All Comments on 'LW Notes: The Martian Slut Ray'

Good review!

However, I didn't see February Sucks on the list of the 250 most read stories.

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You should have given a quick history lesson on where the term MTS came from. I think some readers might get a kick out of Marvin the Martian and his trusty Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, or PU-36 for short.

I like the analysis of the cheating wife stories. I'm not sure, however, if they would all be considered MSR stories. In my mind, "Martian Slut Ray" refers to situations where the wife is suddenly struck by the urge to do something so completely in opposition to her normal behavior and character. That "something" brutally and cruelly betrays her husband. "February Sucks" certainly is the epitome of all MSR stories.

This analysis describes more of how the aftermath of cheating (whether MSR or "regular" cheating) is dealt with by various authors, not MSR itself.

My opinion and $6 will get you a cup of coffee :)

Well that was kind of a “thank you Captain Obvious” read. The analysis was as formula as the author accuses LW writers stories of being guilty of. At the risk of doing the same, I would point out that TV sitcoms and drama series have about 7 different story plots that have been recycled for 70 years.

An interesting look at the guts of LW. Contributing original ideas is very difficult and often not well received by reviewers. The higher scores tend to go to the stories that follow the LW formulas you've described. Now, please explain why there are such a vast number of willing cuckold/humiliation stories being submitted. Is there, perhaps, a newly created Martian Cuck Ray that is suddenly shrinking male appendages?

Referring to other authors as bad writers, bad narration, misogynistic, and writing characters lacking female "agency", ... this review reads like it's written by a feminist author on this site.

The Martian Slut Ray is effectively a device describing how a wife and mother suddenly becomes obsessed with extra-marital sex, when the story is written from the husband's POV. Such stories aren't written to delve into the psychological motivations of the wife. The formerly dedicated wife suddenly is found to be fucking around (thus the only reason must be the MSR.) And that seems to offend the feminists.

It's similar to the "all men are misogynistic animals" trope successfully used in feminist stories, which they fawn over as being well written and (obviously) true-to-life characterizations.

TL;DR, basically a bunch of persiflage and pontification. As if you could actually corral the insanity that is the LW category.

Truly an excellent overview and analysis of MSR and BTB. While this is an essay not liable to overly interest a lot of readers, those who enjoy the craftsmanship that goes into story writing will find this a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! 5 stars.

A very nice examination of the LW stories here on LIT and I pretty much agree with you conclusions and exclamations about the the LSL, BTB and RAAC stories. Also you pointed out some of life's injustices that never get punished and I'm sure without knowing it some of us read these stories and seek comfort from the punishment that is meted out in these stories. Also thanks for listing a few other authors/stories to check out. I have read several of the versions of February Sucks and I do prefer the ones with a decent amount of revenge and punishment for both the victim of the MSL and her paramour. 5 stars for a non story but interesting as hell!

Excellent discussion…..here’s hoping you write more…..

Well said sir. I do think that most readers are fed up with volume of cuck/humiliation stories being rolled out on this site currently.

Personally, I would love to see more stories built like "Martha finally cheats too often" where the retribution is savage and the bitch is left totally bereft of family, home, former lovers or comfort of any kind.

I agree Bruce that the btb genre is an expression of a lack of balance or fairness in the world today.

Enjoyed reading your thoughtful, in depth perspective on the MSR in LW stories. Actually, to your credit, your perspective applies more broadly to the storylines within LW. Now assuming your piece is not “tongue-in-cheek” (and even if it were), I do have a few thoughts, which hopefully indicates I read rather than skimmed your piece:

1. Agree that comments come quickly and enthusiastically (probably true of most categories), recognizing that enthusiasm is not necessarily or often positive. Sense that you imply something positive when using term.

2. Also agree that many readers are blunt and ravenous; not so sure how widely read they are. Ravenous they often are and usually anonymously. Yes, some commentators provide an analyze positive/more often negative that suggests he/she/they carefully read the piece, yet that strikes me as the exception. I’ve not analyzed comment variation within any category much less LW (would take a life time) and I suspect you have not done so either, but cursory/haphazard look suggests the deep, analytical comment is a rarity.

