Not Just Friends, Shirley Glass - some perspective please, esp from men!

[TiredOfGoingRoundInCircles]

I gave this book to my H to read 2 weeks ago when we separated (have posted about that on another thread). Although we are doing the 'no contact' thing, I emailed him with a kind of business question the other day. He replied and also mentioned that he was still reading the book. He hasn't finished it yet, but he said it was 'incredibly illuminating' and is helping him to understand how I feel, but he also said that it makes him very angry too because 'she seems to write everything from the point of view of what the female wants/needs from a relationship. She seems to ignore or gloss over what many males want/need from sex and relationships when it conflicts with the female wants/needs.' He thinks that it will not have given me much insight into how he feels.

I read the book really fast and not very thoroughly before I gave it to him. I would be extremely interested to hear other people's opinions on this because I can't remember what she said about the male partners needs etc.

Well I haven't read the book, but I did just google it and read a couple of synopses. From what I can see she has tried to make sure she has covered all angles - the 'betrayed' partner, the 'adulterous' partner, and the third party.

It's possible that your H feels like his experience isn't accurately reflected in the book, and that's fair enough. It's also possible that he doesn't like the book because it hasn't given him a suitable 'excuse' for his behaviour and he doesn't like being made to face up to the pain that he's caused you. Only you know which scenario is the most likely.

From a biologically-determined POV, it's also worth remembering that sex for women carries a much greater degree of risk than it does for men. Men don't get pregnant. Men don't usually find themselves left on their own holding the baby. Women are 3x more likely to catch an STI from a man than he is to catch one from a woman. Women are much more likely to suffer physical pain/discomfort from sex because penetration is, by it's very nature, invasive for women in a way that simply doesn't exist for men (unless they practise anal sex). For these reasons alone, women have always had to consider sex as a risky enterprise. Even with contraception and barrier methods, not all the risks are eradicated. It is not surprising that women and men view sex differently. Add in centuries of cultural conditioning (a promiscuous women is a 'slag' but a man is a 'stud', etc) and the differences are even more pronounced, though this is not a blanket rule and as everyone is unique, everyone can have a unique approach to/view of sex that isn't necessarily determined by gender.

My point (after all that rambling) is that while it is always good to consider another person's POV and generally respect that POV, in cases where there is conflict about sex the man should give some consideration to the extra degree of risk afforded to the woman because of her sex. Only if those risks are ameliorated to acceptable levels (e.g. he agrees to wear a condom or not to carry out an act that could result in soreness) can he fairly claim that his POV should carry equal weight and demand a compromise.

my husband found the book very judgemental when he first tried to read it, but that is i suppose is because at that point he was very defensive about his affair. We are now 5 months on and he is able to read bits of it without getting pissed off. He found the andrew g marshall book (how can i ever trust you again?) more helpful, though i found the shirley glass book to be the best one to address what i was going through post discovery.

What crap!

I am a man and when I read it I really didn't get the impression that it was written from a woman's perspective. Yes, the therapist who wrote it was a woman, but she explicitly used multiple examples of men and women in the position of adulterer, betrayed and third party. I very much got the impression that the key characteristics of the different affairs that she documents in the book were gender neutral.

I agree with moonshine I would imagine that your H is still at the stage where he is looking for excuses for his affair, ironically, something that Shirley Glass covered in the book, and he doesn't like the fact that the book is telling him that he is the one responsible for his affair.

In fact, I think that if you decide that your marriage is worth saving, his willingness to accept the book's messages might be a useful barometer of whether he is putting in the effort and making progress in truly understanding how he gave himself permission to have the affair.

I haven't read the Shirley book so I can't comment on it. However, I think we should try and read at least 3 books on relationships to get a variety of opinions and advice . Both my DH and I read and liked 'Andrew Marshall's, When will I trust again?'' ( title with words to that effect) best.

I agree with the others that said he is still looking to justify his affair and by accepting what the book says (I also agree that it is gender neutral) he cant justify it at all.

