How To Keep Him From Cheating

What sort of behavior will a man exhibit if this leads him to start thinking of cheating?
The No. 1 sign is more time being spent away from home. The No. 2 sign was less sex, and the No. 3 sign was avoidance of your contact, like cell-phone calls. What these things are saying is that a man is emotionally and sexually moving away from a spouse.

How should a wife address this?
When you see these things happening bring it up in a positive way. Ask him, "Do you remember when we were dating? I want to get back to that. I don't want to wait until the kids are in college. I want to have some fun." This is all about empowering women. There are a lot of marriage books out there that give you a hundred things to do. They're all pretty good if you have time to do all hundred. I'm suggesting that you look at the signs that are going to mean the most and then do something about them. Don't do what so many of us do, which is hold our breath and hope [the problem] goes away.

What can couples do to get a relationship back on track and sustain it?
I talk about having four 45-minute periods of uninterrupted time a week where both turn off their CrackBerrys and they just spend time alone talking or playing board games or reading. They should also have one night a week where they do date night. It should be the same night every week, so get a babysitter ahead of time, and do not talk about three things—money, business or the kids. Everybody always says, "Well, then what are we going to talk about?" I say, "I don't know, but I promise that when you were falling in love you weren't constantly talking about the stresses of money, business and kids. If you did, you would not have gotten married. It's not what got you here, and it is not what is going to sustain you." I also suggest something that bothers a lot of women and that's locking your door at night. I'm talking about after the kids are settled in, and it's not necessarily to have more sex. The idea is just to say there is a space for your marriage that does not include everybody else.

According to your study, there's a 93 percent chance that if your husband's cheated he won't just admit it. What does a woman do if she thinks he already has?
No. 1 is talk about it. When women approach their husband with this issue then there's already a problem even if he's not cheating. When he says, "no way" or "what are you, crazy?" a lot of times the conversation ends there. That's remarkable to me because that's the last thing that should happen. The conversation should continue to where she says, "Listen, maybe you're cheating on me or maybe you're telling me the truth, but the fact that I'm asking you this means we are way out of sync. What are we going to do now to get back into sync?" No. 2, if you really think he is cheating—and he won't admit to it—then you should look at his cell-phone records or his e-mail. The next thing going up the ladder is a GPS magnet that you can place on his car to see if he's being honest about where he's been. Another option is hiring [a private] investigator or asking him to take a lie-detector test.

There are also men—12 percent of those you surveyed—who will cheat no matter what. How can a wife tell if he's worth trusting again?
If you have a husband who does not show remorse, is not willing to be completely transparent moving forward and is not truly apologetic for what he has already done, then I don't see how a woman could entrust her vulnerability to that man again.

Have the marital problems you've mentioned in your book always been this bad? Or is sustaining a marriage just more difficult now?
I think [marital problems] have gotten significantly worst because of technology. We had difficulty finding space to be with our spouses before and now in the age of text-messaging, BlackBerrys and e-mail it has become impossible for some to truly have their spouse's focus for any extended period of time. Vacations are no longer about vacationing. At any moment you could have to respond to an e-mail and people make a mistake to say, "It's only five minutes." It's five minutes, but it has disturbed the whole flow of the relationship. We are never going to be able to microwave a relationship. It's something that requires time and energy. I don't think we're poorer communicators. I think it's basic. It's kindness and appreciation and gestures that really do mean a lot and that's where we need to be putting our focus.

© 2008