This is another example of DRS's misunderstanding R. He sees at likely to fail and trap the BS; in his view, apparently the WS is the only one who controls themself. Committing to R is not throwing oneself into prison. It's a choice, and choices can be remade.
Would you offer that same cheery logic to a victim of domestic abuse? "Yes, alright, they hit you, but stay a bit and see if things brighten up. You can always remake the choice later on."
The problem is, you don't view infidelity as abuse. If you can use your amazing level of empathy to try and inhabitant the perspective that is is, perhaps you'll see where I'm coming from.
You reckon I misunderstand reconciliation. I would suggest you completely fail to understand abuse. I think you've demonstrated that at length.
Look, AI is useful for many things. BUT IT'S NOT LOGICAL TO ACCEPT THE RESULTS WITHOUT CHECKING!
Fair cop. I did not individually vet every citation the AI produced, having simply asked it for a broad cross section of stats to get a general sense of scale. Call it lazy if you like.
My broader point was simply that even under the most wildly optimistic success rates, comparing reconciliation to the statistical risk of a car crash was completely absurd.
What is truly remarkable, however, is the breathtaking double standard in your response. You cheerfully rubbish every peer reviewed study in sight, yet treat Shirley Glass as if she handed down her figures on stone tablets. I would love to think you were joking, but here we are.
Why on earth did you fail to apply that exact same ferocious scrutiny to her numbers? Pure confirmation bias.
If we subject Shirley Glass’s famous statistic from Not "Just Friends" (the headline claim that 80% of couples who state a desire to reconcile end up staying together) to that exact same level of hostility, the whole thing falls apart. Her figure is not an empirical, peer reviewed study with control groups. It is an informal, retrospective observation pulled entirely from her own private practice. That introduces massive structural flaws that render the figure useless as a general benchmark.
For starters, her sample suffers from glaring selection bias. Her clients were individuals who had both the time and significant funds to hire a top tier private specialist. More importantly, by restricting her count exclusively to couples who explicitly stated at the outset that they wanted to reconcile, she magically filtered out every couple who divorced instantly upon discovering the affair. She essentially measured success by counting only the people who had already agreed not to leave.
On top of that, Glass operated under clear professional and commercial incentives. As a prominent therapist, author, and public speaker whose entire brand rested on affair recovery, high success rates were tremendously helpful for business. A book promising an 80% recovery rate sells considerably better than one offering grim, uncertain odds. High numbers validate a clinician’s personal framework, build prestige, and offer convenient marketing to desperate people searching for hope.
Finally, Glass measured "not splitting" at or near the end of therapy. That measures cohabitation and physical proximity, not relationship health, genuine healing, or long term survival. It completely masks rug sweeping, silent resentment, and the inevitable divorces that happen two to five years down the line.
Dismissing academic literature while treating a practitioner’s self reported, commercially lucrative clinical anecdote as objective fact is a magnificent double standard.
Glass’s 80% figure is a testament to her wealthy, highly motivated client base and her own marketing strategy, not a statistical reality. But by all means, feel free to consider it gospel because you had a great time reconciling.
