Not Just Friends Part 20

CHAPTER NOTES.

Introduction.

1. The incidence of extramarital coitus was 26 percent of wives and 50 percent of husbands in Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, and Paul H. Gebhard (1953), s.e.xual behavior in the human female, Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders; 36 percent of wives and 40 percent of husbands in Robert Athanasiou, Philip Shaver, and Carol Tavris (1970), s.e.x, Psychology Today (July), 37-52; 26 percent of women and 35 percent of men in S.S. Ja.n.u.s and D.L. Ja.n.u.s (1993), The Ja.n.u.s report on s.e.xual behavior. New York: Wiley. It is noteworthy that a Playboy magazine survey that elicited 100,000 responses from 5 million readers (1.3 percent) obtained a comparable incidence finding: 34 percent of women and 45 percent of men were unfaithful. James R. Petersen (1983), The Playboy readers' s.e.x survey. Playboy, 30(3), 90ff.

2. Surveys measuring the incidence of extramarital relationships are difficult to compare because sample characteristics create wide variations in self-reports. Magazine surveys and volunteer populations preserve anonymity at the cost of nonrepresentative samples, which may overestimate incidence. Extramarital behavior is typically defined as extramarital s.e.xual intercourse. Methodological issues also impact how honest people are in their sell-reports. Anonymity is compromised in national studies because individuals are contacted at home and given an envelope to mail back with confidential information. Studies optimize reporting when individuals are primed by first asking them about specific reasons or situations that would justify extramarital involvement. Comparable findings in a number of studies suggest that a reasonable estimate for lifetime incidence of extramarital intercourse is 25 percent of women and 50 percent of men. However, the incidence of actual extramarital involvement is increased by 15 to 20 percent if s.e.xual intimacies and emotional involvements are included.

3. The Psychology Today study was reported in Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1977), The relationship of extramarital s.e.x, length of marriage, and s.e.x differences on marital satisfaction and romanticism: Athanasiou's data rea.n.a.lyzed, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 39(4), 691-703.

4. The findings of the airport/downtown Baltimore study of a nonclinical sample were reported in Shirley P. Gla.s.s (1981), s.e.x differences in the relationship between satisfaction with various aspects of marriage and types of extramarital involvements (Doctoral dissertation, Catholic University, 1980), Dissertation Abstracts International, 41(10), 3889B; Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1985), s.e.x differences in type of extramarital involvement and marital dissatisfaction, s.e.x Roles, 12(9/10), 1101-1119; Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1992), Justifications for extramarital involvement: The a.s.sociation between att.i.tudes, behavior, and gender, Journal of s.e.x Research, 29(3), 1-27.

5. A survey of 122 members of the American a.s.sociation of Marriage and Family Therapy and members of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological a.s.sociation reported that therapists rated affairs as the third most difficult problem to treat and as the second most damaging problem that couples face. This survey was by Mark A. Whisman, Amy E. Dixon, and Benjamin Johnson (1997), Therapists' perspectives of couple problems and treatment issues in couple therapy, Journal of Family Psychology, 11(3), 361-366.

1: I'm Telling You, We're Just Friends 1. "Get Over It," This American Life, Public Radio International. First aired on November 22, 1996.

2. Research findings about an increase in infidelity by married women are described in the studies below; current trends are for increased extramarital s.e.x by younger women, and earlier gender differences are disappearing. In a 1994 population survey by the National Opinion Research Center, the lifetime incidence of extramarital s.e.x in women and men younger than forty did not differ. Michael W. Wiederman (1997), Extramarital s.e.x: Prevalence and correlates in a national survey, Journal of s.e.x Research, 34(2), 167-174. A 1988 British study by Annette Lawson and Colin Samson found that the pattern of multiple extramarital liaisons among women under thirty-five was more like the pattern of their male contemporaries than that of older groups of women. In Age, gender, and adultery, British Journal of Sociology, 39(3), 409-440. Gender differences in a 1977 Dutch study of extradyadic s.e.x could not be replicated by the same researchers in a 1992 study. In Bram Buunk and Arnold Bakker (1995), Extradyadic s.e.x: The role of descriptive and injunctive norms, Journal of s.e.x Research, 32(4), 313-318.

