The Civilized Couple's Guide to Extramarital Adventures

Citation preview

THE CIVILIZED COUPLE'S GUIDE TO EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

the

/JVILIZED

COUPLE'Sy-UIDE TO EXTRAMARITAL

d^^VENTURE

? Dr. Albert Ellis

Peter H. Wyden, Inc. /Publisher NEW YORK

THE CIVILIZED COUPLE'S GUIDE TO EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE Copyright

©

1972 by Albert

Ellis

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this

book, or parts thereof,

in

any form, except for

the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Names and

identifying details have been carefully altered throughout

the

book

to assure the privacy of all concerned.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 72-85999 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

5

CONTENTS

1.

Extramarital Adventure:

Almost Everybody

Is

Doing

It

1

2.

Kinds (and Degrees) of Extramarital Adventure

17

3.

Healthy Reasons for Extramarital Adventure

40

4.

Disturbed Reasons for Extramarital Adventure

69

5.

To Be That

6.

Not

or Is

to

Be an Extramarital Adventurer:

the Question!

Ground Rules

95

for Civilized Extramarital

Adventure 7.

1 1

Etiquette and Techniques for Extramarital

Adventure 8.

139

Overcoming Emotional Problems About 156

Extramarital Adventure 9.

10.

Special Problems of

How

to

Women

179

Handle the Problem of Children 201

and Extramarital Adventure 11.

How

to

Be Happily Monogamous

Nonmonogamous World

in

a

215

BibUography

239

About

249

the

Author

1 Extramarital Adventure:

Almost Everybody

K

HY SHOULD ANYONE BOTHER,

Is

Doing

in the closing

It

decades

of the twentieth century, to write a guide to extramarital adventure? Granted that this kind of behavior has always occurred in

both civilized and uncivilized regions, to

is it

really extensive

enough

warrant a Baedeker? Yes!

Whether we a

like the fact of adultery or not,

good or a bad

we can hardly deny any longer

that

it

it is

virtually ubiquitous. Millions of individuals

is

act,

whether we think engage

in

it

that

every

year in the United States alone; on a worldwide basis, the figure

may

possibly run into billions. If marital union

is

the most popu-

sexual activity on this planet, and masturbation a fairly close

lar

second, extramarital relations

may

well be the third most frequent

form of sexual encounter. For although premarital and postmarital sex this

gle it is

is

more extensive today than

it

ever was before, a great deal of

kind of activity takes place between one individual

and a partner who

is

who

is

sin-

legally married; so, technically speaking,

adultery.

The

men and women, moreover, marry and most of their adult lives. Consequently, when

great majority of

remain married for

these people engage in nonmarital sex, as they frequently do, they

can resort only to masturbation or to adultery. That

is

why it can name is

be most accurately reported: Extramarital adventurer, thy legion!

1

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

2

my word

Don't take

thorities in the field

that there

now

for this. Literally scores of outstanding au-

of sex, love, and marital relations have shown

an exceptionally high prevalence of adulter-

exists

ous relations and that

news

to you,

this

is

no cause for alarm.

If this

suggest that you now- skip to Chapter 2.

1

wonder what the experts are saying,

me

let

is

not

you do

If

acquaint you with a

small sample of their research and their views.

Hyman

Dr.

sexual infidelity

estimate,

up

This

tal sex.

is

in their

to

book. The Wandering Husband, that

widespread

phenomenon.

as a natural

Lucy

Spotnitz, a noted psychiatrist, writing with

Freeman, points out

in

may be regarded

urban society, they

90 percent of American husbands have extramariin contrast to the

is

our culture and

In certain parts of

astoundingly high figures that the

Kinsey researchers reported as far back as 1948: that 50 percent of the husbands and 25 percent of the wives they interviewed even in the early

1940's admitted to at least one extramarital affair.

Lael Scott, in a survey of the urge to ports: " 'Infidelity

is

roam

in

marriage, re-

now taken as a matter of course in a number among people under 30,' one marriage

of middle-class marriages

counselor said. Tt's no longer considered a deviation from the

norm by many young

people.

Women

erant of infidelity, as long as the

man

especially are peculiarly tolcarries "

on within the family

as usual, so that the family appears intact.'

Morton Hunt checked the old Kinsey Gebhard, director of the

Institute for

figures with

Sex Research

Paul

Dr. at

Indiana

University, which Kinsey founded and which carries on his work.

He

quotes Dr. Gebhard as follows: 'Tf

I

were

to

make an edu-

cated guess as to the cumulative incidence figures for 1968, they'd

be about 60 per cent for males and 35 to 40 per cent for females."

Hunt

also

"Nearly

all

reports

married

his own findings about affairs and notes: men and at least a majority of married women

are conscious of extramarital desires from time to time,

more

often."

He

ports that over

adds:

"A

if

not

recent study by two sociologists re-

70 per cent of the men

in

one high caliber cocktail

ALMOST EVERYBODY

DOING

IS

3

IT

lounge in a West Coast city were married, successful, stable persons looking for nothing more than a

little

fantasies

and overt

affairs, great

excitement and sexual

and above extramarital

variety." Finally, he points out that over

numbers of individuals engage

in

adulterous petting that stops just before intercourse:

"From

the Kinsey study of

questionnaire data, of

all

women

plus

my own

interview and

would hazard the guess that about a quarter

I

somewhere between a some kind of ex-

middle-class American wives, and

tenth and an eighth of their husbands, have had

tramarital experience that stopped short of intercourse."

much

earlier

group and by Dr. Lewis Terman and

his as-

Confirmations of Hunt's findings were published

by Dr. Kinsey and sociates.

his

Working with questionnaires and interviews

in the 1930s,

both Kinsey and Terman found that about three-quarters of middle-class

American husbands and over one-quarter of

their wives

admitted feeling a desire for extramarital intercourse.

Mrs. Virginia

Satir, a

renowned family

therapist, notes:

Almost any recent study of the sexual practices of married many marital partners do not live completely monogamously. Marital partners report from few to many extramarital sexual relationships, which are largely secret. people reports that

Frequently-married

which which

myth

is

is is

persons

practice

a

consecutive

monogamy;

the fact

is

frequently polygamy.

Dr. Joseph Downing, a psychiatrist serving as the San

Mateo County Health

widespread

serial

program chief of

Services, concurs: "In California

particularly, the high incidence of divorce to

spousing

polygamy done in parts. Mate -swapping, polygamy in the open, is becoming more frequent. The a sort of

and remarriage amounts

polygamy. Thus, a legally sanctioned form of

extended family has developed." Brian Boylan, in his incisive book, sults

of his

own

Infidelity,

survey of marital unfaithfulness.

reports the re-

He

defines

infi-

delity as the urge or desire to look for sex-love fulfillment outside

of marriage, and distinguishes

it

from actual adultery, where an

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

4

He found among men:

overt sex act occurs.

women

as

it is

that this urge

is

as

common among

On the basis of extensive interviews, it appears that married women practice infidelity in its various forms just as much as married men, ahhough married women take longer to admit to unfaithful desires. The broadened definition of infidelity as something that happens any time a married person has to look outside the marriage for an unfulfilled need is especially perti-

nent to

women.

delity as long as

A it

married

means

woman may

adultery, but

stoutly

when

deny any

infi-

the psychological

and emotional aspects are mentioned, a surprising number readily admit to them.

Numerous Breedlove

starting

investigators,

William

with

and

Jerrye

1964, have brought forth facts about the phenome-

in

non of mate-swapping or swinging among married couples. In form of sex

activity,

a husband and wife team

this

up with one or

more other couples and exchange partners. The Breedloves estimated that no less than eight million American couples are generally

involved in the swinging scene and that, conservatively, two

and a half million couples exchange partners on a somewhat regu-

more times a year). Duane Denfeld and Michael Gordon did

lar basis (three or

a study of the sociol-

ogy of mate-swapping, especially of the swinging club and magamarket,

zine

and

approximately

located

publications catering to this

who

field.

fifty

They found

nationally

sold

that the swingers

advertise in these publications and attend swinging parties

"do not conform

to the stereotypical

image of the, deviant. They

have higher levels of education than the general population; 80 per cent of one study attended college, 50 per cent were graduates,

and 12 per cent were found Smith,

in

professional

1969).

still

students.

They

are disproportionately

and white-collar occupations

They tend

to be conservative

(J.

and

L.

and very straight."

Dr. Robert N. Whitehursfs study of extramarital involvement

concluded that often extramarital

affairs

are

all

but inevitable:

ALMOST EVERYBODY

IS

DOING

^

IT

Given certain average conditions males involved,

it

is

in the

number of males between

for a great

may be

ty-five that

married

life

possible to predict an adulterous the ages of forty

of the

outcome and for-

created out of natural conditions arising

over years of marriage coupled with a differential value notion .

.

Recent research shows that marriages, contrary to the

.

to-

getherness notions extant in our culture, do not, through time,

become characterized by

increasing depth and intensiveness of

marital communication.

Instead, there

time takes

its toll

in regard to the

some evidence

is

that

importance of the relation-

The phenomenon of extramarital male

infidelity can problem with a high probability of involvement for many males ... it can be seen as either a problem in the marital relationship or in the personality of the deviant (although all levels may be involved in any particular case). In its essence, the behavior should be quite frequently expected, and if expected and explained as a social -structural and cultural problem, it may then be construed much more nearly as normal rather than as abnormal behavior

ship

.

.

.

as easily be conceptualized as a cultural-social

in the

kind of society

Note,

if

you

will, the

we now

experience.

conclusions that are being drawn by these

outstanding authorities and researchers:

—

of American males and a quite high some time or other engage in overt

that a very high percentage

percentage of females at adultery;

— many middle-class marriages no made to-do about extramarital adventures; — extramarital are universal among males and increasing among females; — addition widespread an enormous amount of petting of — many mates who abjure are polygamous because they engage a marriages; of — mate-swapping or swinging becoming commonthat in

great

that

desires

that in

to

practically

adultery, there exists

that stops just short

that

technically

intercourse;

affairs

series

in

that

is

is

actually

legal

fairly

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

6

and

place,

that

mate-swappers tend

to

be conservative and

straight;

—

modern marital conditions are such that adultery expected under normal conditions and need not in the that

to

be

least

be

is

viewed as a deviant practice.

These are rather

startling conclusions;

and they are based on

what seem to be factual information. Current

lifestyles

encourage

these trends:

John

F.

Cuber, a respected researcher on marriage and di-

vorce, observes: It is

startling to realize

how many

millions of Americans live

for prolonged periods in foreign countries in connection with their professional

and occupational

roles.

And, of course, there

are the periods of travel for recreational purposes

—

particularly

where both husband and wife are employed and, sometimes by intent,

extended vacations are taken separately. Under these

we found that substantial numbers of contemporary Americans of the upper middle class consider themselves freed from the bonds of monogamy for the duration of their absence from home, although the expectation in such a case is that the encounter be a relatively brief one and not a sustained, meaningful relationship which may threaten the marriage.

conditions,

Increasingly,

adultery

is

neatly

organized.

Richard

Warren

Lewis reports on "The Swingers" of Southern California, by

which he means both married and single individuals (often the

mer

are linked with the latter)

who

constitute "a

for-

new breed of un-

abashed orgiasts and casual couplers." Says Lewis:

Los Angeles area alone, quite apart from The Swing, a dozen lonely-loins clubs charge male applicants up to $25 initiation fee, plus $5 monthly dues (girls are admitted free), for leads to like-minded members of the opposite and sometimes the same gender. Among the sex societies in and around Los Angeles: The Local Swinger, The In-Crowd, The Compatibles, The Exchange, The Group, Dial-A-Date Tonight and the best-organized of the lot. The Utopians, which boasts a In the

more than

—

—

ALMOST EVERYBODY

DOING

IS

IT

/

membership of some 200 swapping couples and 1 800 swinging singles, male and female, who preach as well as practice the 1

club's

winking motto: "Let's keep

the ultimate in sign language ers

—

In addition to a

in touch."

telephone introduction service, each

member

furnished with

is

triangular-shaped

bumper

stick-

whose arrangement of yellow borders designates a particular

category.

Some

monogamy

is becoming more the M. Lewis of the department of Southwestern Medical School, in his paper, "The Fam-

authorities believe that

exception, not the rule. Dr. Jerry psychiatry, ily

Physician and the Evaluation of Marital Infidelity," contends:

"Fidelity, like thrift

and

chastity,

may be

a disappearing value."

TV

Dr. Joyce Brothers, the famous psychologist and estimates: "Infidelity has risen in Kinsey's

day

to an estimated

from 50 percent of the married men 75 percent today."

While the prevalence of group sex tus of the participants

is

difficult to

in their

gest that there are about

book. The Groupsex Tapes, sug-

two and a half million people

United States, mostly nice married couples,

who

From

interviews with

cago area he concluded that

more than

in greater

just

Group 280 swingers

enjoy group sex. Gilbert Bartell, author of similar assessment.

gauge, the sta-

well documented. Herbert F. Margolis

is

and Paul M. Rubenstein,

personality,

in the

happen

to

Sex, arrived at a

Chi-

in the

Chicago alone probably

group

eight thousand couples regularly practice

Dr. Stephen Neiger, a well-known psychiatrist

who

also

sex.

made

intensive studies of mate-swappers, reports:

All ages are represented, from the late teens to the seventies. met a would-be swapper couple, both of whom were well over seventy! I met university professors and laborers. By and large, I found mate-swappers tended to be rather up-scale in education and income. I found teachers, lawyers, physicians, psychologists, anthropologists, writers, one minister, one psychoanalyst, executives, and businessmen among the mate-swappers I studI

ied. Practically all studies

higher

educational

level

confirm

my

findings that despite their

recreational

swingers

tend

to

be

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

8

respectable, solid citizens.

A

surprisingly large majority hold

conservative views.

For many years, studies have shown that premarital and extramarital relations were

more common among

cans, including both whites to

show

that middle-class

and upper-class Americans are becom-

ing sexually freer, particularly about adultery.

development

is

lower-class Ameri-

and blacks; now studies are beginning

well explained by Dr.

The cause of

this

Theodore N. Ferdinand,

professor of sociology, and anthropology at Northeastern University:

... ica

a large part of the revolution in sexual behavior in

Amer-

can be attributed to two fundamental changes in the Ameri-

can social structure. First, a very large segment of the middle and upper classes are now exposed to a social milieu, that is, the large state university, in which sexual relationships have become a preeminent aim of virtually all its members. With the

among these classes, the ascetic way to a frankly hedonistic relations have become the keystone. The

spread of higher education

ethos of their ancestors has given

one in which sexual upper-upper class has endorsed a humanist, expressionistic ethos since its emergence in America in the post-Civil War period, and life in the lower classes seems to have continued relatively unchanged since the Industrial Revolution. Thus, the spread of higher education among the middle and upper classes has been a crucial factor in the American sexual revolution. A second factor is the extraordinary growth in the relative size of the middle classes in the American social structure. There is general agreement that the broad shift from blue-cOllar to white-collar jobs in the occupational structure and the general rise in real income has produced a much broader middle class in America, with the result that a much larger proportion of the population has progressively come under the influence of its life style. Hence, as the middle classes have changed their evaluation of sexuality, they have also embraced a broader share of the American people, producing what appears to be a sexual revolution.

ALMOST EVERYBODY

DOING

IS

V

IT

This widespread prevalence of adultery

is

hardly limited to

North America. Dr. Hugo Beigel, psychotherapist and editor of

The Journal of Sex Research,

What many people do

tells us:

not

know

is

that marriage per se does

not necessarily include the expectation of premarital chastity or marital fidelity, except in our culture. Not only do

we know of

cultures where marriage does not include sexual privileges be-

tween husband and wife, but we know also of the Muria in Shilong, India, for instance, where promiscuity is enforced. In the village of Kambaramba on the Sepik River in New Guinea, a whole population lives on the prostitution of wives and daughters. The men there prefer to marry women who already have it guarantees a better economic status. SimiArab groups along the trade routes of the Southern Sa-

female children; larly,

hara iend' their wives to merchants and passing camel drivers

—

money. Their marriage customs serve their survival. Arab nations, hospitality requires a host to offer his wife to an honored guest or a good friend. Children of such casual unions are thought to be of superior breed, since they have been bred from superior motives. As the honor is mutual, a for

In other

man

rarely sires his wife's offspring.

his friends' wives

and

his friends

Newsweek magazine informs

Rather he impregnates

impregnate

us that

"much

his.

to the

envy of many

a Westerner, the middle-class Japanese has traditionally enjoyed

the social

freedom of keeping a mistress without much

career and marriage.

A

risk to his

survey conducted by a leading weekly

magazine shows that 58 percent of some 260 executives admitted

—

and the number may be considerably higher. 'Among my close acquaintances at the golf club,' asserts one Tokyo executive, \ know of no one who does not have a

they had mistresses

mistress.' "

According to Sexology magazine, "as high as seventy

per cent of

all

Japanese husbands have sex relations with

other than their wives. Professor Shinichi

women

Asayama of Osaka Mu-

nicipal University has estimated."

Dr. Fernando Henriques, an international authority on sexual

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

10

behavior and a lecturer that those

ain

who

at

Leeds University

criticize the

would better take a look

valleys,

where wives are

in

England, points out

"new morality" of youngsters

still

at

what

still

is

happening

in Brit-

in

Welsh

being exchanged according to an old

nineteenth-century pattern of the Yorkshire mining communities,

where workers

permit their wives to have sexual relations

still

with bachelors. Noting that there has always been "quiet defiance"

of the rules of sexual morality by a considerable number of people in

Great Britain, Dr. Henriques reports: "That quiet defiance has

now become mous book,

and loud."

articulate

Professors Clellan

S.

in their fa-

Patterns of Sexual Behavior, reviewed the sexual

tudes and practices of ogists.

Ford and Frank A. Beach,

They concluded

1

atti-

85 different societies studied by anthropolthat only a small

number

— 16 percent — of

these societies restricted marital partners to a single mate, while the rest allowed various forms of polygamy; and of the small

ber requiring legal

monogamy,

less

num-

than one-third banned both

premarital and extramarital unions. At the same time. Ford and

Beach show, 39 percent of 139 goups studied actively approve of

some type of extra-mateship liaison. What with all these undeniable facts, innumerable authorities on sex, love, and marriage have come to the conclusion that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such extramarital unions; if anything, they had better be encouraged and sanctioned. Here are some typical opinions in this regard: Mervyn Cadwallader believes that adultery may well be a godsend to

many married

porary marriage untary

affection,

is

individuals in our culture because "contem-

a wretched institution.

of love

freely

given

It

spells the

end of vol-

and joyously received.

Beautiful romances are transmuted into dull marriages; eventually

becomes constricting, corrosive, grinding and deThe beautiful love affair becomes a bitter contract." John F. Cuber holds:

the relationship structive.

...

an alternate system should be a minimally-coercive system.

Individuals and pairs should be allowed wider choices than the

— ALMOST EVERYBODY

IS

DOING

IT

1 1

current de jure system grants, should be able to exercise these

choices with greater freedom of conscience,

and should be

obliged to observe less concealment and pretense than

now

the case.

The supporting

logic

is

usually

comes from the assessment

of the current situation in which countless persons of

ages

all

suffer the consequences of having incompatible ideologies

and

imposed upon them. And society suffers the collective problems which follow from these personal dilemmas, resentments, and impasses. Consequently, the proposed sex-marriage-family modes would be pluralistic; that is, not all married pairs, not all parent-child relationships, not all sexual conduct would be expected to be the same, since choices would be made variously among the alternatives offered. There would be built-in a recogrestrictions

nition that there are

many

kinds of mentalities on the subject of

much

marriage and sex, and child-rearing,

now

mentalities

and

sure,

among

as there are

many

extant regarding religion, esthetics, use of

That

political persuasion.

it

takes a

little

doing to

the various breeds should be obvious, but

if

we can

learn to do with varied religions, leisure plans, styles of

and

political ideologies,

ily-kinship

why

lei-

live

life,

not also varied sex-marriage -fam-

commitments and practices?

Dr. Herbert A. Otto concurs:

"We

are a pluralistic society

with pluralistic needs. In this time of change and accelerated so-

we should encourage innovation and experimentadevelopment of new forms of social and communal

cial evolution,

tion in the living."

Dr. in

Edward

the

C. Hobbs, professor of theology and hermeneutics

Graduate Theological Union and the Church Divinity

School of the Pacific, adds his voice to those

need for

strict

There

is

family unit.

monogamy

who

question the

within the marital relationship:

hardly any alternative to marriage as a basis for the

If this is the case, it should be seriously questioned whether the demands might not be lessened or altered in some way that could provide for a greater possibility of fulfillment and satisfaction of the needs which we have hitherto brought to

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

12

marriage, without losing the family-structure

Further, the

itself.

form of the question for us here is whether Christian theology itself might not provide some clues as to possible directions such modification might take. While it is possible to treat theology as thc>ugh it justified perpetuating the past and its forms (of marriage, as of everything else), we have already seen that this is an erroneous understanding of theology; indeed, if theology is rightly understood,

//

should be expected to take the lead

in

proposing constantly -new modes of expressing the understanding implicit in its relationship to what happens. (That this is more a judgment on the irresponsibility of theologians than a failure of the public to

understand rightly their

role.)

Dr. Leon Salzman, deputy director of Bronx State Hospital and clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of

New

icine in

well as

York, clearly indicates the propensity of

men)

to

engage

Med-

women

(as

and to be able to gain

in adulterous affairs

by them: There appears

to

be

little

evidence to support the notion that

biologically the female tends to be

more

loyal

her partner in spite of her role as mother.

woman

is

"naturally"

more

faithful to her

and dedicated to

To

mate

say that the

for reasons of

being more intrinsically dependent and insecure requires the validation of a historical era in which

women

well as political liberation and child rearing

have economic as

community woman. Inti-

a

is

function rather than the sole responsibility of the

macy, love, tenderness, and loyalty are not the exclusive property of either sex. Circumstances may favor these in one sex when it rewards loyalty and punishes infidelity. But it is yet to be demonstrated that liberation of the female will not only extend her potential for more constructive and expansive living but also allow her some of the normal and neurotic excesses heretofore permitted only to the male. Dr. Sidney sity

M. Jourard, professor of psychology

at the

Univer-

of Florida and past president of the American Humanistic

Psychology Association, regards the recognition of pluralism marriage and other sex affairs as nothing

less

than essential:

in

ALMOST EVERYBODY

DOING

IS

13

IT

Polygyny, polyandry, homosexual marriages, permanent and temporary associations, anything that has been tried in any time

and place represents a possible mode for existential exploration by men and women who dare to try some new designs when the conventional pattern has died for them. Not to legitimize such experimentation and exploration is to make life in our society unlivable for an increasing proportion of the population.

Mrs. Virginia Satir

flatly

deplores

The marriage contract ...

as

it

monogamy stands,

is

as unrealistic:

potentially inhu-

man and anti-human, and works against the development of love, trust, and connectedness with other human beings. It is made with the apparent assumption that the conditions present at its inception will continue without change for eternity. This asks people to be wiser than they possibly can be. Dr. Victor Kassel of the University of Utah Medical School and Dr. George

Rosenberg, professor of sociology

S.

at

Case Western

Reserve University, argue that since so many older

Western

civilization are being left

some form of poly-

becoming almost mandatory

is

these older citizens. Says Dr. Rosenberg: ''Not only do

any age have lower mortality rates than men, but their

more

rapidly.

We

creasing surplus of older

women

in the population

tancy

increasing

is

surprising, then, that in recent years in alternate

in

unmarried and unattended sex-

ually today because males tend to die earlier,

gyny or extramarital liaisons

women

shall

much

for

women life

at

expec-

continue to see an in-

...

interest has

It is

not

developed

forms of the family for the aged."

Dr. Gerhard Neubeck, director of the Minnesota Family Study

Center

at the

adultery

is

University of Minnesota, pinpoints one reason

a sensible practice for

Marriage cannot serve spouses

at

implicitly

all

—

times.

many meet

to

Many

will leave to outsiders,

all

of the

needs of both

marriage partners define

certainly discreetly

why

spouses:

— what

at

least

area of satisfactions they

and they are not only not disturbed that

outsiders serve in this capacity, but probably relieved that they

themselves are not called upon to have to address themselves to

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

14

each and every need or

whim

of their mates. In this sense the

extramarital relationship becomes a supplement to the marriage

The "extra" no longer

relationship.

refers to the geographical

outside, but to something additional.

Dr.

Joseph Fletcher, professor

School

at

in

the

Episcopal Theological

Cambridge, Massachusetts, explains why adultery

is

by

no means necessarily wrong or immoral: There

some

is

cases

nothing against extramarital sex as such, and in is

it

good

.

.

.

tionships are positive. Sex

The Christian is

criteria for sex rela-

a matter of certain ideals of rela-

These ideals are based upon a certain belief about who man is, and destiny. Therefore, if God, people do not embrace that, and most don't, there is no reason that they should live by it, and most do not. It is time we faced up to this. If true happiness means a marital monopoly, then let those who believe in it recommend it by reason and example. Nothing is gained by condemning the unbeliever. Indeed, to condemn him is much more unjust, unmoral than a sexual esca-

tionships.

Christ, the church,

pade. Dr.

Warden Pomeroy, one

of the original

members of

the Kin-

sey research team and former president of the Society for the Scientific

Study of Sex and the American Association of Marriage

and Family Counselors, considers adultery

to

be no worse a form

of extramarital companionship than tennis or any other activity: Here's a

man who

enjoys

some

particular activity. Let's say

playing tennis. His wife despises tennis and doesn't want to get

happy

have her husband play tennis with may be, and he does this openly and with her knowledge. Does the sexual context of the involved, but she

another

man

or

is

woman,

to

as the case

extramarital intercourse give this something special or different

than you would get under the tennis example?

Morton Hunt,

in the

epilogue to his carefully researched and

well-written book, The Affair, concludes:

ALMOST EVERYBODY

IS

DOING

15

IT

ethic for our time would be an answer to the dilemma of infidelity a set of answers. The mature and emotionally healthy individual, taking into account his own needs, those of his mate and children, and the probable effects of his acts on all connected with him, can make a better choice for himself than can society. The most beneficial changes that could take place in our national sexual attitudes would include a still greater and more overt acknowledgment of the diversity of our emotional and sexual needs, and a far greater toleration of our varied ways of satisfy-

The most wholesome sexual

ethic of diversity, the best

ing them.

Dr. Russell V. Lee, founder of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic and a physician

who

has

made more than 250,000 house

calls in the

role of family doctor, told at conference at the University of Cali-

fornia Medical Center that "the male needs a long tether and the

wife

is

well advised to see that he gets

it.

Men

really suffer in

marriage more than do women," he noted, as he strongly advocated extramarital liaisons. Dr. O. Spurgeon English, a psychiatrist and former director of the

Department of Psychiatry

mous

at

Temple

University, wrote a fa-

article for the professional journal, Voices:

The Art and

Sci-

ence of Psychotherapy, in which he advanced adultery as a solution for

many of

response to his

the

normal problems of modern marriage. In

article, several professionals heartily

commended

him. Dr. Samuel Baron noted: It is

naive to assume that just a relationship, no matter

happy, will insure sexual compatibility or

fulfill

how

the frequency

needs of each partner, whether these needs are physiological, neurotic, or both.

judge? "It

is

Who

is

to appraise their nature?

Who

is

to

a matter of individual decision." Barry Stevens

me that marriage is an impossible situation. must promise to love each other, while marriage is based on possession, and love can exist only in freedom. Beautiful, couwrote: "It seems to

We

rageous, loving people

all

over are attempting the impossible

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

16

—

and feeling and putting so much constant energy into it because their marriage isn't what it

guilty, inadequate, a failure,

'should be.'

Of riage,

"

course, by no

means

all

modern commentators on

sex,

mar-

and the family see the disadvantages and impracticalities of

unadulterated affairs.

They

monogamy and clearly

consequently espouse extramarital

Many

don't.

Levin, Rebecca Liswood, and

fashioned view that although affairs

may

Max

such as

conservatives,

Vance Packard

follow the old-

still

well be increasing they

are not necessary, are highly inimical to marriage, and should be

and squelched. Usually, these

violently fought against

own

their

very

fish to fry, are

realistic.

And

have

they are becoming a minority.

Extramarital adventure this

antis

not particularly objective, and are hardly

is

certainly here to stay.

By

the end of

century the vast majority of American males and the distinct

some

majority of American females will engage in adultery at

time during their

lives;

about non-Americans

all

and the same can be

said,

more or

less,

over the world.

Extramarital liaisons, therefore, are no small problem. They constitute major issues

and hassles for millions of "normal" and

neurotic people. Although

many

—

indeed, perhaps too many!

guidebooks for marital adventure and even premarital exist today, serious

existent. Is this a

manuals for adulterous unions are

mere oversight? Or

is it

all

—

affairs

but non-

a form of sexual defen-

siveness and censorship? This book, at any rate,

nondefensiveness and anti-censorship. People

who

is

an attempt

at

are contemplat-

ing (or are overtly engaging in) affairs need no longer be secondclass citizens. In the following pages,

some of the most

I

shall

crucial questions that they

do my best

commonly

to

answer

raise.

Kinds (and Degrees) of Extramarital Adventure

T .OU xou

ARE, ^

us suppose, in the market for an extramarital ad-

let

You know

venture; or at least you are considering the possibility.

— —

perfectly well

with yourself

your

for

get along with your

certainly wouldn't ily.

Your sex

And

if it

are

—

yes,

I

to

like

said adding

are your choices?

open

Your

fairly enjoyable.

you? What

well. You home and fam-

What kinds

routines are

life

something

—

soft of people

be honest

not exactly

is

mate reasonably

be divorced from your

comes along without too many

adverse to adding

What

is

to

But you frankly would

fortable.

more.

life

want

real effort to

and absolute monogamy

that utter

You

taffy.

you keep making a

it

to

else,

hassles,

com-

something

you are not

your existence.

of extramarital adventure

go

for,

and are inclined to

be happy with, the different possibilities? Which one of the potential

opportunities would be better

ridden,

and

more

practical

—

— more

for

you?

enjoyable, less hassleLet's

give

this

some

thought.

OCCASIONAL AFFAIRS Occasional, pairings of the stay.

You

yourself,

just

who

light

affairs

are

usually unplanned,

spontaneous

moment. You go out of town for a relatively brief happen to run into a person, probably as married as is

charming, bright, attractive

in

a different

way 17

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

18

from your mate. You dine, walk, or are thrown into some together.

Somehow, before you know

it,

activity

you get turned on; so

does he or she. With or without the help of some alcohol, you

your conversation

finish

sexually, than exciting;

a gas.

it's

tantly say goodbye.

own

bailiwick, your to be able to

in

bed.

It's

An

hour, a day, or a

But you also want

week

to get

it's

later,

home

to

different,

novel;

you

it's

reluc-

your

own

mate. In fact, you wish you were lucky enough

your permanent partner about

tell

much

really not that

with your husband or wife. But

is

it

You

without threatening his or her security.

this lovely

episode

decide, usually, that

you're not quite that lucky.

You

think of your lover quite a lot for a

You

affair has ended.

did,

though a

Maybe

it

it

week or two

that everything

after the

went the way

it

couldn't resume from time to time.

can; and you arrange to meet again, once in a

it

while, especially other.

happy

sad that

little

Maybe, even,

are

if

you happen

to live reasonably close to

really can't continue at

all.

So you

still

each

think of

it

occasionally, though with decreased intensity, and after a year or

two or more you hardly think of it any more. But it was was good. You definitely wouldn't want to have missed

nice; it.

it

You

wonder, with pleasurable anticipation, when anything so delightful will

happen

to

you again. You hope

it

won't be too long.

Occasional affairs such as these are commonplace.

When

half

the husbands and a quarter of the wives in the Kinsey studies ac-

knowledged fair,

that they

had had

at least

one overt extramarital

most of them meant that they had engaged

Why? Because

thing.

of

all

that the average spouse

seems

to

fit

most

tastes

Is

in this sort

of

the kinds of extramarital adventures

would

— and

disruption of the marriage

af-

like to have, the occasional is

one

the easiest to carry on without

itself.

there any particular type of individual

who would

like to

have an occasional affair? Probably not: for this type is universal. Marriage, for all its indubitable virtues and advantages, is relatively

monotonous,

is

routine. Occasional affairs, whether

out-of-town or home-town basis, are just about the opposite.

on an

KINDS (and degrees)

19

my

professional acquaintances, married happily

Listen to one of

for fifteen years, delighted father of

me

let

isn't

be honest. The

up

my

to

woman

wife in

—

were really flabby; she really didn't adore and that Jeanne and

had

two young teenagers: "Look:

was with on the seminar cruise many ways hell, almost none! Her breasts I

I

like

many

almost can't get enough of; and

spend two or three weeks with her, I'm sure

to

shitless.

But even her flabbiness was new,

get bored with her for the three days

when she comes

town

into

October. As long as

mind you

in sixteen years,

marriage

solidity of

is

if I

didn't

I

Nor

will

I

for a couple of days, as she plans next

see only a

I

And

together.

I

be bored

I'd

different.

we were

little

of her,

great.

— taught me:

But so

can probably go on

I

enjoying her forever. That's what this affair

had

of the sex things

—

the

one

first

nonmar-

the difference of

is

I've

the sameness and the

riage!"

So

who engages

in

occasional, one-night-and-that's-it or one-

night-every-once-in-awhile

type that

I

know

extramarital

of; practically

No

adventures?

every type, in

fact.

special

Liberals and

conservatives, the straitlaced and the perennial chasers, respect-

able citizens and

few mates

—

members of

the lowest socio-economic classes.

especially husbands who travel a good deal

what might be called a regular habit of

it.

Whenever they

chance, they're eagerly looking, always trying to

counter happen. this

Some

wives, even, plot and

make

A

— make get a

a casual en-

scheme

to arrange

kind of adventure: they regularly go to bars, for example, to

find

men

are

minding the kids

to pick

up and rush at

off to

home

bed with, while

or working

late.

their

husbands

These "regular"

one-night-standers constitute only a small proportion of married

and in some significant ways they are different from They are usually highly sexed, adventure-seeking, or fed up with the routines of marriage. Some of them have real problems: alcoholism, over-rebelliousness, withdrawal from the grim individuals,

the rest.

realities

But

of everyday living.

this,

to time

again,

is

the minority.

have extramarital

affairs,

Of and

the millions in

who from time

between such

affairs

go

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

20 back

much

have never

yet)

work and home

to the responsibilities of

are not

ity

different

most always been a

history, the

varietist

the female has been

somewhat

somehow managed

male of the species has

al-

and has arranged some kind of non-

marital releases for his urges, and in

has

(at least as

themselves engage in an extramarital adven-

let

Throughout human

ture.

the vast major-

life,

from the other millions who

less

many

cultures like our own,

driven to sex-love variety but

to get her share.

Now

that

we

are

becom-

ing more sexually honest and less hypocritical, the arrangement is more openly acknowledged and frequently acceptable to one's

mate than previously. But overtly or covertly, practically mal" spouses want occasional tend to have them.

The only

affairs,

and

surprising thing

all

"nor-

one way or another

in

is

we have only human relating.

that

recently been able to admit this obvious fact of

STEADY AFFAIRS when a married indimember of the other sex

Steady, often quite prolonged, affairs arise

vidual persistently sees one particular

who

very frequently

is

also legally married

— and

have sex (and commonly also love) relations with

this

continues to

person for a

period ranging from a few months to twenty or more years. Al-

though steady relationships of

mon

this

kind are by no means as com-

as occasional affairs, they are amazingly prevalent consider-

ing the difficulties that often have to be gone through in order to

keep them

alive.

Louise R., by way of illustration, has been having an affair with her boss for two years.

He and

she are both married; she has a

seven- and a nine-year-old daughter; he has five children, ranging

from four other.

to seventeen.

Louise and her boss

Even more important, both

than their legal mates and find

it

are

extremely

watchful eyes of these mates, to have as as they

would

like to have. If

like

and love each

much more

much

highly sexed

difficult,

under the

extracurricular sex

Louise stayed away from

one night a month, her husband would have a

fit.

home even If

her boss

KINDS (and degrees)

21

didn't pretty well account for

home,

his wife

would

all

practically

So, ostensibly, Louise

the time he stayed

commit

away from

suicide.

and her boss stay

at the office until

seven

o'clock every Tuesday for a "board meeting." If her husband or

happens

his wife

to call at that time, they are always available to

answer the phone. For the sofa

in his office is really a

and one of the always locked drawers

vertible bed;

Castro con-

desk

in his

contains quite an assortment of contraceptive and sexual devices.

Louise and her boss really don't like their arrangement too

and

much

more freedom by the circumstances of would marriages, they see each other occasionally, no doubt, they were allowed

if

their

but not as regularly as they do. But given the limitations places on them, they are only too

happy

out this well for them, and they enjoy each other as

How

can.

long their arrangement will continue

something better turns up for each of them,

more

it

is

life

working

that things are

much

as they

dubious. Unless

may go on

for

many

years.

Other steady

Joan Z. and for neither

other

affairs are frequently

Bill F., for

is

more amative than

example, barely make

sexual.

together sexually,

it

very sensuously inclined. But their feeling for each

so deep that for six years they have gotten together about

is

week

twice a

husband and

in a specially rented Bill's

wife are quite friendly, and would immediately

divorce their respective mates

What kind

apartment, even though Joan's

if

they learned of this affair.

of people tend to have steady extramarital affairs

with a single partner of the other sex? Several kinds, including these:

(1)

Individuals like Louise and her boss

who

are closely

watched by their mates and who somehow, often by sheer luck, just

manage

and

Bill

to find

who

one available

lover. (2) Individuals like

are deeply attached to each other and

Joan

do not con-

sider sex in general (or sex variety in particular) very important. (3)

Individuals

who have

finally

found an extramarital partner

who

is

least

very important) appeal to them

is

uniquely suited to them sexually and whose main (or at

unusually good. (4) Individuals

is

that sex with this partner

who remain

legally or

conven-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

22 tionally mated, often for social or

they hardly care for and

fairs the real sex-love focus

who become

economic reasons,

who make

to a spouse

their steady extramarital af-

and locus of

their lives. (5) Individuals

just as neurotically attached to a steady lover as they

might become attached to a legal mate: a wife, for instance, has a considerate, stable husband

worm

such an undeserving

home

at

who

but

who

thinks she

remain adulterously

that she has to

who mainly

tached to an inconsiderate, unstable lover

is

at-

gives her a

hard time. Steady extramarital

other words,

affairs, in

or unhealthfully motivated.

Some people

—

may be healthfully women are

—

especially

just

enormously loving. Since they have no trouble whatever lov-

ing

two or three

easily can, as

attractive

males

at a

pointed out a good

I

time

many

— and

a

human being

years ago in The Ameri-

can Sexual Tragedy, truly love two or more members of the other sex simultaneously

— they

naturally and quite maturely carry

on a

steady extramarital relationship while also giving considerably of

themselves

to

especially

men

two people to their business

mate

their

—

and

their

children.

Other people

neurotically need (or think they need!) at least

flatter

them

and one

at the

same time

—

one, for example, for

for their sexual prowess. People's motives

for having steady affairs, similar to their motives for having occa-

sional ones, differ widely.

SECRET AND OPEN AFFAIRS Most extramarital adventures have been,

in

Western "civilized" countries

at least until recently, secret

or undercover. Married

individuals are usually afraid that their spouses, relatives, friends,

business associates, or children will discover that they are having liaisons

on the

side;

partners

— who

themselves

also learn to

—

may be

single

afraid, their sex-love

and unencumbered

keep their mouths shut about the details of their

adulterous ventures. the eye

and because they are

or ear

—

Much more

goes on

in this respect

of the objective onlooker.

than meets

Considering what

KINDS (and degrees)

some of

23

the real risks are in this connection, discretion usually

is

the better part of valor: so that even the sexually most liberated

among

us often learn to keep our big mouths shut.

Dr. Joseph B., for example, was a fairly well-known anarchist, the leader of a small group of socio-economic libertarians

whose

publications frequently opposed the concept of the nuclear family

and espoused the virtues of

''free

never legally

numerous

girlfriends,

Although he was not

in the least

his

fairly

them, he never mentioned these rarely

was seen with them

ashamed of

homes or ever

Why? Because he

to his friends,

and made sure that he

in public places,

their family affairs.

get involved with

recognized and accepted the

husbands and associates would probably take a

reality that their

dim view of

his relationships with

women by name

them

so.

Among

were formally married.

several

didn't call or write

at their

He

love" or extramarital unions.

married and had no intention of doing

their affairs with him,

might well penalize the

women

because of their prejudices, and might possibly even vindictively try to

punish him for his relations with them. Out of sheer practi-

cality, therefore,

than

many

he was quieter about his extramarital adventures

a hardshelled Republican

would

be. Largely as a result

of his discretion, neither he nor his paramours got into any culties

and he continued his undercover

affairs until

diffi-

he reached a

ripe old age.

Does

this

mean

that a wise person

who

lives

our society

in

should invariably keep quiet about his extramarital liaisons? Not necessarily.

The new

morality, which

is

adhered to by

at least a

minority (but an increasing minority) of the population, says

al-

most the opposite of the old morality: namely, that lying and hypocrisy about extramarital affairs

is

horseshit and that the only

decent and marriage-promoting thing to do

is

to be completely

honest with oneself and one's mate and have affairs,

all right,

with his or her full knowledge and acceptance, like the couple

came in They

to see

me

a

who

few months ago.

didn't really have a problem, but

their future

but

married

life in

had decided

to

conduct

a highly unconventional way, and they

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

24

just

wanted

to see

if

I

way was crazy

felt that this

their best friends clearly did.

He was

—

as

some of

twenty-four and she was

They had been married, and quite happily for the most part, for four years. They had both thought of having extramarital adventures during this time, but had decided not to do so twenty-three.

yet

— mainly

because they

felt that

the other

would then had

would be seriously

good marital relationship

hurt in the process and because their

So, without even consulting each other, they

suffer.

both refrained.

Then, somehow, they had a distinct extramarital desires,

do about them. Neither one their marriage

wanted

to

felt that

he or she had to go beyond

bed sexually, and both agreed that they could,

forego

necessary,

admitted that they each had

talk,

and discussed what they could best

all

extramarital

activities.

if

But they honestly

have them, and what could be done about that?

After a good deal of further rapping together, they agreed that they both would have outside affairs. Not immediately

mind

ther had anyone special in

— but one

—

since nei-

of these days. They

faced the matter squarely, brought everything out in the open,

made

their little pact,

had nothing further

and

felt

to hide.

what extent should they

tell

immensely relieved now

that each

But then another question arose:

to

one another not only that something

had occurred with another partner but what that something was.

Everyone they talked with about that had the same suggestion: "Don't, for god's sake absolutely don't, tails!

that's

tell

each other the gory de-

Say you went out; say you had sex with someone it

—

don't go further than that!

no one, can

really take

more than

No

else;

loving mate, and

I

but

mean

that."

Despite their friends' unanimity, Jon and Andree violently disagreed. "Look," Jon earnestly told me, "that's exactly what

we

don't want, what these friends are telling us, to try desperately to

keep the other from getting it

got us nowhere.

want

And we

to get over that stuff.

tried that bit before

and

don't believe in that kind of 'hurt.'

We

'hurt.'

We

We've

want

to

grow

—

to reach the point

where we're not hurt when the other one does something sexual.

25

KINDS (and degrees)

And we want

grow together

to

sexual jealousy thing love each other and

—

to help each other see that this

crap, just sheer crap, and that people can

is

much

very

still

"Yes," Andree joined

enjoy outside affairs."

"we

in,

don't want

the usual way.

it

That's not really growing to us, especially growing together.

want

others in our lives. lives,

Not

And

not just our outside lives

We

our lives with each other.

thing, nor

Not is

yet, at least.

Jon.

tells

me,

'I

we

And we may

really

never be.

'

Mary

did with like her

wet

know what

enough

for me.

— and how

kisses,

We may we

I

is

want

want

to

have

it

we had a nice know more of what he it.

Did he

really

dry ones? Did she do any-

thing special to please him, that I've never done yet? can, about Jon; and

I

to

doing. If Jon merely

he reacted as he did

my

always have our

also

night and

last

even more than

learn more, everything

inside

with us.

foursomes or anything

the other

went out with Mary

screw,' that's not

in

don't think I'm ready for that sort of

I

sex privately, with one other person. But together; so

— our

want the others

that we're going to try threesomes or

like that.

»

We

develop so we can stretch our sexual horizons, include

to

how

will

I

I

want

to

ever learn

up at the thought of his mentioning just what he did some other girl and just how he felt about it? I can't!" "Yeah, and it's so damned hypocritical, what we usually do!"

if I

shrivel

with

John agreed. "Andree's

if I

had a

talk

about philosophy with Mary, Andree would want to

know

just

hit

what Mary said and how ent?

How

I

just right. After

it

reacted to

it.

Why

all,

should sex be differ-

can people really reach each other, know each other

if

they must keep their sexual reactions to other people so shushed

up? As Andree bush stuff for

men

None

said, they can't!

us.

