Affair-Proof Your Marriage

While you can't control your husband's actions, here's how to lower the odds that he'll stray:

• Stay connected. "The best way to ensure your marriage," says Scott Stanley, Ph.D., coauthor of Fighting for Your Marriage (Jossey-Bass, 1994), "is to maintain your friendship. A lot of times, what men miss most is the time they spend just hanging out with their wives. That's why so many affairs begin as friendships -- it's that intimacy a man is looking for."
• Talk often. If you have a new baby or your husband is experiencing a job transition, encourage him to share his feelings with you and discuss yours with him.
• Keep your sex life active, and talk often about what you both want and need in bed.
• Be supportive of any healthy ways in which your husband may seek to reinvent himself in midlife, whether it's training for a marathon, switching careers, or even going in for a little surgical nip and tuck. It may be vain or expensive, but it also may keep him feeling so good about himself that he doesn't have to look for an ego boost elsewhere.--Susan Kleinman