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Stop Cheating Before It Starts

Oprah guest M. Gary Neuman is a licensed marriage counselor and marital infidelity expert who specializes in helping couples cope with sexual and emotional affairs. Neuman performed extensive research on infidelity and published his own report, The Truth About Cheating, as a tool for women to discover how or why their husbands cheat, as well as inspire change in troubled marriages.

Neuman’s research revealed that 93 percent of husbands would not volunteer their participation of an affair to their wives. His research also showed that it wasn’t sex that caused husbands to cheat, but appreciation, or lack thereof from their wives, a hard pill to swallow for a betrayed spouse who is already dealing with the pain of discovery. Nevertheless, Neuman isn’t demonizing or placing the blame on betrayed women, but instead seeks to take no prisoners.

“[The Truth About Cheating] is about empowering women,” Gary says. “It’s not about making your man happy and pleasing him. It’s about you bringing out the best in your husband so that you get a lot of love and affection—what you want from this marriage.”

On a follow-up appearance on Oprah, Neuman provides couples three keys for affair-proofing their marriage.

1. According to Gary’s research, appreciation is the number one way to prevent infidelity. “That’s what the men reported,” he says. “Men were saying that what they received from the other woman most, first and foremost in their mind, was a sense of appreciation and admiration.”

When you recognize your husband’s efforts, Gary says you’ll get the same in return. “It’s lovely to think that we should appreciate our spouses. Love them, not just for the things that they do extra, but for all the hard work that we do,” he says. “The more that you give that appreciation, it will return to you.”

We agree with this sentiment. The first thing people do when they meet another person they like is show appreciation of them. The person may provide positive words, looks and attention, all of which convey greatful appreciation that the other person is taking time to interact with or do things with them.

When you’re married, or otherwise committed to someone, things aren’t always perfect, and there are times when that person may just work your last nerve. Make it a point to magnify the positive aspects of your spouse’s actions, even when there is conflict. This will help ease conflict as well as increase their feelings of appreciation, making them more likely to work on those things which may aggravate the relationship.

2. The second way to stay connected to your spouse is to have more sex and embrace intimacy. “This is about how you can get much more pleasure from sex. A lot of women, I think, don’t enjoy sex as much because they have difficulty receiving pleasure. Men are much better at that,” Gary says. “You have to get better at receiving and taking kindness and pleasure for yourself.”

Sex is the highest, most physically involved form of intimacy there is. If you dislike sex because you’re not getting an ample amount of pleasure from it, then we suggest checking out websites and books about improving sexual pleasure and activity. Learning how to please yourself and learning what pleases you (via masturbation or by paying attention to your body’s responses during intimacy) is necessary to improving the level of intimacy in your marriage. Most men state knowing that their wives are just as excited about sex as they are increases the pleasure of the sexual experience.

3. The third thing to remember is that you have the right to have a conversation about cheating. Gary’s research shows that 77 percent of cheaters said they had best friends who cheated, compared with less than 50 percent of the faithful group.

Instead of forbidding your husband from seeing his friends, Gary says you should be able to have an open conversation about where they’re going. “A nice way to say to your husband some of these things is, ‘Look, if my best friend was a cheater, and I told you that I was going away to Vegas with her on a girls’ weekend, I would hope you’d have something to say about it,’” he says.

We agree with this as well. In a solid relationship, no topic should be off limits for discussion, whether you suspect your partner or not. A trusting partner with nothing to hide will be candid about the things he does and the places he goes with his friends when you’re not around. Forbidding someone from seeing or dealing with friends you don’t trust will not solve the problem, but may instead deepen it, as people are known to do just those things they are told not to. Attempting to “forbid” your spouse from seeing key people in their lives also shows you have no trust in them.

Gary leaves us with some final thoughts on communication and how it can help affair- proof marriage.

A good way to open up lines of communication is to go on one date a week, Gary says. However, there are a few rules you must follow while on the date. “[There are] three things you can’t talk about—money, business and kids,” he says. “It’s not what got you here. Talk about fun, friendly things.”

We also agree with this. What do you think he and the mistress talk about? Certainly not the unpaid bills, the kids’ medical problems and definitely not things that erase the illusion that they are “escaping from reality.”