I

want

to

know

she goes with. That way,

of this beating around the

everything Andree does with the

can be with her more, really know

I

her more." Frankly,

I

was more than a

little

surprised. I'd been through

just the opposite thing with sexually liberated

times before

—

in civilized

adultery (a term

that

is,

I

couples quite a few

observed them make agreements to engage I

coined some years ago to describe

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

26

arrangements where both participants are entirely

extramarital

open and aboveboard) where they deliberately stipulated that they would not tell each other any of the details of their outside affairs.

And rd couples

also

been through several sessions with liberal-minded

who had

kissed others and told; in most of these instances

one or both the mates

just couldn't take the telling

they had fairly easily agreed on the kissing. So

I

even though

had generally

concluded, by observing these kinds of open extramarital arrangements, that silence was indeed often golden, and that not too

many

partners could listen comfortably to a detailed narrative of the other's affairs.

This was not in the least the feeling If

I

got with Jon and Andree.

ever saw a couple really well equipped to have outside rela-

I

tionships with the full consent and detailed knowledge of the other

mate, this was such a couple. They asked plan would work, and

would, order.

in spite

of

its

They seemed

to

I

me

if

I

frankly answered that yes,

thought their I

thought

it

general inadvisability in our present social

be rare exceptions to the general rule; so

definitely thought they could

make

it

on the unusual

I

level they

outlined.

Well, so far

I

have proved to be

right.

A

report from Jon and

Andree, some three months after they had started what they called their

"new growing edge on

life,"

and when each of them had had

outside affairs with two different partners, seemed to

show

that

they were capable of ruthless sexual honesty. At their follow-up sessions they greatly enjoyed the details of each other's adven-

they were working through their original feelings of selfdowning and hurt, they felt that they had learned as much about

tures,

life

and love from hearing about the other's relationships

had learned from having new ones of

their

as they

own, and they were

looking forward to an indefinite continuation of their unique experiment. to

I

predict they will go on growing like this for

some time

come.

The two extremes of hidden and described hardly cover the

field

overt extramarital affairs just

of possibilities. For more centu-

27

KINDS (and degrees)

ries

than some people would like to imagine, a good

many spouses

have taken the middle ground: both husbands and wives have

known

full

well about their mate's sexual infidelity, but have pre-

ferred to ignore

occurred. Here

my

married

"You

completely and often pretend that

it

between

a typical conversation

is

it

has never

me and one

of

clients:

say that you and your husband can't seem to agree about

your daughter's going to school?"

we

''No,

or not.

I

can't.

He

doesn't think

important whether she goes

it

think she needs the best education she can get and should

definitely finish college."

"But on other things you do agree?" "Oh,

yes.

I'd

we have a pretty good marriage. We have a common. We like to do things together. We

say

good many friends

in

rarely quarrel."

"How

about sex?"

"Forget

We

it.

haven't had

it

years.

in

But

really not a

it's

problem."

"What do you mean "It really isn't.

We

it's

just don't

we ever did. and who is quite

don't think years,

I

make

it

and

together, that way;

have a boyfriend,

whom

satisfactory sexually.

But

I've that's

And he has several girlfriends woman who works in his office."

mainly sex between

one married

not a problem?"

us.

"And do you both openly know about each

—

had

I

for it's

it:

especially

other's affairs

and

we

just

don't 'know.'

We

even talk about them together?" "Well, not exactly.

We

dogs

lie.

know

We We find

don't say anything about just let sleeping

both

This frequently occurs

it.

in

what's going on. But

'know' and it

to

we

be better that way."

Western marriage. One or both mates

teen-year-old

— but keep daughter and seventeen-year-old son — know. But no

one

mentions the extramarital arrangements. This now-

knows

perfectly well

quiet about

it.

officially

Even

what the other

the children

—

is

doing

prefers to

in this particular case, a nine-

you-see-it-and-now-you-don't "acceptance" of sexual infidelity

is

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

28

common

probably more

than most people suspect.

often contin-

It

ues for years; and, unless something special occurs (such as the

making an

jealous mate of one of the "outside" partners finally issue of

what

is

occurring), no one usually seems

to be

harmed by

it.

Doesn't

it

seem

whether

to matter, then,

affairs are

conducted

in a partly

open, fully honest, or completely underground manner?

Of course

it

does; sometimes

dishonesty, as

I

it

matters greatly. Thoroughgoing

point out in Sex Without Guilt, can be particu-

good marital relationship:

larly inimical to a

"In general, the risks one takes in committing adultery behind

same

one's mate's back are the

major unilateral move. Thus,

new

risks

one takes

in

making any

one invests the family savings

if

in a

Cadillac, or accepts a job in Alaska, or decides to discontinue

the use of contraceptives without informing one's mate, one

is

hardly being maritally cooperative, and risks his or her severe displeasure.

"By

the

same token,

if

one

is

secretly adulterous,

one

is

usually

not being too cooperative with one's mate, and therefore risks his or her eventually discovering this fact and being highly displeased (not to mention hysterical) about

Quite aside, then, from the

it.

sexual aspects of adultery, which are highly emphasized and exag-

gerated in our particular society, the secret commission of any

major act with which one's mate

is

one's relationship with this mate,

concerned

is

bound

and usually to

to affect

affect

it

ad-

versely.

"This, then, would tery itself

and

its

seem

to

be the major issue here: not adul-

so-called moral consequences, but the conse-

quences of being dishonest with one's mate, and through dishonesty risking an impedance or destruction of mutual

this

trust,

confidence, and working partnership." All things being equal,

it

is

highly probable that honest extra-

marital liaisons are better than dishonest ones and that semi-honest

ones are probably somewhere

in

between. But the problem

that all things practically never are equal.

One mate who

is

loves

— 29

KINDS (and degrees)

everything but sex with, whit

if

he lays

fifty

let

us say, her husband doesn't care a

different girls a year, as long as he doesn't

spend too much time away from her and the children

happy

In fact, she's genuinely

desires

manages

in

doing

so.

to satisfy his sex

elsewhere and doesn't resentfully miss having relations

with her. first

that he

Another mate, who has

just as little sex interest as this

one, bitterly resents her husband's even looking at any

and raises holy

when she thinks he

is

woman

him, her family, and the whole world

hell with

doing

so.

Under these conditions

are obviously far from being equal!

—

the

first

— which

husband would

probably be foolish not to have open affairs and the second one

would be behaving that he

idiotically if

he so much as hinted to his wife

was having them.

This doesn't

mean mates cannot be

sexually repropagandized or

gradually trained. Fortunately, they often can be! John T.,

once

split a

who

gut at the very idea of his wife's having wet pants

when watching certain male movie stars, now calmly baby-sits with their two children every Friday night while she is visiting with her ten-year-younger lover. Rhoda J., who just couldn't think of either her or her husband having affairs, now enjoyably makes the orgy scene with him every few weeks or so. So extramarital sex that was once verbally and actively swept under the rug can sometimes

later, especially

with persistent persuasion on the part

of one of the spouses, be openly acknowledged and performed

own home. The only rule, today, be no invariant rule. One couple's cup of tea is swig of bitters. Any choices that you and your

occasionally even in the couple's is

that there can

another couple's

mate make

in this respect

had better be your own!

OPEN MARRIAGE What I have called civilized adultery can also be nicely subsumed under the broader term, open marriage, which Nena and George O'Neill have made a popular topic of discussion bestselling

book by

that

name. Not that they have been the

in their first

to

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

30

espouse the concept. The famous (and infamous) American Claflin sisters essentially

Havelock

tury.

advocated

and

Ellis

middle of the nineteenth cen-

in the

it

his wife, Edith,

had a viable open marBertrand Russell

riage in the early part of the present century.

championed

it

which appeared Dr.

Ben Ard,

in

his

well-known book, Marriage and Morals,

in the 1920's. in

a 1967 paper on

"How

to

Avoid Destructive

implied an open marriage solution to this

Jealousy," strongly

problem. Dr. Carl Rogers,

in the early 1970's,

noted that "the

at-

titude of possessiveness, of owning another person, historically has

dominated sexual unions and Dr.

Robert N. Whitehurst,

1970,

is

in

likely to be greatly diminished."

a paper originally presented in

"Violence Potential in Extramarital Sexual Responses,"

outlined both the advantages and difficulties of open marriage

and concluded: Recently Jessie Bernard has raised the question of the rela-

permanence and exclusivity within a marriage. She notes is toward the choice of exclusivity in a pair relationship at the expense of permanence. It may more logically be concluded that we would do better to consciously strive to reverse this state of affairs, that is to encourage permanence in the pair relationship but to set some structures so that we will tion of

that the trend

not always expect exclusivity.

The

rationale for this

straightforward and simple one; since

we seem

a fairly

is

to drift

from one

paired relationship to another with increasing divorce,

it

may

be better to attempt to realistically strive for reality expectations within marriage

cannot be

fulfilled

and get those things outside of

it

which

within instead of breaking up marriages on

suffers

making a new marriage which from the same kind of probabilities of break up.

Many

authorities

the basis of infidelity and then

on marriage, such

as those just quoted,

set the stage for the O'Neills' forceful case for

Nena and George O'Neill have and views of this.

not only incorporated the materials

their predecessors; they

They have

have

open marriage. But

assertively defined

have creatively gone beyond

open marriage

as

"an honest

31

KINDS (and degrees)

and open relationship between two people, based on equal free-

dom and

identity of both partners.

It

involves a verbal, intellectual

and emotional commitment to the right of each vidual within the marriage riage that

.

.

.

grow

to

What we propose

in

a complete revision from within the marriage

is

as an indi-

open mar-

—

a revision

depends upon the two people involved, not upon what has

been traditional

in the past."

Although they do not especially emphasize the sexual aspects of nonexclusive marital arrangements, the O'Neills hardly mini-

mize these phases. They unequivocally

state:

jealousy has any place in open marriage. prevalent in closed marriage does not

mean

"We do

The

not believe

fact that

that love

it

is

so

and sex must

always be accompanied by this dark shadow."

They

what they

also espouse

call

open

love:

Open love similarly builds upon itself, expands itself. Once you have freed yourself of the false idea that love is limited, once you have begun to give openly of your love, you will find that your capacity to give will grow continually greater. The concept of limited love holds that love is like money; the more you spend the less you have. And so love is hoarded. But the giving of love is not like spending money, it is like investing it. The more you invest, the more you get back. The rich get richer because money creates money. But love also creates love. The more you give, the more you receive and are capable of receiving; the more you have, the more you are capable of giving. Finally, they put sexual fidelity in the

framework of open mar-

riage:

Sexual fidelity

whom

is

reasons and often at

god

is

god to wrong the cost of the very relationship which that

the false god of closed marriage, a

partners submit (or

whom

supposed to protect. Sex

sioned in terms of

fidelity,

they defy) for

in the closed

all

the

marriage

is

envi-

thus becoming the be-all and end-all

of love, instead of being seen in

its proper perspective as only one facet of the much larger reality of love. Fidelity in the

closed

marriage

is

the

measure of limited

love,

diminished

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

32

growth and conditional trust. This fixation in the end defeats its own purpose, encouraging deception, sowing the seeds of mistrust and limiting the growth of both partners and so of the love

between them. Fidelity in

its

root meaning, denotes allegiance and fealty to

a duty or obligation. But love

and sex should never been seen

terms of duty or obligation, as they are

They should be seen together, as they are in

And

is

presently

more of

that Phyllis

a concept than a

Raphael describes

autobiographical novel. They Got What They Wanted,

"And when he

have her and his her

if

girl

and enjoyed

open marriage.

The kind of marriage

popular:

in

closed marriage.

as experiences to be shared

open marriage

still:

reality.

in

in

is still

her

most

tentatively suggested to her that he could

she cried and screamed that he didn't love

he could propose such a thing because she thought that

when you

someone you wanted only that person and she knowing that he didn't want her love only her." But open marriages are becoming more love

couldn't bear the rest of the world

enough

to

prevalent, as a Life magazine article

ments showed

They

will,

as described

in the spring of I

on The Marriage Experi-

1972.

wager, increase in the future! Civilized adultery,

and upheld

in the present

book,

and may take over tomorrow. Preferably, eral context of

sound;

it is

I

is

increasing today,

hope, within the gen-

open marriage. The O'Neills' book

is

not only

also prophetic. Meanwhile, extramarital adventure can

occur and bring good results even within closed marriages

some of the

rules to be described in this

—

if

book are followed!

SWINGING GROUPS Swinging groups come into being when a number of couples, some of them married and some not, get together at clubs, parties, dances, or other kinds of gatherings and arrange to swap mates. Sometimes premises are immediately at hand for swapping; sometimes only dates are made and the swapping couples later meet in

KINDS (and degrees)

own homes

their

33

or a motel to engage in the actual swinging.

Swingers also arrange to meet with and exchange partners with each other through the mail, by telephone, and in various other

The essence of swinging or mate-swapping generally

ways.

opposed they

to orgies, that

swap

partners,

all.

Spouse-swapping of

generally casual and promiscuous

Group

—

this

kind

Sex.

What kinds of people go ually "liberated" but

to

swinging groups?

who may have They

They are more interested sex than in anything else. letting their sex

adventurists;

— and

Not

all

in lov-

in

ri-

looks and in the physical aspects of

And

they have no serious intention of

escapades interfere in any way with their mar-

These

are, in a sense, true sex

and a somewhat different kind of sexual experience,

in a setting far

want

hangup

their extramarital adventures.

riages or with the rest of their lives.

ple,

are sex-

virtually every other

are quite unspontaneous and almost

ways they carry on

tualistic in the

removed from

their regular lives,

is all

they seem

get.

swingers are in the same category as the

almost stereotyped group.

Bartell's

Suprisingly

who

man. These people are not particularly interested

to

ing or even relating.

to

therefore

is

as Gilbert Bartell points out

enough, rather conservative, bourgeois individuals

known

as

and they usually see each other again only oc-

casionally, or not at

in

is,

one couple somehow meets another couple,

I

a professor of physics at one of the

who has been married

members of

personally know, for exam-

New York

universities

for thirteen years to the personnel director

of a large national corporation; they have a nine- and a ten -year-old

daughter school. lived

who

are getting along very well in a fashionable private

For the

first

ten years of their married

life,

this

couple

most conventionally, copulated with each other two or three

times a

week

in a satisfactory

manner, and got along better than

most couples of their socio-economic

class.

— another couple of — became mem-

Then, through two of their closest friends high academic and professional attainment

they

bers of a select swinging group. This group includes about eight

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

34

couples

— sometimes

old couples all

move

a

few more, sometimes one or two

or drop out and

new ones

less,

as

are invited to join

of them distinctly bright and knowledgeable. They usually get

They swap

together, by telephone arrangements, in groups of four.

mates

for the

day or evening, and they do so not only on a pure

same They then arrange to get together at some future time perhaps a few weeks hence. In between, they may go to dinner or the theater together, as a foursome. Or husband A and wife B, as well as husband B and wife A, may meet as couples for lunch, or speak over the phone to each other, or otherwise carry on the elesexual basis but often relate significantly to each other at the time.

ments of a friendship or mild love relationship. Occasionally, one of the husbands and one of the wives to

may become deeply

attached

each other for a while; but this kind of attachment rarely seems

primary marital and family

rela-

other words, does not have to be casual but

may

to interfere seriously with their

tionship.

Swinging,

be engaged

in

by selected groups, on a more consistent and more

in,

This type of swinging

relating basis.

is

frequently arranged by

who want some relief monogamous marriage but who

high-level, emotionally healthy individuals

from some of the monotony of

also are interested in sex-friendship or sex-love affairs rather than

purely sexual encounters. This does not

mean

that the

more casual

type of swinging has no value and that only screwballs engage in it.

For those who experiment and keep

trying,

it

value. Indeed,

most of the people who keep up

report that

is

it

ways. But for those

to go

who

back

to their pre-swinging

selective

who have

own kind

of sex-love varietism,

forms of mate-swapping can be arranged.

For almost two decades his wife

monogamous

just can't see the unselective type of

swinging as satisfactory for their

more

kind of thing

a distinct addition to their lives and that they

would not ever want

other and

clearly does have this

I

have known a leading playwright and

spent a considerable amount of time traveling

around the country switching mates with couples of their own intellectual and artistic level. If ever they write up their adventures,

35

KINDS (and degrees)

form, they will have some startling sto-

in fictional or nonfictional ries to tell!

Some

of the affairs they started years ago are

tant; and some of the emotional heights they reached

of these affairs have immeasurably added to their lives.

main personal reservation

I

still

in the

ex-

course

The one

have about their adventures

is

the

enormous amount of time and energy they have put into arranging their extramarital exploits. The number of other things they could have done had they been more monogamously inclined

is

enor-

mous! But then who

it

is

is

when

to say that life, especially

al-

ready enjoyably ordered, should be lived in any particular kind of

way?

THE ORGY SCENE Orgies are the most promiscuous and public kinds of sex imag-

From

inable.

three to several dozen people get together

them may be perfect strangers few hours engage

— usually

in

to

each other

— and

— most of

for the next

every kind of coital and extracoital activity

heterosexually

but sometimes homosexually

as

well.

Small orgies are frequently mate-swapping affairs where the couples, instead

tionships,

do

of adjourning to separate rooms to have private relatheir switching in the

Large orgies generally take place apartment, where

many people make

the afternoon or evening,

male) is

may

same room in

at the

same

time.

a sizable room, house, or it

together in the course of

and where one person (especially a

fe-

copulate with five or ten other people before the orgy

over.

What kinds of people go to orgies? Probably all kinds, these if we include the occasional customers. Most people are so

days,

curious about what goes on at an orgy, and

might make out

how

they personally

at one, that they are not too loath to getting in-

volved in one or a few of them; and from time to time during their lives they

may

repeat the original experience, with varying

degrees of satisfaction.

People

who go

in

for

a

considerable

amount of drinking or hash-smoking especially may wind up, on a

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

36 few occasions,

And

spontaneous orgy.

at a

cohol-laden parties continue apace, great majority of people

who

it

some time during

Consistent and planned orgy-going

who engage

body contact than

may be

al-

that the

frequent such affairs will have par-

ticipated in at least one sex orgy at

category. Those

pot-smoking and

if

eventually

in

it

is

their lives.

not exactly in the same

are usually

more

in socializing; they frequently

interested in

do not care what

individual they are physically intertwined with (and sometimes

even what the sex of that individual

hung up on proving

cally

is);

they

may

well be egotisti-

(especially if they are males)

how

great

they are sexually, and they are almost always clearly looking to

add

to their marital sex participations rather than to get involved

with specific

members of

the other sex and thereby perhaps to

jeopardize their marriages.

The orgy

scene, though at

first startling to

watch and engage

in,

and consequently an encourager of some amount of jealousy, usually

is

valuable.

well adjusted to by most couples

Here

is

who

a typical description by a

find

it

exciting and

husband who was

lured, almost against his will, into participating in a four-in-the-

same-bed deal with

his wife

and another married couple they

knew: "Well,

want cause

I

must say that

to start the thing I

was afraid

afraid of?'

up

one to get going, though that

it's

life,

was shocked all,

and

I

at first!

guess

I

I

wife, Jane, I

know

seemed

really didn't

only got into

to refuse. Joe kept saying, 'Look:

And my own

before in her

I

at

it

be-

what are you

just as eager as any-

she hasn't done anything like that

and usually she's so modest

in-

front of people

hard to get her to wear a bikini!

"Anyway, before

I

hardly

knew what was happening,

there

we

were on Joe and Barbara's big bed, naked and ready to go. was so preoccupied, at first, with what Joe was doing with Jane all

I

—

and especially with how she was ardently at least that's the way seemed to me returning his kisses and caresses, that I hardly knew what I was doing with Barbara, and I think I just sort of went through the motions mechanically of making love to her. it

—

Seeing your wife, after

all,

bouncing up and down under one of

— 37

KINDS (and degrees)

your best friends

seemed

And

something!

really

is

she certainly

boy,

to be bouncing!

seem to matter very much. And by that time I was really humping Barbara. Speak of wow, does she really have it! Once I was on top tits and an ass of her, with my head buried in her big boobs, I just forgot that "But then

got used to

I

It

it.

just didn't

—

Jane was even there. such circumstances

have come

which

—

never thought

I

but, boy, did

humping away every time It really was something!

it

was

it

I

I

must

last time;

again?'

it,

or anything like that, and

my

blood. But I'm sure

and Jane's already asking about 'When

The most amazing thing

wasn't jealous after the

our bodies

all

could see Joe and Jane

exactly want to soon again. For one thing,

just a little too exciting for

won't be the

can we do

I

I

had a second's breather with Barbara.

I

haven't arranged to continue

I'm not even sure that think

think

I

you know, the way

it:

touched from time to time; and the way

this

great!

within about twenty minutes

at least three times

thing very exciting about

I

was

never recall having done with Jane. There was just some-

I

"We

could lose myself under

I

It

I!

first

few minutes of

won't in the least be next time.

Come

it.

is,

however, that

And

to think of

it,

I

I'm sure that just because

I

way and I know that Jane feels exactly the same, that's what makes it seem so right to try again sometime. It just isn't

feel that

going to jeopardize Jane's and

one thing I'm absolutely sure the future.

And

my

of,

relationship at

learning that lesson, and

safely

have sex with other people for the

know,

I

knowing rest of

made

I

that's the it

that

our

guess that's one of the most valuable things

about myself. That alone really

all;

no matter who we do

with in

we can

lives

— you

ever learned

the entire experience worth

it."

COMMUNAL

LIVING

Perhaps the rarest kind of extramarital sexuality living,

is

communal

or what researchers Larry and Joan Constantine call co-

marital group sex.

Two,

three, four, or

more couples, sometimes

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

38

with some single individuals added, and often with a bevy of their

own

children,

together in a large house or apartment and

live

share not only sex partners but also expenses, domestic tasks, child-rearing,

and

the other major aspects of marital living.

all

These kinds of communes are not only

still

rare, but they fre-

quently reorganize or break up. Most couples find

it

exceptionally

any length of time, usually because of

difficult to live together for

nonsexual (rather than their specifically sexual)

difficulties. If

four

couples, for example, decide to live communally, and one of the

do her

eight people proves to be quite untidy, another just won't

share of the housework as originally agreed upon, and

still

another

begins to have extreme political differences with most of the other

members of

disharmony soon tends

group,

the

to

reign,

and

They

can!

sooner or later serious disruptions occur.

Not

As

I

that sex conflicts cannot be a real hassle, too.

point out in an essay,

tive?"

which

I

Search of a Future, society to find

it

hard enough for a

is

and who seems a

mestic

bliss.

others to

A

man

one member of the other sex

trusted

problem

"Group Marriage:

Possible Alterna-

wrote for Herbert Otto's volume. The Family

When

and

'marry'

to solve!

this

likely candidate for settling

man live

To make

or

woman

down

to do-

goes out to seek several

with simultaneously

things even

in

woman in our who can be fully or

more

— wow,

difficult,

I

what a

note:

manage to set up a group marand love problems are almost certain to arise among them. Thus, Jane may get so devoted to Harold that she only wants to be with him or to have sex with him alone. Or Bob may be perfectly potent with Helen and Mary, but not with Jane and Betty. Or Helen may be highly attractive If three

or four couples do

riage arrangement, sex

Or Betty may may want to have sex

to all the males, while the rest of the girls are not.

be the

least attractive of the

relations with the males

And

females and

more than

all

the other girls do.

so forth, and so on!

For reasons such as these, communal marriage as yet has not

worked very

well;

and although we now have many more people

39

KINDS (and degrees)

communes than

living in

ever in the past, most of them voluntarily

decide not to extend their communal arrangement to sex or they

do so full

in a highly

dividuals

who

who

are extremely devoted to the

Although

theoretically

and

who do

persist in the

likely to

is

My

open

all

kinds of possible

this special type of extramarital

to all

who want

to try

it,

remain relatively unpopular

somewhat pessimistic view of

idealistic in-

communal process and

are willing to stick things out in spite of

difficulties. is

modified manner. Those

group sex arrangement are almost always highly

it

is

adventuring

utilized

in the

by few

near future.

the prognosis of group mar-

riage tends to be concurred in by several authorities in the field,

such as Drs. Reese Danley Kilgo, Herbert L. Smith, and David

Reuben. Yet much ticularly in the

is

to be said

on the other side of the fence, par-

upholding of communal marriage as an alternate

system of sex-love relations for that minority of individuals are fed

up with conventional systems and want

different.

to try

who

something

Such widely different writers as Dr. George R. Bach,

Larry and Joan Constantine, Rick Margolies, Robert Rimmer,

Joseph M. Rizzo, Dr. Jerry Rubenstein, and James and Lynn

Smith see

many

more or some of the are

right.

positive values in this kind of arrangement and

less optimistic

about

its

time. Further research

working well for some people

may

well prove that they are

Healthy Reasons for Extramarital Adventure

y^ I EVERAL YEARS AGO,

%^ ^

sociation convention

in

American Psychological As-

at the

Washington, D.C.,

presented a

I

paper, "Healthy and Disturbed Reasons for Having Extramarital Relations." This paper

no great

stir

at

became famous because, although

the convention,

front-page reportage and, for to the

The

it

raised

Washington Post gave

it

some strange reason known mainly

newspaper world, featured the contents of the

first

part of

the paper almost entirely, which gave the healthy reasons for adultery,

while barely mentioning the second part, which gave equal

space to the unhealthy reasons.

From

this

newspaper account,

stated that extramarital relations

people

who engaged

in

it

appeared as

if

I

had

solidly

were invariably healthy and that

them indubitably had

excellent reasons for

so doing. Sparked by this kind of one-sided slant, the Post's story

blazed across the news wires around the world, was taken up by

innumerable radio and tional

TV

programs

made

scores of na-

bitter fire

from a large

as well,

and international periodicals, drew

number of platforms and pulpits, and had me busily hopping for quite a number of weeks trying to explain exactly what the Washington Post and

and what I

I

its

mass media brothers and

sisters said

concluded from

all this

hullabaloo that large numbers of

zens here and abroad want to believe that there are

40

I

said,

actually did say.

many

citi-

healthy

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

41

and virtually no unhealthy reasons for having extramarital advenFor no matter how much

tures.

many

disturbed reasons too,

of the people

ignoring these and returning there are a

I

I

talked to kept blithely

"But you did

to,

say, Dr. Ellis, that

good many normal and undisturbed grounds for people

Now

committing adultery. Yes,

kept insisting that there were

I

what, again, did you say they are?"

certainly did say that

many

of the people

who engage

in

extramarital affairs are hardly neurotic or self-defeating, that they get considerably

more gain than pain from

and that their problem have them

try to

at less

disadvantage. In this present chapter,

same thing again

say exactly the

their participations,

not to give up having their affairs, but to

is

— adding some

not include in the original presentation. But again,

let

shall

I

details that

did

I

me warn

the

reader (and potential quoter!): the succeeding chapter nicely outlines

some of

the indubitably disturbed and self-sabotaging aspects

of committing adultery. Don't forget to read that chapter, too!

me

Let

say,

that

first,

my

material for the following analysis of

healthy and disturbed reasons for having extramarital relations

does not als

with

come

whom

exclusively from clinical interviews with individuI

have had psychotherapy and marriage and family

counseling sessions.

Much

of what

know about

I

sex, love,

and

marriage does, of course, come from this kind of respondent, since almost every week of each year clients

rive a considerable their

I

see

more than seventy

and over a hundred group therapy

own and

As has been

amount of

their friends'

clients.

salient information

and

I

individual

naturally de-

from them about

associates' extramarital affairs.

frequently pointed out about Freud's and other

psychoanalysts' conclusions about

human

behavior, however,

it

is

hardly entirely legitimate for a therapist to investigate mainly the lives

of disturbed individuals and, from these investigations, to

make sweeping

generalizations about the personality of so-called

normal individuals. Consequently, affairs

I

in

my

studies of extramarital

have talked with scores of non-clients

countered in

many

whom

I

have en-

parts of the United States (as well as in

ada, Central America,

and Europe); and

I

believe that

Can-

on the

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

42 whole these non-clients represent a

fairly

five years or

more. Although

my

have

had average,

generally

have expecta-

whose marriages have

instances been quite rocky and far from ideal,

interviewees

well-

have been married for

client respondents

bly included a high percentage of people

many

random sample of

whom

educated middle-class adults, most of

my

in

non-client

and

above-average,

sometimes remarkably good marriages. The sample on which base the following conclusions, therefore,

is

I

both extensive and

wide-ranging. I

have talked

intirnately, then, with literally

ried individuals about their adulterous desires

past five years.

From my

hundreds of mar-

and

talks with these spouses

acts during the

— some

of which

—

were relatively brief and some of which took scores of hours

hypothesize that there are several healthy reasons for husbands

and wives, even when they are happily married and want

to con-

tinue their relationships, strongly desiring and often participating in extramarital affairs.

Some of

the

main healthy reasons

follow:

SEXUAL VARIETISM Most of the

history of

biologically, a truly

mankind demonstrates

monogamous

monogynous than monogamic, rather than a single acts

woman

that

man

desiring

for a lifetime,

one

addition to his regular marital sex.

seems

than

is

to

be

less strongly

the male; but she, too,

not,

woman

at

a time

and that even when he

monogynously he strongly craves some adulterous

cies

is

animal, that he tends to be more

The female of

the

affairs in

human

spe-

motivated toward plural sexuality

when she can have

varietistic outlets

with social impunity, quite frequently takes advantage of them.

male chauvinism recedes and

women

start to live

As

by a consistent

single standard of sex morality (instead of the female-downing,

hypocritical

double standard they have unfortunately accepted

during most of Western and Eastern history),

it

is

quite possible

that they will turn out to be as varietistically inclined as

ready,

among

today's

young people, they are not too

the male attitude and aptitude in this respect.

men. Al-

far

behind

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

A

43

healthy married person in our society

is

usually

able to

enjoy steady sex relations with his or her spouse, but frequently tends to have less satisfaction after several years than was experi-

enced during the

husband

cal

first

months or years

lusts after

ticularly those

who

innumerable

after the

women

wedding. The typi-

besides his wife, par-

are younger and prettier than she

is;

he quite

often enhances his marital sex enjoyment by thinking about these

women when

other

he

is

copulating with his spouse; he enjoys

mild or heavy petting with other females

at office parties, social

gatherings, and other opportune occasions; and he actually en-

when he when he can otherwise dis-

gages in adulterous affairs from time to time, especially

and

his wife are temporarily parted or

creetly have a

little fling

with impunity, knowing that his spouse

not likely to discover what he

is

is

doing and that his extramarital

marriage and family life. same kind of extramarital her husband, but perhaps less often and less intensely;

affair will not seriously interfere with his

The

typical wife tends to go through the

thinking as

and she has much

less

of a tendency, at least as yet, to

make any

notable effort to actualize her fantasies and dreams.

This

is

not to say that every single red-blooded husband and

wife in our culture continually lusts after relatives, friends, and

working associates of the other sex and spends an inordinate

amount of time and energy trying to seduce these others. It is to say that the husband or wife who never once, during thirty or more years of married life, is sorely tempted to engage in extramarital adventures for purposes of sex-love variety

is

to

be sus-

pected of being biologically or psychologically abnormal; while the

mate who frequently has such desires and who occasionally

and unobtrusively carries them into practice

is

well within the

normal, healthy range.

Marilyn K. has returned to work

now first

that her

two children are going

in the field of data processing,

to junior high school.

ten years of her marriage, while she

children, finishing her schooling,

build

up

men and

his insurance business,

For the

was very busy having her

and helping her husband, Ron, she rarely thought about other

certainly never considered getting involved with one.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

44 Then she seemed she did have

it

she found

as busy with his

more than

want sex

to

own

it

and

less

with Ron, and

less

relatively routine

when

and boring. He,

just

career as she was with her pursuits, was

willing to cut

down

their

bedroom

activities.

But then,

going to graduate school, Marilyn found that several of her fellow students and a few of her professors rekindled her interest in men.

Over

had four discreet

a period of a few years, she has

affairs.

She loves Ron, although she now finds him physically unattractive. She cares for her children and thinks that Ron

is

the best father in

home. And she

the world for them. She likes her

four of her lovers, as well as a few other

men

finds that all

she has at times

thought of replacing them with, are "utterly impossible to live

As

with.

far as I'm concerned, their

wives are welcome to keep

them!" So she quietly continues her adulterous ways, with

Ron

ap-

parently having no inkling that anything has even changed be-

tween them, and she happily looks forward tence of this sort for a good

many

to a continued exis-

years to come.

The natural varietism of innumerable males and females has been demonstrated throughout

all

human

history; the fact that

it

is

well within the normal range and does not in the least indicate any

kind of emotional or sexual disturbance on the part of individuals

these

many

of

by many outstanding authorities.

attested

is

Thus, Dr. Harold Greenwald, renowned psychologist and sexologist,

points out that

many husbands

up with

are able to put

their

wives satisfactorily largely because they frequently go out of town their sex

away from home with other women

them home,

refreshed, to their wives. Moreover,

and thoroughly enjoy

— who

often send

Dr. Greenwald indicates, these cate girls

who

themselves are

men do

varietists.

not want a long-term relationship across

many

times

married man. She

is

.

an unmarried

may be more

.

.

not find

it

difficult to lo-

"Very often these

An example

girl

I

girls

do

have come

having an affair with a

or less faithful to him, but on oc-

casion (either from anger or loneliness) will become involved

in

a

sexual episode with another man." Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the famous sex re-

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

45

searchers and therapists, state that the the Freudians'), which insists that the

bed

really afraid that he

is

Masters, "True for

is

Don Juan theory (mainly man who flits from bed to

not male,

is

largely false. Says Dr.

some men, but generally speaking,

enjoys going to bed.

And

until

He

no.

just

he has trouble finding cooperative

partners, he exists in a delightful haze."

Dr. John F. Cuber, another

renowned researcher and one of

America's best-known sociologists, notes

The

desire for sexual fulfillment

enlightened day, is

many have no

many

that, for

spouses,

not easily denied and, in this

is

it. The fact American men and women

intention of denying

that a large proportion of both

new adventure, whether they are conscious of it or Then also, there is a growing but still small proportion

are ripe for

not

.

.

.

of married couples

who

deliberately arrange separate vacations

or take jobs in different communities so that they

may be

freed

from the expectations of monogamy and domesticity which impinge on "the normal married couple." There is usually in these cases a tacit understanding that whatever one does on his vacation, he should not jeopardize the marriage. "Vacations are for fun; our marriage

work out

this

is

for keeps."

way, but

it

is at

Of

course,

doesn't always

it

least the intention.

There are un-

we should not leave the impression that all sex away from home is to make up for a sexual malaise at home. As one salesman said, "I have a great marriage bed is best at home. But it wouldn't be that way if I'd be home all the time. That's why salesmen have such good

doubtedly other types as well. In

fact,

—

marriages!"

LOVE ENHANCEMENT Human

beings, although

often foolishly deny

it,

we

frequently refuse to admit

it

and

are quite capable of loving pluralistically

— and not only can they genuinely love one person

after another

but can fairly easily love two others simultaneously. their conjugal or familial feelings tend to

remain

to deepen, over a long period of years, their

alive,

AUhough and even

romantic amour gen-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

46 erally

wanes

in

from three

to five years

—

as

Henry

T. Finck,

one

of the outstanding authorities on love, noted almost a century ago. Indeed, as he sagely observed in a thick tome, Romantic Love and

Personal Beauty, published ularly fades

when two

1880s, romantic passion partic-

in the

lovers live under the

numerous unromantic exigencies of

same roof and share

life.

Because passionate attachment for a member of the other sex a uniquely exciting

repercussions on one's whole existence, a great

and stable married individuals are loath to give longer feel that

tend to find,

fall

is

and enlivening feeling that has many splendid

number of sensible it up when they no

way about their legal mates; they spontaneously with someone other than their spouses and

in love

on some

level, a

mutual expression of their amatory feelings

with these others. Indeed, for one to be incapable of further ro-

mantic involvements just because one

is

married

in

is

some

re-

spects to be dead. Both in imagination and in practice hordes of

who

healthy husbands and wives, including those a real fondness for their mates,

tramarital affairs. Although

sexual actualization,

many

do.

The

romantic ex-

result has,

unfortunately and misleadingly, been a great

number of adulterous

in

of these affairs do not lead to

some of them

and remarriages. But the

continue to have

become entangled

result has also

probably

number of divorces

been an even greater

love affairs that, for one reason or another,

have not led to legal separation from the original mate but that have been carried on simultaneously with the marriage. It

would best be remembered

that

men's and women's reasons

for engaging in extramarital adventures are basically the their reasons for

engaging

in

for sex but also for love, involvement,

as

companionship, and other

amative motives. Loneliness, as Harold Greenwald notes, the prime irritants that drives people into the

same

premarital relationships: not merely

arms of members of the other

who

are

is

one of

away from home

sex: "This, of course, ap-

plies not only to

men. Today there are a great many

travel as buyers,

newspaper reporters, instructors

women who

in special busi-

ness techniques, and for a variety of other reasons.

They too may

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

47

be married, and finding themselves alone, choose to trade their sexual favors for relief from loneliness."

The Erotic Life American Wife, found that female adultery may easily be sparked by all kinds of love and companionship motives, ranging Natalie Gittelson, while researching a book.

of the

from inordinate romanticism

A

hard-headed

sociability:

Southern California wife puts the case

not just a lay

it's

to

I

want, although

at home." Lilly's husband male of affluent America. He

Man Who

Isn't

"Bob wings try to

the sort no one ever

typifies the

archetype married

by

is,

it

from one

Hamilton Park.

way

When

I

all

wifely accounts.

The

city to

we

see

home

he's

him

another and from one coun-

take the car from Hillsborough to

—

not often

—

for dinner

up

he's

community work,

eyeballs in committee meetmgs, if

a ro-

It's

There.

another the

We're lucky

that?

—

mantic, intense Louis-Jourdan-type affair

has

"Look,

explicitly.

why knock

to his

local politics.

one night a week."

Now

her brown eyes narrow and her voice grows steely. "Blame his hard,

masculine drive. Maybe.

I

just don't care

it on anymore.

I've faced up to the fact that I need a man in my life, not just somewhere around the edges." After a long, reckoning pause,

she adds,

"And

I've

found another shoulder to cry on, thank

goodness. He's married too. But that matters to

Even those staunch, intimidated,

me

not at

traditionalist wives

all."

who,

paraphrase a current novel, are "just too good for their

to

own

good," are not nearly as "good" as they used to be. While conceding

among themselves

working women, marriage survival's sake,"

own

they too

materialist plots

that, still

at

least

for dependent,

demands compromise

may be

non-

"for sheer

quietly manipulating their

and plans.

Companionship outside of marriage is also sought, fairly frequently, by males. Dr. John Scanzoni, professor of sociology at Indiana University, notes: Evidently the chief catalyst to the emergence of the "office wife" pattern

husband and

is

the lack of dialogue about his job between the

his actual wife.

To

put the problem in perspective,

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

48

show that blue-collar workers have communicating with their wives regarding their jobs (and indeed about most other things, including sex) than do white-collar workers. And in spite of the fact that few of them have secretaries, it is likely that some blue-collar workers do develop attachments which might be the equivalent of

we should

note that studies

greater difficulty in

the white-collar worker's ''office wife," or especially the "cocktail

lounge model."

Another sociologist and noted researcher on family

Gerhard Neubeck,

also talks about the "cocktail lounge

Dr.

life,

model" of

adulterous relationships: In the beginning of marriage

when

the family

is

very simple

enough time for husband and wife to "feed" on each other to meet each other's emotional needs. As people reach their thirties and forties, life usually becomes so complex that there are fewer "feeding" times. Therefore one partner whose emotional needs are not being met may find another person under circumstances such as a five o'clock cocktail hour or on a trip someplace which provide some kind of protected haven in which this personal indulgence, temporary as it might be, may go on. I think this is a great temptation for because there are no children, there

is

a lot of people.

Dorothy K. lovely,

is

now

in

her late

sixties,

but she

and exhibits a joie de vivre that most

twenties and thirties would envy.

is

Her husband, Raymond,

died at the age of seventy-two, and

it

home

life

—

Raymond's death,

in

slim, their

recently

probably won't take too long

for her to remarry, since she already has three eager

prospects. Until

still

women

and able

the two not only had a

happy

they have four children and twelve grandchildren who,

even though most of them lived quite a distance away, were constantly visiting

—

but they also were truly attached to each other

and rarely had intercourse For

all

this,

less

than twice a week.

Dorothy's main romantic

forty years, outside her

life

has been, for over

home. She has had two regular lovers

so long that she can hardly

remember when

for

their affairs started

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

49

Up, and every few years she has added, usually for a passionate

period of a few months at a time, a

new inamorato. Unlike most

well-adjusted matrons, Dorothy does not dote on bridge, gardening,

women's groups (which she abhors), or even the real estate made some amount of money for several decades. Her basic interest is love, love, love, and

business that she has carried on (and at)

when she is thinking intensely about a some amount of interest in her. like many women, severely disturbed in the sense

she feels fully alive only

man who She

also has not,

is

man

that she absolutely needs a

to love her, or else she considers

herself worthless and desolate. But she truly enjoys loving

and

being loved far more than she enjoys anything else in the world.

And

she had to remain married only to a husband and involved

if

only in a somewhat tepid

way with him, she would

was missing one of the main delights of

life

she

feel that

and would

be, if not

depressed, at least sad. Fortunately, her husband realized this and

gave her the leeway to add sex-love involvements with other to their regular domestic routines. Otherwise, she probably

have champed so much

at the bit

of conventional married

many

they would have ended up in the divorce courts

not a "sexpot," and could easily have given

Dorothy

is

ing with

men

life

give

other than her husband

—

—hack

it

Somewhat

less

romantic

whom

Stuart

is

W.

up copulat-

she had had to

if

really could not

—

or would not

the adulterous Little

of

life

many

actors

and Arthur Cantor describe

book. The Playmakers:

All actors experience loneliness and insecurity

out of town while the show for

that

years ago.

in marriage.

and actresses, in their

would

life

particularly since her sex

with him had always been notably good. But

up extramarital romance, she

men

is

on tour or when

when it

is

Broadway. One actor regards intra-company love

they are

trying out affairs in

such circumstances as completely natural and normal. ''A love affair within a cast

is

like a

convenience when you're on tour,"

he says. "I need female companionship.

town and

it

comes eleven

o'clock,

I

When

I'm in a strange

don't want to go back to

my

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

50 hotel

an

room alone. Out of town, if you have an affair, you have The company all know about it. After all, it's impos-

affair.

in those circumstances. But they don't tell. And back to New York, each of the partners goes back respective home.

sible to hide

when you to his

it

get

EXPERIENTIAL LEANINGS Loving, courting, going to bed with, and maintaining a relationship with a

member

ing experiences.

of the other sex are

They

all

are, especially to

part of satisfactory living as, to others,

interesting

partners learning a great

many

it

fascinating and valuable things it

leads to their hav-

ing thoughts, feelings, and personal interchanges that

and

in

come

in-

also results in the sex-love

about themselves and their chosen ones; and

to relate,

gratify-

This kind of experiencing not only

ing, traveling, or sports.

cludes sex and love participations;

wise probably never

and

some people, as much a would be working, paint-

their way.

To

would other-

live, to a large

degree,

is

our society intimate relationships usually reach

acme in sex -love affairs. The healthy, experience-hungry married

their

individual,

conse-

quently, will be heavily motivated, at least at times during his or

her conjugal

life,

to

add

tained through marriage

to the experience that itself,

and often

to

perience some of the high levels of relating with other sex that he or she

may have known

individual's desires to experiment

and

logically

members of

lead

to

and

extramarital

the other sex

who

likely to

is

be

at-

be impelled to reex-

members of

the

before marrying. This

to feel deeply

adventures

—

may

especially

easily

with

are radically different from his or

her mate. In addition to having varietist sex leanings, most individuals

have distinct urges to do different kinds of nonsexual things: to travel, to eat in strange restaurants, to see exotic

performances, to

read unique books, and to engage in a host of unconventional events and occurrences.

The very conformities and pressures of

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE everyday

their

lives,

while not considered utterly intolerable, are

much more bearable by

often rendered

odd things they

many

51

vacations they take and

do. Similarly, marriage can be

couples, less pressuring

made, for a great

accompanied by

if

Even the

sional extramarital sex-love outlets.

at

least occa-

distinct advantages

—

—

monogamous mating such as sharing or togetherness can become unrelieved and monotonous when they are not balanced by experiences that are to some degree antithetical. In speaking about mate-swapping, for example, Dr. Alex Comof

a world-famous authority

fort,

of

its

virtues

is

"an attempt

sive relationship that to

withdraw and

society, noted that

'I

one

to avoid the sort of crushingly exclu-

called 'togetherness.'

is

say,

on sex and

am

I,

We

need the

ability

and you are you.' Engaging

in

group sex may be an attempt to reduce the intensity of the oneto-one relationship."

When

an individual makes sure that he experiences wider-range

involvements than he

marriage he

is

ever likely to experience in conventional

attending to what

is

is

perhaps one of the most "nor-

mal" or healthiest aspects of adultery marriage.

