Podcast Episode Summary: "Let's Chat Infidelity"

Podcast: Books With Your Besties
Hosts: Emily and Ashley
Date: October 24, 2025
Episode Theme: Exploring Infidelity in Fiction and Real Life

Overview

This episode centers on B.A. Paris’s thriller The Breakdown (and its film adaptation, Blackwater Lane), using the novel’s central affair to launch into a candid, often humorous, sometimes sobering discussion of infidelity—both within fiction and real-world cases. Emily and Ashley unpack gaslighting, emotional abuse, societal and cultural attitudes toward affairs, and how fiction can mirror the darkest corners of actual human behavior.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Book & Movie: Entertainment and Psychological Themes

• The hosts reminisce about their own history with the book—and watching the movie together in two sittings (“Did we fall asleep?” “Of course.” (01:03)).
• Emily notes, “the book was way better, of course, because the book is always better.” (01:12)
• The plot’s core: a woman whose husband has an affair with her best friend, leading to murder and manipulation.

2. Unpacking the Affair’s Role in the Narrative

• Ashley reflects on the plot’s extremity: “He murdered someone just because she knew he was having an affair. So, like, the lengths men will go to—to cover up having an affair...” (01:50)
• Emily ponders the realness: “It’s not unrealistic because people do this... It’s absolutely bizarre to me.” (02:15)
• Both are baffled by betrayals so close to home, Ashley jokes: “Worst case scenario, if I’m in a room alone with your husband, I might fight him.” (02:40)

3. Gaslighting, Mental Illness, and Manipulation

• Gaslighting is central to both the book and their discussion (03:07–06:51).
• Emily dives into critical reader reviews doubting the believability of the husband’s extreme, manipulative tactics: “But that is how emotional abuse works. They really, really trick your mind into thinking that you are misperceiving things.” (03:53)
• Ashley highlights the slow build of manipulation, referencing how the husband plants seeds of doubt to exacerbate the protagonist’s insecurity due to her mother’s Alzheimer’s. (04:09)
• Emily introduces the concept of “informational social influence or conformity”: “We conform to group pressures… because somebody else… must be right.” (05:15)

4. Gaslighting — Terminology and Cultural Shift

• The hosts discuss how the term “gaslighting” has become mainstream and sometimes overused:
  • Ashley: “I do feel like it’s a term that’s overused now. But looking back in 2017, gaslighting, for me at least, wasn’t a term… that's what this book is about.” (06:13–06:44)
  • Emily credits B.A. Paris as “ahead of her time.” (06:44)

5. Real World Perspective on Affairs

• Both hosts stress their personal aversion to infidelity:
  • Emily: “I don’t understand personally affairs… I just cannot fathom myself ever being involved in something like that.” (07:28)
  • Ashley: “I completely agree with you. And I think in my closer circle I haven’t experienced a lot of infidelity or people cheating because I surround myself with people who don’t make that choice.” (08:08)
• The conversation extends to how cultural and professional environments shape people’s behaviors and boundaries regarding infidelity, including how surrounding yourself with certain friends or work cultures can make certain choices seem more (or less) acceptable. (08:37–10:25)
• Emily: “I just want to protect my marriage... we’re not even going to entertain much conversation with another man... I sound crazy... but I... think affairs are really, really dangerous...” (10:25)

6. Linking Fiction to True Crime: Chris Watts, Dirty John, and Scott Peterson

• Pivot to real-life cases—Chris Watts and “Dirty John”—as extreme but illustrative examples of where infidelity, manipulation, and deception can lead.
  • Emily: “If you are going to experience violence, like, having an affair is a good way to test out if your partner might become violent or somebody might become violent.” (12:06)
• In both straightforward and nuanced ways, the hosts compare the mechanisms in the fiction they read to shocking true crime stories.
• Ashley points out, “sometimes it’s just the people that get caught… this is happening one degree less every... day in the lives of women.” (13:08)