3. Agree that MRS may be reader generated but question how deep the analysis, etc. Way too many “one liners”, ugly moralizing, and worst ad hominem attacked not to mention the pejorative nature of the acronym. Like your speculation about why writers employ the MSR, but, hey, the syndrome is almost invariably applied to a 1-dimensional, bimbo/nearly clueless wife married to near perfect husband (who may/may not escape in the end the MSR effects — usually does one way or another, but see Jim in Feb Sucks, but I digress

4. Agree wholeheartedly that LW stories that employ the MSR syndrome are about the husband, not the wife — she is so often relegated to bimboness. I would disagree that MSR exists BECAUSE LW stories in general are about the husband. Careful here: MSR based storylines probably, but not converse, namely that LW storylines are husband driven (many are) which explains existence of MSR.

5. Like your closing analysis of MSR based stories, including February Sucks alternative outcomes — nice job. Indeed, the pejorative connotation almost assures by definition the points you argue.

Interesting but not surprising that at least one early response to your piece is a bit ad hominem. Nice job; interesting read.

Thanks. Migbird

It took some good analytical genius to pull it all together like this. I often wondered if the MSR actually harkened back to some story no longer here in which an inimical alien in a flying saucer up in orbit cackling away like Emperor Palpatine as he/she/it/they wreaked havoc on poor humanity below, as we all lost interest in everything else until we were all totally starved, exhausted and/or pregnant, just for the evil heck of it! Imagine, a whole new genre of stories!

A second comment. You might comment of the most common "Darwinian" (?) tropes in the stories: The studly alpha Neanderthal jock (e.g., Marc L.) predating seemingly at will on the poor lesser males' mates; the inability and unwillingness of the targeted females to resist or deny, as if they had gone into some kind of estrus-like behavior, but only for the stud; the desire of the female animal to get with child by him, and deceive or manipulate the poor schmuck she's married into continuing to support her and raise little alpha kids not sired by him. How was such a primal nightmare of a plot first crafted?

I disagree with some of the comments here. I didn't see anything insulting to writers on the site. I understand that Bruce1971's comment about lazy writing (and a bunch of other things) could be interpreted as such. But I think the context he made it in was as an observation. Plus there is the thing about him being right about a lot of things in his essay.

Interesting read.

Good write up on the genre of MSR. Actually hit on a point I feel about the difference between reconciliation and RAAC. Reconciliation is earned by the characters, the offending party is remorseful/tries to change and the cheated upon party gets some measure of revenge and self respect. RAAC is when they stay together or get back together but it feels unearned, the cheater doesn't feel truly sorry with the "not sorry she cheated, just sorry he found out/it hurt him" while the cheated upon has to swallow their self respect, pride, and feelings of pain to stay with her. For MSR stories its hard to have a satisfying reconciliation just because of the cruelty and ease in which those red planet effected housewives stray, either by their actions or on purpose hurt those they claim to love. I sometimes when reading these stories wonder whether the "honey we need to talk" where the wife says she is cheating and for the husband to deal with it or the "I got a secret" stories where the wife is cheating but keeping it a secret are more cruel. Either way its hard to come back from cruel actions and a lack of remorse, it makes for an unsatisfying story when the "victim" of the story is the one to suffer the most, I feel thats why many of the FebSucks story can be so divisive is because Jim is the one who gets the worst of it especially in the original story.

I'll fully admit I love well written revenge stories even if I fully acknowledge the wives in said stories tend to be poorly written. Why I do prefer reconciliation stories, get past the pain and growing stories where there is a happy ending, the bad people got their comeuppance and the good didn't. Probably why some of the many, many, MANY February Sucks stories works for me, some are good revenge stories where ol Marc winds up in the poorhouse or worse and some are good reconciliation stories where Linda realized just how cruel she was, how toxic her friends are, and how stupid she was even if it sometimes takes a literal bus hitting someone for her to realize all this.

As an avid reader without a creative bone in my body, it’s fun to imagine what goes through a creative writer’s mind. This author has chosen to pull aside the curtain a bit and I found his thinking quite satisfying. I’d always used MSR to characterize a choice by an author to focus on the male character rather than the motivations of the female character…possibly to keep the story’s length in check. (Okay, sometimes I’d think that it was due to an author’s laziness.) From this reader’s perspective, such stories are less satisfying, because the woman’s actions make no real sense. So it has nothing to do with feminism (though that’s not a pejorative term for me), but a lack of explanation/logic. I hadn’t considered that not attempting to humanize the woman makes it easier to destroy her in some fashion, so might be a deliberate choice made by the author. Although I agree with another Anon that LW is a very chaotic category, I appreciate anyone’s attempt to create order out of chaos (e.g., blackrandl1956’s recent essay). [Persiflage? Really?]

