How to keep your husband faithful

by Terri Potratz | September 3, 2008 at 03:15 pm
1104 views | 0 Recommendations | 2 comments

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American psychotherapist and family counselor Gary Neuman has enraged some audiences with his most recent book, The Truth About Cheating: Why Men Cheat and What You Can do to Prevent it, which instructs wives to follow these rules if they'd like their husbands to remain faithful:

always forgiving him; giving him sex on demand; lavishing praise on him for providing for the family, even if earning more than him; rarely letting him out on his own with friends or work colleagues; and taking an interest in his hobbies.

Ample retorts are popping up, from both feminists and therapeutic colleagues alike.  Dorothy Ramsay of the Association for Family Therapy counters:

'You could try this approach, I suppose. It depends whether you see marriage as so worthwhile that it's worth sacrificing one human being to sustain it. This country has moved on from that stance. It's OK if you expect one half of the couple to live in misery because they're constantly twisting themselves into contortions to serve their partner's needs.'

Neuman's extensive case studies on nearly 100 cheating men unearth, in his opinion, practical solutions to a rewarding, honest and faithful marriage. 

"Successful couples accentuate the positive and diminish the negative, and failed couples accentuate the negative and diminish the positive. Failed couples tend to think that their failure is justified because of the spouse they married. They perceive successful couples as having an easy life, less stress, and fewer issues than what they’ve experienced. This is the number one falsehood of the failed couple. Successful couples shoulder just as many issues, whether they be financial hardships, work - related stress, childrearing issues, illnesses, and challenges with in - laws, but their system of dealing with it is an extremely different model, and that’s what makes them successful."

Nothing disagreeable there - much of what Neuman says does carry some merit.  But his advice that women pander to their husband's needs in order to achieve a more intimate relationship?  Not so much.



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Nicole Billard

This is so funny... you're right, some of this rings true. BUT if I followed half of these 'tips', my husband would call me 'needy' or ask why I'd suddenly decided to play second fiddle. 'Truth is that there is no magic plan. He's got a great point about failed couples thinking that they just picked the wrong person - 'not a good match' means a lot more than compatible work schedules and sex drive. I wonder what generation he was basing his research on.

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Terri Potratz

I think it's recent studies, but might be worth looking into where exactly in the U.S. he found these particular cheaters.

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