I recently stumbled across a “guide” for women on ehow that provides suggestions for how to “cheat-proof” your marriage. I decided to ask a small group of married women to comment on the suggestions. Here’s the eHow list of tips and the group commentary.
1. Nag less. A husband’s happiness is inversely proportional to the amount of nagging he receives at home. If you have trouble with this step, you can start by making a list of his most annoying behaviors–the ones you nag about–and cutting the list in half.
The discussion group here agrees. This is one of the painful sacrifices of marriage. Sure, you may be right, but you never “win” an argument with your spouse. If he is messy or annoying, you’ve got to be wise enough to come up with a manner of working through or around the problem that doesn’t make you the constant complainer. If he associates you with constant nagging, you’re in trouble.
2. Have sex, frequently. Assuming that your husband has a libido (surprisingly, there DO exist frigid husbands), make an effort to accept his advances. Even initiate sex once in a while. The more intimacy your husband gets from home, the less likely he will look for it outside the home.
The married women nodded in agreement with this one. It isn’t that a robust sex life is any guarantee against infidelity, but a wife that has little interest in sex can leave a man looking for a substitute.
3. Let your husband eat what he wants. Dietary nagging is still nagging, even if it’s for his own good. Husbands will follow from your example; just eat healthfully yourself, and he will change on his own.
4. Cook his favorite meals every week so that he looks forward to coming home.
It can be hard for women to understand a man’s attachment to food. It’s primal. The degree to which your man loves eating the food you cook is the degree to which he rushes home after work to eat it. These two points are big factors when it comes to creating a happy man.
5. Associate with happily married couples. They can be a good influence and remind your husband that being married is better than being single.
It has been said that when a married man dumps his wife, the most concerned parties are the wives of his male buddies. Of course, it can cut both ways. This newly single guy could either be complaining about the dating scene or telling fabulous stories to his married pals. There’s certainly no reason to shun single friends out of fear that they will be a bad influence, but having happy couples around is good reinforcement.
6. Don’t let problems with your children spoil your marriage. Remember, children grow up and leave home eventually, but your spouse is for life. Compromise on issues that are not serious. Typically, couples fight about the details of reward and punishment. So long as you agree that a child should be punished for an incident, the punishment itself is not that important.
Big nods all around. “Children are just passing through,” one woman said. A marriage that has the children as its center and main focus is risking the relationship that got it all started. Children should know that the love the parents share for each other is precious and honored. Some parents will say, “We don’t have the time to go on dates or get away,” but truthfully there’s nothing more important than the maintenance of their relationship.
7. Most importantly, make time for your husband. Listen to him when he talks, even if it bores you out of your mind. Many men seek comfort in emotional affairs because they get no attention at home. Treat your husband the way you would like to be treated.
100% true. Men often appear impassive and without emotional needs. Don’t believe it. He needs to talk to you, about something other than the bills and problems of life. He wants you to admire him and support him. Do it at every turn.
There’s also one more that came to the surface during our discussion. This one comes from eHarmony founder Neil Clark Warren and works for men and women:
8. If there is something that your spouse has mentioned he/she finds sexy on you, go buy a gross of it.
Did he tell you he loves that new perfume? Wear it. Did he mention that you looked great as you went out the door to a meeting? Make a mental note. One of your jobs as a spouse (and again, this goes both ways) is to, within the limits of your authenticity, be sexy for your spouse. Take it seriously and respect the hints you receive.
Finally, I assume we don’t need to mention this but, when a man cheats it’s HIS fault. He steps outside the vows of the relationship and the blame for the infidelity is his. Make no mistake. However, based on what I heard from the women in our discussion group it’s always possible for one person or the other to push his/her partner away. If a woman woke up one day and said to her husband, “I have no interest in sex” and maintained that policy, she would be pushing him away.
Clearly, there are many women (and men) who’ve been loving and supporting only to suffer as a victim of infidelity. For them, there’s no list of behaviors that could’ve kept their spouse faithful. This list provides an interesting perspective for people who are looking to work on a healthy marriage and keep it strong.
Gian Gonzaga, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research & Development
Grant Langston, Senior Director of Content, eHarmony Advice
Jeannie Assimos, Managing Editor, eHarmony Advice
Erina Lee, Director, Senior Research Scientist
Heather Setrakian, MA, Researcher
Emily Maywood, MS, Researcher
Jonathan Beber, Researcher
Becky Teraoka, Corporate Communications
Been married for 32 yrs. Grown kids, grandkids, home, good job. Broke up with husband more times than I can count. I stay he leaves. I worked too hard for the home my kids call home. He comes back when things begin to fall apart for him. I used to cry but lately I have really been praying a lot. 32 yrs is a long time to invest in a relationship, memories, births, deaths, school, graduations etc. Just cannot stop cheating. He’s very intimidated by my ability to move on. I make more than him which is no big deal to me. I have a very close family full of love. His is just learning how to pick up the phone and ask, how you doing. His father left with another woman when he was a baby and his mom was full of anger and never really got over it. I think this spilled over into her children…he is the baby. I finished and got my degree at 50. I believe he’s proud but very intimidated by the positive things in my life, children, family, job, career, God, love respect etc. The people he choses to be around are people that see all these “Things” he has and put him up on a pedestal. Smokes weed which keeps him in a constant mood swing. Sad part is, because he is not man enough or strong enough to deal with his issues, he’s mentally and physically wasting away.
