Customer Reviews

Patterns Of Infidelity And Their Treatment (Frontiers in Couple and Family Therapy, No 3)

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As a Marriage and Family Therapist and nearing completion of my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, I found Ms Brown's book to be both baseless and ill conceived.

The idea that one has an affair due to a deficit in one's marriage is lacking in informed judgement on her part.

I got my Masters and became a therapist to understand my role (as I saw it) in the breakdown of my relationship with my ex. He was chronically unfaithful and the marriage finally ended when he impregnated a woman he was seeing.

I had a therapist like Ms Brown- who believed that his infidelities were due to something 'missing' from the marriage. I disagreed. I felt his infidelities were due to a general lack of moral character and maturity on his part, as well as his familial opinion that affairs were fine (he came from a family where this was acceptable- his grandfather had two families!)

Once I came to understand that I could not have 'changed him' or done any more in the marriage to keep him faithful, I became a stronger person and was able to open myself up (or heal, so to speak) and find a wonderful, emotionally and morally healthy man- who I've been happily married to for over 5 years.

In my practice, I try to help the betrayer recognize and accept responsiblity for his/her actions, as well as helping the betrayed understand that this situation didn't evolve from a strained marriage, but from the informed actions of their spouse- and that any decisions regarding the future of their relationship should reflect that treatise. Ultimately, if the betrayer doesn't accept TRUTHFUL responsiblity for their actions, they can't/won't stop cheating (they will only get better at concealing it).

Ms Brown wants us to believe that if a man/woman cheats- it's because the spouse is lacking. This theory is both damaging to the betrayed's psyche and damaging to the marriage itself.

The book, "My Husband's Affair Became The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me" by Anne Bercht and the book " Infidelity: A Survival Guide" by Don David Lusterman are better at dealing with this sensitive subject. Both Ms Bercht and Mr Lusterman explain that the betrayer has to be held accountable for his/her actions in order for a resolution to the problem of infidelity in a marriage or relationship.

This book depends on a premise that lacks any empirical support and makes no theoretical sense: That affairs are functions of the marriages in which they occur.

That an affair has occurred obviously means that the marriage was vulnerable to an affair--that the pattern of marital interaction allowed for an affair to happen. That does not imply that the affair is a function of that pattern.

Here's a plain fact: There simply is no decent research showing Ms. Brown's premise. None. It simply does not exist. And it can't: the idea is untestable, for at least two reasons.

First, it is unfalsifiable. You can always find a way to believe it if you want to. In every marriage, as in every human relationship, there are always conflicts and disappointments, and if you want to assert that some of them caused a certain behavior, you can always do so. Like the idea that everything is God's will, the idea lacks any proof in its behalf, but people who believe it can always deploy it to interpret events.

Second, the idea is a poorly formed hypothesis in the first place. The unfortunate notion that affairs reflect the state of the marriage in which they occur is part of a shibboleth of marriage and family therapists, called "systems" theory. However, nothing in general systems theory, as understood outside M&F counseling, would suggest that a family is a system in the sense necessary for the theory to apply: No marriage or family is sufficiently isolated to allow the systemic dynamics, such as they are, to determine the behavior of the components--namely, the family members.

Every person is part of many systems--his or her extended family, work colleagues, friends, social strata, local community, larger society, and so forth--all of which have something to do with determining behavior, insofar as systems theory has any applicability to human behavior at all.

So the very idea that family dynamics even COULD cause an afffair rests on an indefensible idea. You simply cannot isolate a family well enough ever to create a test for the hypothesis--and no one outside M&F therapy would ever think you could, since a family so obviously does not fit the initial conditions necessary for applying the theory.

Ms. Brown's typology of affairs is likewise lacking in empirical testing. There simply is no research validating that these are the types of affairs. And it is ridiculously easy to show that the types of affairs she countenances do not encompass all the reasons affairs take place.

