Please bear with me because I am new here and am making my way through a dozen books on infidelity and also doing my best to understand the MB principles.

I have seen many betrayed spouses posting that it is not their fault that their partner had an A. However, Dr. Harley clearly explains that the BS is at least partially responsible for their partner's affair.

Page 75, Surviving An Affair

How could I expect Jon to avoid burning his bridges after Sue had behaved so thoughtlessly? I offered him four reasons to try a plan that would give his marriage a chance to recover.

1. John was partly responsible for Sue's affair. John knew, deep down inside, that his career choices had a great deal to do with Sue's affair. His work schedule prevented him from meeting her emotional needs, and it made her vulnerable to Greg's attention. Even after she was willing to reconcile with him, his job continued to take priority. He now realized what he should have done to prevent her affair and he needed a chance to prove it to her. He would have that chance if he could be patient.

Those are Dr. Harley's exact words.

He also goes on to explain that, after an affair, the most common outcome is that neither spouse is willing to take responsibility for the mess that is created, and that both spouses are angry, frustrated, and hurt, the BS from the betrayal, and the WS from the frustration of not having their needs met to begin with.

He recommends BOTH spouses apologizing to eachother; the WS for the betrayal, and the BS for failing to meet important emotional needs that were promised at the time of marriage, even if those needs were not met out of ignorance.

Dr. Harley does not play the blame game, like so many of the posters in here clearly do.

Not that I am excusing my wife's EA.

BUT, I definitely recognize that I created the conditions that made it very easy for her to ultimately make that choice.

She has apologized to me, and I have apologized to her, even though it took me well over a year to do it.

Reading Surviving An Affair was instrumental in MY healing, and in MY taking responsibility for MY part in the mess that was created by her affair.

That is really all I have to say.

Now, Beowulf, I am not at all responsible for my H's EA. I will admit to having a part in setting up the conditions for him to take that liberty, but I will not assume any responsibility in it. It was his decision to have an EA.
He didn't ask my permission, he knew it was wrong and for selfish reasons he did it any way.

We were separated due to his work, his decision, so our property would be cared for. Which in and of itself, gave me plenty of reason to exhibit lack of restraint, but I didn't. We had the same circumstances, he chose to have an EA, and I didn't. It boils down to I have stiffer boundaries than he had. There is never any excuse for starting up any kind of relationship, til you finish the one you are in. This is my opinion of my set of circumstances.

Many of these posters that you speak of are either newly betrayed, and dealing with a cavalcade of sadness and ANGER, as well as grieving (so I can see them blaming, for now), OR they are those who have not begun to look at their part in anything, and continually blame others for their problems. This isn't a behavior specific to these boards, it occurs in everyday life.

If you read nearly anything that a vet posts, you will not see blame, you will see them talk about self recovery and personal responsibility.

SAA is a great tool for the BS, most assuredly, but they need TIME to digest the material and begin to live it.

I, too, have apologized to my FWH.

According to my stbxw, it is totally my fault for not giving her the wealthy, free to do as she pleased lifestyle she "deserved".

Si it IS my fault.

:rolls eyes, gets eye cramp:

First of all not every affair is a result of something the BS wasn't / isn't doing. That would be the first wrong assumption. No one is perfect and if that is the standard everyone has come up short. Some affairs are about much more than the BS meeting or not meeting needs.

Secondly, if the WS was as poor at meeting needs as the BS then does that mean that the WS has to apologize twice? Once for the affair and once for being equally negligible in setting the conditions for the affair to begin by not meeting the BS's needs and therefore the BS not meeting their needs?

I am in no way, shape or form responsible for my ex WW getting depressed, bitter, sullen, angy, not talking to me about it and then having an affair w/ a loser POS. Not my fault and I will never accept that it was. On the other hand if you want to talk about both of us doing things in the marriage that may have contributed to the marriage not being all it could have been then sign me up as part to blame.

So, I guess serial cheaters needs just can't be met by anyone can they. They go from divorce to divorce because the BS of the moment is not meeting their needs. Face it, sometimes a person is just plain sorry, that's it, no magic to it, plain sorry excuse for a human being.

Not in every case. Dr. Harley is speaking in generalizations in that quote. A generalization does not mean 100%, but MOST.

Even so, Dr Harley clarifies this on his radio show and in person as such: only the affairees are responsible for the affair. They are 100% responsible for the choice to have an affair. HOWEVER, IN SOME CASES - NOT ALL, both the BS and the WS share an equal responsibility for the state of the marriage that made the WS vulnerable.

