[Johnny Soporno]

Originally Posted by Indiana

Usually I think Johnny Soporno is pretty onto it but I'm pretty disappointed with his advice to a serial adulterer who resents the fact that his wife did not wish to have an invasive medical procedure to remove the children that she conceived while explicitly attempting to avoid such a situation.

I'm sorry that you misunderstood the advice I gave. I'm confident that you would agree with my counsel wholeheartedly if it had been more clearly relayed.

Originally Posted by Indiana

I'm not sure 'you're an alpha male, and therefore it's okay to further abandon your part-time responsibilities to your children' advice is reasonable.

Oh, COME ON! That was not anything like the advice I gave, nor the sentiment behind it - and I'm saddened that it was so grossly misconstrued, and digested so poorly!

I never suggested, nor was the OP ever looking for, any 'escape' from his responsibilities. The issue at hand was the welfare of the children. Full stop.

(His unfaithfulness to his partner has no bearing on the advice I gave, nor should it have had. I explicitly do not advocate deceit AT ALL, particularly with someone you're entirely intimate with, such as your life partner! I also openly condemn 'cheating' and 'infidelity' as utterly self-defeating and rude.)

A rational person, Elias accepted the reality of his situation:
His marriage had come to an end, his wife and he had generated two children, and they needed parenting and support.
He also recognized that he had NEVER wanted to have children - and that attempting to offer them sufficient attention was unrealistic.
He felt trapped, and unfairly burdened, and knew that his children would sense that - and suffer for it.

Originally Posted by Indiana

If he was so dead set against children, HE should have been the one to have the invasive medical procedure to ensure that he didn't find himself in this situation.

Of course, I agree with you. A vasectomy would have been a perfectly reasonable choice, and would have avoided all this - but like so many others, he presumed that hormonal contraception would be sufficient. Ooops.

Originally Posted by Indiana

Apparently he didn't want to go to the trouble... of telling his wife he did not want children for fear that he would lose his access to regular sex, or something.

Actually, he was very clear about it to his wife. She claimed to have respected his position, which was why she, a medical doctor, opted to use oral contraceptives when she became pregnant the first time. (Modern 'combination' birth control pills, if used properly, are estimated to be more than 99% effective.)

He didn't want to have children because he did not want to have children. That seems to me to be about as cut & dried as could be, and doesn't require any further exploration?

His not wanting to have kids is no besmirchment to his character, and neither was his presuming that his wife, actively taking contraceptives explicitly to avoid becoming pregnant, would opt to have a child if she were to become pregnant in spite of their best efforts.

Once the first child was born, and the mother switched to the Nuvaring (which is considered at least equally effective as oral combination pills) she became pregnant again. Despite her again being on anti-baby medication to prevent such a circumstance, she insisted on having this second child, against Elias's explicit protest.

Originally Posted by Indiana

Although he tries to come across in the letter like he's being responsible, the fact that he wrote to JS at all suggests to me that he was looking for someone to pat him on the head and tell him 'It's okay to shuck off your responsibilties! You're not cut out to be a dad; it would be worse for you to try to be a good one! Don't let the promises you made in the past tie you down today and stop you from being all the man you were meant to be!'

That's insulting and ludicrous at once.

I've been a relationship counselor for nearly two decades, as well as a sex therapist & educator. I have consistently given out the most rational and practical advice I could to everyone who has asked, and backed up my recommendations with solid reason and supporting documentation, (particularly obviously on this forum!) and while I realize this is a particularly heated topic for many people, I do not regret nor forswear a single line of text I have written here.

I challenge you to find anything which supports your assertion that I suggested to ANYONE they they abandon their responsibilities! I believe I have been advocating ABSOLUTELY the reverse, consistently.

Elias came to me because he wanted to know if there was something WRONG with him for his not feeling a 'paternal urge' to spend time with his young.

I helped him to recognize that not everyone feels any such parental drive, regardless of their gender [My own daughter had her tubal ligation at 23, (before she'd ever been pregnant!) because she KNEW she didn't want to be a mother] and that this was FINE.

Many people are not cut out to be parents - it is a rare circumstance where a person recognizes it and wants not to contribute to an unhappy childhood by playing a role for which they are unsuited. I applaud this.

I am firmly of the opinion that the best thing anyone can give a child is a happy home.

I am equally of the opinion that the LEAST thing anyone can give a child is NO EXPOSURE TO AN UNHAPPY HOME.

Anyone who 'stays together for the sake of the children' is inevitably doing far more harm than good. They are actually 'staying together for the sake of public appearances' and are doing themselves and their offspring an unspeakable disservice.

Elias's desire to do right by his kids makes him A-OK with me!

Originally Posted by Indiana

This isn't an 'alpha male' we're talking about here. It's a wimpy, selfish man-child, sulking because he doesn't want to live up to the responsibilities that he signed up for when getting married and having sex. No wonder people like LostMyMap are disgusted.

This is NOT about anyone 'wimpy' at all - it's about a very bold and mature man who, realizing he was in an untenable situation, went looking for advice from a professional who was happy to furnish it.

There is NO RATIONAL WHATSOEVER for Elias's damaging his children's self-esteem and self-schema through his discomfiture in having to attend to them against his will. Not to mention that it would be detrimental to his own enjoyment of life, and his ability to earn enough to ensure that his kids would be able to receive excellent parenting/education through nannies and schooling.

Herendeth the lesson

Johnny Soporno
Relationship Counselor