasp it. 

[Analytics]

On 7/21/2026 at 2:30 PM, smac97 said:

I am curious if you are on board with the guidelines' take on "secret nonmonogamy."  

Quite honestly, I have no basis to evaluate this, because while the sentence you quoted sounds quite scandalous, I believe it needs to be interpreted in the context of the profession for which it was written, and I simply don't have that background. 

In order to get a little bit of background on this, I posed the following question to the Claude model "Fable 5: High." (Fable is its latest-greatest model, has only been out a couple of weeks, and they charge you "usage credit" based on how much work it does. Generating the answer below cost about $3.00. With the prompt, I uploaded the manual and content of this thread)

Prompt: The poster "smac97" is a real estate attorney in Provo, Utah. He started a thread expressing concerns about the manual "Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Diversity (GSRD)" published by the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. As far as I know, smc97 doesn't have any background in counseling and psychotherapy and is only aware of this issue because he read about it in an editorial.

His concern with this appears to be that this document is a substantial step towards "ratifying hedonism" by "supposedly credentialed 'experts.'"

I've never been in a professional psychotherapy session, much less have had any training in psychology. Could you put this document into the proper context? Is it the role of psychotherapists to condemn "secret non-monogamy" and such things? Is the content of this manual consistent with best practices in therapy? Is it in harmony with how psychotherapy is taught at BYU?

Please keep your answer to under 1,000 words, and base it on recognized professional standards including, presumably, the professional psychology standards taught at BYU and written about by BYU professors.

Quote

This is a good question to examine carefully, because the honest answer has some nuance in both directions.

What the document is. It's a cultural-competency resource commissioned by BACP, written by one author (Meg-John Barker), with an explicit disclaimer that it's "for information purposes only and not a substitute for professional advice." It isn't a binding ethical code or treatment protocol. That matters: smac97 is treating a practitioner-education resource as though it were a mandate governing what therapists must say to cheating clients.

Is it the therapist's role to condemn client behavior? No — and this is not a recent "woke" innovation. It has been foundational to the profession since at least Carl Rogers in the 1950s. Every major ethics framework (APA, ACA, BACP) treats respect for client autonomy as a core principle and treats imposition of the therapist's personal moral or religious values as an ethical problem. The reason is partly principled and partly empirical: decades of research on the therapeutic alliance show it is the single best predictor of outcomes, and moralizing reliably destroys it. A client who feels judged stops disclosing, and a therapist working with incomplete information helps no one. The defense-attorney analogy smac97 rejected is actually imperfect in the opposite direction than he thinks: a defense attorney advocates for the client's position; a therapist doesn't even do that. They help the client examine their own life, values, and consequences honestly.

This doesn't mean therapists are value-free or never address harm. Good therapists absolutely explore the consequences of an affair — the deception, the trust damage, the risk to the partner, what it says about the client's values and the marriage. The therapist BlueDreams described doing exactly that (STI safety first, then values exploration, then working toward honesty with the partner) is describing textbook practice. What therapists don't do is open with "this is wrong and you should stop," because it doesn't work and it isn't their function.

The cutting/anorexia comparison. This is smac97's strongest-sounding argument, but it misunderstands how those conditions are actually treated. No competent clinician treats self-harm or eating disorders by telling the client the behavior is bad. Treatment uses motivational interviewing, harm reduction, and alliance-building precisely because confrontation and shame make those behaviors worse. So the "different standard" he perceives doesn't really exist — the non-judgmental stance is the same standard applied everywhere.

Is the manual consistent with best practices? Mostly, yes. Its core content — don't assume the client's identity, don't pathologize difference, don't use session time for your own education, refer out if you can't work affirmatively — is standard cultural-competency material found in APA and ACA guidance too. And critically, the secret non-monogamy section does not give infidelity a moral pass. Read carefully, it locates the ethical problem exactly where smac97 would: "the key issue with secret non-monogamy is its non-consensual nature and the secrets, lies, and deception which are involved." The stated therapy goal is to help non-monogamy either become consensual and open, or for the relationship to end or change. That implicitly requires the deception to be addressed. That is not "waving through the abandonment of a marriage."

Where the critique has some legitimate purchase. The sentence doing all the work in this controversy — non-monogamy is "an equally valid form of relating... and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway" — is genuinely loose writing for its placement in a section about secret non-monogamy, and the analogy "just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person" is contestable. Sexual orientation is not analogous to a behavior that inflicts ongoing deception on a third party, and plenty of mainstream clinicians would balk at that framing. The betrayal-trauma literature (Shirley Glass, the Gottmans) treats affairs as serious relational injuries with measurable harm to the betrayed partner, and a therapist can hold that clinical understanding without moralizing. Barker writes from a particular theoretical school (critical/queer theory applied to relationships), and the document reflects that school's framing more than a neutral survey would. A fair-minded reader can think the document's practice guidance is sound while finding some of its conceptual framing tendentious. That's a much narrower complaint than "ratifying hedonism," though — the editorial smac97 relied on was inflammatory, and to his credit he eventually conceded that.