The chances

are

good

—

especially

who want

sidered from the standpoint of those that

if

when con-

to aid or "save"

absolutely no extramarital

adventures of any sort were allowed in a society such as our own,

people would tend either to refrain from marrying in the or would insist

ond

place.

ments but this

much more

Given the option of maintaining still

engaging

first

place

quickly on getting divorces in the sec-

in outside

their marital arrange-

affairs,

they frequently pick

option over complete dissolution of stable arrangements.

Just as the

famous

historian, Lecky,

ago that prostitutes and "fallen

remarked over a century

women" were

gamous marriage, so might he remark today often being preserved by adultery.

A

prime

the saviors of that legal critic

mono-

mating

is

of rigid mono-

gamy, psychiatrist O. Spurgeon English, has been the modern Lecky

in this

respect,

and has made some pointed observations

about the role of affairs as a safety valve for ordinary mating. For

example:

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

52

am

1

sure that there are people

me

would keep me

who could

devise a limited

and healthy as long as I live. But I could get awfully tired of this monotonous diet. It might keep me alive; it might keep me healthy. But I'd get tired of it. I would want some variety. Marriage as an institution will keep one alive but it doesn't give many of the extras that people diet for

that

alive

desiring an affair are looking for in it

anyone's is

life

contributing

.

.

Jessie

I

don't regard the affair

.

ropean proverb that carry and sometimes three. Dr.

...

anybody of anything. Most times My dear friends, there's a Southern Eusays that marriage is a yoke it takes two to

as "cheating"

And

today maybe four.

Bernard, a renowned marriage counselor and re-

search scholar at Pennsylvania State University, at least partially

concurs with Dr. English:

Kinsey and his associates noted that sometimes extramarital

improved a marital relationship. In some cases they were encouraged. Sometimes it was the learning of the relationship which was harmful rather than the relationship itself. It appears that older spouses can accept infidelity better than young ones, although in the working classes young women have been accustomed to accepting it also. relations

Another

psychiatrist. Dr.

Martin Goldberg, points out that

sons involving office wives and office husbands mainly

liai-

become

known to professionals and to the public when the relationship has become an unhappy one or has further complicated a difficult marriage. However, he notes, "I am certain there are many other instances in which the office wife actually helps to maintain her

employers' marriages, and or the employer

make

life

s

attentions serve to

and marriage bearable for the secretary."

This idea, that extramarital unions not only do not necessarily tend to interfere with (and to break up) marital relationships, but that instead they frequently serve to enable the participants in

these relationships to get along fully than they otherwise

The

facts

seem

to

show

would,

much more is

tolerably or success-

becoming more accepted today.

that adultery

is

frequently

good

for a

mar-

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

53

riage,

and that the experiences, diversions, and distractions

brings

may

aid rather than sabotage a legal union.

Terence Q.

banker who was born and reared

a fairly typical

is

Wasp Waspy woman, and who

family,

an upper-level

in

it

who married an

almost

ideal

Long

has comfortably maintained a

Is-

land country club kind of existence with her and his family for the

He

past twenty years. leads; he does not

happy

quite

is

to

unhappy about and becoming

off

the

life

he

a hippie; he

be making the amount of money, well above

makes each

that he

sixty thousand,

not really

is

dream of running

year; and he doesn't enjoy

going with the boys to a high-class brothel when they are away at a banker's convention in another city. But Terence

New York

his artistic

and

fairly

women who

tached

bohemian friends

for

in

pot-smoking and

intel-

bed with one of the unat-

is

really not that sexy,

number of occasions spent

merely hugging, talking, and sleeping. For but

to get laid, that

is

really enjoys

getting to

is

up-

are frequently present at these groupings.

Terence, mind you, prisingly large

all

City, getting together with

and winding up

lectual conversation,

not

month he thoroughly ensome of

per-middle-class Wasp. Several times a joys staying over in

is

fine;

if

she

know

is

and has on a sur-

the night with a female if

not, that

his partner is fine,

too.

is

willing

What he

her as intimately as possible: to

discover what makes her tick, what things she has done that are

much

different

his thoughts

from the things he has done, how she responds to

and

feelings,

and about

himself,

life

and what he can learn about

in

her,

about

general by becoming conversationally

(and perhaps sexually) intimate with her.

While many other people tobiographies to discover

in

how

Terence's class read novels or authe other half lives, he

much more

greatly enjoys

having more personal contact with some of the

people

other half, and he finds that he

do

this

through his participation in the conversational parties and the

girls

in this

he takes

do

in

home from

any

less direct

is

able to

these parties better than he would be able to

manner. So Terence

seeker and secondarily an adulterer.

pens nicely to abet the

first.

is

mainly an experience

The second

activity just hap-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

54

ADVENTURE SEEKING routine, fairly dull, unadventurous lives;

Most people today lead

chances of fighting the Indians, hunting big game in Africa,

their

or even trying a

new job

after

working

in the

same one

for a de-

cade or more are reasonably slim. Life just can't very easily be arranged that adventurously any more

—

especially for females,

were never given too much opportunity for risk-taking days and

who

are

still

kept pretty

much

who

in the old

and the

to the practical

routine today.

One

of the few remaining areas in which husbands and wives

can frequently find excitement and novelty

Even when rearing,

this

scene

and the

fairly

domestic

life,

is

in sex-love affairs.

temporarily closed by marriage, child-

is

scheduled pursuits that tend to accompany

the healthy and

still

adventure -seeking person

fre-

quently looks longingly for some other outlets, and he or she likely to

be able to find them

does not mean that

up

their

mean

humdrum

all

in extramarital relationships.

life-loving

mates must eventually

viduals will

try to jazz it

does

adventure-bound

indi-

existences with adulterous affairs; but

that a certain percentage of creative,

do so and

that they

may

well

is

This

do

it

for sensible, non-

neurotic motives. Claire

S., in

spite of her forty years, her three teenage children,

and her presidency of the ter,

would

for a

so

—

really

local

League of Women's Voters chap-

have liked to go hitchhiking around the country

good part of every year. She never quite got around partly because of the real dangers

it

to doing

might have involved

but she never ceased daydreaming about getting away from

it

all

and having some genuine risky adventures. So she did what she thought was the next best thing. Every few months, she went

away, for a few days or as long as a couple of weeks, to a large city

that

was not too long an airplane

trip

from her home

usually to Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, or

She registered there

at a

downtown

hotel

St.

Louis.

and immediately started

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

55

looking, often in the lobby or the bar of the hotel

companionship. Being attractive and

lively,

long to end up with a suitable partner

married males attending a convention

—

it

itself,

for

male

seldom took her

frequently one of the

in the

town where she was

staying.

Claire liked the moderate degree of risk she took in the course

of these out-of-town sojourns. She might meet up with the wrong

man, who would somehow give her a hard time. She might run

some of her hometown friends, who would be more than curious about what she was doing. She might become much more emotionally involved with her companion (particularly if she stayed with him for several days) than he might become involved into

with her. She might be completely rejected by a male, because of her age, the ugly appendectomy scar on her taste for oral-genital relations.

abdomen

or her dis-

She might possibly acquire (though

she never yet had) a venereal disease. So she considered each of

her extramarital adventures decidedly risky, and she liked them the

more because of

In another ten years or so, she thought, she a

little

all

the riskiness.

would probably be

too old for this sort of thing and would probably stop her

extramaritally bent travels. But they certainly added a hell of a lot to her life right

now! Oh,

yes: they

provided an extra bonus, too.

Whenever she was sexually bored with her husband, all she had to do was to remember in her head one of the particularly exciting jaunts she had had with another

man

in a strange city

and she im-

mediately became more sexually involved and orgasmic. staid,

accountant husband had

known what was

spiring at these times he probably

If

her

cerebrally tran-

would have been

horrified

and

rendered himself impotent. But fortunately he never did know,

and she had no intention of

telling!

SEXUAL CURIOSITY Although an increasing number of people today have premarital sex experiences and quite a few also have affairs between the time

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

56 their first

marriage ends by death or divorce and their next mar-

riage begins, there are the age of forty or

still

fifty

—

many

especially females

and have had a

total

— who reach

of only one or two

when they

sex partners in their entire lives. Such individuals, even

have had

fairly satisfactory sex with their spouses, are often cu-

rious about what

would be

it

like to try

one or more new partners;

and eventually a good many of them do experiment to

satisfy their

curiosity.

Others,

including those

who

are

would never consider breaking up

their

who

married and

homes, are motivated by

because they would like to see

their sex curiosity to try affairs

how

happily

sexy they really are, because they would like to bring

own marriage

techniques to their at least

new

bed, because they want to have

one orgiastic experience before they

die, or

because some

other aspect of their healthy information-seeking in sexual areas

cannot be adequately

monogamous

satisfied

relations.

in extramarital

they continue to have purely

if

Husbands and wives who

ventures out of sex-love curiosity

tute a high percentage of all spouses.

much

like to

actually engage

may

do so and are sometimes sorely tempted

likes into practice

probably number

Mrs. Gertrude G. was for

years one of the sexually cu-

had had one brief

marriage, which had not been very sexually arousing, isfying.

to put their

in the millions.

many

rious desirers but non-tryers. She

not consti-

But those who would very

affair before let

alone sat-

During the course of her eight-year-old marital union, she

moderately enjoyed sex but never got too excited about could live without

it,

and maybe

—had had an orgasm two

—

it,

easily

she wasn't quite sure about this

or three times. Both she and her hus-

band, after experimenting with almost everything they could find in a

half-dozen sex manuals that they read, had reluctantly con-

cluded that she just wasn't very

much

with

it

sexually and that she

probably never would be. Since he had no trouble being aroused

and

satisfied

by her, their sex

life

hardly suffered and neither

felt

enormously deprived. But Mrs. G. was

still

curious. She suspected, though she wasn't

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE by any means

57

combination of anatomical facts had

sure, that a

something to do with her relatively low sexuality. She herself had an unusually wide vaginal

orifice

small penis and a tendency to in intercourse.

and her husband had both a

last, at

most, only a minute or two

She wondered whether, with a differently endowed

and longer-lasting partner, she wouldn't enjoy sex a

come

more and

lot

orgasm much more frequently.

to

She continued to wonder half-idly for a good many years. Her

when her

curiosity increased notably

ably married

woman, kept

telling

best friend, also a respect-

her that she really hated her god-

damned husband, and was going

him

to divorce

and she could go back

their child got a little older

clear conscience; but the one

just as to

soon as

work with

good thing about him, she kept

a

in-

sisting,

was that he had one of the biggest jongs around and could

keep

hard for a half-hour with no trouble whatever. God, was

it

she going to miss that

someone

As

she really got rid of him and he married

if

else!

luck would have

this

it,

friend

open

the field beautifully

marry him, and

to

left

for Gertrude G., since the friend's hus-

band always had been

clearly attracted to her.

was gone, and he was

living in their old

Now

that his wife

house only a couple of

doors away from Gertrude's home, he made after her mightily

love with another

in

fell

man, rather quickly divorced her husband

it

clear that he lusted

and would be delighted to share her bed on one

of the fairly frequent nights

when her husband was away on

busi-

ness trips.

Her

curiosity

now became almost overweening, and even

though she thought

little

ex-wife's view of his

many

cided to try him.

It

of

him personally

—

in fact

shared his

undesirable personality traits

— she

de-

probably wouldn't work out half as well sex-

ually, she told herself, as she

had fantasized for years about such

an adventure. Even so she would then be ahead of the game: she

would have realistic

sex

life

at least

proved to herself that her daydreams were un-

and that she'd better content herself with her pretty mild with her husband.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

58

Well, was Gertrude surprised! Within twenty minutes of taking off her clothes in the

bedroom of

the

new

covered that her female friend was exactly

divorce's house, she dis-

name!) did have an immense one, and he could keep ingly forever. trating,

her

was

It

and so

ecstatic

fifth

— O,

it

beautifully was!

utterly joy producing.

(what an apt

right: Peter

—

so

hard seem-

it

filling,

own home. She

something of a bastard

— but what

thought that Peter was

still

a charming, sexy bastard for a

now charming and suddenly sexy woman like her! Being a bright woman, and realizing that her success might have been mainly the result of a if

all,

you

the next few

whether

make

will

it

it

is

will give

with Peter

prophecy

you much rarer

highly likely, just because of this

fulfill

your fantasies

— Gertrude spent

months experimenting with several other men. And,

was the

it

self-fulfilling

you believe that a big penis

delights than a smaller one, belief, that

after

orgasm, and had a rough time getting up and

going back to her

after

so pene-

She was utterly spent

result of autosuggestion or not, she invariably

found the same thing: the bigger the man's organ and the longer he lasted with

the greater pleasure

it,

and the more orgasms she

tended to have.

As

a crucial experiment, she tried (on

that her

my

advice)

making sure

husband had considerably more orgasms per week than he

previously had been having with her. Consequently he began to last

much

longer in intercourse than he had previously (mainly be-

cause he became more used to sex with her and consequently imperiously desirous of having

it).

She found that he then

less

satisfied

her considerably more than before, but, since the size of his penis

had obviously not changed, not quite as much as some of the er-organed

men

she had been experimenting with.

Gertrude, quietly and discreetly,

found

that, first,

she

is

is still

not.

riage bed

experimenting. She has

something of a sexpot

her husband had been utterly convinced,

was

larg-

all

Second, she has been able to bring

some of

— although

these years, that she

home

the things she has been learning

so that their relations are

now

she and

to their

mar-

on the outside,

far better than they ever

were

in

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE the past.

One of

these days

—

59

since she really cares for her hus-

not emotionally involved to any degree with any of

band and

is

the other

men

she has recently tried

— she

may well stop having down to a renewed mono-

extramarital affairs entirely, and settle

gamy. But not quite

methods of

yet!

Her

and her search for better

curiosity

self-fulfillment are not entirely satisfied.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INDUCEMENTS Millions of average Americans and Europeans occasionally or frequently engage in extramarital relations because

proved social thing to do

that are a regular part of their lives. will think

it

is

the ap-

times and in certain settings

at various

Normally monogamous males

nothing of resorting to prostitutes or to easily available

non-prostitutes at business parties, men's club meetings, or conventions.

And

sedate

women

will take off their girdles

orgasm or have extramarital intercourse parties,

on yacht or boat

at

and pet

to

wild drinking or pot

cruises, at vacation resorts,

and

at var-

ious other kinds of social affairs where adulterous behavior

is

not

only permitted but even expected.

Although civilized Westerners rarely engage periodic kinds of sex orgies that

many

in the regular or

primitive peoples permit

themselves in the course of their married

lives,

they do engage in

occasional orgiastic parties where extramarital affairs are encour-

aged and sometimes become the est

kind of adulterous behavior, but

social normality

This

rule.

it

and often does seem

is

may

not be the healthi-

well within the range of

to satisfy, in a socially ap-

proved way, some of the underlying sensible desires for sexual experience, adventure, and variety that might otherwise be very difficult to fulfill in

our culture.

Mr. and Mrs. Sidney M. were quite faithful to each other, sexually and amatively, throughout the eleven years since their

wedding. Both of them had had tempting offers from members of the other sex with

whom

they were acquainted, but their usual an-

swers were almost identical: 'T really appreciate your telling

me

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

60

how attracted you are to me, and I must say that I feel much the same way about you. But I have an unusually good thing going with my wife (husband) and I wouldn't want to jeopardize it in any way. Even if she (he) never finds out that I am having an affair with you, I'll know it and that would make me feel too uncomfortable. So I'm afraid that it just wouldn't work out." About twice

a year, however, Mr.

and Mrs. M. would attend

pop Almost

or give a high-class party where the liquor flowed like soda

and virtually everyone, including themselves, got potted.

always, on such occasions, she would wind up in a locked bathroom with an attractive male for twenty minutes or more and he would wind up for about the same time in a parked car with a willing female. Although each was fully aware, most of the time, of what was happening with the other (because each had literally been caught in the act a couple of times), nothing was ever said after the party was over and no attempt was made to refuse the

next similar invitation. Both mates

felt that as

long as these epi-

sodes constituted a small, spontaneous and socially acceptable part of their lives

—

since their friends, at the

ing in similar behavior all

was

right with the

— nothing was

same

lost,

parties,

were engag-

enough was gained, and

world and their marital relationship.

SEXUAL DEPRIVATION Many husbands and

wives are acutely deprived sexually, either

on a temporary or permanent

They may be separated from as whqn the husband or is inducted into the armed

basis.

each other for reasons beyond their control goes off on a long business trip

—

forces or the wife has to take care of one of her parents for several

weeks or

is

in

such poor physical health for a while that

precludes her having virtually any kind of sex with her mate.

man and woman may

live together

available to each other, but one of

sex drive than the other,

may be

this

Or

a

and be theoretically sexually

them may have a much lower sexually incompetent, or

may

otherwise be an unsatisfying bed partner even though he or she quite adequate in other aspects of marital

life.

is

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

61

In such circumstances, the deprived mate can very healthfully

long for (and from time to time seek out) extramarital affairs. In

many such

may

instances this mate's marriage

actually benefit by

such affairs, for acute and chronic sexual deprivation

may

age resentments that can easily disrupt a relationship. cases the interesting thing relieved

if

that both partners

is

encourIn such

may be immensely

they honestly face the problems engendered by sexual

deprivation, just as both

may

put themselves under

terrific strain if

they do not face such frustrations.

Jonas K. and his wife Margie had a fairly good sex first

for the

life

few years of their marriage; but then Jonas was smitten with

a series of infections that his physicians

were barely able

to

keep

under control. For a couple of years he could make only a very marginal adjustment to

life.

who

Fortunately, he was an editor

could do most of his work at home. Even at that, he barely man-

aged to get through each day and was so exhausted by about nine o'clock in the evening that he

had

to

go to bed.

He had no sexual inclination whatever and didn't much to help his wife achieve satisfaction,

since she

usually required about twenty or thirty minutes of active lation of her clitoral region to

achieve climax.

become

sufficiently

The mere thought of having

pletely.

Not

that he didn't care for

And

sure; he did.

in

off

en-

com-

loved her more than he had

to him and had drawn became ill. So he clearly cared for condition made him negative about having sex with

closer than ever to her, but his

much

him

Margie and her sexual plea-

many ways he

ever done before, since she

manipu-

aroused and

to exert so

ergy to give her what she wanted sexually turned

like

feel

doing very

him

was so helpful

since he

her.

At

first

his wife.

Jonas worried a good deal about his lack of sex with

He knew

that she

had very normal desires and was ex-

ceptionally frustrated, especially after tions whatever.

He wanted

find the words.

How

you care for me, don't

want

to

weeks of practically no

to talk to her

about

it,

could he say to her: "Look, dear.

in spite

of

my

rela-

but could not I

realize

present disabilities, and you really

have any intimate contact with anyone

else.

But you

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

62 do have a physical body, you think

that

mind and emotions, don't give some thought, while I'm

as well as a

maybe you'd

better

He

unfortunately this incapacitated, to satisfying that body, too?" thought,

many

this to her.

how he might

times, of exactly

say something like

But he got so embarrassed about the idea that he just

couldn't bring himself to open his mouth.

He

desperate that he decided to get some psy-

finally got so

He

chotherapeutic help. I

arranged to "see"

—

me over the phone as who have some diffi-

frequently have phone sessions with people

culty in leaving their

my

office.

home

who

or

During these sessions,

live

some distance away from that it was hardly

showed him

I

shameful to be physically and sexually incapacitated, or to discuss openly with his wife what she might do about his inability to isfy

her for the present.

He

finally got the

main points

I

sat-

was mak-

ing in this respect: "I can see

now what you mean.

most unfortunate that

It's

way and that she may even possibly see me as being this way though I really think she doesn't.

this

—

merely sees

self in that light, but she

porary handicap. Anyway, no matter

and she

that I'm in this state,

awful or horrible, and

it

is left

I

can only keep

much

sexually hanging,

way and

thought in

this

my

am

/ may see myme as a person with a temhow unfortunate it may be

doesn't in the least

worthless person for being this

I

a weakling for

mean

it's

for depriving her.

head,

hardly

that I'm a

Now,

if

shouldn't have too

I

trouble honestly raising the entire issue with her, and agree-

ing with her what might be better for her to do."

Jonas did work on sistently into his

did have a talk with his wife.

hardly be enthusiastic that

if

to believe

He pointed

she had

that her urges

were being

it

more con-

basically.

He

then

out to her that he would

evils in a case like theirs,

some ways he would be frankly

about not satisfying her himself.

it

some sex outside marriage, but

might well be the lesser of

it

that in

know

Eventually he got

this thought.

head and was able

satisfied

To

relieved because he

and would not

feel

and

would remiss

his surprise, she took this talk

very well and actually did arrange to have sex every

now and

then

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

—whenever she

63

got really aroused and, as she put

climb walls thinking about

it"

— with

and Margie were both so happy about working out practical arrangement that they

"began

it,

to

an ex-lover of hers. Jonas

drew even

kind of

this

and

closer to each other

began what was undoubtedly the warmest period of their

lives to-

gether. It

may seem odd

to

many

readers that a wife should want

more

sex relations with her husband than he wants with her, and the

may seem understandable

case of Jonas

only because

it

is

unique

and depends on special circumstances. Actually, there are many

normal and physically healthy wives

in this category,

and they

tend to be just as sexually deprived as millions of husbands have proverbially been for thousands of years. This has cially

true since, during the past several decades,

become

espe-

women

bear

fewer children, live longer, and actively feel that their sex interests should be gratified. Dr.

Leon Salzman did a study of

the relationship of coital fre-

quency to sexual satisfaction and found very fascinating things

in

the course of his researches. "Actually," he states, "our statistical studies indicate that, while in the earlier years the level of desire

and interest later years

in sex

is

greater in the male than the female, in the

female interest increases and male interest declines."

Dr. Salzman

correct, sexual deprivation of females

is

is

cant factor, especially as the years of marriage continue, and therefore only to be expected that a considerable

If

a signifiit is

number of nor-

mal, and otherwise highly conventional, females will consequently desire extramarital outlets.

In E. tal

one of the few research studies of extramarital coitus Ralph

Johnson found that "husbands who had experienced extramariinvolvement derived a significantly lower degree of sexual

isfaction

from

their marriages than did

perienced coitus outside of their marriage

'common sense referred to by

proposition.' "

Johnson

is

sat-

husbands who had not ex-

—

thus supporting the

The "common sense proposition"

the hypothesis that sexual deprivation

one of the main causes of extramarital

affairs.

is

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

64 Noting that

this hypothesis

probably correct, a committee of

is

leading Presbyterian churchmen discussed sex problems for two

and a half years and

comments on

finally

came up with

The committee

adultery.

a report that included

generally upheld sexual

but noted ''exceptional circumstances where extramarital

fidelity

sexual activity

may

not be contrary to the interests of a faithful

concern for the well being of the marriage partner, as might be the case

when one partner

pacity.

.

.

.

suffers

Such judgments

responsibility of the person

When eral

permanent mental or physical inca-

finally

who

have to be made by and on the

takes the exception."

even a Presbyterian committee comes up with such a

view of adultery

in the face

well be understood

why

to similar decisions

on

large

their

bility for having affairs

of real sexual deprivation,

can

numbers of other individuals come

own and

when

it

lib-

decide to take the responsi-

their wives or husbands

are, for

one

reason or another, sexually depriving.

PREPLANNED PLURALISM Almost

all

the sexual varietism that occurred in conventional

marriages in the past tended to take place as a result of postmarital

knowledge.

A man

and a

woman would

go to the

altar with the

firm conviction that they would have sex relations exclusively with

each other from the wedding day to the end of their

lives.

For one

reason or another, this unrealistic prediction would not turn out to

be

true,

and they subsequently adjusted, either overtly or covertly,

to another view: ically with)

namely, that being married to (and living domest-

one person

at

a time

sex-love relations on the side

is

is

even

fine,

finer.

but that having other

As

I

have been show-

ing in this chapter, there are several healthy and sane reasons originally planned

monogamy may

why

eventually be transformed into

marriage plus more pluralistic arrangements.

During the

last

decade, there has been a mild but significant

tendency for pluralism to be planned

in

advance, even before two

individuals decide on legal matrimony. At a meeting of the Asso-

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

65

elation for Humanistic Psychology in San Francisco a few years

me

ago a young married couple told ried only after they

had

that they decided to get

nations and fully agreed that they both would in

gage in extramarital

affairs,

year-old graduate student

me

"Right on! Howard and

perhaps for the

all

probability en-

rest of their lives.

A

married for a year to a twenty-two-

nineteen-year-old mother,

agreement as she heard

mar-

thoroughly discussed their varietist incli-

I

in

nodded

sociology,

in

enthusiastic

talking to this couple, and she added:

even go a

little

farther than that.

We

when we meet someone suitable, and we think nothing of it. But what we really want to do is to find a few groovy people that we can form our own commune with, and share everything with, including our minds and our bodies. We haven't been able to find the people we each openly have our

want

to

do

this

affairs,

from time

with yet. But we're

still

to time,

hopefully looking!"

CONFIDENCE BUILDING Morton Hunt,

in his excellent

book. The Affair, makes

much

of

the fact that extramarital adventures can often lead to an increase

of self-confidence; Brian Boylan, in his equally good volume, delity, also implies that

people can learn

and their competencies through having

augment

their self-esteem,

much about themselves and may thereby

affairs

and so does Dr. O. Spurgeon English,

in his notable essay, "Positive

ble writers

Infi-

Values of the Affair." Being capa-

and observers, these authors have a good point, but not

being psychologists, they tend to be a

little

vague and to overstate

their cases.

The problem

is

to differentiate clearly

between what

is

nor-

mally called self-confidence and self-esteem, on the one hand, and

what other.

I

call

When

achievement-confidence or love-confidence, on the a

woman

feels that she is unattractive, that she

is

a

poor sex partner, and that only an unusually nice guy like her hus-

band could possibly enjoy her has affairs with a few other

in

bed and love

men and

her,

and when she

finds that, in reality, they

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

66 find her attractive, sexy,

and lovable, she has certainly discovered

some valuable new information: especially, that she is able to perform much better in bed than she previously thought she could and that she has more ability to win male approval than she ever

We

suspected.

can accurately say, therefore, that her confidence

in

her ability to achieve sexually and to gain love has definitely im-

now

proved. For

she

knows

that she can succeed in these ways,

while previously she falsely thought she could not. 5^//-confidence or 5e//-esteem,

same thing

woman's self-confidence it is augmented

ences,

falsely,

however,

"Now

that

I

is

Why

this

is

is

experi-

see that

I

quite

can do better sexually and amaI

really

can

like

myself as a

view false? Because an individual who acquires

more

her being)

new

raised as a result of her

makes me a better person. of my new-found abilities!"

better or

by no means the

as a result of her telling herself,

tively, that

result

is

as achievement-confidence or love-confidence. If this

efficient traits

(which are only certain aspects of

hardly a better or more worthwhile person (which

is

the entire range of her being). If she learned to speak Spanish or

play the piano, would that advantageous feature tinctly

different

and better person? Of course

make her not.

a dis-

Then why

should the acquisition of greater sexual or amative prowess (or nally realizing that she has such

takenly thought that she didn't)

while

fi-

prowess when she previously mis-

make

her a better, more worth-

human?

To have matter

of

5e//-confidence (or to like or accept oneself) definition

or

personal

is

This

decision.

really a

woman,

presumably, previously disliked or hated herself because she saw herself as sexually inept. She could have chosen, wise, to dislike her characteristic, her ineptness, self

down because

self to

she possessed

it.

Now

if

she were really

and not put her-

that she has proved her-

be more sexually competent, she chooses to like herself, her

being, rather than merely to like her newly discovered tence.

This

is

foolish:

since

if

inept again (for example, older

she happens to

and

become

less attractive

compesexually

and therefore

HEALTHY REASONS FOR ADVENTURE less able to attract

men

67

to her bed) she will almost certainly return

to disliking herself, or putting herself

one

If

would do best

to shy completely

away from attempting

basis of any trait (since virtually able);

down.

to like oneself (or, better, accept oneself) at

is

human

all

traits are

quite at the

is

the incessantly changing

— an almost

way

on the

very change-

and to accept oneself on the basis of just being

Otherwise, one

one

all,

this

—

existing.

mercy of human modifiability

— of

which people view other people

in

certain road to feeling exceptionally insecure.

The woman we

are discussing, therefore,

had better not acquire

ego-enhancing or increased self-esteem from her newly discovered sexual-amative competence. Otherwise, she to

come

tially right in

ter in love

is

sooner or later going

Hunt and Boylan, however,

a cropper!

are at least par-

implying that once she sees that she can

and

in life as a result

she will get a good feeling about her optimistic view of

make

it

bet-

of her extramarital experiences,

what she can do

own

more

capabilities, take a

in the future,

and look forward

sex-love participations that she has previously viewed in a

to

rather dismal light. In other words:

if

her achievement-confidence

and her love-confidence increase, she

in the sexual area

own

to try to fulfill her

potentials for enjoyment

take greater delight in living.

And

that,

and

of course,

will tend

will actually is

to the

all

good. If

own

confidence -building or increased knowledge of one's

capabilities

is

ventures,

is

it

one of the

fairly frequent results of extramarital ad-

also, naturally,

one of the good reasons for having

them. For just as practice makes perfect in tennis, golf, and almost

any other game you can think of love.

Knowing

in

woman may most affairs,

of,

it

advance that

also

this

makes

may

perfect in the sport

man

well be true, a

legitimately and healthfully try to arrange

even when he or she

is

happily married,

in

or

some

order to find

out what higher peaks of sex-love involvement are likely to be attained. Love-confidence

is

not the greatest thing in

life

and

again, a necessary part of self-confidence (which can be the

mere asking,

if

only people are sane enough to look for

is

not,

had for it);

but

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

68

it

nonetheless

a hell of an addition to ordinarily

is

humdrum

exis-

tences!

One

of the few factual studies ever conducted on the results of

adultery in our society was by

They

Lonny Meyers and Hunter

How

is it

that extramarital sex enhances

some marriage

We

would not pretend to know Based on our interviews, an affair may:

tionships?

•

me from"

rela-

answers.

is

happiness and fulfillment.

left

alone.

Increase the aliveness and

warmth of one spouse, thereby

turning on the other. •

the

Remove burdens from the spouse, such as the burden of sex when exhausted, ill, or preoccupied with other matters; or of trying to be an entertaining and pleasant companion when one wants to be

•

all

Lessen a feeling of resentment, a feeling that marriage

"keeping •

Leggett.

arrive at the following conclusion:

Motivate a person to become more attractive

—

to the

spouse

as well. •

Provide a temporary respite and diversion from problems at home, giving new perspective which helps solve or endure those problems.

•

Help a person discover new dimensions of his or her own sexuality and humanness including (for women) orgasm which

may

then for the

first

time be experienced also with the hus-

band. •

Make

an unpleasant marriage tolerable when there are good

reasons to maintain the marriage, such as children, finances,

•

and an established home base. Help persons remain (or become) warm individuals despite cold marriages.

•

Provide additional tenderness, excitement and joy for a person experiencing a good marriage relationship.

All of this tends to

show

that

my own

clinical findings are con-

firmed by the researches of others, and that healthy reasons for

and good

results

from extramarital adventures

definitely

do

exist.

Disturbed Reasons for Extramarital Adventure

HE PREVIOUS CHAPTER of

my

is

an extension of the

first

part

notorious American Psychological Association talk on ex-

tramarital relations.

second, and

much

Now

don't want to hear any

let

me

delineate and expand

upon the

popular, part. Lots of people apparently

less

more about

the unhealthy or neurotic rea-

sons for an individual's committing adultery. Perhaps these latter

reasons strike a

little

too close to home,

in

many

remind them of the poor reasons why they would actually have

engaged

think that all their ships are perfectly

in) affairs.

own

Or perhaps

instances,

like to

and

have (or

they would prefer to

reasons for considering outside relation-

good ones, and that none of

their reasoning in

this respect is illegitimate.

Be

that as

it

may, there are a good number of pretty disturbed

motives for people having extramarital ventures. These self-defeating urges include the following:

LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE While almost every healthy married person

at

times desires ex-

tramural affairs, and quite frequently views his desires as real needs, any notions that one absolutely needs

them are nonsense

Human

beings have practi-

and constitute a distinct disturbance. cally

no natural or instinctive needs or necessities; they mainly

69

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

70

have strong preferences or desires that they often foolishly define

Why?

as needs.

Because, as

have been pointing out

1

my

in

books

on psychotherapy for a good many years, when an individual

in-

he needs to have extramarital relations in order to be

sists that

happy and

fulfilled,

he really means that he utterly should, ought,

and must have such relations; and no such shoulds, oughts, and musts exist

in the universe.

Take an individual with

a moderately

good marriage who has

strong varietist inclinations and would be indubitably happier and

unharmed

if

he or she 'gave

contend that

to

in to

would be

it

these inclinations. For this person

better, or preferable, or highly desir-

able for extramarital adventures to ensue often be empirically and logically verified.

is

a statement that can

It

damned

well might

be better for either or both spouses for such affairs to be arranged

—

as

some of

the cases in the previous chapter tend to prove. But

things that are better are rarely necessary, and events that are

preferable hardly have to occur. If he stops acting like a whiney two-year-old, the would-be adulterer can virtually always easily

maximally enjoy, monogamous marriage. He or she

tolerate, if not is

hardly going to die, blow up at the seams or be carted off to the

looney bin

if

his or her fondest extramarital fantasies are never

actualized.

This

is

true

emotionally

the individual

if

disturbed.

is

healthy or not too severely

The neurotic

individual,

however,

fre-

quently convinces himself that he absolutely needs what he wants, that his preferences are necessities. Consequently, he self so desperately

(according to his

monogamous fairs.

finds

that

unhappy

own he

marriage that

in a

is

makes him-

supposed

to be

original agreement with his mate) sexually literally drives

himself into extramarital af-

Being a demander rather than a preferrer, he then often

something intolerable about

and he winds up by becoming

his adulterous involvements, too;

still

more

frustrated, unhappier,

and

downright miserable and depressed. It

him;

is it

not marriage and is

really

his

its

inevitable frustrations that

unreasonable expectations that

"bug"

marriage

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE should not be as frustrating as

and him,

mean she and

also

I

it

frequently

her.

is.

And when

I

For although husbands

say he in

our

reasons, frequently rant and rave

partly for conventional

time,

71

against the sexual ties of marriage, and believe that they absolutely

cannot put up with them, wives are not terribly different in

this respect is

and often

and act the same way. Indeed,

feel

any considerable sex difference here

husbands

probably

it

if

there

the fact

lies in

feel exceptionally frustrated

by the limitations of

marriage and also act out their frustrations

in adulterous affairs,

that

while wives feel equally frustrated but do

much

less

about

it

other

than feeling intensely deprived.

Myron

R.

didn't have

really

a poor sex

life

with his wife,

Laura. Whenever he wanted to have intercourse with her, she was

almost always willing, even night.

She would

if

she was not feeling very sexy that

also, at his request, bring

him

off in whatever

extravaginal ways he wanted, including anal relations from time to time, even though they were mildly painful

Of

all

the sex partners

least fifty before

of age

— she

Myron had

satisfying.

— and he had had

at

he married Laura when he was thirty-two years

was probably the

main reasons he had married sexually and

ever had

and hardly

seemed

best. In fact, that

her: because she

was one of the

was so acquiescent

infinitely willing to give

him

a hard penis

without giving him a hard time.

But Laura wasn't really passionately devoted to sex, as a few of the other girls he had

known had

been.

They

avidly needed his

lovemaking; they flounced around on the bed wildly

down on them;

when he went when they

they cried and screamed like banshees

were having their orgasms. tense passion in

most of

And Myron

genuinely missed this in-

his partners, including Laura,

joyed themselves sexually,

all right,

who

en-

but not by any means in that

glorious way.

So Myron insisted upon "cheating."

came

terribly upset

He knew

when he came home

that she felt hurt

he didn't really love her.

He knew

that

Laura be-

at three in the

morning.

and that she (wrongly) concluded that

He knew

that she just couldn't under-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

72

why anyone who

Stand

received five or six perfectly good orgasms

a week with her not only felt that he had to keep looking and looking for a more impassioned partner but also had to spend quite a lot of time away from her and their children to do this

He knew that Laura would most probably take his outmuch more tranquilly if he only, as she asked him to do many times, came home before midnight when he was with another woman. But he ignored all these facts and pigheadedly inlooking.

side sex

life

sisted that he absolutely

what

must have

more must have them

is

she put up too

much

his extramarital activities,

in his

and

accustomed way; and that

if

of a fuss he would have to break up their

marriage.

He had no

intention, actually, of separating

from Laura

—

for

he knew that they had some unusually good things, including sex, in

their marriage,

children

— but

and he was quite attached to

his

two young

he childishly kept demanding exactly the kind of

outside sex that he wanted and he wouldn't brook any kind of

compromise. Myron didn't merely want or prefer kind of sexual varietism; he stubbornly dictated

he get

He

his particular

that, at all costs,

it.

got

it,

finally, at

an exorbitant price. Laura, completely fed

up with his uncompromising stance, and feeling that she couldn't take

it

any longer, withdrew from having any sex with him. She

resented

him

continually, and

was vocal and

bitter

about

it.

She

him only because she couldn't figure out what better to do with her life. Having idiotically killed the goose and in many ways she behaved like a goose who laid his remained formally married

to

—

—

golden penis,

Myron became embittered about marriage

continued to look compulsively, and for the most part

too,

and

futilely, for

enormously impassioned females.

HOSTILITY TO ONE'S SPOUSE Hostility does not stem, as

many

psychologists have erroneously

believed for several decades, from an individual's being severely

or prolongedly frustrated by someone (such as a mate or a boss)

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

whom

with

he

associated.

is

It

73

from puerile de-

rather,

arises,

mandingness that he absolutely must not be frustrated. As Dr. Robert A. Harper and

I

show

A Guide

our self-help book,

in

to

Rational Living, the angry, resentful, hostile, or enraged person

self

is

emotionally disturbed individuals) forcefully telling him-

(like all

two important

things,

one of which

usually rational and the

is

other almost totally irrational. Hostility follows the

A-B-C model

of disturbance which

A

core of rational-emotive psychology. At point cant Activating event his wife by,

let

—

husband

typically, a

us say, not giving her

there

is

is

the

a signifi-

frustrates or deprives

much

affection

and

still

wanting to have sex with her whenever he happens to have a good erection.

At point

Consequence

him

out,

with him like a

and if

—

C

there

a negative or disturbed emotional

is

she feels exceptionally hostile

yells that she'll

be goddamned

and

if she'll

bawls

sulks,

ever have sex

he keeps treating her like a mere piece of ass and not

woman

he presumably loves and wants to share affection

with.

Falsely, that

A

angry.

most people (and,

alas,

many

psychologists!) conclude

causes C: that the husband's frustrating his wife

They do not stop

to think that this

is

makes her

really impossible for

several reasons: (1)

Whatever he does, he cannot possibly get

and her gut and cause her to

feel anything,

into her

whether

it

head

be anger,

sorrow, or any other emotion. For her head and her gut belong to her,

and only she can create her own

(2)

—

that

Clearly, is,

if

feelings.

a hundred husbands acted exactly the

unaffectionately

—

hundred wives, not

a

to

wives would feel similarly or equally furious. not even feel affection),

would

feel

frustrated

(for

Some

same way all

these

of them would

they would not particularly want

and of those who did

feel distinctly frustrated,

some

merely disappointed, some hurt, some mildly angry,

some overwhelmingly enraged,

et cetera. Patently, then,

be the husbands' deprivation that

is

it

cannot

truly causing the wives' anger

or resentment. (3)

Emotions, as the philosopher Epictetus showed two thou-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

74

many outstanding psychologists (such as Magda Arnold, Rudolf Arnheim, Milton Rokeach, and Stanley

sand years ago, and as

Schacter) have

more

specifically

demonstrated

in recent years, are

almost certainly connected with, and in a large sense caused by, certain cognitive mediational processes

— which

we normally

call

thoughts, ideas, attitudes, philosophies, or values. These philoso-

phies intervene between

A

(the Activating event)

and

C

Consequence) and to a large extent may be said

tional

(the

emo-

to be the

direct cause of C.

These philosophies or Beliefs are labeled point B emotive psychology. To make herself hostile frustrating or depriving her, the wife

Belief (rB), namely: this frustrating

How

ingly!

Belief,

"How

manner!

annoying!"

I

If

first tells

unfortunate

it

is

in rational-

her husband for

at

herself a rational

that he

is

wish to hell he would act

behaving

in

less depriv-

she stayed rigorously with this rational

and went not a whit beyond

she would feel (at C) the

it,

appropriate emotional Consequence of irritation, annoyance, displeasure, disappointment, sorrow, or regret. For

(from her frame of reference or

in the light

husband

it

is

frustrating her;

joyed about

it.

Moreover,

and if

it

is

unfortunate

of her desires) that her

would be crazy

if

she

felt

over-

she feels appropriately annoyed or

disappointed, she will usually be impelled, by her negative feeling,

do something about the frustration he

to

somehow

try to

Humans, pens

is

namely:

induce him to remove

"How

So what frequently hap-

wife also has a highly irrational Belief (iB),

awful that he

stand his acting like

this!

really doesn't care for this magical,

causing her and to

it.

alas, are rarely this rational.

that the

is

me

treating

is

He

me

so frustratingly!

shouldn't try to screw

that

I

can't

me when

much. That lousy bastard!"

It

he is

utterly senseless set of Beliefs that directly creates

her anger.

For anger invariably ing

demand

this wife's

results

from a

that the world be the

childish, grandiose, whin-

way

it

indubitably

isn't.

And

demands (over and above her preferences) about her

husband's behavior are irrational because:

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

It isn't

(1)

awful, horrible, or terrible that he

frustratingly.

damned

It

merely,

is

treating her so

is

and accurately viewed,

objectively

inconvenient.

She can stand

(2)

never

75

may

like

it.

his treating her this

way

— even though

she

But she won't blow up into smithereens just be-

cause he does what she doesn't, nor ever

sex with her even

will, like.

why he

(3) There's no reason whatsoever

shouldn't try to have

he really doesn't care for her that much;

if

though there are several reasons, from her standpoint, why

it

would be better that he gave her more affection along with the sex.

But the fact that

proves that therefore

would be better

it it

if

something existed never

should, ought, or must exist.

He is not a bastard for frustrating her severely, but merely a human being with many failings, who is not acting very considerately of her. To condemn him as she essentially does when (4)

she calls

him

a bastard

alize illegitimately.

—

—

for having these failings

For he has hundreds of

and cannot legitimately be rated

in toto

to overgener-

is

traits,

good and bad,

because some of them,

much to be desired. who gives serious thought to that human hostility is basically

such as his considerateness for her, leave

Any

reasonably intelligent person

the matter can fairly quickly see

caused by demandingness or Jehovahism: by the dictate that "Because

I

want you

to treat

are a perfect bastard

makes herself angry

if

at

me

in

x way, you absolutely should and

you don't!"

therefore, a deprived wife

If,

her husband because he

is

unaffectionate

and consequently determinedly refuses to have sex relations with

him and vindictively begins

to carry

on extramarital

affairs,

she

is

doing both a sane and an insane thing.

Her displeasure and her withdrawal are perfectly

sensible, in

most instances; but her anger and her vindictiveness are means of

condemning him, an fectionateness,

entire person, for his distasteful trait, unaf-

and are largely aimed

at hurting

him

rather than

helping herself. If she w^iangrily and ^^vindictively had affairs, in

order to find outside her marriage the affection she couldn't find in it,

that

would be

rational; but if she has

them mainly

to spite him,

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

76 and because she

too

is

weak

what she wants

to strive for

to urge herself

calmly and decisively

in life, she is

behaving neurotically.

Moreover, by foolishly making herself angry instead of determined, she

is

unlikely to be truly affectionate toward her husband

or any other man, and consequently will probably wind up by get-

more

ting less rather than

affection herself.

who came

In the case of Susan G.,

exactly this situation

—

that

is,

of alcohol generally under her belt affairs with

me

to

because she was

in

and with a good deal

vindictively,

— picking up men and having

them because her husband, Jim, seemed only

inter-

ested in ''screwing the living shit out of me, but only relating to

me when

penis was snuggling hotly against

his

showed her

herself enraged at Jim,

A-B-Cs that

is,

my

fanny,"

the irrational Beliefs she kept telling herself to

and then got her

of rational-emotive psychology.

D

to

go on

to

D

I

make in the

consists of Disputing

vigorously challenging and questioning one's irrational BeSusan's case our marriage counseling dialogue went

liefs (iB's). In

like this:

"What do you that

is

think you can do about your irrational Belief

causing your extreme anger

"You mean

at

your husband?"

the Belief that he shouldn't be unaffectionate to

and that he's a

rat for acting that

way when

I

want him

to

me

be more

affectionate?"

"Yes.

And

the Belief that 'Therefore I'd better spend a lot of

time and energy fixing his wagon rather than trying to get him to

be more affectionate or determinedly finding the affection outside

my

marriage.'

"Mmmm. "And set

Yes,

think.

I

I

want

"

guess that's exactly

Humans

how

don't only feel.

I

feel."

They invariably have

a

of thoughts, too, behind their feelings."

"You're probably

right.