3. Frank Pittman (1993), Beyond betrayal: Life after infidelity, Psychology Today, 35.

4. Researchers have found an a.s.sociation between dedication to the marriage and avoidance of opportunities for extramarital relationships. Husbands and wives who were less dedicated spent more time thinking about alternatives. Dedication was manifested by not thinking about alternatives, even during tough times. Scott Stanley and Howard Markman (1992), a.s.sessing commitment in personal relationships, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 595-608. Dedicated spouses perceived attractive alternatives as a threat to their relationship and internally devalued the attractiveness of the alternatives to protect their commitment. Dennis J. Johnson and Caryl E. Rusbult (1989), Resisting temptation: Devaluation of alternative partners as a means of maintaining commitment in close relationships, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 967-980.

5. Research studies on jealousy consistently support opposite patterns, in that husbands are more jealous of their wives' s.e.xual involvement, whereas wives are more jealous of their husbands' emotional intimacy with other women. David Buss (1994), The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating, New York: Basic Books; Janice L. Francis (1977), Toward the management of heteros.e.xual jealousy, Journal of Marriage and Family Counseling, 3, 61-69; Anthony P. Thompson (1984), Emotional and s.e.xual components of extramarital relations, Journal of Marriage and Family, 46(1), 35-42.

6. An a.n.a.lysis of a national population study by the National Opinion Research Center was reported by Michael Wiederman (1997), Extramarital s.e.x: Prevalence and correlates in a national survey, Journal of s.e.x Research, 34(2), 167-174.

7. The concept of "walls and windows" was first introduced by Shirley Gla.s.s and Tom Wright at the 1990 annual conference of the American a.s.sociation of Marriage and Family Therapists. The use of this metaphor in therapy is described in Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1997), Reconstructing marriages after the trauma of infidelity, in W.K. Halford and H.J. Markman (Eds.), Clinical handbook of marriage and couples interventions, New York: Wiley; Shirley P. Gla.s.s (2002), Couple therapy after the trauma of infidelity, in A.S. Gurman and N. Jacobson (Eds.), The clinical handbook of couplt therapy, New York: Guilford Press.

8. The following studies have found that men seek opportunity more than women and cite lack of opportunity more frequently as a reason for not having engaged in extramarital relationships. In my airport sample, three times as many non-s.e.xually involved men as women were deterred by lack of opportunity; 33 percent of noninvolved men versus 11 percent of noninvolved women cited lack of opportunity as a reason inhibiting potential extramarital relationship. Ralph Johnson also found that more noninvolved men than women attributed their lack of extramarital involvement to lack of opportunity: 48 percent of husbands and 5 percent of wives without opportunity said they would like such an experience. Ralph E. Johnson (1970), Some correlates of extramarital coitus, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 32(3), 449-456. A Playboy magazine survey with 100,000 respondents found that women who are s.e.xually satisfied in their marriage are less likely to engage in extramarital s.e.x, but men "cheat" despite the quality of marital s.e.x; 75 percent of the women versus 50 percent of the men believed that an affair indicates a problem in the marriage. James R. Petersen (1983), The Playboy readers' s.e.x survey, Playboy, 30(3), 90ff.

9. Annette Lawson and Colin Samson (1988) reported on a British survey of 340 women and 234 men, primarily white middle-cla.s.s adults. Nearly 40 percent of the unfaithful men had a single partner for the first and most recent liaison. Men typically were Found to have more adulterous liaisons than women because more married men choose single women as affair partners and married women more often choose married men as affair partners. Age, gender, and adultery, British Journal of Sociology, 39(3), 409-440.

10. Happily married women often have a "filter" that screens out potential affair partners. They seem to tune out possible opportunities if they are satisfied with their marital relationship. For women only, high marital satisfaction was a.s.sociated with less frequent opportunity for extramarital relationships. Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1988), Clinical implications of research on extramarital involvement, In R. Brown and J. Field (Eds.), Treatment of s.e.xual problems in individual and couples therapy, New York: PMA.

