Reviewed January 2, 2006.
Hyperion, New York, 2005.
173 pages.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2005 (#3,
Relationships)
This book
caught my eye
because my son is interested in screenwriting, and I thought it might
be a book
about writing a script for a movie. When
I saw the subtitle, I took a closer look.
<>
My husband recently moved out
and told me he wants a divorce. Since
then, I’ve gotten lots of confidences and heard about other women in
very
similar situations—similar but each with its own variations. I’ve also read stories on messageboards at www.divorcebusting.com. In the review that follows, please don’t
assume I’m talking about my own marriage. If
it sounds like a particular situation, that’s because
men who leave
their wives so often follow “the Script.”
I’m going to
go into great
detail in this review, because I think this book is a tremendous help
to women
who are being left. I want to get their
attention. I will mostly summarize the
book by quoting the authors, so readers will know that this is what the
authors say about men who cheat, NOT what I am saying about my
own husband or
anyone else.
I find the
title ironic,
since men who leave their families probably think they are breaking out
of the
“script” other people want to impose on them. In
fact, they’re simply following a different script—one
that’s been
around for ages and across ethnicities. “It’s
funny, it’s sad, and it’s utterly amazing—men do and
say exactly
the same things in exactly the same order when they are unfaithful. We think cheating revolves around love and
sex and intrigue and illicit encounters—and it does.
But men also talk and act as if there were a
script.” Unfortunately, this script
doesn’t have a “happily ever after” ending for anyone on stage.
Here’s how
the authors came
to study and write down the Script to reveal it to women:
“We discovered the Script in
conversation. Friends since our children
were in high school together in San Francisco, we stayed in touch
after both of us went
through divorce, and Vicky moved away. As
we talked about our work, the organizations we were
involved in, and
the odds and ends of life, we realized that in one area we were hearing
the
same story over and over. Unfaithful men
all acted alike. Just like they were
following a script. This was confirmed
through conversations and correspondence with hundreds of people
throughout the
country. The identical play was being
reenacted unfaithful man after unfaithful man. We
began to collect these stories and realized there was
something more
here.
“We knew we
were onto
something from the number of stories we heard, and the level of
interest we
found from everyone we mentioned this idea to. This
issue affects women from all walks of life, all
socioeconomic
groups, all ages, all backgrounds, all parts of the country. Every woman who experiences an unfaithful
husband feels confused and baffled by his contradictory statements and
behavior. She starts to believe that she
really must be crazy, unappealing, selfish, and unloving, just as her
husband
says. This book helps women understand
that it is all part of the Script.”
The authors
did their
homework. “The book is based on
real-life stories, but all names and details are fictional. We’ve talked to hundreds of women and men,
and to experts in the field: lawyers,
therapists, doctors, financial advisers, and psychologists.”
I want to
review this book,
even though it will show my unfashionable views on divorce (I don’t
think it’s
a good thing.), because this book is important and a sanity-saver for
women in
this situation. Here’s why the authors
wrote it: “We don’t believe all men are
unfaithful. We don’t believe all men who
follow the first part of the Script cheat. We
do believe there are steps you can take and things you
can do, once
you are aware of the Script, that can help you in your marriage. Most of all, though, we want you to know you
are not alone; to know that the way it happened to you is the way it
always
happens; to laugh at the absurdity of it all; and to arm yourself for
what is
going to happen next—to be ahead of the game because you know the
Script.”
I want to add
that I don’t
believe that following this Script, even cheating on your wife, makes a
man a
bad person. He may be a very good
person. He may have been a wonderful
husband for years and years. I do
believe that he has been deceived by the Script into doing some very
bad
things, and he’s not willing to admit that they are bad.
But everyone makes mistakes. Everyone
does bad things sometimes. When a man
faces up to that and asks for
forgiveness, it’s amazing how a woman who loves him may respond. But the whole purpose of the Script is to
avoid facing up to the fact that he has done something wrong. Perhaps he fears that if he admits to doing
something bad, it would mean that he IS bad.
The Script is
arranged,
naturally enough, in Acts and Scenes. Act
I is “Before He Leaves.” The
first few scenes won’t be obvious to the wife, played out in the
husband’s
head. Reading these do give you some
compassion for the men. They didn’t mean
to be unfaithful, but got pulled into a trap.
