Really? He was still married. He should know better not to sleep with another woman. You can't say that he was in the right to do that because his wife told him that he could do whatever.
I didn't say that he was in the right. In fact, I said the exact opposite. I said:
I'm not saying that he hasn't taken wrong steps too, it sounds like he has.
And later on in my post I said:
...if the guy is your husband and wants to do the right thing, he should just focus on being faithful to his side of the wedding vows. So it doesn't justify his actions...
So I agree with you, he should have known better. That's considering the situation on his side of things. But I was mainly concerned with evaluating the situation from the wife's side of things. From her side of things, she shouldn't tell her husband that he can do whatever he wants to do. And if she does tell him that, she can't complain when he does something she has given him permission to do.
Remember the story of Abraham and Sarah? This looks like a situation that has some analogies to that. Sarah told Abraham that he could sleep with Hagar. But then Sarah latter regretted that she said that and made Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away.
Concerning Abraham, he shouldn't have slept with Hagar. He should have had faith that God would fulfill his promise just like he said he would. But concerning Sarah, she shouldn't have offered him Hagar in the first place. And once she did, it was childish of her to get jealous.
I don't think there are any pride issues...
The reason I suspect there are pride issues is because the whole scenario sort of reminds me of those grade school arguments where Tommy takes something from Billy and Billy says "I don't want to be your friend anymore!" and then Tommy says "Fine! I don't want to be your friend either!" and Tommy says this even though he really
does want to be Billy's friend. Well if Tommy really does want to be Billy's friend, why did he say he doesn't? Because his pride was hurt in the "you can't fire me, because I quite!" sort of way.
She wants to be with him and he doesn't want to be with her.
I agree that she wants to be with him. But then why did she tell him that he can do whatever he wants? That's not something you say to someone you want to be with (in a romantic way). And why did she tell him she was going to file for divorce? Again, that's not something you say to someone that you don't actually want to divorce. Ergo, it's a pride issue. That's my take on it anyway. And you can no more conclude that he doesn't want to be with her than you can conclude that she doesn't want to be with him, even though she started the divorce process... Maybe his pride has been hurt too and he's just returning the favor in saying he doesn't lover her.