Altruism and Selfish

[L_G]

I am thinking to divorce with my husband.
But I have LOTS of compassion to him. I "think" and I seem to "feel" how hard it would be to him if we divorce.
The compassion leads me to think over and over and unable to make the decision quickly.
On the other hand, I myself would be suffering to stay in the marriage.

So if we divorce, I feel relieved about my own situation but I feel compassion and hurt because I feel his hurt.
If we donot, I feel suffering about myself but I am much relieved not to pull him in hardship.

So it looks that I either hurt myself by avoiding hurt others-----from the persepctive of altruism, or I hurt others by avoiding hurt myself-----from selfish position.

I guess I have overstrong empathy. Could you possible throw some light to me?
Thank you !

[ginkgo]

There is a saying: Take care of yourself so that you can take care of others. Staying with him is hurting you and then you are hurting everyone in the world by staying with him, including him. He needs you to stop him from hurting you since it is making him worse and worse. You can leave him now or end up killing him later.

I am an expert in altruism. You can read about the research that has been done on it on this site: Rx for Happiness. This site also explains how by you letting him hurt you, it is taking his good luck and giving it to you. So staying with him is selfish and the altruistic thing would be to get away and help other people out there. Since you married him to begin with, you were dealing with some self-hate thalt you have. Also to be really altruistic, instead of serving your own hidden needs, you should help strangers or people that are not in a position to do something for you. The meanest, most selfish jerks will almost always help out a very attractive woman. Taking care of your husband and kids is not altruistic. The key word is YOUR.

[Senin]

Any kids involved?