I hope we all realize that even our wayward (or formerly wayward) spouses would have written that, prior to their affairs.
Let that one sink in a bit.
In his phenomenal book, "His Needs, Her Needs," Dr. Harley chooses his sub-title very carefully, I can only assume: "Building an Affair-Proof Marriage." The book was meant to be pre-emptive.
The best we could ALL do would be to continue to do the hard work necessary to gain self-awareness, and to make a conscious effort to meet our mate's emotional and physical needs.
Actually I wasn't talking about the cheating, I was talking about the cold indifference to the betrayed spouse's pain. That's what I can't imagine myself doing, but who knows?
I've been thinking a lot about this, and here's the best I can make of it. Add together years of unhappiness in M, lots of pent up anger, resentful feelings of obligation to marital vows, love chemicals over a new love interest, and extreme guilt over breaking the M vows. The result is an incredible shift in the way the brain of a WAW works, AKA the alien pod we've all experienced.
It's not JUST the love chemicals. Usually when someone is involved in a new love affair, they're happy. They're nice to everyone. In the wayward wife, they are viciously cruel to their betrayed husband, so something else is going on. I think it really is worth studying as a pyschological phenomenon.