11. Additional findings of the prevalence of workplace affairs were also found by other researchers. In a survey of marital therapists, work relationships accounted for the affairs of 39 percent of husbands and 36 percent of wives who were in therapy. Frederick G. Humphrey (1985, October), Extramarital affairs and their treatment by AAMFT therapists, paper presented at American a.s.sociation of Marriage and Family Therapy, New York. In her on-line dissertation research, Debbie Layton-Tholl (1998) found that 41 percent of an Internet sample of 583 married persons met their affair partner through work. Extramarital affairs: The link between thought suppression and level of arousal, unpublished doctoral dissertation: Miami Inst.i.tute of Psychology of the Caribbean Center for Advanced Studies. A national sample of 2,600 individuals found that the likelihood of infidelity during the prior twelve months was a.s.sociated with jobs that required touching, talking, or being alone with others. Judith Treas and Deirdre Giesen (2000), s.e.xual infidelity among married and cohabiting Americans, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62 (February), 48-60.

12. Researchers have a.s.sociated the increase in women's infidelity with the increase of women in the workplace. Anthony Pietropinto (1986) studied s.e.x in the workplace and concluded that an influx of well-educated women into the workforce undoubtedly contributed to the rise in female infidelity. s.e.x in the workplace, Medical Aspects of Human s.e.xuality, July, 17-22. The highest incidence of infidelity in a Redbook survey of 100,000 women was for wage-earning women who were thirty-five to thirty-nine years old. Robert J. Levin and Amy Levin (1975), The Redbook report on premarital and extramarital s.e.x, Redbook, October, 38ff. Annette Lawson (1988) found that 33 percent of all British wives who had had affairs met their lovers at work, but 44 percent of younger women met their affair partners through work. Adultery: An a.n.a.lysis of love and betrayal, New York: Basic Books.

13. My research and the research of others point to opportunity as a primary factor in the occurrence of extramarital involvements. An "opportunity theory" was supported by findings that the rates of extramarital s.e.x for part-time workers and for housewives who do volunteer work fell exactly between the rates for full-time workers and full-time housewives. Carol Tavris and S. Sadd (1977), The Redbook report on female s.e.xuality, New York: Dell. Opportunity and social context were deciding factors in male s.e.xual involvement for 41 percent of the men in a study of prominent upper-middle-cla.s.s men. Robert Whitehurst (1969), Extramarital s.e.x: Alienation or extension of normal behavior, in G. Neubeck (Ed.), Extramarital relations, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

14. Cup-of-coffee syndrome is a reason given for extramarital s.e.x by Fred Humphrey (1983). Affairs resulting from attractions that are initially quite innocent and as.e.xual may begin with a cup of coffee at work or somewhere else. The individuals soon develop the "habit" of meeting regularly and sharing more and more details of their lives and feelings, and they develop a dependence on these coffee talks. When "magical s.e.x" enters as the next level of involvement, "It just happened." Marital therapy, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 47-66.

15. Janice Saunders and John Edwards (1984) found that extramarital s.e.xual behavior is facilitated by separation of workplace from home. Extramarital s.e.x was a.s.sociated with the degree of autonomy (defined as "freedom from constraint") men and women experienced. The low autonomy group consisted of housewives not employed outside the home, the moderate group consisted of dentists and dental a.s.sistants, and the high autonomy group consisted of male and female real estate agents. Overnight traveling was a.s.sociated with greater opportunity because of increased autonomy. Women reported less autonomy than men: 1 percent of the men compared with 13 percent of the women said that they had seldom or never had an opportunity. Extramarital s.e.xuality: A predictive model of permissive att.i.tudes, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 46(4), 825-835.

16. Married persons who were s.e.xually involved with coworkers were compared to individuals who intentionally sought extramarital involvement for excitement and enhanced self-esteem. Those who were involved with coworkers were happily married and highly compatible with their spouses but proximity and common interests drew them into relationships with coworkers. The researchers concluded that some infidelity is a.s.sociated with circ.u.mstantial, environmental events rather than low marital satisfaction or poor fit of personalities. James D. Wiggins and Doris A. Lederer (1984), Differentiated antecedents of infidelity in marriage, American Mental Health Counselors a.s.sociation Journal, 6, 152-161.