"How High a Price" by Troubadour is a real tragedy caused by simple human susceptibility to temptation. No MSR, just two attractive people working together on a difficult project who cross the event horizon without premeditation.

Good analysis.

My one comment about the majority of BTB stories is that they write the husband as a very weak man, who cries, pukes, doubts his manhood, and quite often runs away and hides like a little boy and refuses to talk. That is NOT a man

BTW, after all the money that you authors are getting from your readers, you’d damn well better write to keep us satisfied. Writing for your own pleasure isn’t an option! 😀

Balance? I don’t think so.

A scale works well for physical objects, but not so much for intangibles. Lady Justice has car theft on one plate, but what sentence on the other plate would yield balance? I think that most would agree that the death penalty would be too harsh, no matter how nice the car. Life in prison? Too harsh as well. So, the Justice system comes up with a penalty that is intended to balance the car theft. But what about infidelity? I don’t think that infidelity breaks any law, so the judicial system would not levy any penalty. But if you read the comments in LW, the penalties aren’t in balance with the “crime,” with death for both the unfaithful wife and her lover not uncommon as proposed penalties. Physical harm is a fairly ubiquitous solution offered by the BTB crowd. Would such serious physical injury be a fair penalty for infidelity? I don’t see the balance there. The cheated upon spouse (and data I’ve found via Google say that ~20% of married men and ~15% of married women have cheated…and it varies with age) may have been harmed in some way, but it’s rarely physical. So, how is physical punishment fair? I’ve come to be persuaded that if you’ve been severely wronged by your spouse, you need to protect yourself and move on. In some cases, a reconciliation may be justified, but otherwise callous indifference should suffice (after achieving financial balance).

Good point, Anonymous. But while there isn't a clear scale to balance (1 blowjob=1 broken finger, etc.), I think we all have a feeling when a crime and a punishment are balanced. Yes, it's subjective--I've read satisfyingly balanced stories where a wife cheated on a husband for years and they eventually reconciled, and severely unbalanced stories where a wife cheated on a husband for one night.

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Of course, this is only one man's opinion, and stories that work for me might not work for other people. But we have a measure for that, too. To run with your legal metaphor, let's imagine the audience as a jury. In this context, their comments--and, to some extent, a story's ratings--could be a good measure of how well a story balances out. No, it's not a perfect metaphor, and it's not a perfect measure of balance. But, as you point out, even the legal system is based in a fundamentally subjective measure of crimes and punishments...

What about the other device, the Venusian RAAC Ray?

What other explanation could there be for reconciliation for a non-wimp husband when the only concession the cheating wife seems to make is she is not (currently) cheating on him?

As to why death for cheating?

Go back to the source material for Judaism and Christianity, if the husband divorces an adulterous wife and then marries another while his first wife is still alive he is committing adultery. This was reinforced as still valid by the fellow who gave the Sermon on the Mount.

NRN

Well, I would argue that true balance may be tricky, but it can’t be totally subjective. Otherwise, we wouldn’t “all have a feeling when a crime and punishment are balanced.” (I would argue that “all” is too strong, but maybe “most.”) I would prefer that there were no death penalty, but I think that virtually everyone would agree that it should be reserved for the most heinous crimes. How, then, do so many commenters push for death or serious physical damage as punishment for cheating? That’s the lack of balance that I see all too often in comments.

I think I agree with your point about comments. That is, the commenter takes the author to task because he or she didn’t mete out sufficient punishment…and hence the perceived imbalance. “If it were me, I’d take my Glock and shoot both of them!” And I think they’re serious. That scares me.

I don’t agree with ratings as a metric for balance. Some readers (me included) rate a story for the quality of the writing, the cohesiveness of the plot, the development of the characters, etc. I don’t really consider whether any punishment in the story balances the “crime.” I’m just looking for an engaging yarn. But I’m offended by readers who ignore the quality of the story and proudly give a rating of 1* to a talented writer (e.g., NoTalentHack) because a cheater isn’t “properly” punished. So ratings are an amalgam of at least two groups of readers: people who simply judge the quality of the writing and the BTB crowd who consider the balance between the crime and punishment, albeit in a distorted fashion. I’m betting that there are even more distinct and identifiable groups.

