When Friendship Outside a Relationship Is a Threat

BY CHRIS BURDETT-PARR

Book Review of Not "Just Friends": Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelty By Shirley P. Glass, Ph. D., Free Press: 448 p.p.

Is it possible to have a friendly relationship outside a marriage with a member of the opposite six and not have the marriage negatively impacted?

I will let this paragraph from the inside jacket of this excellent book speak to the content:

Today's workplace and the Internet have become the new danger zones of attraction and opportunity—the most fertile breeding grounds for affairs. In the new crisis of infidelity, more and more marriages are being threatened by friendships that have slowly and insidiously turned into love affairs. Yet you can protect your relationship by recognizing the red flags along the slippery slope. You’re right to be cautious when you hear these words: "I'm telling you, we're just friends."

This book is an extremely comprehensive and well-written tool, both for couples who actively work on preserving and improving their relationship, and for those couples in which one of the partners may have found themselves dealing with a perceived or real threat to their relationship.

It is particularly timely in our modern society where the interaction between men and women is of a very different nature than a few decades ago—and genuine platonic friendships with members of the opposite sex are a fact of many people's lives.

There is one aspect I especially appreciated. Many books offering therapeutic solutions to problems incorporate actual cases—substituting fictional names. I know that some people find this a useful tool, but it is not something that I personally have found helpful. I feel that if one is going to part with the substantial amount of money that books cost these days, I would rather read about the core elements of, and potential solution to, the problem. A large percentage of situations used as case examples may not be relevant to my particular needs, and one does not always have enough time while in the bookstore to determine what percentage of a particular book is given to this approach.

One aspect I especially appreciated: many books offering therapeutic solutions to problems incorporate actual cases—substituting fictional names in place of actual. I know that many people find this a useful tool, but it is not something that I personally have found helpful. I feel that if one is going to part with the substantial amount of money that books cost these days, I would rather read about the core elements of, and potential solution to, the problem. A large percentage of situations used as case examples may not be relevant to my particular needs, and one does not always have enough time while in the bookstore to determine what percentage of a particular book is given to this approach.

Although Not Just Friends does cite some actual cases, the vast majority of this book is an instructive and illuminating resource on dealing with the devastating effects of infidelity by a partner, and about how the problem may be prevented before it actually arises by examining the elements of friendship between members of the opposite sex.