When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships

by Mira Kirshenbaum

Book Overview

A world-renowned therapist, Mira Kirshenbaum has treated thousands of people caught in the powerful drama over what to do when an affair rocks their emotional lives. Now, in When Good People Have Affairs, Kirshenbaum puts her unsurpassed experience into one clear, calming place. She leads readers through six easy-to-navigate steps that will take anyone from anxiety to clarity, and identifies seventeen types of affairs, helping readers figure...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312563442
• ISBN13: 9780312563448
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

This book is a MUST

This book is a must for anyone who is married, involved, contemplating marriage, contemplating divorce, contemplating an affair... This is the first time I have read anything on the subject of infidelity that I felt portrayed an accurate, objective, nonjudgmental, commonsensical explanation of how it happens and how to proceed once it has. Dr. Kirshenbaum does not advocate infidelity, she merely accepts it as an unfortunate fact, and instead of leaving the reader feeling worse than s/he already does, she explains how to make the most of the situation by engaging in deep soul-searching through the many questions she poses. She clearly states several times that infidelity is wrong, and can be catastrophic, and she urges the reader to take steps to stop. I can see how judgmental, black-or-white type of people could criticize Dr. Kirshenbaum as being too lenient on the offenders, especially as she is brave and intelligent enough to publicly advocate keeping the affair a secret to take to the grave. However, in all the research I have done on the subject of marriage and happiness, as well as all the affairs I have witnessed with friends, etc. - I truly believe that what she says is correct. It is not a contradiction of terms to say good people have affairs. It is scandalous but correct to say that affairs can indeed strengthen a marriage in the types of situations she describes. She does a great job of helping the reader analyze whether s/he is in the right marriage, if the lover is indeed the right person or perhaps s/he should be alone, and she has the reader ask some extremely valuable questions regarding her/himself and the people with whom s/he is involved. Dr. Kirshenbaum allows for the possibility that while a happy nuclear family is the ideal, in some cases this is impossible and divorce may be the best even when children are involved. She helps the reader decide this also. The tone of the book is direct and friendly and it is an extremely quick read. I picked this book up while researching for my own book (a self-help book for women who lack passion and motivation in their lives), and I have urged all of my friends to read it. Why wait until your own relationship is in trouble? I recommend that people read this in order to avoid either marrying the wrong person, or being personally affected by infidelity. As Dr. Kirshenbaum points out, most infidelity happens almost by accident, in a non-premeditated manner. Best to be prepared by reading this book even if you don't think you need to!

First Hand Experience!

This book is outstanding. It will help you figure out what you are doing and why you are doing it. Once you have figured that out, you can start to make the decisions you need to make to get your life back on track. being stuck between two relationships is no way to go through life. It is destructive and hurtful to EVERYONE involved. In NO WAY does this book try to condone the behavior of people who cheat. Mira simply recognizes that infidelity is a fact of life (75% of couples will be touched by it at some point), and the most important thing is to help people figure out why they have stepped beyond their primary relationship so that they can decide what to do next. Mira clearly distinguishes between sociopathic louts who cheat simply because they "can", and the otherwise good person who has, quite uncharacteristically, "strayed" and is now in WAY over their head in a second relationship. The book is comprehensive but spends most of its time helping you figure out who is right for you, the primary partner or the affair partner. I think this section is outstanding, and Mira tackles a subject that few if any other authors have ever dared approach. While it is very helpful (she has found a way to compare apples to oranges!!!), I think one of the things left out (probably because it is so individual) is transaction costs. What I mean is even if you figure out (with Mira's techniques) that the "affair" partner is better for you, you still have to go through a divorce, split up money and assets, give up at least 1/2 of the time with your children, lose many of your friends, move out of the house, start your life over from scratch etc etc. How do you factor that in? How MUCH better does the affair partner have to be to justify this upheaval? Again, this will be different for everyone. Someone who has not much to lose might leave for a marginally "better" partner. Someone with a LOT to lose is only going to leave for a MUCH better situation. So in the end this is a difficult decision that should NOT be made impulsively. It should be made after careful thought and analysis, and this book CERTAINLY helps put 90% of the important issues into perspective to make this difficult decision. I recommend a good local therapist to help you out with the individual aspects of YOUR situation. I have read the book from cover to cover and I recommend it HIGHLY. It helped me sort out my own situation. Thank god it came out in such a timely manner. Good luck with your own ordeal...I KNOW it is NOT EASY!! I have intentionally not said what I ended up doing....I remember when I first started trying to figure out what to do about my own situation I would read reviews like this and try to see who stayed and who left and tried to read into that information to see what I should do...I don't want to sway anyone one way or the other. GOOD LUCK!