Scene 1 is
called “What About
Me?” A man’s been married a long time
and he’s feeling unappreciated. He works
hard to support his family, and all his wife talks to him about is what
she
wants him to do around the house today.
“It’s his
feelings that make
up the Script now but these feelings of unhappiness and lack of
recognition are
not always explicit in the spoken lines. Nor
are they even explicit in his head. But
the essence of his feelings is that he gives, gives,
gives, works,
works, works, and nobody says thank you or shows any appreciation for
what he
has given. What’s more, in his mind, it
seems everybody’s always asking him to do more, more, more but again
giving
nary a thought to his needs.”
This scene
fits in well with
the book Love and Respect.
After my
husband decided he wanted a divorce, a man told me about his own
divorce many
years before. He felt his ex-wife didn’t
appreciate how hard he had worked to make it so she didn’t have to work
and give
her a nice home—exactly things that Love
and Respect says that a man likes to
be appreciated for. In this scene, the
man feels taken for granted, not respected.
Scene 2 is
“Wow, That Felt
Good.”
“In his head vague and
unidentified feelings of unhappiness and discontent are swirling when
he comes
upon the Momentary Encounter. In a few
brief moments he feels something quite different, something good. He feels happy.”
In a tip to
wives, the
authors say, “In a way you’re the woman who knows too much about him. He may fear your judgment or rejection if he
opens up to you. Because of this, every
other woman in the world seems to be a safer and more comfortable
person to
talk to. They know less about him and
thus pose less of a threat.”
Scene 3 is A
World Full of
Possibilities.
“His mind is
swirling with
thoughts of these attractions. Most
everywhere he turns there is another desirable woman who could give him
that
happy feeling he’s tasted so recently. ‘I’m
open to it. Let it
happen.’
“Some men let it rest at
that—a satisfying look at the possibilities.
“Alas, other
men take it
further, and go on to act out the rest of the Script.”
In another tip to wives, the
authors tell them to be sure to reconcile arguments, even if it seems
like
you’re always the one to say “I’m sorry.” “If
he has been experiencing ‘Wow, that felt good’
moments—and there’s
no way to know if he has—you are at a disadvantage.
Simply because you are his wife, every other
woman by definition seems easier to talk to. Every
other woman seems more admiring of him, more
supportive, more
exciting. You are coming out the worse
by comparison. If later that day he has
a ‘Wow, that felt good’ moment, and you have made a warm, inviting, and
open
comment like ‘I’m sorry,’ you come out looking much better. The appeal of his chance ‘Wow, that felt
good’ encounter is diminished.”
Scene 4 is
Pre-Separation
Separating.
“He’s said
nothing to you
directly about being unhappy or wanting to leave you.
He may well have done nothing that would make
him an unfaithful husband. But he has
experienced the ‘Wow, that felt good’ moment and, almost imperceptibly,
he
starts separating himself from you, your children, and your home life.”
Signs of this
stage include
picking fights, acting unappreciated, not talking to you, and acting
distant. The wife gets hurt when he seems
so critical
and distant, which starts conflicts. “Just
the result he intended. He
intentionally criticizes something that you do well.
You defend yourself. He has
then successfully started an argument,
pushed you into disagreeing with him, and forced you into acting in a
way he
feels he can justifiably say is unpleasant, argumentative, and
incompetent. Then he can feel fully
justified in spending more time away from home, because you’re so
difficult to
live with. He also feels fully justified
in spending more time looking at the World Full of
Possibilities—because that
brings him the happiness he deserves which he so obviously is not
getting at
home.”
Scene 5: “She Doesn’t Understand Me.”
The authors
say, “He’s
talking to A BMW (Anyone But My Wife). Everyone
else seems more supportive and understanding to
our man. This is not surprising. A BMW doesn’t have the information to know
that almost everything he’s saying has no basis in fact.
The natural reaction of a listener is to
accept everything he’s saying as the absolute truth.
Why would one doubt the accuracy of what he
says about a person he knows so well, especially since the
characteristics he
is choosing to comment on seem so big and deep, so spiritual and
high-minded,
not small or petty or base like dress, weight, or the way she keeps
house. He is unconsciously following the
Script’s
instructions to start developing his character as a positive,
high-minded,
thoughtful man always striving for the loftiest ideals.
“The stranger
also finds it
easier to listen because the commentary is about someone else. Our man is commenting on and implicitly
criticizing and belittling someone else, his wife.