I

do

think,

and keep

specifically con-

vincing myself, 'Imagine! After I've been so nice and helpful to

him, ever since I've

and unkind against

my

to

known him. How can he

me and

possibly be so cold

only be interested in warming his penis

behind! That louse!'

"

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

how

"Yes, and can you see

77

to Dispute

and challenge that nutty

idea?" "I guess with

kind to

me and

something

'Why

and un-

can't he be so cold

interested only in sex?

Even though

why does he have

nice and helpful to him, to

like,

to

been so

I've

be equally

warm

"

me?'

"Right! If you could keep Disputing, exactly in that way, your

own

irrational convictions that he can't be, has

you and that he has

to

would immediately

to

your anger

lose

no

warm

be as nice and

— but

right to be cold as

you

you would

are,

still

you

retain

your determination to have him change his behavior or else look

You might

for affection elsewhere.

For your disturbance the

still

carry on affairs,

if

you did

but you would not carry them on in a hostile, vindictive way.

this;

way you

not the fact that you are adulterous, but

is

are going about having affairs."

"And would

I

then

automatically

become unangry

after

a

while?"

"Yes, that's one of the beautiful things about the rational-emotive

method. Not only does

it

own

anger-creating nonsense a good

to believe pretty consistently that

(or

anyone

else) to

become

help you, very quickly, to

unanxious, undepressed, or unhostile.

it

But

many isn't

if

you Dispute your

times,

and

come

really

awful for your husband

view you mainly as a piece of feminine

flesh,

and that he has the right to be unaffectionate to you even though

you heartily dislike to the point

kind of behavior, you will eventually get

this

where you

will rarely

anger yourself in the

and therefore not have to undo your anger

That takes a while; but

it

definitely

where rational-emotive psychology

And

that's

she reported,

nored

me

happens is

in the

place,

second place.

in nearly all instances

consistently employed."

what did happen with Susan G. Several weeks

"You know, you were

practically

all

utterly right!

My

last

little

husband

Sunday, and even when

— what do you know! — he snuggled up against me got to bed, his

later ig-

made a he completely overlooked them. Then

day

few affectionate overtures

we

first

I

just as

old organ went up in a minute

soon as (I

must

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

78 admit

do have quite an

I

"Well,

hardly gave

1

it

diately said to myself,

penis does!

me. Well, Since

it

can't

I

it

was the

day of

first

'he

still

my body

loves

—

way he

is!

Tough. Now, the

simply keep looking and looking until

to sleep

me and my

—

I

would have got myself

talking with you a few if

you

I

realistically accept the fact that, 'Hell

real

imme-

shit

about

problem

forever,

find

is:

why

some other

for hours about

to stew before

weeks ago. You're

really think straight

I

calmly jerked him off and

I

and stewing

instead of stewing

'that bastard,' as

even arise

body?' So

to

period.

or at least his

way

looks like he's just going to remain this

loves

my

a second thought. 'Of course,'

though he doesn't give much of a

that's the

man who went

— even

and he was ready

attractive ass!),

practically rape me, even though

right!

I

started

Anger doesn't

about someone's ways and

— but

way he

that's the

" is!'

Susan G. solved her own problem of low frustration tolerance

and consequently she prevented herself from "automati-

nicely,

cally"

making herself angry

spouses

fail to

sciously, they

do

this.

at

her husband. Innumerable other

Therefore, deliberately albeit often uncon-

keep making themselves

hostile

and

resentful,

and

thereby encourage themselves to cop out of their marital relationships by extramarital affairs.

marked a good many years in their

As Somerset Maugham

ago,

women

husbands a perfection that English

find in their butlers."

And

as Dr.

the University of Minnesota, has noted,

in

some of

psychology

the

at

main reasons

often resort to adultery are, "(1) to get

attention, (2) to get power, (3) revenge,

discouragement."

to find

only hope to

John B. Oman, a well-known

Minneapolis Methodist minister and instructor

why husbands and wives

cleverly re-

"American women expect

The second and

and

third

(4)

of

because of utter

these

reasons,

of

course, are closely related to feelings of hostility.

James A. Peterson, professor of sociology and marriage counseling at the University of Southern California in Los AngeDr.

les,

also notes that individuals frequently

cop out of

their marital

relationships and engage in adultery by refusing to take responsibility for

what

is

going wrong with their marriage and blaming the

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

Other partner for these errors:

"One

79

possible answer

why

man

the

does not do something to help his wife be more innovative and

spontaneous

is

that

he long ago became a habitualized and nonstim-

He may

ulating person himself.

home by blaming bution to ennui

The point

is

is

rationalize his sex

his wife for her lacks

when

away from

in reality his contri-

just as great."

that

many spouses make themselves

terribly hos-

against their mates and then, instead of resolving this hostility

tile

by changing their

own

irrational,

Jehovian demands, use

excuse for having extramarital affairs. This

is

it

reasons for engaging in such outside activities: since they are ing with their

and

will

own

an

as

one of the worst liv-

nonsense, they are being unfair to their mates,

very probably carry their hostilities on to their future re-

lationships.

SELF-DEPRECATION

A large number of spouses are so perfectionistic in their demands on themselves, and so self-castigating when they do not live up to these demands, that they cannot bear to keep facing their mates (who are in the best positions to see their inadequacies). Because they

condemn themselves

for not being excellent

look for outside affairs in which fewer

them or where they

They

feel

will not

economic

and so on, they

providers, housekeepers, parents, sex partners,

demands

will

be made on

expect themselves to act so perfectly.

more "comfortable," at least temporarily, while having The more logical solution to their problem would be

such affairs. to

work things out

self-flagellation.

in their

marriages while learning to cease their

But rather than

try that solution, they

divert themselves into extramarital adventures

manage

to

where they some-

times feel "just great."

Carl E. Batt, using an Adlerian frame of reference, indicates that in is

modern Mexican

society, "in the case

attractive or aggressive,

tress

where the man's wife

he seeks a submissive or motherly mis-

and sexually abandons the threatening sex objects." This

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

80

same kind of running away from the arms of a "strong" wife into those of a "weak" mistress is common enough among males in the United States and elsewhere, too.

Among

females, the tendency to engage in extramarital liaisons

out of feelings of inadequacy

is

especially strong and has been

Harold Greenwald observes: "Most commonly women who get involved with men away from home do so because of quite different problems. They may feel so inadequate about themselves as wives, lovers, or companions that they fear any relationship lasting longer than one or two dates noted by several authorities.

would unmask

Dr.

inadequacy or whatever

their

it

is

they are con-

cerned about hiding." Dr. John Racy, professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, also notes that

women who engage

in extramarital (as well as premarital) affairs

frequently do so out of their dependency or dire love needs:

There are course

(at

women who

openly admit that they seek

times indiscriminately) to secure warmth.

want

inter-

What

they

and protected. But they go through the motions of intercourse as a payment, fearing (perhaps correctly) that the partner is interested only in "going all the way." This particular pattern is one that is unusually touching and confusing touching because the person concerned is often pathetically in need of love, confusing because she appears adult, sexual, promiscuous, and capable of independence. really

is

to be cuddled, held,

—

In both

husbands and wives, then, adulterous escapism, that

al-

lows a spouse temporarily to run away from his or her personal or marital

problems,

is

one of the main disturbed reasons why

spouses sometimes engage in

affairs. It

may be guessed

that hus-

bands who commit adultery because of their personal feelings of inadequacy frequently

feel that they are

business areas, and that they

incompetent

somehow have

these defects by sexual conquests; while wives as a result of their feelings of worthlessness

to

in

general or

compensate

for

who are adulterous commonly feel that

they are sexually and amatively incompetent, and that they conse-

quently have to compensate by encouraging more successful sex-

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE love relations outside of marriage.

what

Thomas

L.

was married and ran

better socially,

inefficient all

knows, however, cover or

try to

might prove

to a "terrific

woman"

—

household with amazing efficiency.

their

brilliant as she,

most high-level people as well as she

both

at

home and

a school ad-

and was

did,

the office. Although his wife recog-

these ineffectualities on his part, she easily forgave

them

and was content that he was responsible, considerate, a loving ther,

and an unusually good

lover. Unfortunately,

was sure that she and

their entire social

him behind

at

his back,

fa-

he couldn't ac-

cept her acceptance of him, and continually put himself down.

laughed

be

to

he, got along with people

and with some reason, that he was not as

didn't impress

nized

in this area

who made more money than

ministrator

felt,

really

mates usually

and rewarding.

interesting

He

No one

inferiority feelings philandering

overcome, and an empirical study

81

He

group despised him and

and he agreed with the image of

himself that he projected onto their image of him, namely: that he

was a no-goodnik and that sooner or out and run off with

someone

later his wife

Meanwhile, Thomas had a number of

whom

find this

affairs with other

women

he realized were just as sad sackish as he. They couldn't

measure up to terribly

his wife in almost

any way; but because they had

low estimations of themselves, because they got along

poorly in

life,

(since he really

sional

would

better.

life),

he

because they thought that he was rather

was quite bright and did felt

Then they began placement.

comfortable with them

to bore

terrific

fairly well in his profes-

—

at least for a while.

him and he would look around for a reto get some of his very normal and

Thomas managed

healthy desires for varietism and adventure filled with his extramarital sweethearts. In the main, however, he got involved with

them because he was afraid wife; he

was sure she

to

be too involved with his

really didn't

put up with a turd like

him

forever. His self-deprecation,

childish attempts to "protect" himself

friends "rejection," affairs.

were

his

"terrific"

want him and was not going from

his wife's

and

and

to his

their

major reasons for having extramarital

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

82

EGO-BOLSTERING men

men (and quite a few married women feel that they are not really women) unless they are continually "proving" that they are by new sex-love

Many

married

feel that they are

not really

—

conquests. Some, particularly males, also feel that unless they can

be seen

in

public with a string of particularly desirable sex part-

no one

ners,

them. Consequently, they steadily

will truly respect

keep looking for new lovers

conquer and have adulterous

to

fairs to bolster their (underlyingly

ual or

af-

weak) egos, rather than for sex-

companionship purposes.

Elizabeth R. was vivacious, competent, and sexy, and none of her friends and acquaintances was surprised

when she married,

she was about to graduate from college, a

tall,

as

dark, and hand-

some lawyer who seemed to be destined for an outstanding career. But Elizabeth was very surprised and could hardly believe her 'iuck." She thought she was one of the most unfeminine women alive,

what with her six-foot height, her broad shoulders, small

breasts and narrow hips. She couldn't bear to go to bed with her fiance before marriage

she was terrified

—

not because she was prudish but because

how he would

and she was sure that he would

When

it if

he saw her totally naked

they were married and he didn't at

she was built sistently

take

call the relationship off.

—

all

seem

to

mind how

and, on the contrary, kept complimenting her per-

about being "the greatest fuck" he had ever had, she

thought to herself that he was just being nice and was, for some strange reason, willing to forgive and forget about her physical in-

adequacies because he happened to like her

never did seem to cuses to herself

why

In spite of her life,

tire

in

other ways.

He

of her physically, but she kept making ex-

this

was

so.

good marriage and perfectly

satisfactory sex

Elizabeth compulsively carried on affairs with a steady series

of men. Unlike

Thomas

male partners with

L.,

whom

who

he

delighted in finding schnooky fe-

felt relatively

adequate, she consis-

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE highly

selected

tently

woman would have

83

men about whom

desirable

They were even

drooled.

taller,

almost any darker, and

handsomer than her husband; they followed very ''manly" pursuits were great athletes or huntsmen); and they were unabashed

(e.g.,

who

women-chasers, out acting as

Elizabeth

if

never

let

an attractive female walk by with-

they just had to get into her panties.

felt that if this

man

kind of

took her to bed and

visi-

bly demonstrated that he found her to be sexually attractive, that

he fully wanted her as a woman, she then would not feel as unfeminine and shitty as she usually

felt.

Each time she picked such a man,

with him outrageously

flirted

he whisked her off to bed, and got him to say something to

until

the effect that she

was

all

woman and

the most sexually exciting

thing he had run across in a lifetime of bedhopping, she

felt

im-

mensely relieved and worthwhile. Unfortunately, that lasted a few days at most, and the next time she viewed her shouldered body

winced

ingly

whom

in

— and

thin, big-

tall,

her full-length bathroom mirror, she despair-

thought

about the

next

full-blooded

male

she might convince that she was really, oh, yes really, a

woman. The ego-bolstering aspects of adultery have been pointed out by many authorities

in the field.

commonest motive

the

Racy

Dr. John

notes:

for intercourse in adolescent boys

prove that they are 'men.' For them, there

sire to

equation of sexual potency with power

common and

its

known

so well

is

no need

Cowan, professor of psychology out that

women

in

men who have

sex

at

the de-

is

Don Juan syndrome on

to dwell

Wayne

is

an obvious

other areas. This

in

persistence in adults as the that there

is

"Perhaps

it."

so is

Dr. Gloria

State University, points

away from home frequently

treat

an alienated fashion, as commodities:

used for reasons extrinsic to the sex objects themselves: proof of performance, to allay boredom Freedom not only .

.

.

.

.

.

involves fewer external strictures but also freedom from the use

of one's sexual performance to serve a variety of protective or narcissistic functions, inherent in

which

is

the abuse of others.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

84

Sexual freedom hopefully would result in sexuality's becoming a part of

life,

often, sex

integrated in the individual's total functioning.

away from home

is

sex

away from

Too

self.

Dr. Robert N. Whitehurst, professor of sociology at the Univer-

of Windsor, indicates that extramarital sex

sity

cultural

flect

values

"may simply

re-

which emphasize newness,

society

this

in

achievement, and aggressiveness to gain ends of 'success.' Certainly, success

with the ladies

America." Dr.

J.

the

is

one of our achievement values

American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry

York, reminds Infidelity in

our culture seems to occur more frequently with time of life when their own sexual appeTo forestall acceptance of their declining may seek other sexual partners in order to

at that

begins waning.

"masculinity," they

demonstrate that they

common

for

them

ual partners

who

It

is

also

New

in

us:

males and often tite

in

Herbert Manton, director of clinical services for

still

blame common for them to

will

can perform sexually.

It

is

rather

their spouses for the flagging libido. to

choose young inexperienced sex-

not be able to discern their decreasing

sexual capacities.

Although most authorities comment, as those

just

quoted do, on

the adulterous husband's tendency to find ego satisfactions false self-esteem in his extramarital affairs,

out that

women may

and

some of them point

also be prone to this kind of extramarital

motivation. Dr. John L. Schimel, associate director of the William

Alanson White chology

in

City,

glected by their spouses their

Psychoanalysis and Psy-

Institute of Psychiatry,

New York

may

take to bed with other

wounded sense of self-esteem" and

with practically everybody

is

who feel nemen to heal girl who sleeps

observes that "wives

that "the

using sexual encounters as a prop for

her self-esteem." Although Dr. Schimel appears to be a

mental and moralistic

in this regard, there

conclusions are accurate. Ego-bolstering

why spouses engage

in

affairs,

but

it

is

is

is

little

bit judg-

doubt that his

hardly the main reason surely one of the most

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

common among

85

the disturbed or neurotic motives for having such

affairs.

One of the few researchers in the field who has actually asked a number of people engaged in extramarital affairs what they did and why they did it has been Morton Hunt, who reports his findThe

ings in his valuable book,

Affair.

bolstering, he notes: "Nearly half of the

viewed

indicated

the

that

On

the question of ego-

men and women

I

inter-

was a major

need for self-esteem

motivation behind their infidelity," Hunt's findings, along with the observations

clinical

show

counselors, tend to fairs for

psychologists,

psychiatrists,

and

that individuals frequently engage in af-

disturbed reasons, particularly that of ego-inflation. At

same

the

many

of

"Some of

time, as he points out,

their statements could

be interpreted as the complaints of neurotics, but others seem

more

like the expressions of

people struggling to keep or recap-

ture emotional health."

Ego-bolstering, in other words, has two distinct aspects, as

have previously noted

in this

book.

I

First, the individual desires

confidence that he or she can function well sexually or amatively; this

kind of confidence-seeking

is

quite normal and healthy. Sec-

ond, the individual wants to accept his or her

self,

and he or she

seeks this kind of acceptance, falsely, by proving that he or she

accomplished

some sex-love area

in

is

(instead of by defining himself

or herself as acceptable merely by virtue of his or her existence or aliveness).

It is

people seek the

by having

engage

first

affairs.

rule can cover als

difficult to

determine,

in individual cases,

Each instance may be

them

whether

or the second of these kinds of ego-sustenance

all.

in affairs for

But the

fact

different

remains that

and no general

many

individu-

unhealthy ego-bolstering reasons.

GENERAL ESCAPISM Most married individuals have serious enough problems in life,

at

attitudes

home,

in their

work,

in their social affairs,

to face

or in their

toward themselves. Rather than face and eventually work

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

86

it much "easier" some diverting affairs, such as those that adultery may Wives who are poor mothers or who are continually squab-

through these problems, a number of spouses find to run to offer.

bling with (and feeling abused by) their parents or in-laws can find

some bachelor's apartment.

distracting times in motel

rooms or

Husbands who won't face

their difficulties with their wives or with

in

their business associates can forget themselves, at least for

ternoon or an evening,

in

some

mistress's

Both husbands and wives who have no life,

and who refuse to work

more meaning

at finding

more than

vital

af-

absorbing interests in

major goals that would give

immerse themselves

to their days, can

an

willing arms.

adulterous

in

involvements of a promiscuous or long-term nature and almost forget the aimlessness of their existences. Extramarital affairs that

are started for these reasons themselves often tend to be meaningless

Mah

and unvital. But surely they are more interesting than

Jongg and

television!

Delia R. was a suburban housewife. She had quit college after

one year

to

marry and

raise a family.

When

her children were off

to high school, she just couldn't see herself returning to school,

then going on to graduate school to get the Ph.D. that

she

little

in

had sometimes thought about painting and decorating, but

getting.

felt that

in

biology

She dabbled a

her talents

both

in

areas were quite modest and that there was no use spending

much

time pursuing them. She couldn't think of anything else big or vital

on which

to center a

good portion of her time. She

ever, decide to take a course in to her surprise

tractive

and

young men

delight, discovered that there in the class

they would like to do with her

did,

Yoga every Saturday morning

happened

to be available

and,

were several

at-

who made no bones about what

still

very youthful-appearing body.

This sounded very interesting to her. Most of these young just

how-

on Saturday afternoon

men

— which was

generally her time for frequenting nearby shopping centers, getting

her hair done, and going to movies (which her husband abhorred

and would rarely accompany her ideally.

She could go

to the

to).

Yoga

Things therefore worked out

class in the morning, return to

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

87

give her children lunch, and then go out again for her usual Satur-

day afternoon of dallying around town. Actually, she polished off the shopping quickly, often didn't get her hair

skipped the movies. This

left

done

and

at all,

her practically the entire afternoon

off for amative dalliance.

At

first,

she dated

men

only for the fun of

it

and as a

relief

from the monotony of her existence. But then she saw, whether consciously or not, that a grand passion was truly the thing to

make her

life sizzlingly

alive.

This would have been well within

why should

the normal range of sex-love varietism:

a routinized

housewife not add to her rather dull existence with a sizzling

af-

of the heart, mind, and genitals from time to time? Delia,

fair

however, was really escaping more than housewifery. Deep down, she

still

wanted very much

to

be a biologist, but she

probably wouldn't be able to get through outstandingly ple,

—

in

that she

or, really, get

through

graduate school. And, like so

many

bright peo-

she was "lazy" (meaning, she kept convincing herself that

was too hard

for her to

was

that

it

day afternoon

Ph.D.

was merely hard). So

affairs,

it

do the scholastic work that was required

to get her to her goal of getting the

truth

—

felt

and

if

if

in biology; instead, the

she could have her Satur-

she could think of them obsessively

during the week, this gave her something vital to do, and something big enough to divert her from the other big goals in

life

that

she was afraid to attempt, because of her basic fear of failure and her

unwillingness

to

work concertedly

for

what she basically

wanted.

To make matters

still

more

neurotic, the

men

with

whom

Delia

kept getting involved were not only a good ten years younger than she, in

most instances, but had their own distinct hangups. They

picked her because she was easily available and because they,

somewhat

like

her,

were afraid

to

go after what they really

woman, without a husband and children, who more permanent and more encompassing kind of re-

wanted: a younger could

make

a

lationship with them. So they helped put Delia through a great

deal of

Sturm und Drang

— which

in a

way she

ate

up and thrived

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

88

on

— and they always were breaking

ratically

er-

and badly; and her preoccupation with them and their

re-

was usually

lationship

a brooding, anxiety -filled, depression-oriented

kind of thing that kept her busy, thoughts

dates with her, being inconsid-

and otherwise treating her

erate of her, breaking off with her,

in a

As she

right,

all

but

filled

her

life

and

highly negative, almost suicide-impending way.

herself recognized after a couple of years filled with

four hectic affairs,

wound up

with

all

giving her

little

nothing but preoccupation

men who promised

her everything and

but heartache, she garnered practically in

these relationships. She had no con-

was aiming

was merely

up her when the ledge on which she was standing would suddenly give way; structive goal she

for; she

filling

time excitedly living on the edge of a precipice, wondering

and, as the years went by, any long-range, organized purpose she

might have

in

life

was becoming

and

less

less

of an achievable

reality.

Was

Delia ever cured of her compulsive, anxiety-impelled seek-

ing for extramarital affairs? Yes, a year later, subsequent to three

more

tragic relationships

But only

after she fully

ing adventurous relief herself into believing

and two suicide attempts, she

acknowledged

from marital boredom,

when

I

first

her extracurricular activities were

finally was.

that she wasn't merely seekas she

was fooling

Once much more an evasion

saw

throwing herself into purposeful, happy her original aims, got herself (after

she admitted that

her.

living, she

much

difficulty)

graduate school, and became quite absorbed

in the

of than a

went back academic

Then, as frequently happens, she ran into a professor who was years older,

widowed about

a year,

and quite

to

enrolled in

attractive

life.

five

and

at-

tracted to her.

For once, she didn't merely run off

know him

other. Ultimately, they

are

still

pen, but

had an

devoted to each other. it

to

bed with him, but got

to

well before they had anything sexually to do with each

may

affair It is

and now (eight months

well be that she will divorce her

to live with the professor.

For

later)

not clear what will finally hap-

this

husband and go

time she really

is

trying to

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE build a relationship and has selected

89

someone who seems

equally interested in that sort of thing. other constructive interests and

is

And

be

time she has

this

not trying to

to

up an empty

fill

with ephemeral affairs. So what was once a neurotic drive for

life

extramarital ventures has

now become an urge

involvement. Whatever happens, will

add

it

to her central existence

Drang diversion from

for self-fulfilling

can be predicted that

this affair

instead of being a Sturm

und

it.

MARITAL ESCAPISM Most marriages leave much to be desired and some are oband sterile, even though the husband and wife

viously "blah"

enjoy other aspects of their lives cational pursuits

— which

— such

as their

work or

their avo-

are rewarding and "swinging." Rather

than face the bleakness of their marriage and rather than courageously arrange for a separation or a divorce, to avoid such difficult issues

and occupy themselves,

extramarital liaisons, which at least in lives

more

a pretty

way, did his wife, Marilyn. lawyer, gave

instead, with

some ways render

many

good existence and

He was an

talks to professional groups

know-how, and wrote

articles

so,

in

It

was

fill

creatively.

their marital "relationship,"

own

which hungered

life,

attended conferences, wrote articles, and had

each week than she could

her

and books explaining some

club activities as he was with his professional

lives

their

outstanding corporation

of his creative discoveries. She was just as busy with her

talks,

prefer

tolerable.

Seymour C. had

after his

many couples

The one

women's

she, too,

gave

much

less

time

blight

on

their

which had never been good.

included just about zero sex, and went on and on mainly be-

cause both wanted to keep up pretenses rather than admitting to their

parents,

their

children,

couldn't stand each other and right

and their friends that they just

had completely

failed to pick the

mates or to do anything about achieving even a reasonably

good adjustment

to each other.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

90 So they both stuck

heads

the sand and carried on des-

were about breaking up

just as chicken as they

None of

riages.

in

mainly with people they knew socially and who

ultory affairs,

were

their

was very

these affairs

they were with partners

who were

mar-

their

satisfying (largely because

available rather than

easily

and all of them provided just enough sex release Seymour and Marilyn an excuse for not looking at the

truly desirable) to afford

emptiness of their marriage and not doing anything about breaking

up. Since both mates are physically

it

enough

and mentally

attractive

keep getting sex offers from other unsatisfied spouses,

to

they will probably keep doing what they are doing, in a similar low-level manner, forever, or until one of

them

drops

literally

dead and "frees" the other from his or her vacuous marital existence.

Only some fortunate accident or intensive psychotherapy

(from which both are stubborn refugees)

is

break

likely to

this

heavily set pattern of marital alienation and aimlessness.

SEXUAL DISTURBANCES Sexual disturbances are rather widespread in our society particularly in the

many

form of impotence or

frigidity

—

as

shown by

research studies, such as the Kinsey and the Masters and

Johnson surveys; as shown by many those of G.

shown by

Lombard

the

Kelly,

common

own

sex.

my own; and

as

gossip and sophisticated talk of innumera-

ble groups of ordinary males ings of their

clinical presentations, such as

Donald Hastings, and

and females, particularly

Husbands and wives could

try to

in

group-

understand

the philosophic core of their sex disturbances, change the irrational

and self-defeating value systems that usually cause them,

and almost always alleviate

shown and

I

their sexual inadequacies (as

I

have

The Art and Science of Love and Dr. Robert A. Harper have indicated in A Guide to Successful Marriage).

in

But instead of trying to understand the causes of their sexual shortcomings,

many husbands and wives

follow the line of least resis-

tance, decide to live with their "incompatibility" with each other,

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE and seek out nonmarital partners with

91

whom

they can operate

more

comfortably and sometimes more successfully. Thus, frigid wives, instead of working out their sex problems with their husbands, sometimes pick a lover or series of lovers with

whom

somewhat

they are

less frigid or

who can more

easily

tolerate their sexual disturbances. Impotent husbands or those

are fixated

on some form of sex deviation, rather than getting

source of their difficulties and overcoming them

who

to the

in their relations

with their wives, find prostitutes, mistresses, or homosexual partners with

whom

they can remain ''comfortably" hung up. In

many

instances, in fact, the spouse of the sexually disturbed individual

severely

blamed

has been

made

for his or her anomaly, to correct this

when

little

is

or no attempt

anomaly by working sexually with

this spouse.

Roger

was not exactly homosexual, but he couldn't stand

P.

typically feminine-looking females

and only went for those who

were small, boyish-looking, had slim hips, especially those who were practically this set

taste, since

When

he

first

met Mary, she seemed

— much

to her

to

own

fill

dis-

she always hated being told that she looked just like a

young boy and

He was

titless.

of requirements almost completely

that

no

real

so delighted that she

man would probably was the

ever go for her.

closest thing to a

boy that he

could find without really being one (for he was deathly afraid that

he might be homosexual, and horrified at the thought of almost

anyone being

in that

abnormal category) that he proposed

to her

only a short time after they met. She was so delighted that at least

one man would want to have her that she eagerly went to the altar,

even though she knew that

mating

At

in

many ways he was

not her

ideal.

first,

things were not bad between

had no trouble

in

Roger and Mary, and he

having intercourse with her three or four times a

week. But then she quickly had two children and began to develop

much more matronly appearance. Her hips and her breasts enmuch to her pride and joy and she looked almost undistinguishable from any other average housewife. What

a

larged considerably

—

—

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

92

new look did to Roger's sexual appetite for her was holy murHe was revolted by the mere sight of her breasts; almost retched when they embraced and he felt their newfound bloom against his chest; soon he was unable to get or maintain an erec-

that der.

whenever he was

tion

sex

life

dropped

in

any way reminded of those breasts. Their

to practically zero.

Roger was quite conscious of what the interference with

his sex

made somewhat strenuous efforts to induce back the voluptuous tide. He tried to get her to diet

desires was, and even

Mary

to turn

her bones showed through her skin; to wear the smallest bras-

till

siere that she possibly could, to pull in her breasts;

and

to dress

To no her new

consistently in an extremely masculine (or boyish) manner.

Her heart wasn't

avail.

the least in

(for she

it

still

liked

''womanliness"). She was never the most disciplined type of per-

son anyway, so her attempts to diet came to naught. Besides, she

knew

there

was something wrong with Roger and

tish

about female breasts wasn't the best thing

him

to cherish; so she resented the fact that he

something

to

in the

world for

would not

try to

do

it.

Roger refused

Impasse.

to

go for psychological help of any

and Mary just wouldn't give up her newfound feminine form.

sort,

If

overcome

that his anti-fe-

hadn't

it

been for their two children, divorce would have

quickly ensued. But instead of trying to do something about rid-

ding himself of his loathing for the typical feminine form, Roger

decided to stay married and to seek his boyish ideal elsewhere.

It

women

is

wasn't easy, since perhaps only one out of a hundred built the

way he "naturally"

liked.

Nothing daunted, Roger

an endless series of prostitutes, bar pickups, business

met

in the

tried

women

he

course of his work, his friends' wives, strangers he en-

countered on the street

— almost anyone he could

find

who more

or less met his physical ideal. Being persistent, he sometimes suc-

ceeded

in

both his quest and his conquest, and he soon held the

world's record for screwing the largest girls.

His main aim

that record, while

in life still

seems

number of

to be

Mary has given up

flat-chested

adding and adding to

sex just about completely

DISTURBED REASONS FOR ADVENTURE

93

and has become one of the most devoted mothers on

all

Long

Is-

land.

EXCITEMENT NEEDS Where

the healthy person, as

shown

the previous chapter,

in

has a distinct desire for adventure, novelty, and some degree of

excitement

in life

and may therefore be motivated to have extra-

marital affairs, the disturbed individual frequently has an inordi-

nate need for excitation.

He

or she becomes, for various reasons,

so jaded with almost every aspect of

found only by some form of blatant parties,

that

life

enjoyment can be

seeking, such as wild

thrill

bouts of drunkenness, compulsive moving around from job

to job, or drug-taking.

One of

the

modes of excitement-seeking

emotional disturbances for extramarital affairs. will

may

take

is

that the person with

that of incessantly searching

This will not cure basic jadedness, but

sometimes give surcease from pain, from incessant worrying,

and from feelings of utter emptiness for

at least a

moderate period

of time. Such affairs are almost ideal in this respect for they not

only require looking for

new

partners, going through

many compli-

and spending time

cations to get together with these partners,

in

the encounters; they often lead to extra complications (such as

running up debts and getting into difficulties with shylocks) that themselves become exciting and diverting. Sidonie K.,

if

she were really mainly interested in having a sex-

ually satisfying lover (her

husband was perfectly satisfactory

most respects, but just wasn't interested

in

in

sex) could probably

have discreetly arranged to take an afternoon (or even an evening) or two off every week, carry

on an

were

in

meet her boyfriend

in a motel,

and safely

him for as long as she wanted. But she figured out that since her husband was practically chained to his store in the city (thirty miles from their home) and her children them,

it

affair with

school

all

day and could only get home

would be novel and exciting

if

if

she drove to get

she entertained her lover

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

94

month in her own bedroom. He, as you might exdim view of having their get-togethers in this particu-

several times a pect, took a lar locale,

way.

that

and constantly

tried to argue her out of arranging things

But she insisted that she didn't

feel

comfortable

strange surroundings and that he had to see her in her or that was

To add in

it.

in

own home,

Having no other choice, he capitulated.

to the complications, he naturally couldn't

park his car

her driveway (what might the neighbors think!); he had to

sneak into and out of her place through the back door; he sometimes literally had to hide bell

in the closet

when someone rang her

while they were together; and once one of her children be-

came

ill

at

home by

school and was driven

the assistant principal,

while she and her boyfriend were joyously chasing each other

around the house donie,

though

in the

she

nude. Boy, was that an exciting day! Si-

might

never have consciously

thrived on that kind of danger.

mantly refused ever to see her

was forced

much

to continue to see

When in

her

admitted

it,

her lover thereafter ada-

own home

him under much

again,

and she

safer circumstances,

of the pleasure of their relationship vanished and she began

to think about replacing

band who seemed

him with her next-door neighbor's hus-

to be willing, right

under

his wife's

and her hus-

band's eyes, to get into a highly risky kind of affair with her.

To Be or Not

Be

to

an Extramarital Adventurer:

That

ET US SUPPOSE

(jM

\^^

You do

solidly

you are considering having an

that

not, at least for the

your marriage; you may,

the Question!

Is

in fact,

affair.

time being, want to break up

look forward to maintaining

it

and forever. But you have some important sexual or non-

sexual urges that are definitely not being met.

Maybe your spouse who just isn't

panion

most probably sire as a

will

is

great in bed but a rotten out-of-bed

interested in the

never be.

flatworm but

is

Maybe he

same things you or she has as

much

the kindest, most loving, best

com-

are,

and

sex de-

companion

you have ever known. Anyway, something seems to be lacking

in

you or your mate, and you think that an extramarital adventure (or

two or three) would make up for

hance, in

its

own way, your

more tolerable

You

until

you decide

to

I

do

gain than to lose?

Assuming

things up? Shall

honestly discuss

end the whole thing

I

I

it

(if ever).

Do I have more to whom shall I start my desires with my mate and it

at all?

decide yes, with

make some kind of arrangement

civilized adultery; or shall

tion

something and either en-

think and think about the matter and certain important

questions keep arising: "Shall

openly

this

marital existence or at least render

and quietly do

my

I

so

we can both commit

take no chances on hysterical opposi-

extramarital thing in secret?

To what

ex-

95

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

96

tent shall

I

seek extramarital adventure

if

decide to seek

I

it

at

all?''

Questions such as these inevitably arise and have to be begged

how you might most

or answered. Let us see

sanely go about an-

swering them for yourself.

Gauging and Analyzing Your Motives. going to consider having

motives really are.

It

is

you are seriously

If

affairs, try to figure

out what your main

easy to conclude that your mate

son with a great number of fine

traits

is

a per-

and advantages, and that

therefore you have no intention of leaving and looking for another

enormous degree of sexual

partner; but that you cannot stand the

deprivation that you endure with this mate, and that therefore you

own

simply must, for your

self-preservation, look for an outside

and "healthy" reason

In considering this perfectly "sane"

affair.

for seeking extramarital relations, however, into account (1) that

you haven't even

have you

first

tried, recently, to

taken

make

it

sexually with your spouse; (2) that you have been lusting mightily for several

months

after

someone

in

your

who seems

office

sexually receptive; and (3) that you really have

along quite beautifully with very

and

tial lust

little

sex for a

probably get along easily without

will

it

be

to

managed to get number of years

again after your

ini-

for this person in your office gets relieved?

In other words: Are you being truly honest with yourself about

your reasons for having an outside affair? Are you actually that deprived sexually? Aren't you mainly going for the short-range pleasure of making

it

enjoyably with the person in your office and

using that as a rationalization for the "fact" that you cannot any longer enjoy sex with your mate and that you absolutely "need" satisfaction elsewhere?

Not

that the urge to have

motive.

What

ment? Don't be your

office

immediate pleasure

are you living for, after in the least apologetic

who appears

all,

about

to be attracted to

if

the sensual gratification

an invidious

you may

that! If the

you

delicious individual you are likely to meet years;

is

but some kind of enjoy-

in

is

person

really the

the

in

most

next twenty

get with this person

is

— TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

97

managed

the thing you've truly craved and have never

now;

to

if

"physical"; is

up

getting into a relationship with this individual will pro-

—

vide ecstatic diversions of several kinds

person

to get

if it

"spiritual" as well as

seems pretty certain that having an

affair with this

not likely seriously to disrupt the other satisfactions of

your existence

— such

as those

you receive with your

coworkers, and your family members; erations are true, then

maybe you'd

thing

is:

your

better try to get this affair

going and take some of the risks involved

The main

friends,

these kinds of consid-

if all

in establishing

try not to fool yourself!

Try not

it.

to convince

yourself that you powerfully crave emotional rapport or spiritual

sustenance from the person with

whom you

are contemplating

having an affair when, to be honest about

it, you simply lust after immense boobs or his gigantic jocker. Conversely, try not to snow yourself into believing that you crave only your potential

her

partner's hot

little

body when you are

accepting relationship that you find

really longing for a

warm,

somewhat lacking with your

mate.

Whatever your goals are extramaritally, there is no reason to be to avoid acknowledging them to yourself, to

ashamed of them and

your possible partner, or (sometimes) to your mate. interested in outside of your marriage

deuce

is

wrong with

is

a

good

Such a goal may be

that?

you are what the

If all

fuck,

"trivial";

it

hardly be worth taking a lot of time and effort to achieve;

you

get

But

it

is

into various kinds of difficulties;

not shameful!

your humanness. in to this desire;

It is

You may

may be

a legitimate part of your desiring, of

— here

if

you give

it.

yourself for having certain extramarital

urges later in this chapter.

and reemphasize

may may

unachievable.

act idiotically, sometimes,

but you are hardly a nut for having

More about defaming

as

it

it

is

The main point I want to emphasize make yourself as fully conscious

that to

you can of your basic motives for extramarital relations

highly desirable before

Try not to pretend to yourself that your "real" motive it is

is

you decide whether or not to have them. is

A

when

actually Z.

How do

you gauge what your basic purposes are? By honest.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

98

You seem

persistent self-questioning.

sonably okay but

still

to find your marriage rea-

and you find

distinctly lacking in excitement

yourself contemplating an affair with, say, a neighbor.

"Did

yourself:

I

ticed this neighbor

boring because

I

making eyes

want to

extramarital venture?

my

find

Am

me?

at

I

make

more

it

interesting?

so interested in having an affair with this neighbor

weren't making

lowing

me

self

I

if

it

me

so easy for

to

got rejected?

Is

it

me from

my

I

be

he or she

make advances and thereby alhard time I would give my-

really

my economic it

be that

hassles with I

want an

my

affair

looking at these hassles, instead of trying to do

something to solve them? part of

Would if

to avoid the exceptionally

mate that are bothering me, and could to divert

I

my marriage excuse my possible

finding

order to

so, in

it

Am

ask

no-

possibly trying to escape working at

I

marital relationship, to

You

marriage so unexciting before

truly find the

my

Is

dissatisfaction with

my

marriage

general negative feeling about myself, rather than a di-

rect result of the marital relationship?"

You can

ask yourself

of questions like these, to try to de-

lots

termine what are your real motives for contemplating having an affair.

may

Not

that

you

will always, just

immediately come up with the

tions,

well

come up with few

if

because you ask these quesright, insightful answers.

You

any clearcut answers. Or you may

discover "answers" that you later realize are pure fictions or rationalizations.

Looking honestly

ing your motives for adultery

whether or not to have an

is

into

no

affair.

your

own

heart and question-

surefire solution to the issue of

But

this

kind of self-querying

can often be instructive and useful. Dealing with Feelings of Shame and Guilt. Back to the issue we a few paragraphs ago: Suppose you discover what some of

left

your real motives for having an yourself for having such motives.

affair are

What can you do then? your shame and

Answer: Immediately undo

all

Am

certainly am.

I

serious about this?

I

and you cannot stand

ciples of rational-emotive psychology, all

guilt!

According

—

yes,

all

to the prin-

—

feelings of

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

shame,

humiliation, embarrassment, and self-downing are

guilt,

Because shame and

legitimate.

one of which

And

sane.

99

is

il-

of two basic beliefs,

guilt arise out

often sane and the other of which

is

invariably in-

you recognize, deal with, and eliminate the

as soon as

insane belief, your guilt immediately vanishes.

Let

me

You

give you a typical example.

tionally obsessed with this

member

are, let us say,

of the other sex with

you have some kind of business dealing

(the

excep-

whom who

architect

is

building you a house, for instance, or the department store buyer

who comes to your office new products). You know and

in a

that he or she

while to look at your

by no means as bright

is

your mate and you suspect that

solid as

bed with

every once

person you would quickly

this

tire

if

you ever went

to

of him or her because,

although unusual physical attractiveness exists, you realize that there

is

much substance behind

not too

— what Activating event — you

At point A, then call the

it.

we

rational-emotive psychology

in

are in contact with this potential

extramarital partner and are thinking about having an affair with

him or

At point C, the emotional Consequence of what you feel very guilty.

her.

is

transpiring at A,

Being prone,

like

most humans,

what

tious conclusions about tell

yourself:

because lust

"Because

am

I

is

in

your

life,

or supersti-

you tend

it,

at

C,

A

to

A, and

must be the cause of C.

My

guilty."

arrant hogwash.

ing event, at point A, in itself affect

person you

make magical

to

happening

lust after this attractive person, at

guilty about

makes me

This

I

is

is

Why?

Because,

partly outside

first

of

all,

the Activat-

you and could not possibly

anything inside you. For the attractiveness of the

lust after is partly

an external happening, and

how can

an external occurrence (other than a physical blow that directly

impinges on your flesh) Second, point

A

it

is

make you

feel anything, including guilty?

obviously your reaction to what

that affects you,

is

and not the occurrence

transpiring at itself.

For

if

a

hundred people met the same attractive member of the other sex after

whom you

lust,

only a certain

number of them would

(a)

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

100

keep thinking about she objectively

is

this person,

more

and,

A

powerfully for their thoughts. ple

no matter how

attractive he or

condemn themselves

to the point, (b)

good many of these hundred peo-

would hardly obsess themselves about

this attractive person;

most of those who did so would probably never berate

and

themselves doing.

— and

make themselves

thereby

consequently cannot be point

It

guilty

A — this

and your thoughts about him or her

tiveness

—

you are

as

person's attrac-

—

makes you

that

guilty.

From where,

your Belief system about what your

cisely,

guilt

which generally

being obsessed with is

in

its

something

is

life. I

wish

I

I

is

hardly the

am making

this

were behaving differently and

proper perspective!"

of the other sex with

(c) is frustrating

into a

moderate

appropriate because there

is

whom you

you rigorously

and annoying; and

is

you

will

ring in your

that

I

am

(d)

would preferably be turned

an overwhelming fixation.

annoying

if

it is

better

if

If

you be-

you continue the obses-

be making a sane conclusion about what

is

occur-

point A, and you will feel appropriately sorry,

regretful, disappointed,

irrational

it is

is

has distinct disadvantages;

stick with the conclusion that

life, at

The insane

have business contacts

(b)

interest rather than

come unobsessed and

that

my

do business. Even

annoying that

an overreaction on your part;

sion,

I

empirical, observable evidence that your obsession with the

member (a)

like this: "I don't like

whom

is

your rational Be-

is

How

This sane or rational Belief (rB)

some

B

indubitably attractive to me, that

attractiveness so important! it

A. Or, more pre-

at

of which, as noted above, part of

first

person with

this

only thing that counts in

putting

happening

A — one

sane and the other insane. The

though he or she

is

stems from two important things that you are

convincing yourself about

lief (rB),

from B:

then, does your guilt spring? Obviously

and frustrated.

part of your Belief system,

Beliefs (iB's),

obsessed!

I

point B,

at

which are something

like:

is

your

''How awful

shouldn't be so thoroughly immersed in

thinking about this other person!

What an

idiot

I

am

for

making

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER his or her attractiveness so important!

for

behaving

This (a)

set

It

I

101

should be utterly

in this stupid fashion!"

of Beliefs

is

utterly irrational because:

not awful (awe-full) that you are obssessed;

is

damned

most inconvenient or disadvantageous; and there

is

it

at

nothing truly

is

horrible or terrible (except by arbitrary self-definition) about your

inconveniencing yourself in this manner.

There

(b)

is

no reason why you absolutely shouldn't be so

thoroughly immersed

in

thinking about this other person, although

there are several reasons

why

would be better

it

you were

if

not.

Shoulds and shouldn'ts are arbitrary, absolute rules of the universe (or of

really

some God) that you foolishly invent in your head; they have no objective existence. It would be betters can be em-

pirically

and

You

(c)

logically verified.

making the

are not an idiot for

other person so important; that

You

who

are at worst a person

idiotically.

Tomorrow

is

attractiveness of this

an arrant overgeneralization.

right

now

or the next day you

behaving stupidly or

is

may

behaving

start

less

stupidly in this respect.

Even

(d)

if

you are acting

in a

stupid fashion,

why should you

be utterly damned, or put into some kind of hell for so behaving?

Your stupid behavior

will itself

ing.

Why, over and above

fate

go out of

its

this,

be somewhat intrinsically penalizshould you go out of your way (or

Hades? What theo-

way)

to roast

guilt,

embarrassment, humiliation, or self-down-

you eternally

in

logical drivel!

Your shame, ing that

you

feel (at point

C) about your obsession

does not truly arise from that obsession.

It

your arbitrary and absolutistic self-castigations

and

if

arises, (at

(at

point A)

rather,

point B).

from

When

you tone down or eliminate these self-downings, you

will

immediately (so says the theory of rational-emotive psychology) begin to feel

unashamed and

well

sorrowful and disappointed.

If

still

feel

unguilty, even though

you may very

you are wise, therefore, you'd better go on to point D, which

consists of Disputing (challenging or questioning)

your irrational

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

102

Beliefs (iB's) at point B.

How

about is

member

this

the evidence

that

make

foolishly

that

it

awful that

am

I

obsessed

find attractive?