17. Men learn to be situationally more expressive and relate to their wives with greater emotional expressiveness than to women in general. Jack O. Balswick and Charles W. Peek (1971), The inexpressive male: A tragedy of American society, Family Coordinator, 20, 363-368.

18. Nancy Kalish (1997) listened for two years to over one thousand "lost and found lovers" in print, by phone, in person, and by computer. She heard numerous stories in which lost lovers who were happily married and had been entirely faithful met for a simple lunch together and rekindled the fire. More than 30 percent of renewed romances were secret, extramarital affairs. Lost and found lovers: Facts and fantasies of rekindled romances, New York: Morrow.

19. This true story, "I Met Him in the Yogurt Store, but Now He's Not the Leader of My Pack," was related on public radio on Valentine's Day 1998, on This American Life. The couple were Linda Howard and Richard Bloom of Boca Raton, Florida. The name of the old flame has been changed.

20. Debbie Layton-Tholl (1998), Extramarital affairs: The link between thought suppression and level of arousal, unpublished doctoral dissertation: Miami Inst.i.tute of Psychology of the Caribbean Center for Advanced Studies.

21. Jim O'Connor developed this quiz for the web site ComPsych.com using material from an article I had written for ent.i.tled "On-line Attractions"

2: Crossing into a Double Life 1. In a British survey, 90 percent of women and 80 percent of men intended to remain s.e.xually faithful at the time they got married, but their att.i.tudes changed and they became more permissive during their marriage. Annette Lawson (1988), Adultery: An a.n.a.lysis of love and betrayal, New York: Basic Books.

2. James B. Stiff, Hyun J. Kim, and Closepet N. Ramesh (1992), Truth biases and aroused suspicion in relational deception, Communication Research, 19(3), 326-345.

3. "The idealization of romantic love is like a vanity mirror with tiny bulbs all around the perimeter reflecting a rosy glow. Reality-based love is more like the makeup mirror which magnifies our wrinkles." Shirley P. Gla.s.s (2000), The harder you fall, the farther you fall, in J.R. Levine and H.J. Markman (Eds.), Why do fools fall in love? New York: Jossey-Ba.s.s.

4. Frank Pittman (1989), Private lies: Infidelity and the betrayal of intimacy, New York: Norton.

5. Annette Lawson (1988), Adultery: An a.n.a.lysis of love and betrayal, New York: Basic Books.

6. David Buss (1994), The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating, New York: Basic Books.

7. When my clinical sample was asked what would inhibit potential involvement in an extramarital relationship, moral values were a deterrent that discriminated between women with no s.e.xual involvement at all and women who had engaged in any type of s.e.xual intimacy. Men, on the other hand, were deterred by moral values only if they had not engaged in extramarital s.e.xual intercourse. Men who were s.e.xually intimate were more similar to noninvolved men than to men who had s.e.xual intercourse.

8. The "monogamous infidel" is a fundamentally monogamous individual who tries to justify an extramarital relationship by the belief that he or she fell in love, retrospectively rewrites the marital history, and may even deny ever having loved his or her spouse. Because these individuals are unable to be in two relationships at the same time, they withdraw from the marriage s.e.xually and emotionally and feel unfaithful to the lover when they are intimate with the spouse. Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1997), Reconstructing marriages after the trauma of infidelity, in W.K. Halford and H.J. Markman (Eds.), Clinical handbook of marriage and couples interventions, New York: Wiley.

3: Reaching the Moment of Revelation 1. The New York Times (April 7, 2000) published a poll by Blum and Weprin in which a random sample of 1,003 adults in all fifty states asked whether individuals were "absolutely certain" that their partner had been faithful; 86 percent responded "yes." A survey of female readers in New Woman magazine (cited in Schneider, 1988) reported that 41 percent of women had one or more affairs, but only 19 percent knew for certain that their husband or lover had cheated on them. Lewis Yablonsky (1979) reported that 80 percent of husbands involved in "extra-s.e.x" relationships never told their wives, nor were they found out. The extra-s.e.x factor: Why over half of America's married men play around, New York: Times Books.

