Marie H. Browne - You Cant Have Him, Hes Mine: A Womans Guide to Affair-Proofing Her Relationship

You Cant Have Him
HES MINE

A Womans Guide to Affair-Proofing Her Relationship

MARIE H. BROWNE, R.N., PH.D., WITH MARLENE M. BROWNE, ESQ.

Copyright 2007 Marie H. Browne, R.N., Ph.D., and Marlene M. Browne, Esq.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by
Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-59869-121-X
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-121-4
eISBN: 978-1-44051-688-7

Printed in the United States of America.

J I H G F E D C B A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Browne, Marie H.
You cant have himhes mine / Marie H. Browne with Marlene M. Browne.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59869-121-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-59869-121-X (pbk.)
1. MarriageHandbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Man-woman relationshipsHandbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Communication in marriageHandbooks, manuals, etc.
4. MarriagePsychological aspects. I. Browne, Marlene M. II. Title.
HQ734.B912 2007
646.7'8dc22 2007001129

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their product are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

To protect the identity of my patients and to maintain their right to confidential treatment, Ive altered basic facts (names, ages, occupations, and geographical locations) presented in the case histories that follow; I have, however, faithfully preserved the essential elements that made these patient experiences illuminating and instructive.Marie H. Browne, R.N., Ph.D.

The nine-item list in Chapter 14 on page 223 is from A Vision of Romantic Love by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., in The Psychology of Love, edited by R. J. Sternberg and M. L. Barnes, Copyright 1988. Used with permission of Yale University Press. The Love Scale on page 225 is used with the permission of Dr. Alvin Pam. The Mate Retention Inventory (MRI) on page 237 is adapted from Personality and IndividualDifferences, Vol. 39, Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T. & Buss, D. M., Mate Retention in Marriage: Further Evidence of the Reliability of the Mate Retention Inventory, pp. 415425, Copyright 2005, with permission from Elsevier.

This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.

Homer (800 B.C.E.)

Dedication

This book is for my deceased parents, who showed me the way; to my husband, who has been in my life since childhood, and throughout our long journey, we still laugh and enjoy each others company; and to my daughter and son-in-law, who make my dark days bright. Finally, this book is for my patients, whose lives and experiences made this endeavor possible.

Contents

Part 1
Assessing Love on the Home Front

Chapter 1
Your Husbands Happiness Factor

Chapter 2
Telltales of Trouble Brewing

Part 2
Marital Hazards and Husband Traps

Chapter 3
The Ready Replacement Pool

Chapter 4
Knowing Your Rivals Psyche

Chapter 5
Where Temptation Waits

Chapter 6
A Look in Your Marital Mirror

Part 3
Seizing Your Wifely Power

Chapter 7
Wifely Tricks and Advantages

Chapter 8
The Marital Emergency

Chapter 9
Exploiting Your Spousal Prerogatives

Chapter 10
Is It Worth the Effort?

Exploring Your Options with Pros
(Lawyers and Marital Therapists)

Part 4
Deciding How Your Story Ends

Chapter 11
To Your Own Rescue

Chapter 12
Dealing with Trauma and Finding Forgiveness

Chapter 13
Potential Costs of AdulteryRegardless

Chapter 14
Keeping It Together

Appendix A
The Love Scale

Appendix B
Ego Defense Mechanisms

Appendix C
Sexual Self-Efficacy Scale for Female Functioning

Appendix D
Mate Retention Inventory

Appendix E
References

Appendix F
Resources

Introduction

T he statistics on infidelity are alarming. According to an article from the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy entitled Cybersex: The New Affair Treatment Considerations, it is estimated that between 15 and 60 percent of husbands are cheating on their wives. If your husband is among them, you stand to lose not only your spouse, but also your psychic sense of trust, certainty, and the security of family life as you know it.

But theres good news. Many recent studies reveal that very happy marriages are far less vulnerable to infidelity than unhappy ones, and that extremely happy marriages are even more secure from the threat of adultery. The close association between marital satisfaction and fidelity is critical because so many popular self-help books written about adultery to date are premised on now-dated studies (based upon small sample sizes, questionable self-reporting methods, and retroactive accounts) that purported to find that even happy marriages are vulnerable to infidelity. If that were the case, you, the wife, would be a powerless victim of circumstance, having no control over your marital destiny. My many years of practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist lead me to disbelieve this claim.

To the contrary, Ive witnessed how vigilant, vigorous, and skillfully administered mate-guarding tactics, not to mention psychological insight complemented with positive communication methods and conflict resolution skills, can work wonders to ward off the other woman whos on the sceneor waiting to pounce. As a registered nurse and a Ph.D., with more than forty years teaching psychology and thirty-five years treating couples whose marriages were nearly destroyed by a husbands infidelity as well as by the other women who formed the third part of the trauma triangle, I wrote this bookwith the help of my daughter, a divorce lawyerto share the accumulated wisdom of leading experts on love, marriage, mate-protection, forgiveness, and moving on, all punctuated with clinical examples from my practice.

With facts and theories from neuroscience, evolution, psychology, and sociology at your fingertips, you will gain the information, resources, and insight needed to decode what your husband is doing and why, while assessing the formerly inscrutable motives, approaches, and techniques of the other woman. Knowing what lies behind the impulse to steal another womans mate allows you to recognize when a danger is present; predict what could happen if your husband is left unattended; and, most important, permit you to manage the situation by taking precise actions to eliminate the marital threat that youve discovered or that your husband has disclosed. As youll see, a wife who knows what to look for and how to react can take control before real trouble starts, making her marriage resistant to the well-known stressors, circumstances, and noxious opportunities that arise in certain environments known to create fertile fields for extramarital interaction.