Statistics suggest at least one in three married men cheat. That’s a lot. Naturally we’d all like to avoid the philanderers and stick with the two-in-three good guys. Sadly, single men don’t walk around wearing buttons declaring “I Cheat” or “Faithful Guy.” It’s bewildering and gut-wrenching to place bets on your own potential partner.
Much better to read about others’ mistakes.
Isabel Gillies’ memoir, Happens Every Day, catalogues a sudden, excruciating abandonment by a husband who clearly once considered his wife his soul mate. The fact that Gillies is a beautiful, smart, skinny blonde actress adds to the intrigue. The detail that she was left behind with two young children compounds the heartache. Add in her spouse’s decision to seduce and marry Isabel’s close friend, and you’ve got a best-seller filled with shock, betrayal and schadenfreude. I gasped after every line: “Thank god that’s not me!”
Laura Munson’s recent New York Times Modern Love column describes a different abandonment – and resolution. Laura, who lives with her husband and young children on a 20 acre ranch in Montana, describes their happy partnership as “still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together.” The idyll dissolves when her husband announces one day that he’s leaving her and their kids. “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out.”
Ouch! Devouring Munson’s story, I kept thinking: Could that happen to me?
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Leslie Morgan Steiner authors Two Cents on Working Motherhood on MommyTrack'd. She is the editor of the best-selling anthology Mommy Wars and the memoir Crazy Love. Steiner is a frequent guest on the Today Show, MSNBC, and regularly contributes to The New York Times, Newsweek and Vanity Fair. She lives with her husband and 3 kids in Washington, DC.
