Darling, I have something to tell you...

March 12, 2008 7:28 PM

Help identify memoirs or other writings which have dialogue in which one spouse informs another of their infidelity or in which the injured spouse reacts to the others infidelity.

In response to recent news stories, I am trying to get a sense of the language one uses when informing their spouse they have been unfaithful. I am also looking for what sort of verbal response the other souse may have when informed of infidelity. I am interested primarily in examples from memoirs but will be satisfied with good examples from literature.

posted by Xurando to human relations (12 comments total)

You should pick up a copy of "The Last Five Years." It was on off-Broadway musical about a writer who cheated on his wife and how it affected them. The wife and husband have alternate songs, and the wife starts her songs from the end of the relationship once everything has fallen apart and he starts his after their first date. They meet in the middle.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 7:32 PM on March 12, 2008

It's a new one, but there's a chapter on this topic in Schuyler's Monster, by Robert Rummel-Hudson.
posted by sugarfish at 7:37 PM on March 12, 2008

Anais Nin may or may not be what you're looking for... either way, she's excellent.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:57 PM on March 12, 2008

There was a piece on Weekend America about the movie "In a Dream" where the filmmaker chronicles his father's life and captures his admission of a longtime affair. Info here.
posted by slogger at 8:23 PM on March 12, 2008

I just read Schuyler's Monster too, so that was the first thing that came to mind. In fact, the scene where the couple tells each other about their infidelity was excerpted in this Wondertime article last month.
posted by brookedel at 10:45 PM on March 12, 2008

I've always considered the scene in the film Network where Max tells his wife about his infidelity to be an amazing piece of writing and acting. Unfortunately I can't find a clip, but it is in the screenplay if you search for "127" (the scene number).
posted by churl at 12:00 AM on March 13, 2008

Six Feet Under - at least two really good instances.

Betrayal, by Harold Pinter. (Haven't seen the movie, although I hear it's good.)

52 Pick-Up features a memorably dry scene in this vein.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:05 AM on March 13, 2008

I've uploaded the clip from "Network" that I mentioned above to youtube.

Network - Max confesses his infidelity to Louise

Hope it helps
posted by churl at 12:35 AM on March 13, 2008

Thanks for that, churl. Network is one of my favorite 1970s films.

Fascinatingly, the Spitzer revelation was done ... en bloc:

That night, around dinnertime, Richard Baum, Mr. Spitzer’s top aide, received a phone call at his home in upstate New York. The governor asked him to drive to Manhattan immediately.

Late that night, the governor told his wife, Mr. Baum and his friend, Lloyd Constantine, an almost incomprehensible tale: He was a client of a high-priced prostitution ring; he had been caught on a federal wiretap; The Times had requested records for the date of an alleged tryst with a prostitute in Washington.

The atmosphere was alternately charged and funereal. Mrs. Spitzer and Mr. Constantine, the governor’s senior adviser, counseled hanging tough. The governor, though, seemed convinced that he was finished.

Nabokov addressed this topic several times, in novels and short stories. It's not always a major point, but it is often a pivot.
posted by dhartung at 1:40 AM on March 13, 2008

Nabokov indeed! I've always been a fan of the part in Ada where Ada tells Van she's been unfaithful without actually telling him so: she tells it to him as a parable, he misses it, and she lays her head on his shoulder, feeling herself rid of everything; both are content, though he's content in ignorance. What she's actually been talking about comes out over the next hundred pages or so, along with Van's fury. (p. 192 in the Vintage paperback)

And of course there's the part in Lolita where Charlotte Haze finds out that she's not the Haze that Humbert loves. Unfaithfulness without consummation, of course, but that seems beside the point when one's written a monstrous tiny diary about it:

The day before I had ended the regime of aloofness I had imposed upon myself, and now uttered a cheerful homecoming call as I opened the door of the living room. With her cream-white nape and bronze bun to me, wearing the yellow blouse and maroon slacks she had on when I first met her, Charlotte sat at the corner bureau writing a letter. My hand still on the doorknob, I repeated my hearty cry. Her writing hand stopped. She sat still for a moment; then she slowly turned in her chair and rested her elbow on its curved back. Her face, disfigured by her emotion, was not a pretty sight as she stared at my legs and said:

"The Haze woman, the big bitch, the old cat, the obnoxious mamma, the—the old stupid Haze is no longer your dupe. She has—she has..."

My fair accuser stopped, swallowing her venom and her tears. (p. 93 of the Vintage paperback edition)

There's also the scene where Humbert's first wife informs him that there's another man in her life: they're on the street, and he gets a taxi so as to have some privacy in which to interrogate her, and in about half a paragraph it turns out that the taxi driver is the other man. Followed by Humbert "dying of hate and boredom" as she packs her things and leaves while the taxi driver apologizes and takes up space. It's great, but too long to type out. Pages 27–30 in the Vintage edition.
posted by felix grundy at 8:27 AM on March 13, 2008

Check out Hillary Clinton's and Bill Clinton's autobios. Not sure if they include dialogue, though.
posted by HotPatatta at 11:35 AM on March 13, 2008

Several Updike novels fit the criteria. My favorite is Marry Me. A guy goes to tell his wife he's cheating on her and she stops him before he can say anything to say that she's cheating on him. The man she's sleeping with turns out to be the husband of the woman her husband is sleeping with.
posted by mattbucher at 2:57 PM on March 13, 2008