393: Infidelity

Summary

This American Life – Episode 393: Infidelity (April 19, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode of This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass, explores the theme of infidelity—in all its messy, human complexity. The program goes beyond simplistic judgments and surfaces rarely-heard perspectives: the cheaters, the cheated-upon, the bystanders, and those who hover in temptation’s grayest zones. Through candid interviews and gripping narrative, listeners hear stories that oscillate between the comic, poignant, and honest-to-the-bone. The show dissects cultural narratives, challenges black-and-white morality, and reveals the ripple effects of betrayal on families, friends, and the people at the center of these entanglements.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Social Shift in How We Speak about Cheating

[00:29–04:17]

• Jessica Pressler’s Discovery: Noted how The New York Times’ “Vows” section began normalizing cheating as part of “meet-cutes,” whitewashing infidelity as “a bumpy road.”
• Language Critique: Ruby Wright observes that the euphemisms like “obstacles along the way” or “ups and downs” obscure that “those are people, those are like other lives. They're not speed bumps.” (01:55–02:11)
• Ignored Voices: Discussion centers on how the ex-partners’ pain is erased: “It's almost as if the newspaper is siding with the cheating couple. The ex partner is just collateral damage.” – Ira Glass (03:33)

Act 1: “Let Me Kiss Your Stiff Upper Lip”: The Family Torn by Infidelity

[05:12–19:27]

• Ruby Wright Interviews Her Parents and ‘The Other Man’: A deeply personal segment in which Ruby, an illustrator and author, speaks to her parents (Lyle and George) and Andrew, who became the catalyst for the family’s rupture.
• Origins of the Affair: Andrew, a new arrival in rural Dorset, befriends the family; emotional intimacy with Lyle grows amidst her father’s death and personal grief.
  • “As my father was dying at home of cancer, I was falling deeper and deeper in love with this man, Andrew.” – Lyle (07:31)
• Discovery and Fallout: The affair is revealed through Lyle’s diary; Ruby experiences both shock and betrayal; George (the cheated-on husband) responds with surprising restraint:
  • “He said, Andrew, I've lost my partner. I don't want to lose my best friend.” – Andrew recalls George’s words (12:52)
• Reflections on Selfishness, Guilt, and Loss: Lyle expresses retrospective shock at her obliviousness to her family’s pain:
  • “I was on this sort of track and I was heading off on it. Nothing was going to deter me. But as I say, almost as if I deserved it, almost as if I was owed it.” (11:43)
• Aftermath: Paradoxically, Andrew is embraced by the family even after Lyle and he break up, leaving Lyle feeling exiled:
  • “I felt like I was living in exile... Andrew was welcomed into the bosom of the family and I think that caused enormous resentment from me.” – Lyle (15:38)
• The Enduring Damage: Lyle reflects on what she lost by pursuing the affair—most painfully, her daughter’s trust through adolescence:
  • “My biggest loss was losing you for five years at puberty.” (18:00)
• Blame and Relationship Dynamics: Both Lyle and George reflect on whether it’s possible to build a lasting relationship with the person you left your family for.

Act 2: “The Italian Job”: On the Edge of Infidelity

[23:52–38:19]

• Storyteller: James Brawley relates, with wit and vulnerability, a tale from his youth—traveling through Europe with his girlfriend and nearly succumbing to temptation with another woman.
• Theme of Indecision and Restlessness: James is pathologically indecisive—not just about destinations but about relationships, always searching for the next option.
• Comic Anxiety About Fidelity: Brawley’s neuroses center on his self-image, his fear of being revealed, and the intense, awkward pressure of an “almost affair;” the beach scene becomes a metaphor for both physical and emotional exposure.
• Memorable Moment: Even as opportunity arises for cheating, James resists:
  • “I can't do it to Susan… I can't and I've actually made a choice. After seven days, seven years really, most of my adult life, to lie there next to Susan and, right or wrong, finally be me.” (37:58)
• Emotional Climax: After this near-miss, he breaks down—not with pride or regret, but relief at having chosen, at last, to be present in his own life.

Act 3: “How Did I Get Here?” The Mistress’ Perspective

[39:03–54:59]

• Narrator: Writer Dani Shapiro shares her account of being the “other woman,” entangled in the lies of a married man named Lenny.
• Layered Deceptions: Lenny spins a complex web—his wife’s imagined illnesses, his “incurable” responsibilities, and endless justifications.
• Gradual Realization: Dani details the denial, self-deception, and gradual awakening to Lenny’s lies:
  • “I was doing an even better imitation of a mistress.” (42:25)
• Painful Family Encounter: Dani tries to host her parents in her lover-funded apartment, wrestling with the surreal distance that’s opened in her life.
  • “Some small piece of me wanted my father to fling me over his shoulder and carry me kicking and screaming to the car…” (45:55)
• Turning Point: After hiring a private detective and her mother’s direct confrontation with Lenny's wife, the scale of betrayal is finally undeniable.
• Aftershocks and Escape: Even with evidence, Dani finds herself drawn back until a family tragedy jolts her free:
  • “Suddenly, in ways I could not have imagined seconds earlier, nothing else mattered… I knew then what I had to do.” (54:35)

Act 4: “The Man Who Knew What I Was About to Say”: The Aftermath and Universal Script of Cheating

[55:33–59:03]