If he said it directly to his wife she might
take it as an attack and might counterattack. The
stranger or work colleague is a safe person with whom
he can test
out his feelings.”
I found it
interesting that
Scene 5 fits in with something I read in the book Forty at Last.
The author of that book explains that the
reason so many older men have much younger mistresses is that the
younger women
are the only ones stupid enough not to flee when they hear the words,
“My wife
doesn’t understand me.” (The author of
that book was a mistress in Paris
for five years and said they were the most miserable five years of her
life.) This line is so commonplace, it’s
made its way into movies and books. Smart
women realize that a man who comes up with this line
is nothing
but trouble. It’s part of a Script that
doesn’t have a very pleasant part for the Other Woman.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of young women
out there who aren’t terribly smart that way and don’t recognize the
Script.
He will start
feeling out
other people, both men and women, about his marriage.
Never mind that he only tells them the
negative things. They’re going to
validate his feelings that he has a bad marriage. He’s
planting the seeds of justification for
leaving.
Scene 6 is “I
Found My Soul
Mate.”
He settles on
one woman who
seems to truly understand him and make him feel good.
He may or may not have a physical
affair. But he does start the deception,
not letting his wife know how much time he’s spending with this
“friend.” He says he’s working late or
extra busy. He pretends to himself that
all is innocent,
but this “friend” is important to him because she really understands
what he’s
going through. She “accepts him for who
he is” and even seems to admire him. SHE
doesn’t take him for granted!
“An ounce of
preparation is
worth a pound of explanation. He doesn’t
have [extra work] at all. He’s making it
up. The Script has taught him to
prepare. Set up the next scenes in
advance, the Script has told him. Buy
some stress-free time, get the lead actress on board with your (cover)
story
line. And turn her head away from the
real plot. You will be free of her
uncomfortable questions for a comfortable period of time.
She will be thinking about how hard you’re
working and how late you’re working and the pot of gold you’ve promised
at the
end. Her attention will be completely
diverted from the place you don’t want her to look.”
Scene 7 is
where he thinks
“This Could Work.”
This scene is
the happiest
time for Our Hero. “He is in a
delusional state, living in a fantasy. The
world full of possibilities has produced one wonderful
woman, his
soul mate. He feels happy, alive,
appreciated, on top of the world. The
thought of hurt, angry, scared, disapproving, or suddenly distant
family and
friends is absolutely nowhere in his mind.”
“Practical
problems of money,
where everyone will live, and the children’s future figure nowhere in
his
vision. . . . ‘This could work—I can
keep everybody happy’ is the fantasy he is living now.
It is extremely difficult for anyone to
comprehend how he could be so delusional. But
it’s all part of the Script.”
In Scene 8,
“This Isn’t
Fair,” the house of cards begins to tumble.
The Other
Woman may be
pressuring him for more commitment, perhaps to get married. The wife is getting very suspicious and
angry. He “doesn’t know why everyone’s
so angry and upset with him. Everything
was going so well.” He thinks his wife
shouldn’t complain. “Her life hasn’t
changed. She’s still going out with her
friends and doing things with the kids. Just
what she likes. She has
everything she could ever want.” Again,
he feels unappreciated, and that people are unfairly blaming him for
their
problems. It was working fine. Why did they have to mess it up?
Scene 9: Money
Talks . . . It Also Follows the Script.
At this
stage, he either spends
a lot on the Other Woman, or, to keep from being detected, he stays in
all the
time to keep it secret and spends less. “Spending
too much, especially cash, or spending too
little. He’s not talking but Money is, and
your
understanding of Money’s language is exactly right even though he’s
trying to
tell you you’re hearing things.”
In Scene 10, Getting His
Ducks in a Row, he begins hiding money and laying the groundwork for
moving out. “He has everything set in his
mind. All will go beautifully. He is mentally imagining how he will drop the
Bomb and how wonderful his life will be after that.
He will continue to have it all. He
is still in the delusional fantasy period,
so he has no thoughts of problems regarding living arrangements, his
children’s
needs, or how everyone will get along. But
he does realize that having it all after he drops the
Bomb will
involve some planning. He may have
started to hide money quite a while ago, when he first began to create
a cover
story. If not, we can predict he will
start to hide money now or in the near future.”
Scene 11 is
The Expensive
Gift.