Thanks, again, for your thoughtful essay…and for sharing your talents in the fiction you write.

Wow! One crow short of a murder, eh? I must admit that I’ve never seen such a distortion of Christian values, so kudos to you Tw0Cr0ws! Quite an accomplishment! I presume that you’ve never read the Sermon on the Mount, so you might want to give it a quick skim.

The notion of balance in justice is ancient (see retributive justice, lex talionis, etc.) and encapsulated in “an eye for an eye.” But that means that the punishment must not exceed the crime. So, at the extreme, only a person who has killed should receive the death penalty. One is not allowed to kill someone else unless that person has killed. Period. Not a bad system, but that predates Christianity.

So, what did Jesus say? I don’t speak Aramaic or whatever the language might have been, so I’ll go with an English “translation.”

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”

So, Jesus is saying that retributive justice is passé…instead he proposes the notion of “turn the other cheek,” rather than “get even.” Does that ring a bell?

Tw0Cr0ws espouses, “Go back to the source material for Judaism and Christianity, if the husband divorces an adulterous wife and then marries another while his first wife is still alive he is committing adultery.” Huh? Really? So, then, to avoid adultery, one should commit murder? You not only have to divorce your wife, but kill her in order to avoid adultery if you should remarry? Gimme a break! You’ll have to provide some very explicit sources to support such nonsense.

But back to that famous sermon:

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Please note: “except on the ground of sexual immorality”

But Jesus sure does seem to have a lot of good advice for manly men, doesn’t he?

 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

 “Judge not, that you be not judged.” You might remember elsewhere in the Bible, when the crowd is about to stone a woman, Jesus suggests that the one without sin cast the first stone. The crowd just disperses.

Even people who aren’t Christian, but believe in retributive justice, should understand that the penalty for adultery (which as far as I know isn’t a crime) cannot be death or even bodily harm. But people who purport to be Christian take on an even higher standard. They have to turn the other cheek, for the Lord says “vengeance is Mine” and “God will repay, so leave room for His wrath. You don't need to take it into your hands when you know it is in His.” To choose not to seek vengeance or retribution is very difficult and requires a real man.

The flaw that makes BTB yarns unsatisfying dramatically speaking, is that the wife's actions are presented as shallow, selfish, stupid. The wife, in other words, is a 'bitch'.

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Which leaves the reader with the question: why did the MC choose her in the 1st place, and why has he not realized her true character after decades of marriage?

Not sure about your definition of the MSR. My understanding after many years here is that it is akin to what we see in the story "Thunderbolt" (I think that's the title). The wife meets a player at a friend's party and goes off to fuck him all night. She even tells hubby on her return that she can't explain the instant, overpowering attraction.

I don't think that February Sucks is an example of MSR. George Anderson doesn't seem to. He very clearly lays out the predicate at the beginning of his story for why a woman would go off to fuck a hot celebrity. It is a reasoned decision. One that a lot of women have acknowledged that they would make as well, if they had the opportunity.

MSR doesn't apply any time a woman has an affair that takes the husband by surprise because he thinks they have a great marriage. Affairs happen all the time in decent quality relationships. Cake eaters eat cake. They think they won't get caught and they love the excitement of a little on the side. It's explicable. The MSR is, I would argue by definition, inexplicable.

Screwing a celebrity stud is easy to explain. Typical affairs are easy to explain. The slut ray, on the other hand, is used as the answer when she trashes her marriage for some sleazeball in a way that seems like she has been hypnotized or drugged. That she has somehow lost agency or control.

I sho'nuff enjoyed this essay, notwithstanding less than subtle put downs of the readers and authors.

I found The Bridge by Richard Gerald to be more nuanced than February Sucks and would like to know this author's opinion.

I enjoyed the thoughtful analysis here and I shall read it again.

A total side issue for me on the comment about the French Foreign Legion unit using the camel is that isn't the way the joke goes. This is the version I know:

"A Captain in the foreign legion was transferred to a desert outpost. On his orientation tour he noticed a very old, seedy looking camel tied out back of the enlisted men's barracks.

