This is not an acceptable comment on HN. It's not OK to scold or harangue people like this here. The guidelines foremost ask us to "Be kind" in comments, and that isn't negated just because you disapprove of what the parent commenter has done. Further, we've had to ask you repeatedly to observe the guidelines and refrain from trolling. We have to ban accounts that continue to act this way. Please stop this if you want to keep participating here. A reminder of the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I agree with the sentiment but staying quiet is not right because it takes away the rest of the wifes life. He should have the courage to tell her so she at least has a choice of what to do.
You talk like a coming-out divorce ‘upends’ a family in some unprecedented way. People get divorced all the time. Families reconfigure, children adapt, adults survive. Get a grip.
No. Divorce ruins the lives of the kids. Look at the statistics. The outcome and financial damage and emotional damage is horrid.
The problem is more that it’s normalized. I think the normalization is wrong. Similar to how North Korea normalized poverty. Marriage should be taken seriously and divorce is extremely serious. The fact that you think of it as nothing is whats out of touch.
We banned that user's account, so we agree that it was a very bad comment, among multiple very bad comments from them. But please don't respond, even to very bad comments, with personal attacks. Just flag them and email us (hn@ycombinator.com) so we can take the appropriate action.
This is insulting. I simply have a different opinion than you.
I think if you have the ability to tell someone in public to go to therapy without realizing how rude and insulting and uncivil it is, you’re the one that needs therapy. Wake up.
It’s not sickening at all. Think about this: You’re biased like many people reading it.
It’s easy to get emotionally strung along by his first person narrative but you need to think bigger. You need to construct avatars for the wife and for the child and visualize the emotional damage done to them. What he did isn’t trivial. He lied and manipulated his wife and had a child with her. That is a fucking crime. Constructing a total lie and manipulating his partner to sacrifice everything to live that lie with him and then to bring a child into that lie and force him to grow up with it.
I think people like you are blind. It’s one thing to disagree with me but to call what I said sickening? You enjoy upending lives and manipulating people? Maybe you’re sick?
No that’s not true at all. I’m not going to fall for your trope of just calling people sick without understanding their perspective. You’re not sick. Just stupid. you are biased and you aren’t thinking from the perspective of the lives he has ruined all in the name of emotional cowardice of admitting who he is. I get how hard it is, but it doesn’t justify what he did.
I share this sentiment. Most in the west (especially on HN) have been conditioned to believe mercy must always be granted and justice is evil. You can’t have one without the other or society falls apart.
As a child of a mother who cheated and ruined our family, I complete agree with you. This story filled me with disgust, and I want to live in a culture where people like this feel guilt at what they did. The sibling response here is happy to tut-tut you with the weight of progressive cultural authority behind them, as only a short sighted ideologue could. Lying of this level is bad for the family and bad for society. Protecting it is akin to protesting the removal of a cancerous tumor.
Wishing for liars to live terrible lives does not help your life. At all. It makes it worse.
This comment and mindset is self-destructive. Yes, bad things happen - but nothing is ruined. There is no such thing as ruining, only changing. The relationship changes, the people change, and your understanding changes.
Desperately vying for any sense of sameness, and forcing yourself to continue a life that is not true, doesn't serve you or anyone.
Things can be good. You can get divorced and that can be a better outcome. Things can change.
And even if you don't consider the well-being of the father at all, surely the best thing for his wife and child isn't for him to continue the charade. I certainly wouldn't want that, in their place.