Many nice gifts are given
because of great love. But men who are
playing out the Script sometimes give big gifts for other reasons. There is The Guilty Gift, The “See, I’m a
Really Good Guy” Gift, The “This Will Prevent You from Ever Being Angry
with Me”
Gift, and The “I’m Going To Lead Her Off the Scent” Gift.
Once again, this scene is designed to make
the husband feel better about himself and distract himself (and his
wife) from
what he’s really doing to her.
At the end of
Act I, the
authors give a word to guys, telling them that now the Script is out. We know you might go this far without
actually cheating. But if you choose to
go further, women who read the Script will know what you’re up to. They remind you that it doesn’t have a happy
ending for the Hero.
They warn the
female readers,
“You can’t reason with him now, and you can’t control what he is doing
and
thinking. You can’t really understand it
either; nobody can. That’s because you
are in the real world while he may be in another world, a fantasy
world.”
Then Act II begins, “After He
Leaves.”
Scene 1, Act
II, is Dropping
the Bomb. He tells his wife that he
wants a divorce/ wants to move out/ needs some space/ wants a “trial
separation.” His reasons given may vary,
but they tend to be ones that make him look noble and longsuffering.
“Life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. The most deeply
ingrained and praiseworthy of all American values.
And soul-searching. And the
examined life. And not being angry. He has espoused the most widely accepted and
admired values of the American people since 1776. You
can’t argue with that. Which is exactly
what he wants.
“If you
disagree, you are
ignorant, uncaring, critical, and uncompassionate.
But you know you can’t agree with what he’s
said because, shocked and hurt as you are, you realize there is
something not
right about the combination of love, life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness
with leaving your family. There is
nothing you can say. Which is exactly
what he wants.”
“Listening to other men tell
how they dropped the Bomb, he has stored away the settings and language
that
have made other men look like heroes and will thus make him look
equally
good. He has been imagining how you will
react and choosing strategies he thinks will minimize your anger. He includes references to as many widely
admired values as he can think of so there’s little you can immediately
see to
criticize. He lets you know he’s doing
this to uphold only the loftiest ideals. So,
you have some catching up to do, emotionally and
practically.”
Then comes
Scene 2, “I Like
Living Alone.”
“When he says
he likes living
alone, you probably believe that he is speaking the truth.
You think maybe he’s bored with your company,
tired of family obligations, weary of being around you and the kids
every spare
moment, and wants to be free of all this. You
think he just needs to do his own thing. You’re
feeling very hurt to be rejected but
think that from his point of view maybe what he’s saying makes sense. What you must remember is that the Script
lines are always chosen to make him look good. ‘I
like living alone’ is a way for him to make his exit
while avoiding
your anger. You really can’t get angry
with someone who is only expressing the most cherished ideals of
American
culture. Living alone represents these
ideals: rugged individualism,
self-sufficiency, independence, a ‘can-do’ attitude.
You really can’t argue with this. Just
the result he wants. You can’t argue, so
there’s no anger to deal
with.”
Act II, Scene
3 says,
“There’s Always Someone Else, Always.”
I’m still
hoping that this
isn’t always true, that there are men who don’t play out this scene. But the authors say, “In this scene he’s
continually repeating his lines from the previous scene:
he likes living alone, he needs his space, he
likes being by himself. But voices from
behind the stage curtains are telling you something very different: He isn’t living alone. These
voices speak the truth in every
performance of the Script because there’s always someone else, always.”
In Scene 4,
he says, “You’ll
Be Better Off Without Me.”
His objective
in this scene
is to convince his wife that “He’s shown her the deep love of personal
sacrifice. It’s a greater, deeper love
than just sex or a dozen roses or diamond earrings.
It’s the greatest love of all—incredible
personal sacrifice for the good of another human being.
The best thing is, [his wife] and the world
admire his nobility but in reality it is no sacrifice at all. . . . The truth is he is doing exactly what he
wants. He can have everything.”
“He’s done a
great job
getting you to think he’s left only because he’s putting your interests
first
and he wants to help you. The Script has
told him that he’ll feel a little less guilty and come out looking very
noble
if he says he left to improve your situation. But
we can predict he is not planning to improve it with
too much
money.”
<>
He’s trying
to turn something
fundamentally unkind into something good and unselfish.
