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I agree that a loving, nurturing wife is an asset in any marriage, but I also know from firsthand experience, that being an attentive, nurturing, loving wife focused on her husband’s happiness, does not a faithful husband make.

While I feel that this book makes some valid specific suggestions on how a wife can support her husband emotionally which is always good, I feel that being a supportive loving wife does not assure a faithful husband. In addition, I strongly disagree that a wife has the right to keep her husband from socializing on his own with male friends, one of the suggestions in the book. Unless your husband is 12, I think he has the right to socialize with whomever he chooses.

People who genuinely love each other prefer each other’s company, so genuinely nurturing that love and friendship seems like the best way to assure that the love will continue. And like another reviewer, I feel that 2 emotionally mature people who love each other have the best chance for enjoying a successful, happy marriage.

I truly appreciated the author’s male point of view and his suggestions, some of which I thought were great, but I question the basic premise of this book that there is a formula or a series of behavioral patterns a wife can adopt to keep her husband faithful.

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His solution is basically for wives to act more like the less complicated, less demanding, and totally accommodating mistresses these men are sneaking off to. The logic being, once she starts acting more like a mistress rather than a wife, then just like that…she’ll have successfully “affair-proofed” her marriage and transformed a self-absorbed man into a considerate man who’d never cheat on her.

The author ignores many factors, though. For one, both the author and these men acted as if these men had no other choice but to get a mistress to solve problems, but these men DID have other choices. They could’ve:

1 — Assertively asked their wives to meet their needs

If these men had unmet needs, it’s up to THEM to vocalize those needs. It is unfair to ask a woman to read his mind and play detective.

2 — Ask for a divorce

These husbands claimed they tried everything to make their marriages work, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t win. Well, if the situation were truly that hopeless — if he assertively asked his wife to address his needs, but she coldly refused to — then why stick around for that kind of abuse? Why string along someone you neither love nor feel loved by?

I’m thinking these men didn’t try as hard as they claimed. These men came across as pretty passive and quick to throw in the towel…and then they went out in public behaving like single, unattached men. So, logically if they’re going to BEHAVE like single, unattached men, then they should BE single, unattached men.

3 — Ask for a separation

A separation would allow him to date other women without lying to his wife and also give him some space to figure out what he really wants. And his wife could do the same.

4 — Ask for an open marriage

An open marriage also means he dates others without lying while also giving his wife the freedom to date others as well. If he didn’t want to divorce because of financial reasons or because of the kids, this would be the route to go. However, I suspect the reason he doesn’t choose this route is because although he’s very comfortable allowing another woman to caress his naked body…he’d be furious if another man were allowed to caress his wife’s naked body.

So as you can see, unless these mistresses put a gun to their heads, these men had a choice in the matter. They may claim they were overcome with emotion and couldn’t help themselves, but haven’t they ever been angry enough to kill, yet managed to control that impulse?

These men may also blame a broken marriage, but just like there are kids from broken homes who choose to rise above the situation, there are also people in broken marriages who choose to do the same…so that is not an excuse either.

Remember, there’s a faithful spouse in this equation. If he was unhappy in the marriage, chances are, his wife was, too…and yet she chose not to cheat. He could’ve done the same, but since he didn’t, he is 100% responsible and accountable for his decisions.

Also ignored in this book is a cheater’s character. Character is who you are when no one is looking. When their wives weren’t looking, these men intentionally broke mutually agreed upon rules regarding monogamy (without asking permission to do so or considering how their wife’s feelings would be impacted).

So then, what does that say about their character? These men all said they’d never confess to their affairs — not even if asked outright — and my guess is, it’s because they don’t want their wives probing too deeply into their character. The author doesn’t want wives probing too deeply either and so, distracts wives by having them focus on their own character instead.

However, if she did probe a little deeper, she’d realize it’s not HER actions that caused his affairs, but HIS mindset.

In trying to redeem these men’s character, the author claims they feel guilty about their affairs…however, the examples told a different story.

For example, one man described in detail how he invented business trips so his wife wouldn’t suspect him of cheating. The way he described it made it seem like he was bragging about being able to pull one over on his wife.

