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Chapter 1: What cultural shift did Jessica Pressler observe in wedding notices?
It was a while ago, the spring of 2009, that a writer named Jessica Pressler noticed a small cultural shift going on in the waiting pages of the New York Times, the section that the paper calls the Vow section. The shift, it happened at a time when, I don't know, for whatever reason, there was a rush of news stories about famous and powerful people cheating on their partners.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford publicly confessed that his soulmate was a woman in Argentina who was not his wife. Nevada Senator John Inson admitted paying $96,000 in cash to his former mistress and her husband. Reality TV stars John and Kate had just split after reports that he'd had an affair.
And so it was in the middle of all that that Jessica Pressler noticed in the wedding pages of the New York Times that there were couples getting married who cheerfully told the newspaper as part of their meet-cute story that the way they got together was that one of them cheated on a spouse or a longtime partner.
I believe one of them says, the headline on it is something like, it took a while, but they finally got together. And you're like, because he was having a three-year relationship with another person in the meantime. Yeah.
Jessica Pressler wrote up her discovery on the New York Magazine blog, Daily Intel. She noted that there was a kind of code language in all these wedding articles.
They always say their road to finding each other was a bumpy road, or they had a difficult time, many ups and downs. They encountered some obstacles along the way, and it's like, no, those are people.
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Chapter 2: What story does Ruby Wright share about an affair?
Those are other lives. They're not speed bumps.
Take, for instance, the married woman who, according to a romantic write-up on the Vow's page of the New York Times, flew to Paris to see another man and stayed with him in a hotel in the Latin Quarter for two weeks where they, quote, reveled in their own the boheme before she flew back to the U.S. and moved out of the home in New Jersey that she shared with her husband.
I mean, it's just weird because vows is something that you have to try to get into. You have to kind of lobby to get into that column. So it's like Mark Sanford, he had to speak publicly about his affair. Most people don't have to go around telling everybody about it.
See, but that's what's so strange about it is that somehow some part of them doesn't think, I shouldn't talk about this. Like somehow the notion I had an affair is so just nothing to them.
Right. Right. I think it's probably just people when they cheat on other people tell themselves that they're doing it because they have to because there's fate is involved. And whatever happened, you're better off and probably the person that you broke up with is better off.
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Chapter 3: What infidelity statistics does Ira Glass discuss?
And this is the way it was meant to be.
Yeah.
This is fate.
as are the cheated-on ex-partner. When the story appears in the newspaper on the wedding pages, it's almost as if the newspaper is siding with the cheating couple. The ex-partner is just collateral damage on the weight of their wedding.
They don't get to say anything for themselves. It's like not their story anymore. It's somebody else's love story.
Well, that's the thing. If it were any other section of the newspaper, the reporter would go to them, too, for a comment.
Right, right.
I think they should do that. But because it's the wedding section, it's just like, well, it's not really their story.
Right.
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Chapter 4: How does Dani Shapiro describe the messiness of affairs?
Yeah, they just, they have no say for themselves. They're done. This had nothing to do with them. It's very bizarre. It raises all kinds of questions for me. As a reader, I'm very distracted by it.
Well, today on our radio program, we go where the newspaper marriage columns fear to tread. We hear from all parties to the affair, the cheated on as well as the cheaters and their differing takes on what happened. And no surprise, they are very different from one another's. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today on our show, infidelity. Stay with us.
This American Life
This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's show is a rerun.
Chapter 5: What moment does Etgar Keret capture in the aftermath of an affair?
Act one, let me kiss your stiff upper lip. So we begin with this story from England. And if you've read much 19th century British literature or seen any of the many, many movies based on those books, they give a sense of England as an island filled entirely with people who are full of submerged and often misplaced passions for other people. Which brings us to this next story.
Ruby Wright interviewed her own parents, Lyle and George. And also, the man who split them up, Andrew.
Andrew, you've always lived in Dorset. Yeah. But why did you end up in this part of Dorset?
Chapter 6: How do the perspectives of cheaters and the cheated differ?
I was looking for a house for myself and my two daughters somewhere to live. And I always wanted to live in the countryside, having always lived in the towns in Dorset. And I saw it in the paper. It's as simple as that.
And you didn't know anyone around here?
No.
So how did you know about us?
I was at the pub and this couple walked in and the bloke was wearing a leopard-skin pillbox hat and I thought, I've got to get to know this person. He had a very attractive wife. I just saw them in the pub and thought, I must know these people.
This guy, Andrew, moved to the village and he'd met us both together at the same time in the pub. And I would say that we both had a closeness to Andrew. My closeness to Andrew was very much about talking about how I felt and how he felt. And he would have various sort of unsuitable girlfriends. He'd have sort of flings with people and I'd say, come on then, Andrew, tell me about it.
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Chapter 7: What insights does James Brawley provide about temptation?
And he was rather candid. I liked it. He was very candid.
I was a single parent at the time and it just seemed like an idyllic sort of situation, sort of beautiful old cottage with this couple and their daughter living in it. And it was a home from home, it became a home from home for me.
And you became a very good friend and I remember, you know, you'd come up a lot and we'd come down and see you and you were always a very cosy person to have around and it was always a delight when you used to come up and see us.
Yes, I mean arguably I'd fallen in love with the whole family. including you and Ed, indeed, at that point.
When I started to fall in love with Andrew, it was like my falling in love with him was a direct sort of parallel of my father dying. So as my father was dying at home of cancer, I was falling deeper and deeper in love with this man, Andrew. And Andrew would talk to me about my father dying because he'd been with his mother who died of a brain tumour.
He'd actually been sort of beside her bed with her as she died and during that period. And I think I sort of valued being with someone because George's parents were both still very much alive at that point. And I think for me it was a sort of... I felt he had an understanding of what it was like, and it was kind of very hard for me not to fall in love with him.
Did you think something was always going to happen?
No, I was convinced nothing would happen.
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Chapter 8: What reflections does the episode leave on the nature of infidelity?
I'd fallen in love with... I had fallen in love with her, so probably over the summer after her father's death. I was single at the time, just living with Tams and my younger daughter. And I didn't really want a partner at the time. So falling in love with Lyle, I kind of... I thought, that's okay, I can love somebody from afar and I don't need to love anyone else.
And it had never occurred to me that she might even dream of falling in love with me. It just didn't occur to me that Lyle might look at anyone other than George.
um how did i know when i come back from this trip and it was christmas and um lal said we're going to spend christmas with andrew and i was delighted because you know i couldn't think of anybody nicer to spend christmas with and it i remember andrew coming up um the evening i got back and I was going off to get a present for him that I bought. And I thought, that's odd.
Dal and Andrew are not talking to each other. There's sort of silence in the kitchen. And when he left, he kissed her on the back of the head. And I just... Something... I don't know, maybe I was... One part of me was expecting something to happen one of these days. And... It was confirmed because mum had left her diary lying around. And, you know, I read it and there it was.
So it was like she wanted you to find out without having to say it?
I think, yes.
And you actually had to tell me. I think, were you going to tell me together?
No.
yes we were going to i mean i don't think we'd even discuss telling you but what happened was you had been away on a holiday and um had come home and i'd picked you up i think um and you said to me where is mum and i thought you know what am i going to tell ruby i have probably half a minute to decide you know am i going to tell her the truth or am I going to make up some story?
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