And oftentimes, the BS is not even aware HOW he is contributing to the vulnerabilities, so it is not done out of malice, but out of ignorance.

But be assured, there are affairs that occur in marriages where every need was met by the BS.

LIKE MINE, where I had NO contribution to his vulnerability. He and my MB counselor fully admit that I met EVERY NEED. He simply had an affair because he was a CREEP.

BUT, in my 20 yr marriage that ended the year before I met my current H, I deprived my H in so many ways for so many years that I might as well have set up the date with his OW for him. He left me for the OW. His top needs were RC and SF. I refused to have sex with him unless he begged for weeks. And then I was rude about it. I would go nowhere with him EVER. I starved the man for 20 years, so when the first woman came along and offered to have sex and go hunting/fishing with him, he was a goner.

Now, am I responsible for his affair? NO. I can't be responsble for something over which I have no control. But did I contribute to the conditions that made him vulnerable to an affair. YES.

But be assured that we do have cases here where the BS did meet every need, and then we have others where he/she did not. But it can't be said that every affair is caused by unmet needs, they are not.

..and then we have waywards who rewrite history and manufacture grievances WHILE IN THE FOG. That is a GIVEN. The solution is to seperate fact from fiction, and the WS usually does this himself once he is through withdrawal, when recovery really begins anyway.

...and then we have betrayed spouses who come here and are so outraged and aggrieved [rightfully so!] that it is TOO galling for them to admit that they may have had any contribution to the sorry state of the marriage.

There are so many different variables in each sitution that no generalizations can be used. Every case must judged on its on own dynamics in the arena of recovery.

Now, am I responsible for his affair? NO. I can't be responsble for something over which I have no control. But did I contribute to the conditions that made him vulnerable to an affair. YES.

Hi MelodyLane,

While I understand what you are saying, it does not follow Dr. Harley's principles. He clearly states that when an affair occurs because of unmet needs, then the BS is partly responsible for that affair.

Saying the BS is not at fault for the affair but is at fault for the state of the marriage before the affair is just a play on words.

Would you have been responsible if your first H had just flat out divorced you? You would have had no control over that either...so would that have made the divorce "not your fault"? I hardly think so. Your reasoning is flawed.

Again, I am just a newbie trying to understand the Harley way.

Dr. Harley lists several letters on this website practically blaming the BH's for their wife's affair...take this letter for example:

My wife of nineteen years has been having an affair with a co-worker for at least two months. She has admitted to spending long hours with the man and, in effect, making him the focus of her emotional being instead of me. She claims that the two have not had sex, but I am convinced that they have had sex because of phrases in letters of hers that she wrote him. She denies this.

He has ended the affair with my wife for fear of losing his children. She has left the state for a few weeks (the trip was planned long before I found out about the affair), and I am left alone with the images.

I want to forgive her, but I feel that she has not revealed the full depth of her betrayal, and that I would not be able to completely forgive her as long as there is still some doubt. Is it possible to forgive what you fear, without confirmation?

C.S.



Dear C.S.,
The question you need to ask yourself is, do I want my wife to love me? Or even, do I want to be married to her? If the answer to these questions is "no," then I don't have much advice for you. But if the answer is "yes," you have a lot of work ahead of you, and "forgiveness" is about the last thing I'd be worried about just yet. Your wife almost left you, and if you're not careful, she eventually will. What you just experienced was a wake-up call.

The reason her relationship didn't go anywhere was that her friend wanted his own marriage to survive, not because she wanted hers to survive. As a marriage counselor, I am always hoping that the friend will do just that so I can help the couple rebuild their marriage without interference. But don't think for a minute that their relationship is over, or that she will ever be really sorry for what she did. But you have a chance right now to save your marriage, and what you do in the next few months will be crucial.

First, let's analyze the problem. Over the past few years, you and your wife have grown apart. You have become incompatible, and you are not meeting her emotional needs. She probably isn't meeting yours either. She found someone who meets her needs, and was willing to give up her relationship with you to be with him. She comes back to you reluctantly, because she has no choice. But it gives you an opportunity.

You must take this opportunity to prove to her that you can do something you haven't been doing for some time: Meet her most important emotional needs. First, you need to discover them. What was her friend doing that she found so irresistible? He probably talked to her, showed an interest in her, was respectful and encouraging, demonstrated his care by being there for her when she needed him. And maybe, most important, he didn't criticize her or try to straighten her out.

Call her, send her flowers, tell her how much you love her, how much you miss her. Don't smother her, but let her know in no uncertain terms that you value your relationship with her.