7. The Emotional Toll: Trauma, Deception, Respect, and Accountability

• Both distinguish the unique pain and betrayal of an affair from the experience of divorce:
  • Emily: “I just think it’s so fundamentally different divorce than an affair. I think an affair has so much deception and disrespect in it...” (13:36)
  • Ashley: “For me… it would be that you planned your life around us in a way to lie to me in such a horrific way 10 times. Like, it’s the deception.” (15:12)
• They hammer home their stance that accountability and respect are non-negotiable, with Emily saying she “couldn’t imagine ever trusting somebody who could do that level of deception to me again.” (14:25)

8. Friendship & Boundaries: Blame Beyond the Spouse

• Emily: “The best friend is absolutely just as much at fault here... you’re deceiving your best friend and having an affair with someone else’s husband.” (15:43)
• Ashley: “If I just had a friend who I knew was talking to a married man, I would be like, well, that’s a deal breaker. We are not friends anymore...” (16:16)

9. Isolation as a Tool of Control

• The hosts discuss how both psychological abuse and infidelity often involve isolating the victim from their support system, referencing how the protagonist is manipulated to have “nobody else in her life who was involved.” (16:27–17:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ashley (on murder and infidelity):
  “The lengths men will go to—to cover up having an affair instead of just telling their wives, like, hey, I’m a piece of shit and I’ve been cheating on you with your best friend, but instead I’m Gonna murder this woman that found out about it.” (01:50)
• Emily (on gaslighting):
  “That is how emotional abuse works. They really, really trick your mind into thinking that you are misperceiving things.” (03:53)
• Ashley (on friendship boundaries):
  “If I just had a friend who I knew was talking to a married man, I would be like, well, that’s a deal breaker. We are not friends anymore because that’s a line we don’t cross.” (16:16)
• Emily (on trust after deception):
  “There is no recovery for us with that. Because I can’t imagine ever trusting somebody who could do that level of deception to me again.” (14:25)
• Ashley (on the harm of dishonesty):
  “...sometimes it’s just the people that get caught. And just because these are the most extreme examples doesn’t mean that this is happening one degree less every single fucking day in the lives of women.” (13:08)
• Emily (closing the loop):
  “If you’re having an affair, fucking stop.” (23:30)
• Ashley (on self-servitude):
  “...the way we’re willing to hurt other people to serve ourselves in some weird, selfish way.” (24:27)

Key Timestamps

• 00:28 – Full spoilers warning; setup of the book’s affair/infidelity premise.
• 01:50 – “He murdered someone just because she knew he was having an affair...” (Ashley)
• 03:07–06:51 – Deep dive into gaslighting, manipulation, and social conformity.
• 10:25–11:23 – Discussing professional environments and the “slippery slope” into infidelity.
• 12:06–13:36 – Linking fiction to true crime (Chris Watts, Dirty John), the escalation of deceit.
• 13:36–15:12 – The lasting trauma and distinction between divorce and betrayal via affair.
• 15:43–16:16 – Assigning responsibility to both parties in the affair, not just the married individual.
• 16:27–17:20 – Isolation as a form of control/manipulation.
• 18:02–21:21 – Recap and analysis of the Chris Watts case and its chilling parallels to fiction; explanation of real-world stakes.
• 23:30 – Emily’s blunt directive: “If you’re having an affair, fucking stop.”
• 24:34–25:34 – Final notes on accountability and human decency; wrap-up.

Final Thoughts & Tone

True to their style, Emily and Ashley’s conversation is a blend of irreverent wit, heartfelt conviction, and genuine curiosity about human behavior. They balance levity and gravity, moving easily from joking about “falling asleep during the movie” to powerful reflections on the destruction caused by deception and betrayal—both real and fictional. Their candor, layered with 23 years of best-friend banter, ensures that even heavy subjects remain engaging and deeply relatable.

Next Episode Preview:
Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware – “Go read that and be ready for in two weeks.” (25:29)

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