I

Where

shouldn't be so thoroughly immersed in

I

What

the proof that

is

damned

behaving

for

I

am

important?

his or her attractiveness

should be utterly

I

is

whom

of the other sex

thinking about him or her? I

can you do this? By vigorously and

''Why

persistently asking yourself,

an idiot

Who

if

says

in this stupid fash-

ion?"

you

If

own

actively,

irrational

achieve a

new

you

to say,

vigorously, persistently keep Disputing your

Beliefs,

you

come

will truly

wind up

will

Effect. This Effect

first

is,

to believe that

point

at

of it

all, is

E

—

that

is,

cognitive. That

is

not awful to be ob-

sessed and that there's no reason you shouldn't be; that you are

way you do; and that there is no why you should be punished for your silly behavior. Sec-

not a total idiot for acting the

reason

ond, you will have a behavioral Effect: you will lose your feelings of shame and guilt and feel only displeased or disappointed with

your behavior. Or,

in

other words, you will dislike what you are

doing and not yourself for doing therefore,

If,

you

feel guilty,

it.

ashamed, depressed, or otherwise

upset about your attraction to another person and your considering having an affair (at point A), quickly try to go after your guilt.

See what you are rationally telling yourself

(at

point B) to

yourself displeased and irrationally telling yourself to self guilty.

fect

make your-

Rigorously separate these two Beliefs; dispute your

rational Beliefs (iB's) persistently

make

make

sure that you arrive at a

ir-

and vehemently (point D), and

new philosophic and emotional

Ef-

(point E). Then, when you are no longer guilty about con-

sidering an affair, you will have a

able to

make

a

good decision about

much

better chance of being

it.

To Be or Not to Be. Let us assume that you are beginning to face your main motives about having an extramarital adventure and unashamedly a decision.

to accept these motives.

Now, how

shall

you make

it?

You

still

have to make

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

Basically, along the

sion in your less

life:

same

lines that

103

you make any major deci-

namely, by use of a hedonistic calculus. For un-

you quite honestly and openly

figure out

some unabashed hedonistic make wise decisions.

the light of

unlikely to

Let us get a few things straight,

what paths

Human

first.

to take in

you are very

principle,

beings frequently

run their lives by myths and superstitions rather than by there are

some of

some hard-headed data they could use

the hard-headed realities of

You have humans may be

Fact 1: tually,

life

facts.

instead.

But

And

are these:

a distinctly time-limited existence. Evenable to live for a hundred, five hundred, a

thousand years, or even forever. But not right now! Practically

all

of them die by their seventies or eighties. You, too, are distinctly mortal.

Fact 2:

There

is

not an iota of evidence for any kind of after-

or conscious existence after death.

life

People, largely because

they refuse to face reality, keep looking for proof of immortality;

but

it is

almost certain (and

doesn't exist

and that they

at least exceptionally

will

never find

it.

probable) that

Even

kinds of immortality that have been hypothesized

the various

— such

which many devotees of Eastern religions tend to believe constructed in such a fashion that the "you"

who

are presumably transmigrated into your

new

one.

memory whatever of this previous existence, what in "you" can we really say that "you" immortally are?! Fact 3: alive unless

stead, live

as that in

—

are

reincarnated

is

does not remember anything about your previous

it

life

when you

Without any hell

kind of a

There is no real point in becoming and remaining you are doing more than just existing; and unless, in-

you are

really enjoying

your existence.

You do

not want to

only for the sake of living but for the sake of happy living,

and you'd therefore better do something about striving for a con-

same time, a reasonably enjoyable life. Though you will definitely die, you also, in

tinued, but at the

Fact 4: bility,

all

proba-

won't die today or tomorrow. Usually, you will live for sev-

enty years or so. This

means

that the satisfaction, happiness, or

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

104

enjoyment you

strive

had better come under the rubric of

for

You

long-range instead of short-range hedonism. live

want

definitely

to

today and have a ball; but you also want to live tomorrow and

continue to have a

ball. If the

overeating,

heavily

mode

can't

you arrange

is

to

and now and the

Some

live

today

—

—

say,

highly

is

morrow comes, who needs

it?

get your fair share of gratifications

to

today and also get a good

arrangement

which you

you from having much of a tomorrow or from

likely to prevent

being healthy and joyous when that

Why

in

and overdrinking

oversmoking,

many more

later?

To

strive for

such an

be devoted to long-range hedonism, to the here

future.

of the main facts of

then,

life,

would encourage you

to

conclude that you'd better survive, you'd better survive happily,

and that you'd better exert a certain amount of in

order for you to survive happily

volve hedonism, and there

is

being a frank hedonist. In

fact, if

donic,

would tend

I

emotional health.

If

to

nothing

wonder

Back see,

shameful about

you are anhedonic or anti-he-

you are not here

to the question of

in the least

for,

whether

for

some kind of

satisfaction

anyway?

to

be or not to be extramari-

adventurous. This can be sensibly answered, as far as

mainly

in

can

I

terms of a frank and honest hedonistic calculus.

This simply means: fair in

now

conclusions in-

seriously about the state of your

and advantage, what are you here

tally

self-discipline

later. All these

Is

it

worth

it?

What's the cost of having an

terms of your chief immediate goals (such as having a

af-

rip-

roaring sex or love encounter) and of your main general and future goals (such as retaining the financial, amative, security that

you have enjoyed)? Granting

that

and familial

hopping

into

bed

with your next-door neighbor or business associate would provide

immediate excitement and experiencing, what are the long-run sults likely to

be (especially

if

re-

and when your adultery becomes

known!)?

James Francis O'F. and John Jay M. were both mid-fortyish businessmen who were enormously attracted to their mid-twentyish secretaries. They knew that one easily arranged out-of-town confer-

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

women

ence, in the course of which these

pany them, would break the

105

"had"

just

accom-

to

and be a prelude for a long

ice

series

of subsequent sexually oriented "conferences," "board meetings," "sales trips," et cetera.

But James Francis adored

was a devoted rose-grower, and kept thinking significant additions to his house,

swimming

in

his

have lived out of a suitcase as

and

his

just as easily

substantial

his

in

life,

terms of making

his land, his library,

John Jay, on the other hand, could

pool.

home

Long

Island

dwelling; and he frankly thought (at least to himself) that his three

teenage children were mainly a royal pain

in the ass.

After due cogitation, James Francis stopped himself from making any arrangements to take his secretary out of town,

still

qui-

her and almost always thought of her vivacious mouth and slim hips when he was dutifully having sex with his wife, and was both sorry and relieved when he learned, a few

etly lusted after

months ried

later, that

and

live a

concluded, "Fuck

tation,

get caught,

I'll

and schemed the

first

to get

mar-

it!

What do

I

really

have to lose?

If

we

my family and maybe live in a my secretary." He nicely plotted

probably just leave

small apartment in the city with

woman and

company

she was going to leave the

thousand miles away. John Jay, after similar cogi-

first

felt that

in

a long series of infidelities with this

he'd never had

time in years, his blasted

home

it

life

so

good and

was a

that, for the

little less

than intol-

erable.

So

you are considering extramarital adventure, honestly ask

if

yourself: "Is

it

worth

it?

What

probable disadvantages? Will ing

I

work

do, out;

my mate to

are the advantages really enjoy

it

— and —

today

the very

and, assum-

am I likely to still want it tomorrow? Suppose it doesn't how can I best get out of it? What are the chances of

actually discovering

result

I

if

that

what

is

discovery happens?

going on? and what

Can

I,

in

is

likely

terms of time,

money, energy, and other such important considerations, truly

af-

ford it?"

Ask tions.

yourself,

Do,

if

and perhaps keep asking yourself, these ques-

you can, a

little

practical research.

What

usually hap-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

106

pens when other people

like

extramarital adventuring?

Would your

Are you really much different from them? What do your best friends (if you can safely talk to them about it) think of your making out well in your and horrified

if

you have

affairs?

children really be shocked

they discovered what you were doing?

Is

it

possi-

ble that, in spite of his or her seemingly ultraconventional stance,

your mate would actually accept your open adultery or would con-

done

if

it

he or she eventually discovered

ness associates likely to take

it? Is

it?

the person

How

are your busi-

you are considering

having the affair with truly mature and stable enough to play the extramarital

game with equanimity and

terribly upset (and

from becoming

to refrain

perhaps letting everyone know what you are

doing!)?

Be

practical! If

you are considering going into a new business,

buying a house, having another child, exchanging your car for a

new

one, or

making other important

you would nor-

decisions,

mally give a great deal of sober thought to the pros and cons

Why

volved.

should deciding whether or not to have an affair be

given less consideration? Virtually everything you do in

advantages ties

in-

— and

disadvantages.

Why

life

has

not consider these possibili-

before you actually plunge?

Shall

noted

in

You Be Honest with Your Spouse? The ideal affair, as I Sex Without Guilt a good many years ago, is one where

you can honestly and openly engage

in

it,

and then have

tell it

your spouse that you are about to

with his or her

way, you don't have to make up about being caught, can have

stories,

maximum

full

consent. In this

do not have

to

worry

truthfulness with your

mate and your extramarital partners, can arrange for the most convenient times to be away from home, engage

in

a

minimum

of

"disloyalty," give your mate equal rights and time to have any affairs that

he or she wants to have, sometimes manage to have

more intimate

relations than ever with your wife or husband,

and

otherwise gain unusual advantages and relatively few inconveniences. So

if

you are thinking seriously of approaching your mate

.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

107

strictly on the up and up, without any lies means consider doing so and think carefully about how you might sell him or her on the idea of such an above-

about having an affair or cavilings, by

all

board adulterous arrangement. however,

Consider,

disadvantages

the

that

when you openly broach adultery. For example: 1 You may be peremptorily turned down. not fatal, all,

since you need not

feel unjustly

you probably did lead your mate

may

materialize

This, of course,

is

deprived or angry (after

you would be

to believe that

completely faithful when you originally married); and, after being refused, tery.

you

can usually go quietly and commit secret adul-

However, your spouse may then be duly suspicious, and he

or she

may remain anxious and

tually carry 2.

still

on an

insecure whether or not you ac-

affair.

Your honesty may help ruin a marriage

wasn't the greatest in the world but really wasn't

Knowing now

up

that,

all

to

now,

that bad.

you are not content to be monogamous, your mate may think you a louse, fall out of love with you completely, that

dry up sexually, start frantically looking around for a

nent partner

who

is

friends, neighbors,

more

and

new perma-

inclined to be totally faithful, let your

relatives

know what

a "horrible" thing

you

proposed, or otherwise behave deplorably. If these things are quite likely to

happen,

is it

wise for you to be exceptionally honest with

him or her? 3.

Some

people, even though they do their best to try to accept

sexual honesty on the part of their mates, and even though they not in the least

become nasty

yet able to take

it.

Harry

J.,

nouncement

for example, that she

or vindictive about

seemed

it,

do

are just not as

to take calmly his wife's an-

had a lover and agreed that

it

was not any

reason for them to break up their marriage or to act any differently

toward each other than they had done before. But he kept

thinking that she was in her lover's arms whenever she was out of the house for only a

few minutes. He was sure that her inamorato

was much better

bed than himself (even though

in

this

was not

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

108

and he berated himself mercilessly for being such

true),

He became

partner.

a

poor

so obsessed about his wife's affair that he

paid less attention to his work and consequently got into constant fights with his partner.

home

the

that his

He

acted so anxious and depressed around

two children began

to

worry about him and

to

ask what was wrong with daddy. In cases like this,

you mate actual

where you think there

become

will

infidelity,

the question

black truth? Certainly

is

a

good chance that

severely disturbed about your possible or

it's

isn't

is:

a white

often better to

tell

lie

better than a

someone

the truth

about his homeliness, her lung cancer, or his wife's enjoying sex with other

mean

men

far

more than she does with him. But often doesn't

usually or always. Not everyone takes the truth in stride; in-

human

deed, perhaps only a minority of

beings do. Into which

segment of the human population do you place your mate respect? Before you open your

have an tion

and

4.

in

affair, don't

in this

mouth about your determination

you think you'd better ask yourself

to

this ques-

act accordingly?

Honest adultery-permitting arrangements often work better

theory than in practice. Lazlo

spent an entire year talking his

S.

wife into agreeing that they both could have one night a week off

from

their

marriage

in

order to look for and have relations with

other partners. She finally consented; and she stayed

Tuesdays with

their three-year-old son while he stayed

home on home on

Thursdays, and gave her the same kind of night off that she was giving

him on Tuesdays.

The trouble was consequently

the females he tried to have affairs with

was married and tended with him, his

men

to take a

she wanted to date were not in the least concerned about her

being legally tied to Lazlo; it,

was honestly adulterous, and

that while he

knew he dim view of getting involved wife was by no means similarly handicapped. The

all

since that

meant

in fact,

many

of them seemed to prefer

that she probably, wouldn't be interested in

marrying them! So Lazlo was getting practically nowhere outside affairs,

in

spite of his

wife's

in his

acceptance of his having

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

109

them, while she was having the best sexual ball she ever had her

life.

in

This was by no means the way Lazlo had planned things,

and he soon began

to take a

much more

negative attitude toward

having an open and honest arrangement.

For many reasons such as

these, honesty

may

not be absolutely

the best policy in conducting your extramarital ventures. If you,

your mate, and your community can take that kind of honesty,

But

great!

if

some or

all

of you cannot, discretion can

better part of valor. Consider the situation

when you engage

you are

still

be the be in

likely to

aboveboard, civilized adultery; and guide

in

yourself in accordance with this situation and not merely in regard to

some Utopian

A

ideal.

confirmatory view of the lack of wisdom of being totally

honest with your mate in regard to your potential or actual delities

is

found

in the

infi-

book by George R. Bach and Peter Wyden,

The Intimate Enemy: Transparency must be tempered with

infinite tact in cases

sexual disloyalty, at least in most marriages. Over the years

of

we

found that only about 10 per cent of our trainee couples are able to live with total honesty in this delicate area.

covering up

infidelities,

then,

may become

The

act of

an act of love and

save the partner from the indignity of snooping and playing disattorney.

trict

At

who "know but

least this strategy

is

necessary for partners

don't want to know." For them, silence saves

them from sanctioning deception ('T don't want him to know that I know"). These loyalists want to look away, and one should not argue with them. For them it is a case of too much realism being too much of a good thing. Other authorities tend to agree that silence may often be golden

when one mate other

Winn,

is

is

engaged

an extramarital adventure and the

clinical professor of psychiatry at

cal Center, asks the

infidelity?" is

in

too vulnerable to be able to accept this affair. Dr. Harold

Temple University Medi-

question "Should a husband or wife confess

and answers: "In general, the response

'No.' " Dr.

Winn

to this question

points out that confession of this sort

may

well

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

110 relieve the guilt of the adulterer, but

other partner, and

may

may

not be taken well by the

actually be an act of conscious or uncon-

scious hostility against this partner. Dr. Jessie Bernard points out that

most "affairs" that are entered after marriage are

tasies in the

head of the spouse who engages

really fan-

them, and that

in

it is

usually unwise to confess these fantasies or the actual adventures to

which they may ultimately

lead.

Carleton B. Broderick, professor of family relations at Pennsylvania State University, comments:

Like any other remedy, confession of premarital or extramarital

...

affairs to a I

spouse

is

only helpful under certain conditions

have cases where such a confession

set marital

therapy

back several weeks and at least two instances where it disrupted the marriage completely. Indeed, the potential for damage is so real that 1 have become a conservative on this issue There is no simple rule of thumb that can govern all cases, but experi.

.

.

ence indicates that a conservative attitude toward confession

is

well justified.

Duke Uni-

Dr. Charles E. Llewellyn, professor of psychiatry at versity

Medical Center, adds his view:

Should a husband or wife confess

An

infidelity?

informal poll

of friends, secretaries, colleagues, and students yielded a unani-

mous "No," but many elaborated

their

answers

agree with the general statement, "No."

husband or wife should not confess he or she strongly feels

it

...

in

In

some form.

my

infidelity to the

necessary. Further,

I

I

opinion, a

other unless

recommend

that

the involved partner should discuss the situation with a physician, a marriage counselor, or

someone who

is

qualified to un-

derstand and work with the complexities of the situation and

meaning

to the potential confessor, to the spouse,

and

its

to the

marriage. Dr.

O. Spurgeon English, professor of psychiatry

University School of Medicine, strongly holds that

it

at is

Temple

often un-

wise for spouses to confess infidelity to each other, at least in this present benighted day and age:

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

I

don't object to the role of a

111

may sound shocking

liar. It

for

me to say that, but I say it with this in mind: I think most great men and women have died with many secrets in their hearts that they couldn't share with anybody.

going to

live

and be of

and

social

live importantly,

I

think that

if

people are

occupy important positions

value they just can't share everything with

everybody. After devoting considerable thought and study to the problem of

having or not having ity

affairs,

Morton Hunt agrees with the major-

view that secrecy or discretion about such affairs

is

often very

advisable:

For the fagade of fidelity is immensely important to the ego and image of the deceived spouse: The same wife who will quietly live with suspicions for years may be either crushed or enraged if her husband openly admits his infidelities, and the wife who does know about and tolerate discreet infidelity may sue for all she can get if her husband grows careless. Which is why one veteran adulterer said, concerning the confrontation scene, "Deny! Lie! Say anything. She'll believe you because she wants to!" and another said, "Never admit a thing, but if you have to, tell him the least you possibly can. Resist the temptation to make a clean breast of it." Even a high-ranking clergyman agrees: Bishop Pike feels that where two lovers have decided an affair is justifiable, they may have an obligation to lie about it for the good of others. "Once a primary ethical decision has been made a particular way," he writes, "more often than not secondary ethical responsibilities (i.e., secrecy and deception) are ento the public

tailed."

The Choice of a Partner. Maybe marriages are not usually in heaven, but extramarital affairs alas usually are. That

— —

made is

by pure accident, and usually that of propinquity, two

to say,

people meet, one or both of

whom

are legally mated, and experi-

ence some degree of heavenly excitement. this

way, they will

Maybe

they've

known

kind of excitement before, or maybe they never have. Any-

last

feel

it

now

— and

practically forever.

falsely believe, in

most cases, that

Before they hardly

know what

it

has

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

112

happened, they are having lunch, phoning each other, and soon rolling beneath the coverlets together. this

Is

good? Not necessarily! One of the main reasons why

marriages are made so quickly and broken later

A

closely tied to propinquity. in

little

common

that they are so

is

male and a female have relatively

with each other, their sexual ideas and desires

are light years apart, and they really don't particularly care for

one another. But they keep meeting

in the

same

office, or in the

elevator of their apartment building, or on the bus going to work.

And

know each

because they get to

other and are less uneasy with

that kind of familiarity than they are in

new

pletely

emphasize

—

their

usually the

few points

woman

that unbreakable

then they

meeting and dating com-

people, they forget about their basic differences and

—

is

in

common.

Especially

if

one of them

pretty desperate for marriage

bachelorhood rears

somehow manage

its

and

feels

ugly head in the offing;

some degree of intimacy,

to gain

in-

cluding sexual intimacy, and wind up taking a mutual trip to city hall.

So

it

is

with affairs, too. Propinquity and immediate comfort

are the two

main reasons

high percentage of cases.

you

settle

for

this

kind

that induce lovers to get together in a

The question becomes, of easy-to-get-into

quently, alas, you don't have too

many

therefore: should

Fre-

relationship?

other choices. Melvin B.,

for example, wasn't terribly suspicious of his wife, Sue, but he did

know

her exact whereabouts almost

all

the time. Either she

taking care of their four-year-old daughter, or, at

when

the child

was

was

nursery school, she was serving as a part-time bookkeeper

in

the office of one of their oldest friends, Saul D. Theoretically, she

could have taken mornings off from work and had an affair on the side.

But since he called her regularly

ways there when she was supposed est suspicion of her

at

her office and she was

to be, he never

had the

al-

slight-

being unfaithful, even though he knew that he

no longer desired her sexually and had a hard time accurately, a soft time

—

—

or,

more

getting himself to have intercourse with

her more than once every month or two.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE AN ADVENTURER

who

Sue,

liked her married

but

life

113

felt that

she just couldn't

stand the state of near-abstinence that Melvin imposed on her,

would have gladly screwed the Fuller Brush man or any other likely candidate ble,

however,

she was there.

who came

in

was rather impossi-

to her door. This

view of her child's presence

at

home whenever

What with his prying curiosity and big mouth, Melknown about her affairs immediately. The only

vin would have

candidate she could think

likely

though he was past

had

his

his son

sixty, felt

of,

much

therefore,

like a father

own trepidation about his wife and who worked in the business) finding

was Saul

— even

toward her, and

children (especially

out what was really

going on behind the locked door of his office when he was supposedly closeted with Sue in an important business conference.

The odds were against Sue, but she persisted. She spent more money on sexy perfumes and low-cut bras that year than she had ever spent in her previous single

life.

She talked sexily

in front

of

up against him on every possible occasion,

Saul, kept brushing

and stopped wearing underthings beneath her exceptionally short skirts.

guilt

Although he did

about his

own

his best to resist

— — he

largely because of his

wife and ner husband

finally

succumbed.

Their "business" conferences became longer and more frequent,

and yet she was always available to answer the phone

husband called

in the

in case

her

midst of one of them.

The main point of under very limiting and

this case difficult

is

that Sue

was doing her best

circumstances: she really had very

little

leeway to have the kind of affair with the kind of lover she

truly

wanted. So she consciously compromised, as reasonable peo-

ple often will.

But compromise

is

by no means always sensible. Sue could

have, instead of carrying insisted that her

on her surreptitious

affair with Saul, (1)

husband give her more freedom

— or

else!

(2)

looked for another part-time job that would offer her better sexlove opportunities, (3) broken ious other alternatives.

—

up her marriage, or

(4) tried var-

The one she did choose was not too bad would soon be

particularly since she told herself that her child

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

114

old enough to give her considerably

other people, like Sue,

who

more freedom. But too many

crave extramarital adventures only

think of having them within the narrow confines of what

is

fairly

easily available.

Marion in

T.,

who happened

to be a close friend of Sue's

and was

a somewhat similarly restricted situation with her husband,

solved her problem quite differently. Even though she also had a

young

child, she deliberately took a full-time job selling printing

to businessmen,

many

of

whom

were attractive and more than

willing to have affairs. She used her salary to pay for a full-time

maid

to take care of her child

And

during the day.

with one of her single employed female friends to her apartment whenever Marion wanted to use

it

she arranged

make

available

during the morn-

ing or afternoon. She usually kept three or four steady lovers

her regular string and was exceptionally satisfied with her

even though her sex relations with her husband were

on

life,

(like Sue's)

minimal and she would have been bored to tears following only housewifely and motherly pursuits.

The point

is,

What do you

then:

tramarital adventure and what

You

are not Sue and

self.

Do

is

really

the best

want

way

in the

that

way of

you can

ex-

find it?

you are not Marion; you can be only your-

your desires outside the home mainly run to glorious sex,

romantic passion, genuine affection, great conversation, or what?

Give

this

matter some thought and experimentation.

whether you want mainly tional affair, or search for

when you

think you

Santa Claus

may

it.

around," or have a deeply emo-

your next mate, or anything

know what you

else.

Then,

are looking for, actively look!

accidentally provide you with exactly what you de-

sire extramaritally

on

to "fool

Discover

—

if

Seek and ye shall

you're exceptionally lucky! But don't count find!

Ground Rules for Civilized Extramarital Adventure

I

THINK

I

coined the term "civilized adultery" or "civilized

when

extramarital adventure" about a decade ago, ize that

much more

possible today than

affair with the full

1930s.

the late

I

was

began

was years ago

I

had

sort of

I

to

to real-

engage

had known

done

it

was an

in

myself way back

and amatively. Besides,

busy (doing research, no

it

for a long

living with a girl at that time

quite devoted to her sexually tionally

it

consent of your mate.

time that this was true, since in

I

Western mores were changing somewhat and that

I

and was

was excep-

on sexual libertarianism)

less,

and (ironically!) had practically no time for adventures outside our relationship.

my

knew a good many who had lots of time off during the day, and had problems of her own which made it highly desirable that

Not so

attractive

sexual

inamorata. She was unemployed,

males

she acquire

additional experience outside our double

being at least theoretically "free"

doing whatever she

At

—

first,

I

everyone tends to do

beloved couldn't find

ually, there

I

bed.

So,

consented to her

doing with other males.

had something of a rough time.

as practically

my

felt like

in this regard,

in this

me one hundred

wrongly concluded

I

connection

—

that

if

percent satisfactory sex-

must be something wrong with me, and that that was

pretty awful! Fortunately,

I

was already

(at the

age of twenty-five)

775

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

116

somewhat 1

was not

methods of psychotherapy on myself.

into using rational a therapist, nor

even intending to be one; but

background

a considerable

in

human

given thought to the philosophy of

So

figured out

I

— with

had had

I

philosophy, and had particularly happiness.

Marcus Aurelius,

the help of Epictetus,

Spinoza, Bertrand Russell, and several other sensible philosophers

—

that there

thing,

was no need

and that although

to upset oneself seriously

was highly dislikeable

it

to

about any-

have

my

sex-

some other male (especially when I might be in the mood to talk to her and make passes at her myself!), it was hardly catastrophic. It didn't really mean anything about me as a person, but mainly meant something about her and her tastes and love partner off with

preferences. Besides, as

I

also figured out after she

few times, and had come home straight

from somebody

vantages for me.

I

else's bed,

I

two or three

could

(if

I

many

And

I

make

wished) try to

Well, first

won

I

night

worked

I

with other

it

could work to change

and thereby help myself

and

myself a pretty hard time, and kept myself awake until she

her, let her get

I

thought to myself. "Here,

away with

all

I

in fairly short order.

partner stayed out until early morning,

returned. "Poor me!"

girls

in (grim!) practice.

that battle with myself,

my

a

was

I

could see whether sexual freedom, which

theoretically espoused, actually

The

it

morning

years later as The Case for Sex-

self-deprecating, nonsensical ideas,

considerably.

tried

her absence did have some ad-

and thereby enhance my own experiences.

my

had

in the

could work more steadily on the book

then doing (to be published ual Liberty).

at

I

I

gave

finally

act so nicely to

kinds of things (such as keeping the

house clean) that she had agreed to do as part of our living

to-

gether bargain; and then she not only seeks other sexual outlets,

but makes sex

life! If

little

effort to

work concertedly on bettering our own

only she did that, then her adding other lovers wouldn't

be so bad. But imagine! ing time with others!

— copping out on

What

us, first,

and then spend-

nerve!

How

really

worked myself up

could she do a thing like

that?"

For a couple of hours,

I

into quite a

GROUND RULES

117

self-pitying state. But then, philosopher that

days,

was no reason why, with her Besides,

nuttiness, she

had

that other experiences could probably only

tionship,

work

good rather than harm.

things out between us, as

the time she returned,

myself a

lot

rela-

she per-

if

at that; so outside affairs

I

might

have noted, was

worked on myself so well

therapy,

could

I

in

my

pre-rational

was several years away from even thinking

I

about becoming a therapist. But I

and our

that she didn't

had calmed myself down, and done

I

of good. This, as

therapy days, and

when

her,

sexually,

do us some good.

actually

By

do

was sure she could

I

But she wasn't persisting

sisted.

any different.

to be

was too bad

It

those

in

that there

was so avoidant and anxious,

figured out, she

I

was even

1

way she was, and

realized that, shit! that's the

I

much

was one of those occasions

it

that later on,

when

began

I

to

do

better help others with similar problems.

As a result of my sensible thinking, I was able to greet my paramour quite agreeably when she finally returned, be genuinely interested in her outside adventure (which she told tail

and which

somewhat

otherwise,

me

enabled

better),

her that very night than

me

understand her,

to

about

was

in control

that her varietism reflection of her

riously with

of

we normally

had.

I

sexual jealousy.

had very

own

my own

lived together

my

tastes life.

was able

and

and have more enjoyable sex with

With about two more repetitions of the same kind of truly

in de-

sexually

thing,

it

was mainly a

and problems, and didn't interfere

And

for the next six

to take

it

months

we had by

that

When we

with equanimity.

nally parted (for nonsexual reasons, since

I

figured out, correctly,

do with me;

to

little

I

se-

we fi-

then worked

out most of our sex problems with each other, and she actually

had benefited considerably from her outside that

I

had become

totally unjealous; but

the stage of discriminating clearly

jealousy.

And

adultery,

even when one-sided,

who make

this

I

affairs),

I

can't say

had certainly reached

between rational and irrational

had conclusively proved is

I

to myself that civilized

definitely feasible

kind of differentiation.

for people

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

118

RATIONAL AND IRRATIONAL JEALOUSY me expand on

Let

this point, since

is

it

usually crucial for the

establishment of anxiety-free, aboveboard extramarital adventures.

What we

call

jealousy or sex-love fearfulness almost always has, to

begin with, a distinctly sane or rational component.

If

you, for ex-

ample, love your mate and enjoy having sex relations with him or her,

you are rarely going

know

that he or she

affair with) If

you care

is

someone for

to be

else.

The reasons

someone, you

And

seriously jeopardized.

completely overjoyed when you

keenly interested

if

will not

in (or actually

having an

for this are pretty obvious.

want your relationship

this individual is

be

to

thoroughly enjoy-

ing sex, love, companionable, professional, or other intense partic-

more members of your own sex, why should you be deliriously happy about the relatively high probability of (1) your being alone when your partner is preoccupied with someipations with one or

one

else; (2) his or her interest in

(3) your being

at

you being considerably diluted;

times sexually deprived

hop-into-bed mood; (4) your having ing partnership than

less

when you

are in a

let's-

of a living-together, shar-

you previously had; and

(5)

your losing

this

partner entirely, in case he or she finds another consort more en-

make him or her

joyable or agreeable than you and decides to

the

main mate? Rationally and empirically, then,

when you know

mate has intense sex-love feelings for another, you are

that

your

likely to

be

jealous in the sense of concluding: 'T don't like this situation very

much.

I

wish he (or she) were devoted only to me. What a pain

the ass this

is,

in

some respects! Let me see how I can ceand make pretty sure that we become more

at least in

ment our relationship

exclusively devoted to each other or at least see that our relation-

ship

is

minimally jeopardized by any outside affairs."

This kind of jealousy

is

rational because

the logico-empirical observations and that

it it

is

is

usually based on

more or

less de-

priving or frustrating to have your beloved less intensely devoted

GROUND RULES to you, that

it

1

probably would be more satisfying

one hundred percent interested ship,

own

your

in

if

he or she were

one-to-one relation-

and that you well may lose him or her completely

more of

if

one or

the simultaneously ongoing affairs turns out to be unusu-

ally satisfying as

compared

You would be you ignored these form jealous of (or fact, if

19

to

your

own

pretty irrational realities

partnership.

and

ostrich-like, therefore,

and were not

irritated by)

if

any manner, shape, or

in

your mate's other relationships. In

you were completely unjealous, we would suspect

that

you

really didn't care very

much

sorbed

adventures yourself and therefore not that

in extramarital

for this partner,

interested in your original relationship, or

you were quite ab-

you were exceptionally

busy with nonsexual pursuits (such as business or

and conse-

art)

quently rather happy about having to devote less time and energy to

your mate. Rational jealousy, consequently,

likely that

it

truly care for

will

reality-based,

is

and eagerly look forward

un-

is

it

one

to steady contact with

another. Irrational jealousy, on the other hand,

When you

and

be reduced to near-zero when two individuals

is

quite different.

are intensely or insanely jealous of your consort's extra-

marital affairs, this: "Isn't

it

can't stand

it!

you are almost always believing something

awful that he or she

is

interested in

What an incompetent and what

lowing him or her to get so absorbed elsewhere! ungrateful louse

do a thing

like that to

someone

a slob

I

am

like

else!

I

for al-

And how can

that

me!"

Irrational jealousy, in other words,

is

one of the

common

forms

of emotional disturbance. And, in accordance with the theory and practice of rational-emotive psychology,

B-C scheme of is

practically

all

it

follows the regular

emotional upsets. At point

A

an Activating event: your beloved shows real interest in or

tention to another individual.

Consequence, which we usually

At point

you

feel

C

to

A — that

is,

you erro-

my mate is carrying on a hot makes me jealous and hurt."

neously contend that "Because

at-

an emotional

call intense jealousy, hurt, or rage.

Quite commonly, you falsely attribute

with So-and-so, that

C

A-

there

affair

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

120

Bullshit!

There

is

no magic by which any outside event, such

your

as

spouse's being intensely involved with another person, can wriggle its

way deep

your gut and hurt or upset you. There

into

doubt that he or she can, by various kinds of actions,

is

no

frustrate,

thwart, or deprive you: since you frequently want xyz satisfactions

from him or her and you are actually given xyz minus,

minus one hundred. So what you want you are not a sense, he or she

say, ten or

getting; and, in

arranging matters so that you are deprived or

is

balked. Therefore you can justifiably conclude: ''His or her actions are thwarting

my

desires; therefore,

am

I

being frustrated."

Intense jealousy, hurt, and emotional upset, however, are not

deprivation and frustration. They are your idiosyncratic reactions to

someone's blocking you.

And

since you have a distinct choice

of reactions, and since ninety-nine other people

same manner

in exactly the

as

who

you are also have

you.

Much more

it

is

choice and

we cannot

frequently react quite differently to frustration,

mately conclude that

are deprived

this

legiti-

the balking in itself ihat hurts or enrages

accurately stated: you choose to hurt or enrage

yourself about the circumvention of your desires that someone else (such

as

your mate)

is

He

arranging.

chooses to thwart you or not; but once

or she,

this

of course,

also

thwarting occurs, you

have a wide range of possible reactions, and you have considerable choice in taking rational or irrational pathways.

Your choice

is

at point

sensible set of Beliefs that listed a

— your

I

The

Belief system.

you could have chosen

few paragraphs back, namely: 'T don't

very much.

pain

B

is

rational or

the

same

as

I

like this situation

wish he (or she) were devoted only to me. What a

in the ass this

to believe this,

is,

at least in

and nothing but

some this,

respects!"

Had you chosen

you would have had a

intense feeling or emotional Consequence, at point C; but

not have been insane jealousy, hurt, or rage.

keen disappointment, sorrow,

regret,

It

fairly

would

would have been

annoyance, or

although such feelings can be very powerful

it

irritation.

at times,

And

they are not

GROUND RULES

121

by any means similar to feelings of hurt or rage. Indeed, they are significantly different.

What, then, caused your hurt and rage,

stemmed from your

rational Beliefs (iB's).

noted a few paragraphs back: "Isn't terested in

someone

and a slob

I

am

else!

they could not have

awful that he or she

it

can't stand

I

for allowing

And how

where!

if

The answer is: your irAnd they were? Most probably, what I also

rational Beliefs (rB's)?

it!

him or her

is

in-

What an incompetent absorbed

to get so

else-

can that ungrateful louse do a thing like that to

me!" Once you believe

this

kind of nonsense,

I

will practically

guarantee that you will feel insanely jealous, hurt, and angry.

Why

are these Beliefs arrant nonsense? Because they not only

have no empirical referent and not only are

derived

illogically

from your rational observations and Beliefs; they are

set

up

in

such a magical, tautological fashion that there seems to be no possibility

of their ever being included in a logico-empirical universe

of discourse.

They

are dogmatic, absolutistic, faith-unfounded-on-

which orthodox

fact statements, exactly like those in

religionists

devoutly believe, and they are probably totally unverified and unverifiable.

To show how (iB's) are,

unrealistic

and

you need only go on

chology, which logically follows ing your irrational Beliefs

and asking where tific

validity.

is

Thus,

—

D

irrational

Beliefs

of rational-emotive psy-

D

A-B-C.

its

consists of Disput-

or questioning and challenging them,

the evidence for if

these

idiotic

to the

you go on

them and what

is

their scien-

to D, or Disputing,

you would

question your magical Beliefs or assumptions as follows:

"Why

1.

else?"

thing

is

it

awful that

Answer: 'Tt clearly is

my mate

isn't!

interested in

painful, unpleasant, or inconvenient,

getting very interested in

means, second, that

someone

this thing is

else

Awful also means

(if

may

first,

which

someone

that

my

some-

beloved's

very well be. But

it

more than one hundred percent

painful, unpleasant, or inconvenient; be.

is

For awful means,

which nothing possibly could

I'm honest about

it)

that because

my

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

122

mate's having an affair with someone else

distinctly painful, un-

is

must

pleasant, or inconvenient, this pain absolutely should not,

not exist; and not,

is

it

awful that she

and

verse;

cause

I

can scienin the uni-

consequently,

something,

like

must

it

me

not

to claim that be-

Awfulness,

exist!

a pure devil, a demoniacal fiction, that

is

my

invent in

(as far as

a complete non sequitur for

is

it

don't

I

she should

no absolute shoulds, oughts, or musts

ought not do. But, obviously, there are

tifically ascertain)

me what

doing to

is

And by

head.

inventing

it,

I

will

foolishly

I

almost inevitably

make myself

feel 'awful.' So I'd better stop this asinine kind of

fictionalizing

and inventing!"

''Why can't

2.

I

stand

my

spouse's keenly wanting or actually

having an extramarital affair?" Answer: "I damned well can stand it!

may never it! When 1

I

lump

ing that

if

than

I

she has

because

can't.

I

am

am

insisting,

cent happiness feel utterly

my

of

'I

I

can't stand

I

may be

why

demanding get

if I

am

I

really contend-

Well, will I?

it.

it,

I

can't be

that

I

get total,

want.

I

Or am

And

I

I

I

this af-

happy

can't I? Because, childishly,

everything that

miserable

certainly can gracefully it!'

happy, with her having

less

with her refraining from Well,

it?

of course; but

it,

claim that

apart at the seams, die of

I'll fall

insisting that fair,

like

at all

think

I

one hundred per-

am

determined to

99 percent, 70 percent, or 30 percent

desires fulfilled. Well, that

is

my

choice: to be as happy as

possibly can be, considering the real frustrations involved with

mate's having an outside affair, or to be as utterly miserable as

can pigheadedly make myself. Shall

I

stupidly insist

on taking

I

my I

this

second choice? Hell, no!" 3.

for

"Where allowing

There

—

that

can't

my

is

the evidence that

my mate

be such evidence.

behavior

consequently

is

and that

this choice

is

am

an incompetent and a slob

It is

quite possible

Answer:

— even probable

rather incompetent or slobbish and that

my beloved is my behavior

also likely that

I

to get so absorbed elsewhere?"

choosing to have has

little

to

this affair.

do with

But

it

is

his or her choice,

motivated by a desire for variety, novelty,

or adventure that has virtually nothing to do with me.

I

could be

GROUND RULES

123

my mate

King Solomon or the Queen of Sheba, and feel like

my

pluralism prove

"Even suppose

am

/

merely proves, slobbish.

ineptitude or inadequacy?

that

clearly doesn't!

significant respects

wants another lover, too. Does

Of

An

incompetent or a slob

would mean

would always have

that (a)

behave

to

were

I

in this

is

a concept that

if

being that way.

hell for

were possible

competent

—

totally

None of

(c)

two

first

— namely,

way and would have

every

in

prove the

to

out of

little

who

that

"In what

I

would

human who would

condemnable person;

I

get I

would there-

would merely be

way

me

is

my

a

sex-love partner an ungrateful louse for

having an extramarital

like

all,

I

is

poor, unethical, or lousy behavior.

is;

but that hardly necessarily makes

it

really can't, as a

me

mate decides

till

human

I

someone

else,

why

is

it

so.

can prove

She or he

me about

some of my freedom of

would only indicate that

a rotten act

if

me my

too?

could prove undesirable actions

he or she kept lying to

it

I

being, absolutely promise to care for

death do us part; so

to care for

Answer:

affair?''

can't even prove that his or

her infidelity

if

in-

to continue to be so

that / think

took away

I

and that would be highly deplorable. But

life,

"In no way, whatever. First of

"Even

even

was

unfortunately consistently acts badly."

doing a thing to

and only

And

would hardly be condemnable or damnable.

I

fore be a totally rotten,

4.

should

I

these propositions,

hardly, except by any arbitrary theological definition,

person

in-

incompetent; (b)

manner; and

merely be an exceptionally handicapped very

is

were a slob or a

I

especially the second and the third, are really provable.

forever

It

be damned, denigrated as a human, and consigned to

rightfully

some kind of

if it

this

course not!

some of my acts are incompetent or fallible human, it would be incredible if I

variably a magical overgeneralization. For it

not

still

most, that

And, being a

no-goodnik

might

does his or her

It

some

deficient in

an incompetent or a slob?

at

did no such acts.

am

I

my mate

and that therefore prove that

I

How

being completely dedicated to me.

—

if,

this outside affair,

for example,

and thereby

action in responding to

his or her deeds,

it

—

that

but not person, are

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

124

unethical or reprehensible. So

can never legitimately refer to

I

personal lousehood, but merely to lousy behavior. While ior,

can be assessed or measured, he or she, as a

really can't be.

acts

I

am

And when

I

condemn

condemn me

for

my

behav-

human,

total

a person for this person's

and unfairly overgeneralizing

foolishly

doing when

I

it,

—

as

^just

am

I

stop that nutty

acts. I'd better

overgeneralizing and stick to merely measuring a partner's perfor-

mances and how much whether I

is

it

decide that

individual,

worth it

my

isn't

I

dislike them.

Then

I

can rationally decide

remaining intimately involved; and even

worth

it,

that hardly

whom

nor one with

I

if

makes my mate a lousy

could

have reasonably

not

friendly relations in the future." If,

this

by using the principles of rational-emotive psychology

manner, you retain some degree of rational, appropriate

ousy but

rid yourself of practically all irrational,

ousy about him or her, you can then practice, lized

extramarital

For you then

adventuring.

insensate jeal-

you wish,

if

in

jeal-

be

will

civi-

able

to

practice dislike without upsetting yourself about his or her affairs,

and consequently be able

to openly

acknowledge

their existence

and make the best kinds of arrangements and adjustments regarding them.

Many people may consider who love each other to achieve

it

utterly

a state

impractical for spouses

where they are

essentially

unjealous (or at least not insanely jealous) of one another; and rational-emotive psychology, which says that such a state

may be viewed

is

as an idealistic or Utopian philosophy.

possible,

A

similar

view has been independently expressed, however, by various Eastern sages, such as Krishnamurti,

who never heard

Krishnamurti's questioners asks: "Is

woman

to live together, to

it

of

RET. One of man and

possible for a

have sex and children, without

all

the

turmoil, bitterness, and conflict inherent in such a relationship? it

possible for there to be freedom on both sides?

I

don't

freedom that the husband or wife should constantly be having fairs

with someone

else.

People usually

come

Is

mean by af-

together and get

GROUND RULES

125

married because they

nature of this in-loveness

and

love,

in

fall

from the

is

that there

in

and tremendous

choice, pleasure, possessiveness,

start filled

is

desire,

The very

drive.

with the seeds of

conflict."

Krishnamurti replies: "Is that. I

Can't you

fall in

be?

it

someone and she loves me and we

love

perfectly straightforward

(When

aU.

Need

it?

I

say

to live together

we

—

much

very

I

and simple,

get married

don't

let's

I

get married

in that there

is

—

no

up tail,

and both be so

The

is

feeling of being in love

is

energy

everything

in

in love

as

were, necessarily

it

not in the feeling of being in love. utterly without conflict.

being in love. The loss of energy follows

that

—

intelligent

freedom and absence of a center that

is

for conflict? Conflict

loss of

is all

Can't one

in words.)

foHowing? Can't two people be

and so sensitive that there

that

conflict at

might just as well say we decide

get caught

have that without the other, without the

makes

question

love and not have a possessive relationship?

is

possessiveness,

^jealousy,

There

no

suspicion,

demand

doubt, the fear of losing that love, the constant

is

in the tail, in

for reas-

surance and security. Surely sexual relationship with

it must be possible to function in a someone you love without the nightmare

which usually follows. Of course Krishnamurti,

in

it

is."

answer to another question from one of

followers, also points out that loneliness, bleakness,

his

and wretched-

ness that you supposedly feel as a result of being in love actually existed before

you

ship but rather

Whatever

is

it

fell in love. is

the

"Your problem

happening inside you

any other conflict

at all,

is

not this relation-

problem of your own emptiness

drop

it

—

.

.

.

anger, depression, jealousy or

instantly.

Stop

it."

Krishnamurti seems to be saying that insensate jealousy, under any condition,

is

your

own problem and does

circumstances of your loving, being feelings else.

really

It

for

in love,

not stem from the

or having other deep

your spouse, your extramarital partner, or anyone

stems from your thoughts and feelings, over which you

have control. Consequently, as

we would

say

in

rational-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

126

emotive psychology, you can change or eliminate

it.

You

are the

master of your fate and the captain of your soul. Always remember that!