2. A 1997 study by Todd Shackelford and David Buss asked 204 men and women to list cues that would evoke suspicions of either s.e.xual or emotional infidelity. s.e.xual signals were detecting s.e.xual odors or other unfamiliar scents and abrupt or unexpected changes in s.e.xual interest. Other signals were changes in clothing style or taste in books or music. Most devastating was accidentally calling one's spouse by another person's name. Cues to infidelity, Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 23 (10), 1034-1045.

3. Sweethearts and cheating hearts: For private eyes on adultery cases, Valentine's Day is a bonanza, Baltimore Sun (February 14,1993).

4. Many partners suspected correctly that extramarital s.e.x was occurring long before disclosure took place; 53 percent were suspicious enough to confront, but 84 percent who were confronted initially denied any wrongdoing. Jennifer P. Schneider and Burt Schneider (1999), s.e.x, lies, and forgiveness: Couples speaking on healing from s.e.x addiction, Tucson, AZ: Recovery Resources Press.

5. The case of Betty Broderick and her diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder subsequent to the discovery of protracted marital infidelity was presented by Don-David l.u.s.terman in 1992 in a workshop, The Broderick Affair, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American a.s.sociation of Marriage and Family Therapy in Miami, Florida.

6. Annette Lawson (1988), Adultery: An a.n.a.lysis of love and betrayal, New York: Basic Books. Confessing an extramarital affair appears less risky for men than for women. However, negative consequences were three times more frequent for men when their wives discovered their affairs (58 percent) than for those who voluntarily confessed (18 percent). Forty percent of women and 30 percent of men said telling had adverse consequences for marriage. Women who confessed were more likely than men to be divorced. How husbands found out about wives' infidelity made no significant difference. The most common reason for telling was desire to stop deceit and be open. Only 6 percent of women and 3 percent of men admitted to hostile goals, such as wishing to hurt spouse to exact revenge, or to inflict loss of face.

4: In the Wake of Discovery 1. Anxiety was a.s.sessed on the Burns Anxiety Inventory; among the revealed infidelities, 30 percent of betrayed husbands and 45 percent of betrayed wives had scores ranging from severely anxious to extremely anxious.

2. Depression was a.s.sessed on the Beck Depression Inventory; among the revealed infidelities, 30 percent of betrayed husbands and 29 percent of betrayed wives had scores ranging from moderately depressed to extremely depressed.

3. The world of European starlings is described in David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton, The myth of monogamy: Fidelity and infidelity in animals and people, W.H. Freeman, 2001.

4. Annette Lawson (1988), Adultery: An a.n.a.lysis of love and betrayal, New York: Basic Books.

5. Judith L. Herman (1992), Trauma and recovery, New York: Basic Books.

6. Several men who had seen their mother engage in s.e.xual infidelity when they were young adolescents had a form of pathological jealousy and an inability to let go of a wife's betrayal. John P. Docherty and Jean Ellis (1976), A new concept and finding in morbid jealousy, American Journal of Psychiatry, 133(6), 679-683.

7. In a study of eighty-two s.e.x addicts, their partners were angry about stepwise disclosure in which significant information was initially hidden. Disclosure was a process, not a one-time event. Healing was achieved most easily when initial disclosure included all major elements of the acting-out behaviors but avoided the "gory details." Jennifer P. Schneider, Deborah M. Corley, and Richard R. Irons (1998), Surviving disclosure of infidelity: Results of an international survey of 164 recovering s.e.x addicts and partners. s.e.xual Addiction and Compulsivity, 5, 189-217.

8. Mark Pazniokas, 2001, 1 man, 2 women, countless lies (Hartford) Courant (October 3).

5: Should You Pick Up the Pieces or Throw in the Towel?

1. Psychologists Notarius and Markman suggest that for some couples filing or seeking a divorce may be the first stage of transformation. Clifford Notarius and Howard Markman (1993), We can work it out, New York: Putnam, 137.

