They`re not handing out crimson A`s anymore.
As American society in the last few decades has relaxed its standards of sexual conduct, those who cheat on their spouses are not likely to be branded outcasts the way Hester Prynne was in ”The Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne`s novel of Puritan-era adultery.
That is true, at least, for people not in the public eye, who suffer little if any reprobation from friends and colleagues for what was once thought to be a mortal sin.
But it is less true for politicians, who are held to a different standard by a public that demands of its leaders what it will not ask of its neighbors. Such issues are being talked about because the country is embroiled in yet another scandal involving politics and allegations, at least, of adultery. This time out, though, many in the public are saying that whatever happened in the marriage of Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his wife, Hillary, is their business first and only.
At the same time, many are turning what they imagine to be the Clintons`
experience into a mirror that they can use to examine their own lives.
Studies show that as many as 37 percent of American men and 29 percent of American women have cheated on their spouses, and some estimates place the figures considerably higher. So even if you think all your friends are the type who couldn`t possibly, you probably know someone who has cheated on a mate.
People`s reactions to adultery vary as much as the experience itself. Some consider it the ultimate violation of trust and a sign of inexcusable weakness or egotism, not to mention the last straw. But some are able to rebuild the rubble of marriages rent by one partner sleeping with someone else.
Marital therapists said there is no one model for what causes an affair, nor for how a couple can overcome it. Many don`t, said Jennifer Knopf, director of Northwestern University`s sex and marital therapy program.
More Top Picks Projectors
But because an affair is more often than not a symptom of something else that`s wrong in the marriage, understanding its root cause can help couples not only deal with the affair but also introduce better communication into their marriage, she said.
In this way, the affair can be a catalyst for forcing the two people to examine their relationship, experts said.
”In the beginning, you go through a lot of pain, and you have a lot of ups and downs,” said Fran, whose marriage has survived an affair her husband had.
”Then eventually you`ll have a few good days and then you`ll slip back. And then pretty soon all your days are pretty good. But every once in a while you`re going to have problems. I can`t say that I`m pained by it anymore, but it`s still on my mind. It`ll always be there.”
Michele Schienkman, coordinator of couples therapy training for the Chicago Center for Family Health, said the forgiveness and the healing may take a long time for some couples.
The person who had the affair has a big responsibility to do a lot of repair work and demonstrate that he or she wants to make up for something damaging.
”I think what may be the main thing is putting up with the fact that the person who is hurt is going to be hurt for a while,” Schienkman said.
Richard and Liz Brzeczek agreed. In summer 1984, all was not well in the household of Dick Brzeczek, the former Chicago police superintendent who was running as the Republican candidate for Cook County state`s attorney.
Brzeczek had told his wife the preceding Halloween that he had been seeing another woman since 1981. Liz Brzeczek, in July, had finally mustered the courage to sign divorce papers, vowing to file them as soon as the campaign was over.
”I wanted him to lose on his own accord-not because of me,” said Liz Brzeczek. ”I told him I would never consider myself a divorcee. I said, `I will consider myself a widow because the man that I married no longer lives.` ”
Still, she campaigned for him, sometimes crying at appearances, sometimes packing his bags afterward and kicking him out of the house they shared with their children. But she would always let him move back in when the press speculated that the marriage was on the rocks.
Brzeczek was routed in that election by Richard M. Daley, Chicago`s current mayor. And his wife, fed up with her husband`s infidelity and drinking, did file for divorce the day after.
Nine years later, Brzeczek has stopped drinking, the couple is still together, and they say their marriage is stronger for the hell they overcame. In February they will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the couples counseling group they started, We Saved Our Marriage, which uses an Alcoholics Anonymous-type approach to getting couples through infidelity.
”I`m not prescribing affairs,” said Liz Brzeczek, ”but it happens so frequently and I think people think: `Hey, you`ve had an affair. That`s it.` I think that if you have one, you can get on with your life better than ever. They`re better equipped to handle anything.
”Dick was on a pedestal. He could do no wrong. He was a god. And now I look upon him as a man, a man who makes mistakes.”
Hard-line attitude
Statistics on how many people cheat are hard to come by, primarily because only the person answering the question knows for sure. In its 1990 book, ”The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex,” the sex-research center in Bloomington, Ind., synthesized nine studies and determined that on the average 37 percent of men and 29 percent of women admitted having at least one extramarital affair.
Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey conducted by the University of Chicago`s National Opinion Research Center, said he thinks the number is actually lower. When his group asked the question in 1991, 21 percent of men and 10 percent of women admitted having strayed sexually. He tends to believe these figures, he said, because they mesh with what people describe as their attitudes toward affairs.
Last year, 77 percent of people surveyed said an affair was ”always wrong;” 13.5 percent said ”almost always;” 6 percent said ”sometimes;”
and 3 percent said ”not wrong at all.”
”That question has been asked 12 or more times in the last 20 years,”
Smith said. ”The figures are highly stable with a slight increase in `always wrong.` There is no permissive movement on this issue, unlike premarital sex, where people have gotten more permissive.”
Just how much this hard-line attitude is likely to hurt a presidential candidate-especially one whose candor extends to admitting past, unspecified
”problems” that he and his wife are working through-is a question that probably won`t be answered until it is tested in New Hampshire voting booths later this month.
A Gallup poll last week sponsored by USA Today and CNN found that 65 percent of people who watched the State of the Union address said voters shouldn`t consider candidates` marital infidelity, while 59 percent thought the press had been unfair to Clinton.
Dirty laundry
For people whose indiscretions aren`t on public display, the opinions of a smaller number of people are the ones that matter.
”It`s sad enough when your dirty laundry is in front of family and friends, let alone the whole nation,” said Ruth M., a Wheaton resident who has been married to Rich more than 25 years, despite his alcoholism and frequent affairs that caused them to separate for more than a year five years ago.
More Top Picks Best Motion Sensor Night Lights For Hallways
Now he is sober, and they are back together and running a counseling program, called The Courage to Love, for similar couples.
”Infidelity isn`t just infidelity,” Ruth said. ”It`s lying. These people who cheat don`t do it to hurt their spouse. They do it for self-gratification. It also shows they are selfish in that they can`t make a committment to their spouse. It`s not one quality; it`s a whole line of qualities I might not want in a president or anyone.”
Reading about the Clintons, she said: ”It makes me reflect on my own life. Once it happens, you can say: `I love you. I want to work on our marriage.` But trust hasn`t returned. The Clinton situation shows you an untrustworthy person. Sure that person can change. But it doesn`t happen overnight.”
For Jocelyn, whose husband had an affair, the paramount political issue is whether Clinton has worked things out with his wife. ”If he`s gotten over that hurdle, there`s no way that should bar him,” she said.
In her own marriage, she said her husband`s affair was largely because of differing expectations. She was raised to be independent and self-sufficient, while her husband`s mother was ”more compliant and more traditional,” and her husband expected the same.
”I wasn`t fulfilling his needs,” Jocelyn said, and vice versa.
Through counseling, they began rebuilding their relationship.
”That incident I have forgiven him for. Life goes on,” she said. ”We got over the mountain, but that doesn`t mean we understand each other completely. It`s an unfolding story.”