What Kind of Adulterer Are You?

There are 17 basic reasons why someone who is not entirely selfish or immoral might have cheat on their spouse, says a new book by an eminent American therapist. Mira Kirshenbaum, clinical director of the Chestnut Hill Institute, in Boston, Massachusetts, has drawn some flak for suggesting in her new book that many adulterers are good, kind people, and that affairs can help a marriage.

She also advises husbands or wives who have affairs not to go home and own up, because discovery of the truth can cause more damage than concealment. She maintains that divorce may not be such a bad thing in some circumstances.

Having worked in psychotherapy for 30 years, Kirshenbaum is well known in the USA as an author and broadcaster. The child of holocaust survivors, she was born in Uzbekistan, and arrived in the USA at the age of four. She is now a grandmother.

So, what are those 17 reasons for two-timing your spouse? The list here is taken from Kirshenbaum's new book, When Good People Have Affairs, with her own brief explanations of what they mean. Meanwhile, the Independent has trawled world history to search for appropriate case histories.

Break out into selfhood

Kirshenbaum writes: "For a long time there are forces in your life that have opposed your being yourself, expressing yourself.

The affair is the best way you knew how to stand up for who you are." Virginia Woolf's husband, Leonard Woolf, is reckoned to have been more of a guardian than a lover. She broke out into a torrid affair with Vita Sackville-West, on whom she based the novel Orlando.

Accidental

Kirshenbaum writes: "You weren't looking for it ... but you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Vivienne Haigh-Wood married the poet T S Eliot weeks after they met. He later confessed: "To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land." But she does not seem to have intended to betray him quite so soon. It was just that Bertrand Russell happened to drop by.

Sexual panic

Kirshenbaum writes: "You feel your sexual powers are waning and in a kind of panic, you have an affair to prove you're still as sexually able as you were." The career of John Prescott was, outwardly, a story of success, the former ship's waiter who rose to be Deputy Prime Minister, but he never got over his sense of inferiority. In his sixties, he seduced Tracey Temple, a civil servant 26 years his junior.

Let's kill this relationship (and see if it comes back to life)

Kirshenbaum writes: "The idea is that once an affair is discovered it will deliver a blow that will either kill your relationship or make it stronger."

No sooner had Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine than he was off to war, when rumours surfaced that she was having an affair. When he returned to France, she never cheated on him again.

Mid-marriage crisis

Kirshenbaum writes: "Without time and attention marriages get stale or feel full of problems, so ... you have an affair."

David and Victoria Beckham have done well to stay together. Plenty of women would not mind a turn with the footballer, and one or two claim to have had that experience. "No one said marriage was going to be easy," Victoria admitted.

Trading up

Kirshenbaum writes: "You've moved ahead in life but your spouse has stayed behind. Having an affair is your way of being with someone you think better matches your circumstances."

Horatio Nelson was an unknown young seaman when he met and married the widow, Frances Nisbet, who already had a son. Eleven years later, in 1798, he was a national hero, after winning the Battle of the Nile, and took up with Lady Emma Hamilton. Their affair was a national scandal, and the birth of their child had to be kept secret.

Heating up your marriage

Kirshenbaum writes: "Unconsciously, you're hoping that the affair itself or your spouse finding out about it will make things more passionate..." In 1907, President Woodrow Wilson's wife, Ellen, was suffering depression when Wilson met Mary Hulbert. Whether they had an affair is disputed, but the friendship caused Ellen pain. He introduced her to Ellen; the women shopped together, and the marriage revived.