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Can Affairs Help Save Sinking Marriages?
Posted by Eve Miller on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 10:34amMarried women unhappy with their sex lives might be interested in Michele Weiner-Davis’ seventh book, The Sex-Starved Wife: What to Do When He’s Lost Desire, which is due out next January. After years of working as a licensed marriage therapist and relationship counselor, Weiner-Davis feels divorce can actually create more problems than it solves.
As for the topic in her upcoming book, Weiner-Davis wrote “A marriage void of sexuality and intimacy is a marriage doomed to fail,” in a previous book The Sex-Starved Marriage: A Couple’s guide for Boosting Their Marriage Libido.
Of course, for all of the books on how to save a marriage and reigniting a lackluster—or perhaps non-existent—sex life, there are plenty others out there that articulate the desire to love outside of one’s marriage. There are books, in fact, that not only empathize and encourage the spouse who wants to stray, but actually offer blatant instructions on how to have a extramarital affair without getting caught.
Don’t want to be spotted in the local bookstore? Doing a
search on infidelity on Amazon.com brings up titles ranging from Undressing Infidelity:
Why More Wives are Unfaithful and Love Affairs: Marriage and Infidelity, to the even more audacious,
The 50-Mile Rule: Your Guide for Infidelity and Extramarital Etiquette and How
to Have an Affair and Never Get Caught.
The 50-Mile Rule, for example, instructs spouses to “deny, deny, deny,” never get sloppy about offering playmates a home phone number and to be careful not to cheat within 50 miles of one’s home.
So these book titles are endorsing affairs but as outrageous as it seems, who’s to say that extracurricular affairs are wrong for everyone? For every woman out there who’s desperate to save her marriage, there’s another who’s merely tolerating it and can’t wait to get out. Perhaps affairs are the only thing to keep those in terrible situations from going over the edge. Then there are others who claim affairs can actually strengthen a marriage.
Maybe, but only if the affairs are mine, not his!
For more on this story, click here: http://washingtontimes.com/culture/20070514-113730-6051r.htm
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What Others Have Shared ()
Affairs Are For Phonies
When you have an affair, the only one you are cheating on is yourself. Take it from me. I had what I thought was a harmless affair until my married boyfriend started to get very serious with me. He wanted me to leave my husband, run away with him and start all over. One day he appeared at my doorstep and said "Now or never."
I almost threw up. I thought I loved him and hated my husband. It wasn't until that very moment that I realized that he wasn't the man I thought he was. He was acting irrational, started crying, making demands. My husband never did that even during our darkest hours.
Oh my, what have I done? I got rid of both of them and started all over again. That year long affair was glamorous at first but then turned into a tedious, draining, dirty little secret that made me ashamed of myself.
Who was I kidding? My ex never found out about it and I am the only one who has to live with these unscrupulous memories. i now feel sorry for people who have affairs. They are not happy. They are looking for happiness in all the wrong places.
I disagree.. there is nothing phony about honesty
And it really comes down to honesty. The word "affair" always seems to invoke things like sneaking around, motel rooms, and positions you might not normally contort yourself into with your married partner.
But if two people openly allow a certain freedom within the relationship, then there is nothing wrong with having an affair, as long as you're honest about it.