So, I was looking at an old Women’s Health (April 2009) that is waiting for the recycling bin, and I saw an article title on the cover: “Cheat-Proof His Love,” and of course this ticked me off because the subliminal message is “it’s your fault if he cheats,” which is total BS. I decided to peak at the article to see if it rang bells, and yes, I had read it before, and had the same thoughts before—that saying that a woman can “cheat-proof” her guy’s love is just ridiculous because it’s not up to you to “prevent” your guy’s cheating. It’s up to him to decide to stay true.
The article’s focus is on newlyweds who cheat, which apparently is a growing trend. It goes on to say that contributing factors include the fact cheating is so prevalent in the headlines and that guys want to see if they’ve made a mistake early on (before kids are involved) and when wives are least suspicious. It then analyzes the reasons men cheat early in marriage and how to “prevent” it. The article talks about issues like serial monogamy leading men to think they can jump ship when the going gets tough (sometimes as a result of cohabitating as a “trial marriage” beforehand), watching porn for the excitement (watch with him to keep him home), the Internet’s making cheating easier, a feeling of huge responsibility falling onto the man after marriage (make sure he knows he’s sexy and appreciated), stale sex (make sure you make sex a priority), and marriage not curing commitment issues (they advise not to marry such a man).
While the things they say contain some truth and have some research to back them up, the main problem I have with the article is that it doesn’t go after the real issue here: only the person who cheats is responsible for the cheating. For me, my husband and I talked before marriage about reasons why people might cheat (to get out of a relationship, because they’re missing something they need, etc.) and how we would work to talk out our problems before the issue became bad enough that we might be tempted to give up on us. We talked about how we would ask to go to couples counseling if we were feeling like our need were not being met or if we were starting to feel like we might want out.
It really bothers me that our society seems to promote the idea that we are NOT personally responsible for our own actions. I think it’s a huge problem in our society today. That magazines have articles like this that shift the blame just appalls me. I find myself very happy that I let my subscription to WH lapse, and I do not intend to renew while they’re publishing junk like this!