God is dealing with him in a mighty way but he is too stubborn to face the man in the mirror. When I say, in my case, hold your peace and let God fight you battle, I did just that. Not losing any of my blessings over what I see now as a weak loser. The man I married has slowly died. When I say, you reap just what you sow, I mean, he is reaping and the good part is. I have nothing to do with it. I just sit back and watch. His job in jeopardy and health is going down fast. Teeth all out, even dentures not fitting well. Those good looks he used to rely on are going fast. Lost over 60 lbs, looks like a poster child for a Feed the stupid men poster. But does he stop…no. Is he still reaping…yes. I don’t wish anything bad on him because he is the father of my children. At a time he was my rock but somewhere along the line, he lost himself. His disobedience will be his downfall. In the meantime, God gives me peace in this mess and I truly focus on my blessings, family, God, job and I’m not ashamed to say, a beautiful home. I love the Lord. Until this mess clears, he is my man and he doesn’t change. The other man in my life has to make some choices, hopefully it won’t be too late but they are his choices to make. In my book, he has cheated himself more than he cheated on me because he lost a “good thing” when he lost my love, respect and trust. I always had his back. Now he’s so confused he doesn’t even know if he, himself has his back. Not leaving my blessings, waiting on God. Peace and blessings to you all…
Be careful; you don’t want to end up with an STD or something worse due to his decision to choose infidelity. If your children are all out of the house, why not sit down and calculate if you can permanently survive without him. Though you may not be thinking about it now, you could be in a really happy relationship where there is mutual respect and honesty. Seems a shame to use up so much of your precious time on this earth with this person whose spirit and body are both dying or dead. Take care and stay strong!
I am not sure where to start ! Honor first. Praise GOD !! My story is almost the same as yours. We have been going through our divorce for 2 years now. My husband apparently has been cheating on me for 8 – 10 years. I didn’t have a clue. He traveled and came home on the weekends to Play Loving husband. We have 2 grown sons and our first granddaughter (7mo) He has not seen her, and the sons refuse to speak to him because they say he cheated on them too! They don’t approve of his lack of morals. I am still trying to figure out how to not love him…I am angry at what he has done. I will not judge him, that is God job. I would have given my life for him, now he thinks this Adultress who divorced her husband of 33 years is the cats meow….her husband has called me several times to tell me she is just after his money. Oh well!
I enjoyed the article,1st, a husbands happiness is DIRECTLY related to the nagging received at home – NOT inversely which would mean “the more the better” 2nd this is the first time i’ve heard someone else besides myself say that the children are NOT the priority in a relationship..As hard as it may seem for some to people to accept,the kids are just a by-product of your relationship – if you’ve got a bad one to begin with..Look out – This is where the whole maturity thing comes along.I love sex just as much as the next fully functional human,but getting pregnant should be a CONSCIOUS decision.How many times have you heard that 2 people have gotten married – because – “it was the correct thing to do” My niece did,and 20 years 3 children later is now divorced – Only person in my family to have ever gotten divorced.I know only too well how painful infidelity can be – first hand knowledge.Its,or it can be something that you try to get your brain/self around or at least i have – To see it from different angles..Sometimes you just can’t do anything – it is the other person or at least it was in my case.I did beat my head against the wall over it – because i’m a fixer and that was an area that needed fixin’ Live and learn is what the adage says..
You missed an important part about a man’s need for sex. Having a lot of sex is obviously good, but some men stray because they’re not getting the kind of sex they want from their wives. A lot of women have some pretty prudish boundaries about what they will and will not do, and they expect their men to just accept that.
Granted, they should have found these things out before getting married, but some people purposely withhold this information for good reason.
I say to all women reading this, if you want to keep your husband/SO/boyfriend, you need to loosen up sexually and be more open and adventurous. You should be the one pushing him for more and better sex, and trying new things. If you do, he won’t have time, energy or the inclination to look for it elsewhere. He’ll be in a hurry to come home for more.
I feel whomever wrote this has never been cheated on, nor are they a psychiatrist. I feel this is misinformation!