• Short Story by Etgar Keret (Read by Matt Malloy): A surreal narrative captures the futility and repetition inherent in covering up infidelity. Two men on a plane mirror each other’s words and lies—about perfume for a wife, travel excuses, etc.—until the listener realizes how universal and empty the script of cheating can feel.
• Notable Quote: “His answers were the best ones under the circumstances. His circumstances weren’t too hot. Mine weren’t either.” (56:39)
• Metaphor for Helplessness: The protagonist, paralyzed, watches as the script of cheating unfolds for both men; trust and forgiveness are irretrievable.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On euphemism in wedding announcements:
  • Ruby Wright: “They encountered some obstacles along the way and it’s like, no, those are people. They’re not speed bumps.” [01:55–02:11]
• On emotional blindness:
  • Lyle: “I am shocked now at how incredibly selfishly I acted and how oblivious I was to your pain and George’s pain and Ed’s pain.” [11:43]
• On loyalty and friendship:
  • Andrew (about George): “He said, Andrew, I’ve lost my partner. I don’t want to lose my best friend.” [12:52]
• On the enduring effects of betrayal:
  • Lyle: “My biggest loss was losing you for five years at puberty.” [18:00]
• On why people cheat even in happy marriages:
  • Reader quoting a study: “56% of men and 34% of women in one of my mom's studies said they cheated though their marriage was happy.” [22:41]
• Go-to reasons for cheating:
  • Danny Shapiro (about Lenny): “My little girl is dying, he would say whenever I noticed the discrepancies in his stories or My children’s mother is having electroshock therapy.” [48:22]
• On the moment of clarity:
  • James Brawley: “It’s an overwhelmingly sad and yet strangely comforting relief to lie there and know that I can’t [cheat] and that I’ve actually made a choice.” [37:58]
• On the aftermath script:
  • Etgar Keret (read by Matt Milwaukee): “His answers were the best ones under the circumstances. His circumstances weren’t too hot, not too hot at all. Mine weren’t either.” [56:39]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:29–04:17 — Societal shifts in language about infidelity (Pressler & Wright)
• 05:12–19:27 — Act 1: Family affair story (Wright, Lyle, George, Andrew)
• 23:52–38:19 — Act 2: Tale of near-infidelity abroad (James Brawley)
• 39:03–54:59 — Act 3: Mistress’s first-person account (Dani Shapiro)
• 55:33–59:03 — Act 4: Aftermath & “the universal script” of cheating (Etgar Keret)

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Tone and Language

• The tone throughout is candid, confessional, and often laced with a dry wit or poignant understatement.
• Speakers wrestle with self-awareness, vulnerability, and a sense of the absurdity of human rationalization and desire.
• The stories challenge simple moralizing, urging empathy and reflection.

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Conclusion

Infidelity—as portrayed in this episode—is less an act and more a series of choices, denials, and consequences that reverberate through lives, often in unforeseen ways. This American Life lets each voice, from the euphemistic “Vows” page to the utterly lost 22-year-old mistress, speak in its full humanity. There are no easy answers, only complex, deeply felt stories.

Transcript

[Ira Glass]

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Edu 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 Vows section. This 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 Ensign 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 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.

[Ruby Wright]

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, yeah.

[Ira Glass]

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.

[Ruby Wright]

They always say, like, 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. Those are like other like lives. They're not speed bumps.

[Ira Glass]

Take, for instance, the married woman who, according to a romantic write up on the Vows 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 vie Bohem before she flew back to the US and moved out of the home in New Jersey that she shared with her husband.

[Ruby Wright]

I mean, it's just weird because vow isn't 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.

[Ira Glass]

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.

[Ruby Wright]

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. And this is the way it was meant to be.

[Danny Shapiro]

Yeah, this is fate.

[Ira Glass]

As for 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 way to their wedding.

[Ruby Wright]

They don't get to say anything for themselves. It's like not their story anymore. It's somebody else's love story.

[Ira Glass]

Well, that's the thing. If it were any other section of the newspaper, the reporter would go to them too for a comment to get their side.

[Ruby Wright]

They should do that.

[Ira Glass]

But because it's the wedding section, it's just like, well, it's not really their story.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right?

[Ruby Wright]

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.

[Ira Glass]

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 I'm Ira Glass. Today on our show Infidelity. Stay with us.

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[Ira Glass]

this is American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's show is a rerun. 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 were full of submerged and often misplaced passions for other people. Which brings us to this next story. Ribby Wright interviewed her own parents, Lyle and George, and also the man who split them up. Andrew.

[Ruby Wright]

Andrew, you've always lived in Dorset.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Ruby Wright]

But why did you end up in this part of Dorset?

[Andrew]

I was looking for a house for myself, my two daughters, somewhere to live. And I'd 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.

[Ruby Wright]

And you didn't know anyone around here?

[Andrew]

No.

[Ruby Wright]

So how did you know about us?

[Andrew]

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. And he had a very attractive wife. I remember I just saw them in the pub and thought, I must know these people.

[Lyle]

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, you know. And he was rather candid. I liked it. He was very candid.

[Andrew]

I was a single parent at the time and it just seemed an idyllic sort of situation, sort of a beautiful old cottage with this couple and their daughter living in it. And it was a home from home, became a home from home for me.

[Ruby Wright]

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.

[Andrew]

Yes. I mean, arguably I'd fall in love with the whole family, including you and Ed. Indeed. At that point,

[Lyle]

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 tumor. He'd actually been sort of beside her bed with her as she d. 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.

[Ruby Wright]

Did you think something was always going to happen?