Help in the nick of time for me

Four weeks ago I found out my husband had been cheating on me. I was furious. I threw my husband out of the house. But I was devastated. We have three children, and I thought we had a good life. Everything seemed to be over for good. Then my therapist said something amazing. She said, "Look, he did a bad thing, but is he really a bad man?" That stopped me. I thought about our life together. He was a good man. I could always rely on him. My therapist lent me her copy of this book. I think it may have saved my life. I read it in one evening. I saw how my husband really could have been in pain even though he put me in pain. Most of all, I saw that there were many reasons why people cheat, and most of them DON'T mean that your marriage is over. And I saw what the work was that my husband and I needed to do to put our marriage together. My husband and I have talked almost nonstop for the last two days. It's been pretty intense. But Myra Kirschenbaum's book has given me, given both of us really, the hope and understanding to work at healing our marriage. This is one of those books that can save your life. I am so grateful for it.

If your life has been touched by an affair, this is a great book

If your life has been touched by an affair, whether you're the cheater or you've been cheated on, this is an incredibly wise and helpful book by someone with a LOT of experience helping people put their lives and marriages back together. I want to say why this book is so good, but first I have to comment on Jillian C. "Qbridge"'s incredibly irresponsible review. Jillian has obviously not read the book, nor does she seem to have any experience actually helping people who are trying to deal with an affair, nor does she seem to be interested in helping people put their lives together after an affair. If she'd read the book, she'd have seen how Kirshenbaum clearly says you should not have an affair. But you do NOT help people who've been affected by an affair by labeling the cheater as "bad." Why would any wife want to heal her marriage if her husband is by definition "bad"? Does Jillian want every couple touched by an affair to get a divorce? Yes, the deed is a hurtful mistake, and Kirshenbaum goes to great lengths to show how, if there is going to be any hope of healing, the cheater has to show that he truly understands the pain and damage he's caused. That's the kind of thing in the REAL book, not Jillian's fantasy. It was careless and dishonest for Jillian to review the words of the title and not read or review the real book. In reality, Kirshenbaum devotes many chapters to showing how to heal a marriage after it's been damaged by an affair, and this is the best help of its kind I've seen. Another thing Kirshenbaum does that I've never seen before and is incredibly helpful is show that there are 17 different kinds of affairs. Each one grows out of a different need. Each one means something completely different. You can't know how to figure things out until you know why you or your partner had an affair in the first place. This is what a therapist would charge big bucks for, but you get it all in this book. And Kirshenbaum has a lot of material on how to protect the kids and take them into account. I've had a lot of experience helping people and couples deal with an affair, and I have to say this book will give everyday folk all the help they could need. The truth is that an affair is a turning point in people's lives. There's a lot to sort out. And a lot of anger and hurt. Kirshenbaum shows how to take all this into account and do what's best for everybody in the end.

BEEN THERE....BUT DON'T DO THAT!

As a rehabilitated one-time ex-cheater, this book really caught my eye. I thought of myself as a good man, yet I found myself gradually seduced into a situation that I was unprepared to handle....The forbidden affair! If you're caught up at any point of a love triangle, you need the help and hope available in Mira Kirshenbaum's newly-released book titled, WHEN GOOD PEOPLE HAVE AFFAIRS: INSIDE THE HEART AND MIND OF PEOPLE IN TWO RELATIONSHIPS. This is the very first book based on understanding the cheater's real motives, including the 17 different kinds of affairs, and it provides everything people need to rebuild their lives and relationships. Whether you're the cheater, or you've been cheated on, or even if you suspect your partner might be cheating on you, this is a book that you must buy and read. It's just that important!