AGREEING ON CIVILIZED ARRANGEMENTS Not every couple has the same that

why

is

among

there are so

the quite

tastes, preferences,

and habits;

different kinds of marriages, even

monogamous. Mr. and Mrs. A. do and even work long hours side by

everything together

same

many

—

practically side in the

business, while Mr. and Mrs. B. rarely see each other, since

Mr. B.

is

a sea captain

and

is

only

home about

three or four days

each month. Mr. and Mrs. C. spend about 100 hours a week together in their small one-room apartment; the D's live in separate

wings of a large house and see each other mainly E's

seem

at

meals; and the

each other dearly, but have a Connecticut home,

to love

where she and the children

live

most of the time, and a

New York

City apartment, where Mr. E. lives for five or six days a week. Just as these extremely different conditions can exist in a con-

ventional

monogamous

marriage, and both partners seem to be

happy with the way things are working

out, so can extramarital

arrangements be exceptionally diverse. Here are some of the ferent kinds of that

dif-

acknowledged and aboveboard adultery patterns

some people

I

currently

know (most of whom

are non-clients)

live by:

John and Susan K. have been together which they have been

John

to

have

affairs,

legally

for ten years, half of

married. Susan

on a casual

at

first

basis, with girls he

permitted

met

in the

course of his work as a photographer. She then began to worry

about his becoming overly attached to one of these highly attractive

and usually very young

girls,

so

now

she only permits him to

have sex-love relations with women, usually around her own age,

whom

she personally

knows and

is

friendly with

have sex with him as part of a threesome, ticipates.

in

and who usually

which she actively par-

— GROUND RULES

127

Joe and Stella F. allow each other one night out a week, always

same night so

the rule

is:

other

neither

that neither

is

is left

alone. Their

main

supposed to have sex with anyone

knows personally or

restrictive

whom

the

in business.

Ariel and Walter R. allow themselves extramarital affairs only

when they are able to locate a suitable couple with whom they can switch. They spend considerable time looking for such couples but they acand enjoy the adventures involved in finding them tually end up finding what they want only a few times a year.

—

Kurt and Joan T. have arranged to be completely faithful to each other when they are both

home

at

in

New

Haven. But when

— which he does about time — both he and Joan

Kurt goes off on one of his business trips five

times a year for several days at a

are

permitted to do anything they want to do sexually with any partner they find.

They usually enjoy

talking in detail with each other

about what happened to each of them when they were apart.

Bob and Caroline

get along well with each other

S.

children and usually enjoy each other's

company

and

their

considerably. But

they haven't been attracted to each other sexually for years. So they both are permitted to have any kind of outside affairs they wish, as long as they

do not spend inordinate amounts of time

doing so and as long as their friends, relatives, and children are kept

in the

dark (especially since they both hold high positions in

the field of education,

and

their

communities would take a glum

view of their private sex arrangements). Josephine and tle

Bob

R. have agreed that because

Bob

is

very

lit-

and desires intercourse perhaps a half-dozen

interested in sex

times a year, she will quietly continue her seven-year-long affair with her boss and

Bob

will

cooperate to see that there are no

hitches.

These are but a few of the many different kinds of arrangements that thousands of people make these days to commit open, civilized adultery. If

you are considering an arrangement of one of

these kinds with your mate, there

is

no reason why you may not

be able to work out, on a calm and amicable basis, a satisfactory

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

128

What

1

is

you want

of time that you and your

to allow each other for extramarital adventures?

member of the may be perfectly

to see a

twice a week, that

you want

of the factors to consider seriously are:

maximum amount

the

mate are willing If

Some

of ground rules.

set

same person

to see this

other sex regularly, once or satisfactory to your mate. If

five

may be

times a week, that

another thing entirely! Assuming you want to maintain some kind of regular married

life,

and

truly be

devoted to a meaningful

tionship and partnership,

how much time

you

and love relations?

to give to outside sex

How

2.

tically

is it

open do you want your arrangement

everyone you know be aware of

it

rela-

feasible for either of

be? Shall prac-

to

(and some of the conse-

quences be damned!)? Shall certain people, such as your children

and you and your mate's parents, be kept lots

know?

of other people

cally all

Shall

in the

you keep

it

dark, even though

secret

from

practi-

your friends and associates, and make sure that you and

your mate only have your married individuals) or

affairs with safe

in safe

people (such as other

places (such as areas

more than

a

hundred miles from your home)? Questions like these are eminently practical, and had better be

asked and answered. Because no matter

would prefer

to

how much

be open and honest with the

as with each other, can

you

way

benighted day and age?

in this still largely

really afford to

for example, will there be repercussions

your uptight neighbors

insist

the two of you

entire world, as well

conduct your

lives this

you are honest,

If

on the job? Will some of

that their children boycott yours?

The degree of upon may vary enormously, depending

Will you and your spouse be socially penalized?

public honesty you agree

on the answers you give 3.

What degree of

to

some of

these hard-headed questions.

sexual and love permissiveness

you and your marital partner

to give each other?

is it

You may

on complete sexual leeway for each of you, but does

may man? Or

become pregnant,

wise for

this

she wants

agree

mean by

that the wife

feel free to

another

that the husband can be free to have sex with

prostitutes or with

if

homosexual males who are highly

to,

likely

to

GROUND RULES

129

have venereal diseases? Or that only two orgasms a week he

with another

More

is

if

husband can generally have

the

to be permitted to have both of

them

woman?

importantly: what about love?

Men

can often have adul-

terous affairs, especially on a one-night-stand basis, without be-

coming even mildly attached

to their extramarital partners; but

whom

women

tend mainly to want sex with those

and

become emotionally involved with those with whom they

have

to

sex. If

you are a

wife,

you may

easily give

they are fond of

your husband per-

mission to fuck almost anything in sight; but what

keeps thinking about one of these fuckable

husband, you

may

not really

much

school. In fact,

if

you are a

If

your wife

romanti-

is

one of the children she teaches

cally involved with the father of

for her

care

he loves and

if

women?

you may think that that kind of attachment

is

in

good

and helps her be a better wife and mother. But suppose she

wants to copulate only with her lover and feels unfaithful to him

when she enjoys you sexually? What

are

you going

to

do about

that kind of situation? 4.

What

is

mate the gory

your policy going to be about delineating to your details of

course, politely avoid

all

your affairs with others?

— and merely

such details

You let

can, of

each other

know that you are having outside affairs, without specifying with whom, where, why, or how you are having them. But that may tend to interfere with the honest and intimate communication be-

tween the two of you leave you and your

much to hide!). You can, on the

—

^just

having surreptitious affairs

as

mate with

relatively

little

to talk

may

about (and

too

did with your lover,

other hand,

how

tell

your mate exactly what you

what you learned from the experience, what feelings of love you had for this other person,

the future,

may

his or her sexuality really sent you,

what kind of a partner you intend

and so on. But

to look for in

his or her self-disparaging tendencies

some of may seriously boombetter ways of confiding

not be able to take this kind of forthrightness, and

your most innocent remarks and descriptions erang.

You can experiment, and look

for

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

130

(and not confiding) out, to

it

may have

in the future.

But once a revealing statement

come. Jim V. quite innocently remarked to

"Boy,

simply couldn't stand the

I

is

on your mate for a long time

a deleterious effect

girl after

wife,

his

we had been

Sally,

together

Was she stupid! But what big, firm tits she had! who had always felt very inadequate because of her

for thirty minutes.

Yum!"

Sally,

small, flabby breasts, took that last self

enormously with

had opened 5.

his

remark

and hurt her-

to heart

Jim only discovered years

it.

later that

he

mouth much too wide.

What about

logistics?

mate: "Okay, dear.

If

It

seems

you want

to

relatively easy to say to

have an

by

affair,

all

your

means

have one. As long as you don't spend too much time away from

home,

me.

that's fine with

And

I,

following the same rules, will

probably do the same." But where, when, how, considering that both of you are married and hardly have a place of your

which

own

to

to take anyone, are such extramarital adventures actually

going to occur?

Georgia C. said that she didn't mind anything her husband did sexually

with

another

woman anywhere

woman

near their

cially did not sleep with her

But when she found out

—

as

long as he didn't take the

own home, and as long as he espein their own bed. He entirely agreed.

later that his

once-a-week jaunts were

him over a hundred dollars a month, mainly for hotel rooms, she was utterly appalled. They just couldn't afford that

costing

kind of expense! She voluntarily agreed to go out visiting one night a

week and

let

him use

their

own premises

for his affairs.

Joan D. had an even harder time arranging to get together with her lover regularly, even though her husband relationship and offered no objections.

money problems

— he was

a

knew

all

about their

Not only did they have

bank clerk with

a wife

and

five chil-

dren and definitely couldn't afford to pay for a hotel room or an

apartment

— but

she couldn't take him to her home, because the

neighbors would soon get suspicious and think her a

slut;

and she

couldn't go to his place, since his family was always there. Fortunately, her

most cooperative husband had an

office with a sofa-

GROUND RULES

131

bed, where she could comfortably see her lover; that arrangement

worked out

fine.

Anyway: agreements on arrangements often have between spouses who are engaging

how

made

to be

No

in civilized adultery.

matter

collaborative they are, extramarital adventures require a time

and a place, and sometimes both these factors have to be explicitly discussed and settled.

NEGOTIATIONS AND RENEGOTIATIONS Although most people may not realize marry, their continuing relationship

usually a matter of contin-

is

and renegotiations. The husband

ual negotiations

because he's married his wife

ple, that just

is

feels, for

supposed

with him whenever he has the slightest wish to have

covers

(often

to

horror,

his

but

when she

gives

it

on demand

it

is

it

to

exam-

have sex

but he dis-

it;

with

ultimate

at certain

times and

usually

reconciliation) that she only wants to have that

when they

point

at the

it

hardly the kind of sex he

imagined having before they were wed. Or the wife believes that her husband will be heartily interested in her doings after marriage as he

some

was before, and she

things,

is

not at

plaints,

and that he

did

day

all

all

—

interested only in

life,

both mates

smooth (though not necessarily same. All a such rules,

rules

for

man and is

—

if

the

ecstatic)

civilized

they don't divorce or

wife really know,

in

relation

when they

are

originally

the

make

and perhaps exception-

with exclusive one-to-one mating.

like in regard to sex-love

a relatively

manner.

extramarital

that they are not too content,

ally displeased,

com-

what he

renegotiate their original understandings and

unspoken agreements, and the marriage goes on

Ground

in

After learning, the hard way, some of

at the office.

murder each other

is

wants her to be wrapped up

really

these facts of marital

finds that he

attentive (except negatively) to her

What

they do

pluralism they can largely only guess at

because they haven't had that kind of experience within the marital

framework. They both may have dated several people

at a

time

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

132

before they married; but that

a different thing from having va-

is

rietism with marriage.

So they dream up some kind of

set

of goals and ground rules.

Occasionally, these work perfectly from the

start,

subsequent hassles. More frequently, there

are.

L.,

agreed that they would have affairs together by

instance,

for

and there are no

Jane and Jim

switching with other couples, because they believed that otherwise they would be worried about

and would

feel that their

whom

the other partner

was dating,

marriage might be jeopardized. But

in

the course of several months of active seeking they couldn't find a single couple willing to switch

where the wife was satisfactory

Jim and the husband satisfactory trated that they gave

up

to Jane.

on

entirely

this

They became

to

so frus-

arrangement and began to

look for partners individually. This worked out

much

better, so

new arrangement. managed to find several couples to The trouble was that Maria got hung up on one of the

they kept to the

Ron

V. and his wife, Maria,

switch with.

husbands while he merely found the wife a but essentially a bore. in

a row,

When

Ron decided

quently,

same thing happened three times women he was likely to meet draggy while the men Maria was

the

meet were much brighter and more this

couple,

good sex partner

that the

through switching were pretty likely to

fairly

too,

started

attractive.

Conse-

making individual dates and

stopped switching.

may add to or subtract from the permissiveness When Ron V.'s wife, Maria, became particuemotionally with one of the men I just mentioned,

Renegotiations

of an arrangement. larly involved

Ron

felt that their

marriage was really endangered, and he insisted

on a new stipulation affairs

in their

were out and had

get under way.

But then,

to

agreement: namely, that intense love

be stopped shortly after they began to

after they

had stopped the switching and

turned to individual dating, and after he met a

he really cared, even though he

still

no intention of breaking up with the love pluralism

was

woman

for

whom

cared more for Maria and had

her, he thought that he realized

just as legitimate as sex pluralism,

and he

133

GROUND RULES

rescinded the renegotiated agreement about intense involvements

and allowed Maria

to take

up again with the man

to

whom

she

had become intensely attached. Renegotiations are also desirable, at times, in regard to other

Tom van F. origido just about anything

aspects of a civilized extramarital arrangement. nally told his wife, Delia, that she could

she wanted extramaritally, since he just didn't give a shit about

what other people thought of him

in

case they saw that he was

being cuckolded. But he found that Delia began to get a reputation in

town of being highly promiscuous, and

his accounting practice

dropped considerably. People frequently inferred, quite wrongly,

was a very weak individual to let his wife run around the way she did, and they falsely concluded that he therefore might not serve them well as a strong, assertive accountant. When he

that he

discovered, through his partners, what was happening, he immediately renegotiated his

arrangement with Delia and got her to agree

would thereafter be much more discreet about her

that she

affairs

and would largely confine them to out-of-town appointments.

Some aboveboard

affairs are eventually renegotiated out of ex-

more facts and fewer fictions become known. Peter J. had little

regard to their work-

istence, as

in

ings

difficulty

wife,

own marriage was

for other partners, since their

sex

in

talking his

Myra, into their each having a night out every week, all

to look

right but their

was pretty boring. She excitedly took advantage of her

life

new opportunities

weeks and found them

for several

interesting

enough. But then she began to feel that sex companionship alone

was simply not enough, that most of the men she went with were losers

who

the time ing out

weren't even worth being with a single time, and that

and energy she had

to

expend

in

meeting them and find-

what duds they were simply wasn't worth

it.

So she began

home on her ''night off" and letting Peter do whatever he wanted to do. When, after a while, he too got tired of running around town looking for new partners, and when Myra began to

staying

get fed

up with the inebriated

home every Thursday,

state in

after a night

which he generally returned mainly spent

in

bars,

they

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

134

both agreed to abrogate the old agreement and to have their extramarital affairs irregularly and spontaneously whenever they hap-

pened

to occur.

SETTLEMENT OF DISAGREEMENTS Suppose

husband and wife want

a

have an honest arrange-

to

ment but cannot agree on terms. What do they do? Dennis Q. was willing to allow his wife, Marsha, to have extramarital ventures as

long as she (1) didn't stay out able kind of

man

with

and

rious trouble,

whom

all

night, (2) picked a safe, respect-

she was not likely to get into any se-

affairs only and didn't become Marsha wanted more than this but at terms. As the months passed, she became se-

(3)

had casual

too emotionally involved. first

settled for these

riously

place

enamored of

all

a gambler.

She not only wanted

to stay at his

night but also wanted, at least occasionally, to go

away

with him for weekends. Dennis yelled murder and wanted to end the whole arrangement or else divorce her.

What couple

to

do? Fortunately, Dennis and Marsha knew a sensible

who themselves had had some experience

whom

with civilized

up about their problem. In talking things out with this couple, it became clear that Dennis was perhaps too demanding, especially in the way he practically wanted to handpick the type of lovers that Marsha got involved adultery and to

they could open

good pomt: When she got

with; but that he did have at least one

emotionally involved, Marsha had to devote to

him and

little

their relationship.

time or energy remaining

A

compromise was

ulti-

mately reached, with the help of the discussions with their friends:

Marsha could

pair

up with

practically

anyone she wished, and

could even at times spend nights or weekends with him, but was to refrain

from becoming too deeply involved with any of her

amoratos or divorce

if

else to

in-

admit that she was and to give Dennis an easy

he wanted one.

On

this

new

basis, their

arrangement

continued satisfactorily.

Suppose no kind or wise friend

is

available to help arbitrate

GROUND RULES disagreements.

135

You and your

ican Arbitration Association

and ask

good lawyer necessarily called

comes so profound you

that

likely to receive

for a settlement!

for, unless

you want

much

AmerNor is a

wife can't very well go to the

your disagreement be-

to seek legal separation.

Nor

are

help from your friendly neighborhood

clergymen (though, with the church progressing considerably these days, this possibility

is

What

getting to be not too far-fetched!).

then?

may be prejudiced, of course, mend professional aid in the form I

this

I

generally would recom-

of a psychologist, psychiatrist,

worker, or marriage counselor. Not that the

psychiatric social

members of

but

profession are completely objective and open-

minded; they frequently

aren't.

They may have

their

own

fish to

and be imbued with nutty psychoanalytic ideas about your

fry

ideas of having extramarital adventures necessarily

stemming from

the need to emulate the pathological infidelities of your parents.

Or they may have that marriage

is

the goody-goody marriage counselor premise

a sacred institution that cannot be successfully

Or they may be in the bag who hold that all one-to-one mari-

followed in an unconventional fashion. with the encounter-type leaders

arrangements are too restrictive and decadent and that only

tal

communal marriage,

or something of that sort,

out well and to bring about the

Coming

is

likely to

work

Revolution.

Well, screw that!

Therapists and counselors can easily have

own problems

(and, in fact, often got into their profession

their

because they do!). They are hardly Holy

Men

or Wise Philoso-

phers. Nonetheless, they are often the best thing available for

riage-appraisal. pist

So

if

you can locate a

who has had some

first-hand

mar-

sensible, experienced thera-

knowledge of marriage, who

follows a reasonably rational therapeutic theory, and

who can

help

you and your mate with some of your possible personality and lationship problems, as well as help

pros and cons of a civilized adultery arrangement that would specifically for

both of you, by

all

re-

you objectively consider the

work

means make some appointments

with him or her and go over your arrangement problems in his or

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

136

her office. Almost always, you will see this therapist jointly, at for

least

some of

And by

the sessions.

hearing your stories and

your attitudes, and highlighting what each of you would really like to get out of

life,

is

it

quite possible that this therapist or coun-

selor will be able to be of considerable help to you.

SOME BASIC RULES FOR MAKING GROUND RULES The

you and your mate

rules that

and even-

finally arrive at

depend, naturally, on your personal inclinations,

tually stick to

and

feelings, beliefs,

No one

habits.

can very well make them for

you, and no one can clearly predict whether they will work out well or badly. fully,

To make and

renegotiate these rules

more

success-

however, there are a few principles that you might seriously

consider:

one out

that they don't.

two

your own feelings. Don't

Start with

1

rule

know

try

an arrangement or

because others have told you to do so or insisted

just

better than you. Perhaps they do; probably they

For they are not you; and you and your spouse are the only

you's, really,

agreement.

How

who

are

do you

making and maintaining

kind of an

this

about exclusive and nonexclusive

feel

marriage? What do you sincerely like and dislike about the tionship you have had

up

you could improve upon

to

now?

In

"I'm not sure what feel."

I

want.

You do know

Crap!

what ways do you believe

(or, for that matter,

marital state? Don't be vague! Don't I

let

really don't

—

if

you

worsen) your present

yourself get

know.

I

it

2.

Don't

let

— and

I

really ask yourself.

Indeed,

— but

you are it.

But

yourself be overly influenced by what others think

By all means be practical: harm yourself and your family in openly live in "sin" with some mem-

don't do what would obviously serious

with:

how

find out.

or by what you think they think.

some

tell

or scared that you won't be able to get

you do know! Ask yourself

—

away

can't

you probably know perfectly well what you want afraid to go after

rela-

way

—

like, say,

GROUND RULES

137

when you

ber of the other sex

are a clergyman in a conservative

But don't refrain from doing what you

sect.

really

want

nose

his or her

Think about and discover the

at you.

down

real disad-

vantages of displeasing others before you run your whole

around what they

will think

do

to

merely because someone somewhere at some time will look

life

and do about your having extramari-

adventures.

tal

3.

As

far as

you can, experiment. As noted previously

in this

know what civilized adultery is like till And of the many kinds and degrees of it

chapter, you'll never really

you

try

in

it

some form.

that exist, you'll never discover

what modes are good for you and

your spouse until you try one or more of them and get some facts

your theories. Experiment. Change your ex-

to support or refute

periment when desirable. Revise your thinking. Keep experimenting

and keep revising your views

have one

life,

but you have

if this

many

possibilities of careers, specific

jobs, groups of friends, recreations,

the course of that

life.

seems desirable. You only

and sex-love arrangements

in

Experimentially discover what's best for

you and your mate. 4.

Don't

make

absolute promises to your mate or to any of

your lovers, and don't be afraid to admit that your feelings can

and do change radically over the years. Sure you were certain,

when you

first

fell

in love with

your wife or husband, that you

would intensely love him or her forever and would not even think of sex-love relationships with someone else. Well,

let's

face

it:

you

were deluded. Sure you were postitive that you couldn't possibly

monogamous

maintain

relationship with your spouse and that you

indubitably had to have affairs on the side in order to tolerate

may have been

marriage. Well, you

Whatever you strongly

feel

today

quite deluded about that, too.

may

or

may

not be the

tomorrow. Let your sex-love partners know your feelings

if

that way.

votion

you

And

now

will. if

But don't assume that they

will

real,

same

gut-level

always remain

you promise some person undying, exclusive de-

don't be

ashamed

to admit, later, that

you no longer

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

138

feel that

way. Being disloyal to another certainly has

own

your

tages, but being disloyal to

its

disadvan-

feelings can be the worst

thing you can do to yourself. 5.

Watch your damned

you have been married for a

member of

tive

may feel very flattering, when good many years, to have an attrac-

ego!

the other sex

It

show obvious

interest in

you and

covertly or overtly suggest that you have an affair together. But

is

that flattery worth the losses and hassles that will probably go with

having that affair

in

after

maner?

a civilized, honest

ego-building to have your mate

It

may

also be

exclusively devoted to you,

still

he or she has known your worst points for

lo these past de-

cades. But will that kind of ego-aggrandizing really get you what

you want, especially otherwise limited?

if

If

self-rating tendencies

he or she

you are

is

sexually, conversationally, or

truly wise,

and train yourself

you be

to

will

work on your

much

less affected

by what others think of you, and how they "build you up," so that

you

finally discover

what you would

truly like to

do most

in

your

earthly existence. 6.

Don't cavalierly assume that you have only one major mari-

choice. Just because you and your mate have always lived monogamously doesn't mean that you have to continue doing so

tal

forever. Just because

ing role doesn't

mean

you have rarely that

it

conditions. Just because

all

is

lied or

played a dissimulat-

wise to continue this pattern under

you decide

mean

to

engage

in civilized ex-

you have to continue to do so or to do so under the terms of your original agreement with your mate. There are almost always other alternatives to what you

tramarital relations doesn't

are

now

doing: whether they be having affairs, stopping having af-

fairs, getting it,

that

a divorce, et cetera.

and look for practical

When you

alternatives!

are dissatisfied, admit

Etiquette and Techniques

for Extramarital Adventure

'NFORTUNATELY,

most liaisons that take place today are

not arranged on the honest basis discussed in the previous chapter,

many

are engaged

in

quite

where husbands and wives agree

illicitly

and dishonestly. Even

to swing,

have adulterous relations when they

and mainly (or only)

literally

accompany each

other to a rendezvous with another couple or group of couples, they cannot necessarily be completely open, at least at the start,

with their outside partners; they are forced, instead, to creet

and suitable overtures

make

dis-

to these partners to get things going.

What, therefore, are the best kinds of techniques and procedures to employ

if

you decide

to

have a discreet

affair or if

and your mate want to swing together without getting into culty

in

frankly,

you

diffi-

your somewhat narrow-minded community? No one, knows too many of the answers since the subject, utterly

tabooed

till recently, has hardly been adequately researched. Until more information is gathered about secret or semi-secret affairs, and accumulated evidence about what works and what does not is

published,

many important

questions

will

go unanswered.

But

don't despair:

all is not lost. Although full materials for a textbook of extramarital etiquette and technique do not yet exist, novelists,

autobiographers, and students of sexual mores have given us

some

salient

information; their findings will be outlined in this

chapter.

139

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

140

HOW TO MEET EXTRAMARITAL PARTNERS The main ways

to

meet extramarital partners are not remark-

ably different from those for meeting premarital partners

which

have previously outlined,

I

the Single ing.

The

Man and The

"secret" of

it

in detail, in

Intelligent

all is

Woman's Guide

Joseph

years,

J.

and Sandra

S.

to arrange a liaison.

this parit

does

are an excellent example of what not

They have known each other

have somehow (fumblingly!) arranged

—

Manhunt-

even more so than

were unusually attracted to each other from the

casions ing

to

And

forms of sex-love encountering.

for other

do

— and

books. Sex and

persistent assertiveness.

ticularly goes for extramarital seeking,

to

my

when

that

is,

their respective

nothing but

to get together

for five

start,

and

on four oc-

mates were out of town. But noth-

talk, talk, talk

—

ever occurred between

them.

On

their last date, they almost

made

it.

Ostensibly, they got to-

gether at Sandra's apartment so that she could literally!

— her

etchings.

show him

—

yes,

So he saw her etchings (scads of them!)

and they discussed them (and the kitchen sink) ad nauseam. But neither had the guts to make an overt move. Had he even put his arm around her waist, as they sat near each other on the sofa, she would have ripped her own clothes off in a minute. Had she taken his hand,

he would have feverishly kissed

her body. But

they did was gab

all

—

it

— and then

themselves, or their feelings for each other. got

the rest of

not even about sex, or about

And

that, of course,

—

as the old prov-

them nowhere.

As

it

will!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

erb truly goeth.

And

another corny truth: actions speak louder

than words; even words speak louder than words stances.

Words about

sex, love,

in

many

in-

marriage, us, our relations with

our mates, our amative goals and aspirations are much more to the point than words about

art,

music, science, and the state of the

world. Joseph and Sandra were both very bright and sophisticated;

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES

141

but their bright talk largely obfuscated the real issues between

them.

What But

to

do?

you are

if

No

rule

best for everyone under

is

all

conditions.

on having extramarital adventures, here are

intent

some general precepts you can adapt to individual circumstances: 1. Talk relevantly! If you are interested in your neighbor's spouse, a coworker at the office, the person you are conversing with on a plane, or any other individual, get the conversation

around

Not during the

to sex-love topics.

off, just as

ritory: talk

you would do

in a

first

few minutes! Start

premarital encounter, in neutral ter-

about the weather, jobs, hobbies, sports,

anything else that

is

w/isexy.

Show regard

and

politics,

for the other individual

as a person, and not merely as a potential bedmate. Indicate to

him or her and 2.

you are

that

really interested in his or her personality

space.

life

Then

and

get to sex

love!

Be

honest: disclose yourself. Talk

about your views on sexuality, romance, marriage, extramarital fairs,

to

divorce, and so forth. Tell your partner what you

do

to

from experiencing

how

it;

own it

sex -love history;

about doing

in

potential partner

you are and

What has he

at

or she

concluded from these adventures? thought

in the future?

regard, the better

Take

life?

if you possiwhat you learned

helped you to get to where you're

Interspersedly, ask about the other.

been through

3.

af-

like

enhance your amative existence. Volunteer,

bly can, something of your

today.

would

to

The more information you

likely to time

get in this

your specific passes

at this

win his or her acceptance.

a physical plunge! If the occasion possibly arises, hold

hands; put your arms around the other person; kiss; embrace.

Sometimes,

this is not possible: public

sort of thing,

and you have

circumstances preclude this

to use purely verbal

means

to get the

other individual to a place where physical contact can take place.

But usually you can manage some kind of a touching connection,

and a single contact of

this sort

can often

tell

you more about

his

or her receptivity to having an affair than can thousands of verbal interchanges.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

142

Do some

4.

you choose person

open at

in a

plotting and

make

to

hallway

at a

to public view, in

any moment, or

scheming about the time and place

a physical overture. If

in

crowded

an open

any other

you

briefly try to kiss a

party, in an automobile that

office that

someone

else

may

is

enter

fairly public place, the reception

you get may be more influenced by the surrounding conditions

A

than by this person's intrinsic responsiveness.

me

counseled told

whom

that her boss, with

whom

secretary

I

she was madly in

love, first kissed her impulsively in a hotel lobby,

when

they met

there to attend a business meeting. She was so surprised and so

would be seen by some of

afraid that they

(not to mention his wife, that she quickly

cheeks.

He was

their business associates

who sometimes frequented

so certain, by this rebuff, that she wanted to have

nothing to do with him sexually that

it

took him an entire year,

make a second pass at when and where you can best make

plus four swigs of Scotch, to

thinking to

little

ical

that hotel!)

his lips to brush her

withdrew and hardly allowed

her.

the

So give a phys-

first

overture to your would-be lover.

All the foregoing points are easy to plot and execute are not emotionally blocked. But

how

dead, no matter

you

if

agile a planner

are,

—

//

you are practically

and schemer you may be

tically

is

immensely eased when you are

and emotionally prepared for many

members of

the other sex in

whom you

rejections.

Face

in

when

other respects. For making sex-love proposals, particularly

you are already married,

you

realis-

it:

most

are interested will refuse

you for a number of different reasons: because you are married, because you are only partially available, because you are tain

ways not

If,

their

therefore,

cup of

love, et cetera.

you allow yourself

rejections, the inevitable will

cepted. For

if,

in

in cer-

your own

a fuckup for being refused,

to

be seriously hurt by such

happen: you won't even

silly eyes,

you make

you are a it,

by

try to

be ac-

fool, a failure, or

this very view,

much

too risky for you to start anything. In accordance with the principles of rational-emotive psychol-

ogy, define the situation and yourself

much more

sanely and real-

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES

istically.

// is

bad for being

too bad

marital partner able; but

is

it

if

rejected.

may

143

So-and-so rejects you; but you are never

To be

refused by a highly desirable extra-

well be distinctly unfortunate, sad,

awful, horrible, and catastrophic.

You

reaction to his or her rejection. If you

it

want

utterly control

to control

your

own

tions constructively, read carefully the other sections of this

dealing with

full

other books,

How

so,

rarely control another per-

you do

son's accepting or rejecting you, but

and deplor-

make

never, unless you idiotically choose to

your reac-

book

self-acceptance, as well as such books as to Live With a Neurotic,

my

Reason and Emotion

in

Psychotherapy, Growth Through Reason, and (with Dr. Robert A.

A Guide

Harper)

and A Guide

to Rational Living

to Successful

Marriage.

Assuming

that

you are tackling the problem of self-acceptance

you can

successfully,

easily find, in

most American and European

places where you can meet extramarital partners. For the

cities,

main answer

— Everywhere!

You can

in the course of professional

and busi-

to the question.

meet them through friends,

Where?

is

ness contacts, at social affairs, at organized classes, at lectures and

seminars, at meetings and conventions, and even in church!

Best of

all,

as

I

have stoutly maintained for years (and

found that the world

For

is

slowly catching up to me)

you have the guts

if

to

is

I

have

the pickup.

speak to attractive members of the

other sex in buses, on trains, on park benches, at meetings, in hotel lobbies,

tacts.

in bars,

and

in

scores of other easily accessible

you have available an almost unlimited supply of new con-

places,

How,

in the

long run, could you go wrong

when faced with

such vast horizons for encountering?

As

point out in The Intelligent

I

ing, there are several fine art

to

Manhunt-

of the pickup:

(1)

It is

(2)

It

is

unquestionably the fastest technique ever invented. highly selective, since you only try to get together with

someone who (3)

Woman's Guide

unique advantages to meeting others by the

You

is

obviously, at least at

first

blush, attractive to you.

tend to get better customers, because

if

you actively

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

144

and boldly seek out partners

way your chances of

this

getting the

kind of person with the calibre of looks, brains, character, and

much

other traits that you want are

better than

you use more

if

passive encountering techniques. (4)

1

he art and science of picking up

available (5)

— even

at

morning

three in the

Because your potential supply

and because good selection works selling yourself)

(6)

is

(like

single in

the other sex

minute you have

an all-night cafeteria!

practically inexhaustible,

almost every other form of

on the law of averages, the pickup method

one most divinely calculated willing to take

members of

do almost any

gives you something to

to get

you what you want

is

the

you are

if

enough chances.

This method can be used

in

conjunction with or

in

addition

to all the other techniques of finding a suitable sex-love partner.

So stop the crap! lover,

and you don't

you

If

really

live at the

want

to find an

Sahara desert, you can almost invariably do so

//you are willing

riod of time,

you stubbornly refuse

is

tively seeking als,

in a

to hurt yourself is

will

you

by rejections, and especially true

ready to get off her ass to get on her

married male

reasonable pe-

to assert yourself, if

most available search routes! This female who

extramarital

North Pole or the middle of the

if

ass.

persist, // if

you

try

you are a For an ac-

normally get many sex-love refus-

while an assertively looking female will almost always get

many more

acceptances.

To

contend, therefore, that conditions

and circumstances prevent you from finding an agreeable lover usually unmitigated hogwash.

and do something about

You prevent

is

yourself! Face that

it!

SEEKING AND ENCOUNTERING OTHER SWINGERS The procedures

in the previous section of this chapter largely

apply to your going out by yourself, with your mate's consent or without

it,

to find a sex-love partner.

Suppose, however, you and

your spouse want to swing together and want to get

in

touch with

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES

who

Other couples

145

How

are similarly interested.

would you go

about doing this?

Much

material on this score will be found in various writings

on mate-swapping, particularly the books by the Breedloves, Gil-

and Herbert

bert D. Bartell,

Even more

and Paul M. Rubenstein.

F. Margolis

relevant material

is

contained in the book, Sex

for

Is

Giving: the Swing to Extramarital Fun, by John Webster. Just as I

point out, above, that assertion and risk-taking are the key to

regular extramarital getting together, Webster notes that "things

do not

'just

happen'; as

I

said,

Even when two couples

someone has

to

make them happen."

get together for the sole purpose of

mate-swapping, he indicates, they do not automatically move into different

rooms

in the

house and get down to business. One of the

mates, such as one of the husbands, had better forcefully ask one

of the other mates,

"Would you

like to take a tour of the apart-

ment with me?" and vigorously lead her

room. Then at room can also make an overt pass at the one who is remaining with him or her. I remember a comedy of errors that two couples I know got into. They met together to go to dinner, a show, and some mate-

least

one of the mates

left in, say,

into another

the living

swapping (and, possibly, orgiastic group beautifully

—

until they got to

on interminably

—

Everything went

one of the couple's homes, about

midnight, and began to talk and drink. ing went

sex).

albeit

The drinking and

on a high

the talk-

But

intellectual level.

nothing else happened. Finally, one of the males led the wife of the other male into the

bedroom of

the apartment; the other male

promptly kissed the other wife. But by

this

time the two

women

were so soused and sexually uninterested that the whole thing flat.

A

little

fell

desultory necking, and nothing more, took place, and

who

the evening soon

came

were so angry

themselves and each other for not making moves

at

to a halt, with four disappointed people

sooner that they were ashamed to get together again, and never did.

The

best laid

So, please,

—

or unlaid

— plans

somebody make

a

.

move!

.

.

If

!

you

get together with

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

146

your spouse and another couple, don't wait for things spontaneously to click. They probably never

will!

aforethought, take one of the

members of

and do something. Or,

will, start

of you are

still

fat (or thin)

ass

if

you

together in the

With lack of malice

the other couple aside

something when the four

same room. But don't

and expect the "inevitable"

to

sit

happen.

on your

Make

it

happen!

You may and places

seek out other swinging couples in a variety of ways

— such

as through social gatherings of your

own

local

groups, through swingers' clubs, through contacts at liberal bars,

through advertisements

in

swinging or sex magazines, or through

other means. John Webster, an old hand at this game, takes a

dim

view of any kind of mail contacts:

One means by which swingers sometimes meet one another it is a method not at all recommended by the author is

— and

—

through the aid of the postman. The daily newspapers often carry thinly disguised ads placed by couples

after

The underground

who

are seeking

column column of not-in-the-least-disguised ads by swingers search-

the friendship of others.

press boasts

ing for swingers. In addition, there are several special publications

— some with

nationwide circulation

— devoted

exclusively

and by swingers. The response to all such ads must necessarily be by mail. Unhappily, and in violation of citizens' rights to privacy, the postal authorities have occasionally made a practice of interfering with the exchange of correspondence among persons interested in social sex. At best, the penpal approach could lead to new and worthwhile acquaintances. At worst, it is a perilous undertaking which could lead to exposure and persecution, official and unofficial. Some few of the people we know made their first contacts by mail and, while none report having encountered governmental interference, the results have been less than rewarding in most instances. What has actually occurred with one or two exceptions in each case is that the people met through letter writing have proven to be somewhat unattractive; often, they have been

to the quest of, for,

—

—

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES

who have

couples

147

more

resorted to the mails because the

direct

person-to-person relationships have not been available.

Here again, risk-taking assertiveness most helpful.

If

will

you and your spouse want

probably prove to be to swing,

if

you

indi-

vidually or collectively talk to potential couples about sex, adul-

and swinging, you

tery,

things your

way and

keep running into people who see it.

In these face-to-face en-

moreover, you find whether you are attracted to the

counters,

other individuals, tionally,

will

are willing to try

how

well

you can

get along with

them conversa-

and what kinds of personalities they have. Long before

anything sexual actually takes place, you can easily withdraw from the foursome,

So seek

and seek suitable partners elsewhere.

— open your

big trap!

— and ye

Perhaps one

shall find.

American couples today has had some kind of mate-swapping experience, and possibly one out of five is willing to have it if the right other couple comes along and the subject can be approached acceptably. Especially when you are away from out of twenty

home

(for

example, on a vacation) and when the couples you and

mem-

your mate might approach are never likely to be intimate bers of your social or business circle,

perhaps

may

to gain

you have nothing

by trying for a mate-switching

well find that this particular one, or any other

just not

time

much

your thing, and that you'd better give up

in the future.

You

tried?

But how would you know

to lose affair.

you may

and

You

try, is

this kind of pas-

until

you actually

won't!

THE ETIQUETTE OF EXTRAMARITAL SECRECY As noted previously

in this

book,

it

is

often wise, for one rea-

son or another, to maintain a good deal of secrecy about your ex-

Even if you are engaging in civilized aduland your own mate freely allows you to have almost any

tramarital adventures. tery,

kind of sex-love relations you want with outsiders, you find

it

desirable or necessary to keep

some of your

still

may

affairs private:

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

148

because your lover objects to openness, because business or professional complications

would ensue because of

partner's boyfriend or girlfriend

lationship were

When

known, or

secrecy of this sort

is

Although, again, not very

profit

much

to the

New

research has been done and test

one proce-

in

her pamphlet. The

Etiquette, has a chapter,

"A

in

expertise in the field of extramarital adventure,

his

Cosmo

Philosophy

of Considerate Adultery." Drawing on works such as these and

own

re-

by knowing and follow-

Morton Hunt has some pages

kind of secrecy etiquette.

Guide

your

careful thought has been given to this

little

book. The Affair, and Gael Greene, Girl's

if

wise, there are various rules that

few controlled experiments have been arranged to dure over another, a

because your

for a variety of other sensible reasons.

have been worked out that you could ing.

it,

would seriously object

let

my

me make

a

few remarks.

Public Meetings. Watch or design, in public places!

when you get together, by accident You may think that your little looks of it

love and understanding will go completely unheeded by others

but will they?

You may

thoroughly enjoy, even get a great egotist-

away with, you or the soft-spoken words that ical

kick out of getting

But no one has learned how

the surreptitious looks between

are only for each others' ears.

to look magically without being seen

or whisper without behind heard

—

as

I

regularly

my

tell

Friday

night

workshop audiences

New

York, when they think they can superspecially whisper to

each other without

what

my and

Rational Living,

their neighbors hearing them!

you can get away with your "secret" glances

tainly,

when

at the Institute for

others are around

—

for a while! But for

how

Cer-

each other

And

long?

at

risk?

Gael Greene wisely notes, "the unbreakable rule tion."

that

at

in

if

But then, contradicting her own

you meet your lover

away with

it:

in

is

.

.

.

discre-

rule, she strongly implies

public places, you can usually get

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES

149

There are hundreds of reasons why a man or woman might on the street, in the shadowy recesses of a be seen about town rooftop bar, at the movies, in Saks' fur department with a

—

mysterious

He may

—

unknown companion of the opposite

sex.

be her furrier, her brother, a

her broker. Just

client,

because the giggly creature with old Teddy only half-wrapped

in

is

slightly tipsy

and

mauve Banlon doesn't mean she (when Lottie is down with a virus),

slinky

couldn't be his sister-in-law

or an out-of-town client.

Say hello. Shake hands. Your friend will introduce her companion. With or without a simple, not too self-conscious, expla-

and

nation. Don't stand around; don't leer. Say hello

Very is:

nice; very polite; but

don't be seen in public,

lover. Sure,

if

still

very foolish!

how about

it

if

are

you

she always in town? or her?

How come

can't

sister-in-law.

be with your in-law?

you be having an

Why

if

want your

But

he or

him

you are always mixing business with pleasure? arise in the

they keep meeting you with your "in-law."

Better by far: avoid public places with your beloved. really

is

affair with

These are only a few of the questions that may easily

minds of others

with your

the third or fourth time? Sure your

likely to

Why

it,

you meet the same person

companion can be your brother-in-law or your

how chummy

far better plan

you can possibly avoid

you can get away with

once or twice. But

The

leave.

affair to

remain

secret,

keep

it

so!

If

you

You damned

well don't have to dine out, go to the movies, take a walk, or go

shopping with him or her. Stop the wishful thinking. Stop feeding yourself horseshit. Sooner or later, you probably will get caught.

what you

Is that

really

want?

Telephoning. As contrasted with the public meeting, using the

when you have a secret lover. What about your mate, your office people, your telephone operator, or anyone else who may be listening to the call?

telephone seems exceptionally safe

But

is

Sure, is

it?

you can pretend, for the sake of these

listeners, that the call

impersonal or has to do with your work. But are they really

fooled?

Do

they believe what you want them to believe?

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

150

Be

Discuss this phone problem with your lover and

realistic!

make some wise arrangements about 1)

(

Such

it.

as:

Call minimally.

Prearrange some signals

(2)

(e.g.,

pretending to be a business

when you call) so that your lover knows that phone right away and has an excuse to be called.

associate the

is

you on

Don't use your special signaling system (like pretending

(3)

you

that the call

know you

just received

have

Don't

(4)

to

wrong number) too

a

often.

phone conversations when others

have your lover refuse your

up quickly, or otherwise

call,

wisely putting up

is

or to

hang

Understand that he or she

act "rudely."

well be restricted and

(6)

is

extended

are on the phone: long calls naturally breed suspicion.

Be prepared

(5)

may

it

Try vocal disguises, such as accents,

at

some

pretense.

times; but don't

abuse them, for they, too, can arouse suspicion! (7)

Watch what you

say,

even

in

a whisper, over the phone.

Voices can carry remarkably well, when you think that they (8)

can't!

Don't be a smartass, and think that you can keep getting

away with phoning your beloved when relative

is

his or her mate, friend, or

—

You may be able to do this a few times may not! Assume the worst; if you are going

around.

then again, you

a conspirator, be a

Written

and,

to

be

good one!

Communications. Be careful what you write! More

people have probably been discovered

in their

extramarital rela-

tions as a result of a letter, a note, an item written in a pocket tele-

phone

directory, or

flushed out

in

some other

bit

of writing than have been

any other way. Some mates,

in particular,

regularly

go through the pockets of their spouses to check on anything they

can find there. Recently,

I

have had female

clients

who were

de-

tected by their husbands because they kept in their pocketbooks

postcards or letters they wrote but hadn't mailed, notes to themselves about ers,

what transpired on

and telephone numbers on

their last meetings with their lov-

slips of paper.

not overly suspicious, don't be careless.

Watch

Even it!

if

your mate

is

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES

If

151

you must communicate with your lover by writing, take

proper precautions. Arrange to receive mail only

mark

and have the sender clearly a post-office

box

to

Completely destroy

Personal. If

it

it

your

at

office,

feasible, rent

is

which your respondents can address

all letters.

love letters you receive, and have your cor-

all

respondents do likewise. Even a perfectly "safe" place, such as a locked drawer at your

—

office,

someone

else.

One man

know used

I

when he went on box

and when she ignored

when

if

your desk

is

—

it

is

office

given to

the "safest" place of

all

to

his personal safe de-

a prolonged trip, he

some papers

to find

had

to allow

that his attorney

his instructions to get only those

papers and to touch nothing else ine his surprise

you are away from the

from a long-time mistress

his wife to get into the

desired,

if

you change your job, or

if

store his letters posit box. But

not be as good as you think

happen

since strange things can

for a while, or

may

in the

box, he was cooked. Imag-

his wife mailed to

him

a

few of the more

in-

criminating letters she had taken from the box!

Even

Secret Meeting Places.

marital

you

partner,

if

you have a very willing extra-

frequently

have

will

arranging for a suitable meeting place. lutely safe: cars

some

you are using the

office; a friend's

room

up

its

specifically for

your

affair has

places are obviously

Hunt sagely observes, simplest and cheapest

in is

in their

in the

or apartment that you keep

real dangers.

more dangerous than

Morton "One of the

others.

the automobile, but most people find that in their

youth seems thoroughly

in-

adulthood. The lack of space, the fugitive atmo-

nubby or leathery texture of the

seats,

automobile seem tawdry and degrading. Nor

tirely safe;

on you when

in

regard to the use of cars,

what served them well enough sphere, even the

in

abso-

apartment has obvious draw-

backs; and even a regular rented

adequate

is

can be observed; you can be seen getting to and

from a hotel or motel room; someone can break

Some

difficulty

No arrangement

not only does

it

involve the risk of being

others, including the police, but

it

is

make

sex

the car en-

come upon by

has neither plumbing nor hot

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

152

water to help one get rid of the evidence before going home. The car ers,

moreover,

itself,

crumpled

lipstick

is

weeks

later."