[Andrew]

No, I was convinced nothing would happen. 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 with 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 Lal might look at anyone other than George.

[Ruby Wright]

How did I know? When I come back from this trip and it was Christmas and Lal said, we're going to spend Christmas with Andrew, and I was delighted because, you know, I couldn't think of anybody nice to speak. Spent Christmas with. And it. I remember Andrew coming up 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 that 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. Some. 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?

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 had come home and I'd picked you up, I think. And you said to me, where is Mum? And I thought, in it. What am I going to tell Ruby? I have probably half a minute to decide. Am I going to tell her the truth or am I going to make up some story? And I thought I just said to you, well, I think she's down at Andrews. And I didn't have to say anymore. You seemed to know.

[Lyle]

You were very angry with me, quite rightly. And I think up until that point we'd always had a very close relationship. And your anger manifest itself mostly by you just refusing to see me.

[Ruby Wright]

I think it was just people were very shocked by what happened and I was very shocked and dad was very shocked. Were you kind of surprised at yourself or were you surprised at your, at the force of your own attraction and actions?

[Lyle]

I am shocked now at how incredibly selfishly I acted and how oblivious I was to your pain and George's pain and Ed's pain. Almost like I deserved this thing. I was on this sort of track and I was heading off on it. Nothing was going to deter me. But as I say, almost as if I deserved it, almost as if I was owed it.

[Andrew]

George was sort of tipped off and I felt as soon as I knew I went, I felt I had to go and face him. So I walked up to Mount over and I can remember standing outside in the bottom field for a good half an hour summoning up the courage to go and say to George, this is true. And when I'd expected him, quite literally expected him to sort of hit me or sort of bloody my nose or something like that or at least shout at me or rave and he. I knocked on the door, he said, oh, Andrew, Andrew, come in, come in, have, have a glass of wine. And five minutes later I was in floods of tears and George wasn't. And it was just very odd, it was all kind of wrong. But what he said to me stayed with me so till now, really. He said, andrew, I've lost my partner. I don't want to lose my best friend.

[Ruby Wright]

I know I have a real problem with anger. I mean, I don't tend to get angry. I find it a very hard emotion to express. But I mean I was angry at that point. I was very angry. I mean, I remember sort of standing at the sink doing the dry nap and somehow the plates ended up in being smashed on the floor. And I mean the emotions were very, very odd because I was terribly, terribly fond of Andrew and he was very concerned about my well being.

[Andrew]

You know, I still, at that point I still believed strongly that we would all become friends again. I mean, looking back, it was all terribly naive really, but, but that's what I felt at the time. I wanted to keep, keep a relation, some kind of relationship going with George for this future sort of blissful time when we were all Friends again.

[Lyle]

I think in my fantasy world I would have carried on having a passionate, physical, sexual relationship with Andrew and a kind of fond relationship with George and the two would have somehow run together. You know, I think some couples, through all their anger or hatred or battles, there's this sort of incredible chemistry that still comes back, you know, to your irritation. You can't get rid of this sort of thing. And I think with George, somehow, for me, the chemistry disappeared quite early on.

[Ruby Wright]

I mean, the one thing we haven't discussed in all of this, you know, the question of sex. And I mean, that was really at the heart of our split up that Mum, you know, did not, you know, she was not satisfied in that department. And I. I knew that I had a part in this, that there was a part, you know, there was an aspect of our relationship, you know, namely the sexual part of it, that I wasn't facing up to, that I had a responsibility in it. I wasn't an innocent victim, as it were.

[Andrew]

You know, you could say that George loved Val. He could understand me loving Lal. And whilst that was contrary to his needs or wishes or whatever, he could understand it in a sense. I think he never blamed me. I think he blamed Lal and not me.

[Lyle]

It got very complicated because George and Andrew, far from becoming rivals and kind of having a duel at dawn, far from George challenging Andrew to a duel at dawn, George kind of welcomed Andrew into the fold and Andrew became a kind of member of my family, but without me there. And there would be Sunday lunches and Saturday suppers and dances in Evershot and. And they were, you know, they were part of. He was part of that. And of course I was. I felt like I was living in exile. I felt like I'd been exiled to this foreign country, albeit a beautiful one, and it was six miles away, but I felt I couldn't have been further away and Andrew was welcomed into the bosom of the family and I think that caused enormous resentment from me. I know it did. And I don't know whether Andrew ever understood that, what it was like on a Sunday to know that he was having lunch with my daughter and my son and my ex partner and I was here.

[Ruby Wright]

What then happened was that Mum's relationship with Andrew didn't last and I still continued to see Andrew because he, you know, lived just around the corner. And I know that she found that incredibly hard that when despite the fact that she wasn't seeing Andrew, that I still was his friend and she felt sort of excluded from my new life and I didn't think she had much, much right.

I've heard people say that it's impossible to have a relationship. You can't stay with the person you leave your family for because there's too much guilt and emotion.

[Danny Shapiro]

And

[Ruby Wright]

do you think the fact that you left George for Andrew ultimately meant that you couldn't continue this relationship with him?

[Lyle]

Yes, I do. I don't think it's impossible, but I think it was, if not inevitable, it was quite likely that those seeds of destruction that were kind of laid right at the beginning and blame did in the end undermine our relationship.

[Ruby Wright]

Did you wish that you could turn the clock back?

