House of Eratosthenes

Mira Kirshenbaum, who has over 30 years’ experience as a marriage therapist, says the ‘right kind’ of affair can be a positive thing, acting to “jolt people from their inertia”.

The author of When Good People Have Affairs, published this week, argues that because society has so far failed to have a sympathetic discussion of infidelity, the positive sides of cheating have been ignored.

However, she insists that most cheating spouses should never own up, because revealing the infidelity is more damaging than keeping quiet.

“Sometimes an affair can be the best way for the person who has been unfaithful to get the information and impetus to change,” she told The Observer.

“I’m not encouraging affairs, but underlying the complicated mess is a kind of deep and delicate wisdom. It’s an insight that something isn’t working and needs to change.”

Most philanderers are good, kind people, she argues, who are seeking real happiness and love.

Uh, yeah Mira…for themselves. That seems to be a little detail you’re missing.

And after thirty years? Someone’s a little slow on the uptake…can’t help but wonder why.

This isn’t limited to sex and marriage infidelity. It’s a rule that extends to all forms of betrayal. People who counsel others to be more tolerant and understanding of it, have a consistent “blind spot” when it comes to envisioning themselves as the ones betrayed. Do as I say…not as I do.

Ms Kirshenbaum, clinical director of the Chestnut Hill Institute, a psychotherapy and research centre in Boston, Massachusetts, says her book is not aimed at ‘creeps’ who think they can cheat with impunity, but at decent people who know they have made a mistake.

“These people are suffering terribly and need to be relieved of their sense of guilt and shame because those emotions are paralysing,” she said.

“If handled right, an affair can be therapeutic, give clarity and jolt people from their inertia,” she said.

“You could think of it as a radical but necessary medical procedure. If your marriage is in cardiac arrest, an affair can be a defibrillator.”

Sick. All I can do is sputter away in disgust, so I’ll defer to KramericaWallet‘s comments in the FARK thread:

That is wrong on so many levels.

One of them is that it’s ridiculous to:

(a) Say that, after you’ve had an affair, you should not feel guilty about it and see it as positive and therapeutic, while at the same time
(b) Claiming that this is not supposed to encourage people to have affairs.

Come on, if you’re giving an easy way to justify something in retrospect, it’s a de facto way to justify it ahead of time.

Likewise:
Saying that if you have had an affair you must not tell the person you cheated on is simply indulging people’s most selfish impulses. Again, this is both before and after having an affair. If you’ve decided ahead of time that there’s nothing wrong with lying to your spouse about having had an affair and in fact it’s the morally required thing to do, you’ll be a lot less reluctant to have an affair (otherwise, you might not want to do it because you wouldn’t want to the lie to them or feel guilty about lying to them).

The author of When Good People Have Affairs, published this week
On the other hand, you can definitely make some money by selling books to make bad people feel better about themselves. Just make sure their spouses don’t accidentally find this book lying around the house.

Yeah. This.

One of the unique aspects of the Catholic church is the use of forgiveness. It seems to outsiders that this allows someone the opportunity to sin first, then repent later. As you describe it, this woman’s book seems to do the same.

Forgiveness is a fascinating subject, because, like capital punishment, it is not the act of forgiving or killing that is the focus. We only do so as a deterrent for others and for future actions. If you feel unforgiven, you may lose any reason to avoid sin going forward. I see this alot among the secular: they can’t absolve themselves of their past, or grow bitter over their inability to avoid the sting of blame. So, they grow to hate themselves, find fault too easily in others and treat them harshly, and are enabled to do whatever they wish. Catholics respect the rules (and adhere more closely to its principles) because they originate from a principle that we cannot be perfect, but the trick is to try – that’s why Catholics are called “practicing”. Our life is measured not by do, but by try. The more we try, the better chance we have to weather a storm of failure, or of suspicion (where the facts are murky or unknowable, the jury will look to the accused’s accomplishments). Yoda was wrong (when he said “there is no try – only do.”)

Radical islam sees no room for forgiveness, at their peril. The public will cast off any presidential candidate with flaws, at its peril. With the two candidates we’re facing this year, it’s clear their avoidance of blame harms our ability to find decent candidates – we’ve got one that has to use his race to shield himself from criticism, and we’ve got another who straddles policy to do the same. It’s obvious the public has weeded out the good but flawed leaders (say, for example, Guiliani). I wish there was less overblaming in our society, because it does more harm than good.

You may find it hard to believe that Catholics promote forgiveness and capital punishment at the same time, but deterrence is the common thread. They don’t forgive the one receiving capital punishment, because they believe that there is a line you must not cross, and because of the level of harm to the victims. Yes, adultery used to be one of those grave sins, too. But, the Church has quietly acceded this point, because they see redemption as more probable than not, they believe the harm of being cheated on can be overvome, and the cost of punishing those adulterers is too high for the Church (loss of membership mostly). The last item isn’t only financial – you can’t teach them if they don’t show up.

I would ask that you reconsider this book in that light. The book is for folks who have already made a mistake; not for those who need justification for a future act. The Catholic church doesn’t attract the habitual sinners looking for someone to accept their behavior, and neither will this book be purchased by someone looking to have an affair.
- wch | 06/10/2008 @ 08:38
Bill,

Interesting points. I was the child of a marriage that was going through this kind of a misadventure and I’m hip to the idea that the position in which the couple is placed is a lonely one for both of them, and they can use all the guidance they can get. And I’m also hip to the idea that guilt is a meaningless and unproductive emotion.