The authors
give women a
tip: “Don’t Fall For It:
“He’s not
putting your
interests first. He’s been thinking of
himself all along. He wants to have his
cake and eat it too. He wants to be able
to do the thing society thinks is wrong—leave his wife and children—and
he
wants to be thought of as noble while he does it.
“Here is your
own answer for
when he says he’s doing it for you: ‘It’s
kind of you to consider me at this late juncture,
but I don’t
believe a word you say.’”
In Scene 5,
he says, “I’m
Going To Take Care of You.”
If he’s
following the Script,
the authors say that what this means is, “I’m going to take care of you
on my
terms. I’m going to decide how much you
need to live on.”
“‘Let’s sit
down’ is a
leitmotif in the Script the men follow. Let’s
sit down and talk about dividing the money. Let’s
sit down and divide the property. Let’s
sit down and talk. Let’s
sit down and just be friends. The unspoken
Script says that if you don’t
agree to sitting down you’re not cooperative, not friendly, not nice,
not
decent, don’t know how reasonable people do business.
‘Why won’t you sit down?’ He’s
really saying this in order to force you
to answer in a way and with words that make you into the crazy,
unreasonable,
demanding, uncivil one—traits you probably don’t have and don’t want to
be
known for having. He thinks if you sit
down he will be in control. Sitting down
also makes him feel comfortable, at ease, makes him feel like you’ll go
along
with what he’s done, that he can have his cake and eat it too.
“So either
you ‘sit down’ and
probably come out the worse for it financially and emotionally, or you
don’t
sit down and he tells people you’re unreasonable, uncooperative,
demanding, and
crazy. It seems like a no-win situation.”
The important
tip for this
section is: “Don’t sit down.
In fact, do the opposite, stand up for
yourself. . . . As much as he says he’s
going to take care of you and as hard as it is to believe that he isn’t
going
to take care of you, the truth is: He’s not going to take care of you. You
must be on high alert, now. Someone
you trusted has shown himself not to be trustworthy.
We can predict that the infidelity which
started in Act I is virtually certain to continue as he works to
protect his sticks
and bricks.”
I think we’ve all heard
stories of women who were abandoned who sat down and went along with it
and
signed papers and ended up with much less than they were legally
entitled
to. Be careful. Be
sure you at least consult a lawyer to have
some idea what the law considers you entitled to after years of
marriage.
In Scene 6,
the wife gets the
title line, “He Would Never Do That.”
By this time, the husband is
pretty firmly into the Script. He does
things that his wife simply can’t believe he would ever do.
“He’s going
to try to make
you look like you’re angry all the time, selfish, greedy, difficult,
flaky, and
downright crazy. He’s going to criticize
you to your children, your friends, and, of course, to his colleagues
and his
friends.”
“No woman wants to believe
her husband is following the Script. It
makes her feel foolish, naïve, and ignorant for having believed
what he was
saying. ‘Is it just me,’ you may wonder
over and over, ‘or does every woman feel this way?’
It’s not just you; every woman feels this
way.”
Again, the
main way to
protect yourself is to be sure you get your own lawyer.
Be appreciative of offers of support, but
“help” him carry out his promises by getting them in writing.
“Even though he has shown
signs of untrustworthiness, you still want to trust him—you’ve always
done so
and it’s very hard to change. It’s very
difficult to live with someone, whether it’s a spouse, an employer, or
someone
else, whose every word and deed you have to doubt.
Life becomes very difficult when someone you
need to trust—a spouse, an employer, an employee—has violated that
trust. You still need to ‘do business’
with that
person, but how?
“Throw some
salt around: Stop trusting so much. Because we can predict that much of what he’s
telling you will turn out not to be true. ‘I’m
going to take care of you.’ ‘I’m laying
everything on the table with the money.’ ‘We
can settle this fairly for both of us
without all those high-priced lawyers.’”
Scene 7 is “The Last To
Know.” Here’s where the women who didn’t
find out earlier finally learn about the affair, physical or emotional.
Scene 8
really rang bells
because recently I’ve heard of a couple of cases where the husband used
this
line, expecting his wife not to be angry with him for his
unfaithfulness. The line is, “I’m Not
Sleeping With Her” or
“We’re Not Having Sex.”
In one case, the man actually
moved in with the Other Woman and never seems to be seen in public
without her. But he thinks he has done
nothing wrong
because it’s a “platonic relationship.”
I’ve heard of
more than one
other case where a man told his wife that he loved the Other Woman and
wanted
to move out. But he felt he hadn’t done
anything at all wrong because they hadn’t had sex.
