It's convenient when someone follows the statement, "I know what you’re thinking: I’m a pushover. I’m weak," with, "I went through Pitocin-induced natural childbirth. And a Caesarean section without follow-up drugs." It shows that she is weak. Not physically, but in an inability to resist social pressure. She went without drugs after major surgery just for the social pats on the back other women would give her for that. Of course she's willing to do anything to keep her husband around and avoid the social stigma of divorce.

I think a lot of men, most men, wouldn't have endured their wives taking a few months of having sex with other men. Sorry Munson's husband is such a pisspoor excuse for a man. I wonder if he ever did get laid or discovered that women aren't that interested in a middle aged loser desperate to prove he's still 19 years old.

Maybe if the author wasn't spending so much of her time on horses or making him earn so much to support horses their marriage would have been in better shape. Was her life of extreme excess what drove him away and put their marriage in such bad shape?

And here's another way of approaching the question: if this husband had been institutionalized for depression or another severe emotional issue, would anyone consider the wife wrong for holding down the home front while he recovered?

Some divorces happen because someone really has fallen out of love. Many others, I think, happen because someone is in so much pain that the intimacy and responsibilty required by marriage and family just seem impossibly difficult; the person needs to get away to solve his or her own problems without having to think about anyone else's.

If marriage is really to be "in sickness and in health," it makes perfect sense for either spouse (irrespective of gender) to say, "You do what you need to do to get better, and don't worry about us here; we'll manage."

This wife showed both love and common sense. She didn't try to fix what was wrong in her husband's life, she simply gave him space to fix it himself. "Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds."

At one point in human history, one was encouraged to stay together, for the kids, or for ones own survival. Today, people are encouraged at the first sign of trouble to bolt for a lawyer.

All that said, I think what you have in this case is what many of the 50% of nonendingindivorce marriages go through.

Her marriage worked itself out because in the end, the bond between the two people was strong enough to endure either of their funks. I'm sure she's had her moments as well (which likely accounts for her empathy) where she wanted to pack it all up and head out for the territories. But she didn't and he didn't, because in the end, being there was what was right for them.

For people for whom their marriage isn't right, and probably was never right, such strategies don't work. And likely, even if he had moved out, even if she had gone to a divorce lawyer, given that her husband's adolecence lasted all of two months, their marriage probably would have survived anyway.

In the end it's not the marriage, but the people in the marriage who decide if it will last.

You ask, "would her husband do the same?" -- but I think you're really asking if a man in general would do the same. If so, I think that's entirely the wrong question. This particular woman was incredibly patient -- so patient that her friends thought she was insane. Her story is remarkable not because she was the typical wife, but because she was a remarkable one.

So the right question is: would an incredibly patient man put up with his wife going off the reservation for a few months?Yes. Of course he would. He's incredibly patient. Whether her particular husband is such a man...I don't know. But if not, it's not because of his sex.

Her actions were incredible because they were incredible -- not because of her sex. There are incredibly patient and loving men, just as there are incredibly patient and loving women. And typical women, just like typical men, would not put up with their spouse going nuts for several months.

The gender reversal question is just a troll magnet. We don't know these people so the gender question is irrelevant.

If she had pulled away from the family and came back, and her husband were as empathetic and dedicated as she the outcome would have likely been exactly the same.

His friends would have told him to leave her (just as her friends told her to do), and out in the wild world, she would be told it's good to be empowered (as likely he was).

In the end the gender of the persons doesn't matter so much as the persons.

In any situaiton, any action taken would have a differnt outcome with differnt persons. Some people couldn't get beyond their spouse possibly seeing someone else, others can't get beyond their spouses neglection of family duties. In a strong committed relatioship however, partners do overlook such transitory issues, and work to rebuild and recapture what made their marriage viable in the first place.

In this case, his quest for self discovery (as would hers in a gender reassignment story) was temporary, just a few months before he came around to what he had, and likewise she would have come around to what she had.

In that situation, where it is not a persistent and consistent rejection of the marital relationship, I think most marriages could survive it, if they are based on a solid commitment between the two.

She practiced a common marriage-survival strategy -- she waited it out (his affair).

This strategy is even mentioned in Ephron's "Heartburn," by one of Rachel's friends, as what to do when a woman finds out about her husband's affair -- she should "wait it out".