When the author asked him if he felt guilty about all this scheming, the man replied, “I guess you feel guilty.” You guess??

See, I think these men claimed to feel guilty because they sensed that’s what the author wanted to hear. After all, these men couldn’t successfully pull off an affair if they weren’t adept at lying.

Instead of feeling guilty, these men felt entitled to have an affair…and you can’t both feel guilty about doing something and entitled to do it at the same time.

They had a Tit for Tat attitude…you didn’t play nice, so I’m not playing nice either…though having an affair is far worse punishment than she could dish out.

They reminded me of a little boy getting in trouble for pulling his sister’s hair and protesting, “Well, she started it!”

Instead of challenging their immature coping skills, the author validates it by giving advice to women that basically says, yeah, she did start it…and so, she needs to end it, too.

It was tiring reading all the self-pitying going on in this book. One man had the nerve to be annoyed that his wife didn’t catch on to his affairs. He’d tell his wife he was going out golfing and because he didn’t own golf clubs, he figured she should’ve known he was cheating instead.

I guess it never occurred to this guy (because he was so wrapped up in his own self-pity) that the reason his wife didn’t suspect anything was because she TRUSTED him. She trusted that he’d never hurt her like that.

And I guess it also never occurred to him that since trust is something you earn, that trust his wife was giving him was trust he hadn’t earned.

And this is the type of guy women should knock themselves out trying to keep in their life?

The type of man worth keeping is one with a strong conscience. A man who lets his conscience be his guide (rather than his impulses) won’t cheat no matter how aroused.

It would be like trying to get intimate with someone covered in urine. No matter how sexually and/or emotionally aroused he was by this new woman, that smell (his conscience) would kill the mood.

But if that smell is weak or nonexistent, forget it. A woman could follow all the steps in this book to no avail because a man with a weak conscience will always invent new excuses to bend the rules in his favor. And a woman cannot take on the impossible task of being his conscience for him.

A man with good boundaries won’t cheat either. Despite popular opinion, I don’t believe affairs “just happen.”

Boundaries don’t get crossed without an invitation. Without him giving the green light to cross his marital boundaries, a potential mistress would grow bored of the chase or become too embarrassed by the continual rejection by him and would move on. Trying to seduce a married man is a very bold move. There’s no way she’d be able to pull that off without his consent.

Another way to look at it would be to ask these men if they would’ve treated the other woman exactly the same if their wives were standing next to them the entire time. If the answer is No, then that’s proof they were behaving in ways that guaranteed the affair would happen.

A man’s conscience and his boundary limits are all things that a woman cannot control, yet how strong or weak these are will determine whether an affair will happen or not. The only person who has control over whether a man cheats or not then is the man himself. So by focusing all the attention women’s behavior in this book, doesn’t that seem like the author is aiming at the wrong target?

I understand how women in particular could be vulnerable in thinking otherwise. I mean, what woman alive hasn’t tried to change a man? What woman hasn’t been guilty of excusing bad behavior thinking he’s just misunderstood and just needs the love of a good woman and of course, she is the angel sent from above to come and save this man from himself? It’s very flattering to the ego to think this way…but it’s also delusional. If a man is going to change his mindset, it’s because his mindset no longer works for HIM and because he wants to change badly enough. You can’t change someone who doesn’t want to change. We hear that a million times, yet it doesn’t seem to stick which is why books like this are in existence in the first place.

Women are also guilty of “if only” thinking. If only she acted in more loving ways, then he wouldn’t act in unloving ways. This thinking starts in childhood when a child thinks “if only” they hadn’t been such a bad kid, then their parents wouldn’t drink so heavily, wouldn’t hit them, wouldn’t have abandoned them, etc… But by doing so, they take away the responsiblity from him and carry in on their shoulders which will not help either of them. Imagine you knew a woman whose husband just hit her. Would you tell her that if only she had shown him more love, he wouldn’t have been reduced to having to hit her? Would you tell her that all she needs to do is follow the instructions in this book and he will never hit her again? Would that message “empower” her…or give her a false sense of security?

The problem I had with the solutions is not that men shouldn’t get their needs met. The needs they mentioned (wanting more attention, admiration, affection, etc…) are all legitimate needs. If you love someone, you should want to please them.