2. In the Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale, the strength of commitment to continue a particular marital relationship is measured on a 6-point scale, ranging from (1) "I want desperately for my marriage to succeed, and I would go to almost any length to see that it does" to (6) "My marriage can never succeed, and there is no more that 1 can do to keep the marriage going." In my clinical sample, 52 percent of men and 41 percent of women whose commitment ranged from 4 to 6 were separated, versus 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women whose commitment ranged from 1 to 2. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale is described in a journal article by Graham Spanier (1976), Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for a.s.sessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, 15-28.

3. Jennifer Schneider and her a.s.sociates found that once s.e.x addicts made their initial disclosure, threats to leave by their partners were very common: 60 percent of partners reported making such threats. However, these threats usually were not carried out, as three-fourths of those who threatened to leave never did, even temporarily. Jennifer P. Schneider, Deborah M. Corley, and Richard R. Irons (1998), Surviving disclosure of infidelity: Results of an international survey of 164 recovering s.e.x addicts and partners, s.e.xual Addiction and Compulsivity, 5, 189-217.

4. Wallerstein did a longitudinal study on the effects of divorce on children and found that the breakup and its aftermath were life-shaping events. The effects of parental divorce appeared to be c.u.mulative and were evident throughout adolescence and adulthood. Her findings are discussed in Judith S. Wallerstein, Sandra Blakeslee, and Julie Lewis (2001), The unexpected legacy of divorce: A 25 year landmark study, New York: Hyperion.

5. Cited in E. Mavis Heatherington and John Kelly (2002), For better or worse: Divorce reconsidered, New York: Norton, 272.

6. Rekindled romances that ended up in marriage had the extremely high rate of 72 percent who stayed together. For couples who were each other's first love, the rekindled stay-together rate was even higher: 78 percent. These couples said that they shared emotional and s.e.xual satisfaction unequaled by any other relationship. Nancy Kalish (1997), Lost and found lovers: Facts and fantasies of rekindled romances, New York: William Morrow.

7. Vaughan's on-line survey of 1,083 betrayed spouses a.s.sessed their experiences with marital counseling. Among those who sought counseling, 27 percent had one counselor, 26 percent had two, and 48 percent sought counseling from three or more therapists. Based on their first or only counselor, 20 percent found it very helpful; 23 percent found it helpful, but not as much as they would have liked; and 57 percent found it mostly frustrating. Only 14 percent of counselors were perceived to have dealt very directly with the issue of affairs; 28 percent dealt with affair issues but not as strongly or as clearly as the betrayed spouses would have liked; and 59 percent focused mainly on general marital problems. Peggy Vaughan (1999), Partial results of survey on extramarital affairs, http://www.dearpeggy.com/results.html.

6: How to Cope with Obsessing and Flashbacks 1. Herman presents her approach to traumatic recovery with victims of s.e.xual and physical abuse, natural disasters, and violence in Judith L. Herman (1992), Trauma and recovery, New York: Basic Books.

2. The diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (309.81 ) is presented in American Psychiatric a.s.sociation (1994), DSM-IV: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition, Washington, D.C.: Author.

3. The advantages of journaling are discussed in an on-line article by Ray Bruce, Ph.D. (1998, May 29), "Strange but true: Improve your health through journaling," Selfhelp Magazine, www.shpm.com.

4. Rona Subotnik and Gloria Harris (1999) made many helpful suggestions about dealing with obsessive thoughts in their book Surviving infidelity: Making decisions, recovering from the pain, Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams Press.

5. In their book The trauma response: Treatment for emotional injury, New York: Norton, Diana S. Everstine and Louis Everstine (1993) present the stages of trauma recovery for clinicians.

6. Norman Cousins (1989) describes research on the positive effects of laughter on the immune systems of medically ill patients in his book Head first: The biology of hope and the healing power of the human spirit, New York: Penguin Books.

7: Repairing the Couple and Building Goodwill 1. Mich.e.l.le Weiner-Davis (1992) suggests that unhappily married individuals can get on track through envisioning the end product by asking future-oriented questions, Divorce busting, New York: Simon and Schuster.