[Lyle]

No. Cuz at that point I think I was still completely obsessed with Andrew, you know, this idea that love being a madness. So I don't think at that point I. I did wish I could. I think it was much later I would wake in the night with the window on the wrong side of the room. Sometime around dawn or before dawn, I think, and just think, what am I doing in this place? How have I got here? And it was as if I'd slept, walked out of my other life with no explanation and I'd woken up and here I was and it was truly terrifying. And I think that as long as I was damaging you lot, I was kind of really not aware. But it was when I came to damage myself that was when I really woke up. Because I lost you, effectively. I lost you between the ages of 13 and 18. So my biggest loss was losing you for five years at puberty. You were 13, you were just about to have your first period. You went off with George to Africa, you came back and you looked different. And actually with maternal intuition, which I obviously didn't have much of, I remember looking at you and thinking, she's changed. She started her period, she's becoming a young woman. And sure enough, you told me. And I thought, God, George was there for that. Her dad was there for that. Why wasn't I there for that? And I think, I think during that whole time really we didn't. We didn't really talk about how we felt, did we?

[Ruby Wright]

No, I don't think so.

[Ira Glass]

Ruby Wright, she's an illustrator and author. Her website is Ruby Wright. That's W R I G H T Ruby. Coming up, what to say to your parents about the rich married guy who set you up in an apartment when you're 22 years old. And what to say to yourself and other dilemmas of cheaters and the cheated on in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues this message

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[Ira Glass]

this American Life from Harold Glass each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's Show Infidelity. So back when we first broadcast today's program, presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth were still people who were in the news. He admitted cheating on her and she stayed with him despite that for a while anyway. And if you read the comments about it online about them, lots were just vicious, calling her crazy, calling her delusional, calling her an idiot to stay with her husband. It was very Lindy west, if you know what I'm talking about. But a few women wrote in to say it all seemed More complicated to them. One posted this. I am in this situation right now. It's a difficult call to make. My mom was a psychologist, and she specialized in couples where somebody had cheated. She treated hundreds of these couples, and she did studies looking at hundreds more. She wrote a book about her findings. There's solid research. A variety of researchers have shown that in one out of two couples, one or both partners will cheat during the lifetime of a relationship. That's 50% of all relationships. Most affairs are never detected. And one of the surprising things that my mom found out in her research was that tons of people will have affairs even though they're happy in their marriage. You don't have to be unhappy to have an affair. 56% of the men and 34% of the women in one of my mom's studies said they cheated though their marriage was happy. And she said lots of couples came in to see her where that was the situation where not only the cheated on partner, but the cheater seemed genuinely surprised that this had happened in their marriage. Which brings us to our next story about the cheaters lurking inside any relationship. We are at Act 2 of our show, Act 2, the Italian Job. This story comes from James Brawley, who told it at the storytelling series the Moth in front of a live audience.

[James Brawley]

