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Relationships

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Original poster

Link to DM 'advice' on fixing relationships after affairs...so bad it's funny!

69 replies

summermovedon · 10/04/2014 07:06

advice on how to get your relationship back after affairs

You can tell it was written by a man, how could the hurt party come out of this with any dignity left??! You need to change, don't stop him seeing the other woman, let them move in together, improve your sexual techniques... this is so absolutely awful it is hilariously funny.

OP posts:

ormirian · 10/04/2014 10:14

WTF??

I mean WTF?

Speechless....

Well not quite.

What is in this 'relationship' for the woman? It seems an utterly one-sided deal..... if this was what I had to do to 'win' (ha!) back my cheating husband I think I'd do without thankyou very much.

Hey! Light bulb moment Perhaps I'll have an affair! Great idea. Then I could get my H to grovel and beg and treat me like the Queen of Sheba (and never express his anger or pain about the betrayal) to win me back. Good plan? Or doesn't it work that way for women? Would love to know the asnwer to that one.

MrsC1966 · 10/04/2014 10:18

Too funny, good God - have we stepped back to the 1950's?

CogitoErgoSometimes · 10/04/2014 10:19

"If you don't want to win him back "

It's that word 'win'. Like a cheating spouse is some marvellous trophy to be fought over strategically and held aloft when they return to the family home...

mummytime · 10/04/2014 10:25

Wow!

A better title might be: What to do if your husband has cheated and you want to lose all self-respect forever.

bumbleymummy · 10/04/2014 10:31

exactly mummytime!

CarryOnDancing · 10/04/2014 10:53

Nomama, do you not think that some may also read this as a "preventative" though?! In which case it's just as sick!!

Also, I really don't think that anyone should be actively encouraging "winning" back a cheat. If the two partners decide to try again that's one thing, but setting this up as a project for the woman to right her wrongs is just a disgrace!

The Mail always give me the rage so I desperately avoid it but this one really takes the piss!

Nomama · 10/04/2014 11:10

CarryOnDancing The title and content make no reference to any preventative measures. So I don't see why it is 'sick'.

Having had a quick look, the book/chapters cover a lot of possibilities, the DM have just chosen this one for the sake of a good headline.

I don't see why anyone should be castigated for wanting to put back together a broken relationship. I really do not read it as a woman being told to right her wrongs. To me it is simply a list of things to consider should you want to win back your cheating OH. IF not as a directive, you must or you are a failure.

It also says nothing about what to do if your cheating husband wants to come back and you aren't sure that is what you want. It is only about what a woman would need to consider if she wants to actively stand up and fight to win her cheating husband back.

Read from that perspective, the one it was written for, and the contents make perfect sense. They may not be palatable in any way to someone who has absolutely no intention to forgive or fight for a cheat... but that person is not the person for whom it was written.

Personally, I find it quite refreshing that someone, man or woman, has acknowledged that sometimes a woman will want to actively fight to regain something so broken. And to do so without judging her as being weak, sick, wrong, etc.

I'd say the same if it was written by a woman or for men wanting to win back a cheating wife.

ormirian · 10/04/2014 11:24

Fair enough nomama.

I wonder if possibly a woman wanting to 'win back' her H would be better telling him to go, wishing him well, and then wait to see how long it takes him to change his mind. Nothing to do but wait for him to face the natural consequences of his actions. Of course that might not work, or it might work and she might well have decided she's better off without him...

Nomama · 10/04/2014 11:29

One of the paragraphs is about that, ormirian. He says just what you said, also that the OW will get a sudden full picture of exactly how happy her new relationship really is when being actually lived in!

MillyJones · 10/04/2014 11:36

NoMama has a point though. If you feel that maybe you contributed to the downfall of the relationship in some way ( not that anyone is responsible for the affair itself other than him) and you feel that your marriage is still what you want and you want him back then the advice for actually "winning him back" is totally correct and definitely the way to "get him back" , if you want him back that is. Some women actually do feel that the man is worth it. Look at the relationship threads to see the amount of women who would like a chance to try again.

ormirian · 10/04/2014 11:54

Of course.

But I simply don't beleive that any relationship is sustainable when one party is expected to overlook the elephant in the room (the affair) and lay down to be a doormat. If the woman does all this, jumps through the hoops, becomes Perfect Wife, how healthy is the relationship going to be? And why would her husband respect her?

And when is she allowed to process her pain at the betrayal? Never? Is he never going to be forced to look at what he did to his wife? Will she always have to swallow it down and not even grimace at the sour taste? Whatever her faults, he has displayed some pretty major ones too.

It just seems utterly one-sided if this is meant to be genuine advice.

