Question: "How does my personal, private sin affect others?"

Question: "How does my personal, private sin affect others?"

Answer: If you lived isolated on an island in the middle of the sea, then perhaps your private sin would not affect anyone but yourself. However, since the maxim is "no man is an island," there is a good chance that you have a family or at the least friends and acquaintances that you come into contact with on a continual basis. All of them will be affected in some way by sin because sin has consequences (Romans 6:23). 

That is a principle that follows the pattern laid down at the creation. Everything created has a seed from which it propagates itself after its "kind" (Genesis 1:11, 21, 25). In other words, you do not plant corn and expect to harvest beets. You cannot “plant” sin—even in private—and not expect to reap a harvest of consequences. And consequences have a way of spilling out over everyone and anyone that comes into contact with us because of another principle called "association." This means that those around you can be blessed or hurt by association with you and the choices and actions you make, both privately and publicly.