I did all of the above and more for 25 years. We had a great sex life…I rarely nagged. I waited up for him every night and made dinner for him at 1am then got up with the kids at 7am. Sex every night…praised him about what a good husband, father, and lover he was. I truly adored him and loved him with all of my heart…yet, still he cheated. Found out he was doing drugs with these women behind my back and having sex with them…and left me cause I found out and asked him to stop, lol. I guess that makes me a real BIG nag, lol.
Any psychiatrist will tell you people are who they are and no matter how good of a wife, mother, lover, friend you are to them they are going to cheat because they are unhappy with themselves and it has NOTHING to do with you. It’s about them! So, lets put the blame, or shall we say “personal responsibility” where it is do, on the cheater, not on the victim.
I agree with you totally, being married for a while and my husband constantly cheats, I do not wish for any woman to live with a cheating spouse, who won’t let you go, slowly the life drains out of you, it is not about the woman or nagging, the problem lies with the cheating spouse, he has a mental issue from childhood as the father who is almost 70 is still cheating on his mum, which is a well know fact where they live.
There are many ways to monitor the cheating from your husband’s side. Following are the methods through which you can monitor or catch your cheating husband.
1) Hire a personal detective.
2) Monitor the computer activities with any pc monitor or key logger.
3) Monitor the mobile activities with help of StealthGenie.
Men cheat because they are being selfish. Woman should not have to “cheat-proof” their marriage. The purpose of marriage vows was do make a declaration to do something despite of how “challenging” it may be…I have known woman that bend over backwards for their husband and they cheat on them because they want to…I also know men who have been faithful to their mean wives in spite of being treated like garbage. It is all a test of the will of a person.
Who wrote this????? ….Are You KIDDING !!!!!! I got rid of the bum. Why should I stress out my life for an idiot? If the guy ain’t happy, cut the fool loose! Move on!! I value myself more than that creep! My advice is: DO NOT WASTE YOUR PRECIOUS TIME on anyone who does not CARE whether not you exist in the world.
Men cheat when their wives don’t respect them. Simple as that. All of the hints the article gives to stem the cheating urge boil down to this: “Do you show him you respect him?”
When a man doesn’t feel respect from his wife, he looks somewhere else for it.
It doesn’t matter how good you cook or how good you look or how good the sex is, if you don’t respect your husband, he will find a woman who does. If you show respect to him, he will love you more and you will, in turn, respect him more. This will keep your marriage tight and truly loving. If you don’t respect him, you have to ask yourself “Is it me?” or “Is it him?” If you can’t figure out a way to respect your husband, your marriage has zero chance of lasting. Men are all about “getting respect; giving love.” Women who think the solution is “get rid of the bum” are likely fooling themselves that the genesis of the problem is their husband. The problem may lie in the wife’s unwillingness to demonstrate respect to their husband. Before you are too quick to blame, take a look in the mirror…
I have been cheated on more times than i can count in my life….My boyfriend now of 5 years has cheated on me about 8 times that i know of….i’m not the one to just up and get out of a relationship when something bad happens. i try to fix it the best i can. We have talked about it and he has always told me that it isn’t me and he doesn’t know what his problem is. I know i could improve a few things in our relationship and am doing that s fast as i can but some things take time. I realized that he will never change and either will I….i have gave him the le-way of being able to talk to other girls as long as nothing happens…and as long as he pays attention and is here for our son….he also knows that i cant put up with it forever. I think a relationship is more of working through the problems then just up and throwing it out the window.
After about 3-4 years of marriage (no kids), my wife became less and less interested in making love. It got to the point that it was happening (maybe) once a month or two. It was so bad that I couldn’t remember when the last time was. I was a nice, supportive husband, and we were otherwise affectionate.
I talked to her about it in a sensitive, understanding way. I also told her how deeply it hurt me to be rejected over and over again by my own wife. She, however, insisted that she was still attracted to me and still wanted me sexually. When it did happen, it was good for both of us, making the whole thing especially frustrating.
Each time after we talked about it, she said she would work on the issue, but things just got worse. Always tired, or “maybe tomorrow,” with nothing happening tommorrow, or the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Though it may not have been her intention, it seemed that she didn’t take the situation seriously and was making absolutely no effort whatsoever.
This went on for 2-3 years – apparently I was just supposed to deal with it. At one point, after eight consecutive months of rejection for sex (including during a romantic vacation we took to celebrate our wedding anniversary), I was at my wits end. I ended up meeting another woman completely out of the blue. We hit it off immediately, and after about a month we started having an affair (she knew I was married). It felt so nice to be wanted again!
Ok, so here is where many of you would say I should have just “gotten divorced.” It’s not that simple. In retrospect, I wish I would have gotten divorced at that point, but I still loved my wife and wasn’t necessarily ready to get divorced. Plus, you don’t just “get divorced,” the process takes some time even with the most straightforward divorce. Instead, I agonized over it, and the other issue in our marriage – we agreed before marriage to have children, but now she would not commit to doing so.