I am sitting on my suitcase in the main train station in Rome next to my girlfriend Susan, who's sitting on hers. And we're rifling through our let's go Europe, trying to agree on the next destination of our vacation. Susan grew up in Germany, so she'll go basically any place as long as it's sunny. But I need to go to the right place. And I have a pathological terror of going to the wrong place. So whenever Susan suggests someplace in particular, I suggest someplace else, because I can see something wrong with every place. And this is a gift I bring to every area of my life, notably my relationship with Susan. We've been together for about seven years, since college. And every time she brings up the subject of commitment. Maybe it's a good time to get married. I say, I think I need a little more time just to make sure that what we're doing is right. So as a result, all of the lights on the arrivals and departures board are blinking, and the man on the public address system keeps saying depazione over and over and over again. And Susan is up on her feet screaming at me, make up your mind before all the trains pull out. Well, I am kind of hypnotized by the hem of this Flower print dress that's about 10ft away, fluttering in the breeze each time a train pulls in or out of the station, which at this point is frequently which is hanging off what may be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, who's standing next to her beautiful friend. When Susan says, are you looking at those women? And I say, where? And she says, right there in the flower print dresses. And I say, you mean them? And she says, yes, they look interesting, don't they? Like maybe they're going someplace interesting we might want to go. You know what? I think I'll ask them. And before I can tell her what a bad idea that is, she's over there talking to them in French and they're pointing at me. And a few minutes later she's introducing them to me. Isabelle is the beautiful one and her sister is a gloriously beautiful woman named France who has a face off of one of those French go to war buy war bonds posters that makes you want to invade. So I'm just staring at her as Susan says, guess what, James? They're going to Positano, which is one of the numerous fishing villages we debated going to. What do you say we all travel together? And two minutes later Franz and I are on the same vac, sitting on a train to Naples and then on a hydrofoil to Positano and then checking into the same hotel into adjacent rooms where we're going to change into our swimsuits and meet on the beach. Now I haven't been in a swimsuit for a year, since the last time I was on the beach and I'm looking in the mirror in the hotel and things have changed since then. A little Italian bakery opened up around the corner from my office and I've been going there every work day having apricot bear claws. And now I have two apricot bear claws hanging off the sides of my waist, bubbling up over my swimsuit. And it's one thing to decay in front of your girlfriend. There's a kind of mutual decay contract where you're all going to atrophy at more or less the same rate. But I don't have that deal with Franz and there's no way she's seeing my bear claws. So when we meet on the beach, the girls are in French bikinis and I'm in my shorts, in my button down shirt from the train ride, like I forgot to undress half myself. And after a couple of hours of swimming them swimming, Franz comes over to me and says, do you not swim? And I say, Indoors, I burn easily and she hands me her bottle of sunblock and I start to shake my head sadly and point to one of the ingredients and I say I'm allergic. And there are six more days to go. So the next morning, after an all nighter with let's go Europe, I have a comprehensive understanding of all the cultural high points within a 30 mile radius of the city of Positano, none of which include the beach. There is Mount Vesuvius and the grottoes of Capri in the hanging gardens at Ravenna, and we can go to a beach anywhere, but there's only so many places you can see this kind of culture. That's the position I'm taking. And the French love culture and the Germans admire the French. So six days later, we're all just about as pasty as when we stepped off the hydrofoil. My secret waste is still a secret, and I make it to the last night. We have a little farewell dinner at a seaside restaurant and we're walking on the beach one last time for old times sake, saying our goodbyes. Everyone's a little misty, except me. I can't wait to go home in the morning when Franz says, does anyone want to go swimming? And her relatively more modest sister says we don't have suits. And a fearless, guileless Germanic Susan says that's okay with me. And a couple of minutes later they're standing on the beach in panties and bras which are very different than bikinis. Frances are chocolate brown lace and her skin is the color of milk. She looks like a profiterole, my favorite dessert. It is agony to keep my eyes open, but I can't close them and the three of them run into the water, laughing and splashing and then finally disappearing underneath the surface. So everything's quiet for a moment and then 1, 2, 3, they pop up and start calling at me like sirens who actually lived in Positano 3,000 years ago. James, come in. It's wonderful and I haven't been swimming one time and it's dark, so I make a decision. I'm going to take off my shoes and socks and pants and I put them on a beach chair and I unbutton my shirt and thread out my arms so that it's just hanging there like a little poncho. When Franz disappears under the water again, it goes off on the back of a beach chair and I'm in. But I've waited so long to make up my mind that Susan's cold. She has bad circulation, which always used to bug Me and Franz's sister is ready to go back as well, but France is fine, and I just got in, and we're all vacation buddies. So Susan and the sister go back to the hotel, leaving Frantz and I, for the first time, alone in the dark in our underwear, in the Mediterranean, where they invented the word philander and where, it occurs to me, we can have sex without her seeing my body. So I swim around for a little bit and try to figure out what's the personal space in the Mediterranean. How close can you swim before you can't swim away? And whatever that distance is, Frantz swims right to the edge of it and says, the water makes me feel so free. It's not having that effect on me. I got bear claws to hide and promises to keep. And I am so tense that I can't breathe normally, which makes me look abnormal, which leads Frost to say, is everything okay? Maybe we should go back. And she gets out of the water and stands on the beach, dripping in the moonlight, dabbing at herself with her dress. So I've got one eye on her and the other on my shirt, which is fluttering off the back of this chair. And I get closer and closer, spreading my legs wider and wider so that only my head is visible, like an alligator. It looks like I'm in about 6ft of water, but really it's about 18 inches. My thighs are in agony, and I can't hold out much longer when Franz lifts her shirt, her dress, over her head, and I spring up on the beach and behind the chair, and I am wet but covered, when her head pops through the dress hole and she steps back in surprise and lets out a little French vowel and we get dressed, and we're walking across the cobblestones back to the hotel, which are slightly uneven, so the backs of our hands brush, and she takes mine and hers, which I've read in let's Go Europe is a friendly and warm gesture among European women, and I don't get any ideas. So I'm feeling friendly and warm, trying not to have any ideas, when France says, susan is very lucky to have you. And I say, well, thank you very much, but I'm very lucky to have her trying to regain a shred of dignity while holding onto this woman's hand. And Frantz smiles the smile of the boyfriendless and yet supremely confident goddess and says, why? And there are all sorts of reasons I'm lucky to have Susan, but I can't think of any of them at the moment because my mind is blank and I said, well, why are you friends? And Franz looks at me and says, because she pursued me. And our hips bump at the base of the stairs, up the mountain to the hotel. And she puts her arm around my waist, right above the bear claw. And all I can think is to hunched down like I've got osteoporosis so that her arm slides up my ribcage. But with each step up the stairs it slides back down and then it hits and she starts laughing, this bubbly French laugh. And she says, boite sauve tage. I don't speak French and I don't want to know what that means anyway, so I keep walking. And she says it again. Boite sauvage. You have a life preserver. It's so cute. And she keeps her hand right there like a girlfriend. Up the stairs and into the lobby of the hotel and into the elevator which is too bright and too small to be touching. It's a tiny little hotel, tiny little elevator. So she's in one corner and I'm in the other when the doors close and the floors start ringing off one by one and we just look at each other and there's not much more time to go. And then the door is open before I can make up my mind what to do. And we're standing there in front of our rooms and she just looks at me with the most beautiful face I have ever been swimming with and one that I have never wanted to kiss more, but I just can't do it to Susan. So I kiss Franz on the cheek three times, which I've learned that week, which allows you to change your mind potentially. But I make it into my room in a closed door behind me and Susan's up in bed reading let's Go Europe in anticipation of the debate that's probably going to happen tomorrow morning over where to go. And she looks up and says, how was it? And I say it was hard, Susan, it was really hard. And she looks right at me and says, I know. Like she does know, like she really understands why I've avoided the beach for a week on the beach vacation. And she accepts it. So I take off my shirt and get in bed next to her and turn my back and suddenly I start crying. These weepy little hide them in your hotel room pillow tears, which is not the kind of guy I am. I'm a poker faced, poker bodied, magical thinker. I've been eating bear claws for a year and thinking I'm in shape and that I can be faithful and philander at the same time. And it's an overwhelmingly sad and yet strangely comforting relief to lie there and know that I can't and that I've actually made a choice that after seven days, seven years, really most of my adult life, to lie there next to Susan and right or wrong, finally be me. Thank you,