Even though you have been very hurt by her affair, don't blame her for it. Don't expect her to apologize and don't ask her to explain the gory details.

She is probably suffering depression over the relationship not working out. It's a common symptom of withdrawal. She will want to talk to someone about how badly she feels. Try to be the one she confides in, even if what she says is how much she misses this other man. DON'T JUDGE HER! If you do, she simply won't open up to you. If you can't handle it, she should talk to a friend or a counselor, but don't risk losing her by venting your anger or your judgment on her.

Granted, you're in a tough situation, but one I've seen work out a vast majority of the time. It may take six months to two years to recover your wife's love, but when it's over you will have the relationship with each other that you have both needed throughout your married life.


Dr. Harley pratically lays all the blame for her affair at the BS's feet!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we are to pick and choose which of Harley's principles are to be adhered to based on what we want and what will make us feel better about our situations???

I think not.

Better to not cast blame, not point fingers, but to instead both move forward without looking back.

I'm sorry. She's sorry. We both were wrong. I will NEVER take her for granted again. I will ALWAYS strive to meet her needs. She will protect her boundaries in the future and we will NEVER go through this h3ll again.

Beowulf,

I have found Al Turtle to be very helpful, and especially with this sort of question. Oddly enough, he just posted an article about this very topic today on his front page.

***********edit**********

Anyway, the site is massive, lots and lots of good info IMO. Might be worth your while to check it out.

I don't see that letter as assigning blame. It asks the betrayed to understand their role in the relationship that allowed the affair to be an acceptable option to the wayward.

But having the affair was still a choice by the wayward. A choice made in secrecy and conducted with knowing deception.


No it is not.

If I had a wife who lacked financial discretion would it be partly her fault if I unilaterally chose to rob a bank to make up the difference? Nope.

But if my unhappiness over my wife's spending habits made me secretly chose (internally justify) to have an affair instead then she would be part to blame? Nope.

It’s the same thing for the conscience decision by a wayward to have an affair.

And what of good healthy marriages that are devistated by an affair? It happens. Harley writes about those as well.

The betrayed spouse being 50% responsible for the waywards choice to have an affair would be the ultimate get out of jail free card. Anyone could have an affair anytime and guess what; it’s not even entirely their fault. No fault universe. We don’t need a conscience or morals or values to guide us when we can blame someone else for our hideous decisions. “You ticked me off today so I did the mailman.”

And what of the destruction of the other marriage? My ex-WW stepped in and committed a 2-year old boy (OMW’s DD2) to grow up in a broken home. Am I 50% to blame for this as well or can she carry that load alone?

B,


No it is not. Nearly all marriages have some level of difficulty in them and believe it or not all of us do not cheat. In my situation, I was not meeting my FWH's need for SF, but he was not meeting my need for Financial Security. He had an affair, yet I did not.

Do you see the difference. WE were responsible for the condition of our marriage, my FWH CHOSE to deal with it by having an affair. There are many things that he could have done. He could have talked to me about it. He could have insisted that we see a MC. He could have left me. He could have divorced me.

Do you see the difference?

Who

B,

I think the important thing in this situation is to work together to resolve the issues in a marriage. Blame is probably a bad choice here. Responsibility for the decision to have an affair is a better one. I don't know of any BS here who was consulted with before their WS betrayed them.

SHeeesh, I can hear it now, "you got fat after having our children and I wasn't attracted to you any more, so it is your fault I had an affair", or "you lost your hair and I am not attracted to bald men, so really it is your fault that I decided to sleep with someone else." Sounds kinda stupid doesn't it!


Couples who have been victims of infidelity need to work hard on meeting each others needs and avoiding LB's or all of the apologies in the world won't make a bit of difference. Obsessing on who is to blame is a big mistake IMHO.

Who

Beowulf,

As Mel has said Harley has clarified this statement and has repeated as has his son and daughter who both counsel using this method. The affair is a decision made without input or consent from the BS. The affair IS totally the decision of the person starting it.

However, and here is where I think you might be slightly missing what goes on around here. In the letter you quoted, Harley is spelling out HOW to recover and rebuild the marriage. Usually, it is the BS that has to carry the freight on recovery for quite awhile. That entails the BS examining their role in the marriage, their failures in the marriage, and their contributions to the condition of the marriage including what constitutes an LB to the WS.

Unless the WS can and does see some honest changes, the chances of rebuilding are very slim. IF nothing is changed then nothing changes. It seems to me you reading recovery advice as blame advice.

One of the more interesting things about Harley's approach is that it is about the future. That takes assessing and learning from the past. It does not entail blame assessment. Frankly, if a WS doesn't get that having an affair is wrong and hurtful, there is little chance or perhaps even need to recover the marriage.

