In America, a lapse in monogamy ruins marriages, bankrupts couples, and condemns families to divorce-court hell. In Europe and elsewhere, infidelity is considered a bump in the road, if it's considered at all. Here's why.
Jane and Thomas were high school sweethearts, and now their own kids are in high school. About a year ago, Thomas, 47, a financial officer at a large corporation, suddenly started volunteering to take his son to soccer practice on Sunday mornings and began using his laptop at home. Jane noticed he seemed to hide the computer from her, and he never used it in front of her. He sought excuses to be alone; she became uneasy. One night, he made a hushed phone call downstairs while she was in bed. When he came upstairs, she asked who it was. He said it was no one, told her she was "hearing things," and said it must have been the TV. His denial was all she needed. She asked right then if he was having an affair, and soon enough he admitted he was. Their world came crashing down.
The other woman is a fellow employee who reports to him. She is 14 years Jane's junior and possesses, in Jane's words, "a Victoria's Secret body." Thomas agreed that he must end the affair, but for the past four months the evidence says otherwise. Jane has discovered cryptic text messages on her husband's cell phone and there are regular hang-up calls from a blocked number. Jane considered telling the other woman's husband about his wife's affair, but then the woman--out of revenge--could sue Thomas for sexual harassment. This has the potential to bankrupt the family. So would divorce. Every time Thomas stays late at work, Jane can't help but accuse him--even if it's silently, just with a look--of having been unfaithful again. In their own home, Jane and Thomas are now deadlocked in marital misery, fighting tearfully and viciously.
Does it have to be this way? Must an affair lead a couple inexorably to divorce court or bankruptcy? Do other cultures handle the circumstances of infidelity with different protocol and ethics? I asked these questions of Anna, 30, an American with a European background and a 1960s Italian art-film look: a decadent face, a slim, curvy body in a tweed pencil skirt. One night exactly a year ago, Henri, a Parisian client of Anna's company, came to town for a professional event. They flirted unapologetically throughout the evening. When she invited people to her place for late-night drinks, Henri stayed. Before they even kissed, he held up his finger. "You see I'm wearing this ring," he said. Anna said she did. "You know nothing will change," he continued. She answered that she did know that.
"It was adult," Anna says. "It was respectful to me, in a way, and to his wife, to ask that, and to make that statement. The next morning, he was sweet and open. We hung out for hours. He didn't run in shame."
Henri is the fairy-tale adulterer: European, sensual, guiltless. He is a figure we Americans look upon with wonder and terror, wanting to believe and desperately not wanting to believe that he (or she) exists. Because when we go too far at that bachelor party in Vegas, or at the office holiday party, or with the milkman or the butcher or the baker, we go into hysterics. We drink a bottle of Wild Turkey and drive onto our own lawn and confess, bawling, to our spouse. We cut our thighs with an X-Acto knife. We quit our job and work full-time for free at a soup kitchen. We enroll in specialized infidelity therapy. We hate ourselves. We fall apart.
We end up at Jane and Thomas's address. According to writer Pamela Druckerman, whose new book on infidelity, Lust in Translation, comes out next month, "Americans are the worst, both at having affairs and dealing with the aftermath. Adultery crises in America last longer, cost more, and seem to inflict more emotional torture than they do anyplace I visited."
For several years Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, surveyed married or committed couples all over the world, and she not only charted the international styles and frequency of cheating, but also looked at each country's capacity for guilt and shame (or anger and vengeance, depending on the party's role) regarding infidelity. It seems no other population suffers the same magnificent anguish that we do. The Russians regard affairs as benign vices, like cigars and scotch. The Japanese have institutionalized extramarital sex through clubs and salaryman lifestyles.
The French, who don't cheat as much as we thought they did, prize discretion above the occasional lie. In sub--Saharan Africa, even the threat of death by HIV hasn't created a strong taboo on cheating. And God, well, he's tried. Like a father gently lecturing his adolescent, using the monogamy-is-cool approach, and then resorting to "You're grounded for life if you disobey me." But to no avail: Even God-fearing and devout Muslims, Christians, and Jews are still cheating and having affairs, still double parking on their spouses.