He asked the Sergeant leading the tour, “What’s the camel for?” The Sergeant replied “Well sir it’s a long way from anywhere, and the men have natural sexual urges, so when they do, uh, we have the camel.”

The captain said “Well if it’s good for morale, then I guess it’s all right with me.”

After he had been at the fort for about 6 months the captain could not stand it any more so he told his Sergeant, “BRING IN THE CAMEL!!!” The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders and led the camel into the captains quarters. The captain got a foot stool and proceeded to have vigorous sex with the camel. As he stepped, satisfied, down from the stool, and was buttoning his pants he asked the Sergeant, “Is that how the enlisted men do it?”

The Sergeant replied, “Well sir, they usually just use it to ride into town.”

Excellent analysis. Five stars.

BTW, Why is everyone referring to the Martian Slut Ray? Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. Mars is the god of war while Venus is the goddess of love. These women are getting hit with the Venusian Slut Ray, not the Martian Death Ray.

OK. I think I speak for many readers here when i say "STOP LOOKING INTO MY SOUL!"

Seriously, this is insightful. It's in line with my own thoughts but goes past what I'd considered.

If I were to call out a gap in your analysis (in an attempt to get you to do an analysis and provide supporting links), I'd highlight the space for stories where the husband waffles around and then reconciliation (or BTB) occurs. Waffling around is common in cuckold stories, as is acceptance. But transforming an initial ambivalence or inaction (a la Feburary Sucks) into eventual action is often discarded in favour of a protaganist made of solid steel who discards his wife immediately instead of going through a hysterical bonding process.

I'd love to get your thoughts on that...

I really enjoyed Bruce 1971’s analysis.

One aspect of the MSR that I tried to pick apart is the Magic Cock story in Loving Wives, and "February Sucks" is one that uses this storyline. I wrote the following comment in response to Tnicoll’s “Conversations,” which was a great story that plumbed the depths of the Magic Cock storylines in an interesting way. I tried to illuminate some of the issues, and I think the analysis, while not as well reasoned as Bruce1971’s here, has sufficient bearing on the MSR idea that it is worth repeating. So, here it is:

The premise of this tale is interesting, compelling, and oft repeated. It deserves a closer look. A perfect long term marriage once again sacrificed for a one-off perfect fuck session with a stranger. This one was handled well, but it leaves the mythos surrounded by the same cloud of magic as the rest of them, though it confronts it more directly.

In the world of this type of storyline the villain is a too handsome super rich dude, or at least, a stunningly handsome and glib pussy hound. The wife's short interaction with the magic villain melts the wife's thought processes and resistance, and the villain, sadly for her husband, actually proves himself to be the owner of the magic cock, or the holder of magic skills.

Here the author lets the reader guess which factor or factors brought about the wife's best sex ever. But the how of it is superfluous to the trope. The compelling part is that no marriage is safe from this sex god, and once experienced, his presence will overshadow every further sexual encounter of those he mounts. That means, of course, that not only has the wife experienced the best sex ever, but her husband's humiliation is permanent, he can never be his wife's sexual hero.

The husband, sexually, is a lesser man. He is an average Joe. He is you and me. We may think we've had our moments of incredible sex with our wives, but those memories are dashed upon the treacherous rocks of the betrayal of the wife on the sex god villain's prowess. She, in honesty, must admit that she is hopeless against her desire to repeat the magical sex she has had, and though the villain is no longer in the picture, he is always present.

In this tale she is shown in her before and after state, in the guise of the wife and doctor. I found this aspect of the story a particularly excellent device. The power of the villain sex god, who fails to even remember the after character, is shown to be a life destroyer, but still so powerful that the victim begs for another magical experience. The after character, the doctor’s, selfless and selfish request to repeat her tryst with the Magic Cock was doomed, since it was also intended to save the before woman from becoming the after woman. That is, the doctor sought to keep the before wife a normal wife, instead of becoming a wife who experienced the pinnacle of all sexuality, a wife whose husband would always know, if she was honest about her experience with the sex god, that he, the husband, was the lesser man.

The sex god's motivation in these tales is not to bestow a superlative experience on his conquests, even though that is what his sexuality does. His sexual ability is the tool that enables him to destroy loving relationships. His desire is really focused upon the humiliation of the husbands of his victims. The lesson is that his heartlessness and sexual ability trumps all loving devotion and sexual loving in a marriage.