2. Research on couples married more than fifty years conducted by Fran C. d.i.c.kson (1995) appeared in The best is yet to be: Research on long-lasting relationships, in J.T. Wood and S. Duck, (Eds.), Understanding relationship processes: Off the beaten track, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

3. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner (1996) says that "we have the power to choose happiness over righteousness." Righteousness is remembering hurts and disappointments, and happiness means giving others the right to be human, weak, and selfish. How good do we have to be? A new understanding of guilt and forgiveness. New York: Little, Brown.

4. John M. Gottman, with Nan Silver (1994), Why marriages succeed or fail, New York: Simon and Schuster.

5. The concept of bull's-eye caring was introduced by Dr. Tom Wright in our cotherapy sessions with distressed couples.

6. The two exercises, "What Pleases Me About You" and "The Newlywed Game" were adapted from a Caring Behaviors questionnaire by Richard B. Stuart (1993), Couples pre-counseling inventory, Champaign, IL: Research Press.

7. Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee (1995) studied fifty couples in which both husband and wife regarded the marriage as very happy. They were married at least nine years, and their ages ranged from 32 to 74. The good marriage: How and why love lasts, New York: Warner Books.

8. Researchers Clifford Notarius and Howard Markman (1993) a.s.serted: It takes one put-down to undo hours of kindness you give to your partner. We can work it out: How to solve conflicts, save your marriage, and strengthen your love for each other, New York: Penguin Putnam.

9. Ibid.

10. John M. Gottman and Nan Silver (1999), The seven principles for making marriage work, New York: Three Rivers Press.

11. Adapted from the technique of "intentional dialogue" as described in the writings of Harville Hendrix. Dr. Hendrix (1997) writes extensively about intentional dialogue in Giving the love that heals, New York: Pocket Books. There are three steps in his process: mirroring, validating, and empathizing. Validating centers on the idea of affirming the other person's right to think and feel the way he or she does, regardless of whether you agree with the content of what he or she is saying.

8: The Story of the Affair 1. Telling the story of the traumatic event is an essential part of the recovery process, according to trauma experts. Diana Everstine and Louis Everstine (1993) state that repeating what happened is an attempt to gain mastery over the experience by reinterpreting it again and again until it makes sense. The trauma response: Treatment for emotional injury, New York: Norton. Judith Herman (1992) states that in the second stage of recovery, the survivor tells the story of the trauma by reviewing life before the trauma and the circ.u.mstances that led up to the event. This provides a context to understand the meaning of the trauma. Trauma and recovery, New York: Basic Books.

2. Peggy Vaughan's survey through her Web site (http://www.dearpeggy.com/results.html) reported on responses by 1,083 betrayed spouses regarding the impact of discussing questions about the affair: (a) still married and living together were 55 percent who talked very little, 78 percent who talked a good bit, and 86 percent who talked a lot; (b) trust was rebuilt in 31 percent where unfaithful spouse refused to answer questions, 43 percent where some questions were answered, and 72 percent where all questions were answered; (c) somewhat healed were 41 percent where unfaithful spouse refused to answer questions, 51 percent where some questions were answered, and 55 percent where all questions were answered; (d) the relationship was better than before the affair in 21 percent where the situation was discussed very little, 43 percent where they discussed it a good bit, and 59 percent where they discussed it a lot.

3. Findings of a survey of eighty-two s.e.x addicts with 3.4 yrs of recovery and their spouses were: (a) disclosure is not a one-time event; even in the absence of relapse, withholding of information is common; (b) half of the s.e.x addicts reported one or more major slips or relapses that necessitated additional decisions about disclosure. Jennifer P. Schneider, Deborah M. Corley, and Richard R. Irons (1998), Surviving disclosure of infidelity: Results of an international survey of 164 recovering s.e.x addicts and partners, s.e.xual Addiction and Compulsivity, 5, 189-217.

4. Jennifer Schneider (1988) wrote about her study of betrayed women and their codependency issues in Back from betrayal: A ground-breaking guide to recovery for women involved with s.e.x addicted men, New York: Ballantine Books.

5. In 1997 The bridges of Madison County, by Robert James Waller, was published as a paperback and released as a video by Warner Home Video.