Whatever arrangements you make

(1) ple,

wrong shade of

tissues or cigarette butts with the

on them have a remarkable way of appearing from under

the seats days or

some

match-box cov-

a clue-collector: bobbypins,

sensible precautions

Try not

you can

for a place to meet, here are

take:

One

to enter the place together.

of you, for exam-

can take a motel room, and then the other can

what room the (2)

first

names

False

disadvantages)

ment (3)

if

one

is in,

and go directly

to that

call, find

are often useful (though they have their

you are registering

in a hotel

out

room.

own

or renting an apart-

for sexual purposes.

Impress on your lover the advisability of secrecy and of

being totally unsqueamish about getting together

in

a motel

room

or some other "unromantic" place. (4)

With

a

new

partner, try to start off in a rented or bor-

rowed apartment, rather than your partner, especially

if

a public hotel or motel. Then,

she

when

a female, gets used to this kind

is

of arrangement and to the fact that you are going to keep getting

may be able to tolerate less desirable places. To avoid suspicion, when you use a motel bring along the proper accouterments, such as some light luggage that makes it

together, she (5)

seem more

likely that

you are staying

you

really are

for the entire night or

two you actually intend

to stay).

on a

trip together

and that

day (instead of the hour or

Motels or large hotels are usually

better than small hotels, since you or your partner can more easily get into your (6)

If

room without being seen by anyone

you are

really trying to

keep your

or from your neighbors, avoid using your vous!

Your

at

affair

the desk.

from your mate

own home

as a rendez-

lover or his or her car can easily be spotted by prying

eyes. (7)

Wherever you

go, consider

some simple precautions. Your away from the apartment or

car can be parked several blocks

room you

are using.

Your

office partners

can be told that you are

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES collaborating on a

barge

in late at

153

book with Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so,

in case they

him or

night and find you alone with

her.

Your

mate can be given some legitimate reason for your being alone with your lover (who

supposedly an out-of-town buyer, a co-

is

worker, or something else of that

Think of these kinds of

sort).

excuses beforehand, and don't wait until you are

caught

literally

in

the act!

Arranging Opportune Times. Arranging to be with your lover at

opportune times

may have

is

often not easy, because either or both of you

keep your

to

affair a secret

from outsiders, especially

your mates, and that means that excuses will have to be made for being away from the

home

when you

or the office

Some people have ready-made reasons

for being away, since they

go out of town often, are out of the office engaged of selling, are

members of

often, or otherwise

get together.

some form

in

clubs or groups that get together fairly

have something to do that

is

legitimate and

cannot easily be checked on.

Most

adulterers,

arranged,

niently

ments.

If

however, do not have their

and therefore have

to

make

lives

you cannot use one of the above excuses

from your family, you may

fairly easily

so conve-

special

dream one

arrange-

to be

up.

away

You can

join a club (e.g., a chess club) or a sports or card-playing group.

On

a regular basis,

you can be a member of a

class (any adult ed-

ucation class will do), or a therapy group, or a seminar, or a dance or sketching group, or a men's or

women's organization, or any

other aggregation that meets once a week, once a month, or on

any other steady basis. More irregularly, you can make use of (actually or in

your imagination) business appointments, college

unions, lectures or concerts that your mate terested

in,

stag

and

hen

parties,

is

fishing

conventions, political campaigns, et cetera.

re-

not likely to be intrips,

out-of-town

Naturally,

some of

these "events" are likely to arouse your mate's suspicions; but the

more creative you are likely to accept

in

concocting them, the more he or she

your concoctions.

is

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

154

Tuesday

example, supposedly took an

for

R.,

Lillian

art

class

every

night at a regular artist's studio. Actually, she went there sketches.

And

every Tuesday, having saved them up and stored them at a

girl-

about once a month and worked feverishly

to her

some

home

friend's apartment, she faithfully brought

showed them

at

a few of

them and

husband, Daniel. Her productivity was such

he never suspected that three out of four Tuesdays she was

that

actually at her lover's apartment, engaging in quite another

of

form

art!

The Virtue of Lying. Lying is definitely immoral and evil. It away another person's freedom of action. Just as you would

takes

ordinarily not want to be lied to yourself truth

this or that decision lie to

—

since

you could more adequately decide what

— you

if

you knew the

do about making

to

are doing an unethical thing

when you

your spouse or nonmarital partner about the outside affairs

you are having. Carrying on a surreptitious

affair, therefore,

and other disadvantages. You may well of the dissimulation outlined

feel

has distinct moral

squeamish about some

in this chapter,

fiendishly clever advice given by other writers

or about

on

some of

this subject,

the

such

as Gael Greene's philosophy of considerate adultery:

The

ideal extramarital adventure

discretion

week or a

—

man from Omaha you met

the

cabana boy

ister

—

in

terms of potential for

the visiting author-lecturer

is

who

is

leaving next

during a convention. Or

which you don't belong. Or your minwith more to lose from exposure not always thoughtfully disciplined or

at a club to

or analyst

— someone

than you. Alas, lust

is

disciplinable.

Never involve your children as accomplices or covers. Never your lover on the telephone if anyone is present, even a

talk to

two-year-old. If

asked,

If

caught,

Lie,

lie. lie.

Never admit anything. Never accept exposure.

embroider, improvise, deny. Be convincing.

ETIQUETTE AND TECHNIQUES Very

clever, very practical, but

So be as queasy

you

as

And

prevarication.

ing

155

will

still

unethical and unsatisfying.

about extramarital affairs that involve

only resort to them

in a

pinch,

when

truth-tell-

would obviously do much more harm.

Better yet, even while you're lying, ing.

Your mate,

He

straight.

us assume,

let

work

for eventual truth-tell-

exceptionally vulnerable and

is

or she would never, you are sure, really accept your

having any extramarital adventures, even though your relationship

would not be seriously endangered thereby. What, never? Well,

al-

most never. Don't necessarily give up. Continue, even

if

it

takes years, to

your mate to accept honest, civilized adultery. Talk to

try to get

him or her

in

general, without necessarily confessing your

own

strong desires. Bring up instances of your respectable friends and relatives

who have

ture of marriage

practiced honesty successfully. Discuss the fu-

and the possibility that almost everyone, even-

tually, will accept pluralism

tionship.

Try

to get

along with an intense one-to-one rela-

your mate to experiment with various "safe"

forms of extramarital adventure, such as couple-swapping, can, so that he or she

is

if

you

able to understand affairs in general and

not be nonplussed by them.

Honesty not,

right

doesn't that if

is

is

the best policy;

now, be able to

mean

you never

that

too bad;

it

may be

you can, now or

if

effect

that.

it

will. If

it

is

feasible.

You may

with your spouse. But that

you must, for the present,

wiser to do so than to

in the future,

Work, work, work on

and when

be truthful, that

tell is

lie,

the truth. But far preferable.

Overcoming Emotional Problems

About Extramarital Adventure

L

HAVE

in

already discussed one of the main problems that arises

connection with extramarital

sane jealousy.

problems

—

what

But

about

anxiety,

especially

affairs,

namely, irrational or

some of

the

depression,

guilt,

in-

other

common

and

hostility?

What can you do to prevent them from arising in the first place or how can you deal with them successfully when they do arise? Let us see.

OVERCOMING ANXIETY Perhaps the most as

common

you might expect,

this

of emotional upsets

connection with extramarital adventures.

about (1) letting your mate fairs; (2)

anxiety, and,

know

that

You may

you would

in

be anxious

like to

have

af-

being caught red-handed in case you decide to carry on

an affair surreptitiously; friends,

is

kind of feeling frequently arises

(3)

and associates even

being discovered by certain relatives, if

you are having an aboveboard

affair

with your mate's consent; (4) picking the wrong person or persons with

whom

criticized

to

have an outside relationship;

by your lover, or

nonsexual ways; and

failing

(6) letting

your

with other important aspects of your

your relations with your children.

156

(5)

him or her

in

being rejected or various sexual or

affairs interfere too seriously life,

such as your business or

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS Fortunately,

157

these forms of anxiety, and any other form you

all

can possibly experience or invent, are simple to understand though

this

kind of understanding will not make

undo your anxiety and eventually not least

cal

you

easy for you to

to experience

it

it,

will at

provide you with the possibility of minimizing or eliminating

Does rational-emotive therapy (RET,

it.

it

if

and even

psychology;

of rational-emotive

principles

the

learn

human

answers for

for short) provide magi-

disturbances? Definitely not! But

comprehensible, and effective

—

if

you are willing

to

clear,

it is

work

using

at

it!

The model used

RET

in

always basically the same; so that

is

you are anxious about anything you can

good

effect.

model

is

the

employ

this

model

if

to

As I showed in the case of intense jealously, the A-B-C method of fathoming what you are doing to

make yourself Sinx'ious and rational Beliefs (iB's)

—

to

the use of point

make

D

— Disputing your

ir-

and perma-

yourself, temporarily

unpanicked again.

nently,

As

still

usual,

you

You

are,

quence.

start

we

with

will

C

— your

disturbed emotional Conse-

assume, anxious, insecure, overconcerned,

some aspect of having extramarital affairs. Since you know that there is an A an Activating event. For

or panicked about

C

exists,

—

you are not anxious about nothing; and so-called free-floating anxiety is

almost entirely a myth that psychologists and psychiatrists

invent

when

they cannot clearly zero in (or get you to zero

whatever you are anxious about. So

let

us assume that there

A, an Activating event, and that you can persistently

And you

and

intently

"Wouldn't

it

is

to

be terrible

keep asking yourself:

if

is

affair;

more

illustrate:

but this

an

you look

"

if

—

!"

form of the

All you have to

whatever you are anxious

What would be

terrible if?"

Ususally within a few minutes you will discover what this what

To

on

it.

to locate the Activating event, or

about,

fairly easily,

can. For just about any anxiety takes the

irrational Belief,

do

enough, find

in)

is.

you know that you are anxious about having an

is

specifically,

a vague perception

your anxiety

is

and you are not sure by what,

being aroused. So you ask your-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

158

"Now, what do

self,

think would be terrible in connection with

I

And you soon come up

this desired or actual affair?"

statements or Beliefs

found out that

maybe

really care for

I

me from

stop

"Wouldn't

like:

my

be terrible

it

it

be terrible

I

children

came home

early

and

would

that

dis-

couldn't bear

That would be horrible!" Or: "Wouldn't

to face him.

my

it!

hell

husband

lover's

covers what's going on and raises a fuss about

if

And

affair.

my

if

self-

my mate

She would raise

lover!

continuing with the

be awful!" Or: "Wouldn't

with

if

it

be terrible

one day and found me with an-

other man! They'd probably be shocked and would begin to hate

me.

And

would be catastrophic!"

that

you now have zeroed

All right,

in

on

at least part

of the Acti-

vating event: namely, your mate, your lover's husband, or your

some aspects of your

children might discover

affair that

you have

been keeping from them, and these persons would be shocked and of you for engaging

critical

you are having

it.

am

my

affair.

who I

emotional Consequence of

According

Now to

quite fortunately to take the

manner

discovers

me might

I

which

in

might be

dis-

well be horrified

That's clearly the Activating event about which

anxious. At point C,

vating event.

the affair in the

So you now have, "At point A,

covered, and the person

about

in

feel upset

my

and panicked; and

believing something about the Acti-

what's going on at point B,

RET

—

theory, what

is

First,

my

going on

invariably obvious, for

same forms.

I

that's the

you have a

it

Belief system?" at

point

B

is

almost always seems

empir-

rational, sensible,

am discovered having an extramarital affair, and if the person who discovers me is horrified about it, that would be unfortunate and unpleasant. I wouldn't like I am concerned lest this discovery occur; and I'd better do my best to ically validateable Belief: "If

I

it.

prevent with

—

its

happening!"

this set

If

you stayed rigorously with

nounced negative feeling but

What would

— and only

of rational Beliefs (rB's), you would have a pro-

it

it

definitely

wouldn't be anxiety.

be? Obviously, concern or caution about being

discovered, and sorrow, displeasure, irritation, or annoyance

were discovered.

if

you

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS

—

This Belief ful if it

that

it

would be

you were discovered

—

you,

harm you

you, or even

and pain-

distinctly unfortunate

normally rational or sensible because

is

simply would be. At that very

you a verbal hard time; and

159

least,

at the

your discoverer would give

most, he or she might boycott

physically, get others to take noxious actions against

kill

you.

And

these kinds of hassles are, of course,

unfortunate or painful. You'd certainly be crazy to like them, to

Your

cheer about them, or to be indifferent to them.

quence

—

rational Be-

Conse-

therefore, leads to your appropriate emotional

lief (rB),

at

point

C

—of

feelings of concern or caution,

somewhat negative emotions, but those serving and wisely considering what

is

which are

you go back

that help

transpiring at point

to ob-

A

(the

Activating event), and doing something to change, ameliorate, or

prevent

it.

Unfortunately, you rarely stay with your rational Belief; and practically never,

I

contend,

if

you actually

C, anxiety, over-

feel, at

concern, or panic. These feelings are quite ^appropriate to the

unpleasant Activating event that ety or

may occur

overconcern does not merely

eventuality and induce

you

alert

or

to try to forestall

you obsessively aware of danger.

It

occurring. Anxi-

is

you it.

to

an unpleasant

Rather,

it

makes

centers you on yourself, and

your imagined worthlessness adequately.

It

cused on your real

problem

in case you fail to meet this danger makes you feel so upset and confused (and so fo-

own

that

anxiety or panic

is is

gut) that

you are much

occurring at A.

less able to solve the

To make

matters even worse,

frequently such an uncomfortable feeling that

you become almost completely focused on are so panicked about being panicked that

it,

your symptom; you

you even forget about

problem (that is, "How do I prevent So-and-so from knowing about my affair or how do I handle his or her reactions if

the original

it is

discovered?") and get into the vicious circle of ruminating ob-

sessively

and confusedly about your panic.

Anxiety,

overconcern,

and panic, moreover, usually include

strong elements of self-condemnation. ful,

you not only think that

it

is

When you

terrible that

are overly fear-

you have

this painful

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

160

possibility or actuality, at point

A; but also that you are an awful

person for not being able to handle solve

And when you

it.

quickly and perfectly and

it

are berating yourself for anything, includ-

ing having an affair or not being able to deal beautifully with

consequences, you almost always get so absorbed

you are much

handle any

less able to

in that

its

bag that

life difficulty.

For many such reasons, anxiety or overconcern (rather than caution or concern) are dysfunctional emotions that almost always

do much more harm than good. And they are

noted above,

not, as

caused by your rational Beliefs (rB's) that the results of the discovery of your affair might well be highly unfortunate and un-

They

pleasant.

So-and-so! if

nation of

my I

horrible

it

if

is

out and

were discovered by

I

I

cannot; and

sure

I

likely to

I

What

can't give a

a

worm

add

to this

to feel this

sit-

therefore deserve to suffer!"

I

of utterly nonsensical state-

list

"Look how panicked

lulus:

I

good expla-

should be able to handle this kind of

behavior!

am

few more

a

me

he or she finds

Soon you are ments

be terrible

it

couldn't bear his or her censure!

I

would be

uation; but

are caused, instead, by the decidedly irrational Be-

"Wouldn't

(iB's):

liefs

I

am

getting!

How

way! I'm an utter idiot for feeling

like

this and not being able to handle myself!"

Well, that does

it.

If

you devoutly believed

in

only one of these

hypotheses, you would begin to feel utterly panicked and misera-

you believe

ble; if

effective.

quitur:

my

Whereupon, you asininely

it

is

awful. If

my

what usually happens

insist that

ient);

of them, you are incredibly upset and

make up

still

in-

another non se-

"Because I'm feeling so awful about being discovered

affair,

that's

in all

something

is

feelings in

tell

me

feel

have you; and then you

it

is,

it

is!"

in

And

regard to awfulizing: you foolishly

awful (when

it's

palpably only inconven-

your body then automatically reacts

you consequently

that

to this crazy belief

and

depressed, nauseated, panicked, or what illogically use

"proof" of the validity of your foolish,

your feeling as indubitable still

utterly groundless (and

essentially unprovable) hypothesis.

This

is

exactly what happens in the case of fanatic religionists.

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS They dogmatically

161

insist that there is a

God and

he especially

that

loves them; they consequently intensely feel this God's love; then

they are completely convinced that they have proved the existence

God

of the like

they originally hypothesized. Emotional disturbance,

dogmatic

religion,

is

a bigoted and rigid insistence and puerile

demandingness. Because the individual with neurosis

more

oughly feels that that

loving

it

is,

While the

is.

it

commands

with psychosis)

so,

who

deity

and then

that

something be

on

side

his

— and

and hence happy about

(falsely) deified

who

is

some kind of

he consequently feels this "fact"

with neurotic or psychotic thinking usually invents hating devil

even

he thor-

falsely uses his feeling as evidence

religionist occasionally invents

is

(or,

so,

—

the person

some kind of damned and

against him; consequently he feels

hence miserable. Both are absolutistic and mislead; but the for-

mer has than the

latter.

Anyway: you are not anxious bility that

point A). ious.

some ways,

a less troublesome disturbance, at least in

you

will

Your own

you want

If

(at

point C) because of the possi-

be criticized and scorned about your Belief system (at point B)

to eliminate

is

affair (at

making you anx-

your anxiety (while

still

retaining

your concern), you can immediately, once you are aware of feeling it,

go on to D, which consists of Disputing,

tice,

your irrational Beliefs.

You can

in

theory and in prac-

dispute these Beliefs as fol-

lows: 1.

"Why would

it

be terrible

if I

were discovered by So-and-

so?" Answer: "It wouldn't be! Nothing entire universe, unless real hassle if

2.

it's

"Where

But a hassle

the evidence that

is

he or she discovered

if

any!

Of course

hurt

it.

I

and stones

me

all

is

my

it

a hassle;

would be a

It

is.

affair

and was

it's

dis-

not terrible

a hassle!"

sure

Sticks

really terrible in the

foolishly insist that

So-and-so found out about

pleased and irate about

because

I

is

that

could bear

my it,

I

couldn't bear So-and-so's cen-

adultery?" Answer: "There

no matter how much

I

isn't

disliked

it.

my bones, but So-and-so's names can't much. And even if he or she throws sticks and will

break

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

162

Stones, or otherwise sees that

I

am

actually handicapped for hav-

me

ing this affair (by, for example, penalizing

can bear

painful consequences; but

"What makes me

3.

my

ity to

spouse and

can stand what

I

worm

a

don't like!"

I

my

So-and-so discovers

if

infidel-

good explanation of my behav-

can't give a

I

still

I

possible

its

Answer: "Nothing does! There are no human worms

ior?"

my

foolish

Even and weak (as

foolish

and weak person.

including me!

I

financially),

never like So-and-so's wrath and

Til

that.

if it

behavior regarding this adultery

may be), that My traits may stink;

possibly

make me

doesn't

but

is

/ don't.

a

Unless

mistakenly see myself diS a stinker!" 4.

"Why

should

I

be able to handle

So-and-so and not be deserve to suffer

why

son

would be better respects, well.

that the

if I

it

I

error-prone

human

whether

I

this mess. If

being,

succeed

I

in

handling

in

that

Powers That Be are going

making

is

I

I

(at

//

some

it,

be determined

to

will only accept

—

too

to put

me

myself as an

can then take a situation

handling

bad

that's

have to punish myself or

like this in

well or not."

it

The contention of rational-emotive psychology Dispute

although

inevitably, in

obviously won't handle everything

mean

doesn't

it

What makes me

situation,

this

Being a human who

fallible,

it?

poorly?" Answer: "There's no rea-

mess up completely

bad! But

into hell for

stride,

handle

did.

if I

weak and

And

damned

if I

should be able to handle

I

with

this negative situation

the least thrown by

in

that

is

if

you

point D) your irrational Beliefs (iB's) about what

occurring to you at point diately tend to

A

(the Activating event),

become unanxious and

will

you

will

is

imme-

merely remain con-

cerned. If you keep on Disputing these Beliefs in a similar man-

you

ner,

will ultimately reach a point

happens again, you

where, when the same thing

will automatically tend to

be

When

he

much

less

anx-

ious.

A me

case in point

is

that of

for psychotherapy he

Jonathan O.

was on the verge,

vous breakdown. Certainly he was

in

first

as he put

came it,

to see

of a ner-

an acute state of panic most

of the time. Although he had his wife's

full

permission to have ex-

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS

163

tramarital affairs and although she herself had them, from time to

Roman

with his consent, he was terribly afraid that his

time,

Catholic grandmother would find out and would disinherit him. Since she might leave him almost a quarter of a million dollars, he

was

much money.

of losing so

terrified

one of his even

if

But, he said, he

(who happened, of

attached to his present mistress

was quite

things, to be

all

cousins) and could not possibly break up with her,

first

his inheritance

was jeopardized.

out of this horrible bind?

How

How

could he

could he possibly get

make himself

less

anx-

ious?

The way of his bind

want

things were, Jonathan couldn't easily get himself out

—

give her

up

that

up

to give

didn't

want

grandmother never found out about the

his

if

He

to say, out of his conflict situation.

is

his partner in adultery; he especially didn't

to

affair;

and he had no way of making sure that the grandmother would not find out, nor of knowing for certain that she would disinherit

him

if

she did. So he kept taking the chance that she would not

discover the affair, and he worried and worried and worried that

some day she would

learn about

Jonathan's rational highly unfortunate

doing sexually.

if

And

it.

usual

as

—was

that

would be

it

grandmother discovered what he was

was

this

be utterly catastrophic to actively

gerated and

his

—

true:

it

probably would be. His

however, was quite different: namely, that

tional Belief,

him

Belief

if

Dispute

silly.

First of

all,

his

he soon saw that

it

irra-

would

when

she discovered his affair. But

this Belief,

it

I

grandmother might discover

deep dark secret and raise a fuss about

—

it

got

was exaghis

without disinheriting

made

him. Second, after she initially

became

—upset about

might well become reconciled to

(as

his adultery, she

people frequently do). Third,

would

lose

money

woman

friend.

worst

if

—

he

— he

still

Fourth, even

lost his

grandmother's approval,

still

if

he

lost his

his

if

he

it

wife and his

came

the very worst

herself

him he only

she did disinherit

would have both if

she was going to leave him, and

he

if

or, rather,

to the very

lost the

money

wife and his lover,

could survive and be reasonably happy. For these would be

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

164

only highly unpleasant events

As long

his entire existence.

in his life;

they would not sabotage

as he accepted these

grim events and

condemn himself for failing to ward them off (by, for giving up his beloved and thereby preventing voluntarily example, refused to

his

grandmother from finding out about

could

these, he might (ironically enough!)

he

their relationship),

find all kinds of other enjoyments;

still

and

he looked for

if

wind up with a new

situation

that was even more productive of pleasure and joy than his pre-

sent state of being.

When tually

Jonathan started Disputing his irrational Beliefs, he even-

ended up with a new philosophical

E, namely:

about

my

''It

would be undesirable

—

no matter how unfortunate I

panic vanished.

else) is in

my

life,

can find other enjoyments and lead a reaif

my grandmother

and see what

then,

it,

something

this (or

sonably happy existence. So face

found out

undesirable. Actually, all it would be more than unfortunate in the universe, and

is

the chances are that

result or Effect, at point

my grandmother

but that's

affair,

there's nothing that

I'll

if

He continued

I

finds out

can do about

to see his

woman

it."

—

tough!

His state of

friend,

and was

exceptionally happy with this state of affairs.

OVERCOMING GUILT Guilt, as

you might expect,

having extramarital

affairs;

one of the prime deterrents

more than

tinue but gives the individuals a great deal of discomforts

is

who

that,

it

to

allows them to con-

are extramaritally adventurous

and a dearth of joy. More

affairs that

otherwise might have been thoroughly satisfying have been ruined

by intense feelings of

guilt

than have been blocked by almost any

other factor.

Mary

J.

was a good case

very attracted to her

in point.

sexual and was getting married, bility"

to

their

Her husband pretended to be actually was homo-

when they married, but first,

to display

community and, second,

which was highly

staid

and conventional,

to

his

"respecta-

convince his firm,

that he

was a

solid citi-

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS zen whose wife would participate

Mary was shocked (in the

in the

company's

social affairs.

to learn, after five years of sexual deprivation

course of which he screwed her,

times), that he felt that

165

at

most, ten or twelve

was homosexual. But she nonetheless

him and

liked

he was an excellent father and provider for her and their

two very young children. So she wanted to remain married, but she also wanted to have a steady sex part,

he would have been very happy

keep her off his back

life. if

She knew

that, for his

she had affairs

—

if

just to

(or, rather, his front).

But Mary was enormously guilty every time she did go to bed with another man. First of

most

all

all,

wrong because alfelt she was wives. Second, adultery was against she

deemed

this

her lovers were already married, and she

making them

disloyal to their

her religion. She had been reared as a Catholic and although she

had become liberalized enough to accept adultery on the part of her Catholic friends, she couldn't bring herself to think that allright for her. Third, she

come public gossip and

was afraid

that she

that her affairs

it

was

would be-

would be considered the town

whore.

Mary thought that I would go along with her views and teach her how to be happy though practically abstinent. She wanted to learn how to be conWith such "good reasons"

tent with little or

my and

no

sex,

to feel guilty,

and since she had learned, from reading

Dr. Robert A. Harper's book,

rational-emotive therapy

ing, that in

A Guide

to Rational Liv-

we generally

are in favor of

long-range hedonism and self-discipline, she wanted to to

augment

To

her surprise,

I

demurred.

I

explained that

deed show clients how to be more disciplined discipline

is

not believe

in

RET we

in discipline

per

se.

life,

If

in-

— but only when

the

We

do

used for practical, happiness-giving purpose.

seriously disrupt her marriage, part of her

know how

that side of her personality.

her extramarital affairs would

which she considered

to

be a fine

then she would be foolish to have such affairs, and

should discipline herself to do without them. But

if,

as

seemed

to

be the case, such affairs would not interfere with her marital rela-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

166

tions

and might indeed aid them (since she would then stop pres-

was no

suring her husband to keep having sex with her), then there

becoming

particular point in refraining from them, and thereby over-d'iscipUncd.

"But what about the question of their wives? Don't

"Yes, you do," the wives in any

owe

I

replied, "//

1

my

taking

my

these wives anything?"

lovers

Mary

away from

asked.

you are intimately involved with

way; or //you are

really

men

persuading these

to

break up otherwise good relationships and you would rather not

do

this

because you wouldn't want some other

women

to persuade

your husband to break up an otherwise good relationship with you. But

is

either of these eventualities actually true?

"No," said Mary.

"I

friendly with any of the

going to bed with. with a

man who

wasn't having ing with

my

"So you

And

have to admit that they

women whose husbands I

aren't. I

I

am

not

have considered

wouldn't even dream of having an affair

wasn't already largely estranged from his wife or

some kind of sex

difficulties with her, as

I

am

hav-

husband." really aren't

harming, as

it

were, any of these wives?"

"No."

"Then why

can't

you seriously consider having sex with

their

husbands?" "Well, to bly

tell

the truth,

harm anybody

in

I

guess

I

believe that

any way. Even

if

1

shouldn't possi-

I'm not really interfering

with a man's marriage, but his wife might be slightly annoyed by, say, his being out with

me one

night instead of being with her,

immediately think that I'm immensely doing her

in,

and

I

1

feel

guilty about that."

"In other words, you

no one

at

any time.

demand

Is that

that

you absolutely,

"That's more than right! That's just

way, and

still

utterly

harm

right?" it!

I've

always been that

am."

"But why do you have

to be?

Suppose you were harming somewould be a bad deed

one's wife by having an affair with him. That

—

certainly

from her frame of reference. But you're saying

to your-

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS absolutely never should do a

self: 'I

"And deeds

am

saying that.

1

bad deed. Because then I'm a

"

completely, utterly roiiQn person.' 'i definitely

167

am!"

thereby destroying yourself.

at times.

It is

You

have

really

someone

a choice of you or

else.

do bad

to

And

if

you

always choose hurting yourself and not hurting him or her, then who's going to choose not hurting you?

everyone thinks and

everyone

is

respect, the

in this

acts,

Do you

really think that

way you

do, that

only interested, or mainly interested, in not hurting

you?" "No, of course

not.

I

that they're all vicious

can see that people are not that way. Not

and nasty. But they

just don't care that

much about me." "Then why should you care so much about hurting them? It's nice not to harm them. It's great to be considerate and kind. But not to harm them at all, in any way is that practicable?"

—

"Hmmm. I

but

No. Not

kept helping it

really. In fact,

Mary

to see that

hardly was necessary.

And

hardly it

at all!"

was good not

that

it

was

fine to

to

harm

others,

be considerate;

but not to be overconsiderate of others and u nder considQvaiQ of

As

herself.

I

did so, she spontaneously saw that her holier-than-

thou Catholicism and horror of public gossip were really subheadings

under the same general perfectionistic theme. As she said

after a

few sessions of rational-emotive therapy:

"I can see

now why

really don't believe

it;

I've

used the Catholicism as an excuse.

I

but I've kept that part of the belief that says

that all unconventional sex acts are bad. Because, truthfully,

what

would people think of me, if I committed such acts? And what would their gossip be about me? The Catholicism is a rationalization. /

a

must be beyond reproach.

I

must not harm anyone, must be

good Catholic, must not be gossiped about

perfect,

— because

beyond doing what other people cavalierly do

criticized for doing!

It's all

the

same

nobility crap!

/

I

must be

— and

get

must be the

only one in heaven, while the rest of you unnoble mortals stay undistinguished on earth or roast in hell.

My

Catholicism merely

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

168

my own nobility-seeking am a Mohammedan! I

bolstered

Catholic as

I

Tm

views.

just use

really

some of

as

good a

the Catholic

horscshit that will presumably ennoble me!"

The more Mary gave up trying to be noble, great, perfect, anmore she lost her guilt. She tried one extramarital affair,

gelic, the

made

huge mistake

a

couldn't

work

out but also had a

it

her

selecting

in

little

partner,

and not only

who

fracas with his wife,

suspected her of ''running around" with the husband. She was only

momentarily tically

no

back by

set

guilt or

this

double unpleasantness, and

shame about

prac-

felt

either her poor selection or the

wife's upset. She got out of that affair

and

one

tried another. This

did work out very well (especially since her lover's wife, coinci-

was

dentally enough,

woman), and she

is,

partly lesbian

my

to

Meanwhile, her marriage

and was hung up on another

knowledge,

continuing with

still

it.

better than ever; her children have

is

learned to accept her goings and comings with equanimity (every

once lover;

while she spends the whole night or weekend with her

in a

and for the

first

time

in

her

life

she

is

beginning to accept

herself fully and also her odd, but hardly heinous,

life.

OVERCOMING DEPRESSION Depression exactly the

usually tied

is

same

thing.

It

up with anxiety and

irrational elements: self-downing

these can wreak a dreadful

Typical

is

guilt but

is

not

usually includes at least two important

and

self-pity. Either or

both of

toll.

Robert U., who had an

affair with a

married neigh-

bor and was criticized severely by his two married daughters beill; (2) some of the members of community suspected what was going on between him and

cause (1) his wife was quite

sweetheart; and (3) the far

below

son with

woman

his educational

whom

and

woman,

Delia,

his

was, according to the daughters,

social level

and not the kind of per-

he should have anything to do. Although his

tionship with this

the

was about the

best thing that

rela-

had

ever happened to him (his wife had suffered from severe heart

— OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS was almost

trouble for fifteen years and

own

because of her

169

him

entirely neglectful of

problems), he was severely depressed about

it

and went into a tailspin the day following almost every encounter he had with Delia.

While Mary, whose case we

examined, was plagued by one

just

major irrational idea that was making her guilty and upset namely, the notion that she should be above reproach of any kind

and was a base person philosophies.

He

own

ought

to

social class,

first,

— Robert had

that he should

among

several insane

do the

his sick wife; second, that he

subject of any gossip

his

she were not

believed,

and have respect for third, that he

if

the people of his

community; and,

woman

have close relations only with a

who could

Like Mary, he consequently

felt

thing"

''right

must not be the in

not be criticized by his daughters.

very guilty because he was having

woman

an affair that he should not have, was having

it

with a

whom

in

such a manner

he ought not care

down

as to bring

for,

criticism

and was having

and gossip on

his

it

head that he ought

not be inspiring.

To make

matters worse, Robert believed that he would always

do the kind of

''rotten" things that

he was doing, and that conse-

quently he would always be a "rotten person."

Like most de-

pressed individuals, he thought that his condition was not only

bad

— but

that

it

was hopeless. There was something so bad about

himself, he believed, that he could not possibly ever change his

crummy ways and

act better. Therefore he

would perennially be

reprehensible.

him and

Third, Robert believed that the world was unfair to that he

was an exceptionally

pitiable, helpless creature

who could

not cope with this unfairness. His wife "unfairly" had been

years and had given

him

neighbors "unfairly" did not accept the fact that, for the in his life,

ill

for

practically nothing during that time. His first

time

he had found some real measure of sex-love happiness;

and they were meanly gossiping about him and trying to put an end to his joy. His daughters "unfairly" were looking at Delia's lack of education

and class

status,

and not

at the fact that

she was

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

170

remarkably kind and understanding and had a rare kind of "education" of her own. Robert was underlyingly enraged at these "un-

which means

fairnesses":

and occasionally

self,

to

that he insisted

and commanded

(to

him-

Delia) that they should not exist; that

people, including his daughters, ou^^ht not be the bitably are. But his rage soon died:

slaught of self-pity, the feeling that

way

they indu-

was smothered in an oninevitably must he rough on

it

life

him, and that he had no strong inner resources with which to cope with

adversities.

its

A

At point

and blocked

Robert was sorely opposed

(the Activating event),

in

continuing with the best

human

relationship he had

ever known. At point rB (his rational Belief), he held that this blocking, this frustration, was unfortunate, unpleasant, and pain-

At point

ful.

iB (his irrational Belief), he absolutistically insisted

was awful,

that the blocking

that he couldn't stand

that

it,

would

it

horribly continue forever, that this kind of unfairness must not

and that a poor shlemiel

exist,

happy

like

himself just could not live hap-

rough world and could not be

pily in such a horribly

any degree

in

such circumstances. Consequently, he was severely de-

in

pressed. I

have worked with Robert

pute, as vigorously

system.

have used three main approaches

I

cedures. Cognitively,

what

his

tently.

main

To

major

them.

"1. to

—

He /

I

I

in the

RET

pro-

listing

and how he could Dispute or challenge

full respect for

Why

such as the respect of others,

And

in

following paper:

ful to her. Disputing: (a)

advantages?

emo-

and to Dispute them consis-

must do what others, including

do and have

to Dis-

the cognitive,

gave him a homework assignment of

irrationalities

turned

—

have shown him how to see very clearly

irrational Beliefs are

this end,

D

his irrational Belief

and behavior therapy that are usually combined

tive,

his

helping him go on to

at

and persistently as he can,

aren't they

if

my

sick wife

must I

my

do

I?

It

daughters, expect

and be

me

entirely faith-

has certain advantages,

so; but

do

I

really

need these

outweighed by the disadvantages of

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS up my

giving

171

Would people truly respect me if 1 were I doubt it; many of them probably re-

affair? (b)

completely monogamous? spect

time

me more this way, in my life. I sort of

for being fairly independent for the first

my

think even

way, though they won't exactly admit ers'

respect?

nice to have

It's

may go

tages that

with

it

it

—

daughters feel a

Anyway, do

it.

— but does

Do

spect?

my own

I? Isn't

head for myself

my own.

have

—

that

mean

But do

that 1

need

I

supposedly need

my own

even need

I

am

I

enjoying myself and

— whatever

and enjoying?

Why

justification? (d)

bag?

I

if

thereby put her could.

I

I

that

—

is!

alive

Do

let

my

my

self-

wife the same

silly

do anything mean and nasty

to

—

I

to

couldn't

unless she foolishly thought

could deprive her of companionship (which

what), or of sex

self

myself be, without any

having respect for

as a person

my

being alive

did such things, acted badly to her,

down

need

I

and capable of

need to assess

I

the time to justify

all

merely

I

am

I

Do

well, that's it?

can't

Isn't

know

just

and don't want

like her

But even

her.

—

the hell that

re-

worthy of living for

doing the right things and earning the respect of others? 1

Ob-

it?

respect actually an egoistic pat on the

a signal to myself that

that kind of crap? Can't

need oth-

especially the practical advan-

viously not! (c) Isn't respect a bowl of shit? others' respect to

I

little this

I

I

do, some-

(which she doesn't want anyway, and would

rather

I

got elsewhere), or of

(which

I

don't).

But

if I

did

all

money and

other material things

these things, that

would

have

really

away some would be poor behavior on my

nothing to do with respecting her, but only with taking

enjoyments from her. Well, that but

part,

"2.

/

it

wouldn't show that she's a louse

should be having an affair with a

higher social level than

might be better class

what

if

I

did

is

want and what

the

women

her

in

I've

I've

known,

these respects.

level,

And

if

of

/

I

sort of

whom

I'm

am!

woman who is on Why should I?

doubt

it.

Delia seems to give

never had from

all

that

Disputing:

Delia.

— though

and her educational I

— or

my

a It

Despite her

me

just

about

wife or any other of

have been distinctly above

making

a mistake about this

could actually get a better lover than Delia, that's too bad.

I'll

and risk

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

172

A

it!

mistake

about making

self

"3.

the

just a mistake,

is

Because

wrong woman

who

I

my-

don't have to castigate

it.

am

I

and

to

doing

do

it

this

bad thing

to

my

with, that proves that I

wife and picking

am

a bad person

do these things forever. Disputing: The hell am not a bad person, no matter how many mistakes

will stupidly

does!

I

make. As Dr.

Ellis says,

and

think Jesus sort of said

I

it

too,

it I

am

I

human being who frequently will do the wrong things do many right things. I really should because of my fallibility, keep acting badly on many occasions. And I will, for this reason, perpetually do some or many wrong things, but a fallible

but

who

will also

not necessarily because

I

have done them before.

most errors and not do them again. for

me

—

pick one

as

my

who

"4.

/

I

can't

can

still

better for

make me

me

in the future.

My

—

I

the

I

can correct

wrong woman

find this out

past

and

and present

repeat them forever.

Just cannot cope with this miserable, unfair world. Dis-

puting: Shit,

pacify

is

wife really was, too

is

mistakes don't

Delia

If

can't!

I

make my

my

I

can't change this miserable world too

wife better, raise Delia's social status right now,

daughters completely, or get

stop gossiping. But these things.

much.

I

my

envious neighbors to

can have an enjoyable time,

They may

all

for myself in spite of the

remain pretty bad; but

way

in spite /

can do

of

all

a lot

they are."

Cognitively, Robert kept working along these lines, during our

individual and group sessions, in his outside

life,

and through

his

homework assignments. Emotively, I was able to help him by putting him in one of my regular therapy groups and having him attend one of the Marathon Weekends of Rational Encounter which the Institute for

Advanced Study

several times each year at

its

in

Rational Psychotherapy gives

New York

City headquarters and in

various other parts of the United States and Canada. In both these

group

settings,

some of them fairs

he met in

(to his surprise) other

very similar circumstances,

males and females,

who were having

af-

and were feeling unguilty and undepressed. They directly and

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS some of

evocatively Disputed

duced him

some of

to

his irrational Beliefs.

own

their

173

They

intro-

adulterous friends. They warmly

accepted him even though some of them thought that he was making a mistake about the kind of fair.

They got

into

some

woman

he was choosing for his af-

histrionic encounters

uations with him, which dramatized for

some of

his problems.

how he was

And

him

and role-playing

sit-

alternate solutions to

they otherwise emotively emphasized

needlessly flagellating himself and refusing to push

through convention-shattering approaches to his Behaviorally,

I

difficulties.

and Robert's regular therapy group gave him

homework assignments that helped him change his ways, modeled some new solutions for him, and forced him into assertion-taking procedures that enabled him to become familiar with activity

other ways of doing things.

We

demonstrated, with two females

how he could handle some

situa-

to take risks of rejection in the

group

the group playing his daughters, tions with them.

We

got

him

in

which demonstrated that doing something foolish or being rejected by others need not be a horrible experience. date other

women

We

induced him to

than Delia, so that he could see exactly what

her advantages and disadvantages, on a comparative basis, actually were.

We

encouraged him to stop avoiding certain

difficult life

situations— such as having Thanksgiving Day dinner with

members of

his large family

the

all

circle— so that he could prove

to

himself that he could face them, handle them, and not upset himself

about some of their unfortunate ways.

After several months of rational-emotive therapy, Robert

felt

unguilty and undepressed most of the time, had only minor occasional setbacks,

and started spreading the

his friends, relatives,

RET

philosophy

among

and business associates. He did so well that

he was able to influence one of his daughters, the more difficult of the two, to change her basic

condemning

and Delia, and to leave her own husband,

attitudes, to accept to

whom

him

she had been

unhappily married for several years! He has also been able to help

some other members of his highly religious, absolutistic family become less dogmatic, to accept his behavior, to be happier

to in

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

174

their

bers

own who

right,

and

more

to accept the other,

rigid family

mem-

persisted in staying in their emotional and attitudinal

ruts.

OVERCOMING HOSTILITY Feelings of deep-seated hostility about extramarital affairs are

common

our culture. The individual,

in

in particular,

who

is

sex-

ually or amatively dissatisfied with his or her marital relationship

frequently hates the spouse

who "makes" him

or her adulterously

inclined; or hates the partner for having an affair (while he or she

usually

not); or resents the

is

mate who

blocking him or her

is

from carrying on extramarital arrangements; or loathes the lover

whom

with

husband

the wife or

these

forms of

much

less

hostility

is

tend to

having sex-love relations. All

make

extramarital

adventures

appetizing than they otherwise would be. Sometimes, in

fact,

they encourage

Such

hostility

more

adultery, often they lead to divorce.

invariably unnecessary;

is

it

could be minimized or

eliminated.

Does rational-emotive psychology contend

resentment, rage, and fury are illegitimate?

tility,

affairs

had

— assuming

Yes

And

does

it

spe-

hold that anger and hostility regarding any aspect of hav-

cifically

ing

that all anger, hos-

(and

better

and

be

can)

definitely

that the terms anger

eradicated?

hostility are accurately

and clearly defined.

The dictionary Webster's

"A

feeling that

etc.:

it

as:

nism."

not very helpful with this kind of definition,

may

Dictionary, for example, defines anger as:

result

from

injury, mistreatment, opposition,

usually shows itself in a desire to hit out at something or

someone ity

is

New World

else;

"A

wrath; indignation; rage; ire."

feeling of enmity,

To make

sion as: "1. an

matters

still

ill

And

defines hostil-

antago-

worse, the dictionary defines aggres-

unprovoked attack or invasion.

habit of being aggressive (that

is,

gress; starting fights or quarrels. 2.

bold and active; pushing)."

it

will, unfriendliness, etc.;

1.

2.

the practice or

aggressing or inclined to ag-

full

of enterprise and intiative;

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS

175

These definitions are not helpful because they include two tinct entities,

even contradictory. The irritation, or

dis-

which partially overlap and are partially separate or element

first

composed of

is

annoyance with conditions that

exist

displeasure,

and calm deter-

mination and effort to change these conditions (sometimes, even,

by force and violence) so that you get more of what you want and less

of what you do not want in

life.

This element could be more

discriminatingly labeled or defined as assertiveness, initiative-taking, or

determination.

The second element

in anger, hostility, or aggression contains

demandingness, intolerance, grandiosity, or godlike commandingThis

ness.

is

a heated, overdetermined, absolutistic, enraged insis-

tence that displeasing, irritating, and annoying conditions should not,

ought not, must not exist and that they have to be immedi-

ately changed. This element,

chology holds),

is

contend (and rational-emotive psy-

I

the essence of anger, and since

perfectionism and magic and since vast

it

it

is

based on

leads to poor results in the

majority of instances (including the needless sidetracking,

confusion, low-level thinking, encouraging of hostility in others,

and feelings of pain

in one's

own

gut),

it

invariably mistaken

is

and unproductive.

Not that anger never works.

you

If

idiotically

enrage yourself

against a person, a group, or a social system (instead of sanely de-

termining to try to change the obnoxious behavior of that person, group, or system), you

An

infuriated

may

prizefighter

occasionally get good practical results.

sometimes

knocks out his opponent; a lynch

lands

mob once

a in a

haymaker while

events that lead to a desirable change in legal procedures. large,

and

stirs

however, while calm determination helps change your

and the world

in highly desirable

ther the short or long run, to least to

bring about

Take

much

harm along with

Having

five

—

life

ei-

or at

the good.

the fairly typical case of Joan de S. Joan's

exceptionally busy with his sexually.

ways, excited rage tends, in

do more harm than good

needless

up

By and

husband was

work and neglected her amatively and

young children, she

felt

economically depen-

dent on him, and although she would have been delighted to have

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

176

an

would

one man

especially with

affair,

tracted, she

was

raise hell

terribly afraid to

do

ulcer,

and was sent

me

to see

benefited considerably from

anger

whom

knowing

she was highly atthat her

and probably immediately divorce her

So she boiled with unexpressed

out.

to so,

lust

if

husband he found

and hatred, developed an

by her internist (who had himself

RET

and

rid himself of his

extreme

at his wife).