BYU. BYU's clinical psychology program is APA-accredited and its counseling programs meet the same national standards; students are trained in the same ethics codes, and Calm's recollection ("start where the client is, not where you are") is exactly what's taught there. The most relevant BYU-connected scholarship is Allen Bergin and P. Scott Richards' work on theistic psychotherapy — published by APA itself. Notably, even these scholars, who argue for taking clients' spiritual values seriously in treatment, are emphatic that therapists must not impose values on clients, must obtain informed consent before working from a values framework, and must respect client self-determination. In other words, the most religiously engaged wing of BYU psychology still lands on the same side of this question as the BACP document: the therapist's job is not condemnation. LDS Family Services operates the same way — clinicians there will tell you they don't lecture clients into repentance; that's a bishop's stewardship, not a therapist's.

Bottom line. The two working therapists in that thread (MustardSeed and BlueDreams) gave smac97 accurate accounts of the profession, and his instinct that something must be off because the document doesn't denounce infidelity reflects a category error about what therapy is — closer to imagining it as a bishop's interview with a license, as The Nehor put it. The document is broadly consistent with mainstream and BYU-taught practice. The one sentence at the center of the storm is legitimately criticizable as sloppy framing, but the practical guidance surrounding it — name the deception as the problem, help the client move toward consent and honesty or end the relationship — is not far from what a thoughtful critic would want therapists doing anyway.

 

[smac97]

58 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Quote

Given this, the key issue with secret non-monogamy is its non-consensual nature

Here you go. Your quotes are telling therapists to not force a monogamist world view on people but instead focus on the problematic non-consent. This is so simple I’d think even you could grasp it. 

Thank you for your thoughts.

Upon further consideration, I think Section 4.4 is more nuanced than a simple endorsement of secret non-monogamy, but it does contain affirmative language that has caused legitimate concern:

Quote

“Under a GSRD affirmative approach, nonmonogamy is an equally valid form of relating to monogamy, and the boundaries between them are blurred anyway.”

This treats non-monogamy (as a broad category) as equally valid to monogamy. It explicitly discourages therapists from focusing on the “non-normativity” of going against monogamous rules.

The stated goal of therapy:

Quote

“Thus the goal of therapy is not to stop the non-monogamous person or people from being non-monogamous – just as we would not attempt to stop a gay or trans person from being gay or trans – rather it is helping them navigate their relationship such that non-monogamy can either be done consensually and openly, or the relationship can end or change if partners are too incompatible…”

Again, upon further review, I think you may have a point.  The document does not say therapists should affirm or encourage ongoing secret non-monogamy as a healthy, permanent arrangement.  The explicit therapeutic goal is to move the situation toward either:

• Consensual/open non-monogamy, or
• Ending or changing the relationship if the partners’ desires around monogamy/non-monogamy are incompatible.

However, by placing “secret non-monogamies” under the GSRD "affirmative" umbrella and declaring non-monogamy “equally valid,” the document appears to frame secrecy primarily as a navigational problem rather than as a serious ethical breach of trust and consent.

The document, then, is not what I initially thought it was: a straightforward endorsement of secret non-monogamy as a desirable end-state. It pushes therapists to help clients move out of secrecy toward either openness or relationship dissolution.  I appreciate the pushback and critique.

At the same time, the affirmative language (“equally valid,” “boundaries are blurred,” comparing it to sexual orientation) softens the moral and relational weight of deception. It treats the core issue more as incompatibility of relationship styles than as a violation of the existing monogamous agreement.

My initial reading was, I think, understandable: the affirmative framing is strong. But the concrete clinical direction in the text is toward converting secrecy into consent (or ending the relationship), not affirming ongoing secret non-monogamy.

Thus, I stand corrected.

Thanks,

-Smac

[MustardSeed]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

secret nonmonogamy

Secret monogamy indicates dishonesty and betrayal.  The result of such actions is going to have negative implications for the partners spouse.  This could be rooted in one or several of many disordered thinking or personality disorder or manic episodes.  Or it could be circumstantial.  As a therapist I will help determine the root source of the willingness to abuse one’s partner thus.  
 

And yes, if Joseph smith engaged in secret non non monogamy, it’s impossible for me to justify that by suggesting god prescribed it.  What a horrific thing to put on God, that he would allow one of the most hurtful things to happen to Emma for the purpose of, what - growing the church? No. If  church is legitimate it’s going to stand on its own. 

Edited 23 hours ago by MustardSeed

[Analytics]

40 minutes ago, smac97 said:

However, by placing “secret non-monogamies” under the GSRD "affirmative" umbrella and declaring non-monogamy “equally valid,” the document appears to frame secrecy primarily as a navigational problem rather than as a serious ethical breach of trust and consent.

The offending sentence is in section 4.4 "Secret Non-monogamies". A few pages earlier in section 4.1, it gives some context about the "equally valid" claim. It says "As with gender and sexuality, the implications for therapy are to hold all consensual relationship styles and structures as equally valid, rather than perpetuating a sense of the ‘right’ or ‘ideal’ way of doing relationships. Intersectionality is also key here as the relationship norm described above is a white western norm. Working in a multicultural context, many of our clients will come from cultural and faith backgrounds where, for example, arranged marriages and/or polygamy are the standard way of doing relationships (see 1.3; Rambukkana, 2015)." (emphasis added)

If somebody comes from a faith background where polygamy is the standard way of doing relationships, do you think it is the therapist's job to lecture their clients that polygamy is less valid than monogamy? I would think your freedom of religion instincts would say it isn't the role of therapists to tell their clients their religious beliefs are wrong.

In its actual context, the document isn't in any way "ratifying hedonism." It is saying that the role of the therapist isn't to lecture people about their gender, sexuality, or religious beliefs are wrong.

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Analytics