The wife is unreasonable and demanding for
being critical.
This whole Script is all
about deception and making the man look good. It’s
about following lies instead of truth. The
truth is that once a man puts another
woman ahead of his wife, and especially once he’s lied to his wife to
spend
time with another woman, he is definitely NOT “forsaking all others and
cleaving only to her.” He is not keeping
the vow, “My love shall be for you alone as long as we both shall live.” He is cheating. He
is unfaithful. He is breaking the vows he
made before God
and many witnesses.
But naturally
enough, men
don’t want to face up to what they’ve done. (Who
does? Especially when
it’s
something that goes against your word and your values?)
The authors point out that this often
involves redefining what it means to “have sex” to a very narrow
definition. Former President Clinton is
not the only famous case of doing this, and there are plenty of
not-so-famous
cases.
I do want to say that I’m
sure there are men who have enough self-control and enough integrity to
keep
from having a physical relationship with the Other Woman.
I think they are in fact a cut above the
others. However, they are still being
unfaithful. On the divorcebusting.com
messageboard, it’s called an Emotional Affair, and is so common it has
its own
abbreviation, EA. When a woman loses her
husband because of this, she’s only slightly comforted that they didn’t
have
sex. But sometimes he’ll make her feel
crazy for being angry when he “didn’t do anything wrong.”
Yes, he did do something wrong. You
are not crazy. No, he’s not as bad as some
men, but he is
still cheating.
If the man
pulls off the
Script just right, he can convince his wife she’s crazy and unfair and
argumentative and demanding for being bothered about his “friendship.”
Scene 9, The
Courageous
Cheater, is another attempt to make doing what’s wrong look noble.
“The Courageous Cheater, our
man, a hero, the stuff of legend and myth, has been the main character
in the
fable passed verbally man to man for generations as a true legend
always
is. The story is sometimes enhanced to
emphasize his incredible bravery—imagine him slaying the dragon of
unhappiness
along with the wife, whom he believes to be the dragon’s accomplice. Then, of course, capturing the ravenhaired
maiden.”
“He’s
learned, though, it’s
always best if courage doesn’t look too easy. He’s
not much of a hero if he didn’t climb the highest
mountains to get
there. So the road to being the
courageous cheater starts with manufactured complexity.”
“You are completely
baffled. You can’t see the complexity he
claims is there. You start to think that
maybe your ability to understand something like this is limited, that
you are
unable to grasp deep meaning the way he apparently can.
His mind sees layer upon layer of complex,
profound truths, too deep to put into words, it appears.
No ordinary mortal could understand this
profundity. Only God and our man can
plumb these depths, it seems.”
“You will
feel less confused
and hurt if you know this claim to complexity is part of the Script. He is intentionally portraying leaving you
and the children as something that is at once courageous and complex,
when it
is in fact neither one. Your faulty and
broken heart will be no match for his Purple Heart.”
Scene 10 is Going Public with
the Mistress.
After he has
separated from
his wife, he begins to let friends see him with the Other Woman. Usually, he pretends that they were attracted
to each other after they
separated.
“For months
or maybe years
before he has taken a mistress, he has been telling people that his
wife
doesn’t treat him well, doesn’t understand him, and is really crazy. He chooses people to confide in who he feels
will be sympathetic. . . . These people
give him no back talk, don’t dispute what he says, and add support and
justification to his feelings of unhappiness. ‘If
Bill and Priscilla and Christine agree with me about
how difficult
my wife is, then I am fully justified in finding fault with her and
going for
the happiness I deserve.’”
The cheating
man carefully
plans things so that his mistress will be accepted.
He implies that they just met. He’s
already laid the foundation about how
difficult his wife was. He sets his
friends up to be glad that he’s finally found happiness with someone
who can
love him as he deserves to be loved.
In Scene 11,
he speaks the
lines, “It’s Your Responsibility To Keep Things Civil and Nice.” Again, this is a ploy to try to keep from
giving his wife what the courts will think she is entitled to. Besides, he wants to keep going with the
fantasy that this is all his wife’s fault.
“In previous
scenes,
following the Script he has learned so well, he established that the
original
sins and blame were yours. Now he has to
establish that the burden is on you to make up for this and not to make
things
worse. After all, it’s the least he can
expect from you to make up for all the misery you caused him. Now that he’s found the solution to his
problem, he’s not going to let you mess it up.”
