By 

Michael Cipot (Long Island, NY) –

  

The opening of Stanley Kubrick’s last film, “Eyes Wide Shut,” presents the depiction of contemporary marital relationship enlightenment: A well-educated upper middle class couple go to a Christmas party where, individually, the husband and the wife are approached by members of the opposite sex. The husband has meaningless banter with two women and the wife shares conversation and a dance with an older man. The husband’s encounter is interrupted when his services as a doctor are required by the party’s host, a rich man having an affair virtually under his wife’s nose, and the wife counters her dancing partner’s increasingly suggestive advances by holding up her hand, showing her marital band, and stating “. . . I’m married.”
Soon after, the wife needles her husband with his events at the party, asking what he did with the two women who approached him, while the man questions about “that guy you were dancing with.” This prologue triggers a psychological odyssey by both partners wherein they eventually come to realize, I don’t know with tragic insufficiency, that they have been before a live audience with each others feelings while life nearly completely unaware of their own motivations.

Gary Neuman’s book similarly delves into the psyche of its readers, challenging us to examine our own encounters with members of the opposite sex. He questions us to question what it is we are honestly looking for when we meet or speak with someone outside of our primary relationship, and he doesn’t allow us to get ourselves “off the hook” easily.

Sorry to say several critical reviews of this book border on naivete. I don’t see where the author is suggesting that strong emotional ties can’t exist outside of a committed relationship. The danger comes when, in such a relationship, public lack the self-awareness to know, if not their own motivations, those of the person they have developed such a bond with. Public often trick themselves, wittingly or unwittingly, into believing that an emotional attachment outside of their primary relationship is healthful when, in fact, it is taking time and attention from one’s committed partner. One need only look at the divorce rate to know that there is a serious problem with commitment and fidelity in our current society, and, as statistics prove, those who stray often do so with someone they have developed a previously platonic bond with.

Vigilance needs to be the catch-word in one’s relationships with anyone outside of a primary relationship; vigilance in assessing one’s own motivations as well as those of the supposedly platonic partner. I have witnessed numerous instances of public who, although open with their spouses about their own intentions and dealings with a friend, are completely unaware of the friend’s right intentions (which can change and grow over time). Things to consider: Is the friend in a committed relationship or release (and does the friend’s own significant partner, if any, know of and approve of this alliance)? Does the primary partner know of the friendship in all detail? Has the committed partner met this friend and approve of the friendship? A very vital thing to determine is how the primary partner assesses the events of the friend, either in meeting him or her for the first time, or over the purpose of the friendship. Life a man, I’ve seen male “friends” exhibit territorial behavior when the partner or significant additional is on the scene. An extremely vital observation for this partner to make is how does one’s partner react when concerns about the “friend” are raised? For example, are the partner’s observations about the “friend” valued or dismissed? I have observed numerous relationships wherein the legitimate concerns of one’s committed partner are downplayed or discarded, and often with the retort that such comments indicate that the partner worried about the friendly relationship is “controlling” or “jealous” (ie, “you don’t want me to have friends”), or that any problem down the road can be contained (“whatever my friend’s motivations, mine are pure”). A similar comment to be aware of is “I’m not doing anything ill-treat, and I’m not responsible for how the additional person eventually reacts.”

In recommending Neuman’s book, I made an observation to a friend recently, a release woman, who told me that she often sought the company of married men for conversation because “they were safe” (ie, in a committed relationship and, therefore, unlikely to make advances on her) that it was very likely the men were performing arts, as Neuman would say, in an emotionally unfaithful manner with their respective marital partners by engaging with an unmarried woman. I saw where at least one of these men became territorial when this release woman was approached or spoke with additional men, all but looking on more than one occasion to cut them off. In speaking further with this woman, I learned that her conversations went beyond the ordinary…

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Emotional Faithlessness focuses on strengthening and healing marriages, but it helped me through the first two years of accepting and healing after my ex-husband’s multiple emotional and physical workplace contact. I bought this book the day after I found out about my ex’s last affair. Hindsight is 20/20, and the scenarios in this book were a blueprint of the last 2 years of my marriage: phone calls at home from “co-workers”, working late at the personnel, and driving to the personnel in the middle of the night to take care of “security alarm” calls. I read several books to help get through the painful breakup, and Emotional Faithlessness was the most insighful and practical book on emotional (and physical) contact I found. My marriage was over, but conception the book encouraged me to focus on my own strength lacking my ex.

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