6. Researchers consistently found that the powerful emotional component involved in secret relationships was a.s.sociated with obsessive preoccupation and an increase in the attractiveness of the secret partner. Daniel M. Wegner, Julie D. Lane, and Sara Dimitri (1994), The allure of secret relationships, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 287-300.

7. Debbie Layton-Tholl (1998) found that married persons whose affair has ended will experience greater arousal with thought of the lover if they have not disclosed the affair to the spouse. She suggested that disclosure may be the only form of relief from the constant demand of behavioral and physiological work that is required to keep the secret. Extramarital affairs: The link between thought suppression and level of arousal, unpublished doctoral dissertation: Miami Inst.i.tute of Psychology of the Caribbean Center for Advanced Studies.

8. Ibid.

9. Kristina Coop Gordon and Donald H. Baucom (1999), A mult.i.theoretical intervention for promoting recovery from extramarital affairs, Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 6(4), 382-399.

10. In a 1983 Playboy magazine survey with 100,000 respondents, James Peterson reported that women who are s.e.xually satisfied in their marriages are less likely to engage in extramarital s.e.x, but men cheat despite the quality of marital s.e.x. The Playboy readers' s.e.x survey, Playboy, 30(3), 90ff. The Kinsey Report found that s.e.xual variety appears a reasonable desire to men, but most women could not understand how a "happily married man" would want s.e.xual intercourse with another woman. Alfred C. Kinsey, Wendell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, and Paul H. Gebhard (1953), s.e.xual behavior in the human female, Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders.

11. Debbie Layton-Tholl (1998), Extramarital affairs: the link between thought suppression and level of arousal, unpublished doctoral dissertation: Miami Inst.i.tute of Psychology of the Caribbean Center for Advanced Studies.

12. A 1997 study by Bram Buunk and Arnold Bakker in The Netherlands found that approximately 75 percent of individuals who engaged in extradyadic s.e.x had unprotected v.a.g.i.n.al intercourse while simultaneously having unprotected intercourse with their steady partner. Commitment to the relationship, extradyadic s.e.x, and AIDS preventive behavior, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 27(14), 1241-1257.

13. The data from the National AIDS Behavioral Survey was described in an article by Kyung-Hee Choi, Joseph A. Catania, and Margaret M. Dolcini (1994), Extramarital s.e.x and HIV risk behavior among U.S. adults: Results from the National AIDS Behavioral Survey, American Journal of Public Health, 84(12), 2003-2007.

9: The Story of Your Marriage 1. In a Redbook magazine survey of 100,000 women, half of the s.e.xually involved women reported that they were happily married and s.e.xually satisfied with their husband. Robert J. Levin and Amy Levin (1975, October), The Redbook report on premarital and extramarital s.e.x, Redbook, 38ff. Ninety-one interviews and 360 questionnaires were the basis for Morton Hunt's finding that one-half the men and one-third the women who engaged in extramarital s.e.x reported happy marriages. Morton Hunt (1969), The affair, New York: World Publishing.

2. A statistical a.n.a.lysis found a significant difference between male and female therapists in the a.s.sociation between infidelity and marital dissatisfaction: men were more likely than women to believe that an affair is not necessarily a symptom of an unhappy marriage.

3. Involved and non-involved wives were less satisfied than their husbands with emotional intimacy (understanding, companionship), ego bolstering (respect and enhancement of self-confidence), fun, romance, love and affection, and help with household tasks.

4. In my clinical sample, unfaithful husbands were also more dissatisfied than monogamous husbands with sharing intellectual interests. Unfaithful wives were more dissatisfied than monogamous wives with fun and romance.

5. Significant s.e.x differences in the marital satisfaction of men and women who engaged in extramarital s.e.xual intercourse were reported in Shirley P. Gla.s.s and Thomas L. Wright (1985), s.e.x differences in type of extramarital involvement and marital dissatisfaction, s.e.x Roles, 12(9/10), 1101-1119.

6. John F. Cuber and Peggy B. Haroff (1965), The significant Americans: A study of s.e.xual behavior among the affluent. New York: Appleton Century Crofts.