When he said that it doesnt address what men want from sex and relationships he means "it doesnt give me a get out clause that I can show to you and say "There, thats why I had an affair, even the expert agrees that you didnt give me what I need"" And the knowledge that actually there is no way he can justify what he did and that it is printed there in black and white will be hard for him to accept. De Nile aint just an Egyptian river!

Perhaps he also has issues because it is written by a woman and alot of men (sadly and wrongly) assume that any woman who writes books of this nature are firmly in the "All men are bastards" camp. If he went into it with that attitude then he will home in on the bits of the book that he thinks confirm his view. I too found the Andrew Marshall book helpful, so perhaps you should get that book too and he cant argue that it is a all from a womans POV then, as the author is a man!

I'm a man and my wife suggested I used a name on her account, for this post.

We read quite a few books (about 7-8) and I also looked at websites recommended by my counsellor (I went on my own). The books that stick in the mind (for good and bad reasons) are this one, How can I trust you again?, After the Affair (Relate) and one called Private Lies.

The best ones for us were Not Just Friends and Private Lies, probably because they were the most challenging to me as a person. The Shirley Glass book is not comfortable to read, but it was the one that made me face up to my own faults, the most. The others seemed to offer me excuses ? this one didn?t.

If I?d been of the mindset to blame my wife or our relationship for my affair, then I would have hated this book too. But neither my wife or our relationship was at fault ? it was me.

I liked the way Glass explained that affairs are about sliding boundaries and also how she treats a couple as individuals, with very different personalities and lives. She doesn?t just harp on about the relationship, she encourages you to look at all aspects. How you?ve been brought up, what you believe about affairs, the friends you?ve got and the harm they can do, even your job/occupation.

One of the reasons I went to counselling was because I couldn?t understand my own actions. I was very happily married and loved my wife to bits. The counselling and the books helped me to understand that I had always been very selfish and the affair was more of the same. It was a pointless ego boost and something I will always regret.

I?ve read your post and what seems strange is that your husband thinks sex is different for men. That?s not my experience at all. Perhaps he wants a book that will tell him that he can?t be blamed for wanting to sow his seed, which is rubbish.

I don?t think your husband wants to face up to what he has become, so he?ll blame anyone and anything rather than himself.

My counsellor rated this book very highly and I?m so glad he told me about it, because it helped me to save my marriage.

I have read a few books including Andrew Marshall and Shirley Glass - I liked NJF best because it explains a lot about how a friendship turns into an affair, what the cheater would be thinking and how he or she would be justifying their actions. There were examples of couples where the man is the betrayed party.

Also I found her ideas about the prevention myth and how to affair proof a relationship illuminating eg boundaries, walls and windows etc. There is a lot about vulnerabilities to look out for and most of all, we need to remember that good marriages are not immune to affairs and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Thank you everyone for such thoughtful replies. I'm going to buy another copy of Not Just Friends and read it more slowly - at the time I bought it I was desperate for help/answers. I think I will get the Andrew Marshall book as well from your comments.
I did say that H hadn't finished the book yet, I think he's about halfway through, so maybe he will feel it's a bit more balanced when he has finished. He's a very slow and careful reader and absorbs it all much better than I do. In any case, if it's helped him understand how I feel, then that's a good thing.

I want to add to moonshine's very-slightly-feminist points above, which were chiefly about the greater vulnerabilities of women in sexual matters. I've read the Glass book and am a fan; it reflects the attitudes & beliefs I had before I married. However, I married a self-regarding man of great 'entitlement'. He did not have many boundaries in his relationships with women. I'd now say he didn't see women as people, though he of course would disagree. He didn't get the message because it, quite simply, didn't compute with him.

Obviously this is straying into abuser territory. As we know, abuse is often subtle and covert, to the extent that the target doesn't realise she is being abused. I'm suggesting than an unfaithful man, who can't seem to get the message of "Not Just Friends", is likely to be a sexist man who refuses to accommodate the idea that women deserve equal respect. (Also applies with genders reversed, but seems usually to happen the way I've written it.)

Thanks garlic. I asked for comment on the book itself, so actually, as moonshine hasn't read it, I kind of skimmed over what he/she said, sorry moonshine
I will wait and see if H 'gets the NJF message' ...