I am NOT a serial cheater. I had never cheated on anyone in my life. Several months of agonizing (and the affair) elapsed. I finally decided that I could not remain in the marriage, and told my wife I wanted a divorce. She wanted to go to counseling. I initially refused, but went after being badgered to go (“if you won’t go, that just shows you never loved me”). One marriage counseling session was enough – I’ll leave it at that.
We are now divorced. The guilt and stress took its toll on the other woman, so I don’t see her either. I feel sad about the divorce (I never thought it would happen to us – we met on eharmony btw), and I am not proud of breaking my vows. However, I refuse to take 100% responsibility for what happened. It’s not right that your own spouse should continually reject you to point you don’t want to make a pass at her anymore. I enjoy romantic lovemaking with foreplay and am not a 1-2 minute kind of guy (unless that’s what she wants). I suppose I could have told her I wanted a divorce if she wouldn’t sleep with me, but who wants to have sex with someone who is doing it under threat of divorce?
Frankly, I am frustrated with the venom directed at the article authors for suggesting that doing kind things for, and making love regularly with, your husband will generally reduce the chance of infidelity. I think the same advice applies to husbands, too. I also agree that this advice will not help with serial cheaters, but could help in situations like mine where I never would have thought in a million years I’d had an affair. I can say that it NEVER would have happened except after years of rejection and her completely ignoring my feelings.
As for infidelity, it’s wrong, but like many things in the human experience, it’s complicated and can’t be always be explained in black-and-white terms.
I except to get slammed for what I’ve written, but it’s worth it if it provides some insight into how these things can happen and maybe avoids it from happening to someone else.
Thank you for your honest and insightful story Joe. My husband, whom I would have never believed to be “that guy”, recently cheated on me. He made a huge mistake, which should not be blamed on me. However, knowing what may drive an otherwise “good guy” to cheat (as outlined in the article and in your response) is important for me personally. Of course, if one’s spouse is a serial cheater, who lacks the ability to feel guilt and empathy, the above article is not useful. But for those cases like I believe my husband’s and mine is, I think the article is helpful. Of course, it takes two people beginning with to make the relationship bad so it should not be only woman’s responsibility to “affair proof” it. Nonetheless, it is nice to get some helpful tips on what aspects of relationship are the most important for men and what men desire the most in their relationships. It is also nice to get insight from men like you Joe, who clearly are not callous and mean people but rather, act out of perceived desperation. With this said, I wish you had “threatened” your wife with divorce if your sex life did not improve instead of allowing yourself to begin an affair outside the marriage. Your wife may truly have not realized how big deal this was for you. Your wife’s sex drive could also have been greatly enhanced with medical or psychological help. If the reason for lack of her desire was psychological, she may have just needed some help to get over what ever it was that was blocking her. For women, it is often something emotional (maybe even from childhood). So, while I truly appreciate your bold and honest insight, I also hope that in a hindsight you can see how you could have made a different choice and truly tried to get to a bottom of your wife’s lack of sexual desire- instead of perceiving her low sex drive as her not wanting you (as hard as I understand that would have been). If she loved you, and was worried about losing you, she would have been motivated to discover the roots of her sexual dysfunction. It seemed based on your story that she did love you and wanted to work on your relationship. Finally, it is probably a lot better for you that you no longer are with the other woman either. A woman who is willing to engage in an affair with a married man is probably not going to be the kind of woman you want to build a future with. Good luck and thanks again!
I’ve been with my husband for over a year and he has cheated two times. He cried both times and apologized so many times I can’t count it. He says he doesn’t know why he does it but after he does he relizes how special I am and how much he loves me. He also sexts girls and sends/receives dirty pictures. We don’t know why he does it, and we don’t know what to do about it but he wishes he could stop. I wish he could too
I’ve been married for 12 years and thought I had the perfect family. I am a nurse, my husband does commercial plumbing in new business buildings. I enjoy traveling with him. I have two kids. We put God first in our family. We have bible study often. I was always taught throughout my life that a family that prays together stays together but boy was I mislead. I have seen other women phone numbers in his phone. I’ve seen Constant texts to women. I guess you’re wondering how I know well let’s say “I called them” and looked @ my phone bill. He denies it still. Even if I have proof he never live up to his faults.I then have seen email messages from him and other women about spending time with each other. But he lies his way out of it again. I ask him is he happy with our marriage. He says yes. But in his discussion with others he say he’s not. I constantly pray to God for our marriage but now I’m beginning to feel useless and mislead. I want to just go out and find someone on the side but my love for my husband is so strong. I constantly ask myself am I fooling myself or is there any hope for us.What’s so strange is that our sex life is are some. I am very spontaneous. I guess me asking him of things I find might be considered nagging because he never live up to his wrong doings and have me looking foolish.
I have been married for 17yrs and am taking good care of my husband but he has started cheating I cant take it anymore at home he gets everythng he wants