The above is an excerpt.
Jane and Thomas were high school sweethearts, and now their own kids are in high school. About a year ago, Thomas, 47, a financial officer at a large corporation, suddenly started volunteering to take his son to soccer practice on Sunday mornings and began using his laptop at home. Jane noticed he seemed to hide the computer from her, and he never used it in front of her. He sought excuses to be alone; she became uneasy. One night, he made a hushed phone call downstairs while she was in bed. When he came upstairs, she asked who it was. He said it was no one, told her she was "hearing things," and said it must have been the TV. His denial was all she needed. She asked right then if he was having an affair, and soon enough he admitted he was. Their world came crashing down.
The other woman is a fellow employee who reports to him. She is 14 years Jane's junior and possesses, in Jane's words, "a Victoria's Secret body." Thomas agreed that he must end the affair, but for the past four months the evidence says otherwise. Jane has discovered cryptic text messages on her husband's cell phone and there are regular hang-up calls from a blocked number. Jane considered telling the other woman's husband about his wife's affair, but then the woman--out of revenge--could sue Thomas for sexual harassment. This has the potential to bankrupt the family. So would divorce. Every time Thomas stays late at work, Jane can't help but accuse him--even if it's silently, just with a look--of having been unfaithful again. In their own home, Jane and Thomas are now deadlocked in marital misery, fighting tearfully and viciously.
Does it have to be this way? Must an affair lead a couple inexorably to divorce court or bankruptcy? Do other cultures handle the circumstances of infidelity with different protocol and ethics? I asked these questions of Anna, 30, an American with a European background and a 1960s Italian art-film look: a decadent face, a slim, curvy body in a tweed pencil skirt. One night exactly a year ago, Henri, a Parisian client of Anna's company, came to town for a professional event. They flirted unapologetically throughout the evening. When she invited people to her place for late-night drinks, Henri stayed. Before they even kissed, he held up his finger. "You see I'm wearing this ring," he said. Anna said she did. "You know nothing will change," he continued. She answered that she did know that.
"It was adult," Anna says. "It was respectful to me, in a way, and to his wife, to ask that, and to make that statement. The next morning, he was sweet and open. We hung out for hours. He didn't run in shame."
Henri is the fairy-tale adulterer: European, sensual, guiltless. He is a figure we Americans look upon with wonder and terror, wanting to believe and desperately not wanting to believe that he (or she) exists. Because when we go too far at that bachelor party in Vegas, or at the office holiday party, or with the milkman or the butcher or the baker, we go into hysterics. We drink a bottle of Wild Turkey and drive onto our own lawn and confess, bawling, to our spouse. We cut our thighs with an X-Acto knife. We quit our job and work full-time for free at a soup kitchen. We enroll in specialized infidelity therapy. We hate ourselves. We fall apart.
We end up at Jane and Thomas's address. According to writer Pamela Druckerman, whose new book on infidelity, Lust in Translation, comes out next month, "Americans are the worst, both at having affairs and dealing with the aftermath. Adultery crises in America last longer, cost more, and seem to inflict more emotional torture than they do anyplace I visited."
For several years Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, surveyed married or committed couples all over the world, and she not only charted the international styles and frequency of cheating, but also looked at each country's capacity for guilt and shame (or anger and vengeance, depending on the party's role) regarding infidelity. It seems no other population suffers the same magnificent anguish that we do. The Russians regard affairs as benign vices, like cigars and scotch. The Japanese have institutionalized extramarital sex through clubs and salaryman lifestyles.
The French, who don't cheat as much as we thought they did, prize discretion above the occasional lie. In sub--Saharan Africa, even the threat of death by HIV hasn't created a strong taboo on cheating. And God, well, he's tried. Like a father gently lecturing his adolescent, using the monogamy-is-cool approach, and then resorting to "You're grounded for life if you disobey me." But to no avail: Even God-fearing and devout Muslims, Christians, and Jews are still cheating and having affairs, still double parking on their spouses.
The above is an excerpt.
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