Joan's upsetness, as

was able

I

show her

to

at

an

RET

work-

shop, clearly did not stem from her husband's frustrating her sex-

and refusing to

ually

let

her have an affair, at point A. She was

convincing herself, rationally,

point B:

at

"How

annoying! Here

he hardly wants me, or for that matter any woman, sexually; but instead of letting

me

have an

which would help me im-

affair,

mensely and deprive him of nothing (and even relieve him of the pressure

keep putting on him

I

he asininely won't

it),

let

have sex when he doesn't want

to

me do it because of B again, she was

a bother!" Then, at point

''How awful! He's he

restrict

satisfy It

me

terribly unfair;

me from having

What

irrationally whining:

and he shouldn't

be!

How

dare

an affair when he won't do anything to

himself! That fascist!"

wasn't very difficult to show Joan what she was telling her-

self at B, her Belief system.

to

his false pride.

one of the workshops

Study

in

in

She was a school counselor who came

RET

which the

Institute for

Advanced

Rational Psychotherapy holds several times a year for

professionals, and she brought

members of our

RET

panel

up her problem to me and the other when we were demonstrating our

methods. In addition, quite a few members of the professional audience asked her questions and

made

she had been futilely participating

suggestions to her. Although

in

psychoanalytic therapy for

the last two years and although she had

become even more

in-

censed at her husband after attending some encounter, Gestalt,

and bioenergetic groups recently, she was able less

than an hour that

we

to differentiate, in

talked with her, her rational Beliefs (her

strong preferences that her husband give her more extramarital

leeway) from her irrational Beliefs (her absolutistic demands that

he do

so).

OVERCOMING EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS

What

177

more, we got her to challenge these demands vigor-

is

was able

ously. ''Why," she restricting me?''

Now

to ask herself,

she could see that

it

''is

awful that he

it

obviously wasn't;

merely damned disadvantageous and inconvenient.

we again

reason," fairly

got her to ask herself,

"why he

it

was

there any

shouldn't un-

keep her away from having outside affairs?" She could see

was no reason why he shouldn't, although there were

that there

why

several good reasons

me

dare he restrict to

"Was

is

me

satisfy

would be nicer

it

for having an affair

if

he didn't.

"How

when he won't do anything

himself?" she questioned herself. She answered,

"With no trouble

at all!

Of

course, he could dare

do what he

is

doing; anyone can easily do what they do!"

RET

with the help of the

Finally,

members, Joan asked

herself,

"Why

is

panel and the workshop

my husband

a fascist for

way?" And she concluded, "Of course he He's merely an individual who, in this and a few other re-

acting in this unfair isn't!

spects,

is

acting fascistically

human, anything but fascist leanings.

But that doesn't make him, a

just that: a

total

human. He's a human with some I induce him to think less

Tough! Now, how can

fascistically or else find

As

.

a result of this

some other solution?"

workshop experience, Joan immediately qui-

down and soon lost most of her hostility to her husAs she reported two months later at another workshop in same professional series, she felt good about her husband for

eted herself

band. this

the

first

time in the

the way, she traits,

too,

last

two years.

remembered

that he

Now

that her anger

had many good and enjoyable

and that they had much more

spouses. Because she

made

was out of

in

common

than most

herself unangry and refused to anger

work out a more satisfactory sexcompanion relationship with her husband that, even though it wasn't ideal, enabled her to live successfully with him and to have herself again,

Joan was able

to

only occasional extramarital thoughts and feelings. She found that

much of her aduherous obsession had been fanned by her hostility; once that diminished she became unobsessed. Similarly, many other husbands and wives have used RET principles to dispel their feelings of intense anger at their mates or

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

178

and thereby to enhance their extramarital adventures or to

lovers,

make them

and presumably to

steam, Rather,

it

way

unnecessary. For the rational-emotive

courage people to express their

to

is

feel

show them

own

stances, create their

hostility,

better

is

not to en-

thereby to blow off

and become

less

hostile.

that they,

and not outside circum-

rage; that they

do so by devoutly holding

to childish, grandiose philosophies;

and that they can surrender

and change these philosophies and thus lose their feelings of anger.

To acknowledge

than to deny it

—

that

one that

is,

it

one's anger and to express

and repress

it.

But

the feeling of anger

—

to is

acknowledge by

it

it

is

far better

and get

rid

far the better solution

will eventually lead to rarely feeling

it

at all

of

and

even when

obnoxious and frustrating events occur. "The world stinks and had better change! it!"

is

And

I

am

therefore going to do

should change!"

is

best to change it

an angry, puerile, and often passive-aggressive

attitude that rarely helps to

change the world or oneself.

Hostility, then, helps create unneccessary it

my

an assertive, activist attitude. "The world stinks and

helps sabotage civilized, sane adultery.

If

and foolish adultery;

you are going

to

have

extramarital adventures, have them determinedly and assertively,

because you have good reasons for wanting them and adding to

your pleasurable existence. Don't have them against others or against yourself.

Special Problems

Women

of

JL HEORETICALLY, women easily

engage

in extramarital

in

our culture can much more

adventures than men, and they can

For

enjoy adultery with fewer disadvantages. Theoretically!

though husbands

who have

affairs certainly have hassles

ample, taking time off from their work, spending

women

with

whom

al-

for ex-

money on

the

they go to bed, and risking their wives' resort-

ing to an economically punitive divorce

have

—

many problems of

their

own

if

they're caught

in getting

— wives

away with outside

sex-love interests.

SEXISM

AND THE DOUBLE STANDARD

For one thing, we

still

largely hold to a double standard of sex

men much more leeway Husbands, in a good many

around when

morality that gives

to run

they're married.

social circles, are al-

most supposed to have girlfriends, lovers, and mistresses. At conventions,

men

are expected to screw. Respectable businesses often

arrange for call girls or other easily available date large-scale male buyers

who

women

are willing (as

gerly are) to accept sexual favors.

to

many

accommo-

of them ea-

Clubs, athletic groups, bars,

card games, and other facilities that largely cater to males frequently provide accessible

women. Clubs and groups, on

the other

179

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

180

hand, that are predominantly female rarely encourage or provide

good studs

for their habituees.

When, moreover, women are known to engage in affairs, and particularly in a somewhat promiscuous manner, they are censured and scorned far more than their male counterparts. An unusually attractive

my

and competent matron of

acquaintance

members of her community

ostracized by most

discriminateness, but her husband, too,

is

at

not only

down upon

looked

having such a "whore" for a wife. Ironically,

town while she stayed sedately

is

for her sexual in-

if

for

he ran around

home, he would probably be en-

many members of their community! Female adulterers, like this woman, are considered ''easy marks," even though they may be, quite selectively, trying out a number of male partners in order to find one or a few who are especially bright and attractive. Men who behave similarly are admired for wading through a sizable number of women in order to vied and looked up to by

finally

By

end up with a "good" one. the

same token, pregnancy and

viewed very to. If

the risk of pregnancy are

accordance with which sex one belongs

differently, in

you are a male, no one, including your own

seriously

if

you

fail to

ceptive measures or

mate pregnant.

If

wife, takes

it

too

be intelligently rigorous about using contra-

if

you foolishly get a

other than your

girl

you are a female, everyone, notably your hus-

band, demands that you use absolutely surefire methods of birth control in your affairs; and

by your lover, there

Once

again:

if

is

if

you goof and somehow get pregnant

usually hell to pay.

own

your

children

are having extramarital adventures, as a flaming horror

those things,"

if

if

you are a

somehow

it

is

discover that you

very likely to be viewed

woman and

you are a man. For your

as,

"Oh,

well,

one of

children to find out in

the former case that

you have become pregnant by someone other

than their father

almost equivalent to your committing armed

is

robbery or murder; but

if

they discover that you, their father, has

begotten a child out of wedlock, that tirely

kosher but hardly the worst crime

Let's face

it,

then:

if

you are a

is

considered to be not en-

in the world.

woman who

lives

in

today's

— WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

conventional

you'd

society,

181

becoming public knowledge than

mean

doesn't

—

be a

little

much more

you happen

if

to

seriously

your

or, especially,

affairs

be a man. This

you must never, never have extramarital adven-

that

must always keep them deep, dark

tures; or ter

think

better

about the possibility of your affair

more

many

careful, in

But you'd bet-

secrets.

instances, about publicizing

them.

become much

a whale of a good idea to

It's

less vulnerable

than you naturally are (and normally likely to be), especially

you are adulterously

inclined.

even when you are pretty sure that these are

others' opinions,

be distinctly adverse. This

likely to

is

where, once again, you can

be appreciably helped by using the rational-emotive method. doesn't teach you that

when

less

if

For then you need not be cowed by

is

it

RET

supremely unimportant and meaning-

when they go around speakdamned well isn't! Negative flak

others do not accept you or

ing negatively about you. For

it

from members of your social group, from business or professional associates, or

from family members can be one grand botheration.

Malvina A., who cared as

anyone her

own

little

with

as

knew

propensity for carrying on affairs, because she had been

married once before and found

devoted to her

sively

what people thought of her

for

ever met, nevertheless found this to be true. She

I

first

him and they had

it

most onerous

a pretty

and

his sisters

kind of thing, she

remain exclu-

good sex relationship. So she

usually had at least one other affair going, too; his cousins

to

husband, even though she liked living

and when he (and

and his aunts) took a dim view of

wound up happily

Her second marriage was more

this

divorced. realistic.

She frankly told her

husband. Josh, that she was likely to embark on extramarital adventures and, since he had similar inclinations himself, he was

more than willing

to agree that they

would practice

civilized, no-

bones-about-it adultery.

Everything worked out

fine, at first

—

until her

law and her neighbors started complaining. gave a

fig

for entire

what Josh

did,

No

even when he holed up

weekends with one of the

single

new mother-inone, apparently,

at the local

women

in

motel

town. But

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

182

everyone seemed to care about Malvina's "infidelity." She was os-

Only the men talked

tentatiously avoided in the local supermarket. to her at

community gatherings and

parties

— and then had

to ac-

count for their conduct to their wives when the gatherings were

The women

over.

her mother-in-law's bridge club and church

at

groups seemed to have no animated topic of conversation other than Malvina and her sexual doings.

Here, then, was "male chauvinism" stoutly applied by a vocif-

erous female contingent.

Few

of the males

what Malvina did, and would have had screwed her ass off their wives

in

city hall

in

little

town

objection had she

park on a sunny afternoon. But

and sweethearts cared enormously

— probably wonderSome

ing which of their partners might next be Malvina's. also, in their secret thoughts,

their

own

when they were

of them

envied her the freedom granted by

her husband and had no intention of letting her get sort of thing

really cared

away with

that

watched and supervised by

closely

mates.

Eventually, this mass female censure of Malvina got to her

husband.

He was

his

main

the

man who

clients let

Josh began to

what Malvina

a stockbroker,

began objecting "that

feel

and when some of the wives of to their being so

woman" do whatever

the pressure.

chummy

with

she wanted sexually.

Personally, he

still

didn't care

him equal leeway and six-year-old daughter. But he felt that he had

did, as long as she granted

didn't neglect their

to start insisting that she

be

much more

discreet about her affairs

When even that didn't work too well town suspected the most innocent move she

than she had been before. (since the

women

in

made, and were apt ones) he began to

about her

to guess correctly

become upset over

innocent

less

the practical disadvantages

of the extramarital plan they had agreed upon. I

worked with both Malvina and Josh on was exceptionally hostile about

lems. She

other

women

and began to feel

in

town, but she also

to hate herself as well.

let

their criticism affect her

He was

ashamed of everyone's knowing

their emotional prob-

the opposition of the

not hostile, but did start that his wife

was near-

WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

183

promiscuous and feeling sorry for him as a "cuckolded" male.

was able believe

—

that

got

I

much,

him

in

I

in

really

mean to be,

to

go back to

at least in the

women

— and

town

in

she was hardly the louse they made her out

and

spite of their censoriousness

and

women

to persuade her to accept the other

town

to believe

I

his prior attitude of not caring very

downing himself, if other men and him and thought he was a weakling who

sense of

pitied

couldn't control his vixen of a wife. In spite of the great emotional gains that both of practical matters

community that it became advisable for Josh to get transfer him to another city where they had a branch. over

in this

new

them made,

had already reached such a sorry pass

locale,

Malvina and Josh continued

in their

his firm to

Starting

all

their honest

extramarital arrangement but this time conducted themselves in a

considerably more discreet manner. Practically fairs

own community were even these ventures. in

all

Malvina's af-

were confined to out-of-town encounters, and males from her

New

I

rigorously excluded from participation in see both of

them occasionally when they are

me this is working much home town. They

York, and from what they

(but publicly secret) adultery

previous openness in their old

tell

bad that public opinion, and especially the

kind of civilized better than their feel that

still

it

is

too

existing double

standard of morality that makes females more beholden to this

opinion than

is

true of males, forces

them

be so cautious, but

to

they accept this limitation and largely stick to their spite of

own

bents in

it.

LIMITATIONS OF

HOME AND FAMILY

TIES

Theoretically, as noted at the beginning of this chapter, are freer than

men

to

engage

in extramarital

women

adventures, because

The mother of children who

are in ju-

nior high, high school, or college often has all afternoon

and much

they often have

more

time.

of the morning to herself, while her husband

some kind of

nine-to-five job

— can

—

especially

rarely get

if

he has

away from work

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

184

during

time and would be hard put to have an affair even

this

he had a most willing female partner

who

herself

was

if

easily avail-

able.

In practice, however, things don't often theoretically should. is

available for outside affairs, the

meet are not

free.

When

man

They have regular

have wives or sweethearts peccadillos.

work out

is,

(especially

if

way they

who

or

men

woman

she would like to

jobs, live at a distance, or

are closely watching their possible

and

suitable partners are ready

willing, there

often no convenient place in which to get together.

own home

the

At the times during the day when the

The woman's world

to say the least, not the best location in the

she has prying neighbors

better than to get

some

"dirt"

on

her!).

is

who would

like

nothing

The man's home may be

accessible to his wife, lover, friends, etc. Hotels or motels

may be

too expensive, too dangerous, or too unappetizing (particularly to the

woman). And

cars, beaches, parks,

open places certainly have

questions about what to do and with easily answered, at times, the issue of

harder to

country copses, and other

their great limitations!

whom where

to

do

to

do

So although the it

it

may be fairly may be much

settle.

Most women, moreover, are much more beholden

to their chil-

dren and other family members than are their husbands. In our society,

it

is

conventionally accepted that the father of the family

spends fixed hours completely away from the home

— and

these

hours, as in the case of a busy dentist, store owner, or insurance

salesman,

may

morning

well be from eight in the

eleven at night. During this period the

man

is

ten or

until

expected to be,

at

most, in occasional telephone communication with his children

and family, and sometimes he hardly even has any contact with

them and nobody seems to care very much. Not so his wife! Even if she has a part-time or she

is

usually counted

upon

to

with her children (particularly

remain

calls; to

contact

when they have any kind of

cal or emotional problem); to be at

band's

full-time job,

in fairly consistent

home

physi-

regularly for her hus-

run family errands that no one would even think of

.

WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

asking the

man

185

of the house to do; to be in somewhat regular and

close contact with the

members of her

original family, especially

her mother and sisters; to baby-sit for the children of her friends, relatives,

and her own;

to help her family with their

problems con-

cerning homework, school, clothes, camp, chauffeuring, dating, partying, and so on; to erly

fed,

bathed,

make

sure that everyone at

home

is

prop-

medically attended, and otherwise

well-slept,

taken care of physically; and to be responsible for a hundred other things that she

may

or

may

Under these conditions, tal life

may be

not have her husband help her with.

is

it

hardly surprising that her extramari-

seriously curtailed, even

ous objections to her having

it

and

if

her husband has no seri-

she

if

able to find suitable

is

partners.

What can be done about

this?

Many

of the

women

I

have seen,

both professionally and as friends, have been able to carry on extramarital arrangements in spite of the limitations that their life

home

and that society generally impose on them, but they have often

had

to

work very hard

at

overcoming these

restrictions.

To sum-

marize some of their experiences and the conclusions to be drawn

from these experiences, by home and family dard ideologies that

I

ties, still

would say

that

some of

as well as by all

women who

are limited

the double stan-

too frequently prevail in our culture,

can think seriously about some of these ameliorative methods:

Try

1

him

to get the full cooperation of

to agree that if

freely allow

use

you

to

you allow him engage

in

your husband. Ideally, get

have outside

to

them, too

—

affairs,

some measure of discretion and don't do anything too

(such as spend too 2.

If

much money)

in the

you can't get your husband's

ilized adultery,

you frequently can

full

get

he will

as long as both of

you

foolish

course of these

affairs.

consent to engage

in civ-

him

to grant

you

a notable

degree of general independence that will appreciably help you to

You can

engage

in secret affairs.

outside

employment; you can teach your children largely

insist that

he allow you to have to take

care of themselves; you can join clubs, classes, or groups that you regularly attend without him; or take nights or even

weekends off

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

186

by yourself to do anything (such as going to the theater

you

that

like to do; or

go on

in

town)

or vacations without

trips, cruises,

may get him and your famhaving you around on many occasions and possibly

him; and do various other things that ily

used to not

abet your finding suitable partners for extramarital adventures.

Work on your own shame and

3.

about your desires to be

guilt

women,

as

have great practical problems

in

than a hundred percent monogamous. Although

less

noted so far

in

this

chapter,

carrying on affairs, their main limitations posed. Even

if

tend to be self-im-

a wife gives, say, a regular piano lesson to a very

man

attractive single

his

in

own apartment and

follow her inclination to have an nity,

still

she could easily

him with

affair with

utter

impu-

she will tend to find innumerable excuses for not doing so

on the piano bench. Your main bar-

until he practically rapes her rier to extramarital joy,

consequently,

tations but internal ideas;

and

is

usually not external limi-

these, fortunately, are entirely in

your control. Work on these ideas when they are productive of needless guilt and shame, and cifically

show yourself

that unless

you spe-

and unfairly harm yourself, your husband, your family, or

your adulterous partner, there

is

frequently no good reason for re-

fraining from having a fairly easily arrangeable affair that

most probably add considerably add 4.

to

your

life

would

and even, sometimes,

your marriage.

Don't catastrophize or awfulize about possible negative con-

sequences.

Of course you

practically always take risks

yourself with potential troubles

mate's that

to

is

full

when you

consent, nonmarital relations. But what

likely to

and involve

have, even with your is

the worst

happen? Will divorce certainly ensue? Will you be

run out of town on a rail? Will your children loathe you? Will

your lover despise you and leave you these extreme things truly likely to

after a while?

Suppose they do. Must you then be an vidual, woefully self-hating, rest

of your

life?

and unable

Ask yourself

Are any of

happen? utterly miserable indi-

to

have any joy for the

these questions and you will see, in

the process, that most probably

you are enormously exaggerating

WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

187

the consequences of having an affair and being unpleasantly dis-

covered

in

and that you are certainly immensely exaggerating

it,

For you almost entirely control the

the emotional consequences.

even though you by no means fully control the former. You,

latter,

as

—

show my

continually

I

own

your

clients, are in the saddle as far as

and you can therefore drive yourself

feelings are concerned,

—

where you wish. Watch your whining about your special handicaps as a woman. Join Women's Lib, if you wish, and see very clearly that or not drive yourself

5.

you actually are discriminated against unjustly and

knowledge

fully that

advantages

(e.g.,

even though wives

Ac-

nastily.

our culture have certain

in

they can frequently be supported economically

without having to work at unpleasant jobs), these very "advantages" have severe concomitant handicaps (e.g.,

women

don't have

the incentive to prepare themselves for vitally absorbing lifetime

vocations). But this does not

merely a handicap;

mined

to

overcome

it

is

more you

that

it

And

is

awful.

the

A

handicap

more you

that handicap, to whatever degree

stead of endlessly whining the

mean

not a horror.

you can,

and wailing about being plagued by

are likely to reduce

is

are deterinit,

it.

WOMAN'S TENDENCY TO FUSE SEX AND LOVE One

of the main reasons

ing extramarital affairs

why women have such

and love relations be combined this

tendency

women,

in

has

many

its

clearcut

and

benefits of strongly

are fairly evident. People after

one

in

total

advantages,

or most instances, an

guilt, hostility, inhibition,

The

trouble enjoy-

their strong propensity to insist that sex

is

package. Although it

certainly

causes

enormous amount of

pain,

inertia.

cementing amative and sexual urges

who

care for each other, as well as lust

each other's bodies, tend to be kind and considerate; want to

be together

much

tionships; are

are in

of the time; form cooperative partnership rela-

more than

some kind of

willing to offer support

difficulty;

know

when

their

mates

pretty well that they will have

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

188

ongoing, continuing relations for some time to come; are forgiving of each other's failings; go out of their

way

one another

to please

sexually; tend to be part of a regular socially accepting group; offer each other various other wide-ranging kinds of help port.

Loving

is

enjoyable in

its

own

right;

it

and

and sup-

usually engenders re-

turned love, which also brings distinct benefits; and

frequently

it

enhances sex relations, which on a nonloving basis can easily be-

come monotonous and

boring.

But the necessity to

tie

sex and love together, and rarely or

never even to consider enjoying the former without the

(1)

ment

latter, also

immense disadvantages. For example:

entails

Since sexual desire

would be

is

and amative involve-

easily aroused

on a highly romantic plane)

(especially

terribly sex-starved if

we waited

not,

is

for a

most of us

mutual amour be-

we allowed ourselves to have sex. (2) Some individuals never love intensely or never love a member of the other sex who also is highly enamored of them.

fore

Are these people (3)

love, is

remain abstinent

to

all

their lives?

Although sex may usually be better or more enjoyable with

may

it

also be exceptionally satisfying without

waiting for the

full

loaf to be available,

why

it.

While one

refrain rigorously

from eating half a loaf? (4)

Loving one person and copulating with that person may be

preferable to having sex with that

one can often arrange

to

same person without

have sex-love relations with

having sex without love with B, C, and D.

Why

A

love.

But

while also

should one seek

only the former and not the latter relations, too? (5)

Waiting to have sex after one loves may easily help one

become

antagonistic to individuals

who want

sex without love; and

one may therefore become more hating than loving. hand, freely having sex without love usually case of leads

to

women

—

helps one to

long-term

—

become more open

relationships

On

the other

especially in the

and marriages

to loving

that

and

otherwise

would never have occurred.

Many

married

women

falsely

convince themselves that they

WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

189

cannot possibly have outside affairs on a nonloving basis. Susan cared for her husband but was lucky

more than once

a

month

—

to

P.

have intercourse with him

partly because he wasn't very highly

sexed and partly because he was terribly afraid of performing

badly

in

Being very

bed.

attractive,

she had

other men, some of whom would have been

many

offers

from

ideal partners for her

because they were very sexy and so devoted to their wives and

would probably not have allowed themselves

families that they

become

stickily

involved

with

her.

But she

insisted

that

to

she

couldn't possibly have sex with any of her admirers; she did not love

them and sex without love was "absolutely meaningless" and

"utterly joyless" to her.

For several years Susan stuck dogmatically

Then one of her male

whom

years but with

friends,

whom

to this hypothesis.

she had sexually teased for

she had done nothing more than embrace ar-

when she had a few drinks too many, deHe came to call on her one night when her husband was away on a sales trip, deliberately plied her

dently at several parties

cided that enough was enough.

with several

stiff

drinks from the bottle of brandy he had brought

along for the occasion, and ripped her clothes fought like a proverbial tiger, but

when he

off.

At

just refused to

first

she

remove

powerful hand from her crotch and defied her to scream and wake her two sleeping young children, she relaxed in his arms and before she knew it was passionately kissing him back. As she had his

to

admit to herself the next day,

it

was the greatest fuck, by

she'd ever had; and though she liked didn't love

him

him

well enough, she clearly

at all.

That taught Susan a lesson. Within the next leapt several times before she loved,

and had

each time. With her fourth partner,

much

loved after

—

in fact, a

together with

far,

him

at

six

months, she

a real ball in

bed

to her surprise,

she

couple of months after

— she

kept getting

one of the local motels. Although she mainly

confined her extramarital adventures to her relationship with him, she found even then occasional delight in sandwiching in a non-

loved partner.

By excitedly

telling her tale to several other

ma-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

190

community, and

trons in her

when

were

insisting that they

full

of crap

they kept holding to the proposition that they could not ever

enjoy sex outside the realm of a loving partnership, Susan became

one of the main influences

in

helping the adultery rate

county to climb to one of the highest rates Union. From a dogmatic believer

swung

nothing-without-love, she

in

any county

in the doctrine

her

in

in the

of sex-can-be-

to an almost fanatic belief in the

sex-with-or-without-love-can-be-great creed.

This doesn't mean that every wife affair is

and

holding out for having

is

it

got something

more out of

considering having an

with someone she truly loves is

quite right: for in her par-

find that they can roll in

affair unless she

than sex or even sex-friendship. Even

it

better not forget, forego sleeping with physically

attractive sex partners because they

want more than sex alone, and

do better things with

the hay. So

they honestly find sex arbitrarily

is

would hardly be worth having the

many men, we'd

pleasant

it

Sometimes she

necessarily wrong.

ticular case

who

their time than

women who

much more

have a most

hold out for love because

satisfying that

way

are not to be

viewed as being screwy about their non-screwing. Some

of them are and some of them are not. If

sex, tic?

that

you are debating with yourself whether or not

have loveless

how do you know whether your insistence to refrain is neuroBy asking yourself several significant questions: Do 1 think sex without love is disgusting? Would I consider myself a

worthless individual I

to

if I

had an

affair

mainly or only for sex?

Do

men who

try to get me into bed when I know me? Would I be enormously ashamed my mother or my woman friends knew that 1 was seeing So-

absolutely loathe

that they don't really care for if

and-so largely because he

is

a great lover? If your

these and similar questions, then there

is

a

answer

good chance

is

yes to

that

your

views on sex without love are not merely the result of your strong preferences and selective choosing but of your self-denigrating tendencies to look for the kind of affairs that you should have to respect yourself If this

is

so,

and

and

this

in

order

to

have others think of you as a good person.

is

what's mainly blocking you from finding

— WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

191

you possibly can use pro-

satisfactory extramarital relationships, fessional help. Fast!

WHEN A WOMAN GETS OLDER An enormous number

of problems of

closely linked to the aging process.

As

women I

in

our society are

noted in The American

Sexual Tragedy almost two decades ago, our

women

are obsessed

with the beatification of beauty and with clothes. But the latter obsession has decreased the

somewhat

in recent years

young people, who are now frequently

its

certainly

Women's Lib may

while beauty worship has not waned.

chant

—

among

in the blue jeans set

rightfully

guts out about the unfairness and puerility of males view-

ing females mainly as sex objects rather than as persons to be ex-

As long

plored in depth and related to as personalities.

as

women

themselves overemphasize the great "virtue" of perennial youth

and unwrinkled beauty, the male's propensity to give enormous importance to their physical assets (rather than the tributes) will

rest of their at-

be distinctly encouraged.

Many women

defensively deny that they are overconcerned

about aging, but they indirectly display their uptightness in this respect in a variety of subtle

shown

in the

and not so subtle ways. They

having sex without love

—

partly because they are afraid that

they do so they will not be attractive at that time, if a

want

to

insist,

as

previous section of this chapter, on rarely or never

man

when they

doesn't greatly love

if

are older and that,

them he

will not

even

go near them sexually. They not only, before they com-

fortably take off their clothes

and

his interest

and hop into bed with a male, want

love, but they also often

that he will always, undyingly love

undying devotion by being willing to

demand

a near-guarantee

— and

that he prove this

live with

them permanently

them

or legally marry them.

This

is

often so because, at bottom, they are panicked at the

thought of being alone and sexually undesired

— and

when

when they

are older

their physical attractiveness will, realistically speak-

192

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

ing,

be minimal. They deliberately eschew going into certain pro-

fessions (such as medicine) that

prepare

would take them many years

to

because they are horrified at the prospect of being

for,

"too old" when they are ready for love and marriage to compete with the females

manhunting

at

who have more time

to devote themselves to

younger ages. They often deliberately have children

they don't particularly want, almost immediately after they are

married,

in

order to hold their husbands, or they deliberately re-

from having children, on the supposition that having them

frain

help ruin

will

their'

tractive to their

youthful looks and thereby

make them

less at-

mates or to other men.

The overemphasis

that

women

place on youth and beauty

is

ex-

pectably mirrored in their attitudes toward extramarital affairs.

soon as they are older

— which

they are past the age of thirty

many

to

—

of them

in

as

As

soon as

they tend to view themselves as

being out of the running for such affairs

was interested

means

— because any man who

sex and love would presumably go for a

woman

in

her early twenties. By the same token, they tend to believe that

if

they have reached the horribly advanced age of, say, thirty-

eight,

and they have been pretty

rigidly

monogamous up

time, they simply have to start an affair soon

—

for

to that

what man,

in

heaven's name, would even think of being interested in an old bag past forty?

A

wife's attitude

adventures

toward her husband carrying on extramarital

also significantly influenced, in probably the great

is

majority of instances, by her view of the aging process. She might

be quite willing to have an open arrangement with her husband for

them both

to

spend a reasonable amount of time having out-

side sex-love relations, but she

up with a woman who

is

almost positive that he will end

is

ten or

more years younger than she

while she will only be able to find if

she finds anyone at

Josephine five,

men who

is,

are practically senile,

all.

P. stoutly held this belief for years.

She was

had been married since the age of seventeen, and

thirty-

in spite

of

her attractiveness viewed herself as an antiquated mother of four

WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

Her

children.

193

thirty-six-year-old

Tom,

husband,

she

always

thought of as being perennially youthful and easily able to attract

any

he wanted

girl

horrified

who had passed

when he suggested

tionships and only agreed, at

with other couples

woman would

puberty. She was therefore

that they both first,

who were

if

have extramarital

rela-

they could arrange to switch

their

own

ages;

then the other

not be younger and more attractive than she and

little chance that Tom would become unduly enamored of this woman and neglectful of her. The switching arrangements, for one reason or another, never seemed to work out well. Josephine was about to suggest that they give up the whole idea of extramarital affairs when she began to

there

would be

men

notice that several of the younger

worked seemed At

first

to

law office where she

be more than willing to have affairs with her.

she thought that she was fooling herself, and that they

were merely interested

in

work one night

late at

in the

junior partners

harmless

to help out

who had

flirtations.

But when she stayed

one of the twenty-nine-year-old

an important case to try in court the

fol-

lowing week, she had to admit that his mind was more on her than

on the

legal business they

were supposed

to

be polishing off

to-

gether.

A

couple of hours and a few ardent looks and declarations

later,

Josephine decided that maybe the office sofa did look

more

inviting than her

hardbacked secretarial

chair. After

much some

handholding and necking, and some seemingly sincere comments

much

by the junior partner that he

women

like her to his

preferred

mature-looking

skinny and skimpy twenty-one-year-old wife

(whose doll-like quality Josephine had been silently admiring for

many months, wrongly assuming

that

it

was sexually more arous-

ing to her husband), she decided to risk taking off

clothes and letting

him

see

what her "old" body

Instead of being horrified, he

some of her

really looked like.

was genuinely delighted with

its

roundness and softness; and Josephine had with him, right there

on the sofa, one of the best physical encounters she had ever

known

in

her whole

life.

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

194

After a

more experimenting with another young member

little

of her firm, she began to see that she did not necessarily have to think in terms of lovers well past the age of forty and that,

wanted men,

to,

this,

husband could

this

men

It

felt

mean

problem today tures?

younger women.

avail himself of

she took an entirely different view of her husband's

having affairs and

Does

she

she could avail herself of a good selection of younger

just as her

Learning

if

if

considerably less jeopardized.

that

mature and older

women

have no

really

they want to participate in extramarital adven-

Even though younger ashamed to

certainly doesn't; they often do.

are often available to them, they are frequently

men

have anything sexually to do with these younger. They think interested in

them

— and

sexually,

often wrongly

—

just because they are

that such

and could not possibly

men

like

are only

them

other way; that the younger men who do go for them would

soon have any woman, and have no interest

and that because they are older,

in

them

their partners are

in

any

just as

specifically;

bound

to

want

only an ephemeral involvement and could not ever care for them

on any prolonged basis. They also worry, of course, about what others would think of their having affairs with men five or more years younger than they are. They are afraid that their woman friends, in particular, will think they are foolish; are "robbing the cradle"; are allowing

themselves to be exploited sexually; will be envious and jealous; will point out that they are shortsightedly

are horny and easily available, not those in their

own

going for the

who would

men who

care for them

right.

Women who

are getting

on

in

years and thinking about extra-

marital experiences also have reality problems.

They frequently some

are less physically attractive than they previously were; and

potential male partners will be turned off by this fact. Like most

women, they tend

to

want

energetic, alive, bright,

number of such males

to

have relationships with men who are

and competent. Although a considerable exist,

they are definitely in the minority,

and they are frequently sought

after

by many females. Conse-

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

woman's

quently, an older limited,

and she may

are by no

WOMEN ability to land

find that

means the ones

Men sometimes

195

such a partner

most males who tend

is

often

go for her

to

that she prefers.

women "dangerous"

find older

lovers.

as

If

they go to bed with a young female, they figure that she

may

yet have any great stake in a purely sexual relationship

and can

therefore have one with impunity.

more

careful about her choices

An

older

and only

woman presumably

they

men know that may soon reject

is

someone who truly some time to come.

selects

cares for her and will continue to do so for

Since

not

they will not belong in this category and that

her and thereby contribute to her sorrow or

hurt, they feel safer, in

many

cases, having nothing to

do with her

sexually and seeking only younger companions.

Some

of the impediments that older

imaginations; but

ful

women

find to having af-

mainly fantasies of their overly vivid and fear-

fairs are therefore

some of them

are real and

do

In

exist.

view

of these fantasized and realistic handicaps, what can an older

woman do when

she wants to engage in extramarital adventures?

Here are some suggestions: Don't either minimize or overemphasize the problems of

1.

physical attractiveness and aging. Face the fact that, by and large,

you

will not

be as delectable to

and

forties, fifties,

sixties as

many men when you

you were when you were

are in your

your teens

in

and twenties. This may be partially a hangup of the culture and

Hollywood and TV-type knowledge It's

And

it.

it

ideals.

isn't

But

it

is

so,

its

and you'd better ac-

awful, terrible, or horrible that

it

is

so.

merely, at worst, a handicap, a bother, or an inconvenience.

Aging has certain

lots

aches

of other inconveniences, too: increased fatigue,

and

physical

pains,

disorders,

and

sometimes

(though hardly always) a decrease in sexual drive. Tough! There's

no reason why your

life,

and the aging process that

it

includes,

should not be plagued with inconveniences and disadvantages. But don't

awfulize

about

these

hassles

— and

thereby

gratuitously

handicap yourself immensely more! 2.

The worst

that aging

and decreased physical attractiveness

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

196

does tor you

to reduce or

is

sex-love partners.

practically never decreases to zero. If

It

ashamed of

not foolishly

minimize your selection of possible

the fact that you are older, and

you are you do

if

not mistakenly conclude that your age automatically rules out any possibility of

your having desirable lovers, you

ably be able to acquire one or more.

will

almost invari-

you cop out of the "rat

If

race" and do nothing to win an agreeable man, you will frequently

assume that you that

can't.

when you don't

You

Horseshit!

try

are thereby proving only

you probably won't

you are proving nothing about what may or

do

find

will

what you want;

happen when you

try.

Statistically, the

odds are always on your side

many

not the short) run. There are so

many thousands

world, and so that

would be extraordinary

it

one or more did not

if

Though

it

may seem

neously like

odd, some

women who

(if

your own immediate environs,

in

cause of the very "handicapping"

long

in the

millions of males in the

traits that

men

like

you be-

you so sorely deplore.

(for various reasons) sponta-

are older, big-assed, unable to get preg-

nant any longer, small breasted,

wrinkled, unsophisticated,

tiny,

motherly, or whatever else you "unfortunately" happen to be.

Look

at the

millions of homely, uneducated,

silly,

unsexy, or un-

women who are walking around the streets men on their arms. At their age, the

productive younger

with exceptionally attractive

competition

is

unusually keen

Why, twenty or more years 3.

If

you are

in

— and

yet they

older, can't

second place

some other female charmers who

in

somehow make

it.

you do the same?

age and looks, compared to

are around, emulate Avis: try

harder! Zillions of females above thirty idiotically conclude that

because males ultimately become scarcer than females

in

our so-

ciety (since, after the age of fifty, they gradually die off faster),

there

is

practically

no chance for an older female

to get

any

man

whatever. Hogwash!

The

truth

is

that,

nineteen available

after

men

after forty this ratio

the age of thirty,

for each twenty

there are perhaps

available females; that

changes to something like eighteen

twenty women; and that even after sixty

it

is

no worse than

men

to

fifteen

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

men

WOMEN

197

twenty women. True, the males are somewhat scarcer than

to

these ratios would indicate: because, although they are alive and

some

kicking,

homosex-

are not really available because they are

armed

ual, or in the

Timbuctoo, or

forces, or off in the wilds of

otherwise not readily accessible to female hunters.

The

fact

remains

— and —

at

and accept

as

many females looking

former

say, the age

at,

situation for

a

man

this fact

it

is

incredible

that even

of forty, this would hardly be a desperate thing, they could easily take part of

"man problems."

Kinsey figures (and

all

women,

sex than are

on the whole of one!) and

Sexually speaking, since the

other reliable figures on sex that

ages

all

look

there were, say, three times

if

(rather than piggishly insisting

have) show that at

will

for males as the latter looking for the

women. For one

thereby solve their

how few women

this

men

are

somewhat more

we now

interested in

would not be the worst solution

in the

world.

To make

matters even better, any

woman who

male companionship can almost always get sons. First, lots of

women

it

for

really craves

two simple rea-

are not that interested in competing for

males, because they just aren't or they defensively withdraw.

females do care only for the one male they have

Some

for their

some non-heterosexkind of preoccupation. Second (and probably more com-

houseful of cats, their career, their ual

— or

art,

or for

monly), loads of females are exceptionally concerned with getting

one or more male companions but are also so ovtrconcerned with succeeding

at this

nothing about

goal that they anxiously stew and do

fulfilling their goals.

little

or

Although they'd much rather

be actively trying for a suitable male partner than doing anything else in the world, they are so terrified at

that they practically never

Older

women who

engage

in

doing poorly

much

its

desire;

group that

larger

avidly desires but shyly, fearfully, inhibitedly does

implement

game

seeking affairs, consequently, divide

are

themselves into two main categories: the

to

at this

it.

little

and the much smaller group

or nothing

that just as

keenly craves male companionship but actively takes the risks of trying to get

it.

If

you are

a

woman who

is

getting on in years and

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

198

ardently wants to be involved in an extramarital relationship (be-

cause you are married and want extra helpings of love or are sim-

and are attracted

gle

some

to

husband or husbands), you

specific

can fortunately choose which of these categories you want to in-

And

habit.

tion

if

you do decide

among

the active seekers

and

your competi-

fact that part of

younger and more physically attractive than you are ever

is

again to be,

likely

to be

and you honestly face the

selectors,

then the harder you

greater your

the

try,

chances of success. This particularly goes for sex

4.

women

point,

exquisite

—

often

are

but they are also,

From

effort.

male stand-

a

charming,

delightful,

exciting,

innumerable instances,

in

a

and trial

and a plague. Those, especially, who are young and comely can from a purely male and sexual standpoint, immensely thwart-

be,

ing and disconcerting.

major campaign

campaign

is

younger

women

to

rewards for relatively

male partners

is

demand

little

mental and mean. Their

It

takes a

after this

reliability,

They may well be temperawarmth, and concern for their

abysmally capricious or low. Their efforts to

They

truly, in

innumerable

few favors (other than their pink skin and firm

instances, offer

for their predacious taking.

The main point of compete with these cult!

suous

It

is

this,

if

you are along

dolls, is pretty clear.

in years

Don't be so

because, from a

Woman's Lib

and

selling her soul

foolishly thinks she has

— an

approval and companionship. This, as these pages,

is

garbage!

entirely without

one or

sex-love desiderata. positively

to

diffi-

standpoint, they over-

emphasize the necessity of any female's seeming

— or

and want

damned

very well for you to object to books like The Sen-

all

Woman

to the male's needs,

has

Even

gigantic nonsexual attentions and

put-out.

please sexually are rare or nonexistent.

tits)

like this:

to bed.

won, they are only intermittently available and enthu-

They continue

siastic.

The male reasoning goes

to get

If

You if

be subservient

absolute, dire need for his I

keep

don't need a

your husband

is

you weakly and

must have one, you

to

and her body because she

will tend to

insisting

man

— even

throughout if

you are

sorely lacking in

falsely

believe that

some you

be a sensuous wo(e)man

WOMEN

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF

who

199

nauseatingly peddles her ass for an occasional pat on the head.

Who

needs this kind of "feminine" slop? Not you,

But

facts, as a

famous character

in literature

I

hope!

once remarked,

is

People with certain disadvantages, whether they are males

facts.

would often be wise

or females,

compromise.

to

If

you are

sixty

years of age and want to get into a business partnership with, say,

dynamo

a younger

or with an older individual

who

already has a

well-established firm of his own, you don't try to strike the kind of a bargain that you might have tried to strike

when you were thirty By the same

younger and considerably more vigorous.

years token,

if

you are an older woman who

man who

with a

in

fact

is

trying to have an affair

(and not merely in your anxiously in-

flamed imagination) has younger and prettier females to choose

among, you don't Face

reality!

act the

You

same way

as

or lick a desirable man's boots to win lover.

But

it

may

when you were

eighteen.

don't necessarily have to stand on your head

him and keep him

as a

well be profitable for you to go out of your way,

show him you are interested; to make it easy, him to bed you; to find out what he parsexually and to make an effort to please him; to re-

at the beginning, to

rather than difficult, for ticularly likes

from calling him

frain

to

account when he

and

inattentive or not too considerate;

to

do

is

occasionally lax or

(or not do) a score of

make him think that you are a far more him than some competing woman who still she were the Queen of the May while he is one of her

other things that will help desirable partner for acts as if

lowly suitors.

Be tow

a

Woman's Libber, if you wish. Don't, by any means, kowman merely because he is male and because you think

to a

you can't

You

—

live

without him and are a cipher without his approval.

are you; you are a valuable

person, in your

his

own

right.

—

that

is,

He, as a male,

a potentially enjoying is

acceptance of you as a partner doesn't

woman"

or a "worthwhile being."

you would

still

If

no better than you;

make you

no man ever

a "real

really liked you,

be a valid female and an individual capable of ac-

cepting yourself and finding nonsexual and nonamative delights.

good heterosexual relationship may well be the

first

A

or most im-

EXTRAMARITAL ADVENTURE

200 portant thing on your

list

have a second, a

ter also

life

goals or purposes. But you'd bet-

third,

and even a fourth major pursuit.

of

you do, you can then afford

If

to

make sane

sex-love compro-

was able to do. In her youth, she was completely hung up on relating to a man, and she made her entire existence meaningless, joyless, and depressed when her heterosexual amours Gerda

mises, as

F.

were going awry. After her

first

husband

tempted suicide, and came within a her lover of several years' standing

America, tact to a

left her,

sliver

moved permanently

insisting that she stay in the States

few days each year when he was

she spent a

month

in the psychiatric

she seriously at-

of killing herself.

in

and confine

their con-

New York on

wing of a

When

to Central

business,

hospital.

That was before she had a year of rational-emotive therapy, mainly

my

one of

in

self fully as a person,

with a

man

regular groups. This helped her to accept her-

whether or not she was making

successfully

it

she loved. Because she became unfrantic about men,

she looked for other major goals to

become absorbed

in

and she

found two: chess and writing. She threw herself so enthusiastically into the

former that she became one of the best players, male or

female,

in

her community. She also began, for the

and was busy almost every evening

tant avocations,

one or the other, she was able

man who

ried

and

terrific but

away because she knew

that, at most, he'd

in the

week

in

from

that his time

at

mar-

to accept a relationship with a

she had always thought was

she previously shied ited

time

first

reams of poetry. Because she had these two impor-

years, writing

whom

was lim-

be able to get together with her about

once every two weeks. Previously she would have frothed and

fumed her

small bit of time he was willing to afford her;

at the

she accepted

own

bustling

kind of break

was able

with equanimity, was barely able to include

it

to

it

life,

nally

and was extremely grateful for the excited

remain so generally contented with her full

relationship

life

that she

— which,

found when her chess-playing dates with one

blossomed

in

gave her from her other daily occupations. She

kept unfrenetically looking for a tually, she

now it

into a series of romance-filled dates as well.

even-

man

fi-

How the

to

Handle

Problem of Children

and Extramarital Adventure

^