In the many years I have been here, one of the more interesting things I have learned is that the BS that takes responsibility for the affair, often does not get the recovery they need. Why? It seems in these cases both the WS and the BS are focused on the affair, and that does not lead to recovery.

If at least one of them is focussed on the marriage and the state of the marriage as it existed before the WS made a decision to have an affair, then changes are made in how the marriage is conducted via avoiding LB's, meeting needs, seeing things in a new perspective. The WS needs to face, accept and get that they had control and choices and their approaches to these things was flawed, it was not the BS.

As you can easily see this is a complex situation. My feeling is that Harley recognized that often well intentioned people fail to meet needs of their spouse because they don't understand them, or they assume they should be met the way they would like them. This leaves the marriage vulnerable to a variety of maladies, up to and including affairs. It is why he focuses on meeting needs in the recovery phase. It changes the dynamics, it gives the BS something concrete they can do while the WS is still in the fog, and...it works.

Just some thoughts.

God Bless,

JL

hmmmmmmm ok......
I blame my H 100% for the "affair" itself ....
however I did apologize for not meeting his needs that made him vulnerable in the first place . But the AFFAIR is totally 100% absolutely his doing, his fault. Instead of an affair, we could have talked, we could have had MC, we could have found MB before the affair.

He could have told me he wasnt happy, but he pretended to be happy (and yes, he acknowledge pretending that all was well, he said he loved me so he put his needs on the backburner). Because he was not honest with me, I had no idea that i wasn't fulfilling his needs. See I was fulfilling that needs that were important to me. Only after MB, did I ask him how important was (women's ENs) Affection etc...he said not very important. So I apologize for not meeting sex like he wanted, recreation, and I forgot the 2. I did meet physical attraction-but that's all I met.

But I won't take not even 1% blame for the affair, because he could have left me, or talk to me like i mention b4, he didnt have to break my heart. That's like saying because you didnt pay me back that $10.00 I lent you last week, I'm gonna do the worst thing imaginable and shoot you in the head. I mean would that hold up in court?...lol "Your honor I had no other choice, it was either be unhappy or do the worst thing imaginable".......OH pppllluuueeeezzze.

Now I haven't read the entire SAA book, but BUT Harley said on the website for Infidelity "There are no excuses for an affair but there are reasons" So my H has no excuse, but I do except the fact that I didnt meet his most ENs.

At least this is how I feel, don’t know about anyone else.

No, its not. It explains exactly what he means. He states quite often that the BS is NOT responsible for the affair. Again, one can't be blamed for something over which they have no control. What they CAN be blamed for is making a spouse VULNERABLE to an affair.


No, your reasoning is flawed because I couldn't possibly be "responsible" for a divorce action I did not initiate. Again, I can't be responsible for something over which I have no control. It was my fault that I made my H so miserable that he WANTED a divorce, though. For that, I take the blame.

Beowulf, Dr. Harley does not cast blame for the affair, he does cast blame for the state of the marriage where it is warranted. And oftentimes it is warranted. Sometimes it is NOT, though.

Not very cool to promote another marriage counseling service on Marriage Builders' dime. Marriage Builders pays for this site to promote and learn MARRIAGE BUILDERS, not some other service.

First of all, not every 'need' is a valid need. Some people have bottomless pit desires because of addiction, abusive childhood issues, greed, narcissistic personality disorder, not having a relationship with God, etc. NO mere mortal can satisfy those folks.

Sometimes there are two different needs that can't both be met because they are in opposition to each other. The gold-digger gal married to the businessman who works 60 hours per week and travels a lot on business... and then commits adultery with the pool boy comes to mind. She 'needs' a man with a lot of money to satisfy her greed, but because her husband has to work so much to fulfill that particular 'need' of hers, he's not around to provide her needs for sex and recreation.

Another example is the man who wants a spotless home, dinner on the table, stay-at-home-mom, homeschooling her kids, and scrimping to live on one income... and then flirts and fools around with the office bimbo (barely) covered in the latest fashion, make-up, fake nails, and hairspray. He fails to provide his wife with the time or money to compete with that... And he doesn't want to have a converstation with let alone go out to a restaurant with his wife because he already goes out to lunch all the time with his secretary.

Also, there are some people who fail to take responsibility for recognizing and communicating to their spouse exactly what their most important emotional needs are. This negligence is usually innocent ignorance of their own needs and/or the importance of communicating them to their spouse.