“You’re
feeling confused,
baffled, and wondering who belongs in the asylum. How
could he be saying that it’s your
responsibility to keep things civil and nice? He’s
the one who was unfaithful, who broke his vows to
you, who has
inflicted hurt on you and your children. He
just acted most uncivil and really, really not nice.
“You think,
‘Isn’t it mostly his
responsibility to be civil and nice?’ Everything
you’ve learned since childhood is that the one
who committed
the crime is the one who has the responsibility to right the wrong, to
make up
to those he harmed. . . . Based on all
values, beliefs, and expectations you’ve lived by your entire life,
what he’s
saying doesn’t make any sense.”
He will say
that it will be
“easier for everyone” if you cooperate and are Nice. The
truth is, “It’s not easy. It’s hard, and maybe not even a good idea, to
be nice to someone who has lied, cheated, acted totally opposite to
your
interests, and shown not a whiff of caring for you and your children. But once you know that this is just part of
the Script, you will be less confused.”
The authors
continue, “Of
course he wants you to be nice. He won’t
have to deal with your anger. It will
also keep you from mentioning anything he might have done that’s not nice. It
wouldn’t be nice of you to bring that
up! If he can get your lawyer to be nice
too, that will be even nicer because then he’s more likely to get a
good
settlement.”
That scene
was similar to
Scene 12, “If You’d Just Shut Up, Everything Would Be Okay.”
“The Script is that you, the
little lady, should be accepting of everything. After
all, it’s your fault to begin with. You
didn’t understand him, didn’t love him
enough. Now that everybody has recognized
these ‘facts’ and that he deserves the true happiness he has found,
things will
naturally fall into place and he will get this finished in a civil way. After all the difficult years he’s endured
with you, people will realize all attention has to be on him and his
needs have
to take center stage.”
Scene 13 is
Doing Things the
Opposite of the Way He’s Always Done Them.
“You’re trying to play by the
rules of the game you and your husband have always played by—the rules
he has
always said he is playing by. But you
have to recognize that he’s now playing a different game with different
rules. You can’t figure out what’s
happening. The new game makes you look
crazy, makes you think you’re crazy. You
can never win if you don’t know the rules of the game he’s playing.
Scene 14 has
the title It
Happens All the Time.
“You’re confused.
He’s telling you Nothing Happened. But
every religious and civil code you’ve
ever known says Something Did Happen. You
heard the crash as the stone tablet fell in pieces to
the
ground. It was the sound of the tablet
that says ‘adultery is wrong’ being knocked over. These
broken covenants make a very loud noise
to you. But he says he doesn’t hear
anything. And some of your friends tell
you you’re making a big deal out of a little noise.
And anyway they don’t want to know about it
because then the noise may start to resonate in their own lives.”
“He says
things like, ‘We can
still be friends,’ which implies that nothing happened.
If you act like nothing happened, people
respond to you better and they applaud you for not being angry, for
being nice
to him and to the other woman. People
are constantly ‘moving you on,’ implying that your separation or
divorce is a
minor event in life that you just have to put behind you.
They imply it is no more significant than the
disappointment in having the sofa you ordered in blue arrive in green. ‘Is it just me,’ you may wonder, ‘or does
every woman feel this way?’ Every woman
feels this way.”
The Tip to wives tells us,
“The cover story he hopes to get across is: If
it’s nothing, then it’s normal. And if
it’s normal, it’s nothing. Therefore he
did nothing wrong.
“Don’t accept
it. Acknowledge your feelings of sorrow,
hurt,
anger, and fear. Something did happen,
and it’s no wonder you feel that way.”
Scene 15 is Taking Something
of No Value. In this scene, he’ll take
some small item in an attempt to connect his first life with his second
life. This is evidence that he’s not as
happy as he hoped he’d be.
The final
scene of Act II, Mixed
Messages, involves him telling people about the divorce.
To people who know the wife, he delivers the
message, “She’s a good person. I’m a
good person, no one did anything wrong, and no one is hurt. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Some of the lines he wants them to repeat include: “She’s a very good person but they were just
too different.” “They’re both very good
people but things happen.” “A fine
couple but you know they just didn’t have shared interests.”
