Reader · no content
No body text on file.
Open the original to read the full piece.
393: Infidelity
Brief
This American Life’s episode “Infidelity” frames the topic with high-profile public scandals (Ira Glass cites Mark Sanford, Elizabeth Edwards, Jon and Kate, and Senator John Ensign’s $96,000 payment) and Jessica Pressler’s observation that wedding “Vows” notices sometimes celebrate relationships that began as affairs. Glass and Pressler use that provocation to introduce a set of first-person pieces that move through the stages of cheating: the moment before temptation, life during an affair, and the immediate aftermath. Glass also points to social-science context from his mother’s research: infidelity is common (about one in two couples experience it), and many affairs occur in otherwise happy marriages (56% of men and 34% of women in one study admitted cheating while calling their marriage happy).
The episode’s stories dramatize the human complexity behind those numbers. In Act One Ruby Wright recounts a Dorset family rupture: Lal leaves her husband George for Andrew; George initially tries to preserve friendship and even includes Andrew in family life, but Lal says the decision cost her the close presence of her children during formative years. James Braly’s Moth story (Act Two) shows how quickly holiday camaraderie can tip into infidelity when he and his girlfriend meet French women in Positano, culminating in a moonlit swim and emotional intimacy with Franz. Dani Shapiro (Act Three) provides a long, wrenching portrait of deception: Lenny Klein fabricates calamities, buys lavish gifts, rents a Greenwich Village triplex, is exposed by a detective and by Shapiro’s mother calling Mrs. Klein, yet the affair lingers until a family medical crisis forces Shapiro’s break. The program ends with Etgar Keret’s brief fable (read by Matt Malloy) about a man who pre-empts the narrator’s defenses on a plane and loses a bottle of Guerlain Mystique — a small act of vindication that echoes the episode’s theme that infidelity leaves messy, asymmetric consequences for all involved. Throughout, speakers disagree about blame, motive and possibility of repair: cheaters often rationalize fate or need, while those cheated on alternate between forgiveness, bewilderment and quiet retribution.
Why it matters
Ira Glass opens the episode by linking contemporary scandals (Mark Sanford, Elizabeth Edwards, Jon and Kate, and Senator John Ensign's admission of a $96,000 payment) to a New York magazine piece by Jessica Pressler, who found multiple New York Times Vows entries in which couples candidly framed their meeting as the result of an affair (Pressler noted examples including a woman who flew to Paris and stayed two weeks in the Latin Quarter).
Key details
- Ira Glass cites research from his mother (a psychologist who studied couples) reporting that roughly one in two couples will experience infidelity in the lifetime of the relationship; in one cited study 56% of men and 34% of women admitted to cheating despite describing their marriages as happy.
- In Act One (reported by Ruby Wright), Lal left her husband George for Andrew in a Dorset village; George initially welcomed Andrew into family life (Sunday lunches, dances), but Lal says the affair cost her the daily relationship with her children — she describes losing them between ages 13 and 18.
- James Braly (Act Two, from The Moth) recounts a near-affair in Positano: traveling with his girlfriend Susan, he becomes emotionally and physically intimate with a woman named Franz after six days together (hydrofoil to Positano, adjacent hotel rooms, a moonlit swim), showing how quickly temptation can arise on holiday.
- Dani Shapiro (Act Three) tells of Lenny Klein, a married man who lied about his life (false claims of his wife being in a psychiatric clinic, cancer, a sick child), lavished gifts and an apartment on Shapiro, was exposed by a detective and a call from Shapiro's mother to Mrs. Klein, yet maintained contact until a family medical emergency (Shapiro's parents injured in a car crash) prompted her to leave.
- Act Four (Etgar Keret, read by Matt Malloy) uses a short, darkly comic story about a man on a plane who anticipates and parrots the narrator's defenses; the narrator responds by taking the man's duty-free bottle of Guerlain Mystique, a small vindictive act that closes the program's look at immediate aftermaths and petty retributions.