But sometimes a WS will deliberately refuse to allow the BS to fulfill their needs and instead will ONLY allow OP to do so. This is pretty common WS behavior BTW. And sometimes not allowing the BS to meet needs didn't start with the adultery but was going on for some time in the marriage. It may be that the WS was fantasizing about escape and conveniently setting up the conditions they could later use as their justification.

It may be a fear of intimacy, fear of rejection issue. A marriage counselor once told me that my WH was SO afraid of getting hurt that he was being careful not to get all his needs met from one woman; his main priority, more important to him than me, our marriage, our children, our family, was to not get too emotionally attached to his wife or even his children so that WHEN (not if) the marriage/family ended he wouldn't feel as much sadness! He had no sense of responsibility for keeping his marriage and family together - instead he was obsessed with protecting himself from what he presumed was inevitable. Instead of using his childhood as an incentive to be a better parent for his children, to protect them, he cowered in fear and was willing to shamefully sacrifice their best interest in order to protect himself.

Or it could simply be that the WS did a LOT of 'dating' before marriage and that's what feels 'normal' to them. They don't want to limit themselves to one partner and getting all their needs met within the marriage. This was also a BIG factor with my WH...

Let's face it current societal standards and role models don't exactly frown upon adultery. Most people (except the betrayed that is) just don't understand what the big deal is.

There's also the 'madonna/******' theory where a WH prefers to have a wife that he thinx of more as a 'mother' image and an OW that he thinx of as his lover...

It could also just be the WS was raised by parents who modeled adultery to them. And that even if they marry somebody perfectly willing and able to meet their most important needs, they will stray anyway because they learned that adultery was part of their definition of adulthood? I think in the case of my WXH he felt it would have somehow been dishonoring his parents if he made better choices than them? Since he'd spent all his life pretending his mother's adultery, divorce, and marriage to an abusive step-father supposedly didn't matter he maybe thought to liev by higher morals would somehow be putting his mother down?

IMHO a LOT of adulterers are well aware that when they stray many people will just blame the BS so they figure why not go for it? It's not exactly a secret that not holding people accountable for their choices will not increase their likelihood of making moral choices.

I am embarrassed to remember all the changes and improvements I made during my marriage, jumping through hoops, reading books, going to IC and MC, planning romantic dates and surprises... only to have my WH stray again and again. For a while he said he didn't like it that I was so quiet and shy and didn't defend myself... then he started saying I wasn't quiet enough and he didn't like me defending myself... He like short hair if mine was long and vice versa. When I had a career he was attracted to women who didn't, when I became a stay-at-home-mom he went for the office bimbos... He'd tell me to buy a certain style outfit only to tell me at some later point that he didn't lie it. He'd tell me to buy a certain perfume because he like dhte way it smelled on some other woman we knew... but then didn't like the way it smelled on me.

He even wanted me to get: breast implants (before I had babies, after I became voluptuous and busty he was attracted to more flat-chested girls), lazik eye surgery (which I'm afraid of), blue contact lenses, and a tummy tuck...

After one A his family blamed me because they said I didn't check up on him well enough! I remember being chastised for not dropping by his workplace unannounced to go out to lunch with him... never mind that some places we lived he had a 2 hour commute to work and we sometimes only had one vehicle... Then the next A WH had his family said it was because I was too jealous and controlling! But I had not been doing anything really to try to check up on him - I WAS just trusting him.

It was never about me though really - HE has a problem. But he never had a problem finding folks willing to blame me for his choice to be unfaithful... usually though they were the OW, his family, and people who didn't know us very well.

I was the one who wanted us to spend more time together recreationally and dating; I was the one who wanted to go to marriage counseling; I was the one who wanted to know about and meet needs... not my WH. He would say things like: "Why fix it if it ain't broke" and insisted "we can't afford" to go on dates together.

IMHO in many the WS was trying to meet the WS's needs; in fact it's often the WS who has done the less adequate job of meeting their spouse's needs. I think that is WHY BS's are sometimes struggling with bitterness - BECAUSE they were doing their part while their cheating partner was the slacker!

There is also the very important responsibility of ensuring that you NEVER allow some OP to meet one of your most important emotional needs. I know for a FACT that a person can resist the temptation to have an emotional need met inappropriately outside the marriage, even if it's one of their most important emotional needs, even if it is a valid need that it is possible to satisfy, even if they informed their spouse of the need and gave their spouse the opportunity to meet it, and even if after all that their spouse refused to meet the need. I know this because it's how I lived for decades while my serial adulter WH fooled around with a string of foolish women who felt sorry for him because his wife supposedly didn't meet his needs...

sigh...