“…men are often lured into affairs because they are sexually deprived at home. A man who strays is usually given total blame for his affair, but in many cases he is the victim of temptation that his wife helped bring upon him.”

-Emerson Eggerichs, Ph.D. in Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desparately Needs, p 253.

Love & Respect is a very popular marriage advice book within Christian circles.

In fact, it currently enjoys #3 status in Amazon’s category of “Christian Marriage” as of the writing of this post. That is significant considering the book has been out since 2004!

I bought the book myself many years ago as I was going through my own marriage troubles with my first wife. Needless to say, it was far from helpful in the end.

Now, I revisit this book, and I am greatly disturbed:

Love & Respect teaches “The Shared Responsibility Lie!”

For those who are unfamiliar, “The Shared Responsibility Lie” teaches that one is partially (or more) responsibility for the sins committed by another. In the context of this blog, this lie teaches that the faithful spouse is partially to blame for their partner’s adulterous sins.

I call it a lie as it is a false teaching.

The Bible is crystal clear that we are held accountable for our own sins and not those of another (e.g. 2 Corinthians 5:10). Anyone teaching other than this is teaching heresy.

This is what makes my more recent rereading of some of Love & Respect so disturbing to me. It is teaching this heresy:

“…men are often lured into affairs because they are sexually deprived at home. A man who strays is usually given total blame for his affair, but in many cases he is the victim of temptation that his wife helped bring upon him.”

-Emerson Eggerichs, Ph.D. in Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desparately Needs, p 253.

This is victim-blaming plain and simple. The wife is not responsible for her husband choosing to sin against her and God.

Scripture does not teach the stoning of the faithful spouse in the Old Testament but rather only the cheater (see Deuteronomy 22:22). This suggests the Bible lays the blame fully upon the cheater. Sadly, Dr. Eggerichs is lamenting a biblical perspective on adultery and who is to blame.

It gets worse. Later in the same chapter about sex in marriage, Dr. Eggerichs quotes from a husband cheater. He writes:

“A husband who had been deprived of sexual release and ultimately strayed wrote to say:

I don’t blame her for [my] immorality, but she doesn’t own up to anything. I’m not blaming her, but she is not blameless. She never said she contributed to the problem. I want to forget it but she won’t let me forget it. I did wrong, but I didn’t just one day decide to go out with another woman. If I had felt she respected me, maybe I wouldn’t have done this.”

– Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desparately Needs, p 255.

Dr. Eggerichs first minimizes affairs by calling them simply “straying” as if this husband simply lost his way to a house-warming party. The correct, godly language is he “sinned.” If he had sex with her, he “committed adultery.” Let us dispense of the euphemisms for such evil.

Then Dr. Eggerichs gives this cheater a voice. On one hand, he claims he isn’t blaming his wife for his sin but then goes on to blame her:

“If I had felt she respected me, maybe I wouldn’t have done this.”

This is very destructive teaching. This “man” is saying his wife’s lack of “respect” is what caused him to sin in cheating on her.

Why doesn’t the author put the onus on the husband here? What was it in this man’s heart that allowed him to prioritize his own pleasure over his commitment to obey God and not break the Ten Commandments?

Cheating on a spouse is also sinning against God, after all.

Plus, the husband would have needed to remain pure prior to this marriage if he was honoring God. Why cannot he have such self control while married? Or does the author think a little fornication is alright, too? Men have needs…

This blog exists because the ungodly teachings in Love & Respect is what predominates evangelical Christianity.

I am ashamed that I once thought this was a good book. It isn’t. I would strongly discourage others from using it for marriage advice–especially those dealing with marital infidelity.