For people
who don’t know the
first wife, he feels free to give the message, “She was crazy.” Their lines will be something like this: “No man could stay with a bitch like
that.” “After all he’s been through, he
deserves his happiness.” “She was crazy,
really crazy. For his own sanity he had
to leave.”
The authors remind us, “You
will feel less hurt and confused if you know that he’s just following
the
Script. . . . Don’t let the praise and
criticism you’re hearing change your own review of your life
performance.”
The book
closes with the
Finale, which includes one scene: “This
Is Not the Way I Planned It.” Did I
mention that the Script does not include a happy ending for Our Hero? This particular play is a Tragedy.
“When he says, ‘This is not
the way I planned it,’ you will see that your situations have been
reversed. At the beginning of Act II,
when he shocked you by dropping the Bomb, you were taken by surprise
and were
at a disadvantage because he knew the Script—his plan for what he was
going to
do and say from beginning to end. You
most likely weren’t prepared for this explosion and didn’t have a plan.
“Now you have
learned from
listening to your advisors—your lawyer, your counselor, a trusted
relative, a
CPA; from listening to other women; and from this very book—that you
should
start to plan as soon as possible. You
have also gotten some good ideas about what that plan should include. So when you come to the Finale, you have a
plan and know what to expect. He, on the
other hand, has been living in a fantastical, semi-delusional state and
doesn’t
know what to expect. That is why the
sad, amazing, and absurd last line of the Script is, ‘This Is Not the
Way I
Planned It.’”
The authors close with a word
to the guys: “Ask yourself if you really
know the cost of what you’re contemplating or are you still living in
the
fantasy period, which never, ever lasts forever.”
Why did I go
into so much
detail about this book? (Yes, I did
leave a whole lot out—It’s still very much worth reading.)
Why do I think this book is so important that
I will be recommending it to anyone and everyone whose husband has left
her and/or
whose husband has been unfaithful?
Fundamentally,
the Script is
about calling something evil something good. It’s
about saying that something that is wrong is really
the right thing
to do under the circumstances. It’s full
of lies and founded on lies, but the man is also lying to himself. He wants to think of himself as a good
person, so he doesn’t want to face up to what he’s done and what he’s
doing.
The Script
does give me some
compassion for that man. He didn’t set
out to betray his wife and his vows and all his values. He’s desperate to convince himself that he
hasn’t really done that. And it’s going
to come out of his mouth in lies and deception.
To be
perfectly honest, and
at risk of sounding radical, I believe that the Script was designed—by
Satan—to
deceive. And the number one person it’s
designed to deceive is the man himself. It
says he’s a good person who’s doing the right thing.
He may be a good person, but he is NOT doing
the right thing.
This may even
help you to
forgive your husband. You can try to see
the Script as the Enemy of both of you. Or
the one behind the Script, if you believe there’s a
real devil. Your husband wasn’t trying to
hurt you. He is a good man, but he’s been
horribly
deceived into doing some bad things. If
he plays out the whole Script, he’s going to end up worse off than you
are,
having done some terrible things, but not able to face up to them.
It’s
crazy-making for the
wife. She can know in her head that,
while she hasn’t been the perfect wife, nothing that she’s done isn’t
covered
by “for better or for worse.” She knows
that what he’s doing is wrong and unkind. She
knows that marriage and love is about forgiveness and
that if he
can’t work things out with her, he’s going to have trouble with any
woman.
There’s
nothing in the world
that wounds a woman’s self-esteem more than her husband telling her he
doesn’t
want to be married to her any more. As
he continues to tell her, over and over, in many different ways, that
his
leaving is essentially her fault, her self-esteem will start to plunge
even
further.
Her husband will keep telling
her things that she knows are not true. After
awhile, it’s easy to start believing them. That’s
why women being divorced need books
like this as a reality check. That’s why
they need to talk to their friends again and again, to be sure they’re
not
actually crazy. Yes, his actions are
wrong. Yes, it is set up to make him look
good and make it look like it’s all the wife’s fault.
No, the Script is not telling the truth.
This book
will help you to
understand what’s going on and not think you’re crazy.
It will help you see what is really
happening. You’ll be able to cope when
you’re unwillingly trapped in The Script.
And maybe,
just maybe, men
will read this book and realize that following the Script is a fantasy
world
that does not end happily for
anyone, especially not the Hero.
“And you
shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Copyright © 2006 Sondra
Eklund. All rights reserved.
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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund 