However, the alleviation of guilt is also unproductive and meaningless. Cheating is very rarely a one-time thing. This point needs some additional emphasis — when the one who’s been betrayed is asked to get past it and “forgive,” she’s being asked to forgive not a single act, but a habit. The dogma that has been imposed on us all, whether we’re involved in such a tragedy or not, is that the cheater is extraordinarily sorry and will move mountains to avoid doing it ever again.

I simply haven’t seen reason to believe this for myself. The issue is whether life is an adventure being lived by the two of them, as a couple; it’s a problem of perception, not reality; and because the cheater is the one who cheated, his perception is the one that counts. This is ANOTHER thing in our society that has permeated it too much — we ask the innocent to give up influence and power, so it can be gathered up again, by the guilty. This is also another thing I’ve not yet seen pan out very well: He who cheated, has the perception of things that really counts for something. The perception of the jilted person — what of it? But…anyway…the cheater already made his perception known when he did the cheating. He’s not really part of a couple. He’s an adventurer. A mercenary.

It’s simply not possible to “get past it” without diminishing the other person, terribly.

My hero here is not Yoda, quite so much as Dr. Laura. The bit where she says love…is a behavior. This is light years beyond Ann Lander’s Messozoic ramblings about “are you better off with him or without him?” Schlessinger (and yes, she does have faults) achieves real wisdom, in my mind, when she counsels people to look back over the other person’s actions over time, and ask themselves “Is that love?”

It’s the ultimate in fair questions. Some might look at episodes of infidelity, and against all odds, answer in the affirmative. After what I saw happen with my parents, I’m quite sure that’s beyond me — but I’m reasonably sure it’s logic, not personal history, that is my guide. Cheating is not loving behavior. It’s something you do when you consider the other person to be substandard; inferior; a shell of what they’re supposed to be. And you have to be dedicated to that in order to cheat on them. Why anyone would want to share a whole life with someone who sees them that way, is something I don’t know.

You also need to be conscious of the fine slice you’re making with this hair splitting. It’s not workable, and you yourself aren’t doing the slicing with sufficient precision to make it so. This is why I quoted KramericaWallet above: “If you’re giving an easy way to justify something in retrospect, it’s a de facto way to justify it ahead of time.” Cheating, ultimately, is a betrayal of truth. It is an elevation of the way you see things, above the way others might see things. He has a childlike fixation on the idea that his emotions reflect reality. He’s told “What you’ve done has hurt your wife terribly” and he’s unsurprised by this, usually launching into a monologue of bromides about how he realizes what he did was wrong — but — when he’s told “You know, your wife sometimes has been unhappy in the relationship and she’s been tempted too, but made a conscious decision not to act on it”…and this is a real paradigm shift. The notion that others can be torn by conflict. This is a personality type in which the individual doesn’t see himself as really culpable. And nearly all of the time, it’s someone who was raised that way. There are no stupid decisions, except those made by other people. Bad consequences are simply things that “happened.”

Finally, I would ask you to note the difference between what this dingbat therapist is saying, and what you’re saying. You are, quite reasonably, seeing the infidelity as a sin and an open wound on the marriage. Ms Kirshenbaum is holding it aloft for some hidden, medicinal value. I believe this is simply a deceptive exercise to serve the real purpose, which is to ward off the guilt and shame that she says is “paralyzing”; I don’t know of anyone who genuinely believes infidelity will strengthen a relationship. People who say that, yes. People willing to bet something precious on it, no.

But that is extraordinarily harmful. I see it as one more item in a vast pantheon of pop-psych babbling from the late ’70’s and early ’80’s when all that money was made from paperback self-help books designed to do nothing better than make people FEEL GOOD about whatever. So I don’t think she is trying to get more people to screw around on their spouses. I think she’s in it for the bling-bling ka-ching.
- mkfreeberg | 06/10/2008 @ 10:49
Insightful, as always. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I do not have your frame of reference in this matter, but you have made your experiences known and I appreciate that.

I also believe she’s in it for the money, as are the folks who helped her get to the book stage, which I understand is very difficult.

I do not believe all infidelity is habitual. That said, if there’s a pattern, then harsher penalties are warranted. Forgiveness is the same. Sin needn’t be assumed to be habitual, just because we are human. They have that part in the Bible about how many times forgiveness is supposed to occur – seven versus seventy times seven, but most folks are closer to the first number. Catholics don’t ask for perfection; that is really difficult for someone in pain to understand. I can’t remove the pain; perhaps no one can. I just want the pain to be channeled into something good. You’ve made your pain productive and positive, if that helps.

Infidelity has a high pain effect, and our society needs to keep it painful. You are helping that, and she is not. So, you are correct. But I can see a sliver of positive in this topic coming to light.

Those that cheat are not aware of the pain it causes. This book doesn’t bring it out, so far as you’ve told me. Her impression must be that society already exacts a high price on those people. You and I disagree with her. Therefore, it is wrong to read it. But is it wrong to talk about it? No.
- wch | 06/10/2008 @ 12:44
This is why some people avoid marriage all together. “It’s okay to cheat because we are human.” “Monogamy is not natural.” What does it mean to be married, and why even bother? It can’t be for children any more because there are plenty of people that have families out of wedlock with the laws changing to accommodate this arrangement.

I say just call it what it is: Cheating a commitment. How good could lack of discipline be? And the pain involved is a health hazard to those who are afflicted.
- petrita1 | 06/11/2008 @ 10:03

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Yeah, Affairs Are Good!Monday, June 9th, 2008

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Monday, June 9th, 2008