Introduction - what's this book about?

This is a book for men. Men have long been a problem for women, even famous and powerful women - Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Queen Isabella of Spain and Queen Elizabeth I of England, for example. It's not just timid women who find some men difficult.

Men and women have always had sex with each other and often formed enjoyable long-term partnerships. We still do. Most marriages used to be for life. Far less than half the couples married over forty years ago have divorced. Most are either still together or were parted by death. More recent marriages are more likely to end in divorce. In New Zealand, for example, there was a "rapid rise in the divorce rate through the late 1960s and 1970s" and into the 1980s but that could have been due to easier divorce laws.

Also, wives now finds it easier to leave because womens' world has changed - they have better government support, less social condemnation, more employment equality, more childcare providers, and easier, more generous divorce laws.

Currently, for every 1000 marriages in some parts of the OECD, there are 500 divorces, of which up to 80% are initiated by the wives.

So, if your wife is unhappy with her marriage, she's probably more likely to go than to stay. Yes, men can be unhappy in their marriages too. But if you are - isn't it at least partly because you don't have a happy wife?

Here's the crunch. Typically, if the wives are unhappy the husbands will be too. However, though men might tolerate that for some time before considering divorce, the wives have got much shorter fuses, and could be "long gone" before their husbands have worked out there is a serious problem and how they should deal with it.

This is a book for those men: their wives are about to leave them - and they don't yet know.

What to do about it? Can an alert husband detect and fix these problems in time? Can he make his marriage once more a haven, so his wife stops strapping on her parachute, and once more enjoys living with him?

To deal with these problems there are two steps: identify problems (what does your wife complain of, page 22), then deal with them. Fixing the most serious first, of course. It's the men who have to do the fixing mostly, for it's the women, mostly, who leave.

The women leave because their men don't suit. Not any more. They'd like their men to be different. More like they were during the 'courtship' phase. That might mean turning your clock back.

This is a book to help men who want to do just that. It is written by an "old" married couple, now in our sixties and seventies. Both of us are survivors of "failed" marriages and both of us lost subsequent partners to cancer before finally meeting and marrying each other. Between us we have training and experience in psychotherapy and counselling and we have observed the many separations and divorces that have taken place among our friends and relations, have shared stories, compared viewpoints, and read much past and recent statistics and commentary bearing on this problem.

We believe, and we think you could come to agree, that provided there are no deep-seated psychological problems, husbands mostly have options which could prevent a split, or at least greatly reduce the chance of it happening.

Forget trying to 'fix' your wife - she's probably not broken, and she's got a century of Pankhursts and Greers behind her, explaining her rights. You - you're the enemy until such time as you prove to her that you're both working together for the same ends.

Husbands now get a bad press from women, and it's so unfair. People are not saints - neither men nor women. And men haven't changed for the worse. What's their crime? Simple. They haven't changed enough in step with the way the women's world has changed and many women won't wait around for them to catch up unless they see some concrete signs that their man is working to at least meet them half-way.

Actually - you don't have to change. You were already what she wanted, before you got married. All you really have to do is switch the "old you" back on. Most men let that battery run down after the wedding. Now you've got to get it charged up again.

Conclusion: If you embark on this journey you have some hard times ahead of you.

What your woman probably wants is for you to revert to being her courting lover, attentive, patient, humourous, affectionate, helpful, eager - at all times as you doubtless were in the period leading up to your engagement.

Anytime you drop below that ultimate standard it's another point some women will mark against you. When they have accumulated enough points they may feel entitled to leave with clear conscience. Don't blame them - they've been brain-washed by generations of mothers, senators, lawyers, courts, movies and government departments.

So, in a nutshell, start winding your clock back for your woman, so you become more what she saw in you when you were dating. We'll help.

Otherwise, learn to enjoy living alone.