[Ira Glass]

James Brawley the story became part of a one man off Broadway show called Life in a marital institution. 20 years of monogamy in one terrifying hour. His website JamesBrawley. That's Brawley B R A L Y.com thanks as always to the Moth, which of course features personal stories told live in front of an audience. If you like this story and you don't know their stuff, check out their podcasts, the Moth Radio Hour and the Moth Podcast. Act 3 How did I get here? So James Brawley gave us the thoughts of somebody in a moment before infidelity occurs. Danny Shapiro has this story about the confusing mess it can be during the affair.

[Danny Shapiro]

Here, in no particular order, are some things Lenny told me that he and his wife didn't sleep in the same bed. That they hadn't had a real marriage in years. That she was undergoing electroshock treatment in a clinic outside Philadelphia, that he had cancer and had to fly to Houston three days a week for chemotherapy. That his youngest daughter, age 3, had a rare form of childhood leukemia. That he could not get a divorce for all of the above reasons. That he was heartbroken that he could not leave his wife and marry me. For a long time I believed him. With every bone in my body, I trusted that Lenny Klein was telling me the truth. When we talked about it, his jaw would tighten and his big brown eyes would fill with tears. His voice would quaver with pent up complex feelings that I couldn't possibly begin to understand. Poor Lenny. I marveled that so many bad things could happen to one person and I vowed to take care of him. I exhorted myself to be a real woman, one who could step up to the plate and be good to her man in his moment of crisis. Years later, I hold Lenny's lies up to the light and examine my own reasons for believing what, in retrospect, seems preposterous. I reread my old journals and notice the way my girlish handwriting deteriorated into a scrawl as I wrote. I have to be there for Lenny. He needs me and he's going through so much. I don't know if I can handle it, but I have to be strong. I try to remember that Lenny was a trial lawyer, that he Built an international reputation based on. On his own pathology. That he lied with an almost evangelical conviction. He prided himself on being able to convince anyone of anything. The lies had small beginnings. Lenny called me from a business trip and told me he was at At Montreal Airport waiting to catch a flight to Calgary. I checked with the airline and found out that the flight would take approximately five hours. So when Lenny called an hour later to say he had landed in Calgary, I very calmly asked him where he really was. Calgary? He said. No, Lenny, really. He stuck to his story. In the time that I knew him, he never, ever changed his story midstream. I hung up on him and called his family's house in Westchester. When the maid answered the phone, I asked to speak with Mr. Klein. And when he picked up the extension and I heard his rough, craggy hello, I screamed so hard into his ear that he dropped the receiver. He raced into the city. He let himself into my apartment and found me curled up in bed. He scooped me up and held me to his chest. His wife wasn't home, he told me. She was having shock treatment and someone had to take care of his daughter. He hadn't wanted to tell me because he'd wanted to spare me, to protect me from the horror of his life. Surely I understood. Shush, sweetheart, he murmured into the top of my head as I wept. My face beat red like a little girl's. So many people need me, he said, but I love you best of all. Two years have passed and something has gone wrong, terribly wrong with my life. I don't, in fact, think of my life as my life, but rather as a series of random events that have no logical connection. I am no longer a student. I dropped out of Sarah Lawrence after my junior year, supposedly to pursue acting. And I'm actually doing a pretty good imitation of an actress. But I'm doing an even better imitation of a mistress. Lenny's been busy buying me things. I don't particularly want these things, but they seem to be what Lenny is offering in lieu of himself. So quite suddenly, overnight, really, I find myself driving a black Mercedes convertible. And just in case I might be mistaken for anything other than a kept woman, I wear a mink coat, a Cartier watch, a Bulgari necklace with an ancient coin at its center. The Mercedes is a step down from the first car Lenny gave me when we had been going out for a month, a leased Ferrari. I don't know how to drive a stick shift, so the Ferrari was a bit of a problem. What I must have looked like a 20 year old blonde dressed like Ivana Trump, stalled in traffic, grinding gears, trying to find the point on the clutch to hold that ridiculous car in. Lenny rented an apartment on a pretty little street in Greenwich Village. A furnished triplex with a garden, a fireplace, and a bedroom with a four poster bed. He called it our house, as if he didn't have another home with a whole family in it an hour north of the city. He kept half a dozen suits in the bedroom closet and a brand new silk robe hung behind the bathroom door. There was an entire floor we didn't use, a large, airy children's nursery. My parents knew that something was up. They knew I was going out with somebody, but they had no idea who. I was drifting away from them and they were letting me go. One night I invited them over for dinner. I pushed all traces of Lenny out of sight, but of course there were clues. A glossy brochure for Italian yachts, a humidor in the center of the coffee table. I cooked up a storm and the place was filled with homey smells. Garlic, basil, coriander. It was winter and the snow was piled up on the sills. Spotlights in the backyard shone on the landscaped garden, the redwood table, the Adirondack chairs. I had my father's favorite music, Dvorak's Symphony for the New World playing on the stereo system. My parents rang the doorbell. They looked so solid standing on my front stoop, their cold red noses poking out from above, their mufflers. If nothing else, they looked like they belonged together. They were elegant and rangy, similarly proportioned. Unlike Lenny and me. Lenny is thick as a linebacker, and I had become so delicate the wind could have picked me up and blown me away. My mother strode into the brownstone as if it wasn't the weirdest thing in the world to be visiting her daughter in a lavish apartment with no name on the outside buzzer. My father trailed behind her warily, as if setting foot on another planet. My mother entered the living room, flung her arms wide, and did an impromptu dance to Dvorak. TRA la la la, she trilled. My father and I hung back and watched, our faces crumpled into awkward smiles. It didn't occur to me that she was frightened that this was a lot for her to take in, her college dropout daughter living in the lap of luxury. All I could see was her outsized self twirling around my living room in her fur coat and boots. I wanted a drink. I poured two glasses of chardonnay for my parents and a large vodka for myself, I figured that if the vodka was in a water glass, they wouldn't know the difference, especially if I drank it