Affairs : A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity

Rating:
Summary: "Affairs are not just about sex."
Review: As a family mediator, I have seen many couples end their marriage because one of them has had an extramarital affair. After reading Ms. Brown's second book, "Affairs: A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity," I am more convinced than ever that an affair is not a good reason to end a marriage before the WHY of the affair is worked through. Ms. Brown identifies five types of affairs. She believes that some affairs, when worked through by both spouses together in a nonjudgmental setting, can lead to a happier, more fulfilling marriage than the couple ever experienced before--even before the affair. "Affairs..." is easy to read and contains checklists and other useful information to decide how and if the impact of the affair can be worked through so a new beginning of trust and love can emerge. This is definitely a book that offers hope, healing, and practical help to anyone who has been affected by the aftermath of an extramarital affair. ("Affairs..." follows another excellent book, written for therapists, "Patterns of Infidelity and Their Treatment.")

Rating:
Summary: "Affairs are not just about sex."
Review: As a family mediator, I have seen many couples end their marriage because one of them has had an extramarital affair. After reading Ms. Brown's second book, "Affairs: A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity," I am more convinced than ever that an affair is not a good reason to end a marriage before the WHY of the affair is worked through. Ms. Brown identifies five types of affairs. She believes that some affairs, when worked through by both spouses together in a nonjudgmental setting, can lead to a happier, more fulfilling marriage than the couple ever experienced before--even before the affair. "Affairs..." is easy to read and contains checklists and other useful information to decide how and if the impact of the affair can be worked through so a new beginning of trust and love can emerge. This is definitely a book that offers hope, healing, and practical help to anyone who has been affected by the aftermath of an extramarital affair. ("Affairs..." follows another excellent book, written for therapists, "Patterns of Infidelity and Their Treatment.")

Rating:
Summary: Definitely a good guide!!!
Review: From the first page of this book I was mesmerized by how much of myself I read about. This is a fantastic guideline regarding different types of affairs, and the provocation behind them, from all points of view. It is just a well rounded advice and support book for anyone, on any side, involved in an affair. If you are going through pain, this will definitely help you to rationalize what is going on....

Rating:
Summary: A Distructive Affair
Review: I read this book after I had come out of a long time affair with a woman who I fell in love with but who could not show me the same back in ways I wanted to be loved. Reading this book I realize how good at pointing out all the small things that you go through in life with having an affair. You might think they are fun, exciting at the begining but they are so distructive to your well being, if you are starting to fancy someone and are married, buy this book and maybe you will see for yourself. The affair will destroy your life, especially if you are a decent person. Thankfully I am healing now, but it destroyed my wife with what happened, buy the book save yourself countless hours of upset. The other person can and will turn on you with such evil if you don't do as they say believe me. This woman did it to me, she came into my home for the sole purpose of destroying me and my wife, evil isn't a strong enough word to use for what she did and tried to do. Still I am able to look back at the events and think well those were the sort of reasons we are not together today as I always knew what she was really capable of. Evil ways never win out no matter how someone uses them in the contex of saying it was all done for love.. but now I say to myself, sure I was in love with her and we had some good times but time to move on and put the hurt and mistakes behind. Like my wife has told me, she would have let me go if she thought this woman would have been the right sort of person for me but even she could see how this other woman could and would have destroyed me so easily. Buy the book and save yourself a lot of pain. The other person will come after you will all their hate. I know it happened to me and unfortuntely I always knew it would one day ..

Rating:
Summary: Too Many Books Telling You To Stay When You Should Go!
Review: I truly wish that someone had recommended this book before now. I am 4 months into a separation in which my husband left me for an affair partner. I turned into a woman possessed. I did things that truly were unhealthy for me in trying to understand what went wrong and obsessing over what was happening between the two of them. After reading this book, I had a wake up call. I truly felt as if someone had taken the book and hit me over the head with it. It put the affair into perspective and allowed me to start the healing process. It enabled me to understand that the affiar was not all my fault and began the discussion process with my spouse. I was able to "let go" of the obsession and was able to understand the person who got involved with my husband as well as my husband's perspective. A definite "must read" for anyone who is going through this!

Rating:
Summary: What an eye opener
Review: I truly wish that someone had recommended this book before now. I am 4 months into a separation in which my husband left me for an affair partner. I turned into a woman possessed. I did things that truly were unhealthy for me in trying to understand what went wrong and obsessing over what was happening between the two of them. After reading this book, I had a wake up call. I truly felt as if someone had taken the book and hit me over the head with it. It put the affair into perspective and allowed me to start the healing process. It enabled me to understand that the affiar was not all my fault and began the discussion process with my spouse. I was able to "let go" of the obsession and was able to understand the person who got involved with my husband as well as my husband's perspective. A definite "must read" for anyone who is going through this!

