So, what seem to be the determining factors?

Good link. But, don't you wish Harley would occassionally illustrate his point by relating a story where the woman is emotionally neglecting the guy. Gets sort of old, this bias.

Then, I explained what spouses should do when they've been emotionally neglected. It begins with an effort to respectfully persuade a spouse to meet important emotional needs. But when that doesn't work, I recommend the very controversial step of separation until the most important emotional needs are met.

I help couples avoid calling it quits, not by teaching them how to endure disappointment and suffering, but by encouraging them to insist on having a mutually fulfilling marriage. My approach to the topic of neglect may seem radical to many, because they don't see marital neglect as a serious enough problem to warrant separation. But the alternative for many is to eventually call it quits when an earlier separation would have saved their marriage.

This week, however, my advice to separate will be easier to accept because it involves another serious problem that unconditional love can create -- abuse. In this case, you may feel that separation is too risky, that divorce should be the answer. But as you'll see, even in cases of physical abuse, I don't recommend throwing in the towel until an abusive spouse has been given plenty of opportunity to reform. Towel-throwing should take place only after reasonable efforts to reconcile have been exhausted.

As I mentioned last week, I've come to the conclusion that 80% of all divorces are caused by neglect -- important emotional needs are not being met. You'd think that abuse would be the major contributor, but it's not. In fact, physical abuse accounts for only about 2 1/2 percent of divorces. So while the wife who wrote last week about neglect appears to be in a reasonably safe and normal marriage, she's far more likely to call it quits than the writer of today's letter who is the victim of physical abuse.

Since dependency is often at the root of an abusive relationship, when you find yourself being physically or even verbally abused, your highest priority should be to end the dependency as quickly as possible so that you can separate.

Dear Dr. Harley:

Your two, 'when to call it quits,' newsletters were both geared toward women leaving men. Would you give the same advice to men leaving women? Many of us on the forum would very much like to see your reaction to husbands who have endured the emasculation of years of sexual neglect and are now on the brink of divorce over lack of sexual fulfillment.

On the Emotional Needs section of the forum, husbands commonly complain of lack of sexual fulfillment with their wives. Newcomers are generally given a primer on emotional needs and love busters, and advised to purchase the books and work the program. Further discussions are salted with quotes from your Q&A columns to the effect that sexual dysfunction is usually the symptom of a bad relationship, 9 times out of 10 fixing the relationship will also cure the sexual dysfunction, and so on.

What if you are the 10th one out of 10? What if you are the 10th husband who has worked the program, has identified and meets his wife's emotional needs, has identified and eliminated all love busters...and the wife STILL cannot be motivated to participate in sexual fulfillment. What do you advise then?

Best wishes,

L.K.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear L.K,

My last newsletter, "Rules that Guide Good Habit Formation in Marriage," provides the best approach to the problem of a wife's sexual reluctance in marriage when her emotional needs have been met and Love Busters have been eliminated. The solution is to make sex enjoyable for your wife (MR1) and to reward her whenever she has sex with you (MR2). If she cooperates with your goal of creating a mutually enjoyable sexual experience, she will explain to you how to make the sex act enjoyable for her, explain how you can reward her whenever she makes love to you, and then to give you a chance to develop those skills. If you follow her roadmap, you will reach your goal.

But there are some wives who feel that sex in marriage should be unnecessary, just as there are some husbands who feel that affection and intimate conversation should be unnecessary. They don't have much of a need themselves, so they don't try to meet it for their spouse. These wives sometime believe that love should be unconditional, and that the meeting of intimate emotional needs should be an option rather than an essential ingredient in marriage.

As you already know, I encourage all married couples to be affectionate, conversant, recreational, and sexual with each other a minimum of fifteen hours each week. Couples who meet these four emotional needs make the largest Love Bank deposits. If they avoid making Love Bank withdrawals with Love Busters, they experience a fulfilling and successful marriage.

So almost every day, I'm trying to encourage husbands to be more affectionate and conversant with their wives, and wives to make love to their husbands more often. But occasionally, after a husband meets his wife's emotional needs, and avoids Love Busters, I find that a wife still refuses to make love to her husband. It's rare, but it does happen. In those cases, I discuss the possibility of a separation with the husband.

I'm not opposed to a separation when a spouse refuses to meet intimate emotional needs, but there are dangers that should not be ignored. Infidelity is one of them. An important cause of a wife's refusal to have sex can be an affair that has not been revealed to the husband. A separation simply makes the affair more convenient.

Even if an affair is not ongoing, a separation can lead to one. One of my cardinal rules to prevent an affair is to avoid being separated overnight. A deliberate separation increases the risk of an affair, and can turn a difficult marriage into a disaster.

There are also legal considerations. If a husband separates from his family, he can be accused of abandoning his children. If the marriage ends in divorce, he risks losing the right to joint custody. So an attorney should always be consulted before separating. When a woman wants to separate, she does not have the same legal problems because most courts let her stay in the home with her children. It's the husband who must leave.

If the husband chooses to separate, his children often feel that he's left them. It makes it very difficult for him to explain why he's taking such a drastic step, especially if sex is the problem. But if a wife asks him to leave, the children are still with her. She doesn't need to do as much explaining.

When a husband has children in the home, the risks and problems of separation often outweigh the rewards. After discussing the pros and cons of a separation because of sexual problems, most husbands I've counseled decide not to separate, and I go back to work trying to convince their wives to make love to them. There are three female coaches on our staff and I lean heavily on their instincts and persuasive skills when trying to address this problem.

But there are many other husbands I counsel who either have no children or whose children are adults. These men are in a better position to separate until their sexual problems have been resolved. Their wives must choose to either address the issue or live without the care of their husbands. And before any separation, I make sure that they have been doing a good job meeting their wife's emotional needs and avoiding Love Busters.

I define a traditional marriage as a relationship of extraordinary care between a man and a woman who meet each other's intimate emotional needs, avoid hurting each other, and make decisions together with each other's interests in mind. When one of them refuses to care for the other in these ways, they don't have a traditional marriage from my perspective. Separation is a public expression of alienation that a lack of care has created.

While we're not always able to convince reluctant women to make love to their husbands, we're successful far more often than not. But even if we can't do it, that doesn't mean that someone wouldn't be able to get through. My advice to most husbands in your position is to keep trying to enlist as much help from professional coaches as possible with the hope that one of them would succeed. The worst mistake you could make is to give up on a solution to the problem, and assume that you are destined to live a celibate life as long as you're married to your wife.

Best wishes,
Willard F. Harley, Jr.

Good link. But, don't you wish Harley would occassionally illustrate his point by relating a story where the woman is emotionally neglecting the guy. Gets sort of old, this bias.

But I'm opposed to a lifelong commitment to care for a spouse when that spouse makes marriage-wrecking choices. It tends to give such people unrealistic expectations of entitlement -- that they should be cared for, regardless of their willingness to care in return. Neglect and abuse characterize many marriages based on unconditional love.

You said "beat up" , right?