MillyJones · 10/04/2014 11:57

I don't think the book itself is one sided though just appears that way from the article which is meant as an emergency method.

Nomama · 10/04/2014 12:01

The book is broader than that, ormirian, just the DM picking out a salacious bit and printing it out of its context.

The specific chapter only deals with a woman who has made the decision to fight to get her cheating spouse back.

All of those other feelings and behaviours are dealt with elsewhere. So yes, the selected text is one sided... but no representative of the whole.

Typical DM tactic. Just look how het up some posts here are!

CailinDana · 10/04/2014 12:03

I don't agree at all nomama. Your viewpoint seems to imply that if the man has a problem with the relationship then a legitimate way to communicate that and encourage his partner to make changes is to totally betray the trust that should be the foundation of the relationship. It's a totally fucked up power dynamic that can't possibly be healthy. The man has a problem so instead of talking about it he goes and has a bit of fun with someone else and then it's left to the woman to totallydeny her own feelings and run around trying to repair things with someone who clearly has no respect for her. There is no justification for that IMO. Someone who responds to relationship problems by cheating has shown themselves to be incapable of aconducting a mature relationship IMO. To encourage a woman to stay with someone like that is just wrong.

ormirian · 10/04/2014 12:06

I guess I would need to read the book to get a fuller picture then. Don't think I will.

H had an affair. I don't give a stuff what I did or did not do wrong there is no way on God's green earth I'd have grovelled to get him to come home to me if he had decided he wanted out.

MillyJones · 10/04/2014 12:11

Did you get back together then ormirian

Nomama · 10/04/2014 12:13

Really?

But you have missed something, CailinDana. That chapter is ONE in a book that offers advice for LOTS of situations. The DM has just cherry picked one it knows will cause a lot of ruffled female feathers - and they were right in their assessment.

You are looking at it from a different perspective. Not as a woman who has been betrayed and decided to fight to get him back. If a woman does not come to that decision then nothing on that chapter is of any use whatsoever.

But how does a woman who wants to fight for her cheating spouse go about it? If no one will offer her advice because they think to do so is demeaning then she is being robbed of support for her choice.

Your point of view is yours, but to say it is wrong to support a woman who has made a different choice is denying that other woman of her freedom to be right or wrong. Yours is not the only choice or the only opinion.

ormirian · 10/04/2014 12:20

We weren't ever apart. When it came to it he was horrified if I asked him when he was leaving me and moving in with her. It was never on the cards.

Linguini · 10/04/2014 12:21

HAHA!!!

Just don't believe it.... The Daily Mail!

Why does anyone read this utter b**locks.

Fair enough its written to cause outrage, but its always the same, misogynistic, women-are-always-wrong mentality.

Women are too skinny, too fat, too prude, too slutty, (Daily Mail rhetoric) Argh.

Just Smile, get yer tits out, and give head, and more so if hes cheated on you!

Millyjones · 10/04/2014 12:25

I totally agree Nomama

Ormirian then for you it wasn't an issue but for some women it is and as we are all about choices , if another woman chooses to want to try again with her man then why shouldn't she. If she wants to win him back then good luck to her. You can bet the OW is in the background trying her hardest to play with his mind.

Bargara · 10/04/2014 12:40

No one has to stay in a relationship where the other half has cheated. Often though you find that those that have always said they would never stay with a cheating spouse are the ones who want to make it work when it happens to them. Its not wrong to want to make it work if he is a normally decent man who has made a mistake. Life is never black and white.

Bargara · 10/04/2014 12:43

Plenty of advice has been written in the same vein by women Linguini so its not misogynistic.

WillieWaggledagger · 10/04/2014 12:55

in terms of 'winning back' though, it's a ridiculously short term solution. because the cheater is effectively rewarded for their bad behaviour and has no incentive to modify their behaviour in future (they haven't risked losing everything). and the implication is that if the wife doesn't keep up the 'good' behaviour he can legitimately go off and have another affair

Bargara · 10/04/2014 12:59

I think that the behaviours can only be changed if you feel legitimately that they need changing. If one of you have walked from the relationship (by affair or other) then there is a lot of unhappiness regarding the relationship. So if you feel that a change is needed to move forward then of course it has to be sustained for ever not just for the short term. It you only intend to change your behaviours (if you feel they need changing) for the short term then that is pointless and of course the relationship is doomed to failure.

CailinDana · 10/04/2014 13:16

Nomama if a respected child psychologist put out a book explaining how to "win" back a friend who treated them like shit and the advice was to give the friend whatever they want, change your ways to please them, would you be ok with your children reading and following that advice?

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