Sometimes a spouse is mentally ill, for instance. Sometimes a spouse's early upbringing left him or her with serious ethical lacunae. Sometimes we just marry the wrong people, because we are young and naive or otherwise obtuse when marrying, and the person we marry chooses a dishonorable path. Sometimes we choose dishonorable ways of feeling better because of our own shortcomings. None of those are functions of the marriage.

And sometimes an affair reflects the simple facts that affairs are fun and people believe they can get away with them. The well-known "Coolidge effect," that (for the most part) sexual excitement increases with new partners, is one reason for affairs, and it is part of basic psychology, not a reflection of the marriage.

If you try to fit your spouse's infidelity, or your own, into Ms. Brown's views, you may be taking on responsibility for managing someone else's mental illness or moral shortcomings, or you may be shifting your mental illness or ethical immaturity to your marriage, where they can never be fixed.

Nothing ever makes an individual trustworthy except his or her own good character. An affair need not show anything wrong with the marriage, but it ALWAYS shows unreliable character--a person who does not keep promises and engages in deceit is (by definition)unreliable. If you are the betrayer, you will never become a reliable partner without reforming the moral callousness that enabled you to use betrayal to make yourself feel better. If you are the betrayed, you make a serious mistake in believing that anything you can do will make your partner more reliable. Yes, you might be able to decrease the partner's unhappiness; but then you will have taken responsibility for keeping the partner happy enough that he or she won't do what they should never be willing to do anyway.

In my many years as a therapist in New York, I've seen marriages destroyed by well-meaning but muddle-headed therapists who convince partners that something is wrong with the marriage, when there isn't, really--when some individual therapy or moral education for the betrayer could have saved the marriage. I've seen therapists ratify the betrayed person's broken sense of self by telling them they had a role in bringing it on themselves, thus forever warping their understanding of themselves and of the moral demands of marriage.

And I've seen people spend years and thousands of dollars in therapy chasing down mythical "system dynamics" that there is no sound reason to believe exist at all.

Ms. Brown invites more of the same.

All in the name of dogma that lack empirical support and make no theoretical sense.

Patterns of Infidelity and Their Treatment is an essential resource for knowledgable professionals. It's comprehensive, detailed, and thorough and I have found it very useful in my clinical and mediation practice. It is at the top of my recommended reading list for professionals on affairs. Isolina Ricci, Ph.D.

I have been a marriage and family therapist for over 40 years and believe that Ms. Brown's book does an excellent job of dealing with affairs from a family system perspective. From my experience this framework provides a way for therapists and client couples to grasp the devastation of a marital affair and begin the process of healing.

As therapists we must deal with both process and content. This book does an excellent job of portraying the various dances (types of affairs) as the process that sets the stage for a possible affair. I don't believe that Ms. Brown says all these dances will lead to an affair only that they may set the stage for such. As therapists it our goal to make the covert dance more overt. Her book absolutely supports the fact that the betraying partner is 100% responsible for the poor choice of dealing with uncomfortable marital dances by having an affair. What Ms. Brown does is distinguish between process, not always fully conscious, and the dysfunctional choices this can trigger in some partners. She does this in clear language that allows individuals and couples to understand the covert process. Once couples understand the process, they can begin the long road to healing. If they understand and choose to change it opens the marriage to a healthier connection.

This pile of bound hooey will actually hurt more than help. Ms. Brown goes so far as to suggest a therapist invite all 3 members of a triangle to meet together so the undecided, betraying partner can size them up! The book provides support for distorted thinking patterns, enabling justifications and rationalizations for an affair. Ms Brown's "types" are limiting. If you are having an affair, it must be because you wanted out of the marriage &/or you have given your all for the entire marriage without getting anything in return. Her advice? Help the couple see how unhappy they are so they can end the marriage and not be so giving in the future.
There are a zillion of "Affair" books. Any should be better than this one.

Better choices that are based on research: Shirley Glass, "Not Just Friends"; Janis Abrahms Spring, "After The Affair"; Baucom, Snyder, and Gordon, "Helping Couples Get Past the Affair" & "Getting Past The Affair"; and Peggy Vaughn, "Monogomy Myth".