like it was water. My drinking had taken on a new urgency in the past few months. It was no longer a question of desire, but of need. I could not get through an evening like this without the armor of booze. I handed them their wine and directed them to the couch. On the coffee table, I had put out a plate of crudites and a bowl of olives. Quite a place, my mother said brightly, her gaze darting around the room at the white brick fireplace with its wrought iron tools, the glass wall overlooking the garden, the soaring ceiling. My father stared at the fringe of the rug, glassy eyed. He needed to be as numbed as I did to get through this night. Thanks, I murmured, as if she was paying me a compliment. I checked on dinner, using the opportunity to gulp some wine from the open bottle in the fridge. Vodka and white wine was a combination I knew worked for me. If I stuck with the formula. Things shouldn't be too bad in the morning, especially if I wasn't eating and I couldn't see myself eating. The music had stopped by the time we all sat at the dining room table, but I didn't notice then. If I had, I would certainly have changed. The tape filled the air with something other than the tinny, lonely sound of our three forks scraping against plates. I pushed my chicken from one side of my plate to the other. My stomach clenched and growled in protest. It seemed that my parents And I, after 22 years in each other's company, had run out of things to say. I already knew their views on the political situation in Israel, and we couldn't discuss my schoolwork. I was no longer in school. My father pressed a corner of his napkin to his lips and murmured something about the food being delicious. My mother agreed. My wonderful daughter, she said, shaking her head. You've turned into such a little homemaker. I looked at my parents across the table. Is that what they really thought? How could they just sit there? Some small piece of me wanted my father to fling me over his shoulder and carry me kicking and screaming to the car he had parked outside. I secretly wished that they would drive me home, deposit me in my childhood bedroom, and feed me chicken soup and saltines. I wanted to start my life over again, but I didn't know how. In the face of the most tangible proof that Lenny had been lying to me all these years, I remained with him. My little girl is dying, he would say whenever I noticed the discrepancies in his stories or My children's mother is having electroshock therapy. When I couldn't take my own confusion anymore, Was Lenny lying to me? Was I going crazy? I decided to hire a detective to get to the bottom of it. By this time, my parents knew all about me and Lenny in theory, but it wasn't something we could talk about. When I think back to my younger self rifling through the New York City yellow paint in search of a private investigator, I feel like I'm watching a movie about someone else. A girl so clueless she really didn't know that her desire to hire a detective was all the answer she needed. I chose a detective agency based on nothing more than its good address in the East 60s, a neighborhood filled with private schools at shrinks. This isn't what you think, I told the detective. I'm in a relationship with a married man and I want you to find out if my boyfriend is cheating on me with his wife. At this his eyebrows shot up. Come again? He claims his wife is in a mental hospital. He told me he hasn't been with her in years. And you think he might be lying? Said the investigator. Did I see the laughter behind his eyes? Or is my memory supplying it now? Because I simply cannot imagine a middle aged man listening to an earnest, overdressed 22 year old girl tell him that she thinks her boyfriend might still be sleeping with his wife. Yes, I said. Days later, I got the proof about Lenny's lies. In tears, I called my mother. Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do? I don't think so. A pause. Do you want me to call his wife? My mother and Mrs. Klein had met each other at a few school functions back when none of this could have struck anyone as a remote possibility. Yes, I said. Call her. I'll do it right now, my mother said. I sat by the phone and watched the minutes tick by. I pictured Lenny's wife answering the phone with a chirpy hello and my mother's slow, steady explanation of why she was calling. I had set in motion a chain of events which was now unstoppable. More than 20 minutes passed before my mother called me back. Well, I did it, she said. You talked to her? The world felt unreal. Hallucinatory. Yes. She called me a liar. She told me she has a happy marriage to a man who travels a lot, that he's on his way to California. And I said, no, he's on his way to see my daughter. My mother sounded proud of herself, immersed in the drama of the moment. How did she seem? I asked. What do you mean? Lenny's wife. Was she angry? No, my mother said slowly. She just didn't believe me. Danny. I spent the rest of that day in a state of awful excitement. Something was going to happen, and when Lenny showed up that evening at the apartment we were still sharing in the West Village, I was ready. He put his bags down and gave me a hug. The phone rang. My mother had given Mrs. Klein the number at the apartment and suggested she find out for herself what her husband was up to. Lenny picked up the phone on the kitchen wall. Hello? I watched him, and for the first and only time in the years I knew him, he looked genuinely surprised. He didn't say a word. He just listened for a few minutes, then hung up the phone. That was my wife, he said. I was silent. How did she get this number? I shrugged. I have to go. I'd imagine, I said faintly. When Lenny slammed out of the apartment, I was certain I would never see him again. I knew the truth now. It was staring me in the face, in the concrete form of flight lists and photos, and he knew that I knew. And besides, the whistle was blown. What could he possibly tell his wife? This was it, I told myself. Absolutely, positively. The end. It wasn't the end. Lenny still called 10, 12 times a day. He left messages on my answering machine. Hello? His voice filled my bedroom. Fox, are you there? Sometimes he didn't say a word. He would stay on the line for as long as five minutes, just breathing. Eventually he did get to me again, and for the next year that we were together, three days here, four days there, my life became unrecognizable to me. I idly wondered what it would take to get me to leave him. I wondered about this over bottles of chilled white wine or heavy glasses half filled with scotch. I was still wondering about it when I went to stay for a while at a health spa in California. The phone rang in my room one day. There had been a car crash on a snowy highway. My mother had 80 broken bones. My father was in a coma. They were lying in a hospital 3,000 miles away. And suddenly, in ways I could not have imagined seconds earlier, nothing else mattered. As I packed my bags, I remembered my mother twirling, dancing to Dvorak through the doors of Lenny's brownstone and the glassy look in my father's eyes. I prayed that my father wouldn't die disappointed in me, and I knew then what I had to do.

