The Affair Playbook

The Affair Playbook--Talking About Things We Don't Talk About An affair is secret, forbidden and full of rationalizations and untruths. An affair is also exciting, fantastic and enthralling. Affairs are taboo to talk about because they are generally not acceptable by our religions, our cultures and our laws. The Affair Playbook does talk about it. The Playbook talks about some of the things we need to know for emotional, legal, financial or practical reasons. And other things we want to know out of pure curiosity, desire for protection and maybe revenge. We also don't know as much as we'd like to or need to because people who have had an affair or know about someone else's affair generally don't tell the truth about what they know. So how can we find out about what happens in an affair? We can look at Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, two people whose acknowledged secret romantic relationship has received so much attention that we know a lot more about them than we might know about someone we talk to every day, work with every day, or are close friends with. We know from their own acknowledgment and other observers how their secret relationship started -- at work -- the most common way for an affair to start today. The Affair Playbook provides some crucial insights as to how this simple, very common form of contact, two people working together, which happens trillions of times every day and almost always becomes nothing closer than that, can move into an affair. The key refrain that the other woman will hear from a (married) man is, "My wife is crazy, she doesn't understand me and the marriage is really over". There are a lot of reasons why this story is a very useful line and almost always not true. The very emotions, restrictions and enhancements that define an affair also contain within them the seeds of destruction of the relationship. These seeds include secrecy, unrealistic expectations for the future, and a creation of a great story built on a foundation of lies. Does knowing the pattern of an affair help us in any way? Yes it does because almost everyone has been, or is being, affected by an affair in some way. Whether it's how to evaluate what an affair means in the life of someone running for office. Or how to deal with an affair that's in progress in one's own life or the life of a partner, or a close relative or friend. Or how to understand an affair that's roiling one's workplace. The catch points in this chronology that are the least discussed but have a decisive effect on individuals and on society are: - First, the time in an affair when infatuation, intense feelings, disregard of reality and almost an addiction take hold, and - Second, what children of various ages who are experiencing an affair around them are feeling and thinking. The Affair Playbook addresses these questions and other mysteries, misunderstandings and puzzling aspects of an affair. Buy your copy and see for yourself.