Copyright Copyright © 2018 by Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. Da Capo Press Hachette Book Group 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104 dacapopress.com @DaCapoPress First Edition: May 2018 Published by Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Da Capo Press name and logo is a trademark of The Hachette Book Group. The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. Editorial production by Christine Marra, Marrathon Production Services. www.marrathoneditorial.org Set in 10.5-point New Baskerville BQ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for ISBN 978-0-7382-2022-2 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-7382-2023-9 (e-book) E3-20180406- JV-NF contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Author’s Note Introduction part one. Biology and the Basics 1 The Basics of a Cheating Heart 2 Desire: The Engine of the Affair 3 Sex and Love: The Primordial Addictions part two. The Taste for New Sex 4 Cyber Relationships and America’s Obsession with Porn 5 The Emotional Affair 6 The Sex Quest for Threesomes and Orgies 7 When Pain Is Pleasure, and Other Kink part three. Discovery, Disclosure, and Moving Forward Toward Healing 8 Discovery: The Truth Comes Out—What Now? 9 Disclosure: Prepare Yourself for the Messiness 10 Emotional Healing 11 Sexual Healing and Fidelity 12 Sex and Love with More Than One: Do Open Relationships Work? 13 Closing Thoughts Acknowledgments Appendix: For More Help Notes Index For Claire and Alexander who guide me, inspire me, and occasionally, let me parent them author’s note The patients whose lives I discuss in detail have generously given their permission, and I am completely indebted to each of them. Some of the stories you are about to read also come from people I have known in my personal life. Names and identifying details for all have been changed to protect their privacy. To further disguise the actual patients from my practice, every profile presented in the book is a compilation of at least two, usually three, actual people to ensure that the behaviors of each “book patient” cannot be attributed or linked to any single real, living person. The stories in the book are true and accurate. Nothing in this book should be construed as medical advice, and readers who are wrestling with these issues are urged to seek individualized counseling. introduction Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. —JAMES BALDWIN In American society we tend to draw lines between normal and abnormal, sick and well, “sane” and “insane,” and the addicted versus those with just a few bad habits. In a similar vein we often think there’s a clear division between a “good” spouse and adulterer. I’m here to explain that in reality the differences between these false binaries are not actually so clearly delineated. Michel Foucault’s The Birth of the Clinic: The Archaeology of Medical Perception documented how the foundations of Western medicine in the nineteenth century were rooted in such distinctions. The new physicians of the 1800s used their medical gaze to create scientific divisions between normal and diseased states that became critical to our understanding of mental and physical illness. But when it comes to matters of the mind, the lines are actually quite blurry. And when it comes to infidelity, most people live in the gray zone. The great American psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, MD, was fond of saying that even the sickest mentally ill person is much more like us than different. Nowhere is that fragile line between normal and abnormal more evident than with love and sex. With the right drivers, incentives, and opportunities, any of us can become obsessed with another person. After all, isn’t that what falling in love is all about? Infidelity, defined as a breach in the promise of sexual exclusivity, is the end product of our normal impulses for love and lust gone haywire. Infidelity is a leading cause of divorce in this country. Romantic betrayal can be so devastating that it leads to suicide, homicide, and other crimes of passion. All this, despite the fact that more than 50 percent of “committed” dating people cheat, at least 20 percent of “monogamous” married people cheat, and many of the rest of us supposedly “upstanding citizens” think about it nonstop, although we tend to keep the thoughts to ourselves out of fear of reprisal from our partners and our community. Our adulterous thoughts can sometimes lead us to live in shame, hating ourselves. Although we might tell our partners everything else, our unfaithful thoughts and actions usually remain unspoken. The purpose of this book is to get us thinking about what goes unsaid and to help both adulterers and betrayed spouses alike. In the pages that follow I quote the scientific literature and explain new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience. I delve into recent findings in genetics that reveal how our genes affect our behavior. I discuss how the new field of epigenetics is demonstrating that not only can our genes affect our behaviors but our behaviors and thoughts can actually change our genes. My background in treating addiction significantly informs my take on the realities of infidelity. I argue in this book that sex and love are the primordial addictions, meaning our brains evolved to get us addicted to sex and love. These, I argue, are normal addictions. If anything can hook you, it’s lust and romance! After all, the survival of our species depends on it. But in cases of infidelity this irrational exuberance can bring on a truckload of trouble. Understanding our human frailties does not absolve cheaters of responsibility, of course, but it can grant us a new perspective that helps all of us make wiser, more informed choices before we act. This book is about the role that our brains, our minds (or psychology), and our culture play in infidelity. We’ll learn from biological anthropologists and sociologists who have studied the development of infidelity through the course of human evolution. We’ll hear from psychologists, who explain how modern times are rife with sexual triggers, and from neuroscientists who understand how our brains betray us. All these experts together offer important perspectives to help explain how and why we get in trouble with sex so that we can learn how to better get a handle on desires that lead to destructive behaviors. In Part I we will explore the science surrounding sex and infidelity with an intimate glimpse into the brain’s reward systems and how they can become hijacked—leading us into destructive behaviors that often include pulling us toward destructive choices, even if we don’t actually enjoy them. In Part II we’ll discuss the different ways people stray, by and large driven by human tendencies toward seeking novelty. In Part III we’ll talk solutions. I’ll offer case studies that