Imagine the story without the husband. She is single, and she has the ultimate sexual weekend experience with the Magic Cock. Interesting contrast, isn't it? Kind of a big "so what?" So thereafter she meets other men who are less amazing in the sack. She marries one. Along comes that Magic Cock from her past. Now, in the context of the marriage, the Magic Cock regains its emotionally cathartic power. Ultimately, the sex god is the winner, love, devotion, their history together, all be damned, she is off to re-experience the perfect fuck.

At the heart of these tropes is the fear of loss of love to a base overwhelming sexual desire. The woman in the stories may separate the two, wanting the sexual experience, but willing to return to settle for love, believing the love can remain after the sexual super bang. The men in these stories often refuse the return to what they have learned is their hum drum love, knowing that for her the sexual peak was the real prize, and they are only second best.

While this is grist for the mill in tales of this type, in real life it seems apparent that it is men who are more often overcome by a woman's good looks and want to follow their cocks into that tasty pussy. Perhaps tales of this type are so cathartic because male readers see in these stories a reflection of their own propensities; the desire for the ultimate woman and ultimate sexual experience seems to be built into men, and so the obverse, the woman seeking the ultimate male, really resonates in the male psyche as a possible killer of their own relationships.

Switch it around in your head. The husband meets the ultimate fem fatale, he tells the wife he is off for a weekend of sex with a female sex god. He returns after his best sex ever. His sex life with is wife is mundane now. Somehow, the switch renders this scenario fairly lifeless, it is not compelling.

I think, buried beneath the clear emotional responses these Magic Cock stories evoke, there is a kernel of truth about men's perceptions of sexuality and women. Perhaps by substituting sexes and running them through the same tale, the changes to the reader's emotional responses caused by the substitutions might reveal some of the deeper psychological, moral, and even sexual political issues in play.

On the one hand, Bruce’s essay is logical and makes sense. However, I think with at least some of the stories there is a high correlation with real life events. IRL it is difficult to know how to respond to a cheating spouse of either sex, especially if there are kids involved.

I think one thing Bruce missed in his essay was the myth of the penitent cheater who will do anything to get the spouse back. Real people don’t act that way, especially women. Papa Toad and JPB write the best “I am never wrong” unrepentant spouse characters.

All that said, this is an excellent, thought-provoking essay.

A rather lengthy treatise on the MSR. Well thought out too, but it lacks something. An element of proof that it doesn’t exist in the real world!

No one has offered one iota of evidence that the MSR isn’t a very real phenomena.

My theory is that is because it would paint women in an unfavorable light. They would then be perpetrators instead of victims. Because then they would be just like men. The truth is men cheat for the dumbest spontaneous reasons without a moment’s thought to the ramifications of their actions. Women couldn’t be as stupid as men, right?

Therapists have all sorts of complex, and flowery reasons why people cheat. All designed to deflect blame from the cheater and of course make more money for themselves as they help the damaged relationship navigate through this tragedy. The truth of the matter is most men and women cheat because the opportunity presented itself. Just look at the facts about which professions have the most cheaters! It’s the ones that provide the best opportunities whether because of schedules or travel. Both men and women get struck all the time by the MSR! It isn’t that complicated

> Because she was hit by the ray, she can't satisfactorily explain the reason for her crime, making it impossible for her to atone for it, much less promise that it won't happen again.

In the real world, I think most cheaters (men and women) are narcissistic turds and there is no reasoning with them. They did it because they wanted to, and that is all. Their rationalizations are usually paper thin and don’t really matter. So that part is realistic to a great degree, even if it doesn’t make for a compelling literary character.

Any ‘actual reasons’ here could be handled with a marriage counselor and/or divorce lawyer without any Loving Wives material. Sure, people “cheat to leave” and have exit affairs, but that’s not the MSR.

The trouble with them all is that men with options don't share.

Sure the ones there to White Knight once the Chads and Tyrones are through sure thing. They are there for that.

Top notch spouse material knows it and knows that their imperfections do not =their partners joining genitalias covertly in trying times while they remain the ignorant fools.

In short for those who have options there is no getting back together or redemption that achieves that much.

They are able to upgrade and do.