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

~ Mira Kirshenbaum (Author) " Here's how Jessica, 37, put it: "In a million years I never wanted to be in a situation like this..." (more)
Key Phrases: distraction affair, accidental affair, relationship chemistry, Mary Ellen, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Gets to the heart of the matter…a fascinating and insightful read.”—Pepper Schwartz, PhD, author of Prime

“Offers some helpful—and sometimes surprising—advice.”--Time

“A wise and welcome addition to the self-help literature on infidelity.”—Janis Abrahms Spring, PhD, author of  After the Affair

Product Description

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 out which type they’re in and what it means.  Is it a:

--“See-if” affair?

--Ejector-seat affair?

--Distraction affair?

--Unmet-needs affair?

--Panic affair?

Kirshenbaum encourages honest answers to such questions as:

--What am I missing in my marriage?

--How do I decide between two people when it’s like comparing an apple to an orange?

--How do I decide to end my marriage, end my affair, or end them both?

When Good People Have Affairs will be a lifeline to any man or woman who feels caught between two lovers, and its insights are indispensable to anyone else touched by an affair.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (July 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312563442
• ISBN-13: 978-0312563448
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,604 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If your life has been touched by an affair, this is a great book, May 30, 2008

By	Dr. Susan from Chicago - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships (Hardcover)

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.

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Hand Experience!, June 3, 2008

By	Very Stuck Chuck - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships (Hardcover)

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!

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Help in the nick of time for me, May 31, 2008

By	Jenny Miller - See all my reviews

This review is from: When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships (Hardcover)

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.