On the radio, Dr. Harley says that if the husband is on board with the Marriage Builders program, there is a higher chance of success. It is more likely that the eventual result will be that his wife is on board, than it would be that he will eventually come on board if things are the other way around:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=1973

Men, if your wife is (currently) the reluctant spouse -- be encouraged! Take heart! Keep doing this, like a weightlifter being coached to crank out just one more rep that you don't think you can do, because you have every chance of getting your wife on board if you will just work this program!

Yes I've read/heard that many times from Dr H. I clearly see many more women on this forum with reluctant husbands than the other way around so I'm grateful.

This isn't very encouraging to wives with reluctant husbands.

However, it can be done! While we were working with Steve, my H often refused to take part in the call right up until the last minute. MB was stupid, unrealistic, didn't take into account real-world scenarios, men don't date WIVES, RC was supposed to be met by FRIENDS, etc. Now he preaches MB to others, lol!

So, as much as a wife can take, keep the course, and losing fear of divorce can help a lot.

I know -- it's very discouraging! That's why these days one of the things I encourage wives to do is to get their husbands here so us other guys can talk to them about it.

You are right, it can be done, and you guys are a great success story I think of where the husband was reluctant.

I hope nobody construes my post above to mean that wives should despair. But it should be a good encouragement to get your husband to Steve Harley, or on the radio show, or here, or somewhere where someone can talk to them about why you need them to do this.

For this clip, begin listening at 6:21

Transcript, beginning at 6:52:

I totally agree with this. Its far easier to get a wife on board with MB than it is for a wife to get a hubby on board. Its what i had to do... it eventually worked once i showed and lived how its done. Took many years to get my wife on board with MB. Many a times I would give up and go back to my old ways because i was not seeing the results i wanted in a timely manner. That was my downfall on it taking so long.

Thanks for this radio clip and these thoughts, Markos.

So given this fact, what's a wife to do? Do her efforts have any effect?

Some of us wives are struggling to hang on. If the wife's effort doesn't make much difference, then why go through months and years of heartache trying to accomplish something hopeless?

Wives can be like Bond, too. I suppose the end result depends a lot on a wife's stamina--it helps a lot to have steely resolve rather than weepy hopelessness. Even if you gotta fake it.

That helps regardless of who wants to repair the marriage. As long as one person is willing to stay the course (the NEW course, not the broken one), the other spouse will eventually get on board or the new, improved spouse will be totally over their nonsense and have no doubt about what to do next, because their weak and weepy self is long gone.

I would suspect this is true when infidelity is not a factor.

However, if the wife aff is on-going, it's far more likely she's closed the love bank door to her betrayed husband, negating any advantage he might have.

Dr Harley didn't say that, so that's simply my impression. It would be interesting to get a follow up question.

However, what I've read, I would tend to agree with his assessment, IF there is no on-going affair on the part of the wife.

This is why it's so important to break up the affair. Exposure and working for the destruction of the affair is key for the betrayed husband (or wife) in order to have a chance with the plans.

The bottom line is there are scenarios where the wife has an advantage, and others where the husband has the advantage.

I think BW's have a better chance as WH's can in their minds have meaningless sex with the OW and still be in love with their wives, and thereby be more likely to return when the affair is over.

BH's in the scenario are at a relative disadvantage because their WW's have already closed the LB and are generally convinced they do not love their husband, are in love with OM.

Of course there are exceptions. Even Dr Harley only says the on-board husband has a better chance, not a sure thing for him, not a sure failure for the on-board wife.

Finally, regardless who is on-board, MB is still your best chance for success.

That's right, Zhamila, Dr. Harley recommends a wife NOT go through years of heartache.

Well, this is in 101, EE, where we disassemble 'marriage destruction lite'. Here, many of the stories involving women giving up is due to neglect, and men giving up because they are the man and they do what they want, no p-whipping in their household, harrumph! A neglected woman is much easier to draw in with attention than a man in fear of being whipped. Those guys really do need the counsel of other men. I know my H had a lot of assumptions about married men that he learned were not true once he started talking to them about marriage, especially the yahoos who he relied on for advice before, who ended up divorced because their wives left them for someone else.

Thanks Markos. So what's a wife to do? (or is my question a thread-jack?...if so, please tell me and I'll ask it somewhere else.)