[Ira Glass]

Dani Shapiro that story is in her memoir, Slow Motion. Her latest book is called A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love. Fact 4 the man who Knew what I Was about to Say so in this second half of our program, we've had the moment before a possible affair. We've had what it's like during the affair, and now we turn to the aftermath of an affair, at least the very immediate aftermath. This story is by writer Edgar Carot and read for us by actor Matt Milwaukee.

[Matt Milwaukee]

The man who knew what I was about to say sat next to me on the plane, a stupid smile plastered across his face. That's what's so nerve wracking about him. Smart he wasn't or sensitive either, but still he knew those lines and managed to say them all. The lines I meant to say three seconds before me. Do you sell Guerlain Mystique? He asked the flight attendant a minute before I could, and she gave him an orthodontic smile and said, there's just one last bottle left. My wife goes crazy for that perfume, he said. She's positively addicted. If I come back from a trip without a bottle of Mystique from the Duty Free, she says I don't love her anymore. If I dare come into the house without at least one of these, I'm in deep s. That was supposed to be my line, but the man who knew what I was about to say stole it from me without missing a beat. Soon as the wheels touched the ground, he switched on his mobile a second before I did and called his wife. I just landed, he told her. I'm sorry, I know it was supposed to be yesterday. Flight was canceled. You don't believe me? Check it out yourself. Call Eric. I know you don't. I can give you his number right now. I also have a travel agent called Eric. He'd lie for me, too. When the plane reached the gate, he was still talking on his mobile, giving all the answers I would have given without a trace of emotion, like a parrot in a world where time flows backwards, repeating whatever is about to be said instead of what's been said already. His answers were the best ones under the circumstances. His circumstances weren't too hot, not too hot at all. Mine weren't either. Nobody was answering my call. But just listening to the man who knew what I was about to say made me stop trying. Just listening to him, I could tell that this was a hole that even if I dug my way out of it would be to a different reality. She'd never forgive me. She'd never trust me ever. All my coming trips would be hell on earth and the time in between would be even worse. He went on talking and talking and talking, all those sentences that I'd thought up and hadn't said yet. It just kept flowing. He stepped it up, changing the intonation like a drowning man struggling desperately to stay afloat. People began getting off. He got up, still talking, scooped up his laptop in the other hand and headed for the exit. I could see him forgetting it behind the bag he had put in the overhead compartment. I could see him forgetting it. I didn't say anything. I just stayed put. Gradually everyone walked out till the only ones still there were an overweight religious woman with a million children and me. I got up and opened the overhead compartment above me, as if nothing, I took out the duty free bag like it had always been mine. Inside were the receipt and the bottle of Guerlain Mystique. My wife goes crazy for that perfume. She's positively addicted. If I come back from a trip without a bottle of Mystique from the duty free, she says, I don't love her anymore.

[Ruby Wright]

Someday he'll come along, the man I love.

[Ira Glass]

Matt Milloy reading a story by Edgar Kerritt from Edgar's Story collection. Suddenly a knock on the door. Edgar sends stories and poems to subscribers in his substack newsletter, Alphabet Soup.

[Ruby Wright]

I'll do my best to make him mistake.

[Ira Glass]

Our program was produced today by Nancy Updike and our senior producer at the time, Julie Snyder, with Alex Bloomberg, Jay Marie, Sarah Koenig, Lisa Pollock, Robin Seminan and Alyssa Shipp. Production up from Aaron Scott. Seth Lind was our production manager and Emily Condon was our office manager for this show. Our musical consultant for the show was Jessica Hopper. Help on today's rerun from Adrienne Lilly, Molly Marcelo, and Ryan Rummery. Special thanks today to the Moth and to Paul Tough. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by prx, the public radio expression. Thanks as always to our program's co founder, Ms. Tory Malatea. You know I'm a happily married man, so does it mean anything when he swims over to me at the company retreat and says things like the water

[James Brawley]

makes me feel so free?

[Ira Glass]

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of this American Life.

[Lyle]

I'm waiting for the man,

[James Brawley]

my love.

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[Danny Shapiro]

Eduardo.