My problem with his solutions is that it puts a wife in the mommy role.

For example, one solution he offers to prevent cheating is for wives to keep their husbands away from any friends who are cheaters, too…similar to the way a mom would keep her son from certain friends.

The reason for this advice is because these men claimed it was their cheating friends who influenced them to cheat. For example, one man’s friend persuaded him to go dancing. He didn’t want to go, but his friend insisted. An affair with the woman he met while dancing happened shortly after.

First of all, are you really surprised these men blame their cheating friends for why they cheated, too? I mean, first they blame their wives for why they cheated and now they blame their friends. Apparently, a husband’s cheating is everyone else’s fault except the one person who made the decision to cheat…the husband!

Second, do you really think these men needed their arms twisted to hop into bed with another woman? Do you really think these men went out trolling for women simply to avoid hurting their friend’s feelings?

What’s being ignored here can be summed up by the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together”. These men chose these friends for a reason. If their friends’ cheating ways bothered their conscience so much, they would’ve ditched those friends long ago and his wife’s interference would be unnecessary.

These friends were picked because they matched the husband’s values, so even if a wife is successful in shooing these friends away, her husband’s values still remain.

What’s ironic is that some other solutions the author advises won’t work because of this very solution to pick her husband’s friends for him. For example, as a preventative measure, he advises women to have more sex with their husbands and to show their husband’s more respect.

However, how can a wife feel sexual towards a man she’s also treating like a son? How can she feel respect for someone she’s also treating like an unruly teenager who doesn’t have the maturity to pick his own friends?

My fear is that because of this book, woman are going to become paranoid everytime they get into an unsettled argument with their husband or deny his sexual advances or basically not love him in the exact way he wants her to thinking, oh no, now he’s going to sneak around behind her back and it’ll be her fault. Discovering an affair is a traumatic event for someone, but to add a guilt trip on top of that saying if only she had loved him better, this never would’ve happened, is just cruel. That’s mental abuse. And that’s why I’ve given this the lowest rating possible.

My other fear is that men reading this will also join in on the shame blame game. After all, he’s not going to want to see himself as a failure, so he’ll project his shame onto his wife so the shame can be carried on her shoulders instead of on his. He’ll blame in order to feel justified in betraying her trust in him and to also avoid any negative consequences that would result in doing so. And with a rabbi backing him up, it will work! But blaming, while it’ll make him feel better in the short term, will not lead to personal growth in the long term. By holding other people responsible for his happiness, he strips away his own power and will remain stuck.

I think a better book would be not only challenge men’s passive-aggressive responses to stress, but to also teach them how to assertively deal with their issues head on. This book does the opposite — indulge his childish responses and then have women acting like mommies trying to anticipate when their unruly child-like husbands might get into trouble and then stepping in and taking over their lives. Personal growth won’t happen that way. And neither one of them will win.

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In order to overcome their marital deficiencies Neuman claims he is helping wives by telling them to… always forgive him; give him sex on demand; lavish praise on him for providing for the family, rarely let him out on his own with friends or work colleagues; and take an interest in his hobbies.

The difficulty is, when does this become an act and when is it real? Is this approach manipulation? Does it put too much pressure on the wife?

Neuman writes nothing about developing a moral foundation of trust in your marriage. That is, what keeps a person from disregarding their vows to begin with? What fuels a healthy commitment to the other person whether it’s easy or not? Those are the bedrock questions that Nueman forgets.

As a result, it may feel the author’s advice ends up sacrificing the wife’s needs and desires as they defer to their partner’s needs. This might look like love, but it too easily devolves to pandering.

Neuman claims his work is dedicated to helping wives learn and change in ways that will significantly benefit both them and their husbands. That’s a worthy undertaking when it’s done together, mutually and out of a choice to care for the other person more than one’s self. However, when it’s done out of fear, or obligation, or desperation it can too easily devolve to something akin to slavery. That’s what Nueman seems to miss.

The real questions are, how do women develop and grow in genuine love for their husbands? Where does a heart-felt love come from? How does a wife choose to respect her husband and not just go through the motions? Ultimately, that’s a question much deeper that this book addresses – it’s a spiritual question.