And yet the fact remains that Dr. Harley has seen many recovered marriages where the woman does not apologize for her affair, and very few where the man has not apologized for his. He has a few hypotheses centering around the polygamous history of mankind (from http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8001_affair.html ):


Life isn't fair. Anybody who tells you differently is trying to sell you something.

The world sucks. If it didn't, we'd all fall off it.

An important part of recovery is acknowledging the role your actions -- or inaction -- played in creating the conditions in which an affair could take place, and apologizing for them. I was a pretty lousy husband, constantly playing computer games, ignoring the children, and never doing housework. I can't say I'm perfect at any of these today, but I'm much better. That isn't blameshifting: that's reality. Neglected emotional needs are a powerful indicator for a future affair. That's why Dr. Harley's method addresses it.

Dr. Harley also addresses some other odd differences. Most of the time, a wife's list of her husband's annoying habits far outnumber the husband's list of his wife's annoying habits. Why is this? Nobody is certain, but it's empirically true that it is the case. And even if husbands didn't do the cheating, it's imperative that he eliminate his most egregious Love Busters.

It's not blameshifting to acknowledge the reality before us. More men neglect their wife's emotional needs than wives neglect their husband's. More wives are annoyed by their husband's behavior than husbands are annoyed by their wife's behavior. Although men and women cheat at equal rates, women often have more to resent than men. Nature of the beast.

Recovery requires acknowledging these failures and remedying them. I can assure you that, in the wake of my wife's affair, I had a lot more of my own behaviors to fix in order to build a compatible lifestyle than she did. Don't know why, but it's just the way it is with most men!

But isn't it her PERCEPTION that she's ignored?

You are calling the BH's view a perception, but treating the WAW or WW's view as if it's fact.

It's perception, just like his view is.

You cannot treat them differently. If you are treating his as perception, you have to treat her view the same way.

If you are treating her view as fact, then his has to be treated the same way.

Pick a consistent standard and treat both the same.

If the guy says he's working and the woman says she's ignored, then either both are fact or both are perception.

Since you've chosen to treat what she reports as fact, then it all gets treated that way.

The notion that women are not leaving abusive, adulterous or addictive men is as solid a fact as what the women are reporting.

Likewise, the relationship work ethic being reported by betrayed or abandoned husbands is just as much fact as what is being reported by these women.

So if you are going to accept the WAW/WW at face value, then the same benefit of the doubt should be granted to both Dr H and the betrayed or abandoned husband.

I simply don't see you giving the same credit to the words reported by the BH as are reported by the WW/WAW, or Dr H's comment about how these men are not abusive, etc.

Well, my H actually was adulterous, so I would have been perfectly within my rights to leave him because of that. His adultery, however, did not give me the right to cheat on him. Two wrongs do not make a right.

EE,

This question is going to sound weird, but I am asking it with honesty and no snarkiness. And understand that I believe that there is NO justification for an A and that what I chose to do 4 1/2 years ago was despicable.

Is there ANY case in which you think the man might NOT have been the husband he should be....and case where he actually DID fall short and neglect his wife? Or is it always that the woman is just some selfish walkaway hussy?

I am asking because a man (or woman) who has been so hurt that the opposite sex can never be redeemed or that waywards will always be wayward....it makes a difference.

I am reading the letter of the article, EE. Again, Dr. H has stated his findings and observations. He did state the perceptions of both men and women and then went on to state what he has concluded...that the neglect is real. He even goes on to explain why an H should invite the W into every room of the house.

How can a man who works long hours and doesn't include his wife in RC during his free time not have a neglected wife? There are only so many hours in the day. That is only an example as there can be a number of factors of what is going on in the marriage and the roles each spouse plays. A man would be neglected if the shoe was on the other foot. Neglect is not an excuse for an A...I never said it was...but it leads to an emotional disconnect which makes the marriage more vulnerable to one.

We only have snippets in the article but after talking to thousands of couples, I would think there is more to HIS conclusions but they aren't detailed in the article...we'd be reading forever if he gave us thousands of examples. I'm not even sure if we can say that all observations are fact in this case since it is not an absolute but IN GENERAL that is the observed dynamic going on a lot of the time.

And you didn't leave, so how does his affair apply to the idea that the women leaving husbands are for the majority NOT leaving husbands who cheat, beat, etc?

Your data point doesn't satisfy the criteria in two ways:

1. You didn't leave him, you are still married.
2. He cheated.

So men FEEL they are working hard, and women FEEL ignored, and both are the man's fault?

I'm not arguing against them feeling neglected.

What I'm asking is how is it the man's fault that she leaves? Why not blame her for him not feeling appreciated? After all, if we blame him for her feeling neglected, then isn't his feeling un-appreciated simply another form of neglect?

Why is she getting a pass for her neglect and allowed to shift the blame to him for her choice to walk away, but he's supposed to shoulder it all, and take the blame that his wife walked out?

