I have been working on my marriage with all of Dr. Harley's material. My H is trying to decide whether he wants to reconcile or go through with a D. I talk about what I have read and heard, and I am wondering which of his books or info on the website is specifically geared toward or not as biased against the WS. If I let him read the material like "SAA", he will see my strategies that I have been using. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Instead of posting my response to these two letters, I have decided to use their contents to illustrate how affairs begin. R. J. described the essential conditions for an affair quite well. First, there is usually a dissatisfaction with marriage that stems from the failure to meet an important emotional need. For R.J., her need is conversation, which is usually missing in marriage when women have affairs. She has a deep and pervasive need to talk to her husband, a need that all the gifts in the world cannot meet.

R.J.'s husband has demonstrated his care for her in many different ways. But he doesn't care for her in the way that would deposit the most love units. Because he has not met her need for conversation, she is vulnerable to an affair.

The best friend of R.J.'s husband (we'll call him Bob) didn't intend to meet her emotional needs whenever he talked to her. He was just being friendly, and carried on conversations the way he would with almost anyone. But whether he intended to or not, whenever he talked with her, he deposited scores of love units. After a while, he might have noticed how his conversations were effecting her, but I'm not sure he would have made much of it.

I'm also sure that R.J. did not intend to fall in love with Bob. Those feelings that he rekindled in her came as a surprise, and she is at a loss to know what to do about it. She knows that they are a risk to her marriage, and yet she feels compelled to draw ever closer to the object of her new love.

There are some who feel that those feelings of love are a signal from God to abandon past relationships and rush into this new relationship. But it's no signal from God. Instead, it's the way our emotions mindlessly encourage us to spend more time with those who meet our emotional needs. If we submitted to our emotions, and chased after anyone who at the moment deposited the most love units in our Love Banks, our lives would become chaotic in no time. And the lives of family and friends, to say nothing about our own lives, would be trashed.