INTRODUCTION: Guys, Read This First

Before you charge ahead into the meat and potatoes of this book, I want to tell you what you’re getting into. Basically, this is a book written for heterosexual men who have cheated on a woman they love, have gotten caught, and don’t want to lose their relationship with her. Certainly this content might be useful for other populations: heterosexual women, gay men, lesbians, and anyone else who has harmed a loved one by cheating. But none of these other folks are the focus of this work. I’m writing this book for straight guys who have strayed and want to make things right. Period.

Nevertheless, I fully expect that women, rather than men, will be the primary purchasers of this book. Specifically, I’m talking about the hurt, angry, and traumatized wife or girlfriend who just learned that her man is sleeping with a neighbor or a coworker and possibly several other women that she doesn’t know about yet. Put another way, after I have spent more than twenty-five years as a therapist specializing in sex and intimacy issues, particularly serial infidelity, my naiveté is gone, and I no longer expect the cheater to be the one who reaches out for help. How could I, when experience tells me that 99 percent of the time it’s the betrayed spouse who insists on change?

So if you’re reading this book, it’s highly likely that you’re doing so because your significant other gave it to you (or perhaps threw it at you) with a suggestion like, “Read this, you effing asshole, or I’m leaving!”

I do know that some men will buy this book of their own accord. If you did that, good for you; there is a very good chance that the information offered herein both can and will help you save your relationship. But, as I’ve said, the odds are high that you didn’t make the purchase because you got this little guidebook from your seething spouse. Either way, you’re almost certainly clueless about two very important things: (1) the types and degree of pain that your cheating has caused your partner, and (2) the concrete steps you must take to save your relationship. These are the primary topics this volume addresses.

Of course, what you choose to do with the information contained herein is up to you. It is possible that you will read this through and think, Hell no. I’m not doing any of that. If so, your relationship may not survive. And even if you take the direction and advice provided within these pages, following it to the letter, there is no guarantee that things will work out. This is a sad but true fact. The pain wrought by your cheating might be too much for your loving partner to forgive, no matter how much you love her. More likely, however, especially if she has gone to the trouble of providing you with this recipe for saving your relationship, not only can you repair it, you can actually make it better than ever. And that is a pretty cool thing. So read on.

Note: Throughout this book I will use certain terms interchangeably. For instance, wife, spouse, partner, mate, and loved one will all be used in reference to your primary life partner, the woman you’ve betrayed. When referring to your relationship with this woman I will use marriage, relationship, intimate connection, and various other terms interchangeably. Similarly, terms like lover, hookup, mistress, other woman, and affair partner will refer to the woman (or women) with whom you’ve cheated. I use these multiple terms in recognition of the fact that not all committed, supposedly monogamous relationships are marriages and not all cheating involves an affair, or a hookup, or a one-night stand. My goal in using various terms is to be inclusive, trusting that you, the reader, can find yourself and your relationship within these terms, whichever words I’m using at any given time.

It is important that you understand that I pull no punches in this book. Why should I? You’re neck deep in misery of your own making, and pretending that you’re not won’t do you or your relationship any good. The simple truth is this: if you love your spouse and you truly want to save (and even grow) your relationship with her, then you have to accept and deal with the painful reality of what you’ve done.

BE AT PEACE

• This book is not meant to shame you, although you may at times feel ashamed while reading it.
• This is not a book that judges you or treats you as if you are a bad person; it’s a book about things you have done that you (and others) might define as bad.
• This book is not meant to provoke you, although you may at times feel angry while reading it.
• This is not a book that will help you justify your sexual history, even though you may currently believe that it is justified.
• This book does not intend to consider you wrong and your significant other right, although it may feel that way as you read it. Rather, the book asks you to look at your part in your relationship troubles while pushing you toward an understanding of and empathy for your spouse’s emotional turmoil.

The simple truth is that portions of this book may be hard to read and even harder to process and integrate into your life. Furthermore, you may never be quite the same for having read it. This is true regardless of whether you stay in your current relationship, because the information contained herein provides a different pathway for you. It will show you the difference between making decisions impulsively and stopping to fully consider how your actions might affect others. Children act impulsively because they don’t know any better; mature adults should not, because they do know better. Once you see the difference, there’s no going back.

This is a book about living with truth and integrity as your guide, about cleaning up the mess on your side of the street without blaming your spouse for that mess or her reactions to it. More important, this book offers you the potential not only to reconnect with your mate, both emotionally and (eventually) sexually, but also to develop your relationship in ways you never thought possible. If that is what you want from your life and your relationship, then you’ve got the right book in your hands.