I'm not saying the guy can't improve. What I'm saying is how is it that the burden falls on the guy who has loyally stuck it out, in spite of the neglect he's received?

The article is one-sided. What it doesn't mention is that the husband is also a victim of neglect, and it's followed up by the ultimate neglect. She leaves him, or she has an affair, or both.

So while folks seem to focused ONLY on his neglect, her neglect gets a pass.

Excuse me?

Walking away from your husband, or having an affair is NUCLEAR NEGLECT, and that shouldn't be forgotten.

So if we are going to talk neglect, and I don't argue there wasn't. I simply argue why she chooses to leave and gets a pass while he's endured likely the same sort of neglect and hasn't left?

I invited my ex-wife into every room of my house as the article said, long before she had her affair. She chose to stay out. She chose to stay with the children and sucked into soap operas and shopping.

I think I still have the e-mail from 9/2003 when I shared the article with her and said she has always been invited into every aspect of my life.

I think you might blush at the response.

So I wonder, how many women who think they are left out are simply ignoring the invitation to enter into those rooms, or actually refuse to enter, and then blame their husbands when they've not chosen to enter open rooms into which they were repeatedly invited?

Who ever said that all of the blame lies with the man and not with the woman? I certainly don't think Dr. H said that.

It takes two people to make a good marriage and it takes two people to make a bad one.

No one is trying to place all of the blame on the husband, and no one is giving the wife a "pass" for neglecting her husband.

Both people in a marriage have needs that have to be met by their spouse in order to create a mutually satisfying relationship. I don't think anyone here ever said otherwise.

Or how many women didn't perceive their H's actions as actual invitations to enter into those rooms in the first place? Remember, just because he thinks he is effectively communicating something doesn't make it so. If the wife can be guilty of ineffective communication (as you have stated so many times is the case), then so can the H.

Who's applying a double standard now?

Really, so black_raven's thoughts that more husbands are abusive or adulterous are praising those husbands?

The facts are 2/3's to 3/4's of all divorces are filed by women.

Yet we keep hearing from one source or another that men are abandoning families.

Dr Harley says that most of the men being left by wives are not men who engage in marital misconduct such as affairs, abuse or addiction.

Yet we still hear how men are abandoning families.

The facts don't bear that out. Men are not abandoning families, they are being discarded by the women who leave them or betray them.

I never said such a thing, EE.

The latter is not necessarily true. One spouse can blow up a marriage all on their own. I have never bought the 50/50 argument of responsibility either just because there are 2 people involved.

I didn't see her say this either.

And I didn't say the split was always 50/50. But I think it is very rare to find a marriage where one partner is 100% good and the other is 100% bad. No one is perfect. We can all do better. If there are problems in the marriage, they cannot usually be blamed completely on one partner while the other remains totally innocent.

I will be more clear...

I brought that 50/50 part up because I didn't know if you were aware that is my position. I don't think anyone is 100% good or bad either...only that each spouse is 100% responsible for themselves. Agreed that we can all do better.

No problem black raven.

I've struggled with this myself at times.

My H's A started a week after we got married. Actually, it was with an ex-girlfriend he'd never really gotten over (even though she was married with a kid by then), so it really started before the wedding. I just didn't know about it until a week after. I mean, I wasn't really given much of a chance to be a good wife there, was I?

But, I certainly could have handled the situation better. If I had only known about absolute NC and meeting each other's EN's and avoiding LB's back then. I certainly would have done things differently, and maybe I wouldn't have suffered through the agony of my H being in love with another woman for 10 years. There were certainly better ways I could have and should have handled the situation. But I was young and scared and I didn't know much about marriage at all.

writer,

Your non-MB response to the affair could hardly be described as a contribution to the problem in the marriage. The problem was the AFFAIR that was set to happen even before you got married. Your H was 100% responsible for the affair and therefore 100% responsible for the problem in the marriage.

Lurioosi,
I don't understand your last sentence because it doesn't make sense - it makes a difference for what? What are you getting at?

It seems like EE is saying that there is a sense of entitlement with WWs... they want to walk away from their affair and "get back in line", and not adjust their attitudes inside necessarily, just adjust their behavior and try to "work on their marriage". It seems like he's saying women hold onto resentment post-A, and one way in which they do that is through denial of SF.

Let's face it: although people can change, tigers never change their stripes. So, while "once a wayward, always a wayward" is a blanket generalization, the burden of proof is on each individual wayward, no? Because they HAVE crossed a line that no one should cross. Because they HAVE proven that they care more about their own selfish pleasure than their mate.

I think your question is completely immaterial. Of COURSE you could find husbands who are "to blame" for the state of their marriage leading up to a wife's A. What about a physically abusive spouse? But in MOST cases, statistically speaking, that is not the case. WWs do NOT tend to "own their actions". They still feel like victims, even after their "repentance". Compare that to a TYPICAL WH. Very different animals, no?

I never said he was effective. If she didn't enter, I'd say he wasn't effective. Nothing double standard about that.