Women Who Stay With Men Who Stray: What Every Women Needs to Know about Men and Infidelity

Rating:
Summary: A Well Intended, but Simplistic and Damaging Book
Review: Author Debbie Then admits that her "unscientific" research for this book consisted primarily of soliciting anecdotes from betrayed or cheating spouses. It seems safe to conclude that the vast majority of the responses she received were from women who had been betrayed by continually philandering and unrepentant husbands. The first part of this book relates how these women discovered their spouse's affairs, and how this discovery impacted their lives. There are a few stories from betrayed and philandering husbands or the "other woman" thrown in for supposed balance, but they appear simplified and edited so that they fit her premise. They hover around the edges of the narrative, and are never woven into her analysis in any significant way.

The womens' stories are searing and dramatic. They clearly demonstrate that the emotional devastation a husband's affair visits on his wife is far greater than most men can imagine, and that the wife's sense of anger and betrayal is profound and life altering. While many men would think that a long term, stable affair based on companionship and "safe sex" would be better tolerated by their wives than more tawdry "one night stands", it seems that exactly the opposite is true - the wives feel more threatened, damaged and demeaned by "love affairs" than by "sex affairs". So far, so good.

The problem is that Ms. Then seems to have identified so closely with these betrayed wives that she lost all sense of objectivity, and failed to even consider all sides of this very complex subject. Perhaps she knew this, but nonetheless consciously aimed for the sensationalistic and potentially best-selling jugular vein. In any event, her analysis is simple: All wives are depicted as blameless, sensitive, supportive and worthy spouses who had no responsibility for any problems in their marriage, be they emotional, sexual or otherwise. With very few exceptions, all men are portrayed as insensitive and unperceptive husbands, who have repeatedly betrayed, and stubbornly continue to betray their nearly perfect spouse for no valid reason. There is no effort made to analyze how genuine problems in the marriage may have contributed to the decision of the husband or wife to have an affair. There is never any valid reason for any husband to "stray" under any circumstances, period. In such a context, it is no wonder that Ms. Then offers a single and invariable solution: "Your husband will continue to cheat on you forever; he cannot change and doesn't really want to, so dump him now and save yourself the grief of pointless efforts to salvage your marriage. You did everything right, and he did everything wrong, so get rid of him." While this may indeed be true in some cases, I suspect things are rarely that black and white.

Ms. Then admits only tangentially that there are different kinds of affairs, ranging from one-night stands to those lasting for decades, and never really acknowledges that a marriage in which one spouse has in the past had one affair based partly on heartfelt frustrations with the other spouse may in fact be well worth saving. Tellingly, women who "stray" are usually depicted as victims of an insentive and abusive husband, who reasonably seek solace, comfort and respect from a lover. But their marriages are similarly doomed for a different reason: the emotional failings or abuse of their husbands.

Perhaps it was not possible to give more complete and fairer coverage of this topic without the book become unwieldy or too academic. However, I suspect the sad truth is that this book precisely hit the marketing target at which it was aimed, and has driven many women with basically good spouses and valuable marriages to throw them both away in a fit of hopeless and perhaps unjustified pessimism. Take care lest this happen to you; there are other books out there that may help you, and maybe your marriage isn't really worth saving. But this book could do you unnecessary and irreparable harm. If you read it, do so with caution and a healthy dose of skepticism.

Rating:
Summary: Misoandry Glorified
Review: Dr. Then's book is clearly that of a woman with a mission - to bash men at every opportunity and counsel women to treat every man with suspicion at all times. Throughout the book she goes to great lengths to detail how men's infidelity is psychologically devastating even to successful, well-adjusted women, while always addressing men's psychological issues in terms like "they are adults," with the not terribly hidden subtext "so deal with it, men." Her review of the recent scientific literature documenting the strong biological drive to non-fidelity evident in both genders is at best cursory and dismissive. Her dismissal of open marriages as "destructive" without a single citation, while incessantly belaboring the psychological damage done by the need to lie and conceal affairs is intellectually suspect at best. While decrying men's treatment of women as property, she vigorously advocates the reverse - that every spare moment of a man, not to mention every spare penny, *should* be spent with/on his wife, or something is wrong. What an incredible burden to impose on two human beings!

Unless you delight in the culture of female victimization and male demonization, long on unsupported opinion and short on balance, leave this book on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Insight on why men cheat, their wives and "the other woman"
Review: I did expect more from this book: their was good insight on why men cheat, why their wives stay and what possesses single women to allow themselves to get involved in these liaisons--but it was nothing that I had not already read somewhere else. What the author does is to encourage the wives to really take a good look at why they stay, and that unless your spouse works really hard with you to change the behavior, staying with the strayer is inevitably self-destructive. The one truth I found is that while infidelity need not be the end of your marriage and you may forgive, one does not forget and it does change your relationship forever.