Rating:
Summary: To be vulnerable to an event is not to invite it
Review: If marriage counselors were emergency room doctors, they would always be asking questions like, "We need to understand why you stepped in front of that car, and why the driver needed you to do it." If they were cardiologists, they would be asking, "We need to understand why you needed to occlude your arteries, and why your spouse wanted you to."

An article of faith, not a fact that anyone has discovered or theory that makes any logical sense, the notion that infidelity always reveals something about the marriage continues to impose on couples demands that no one in any other realm of health care would countenance.

That an affair has occurred obviously means that the marriage was vulnerable to an affair--that the pattern of marital interaction allowed for an affair to happen. That does not mean that the affair is a function of that pattern.

Ms. Brown's book is more sensible than many guides to dealing with infidelity, though it shares the dogma that affairs are always systemic.

And the "types of affairs" she mentions hardly encompass all the reasons affairs take place. Sometimes a spouse is mentally ill, for instance. Sometimes a spouse's early upbringing left him or her with serious ethical lacunae. Sometimes we just marry the wrong people, because we are young and naive or otherwise obtuse when marrying, and the person we marry chooses a dishonorable path. Sometimes we choose dishonorable ways of feeling better because of our own shortcomings. None of those are functions of the marriage.

If you try to fit your spouse's infidelity, or your own, into Ms. Brown's views, you may be taking on responsibility for managing someone else's mental illness or moral shortcomings, or you may be shifting your mental illness or ethical immaturity to your marriage, where they can never be fixed.

Nothing ever makes an individual trustworthy except his or her own good character. An affair need not show anything wrong with the marriage, but it ALWAYS shows unreliable character--a person who does not keep promises and engages in deceit is (by definition)unreliable. If you are the betrayer, you will never become a reliable partner without reforming the moral callousness that enabled you to use betrayal to make yourself feel better. If you are the betrayed, you make a serious mistake in believing that anything you can do will make your partner more reliable. Yes, you might be able to decrease the partner's unhappiness; but then you will have taken responsibility for keeping the partner happy enough that he or she won't do what they should never be willing to do anyway.

I've seen marriages destroyed by well-meaning therapists who convince partners that something is wrong with the marriage, when there isn't, really--when some individual therapy or moral education for the betrayer could have saved the marriage. I've seen therapists ratify the betrayed person's broken sense of self by telling them they had a role in bringing it on themselves, thus forever warping their understanding of themselves and of the moral demands of marriage. Ms. Brown invites more of the same.

All in the name of a dogma-both partners contribute-that makes no scientific or logical sense.

I have about decided that books by psychologists and social workers are the last sources you should consult when dealing with infidelity. None of them, that I've found, seem to reflect much understanding of ethics, of the psychology and sociology of social institutions, of agency and patience, or even of basic logic.

Rating:
Summary: Kind of old hat
Review: If you have not read anything on treating affairs this is a good place to start. It holds little for the expereinced therapist.

Rating:
Summary: Too Many Books Telling You To Stay When You Should Go!
Review: It seems that each book on affairs is absolutely sure that a marriage can survive an affair and I disagree. My husband cheated on me 5 years ago and we tried to work through it, although our marriage became a shell of what it used to be. Well, I recently found myself in an affair and thought, "Why on earth am I still married?" I picked up this book and learned I was in an EXIT AFFAIR - having met someone wonderful with the pretense to get some legs on which to leave. I was scared to death to leave the comfort zone of misery I was in - and this book tried over and over to assure me that there are ways to overcome infedilty. I must disagree - if a marriage isn't strong enough to prevent an affair, I'm not sure it can overcome it. I married the wrong person and I wish after the first affair in our marriage I had had the nerve to leave, instead I tried to so hard to work through it when I ultimately wasted 5 years with the wrong person. And I don't say that bitterly, my husband and I are friends and will remain friends, but we both know it's over - something this book probably would not approve of. I ask this book one question, if only 10% of marriages survive an affair than how is it possible that only 1% of betrayers leave their spouse? Sounds like the facts are a bit off. I suppose the moral of my reading this book is, if you know in your gut it's over, trust me, it's over. An affair is only a vehicle to speed up a broken marriage, at least that is my life lesson.