When eve bites the apple

While extramarital affairs are as old as the institution of marriage, societal norms have never been the same for women and men. But today, technology has made it easier for married women to be as 'adventurous' as any man. And counsellors are seeing more women wrecked by affairs gone sour,

Her fall, she says, began with her Blackberry. It was that innocuous machine which stamped the scarlet letter on her. "I had a normal marriage," says Preeti Patel*, who cleared her Chartered Accountancy exams three years after marriage, had a son the next year, and started working five years later. "I didn't consciously feel neglected, or even lonely, until I confessed that to my new friend. He was a client where I was working, and our conversations were work-related for a long time. The Blackberry was my 15th wedding anniversary gift, and that changed everything." The luxury of 24/7 connection was a high that strangely made Preeti more affable to the rest of the world. She delighted in giving instant replies to even mundane emails. Her client made a few amused remarks on it, and their friendship began. Soon, they were sharing notes on their respective marriages, and she was even advising him on how to charm his wife. "Our friendship was platonic for a long time. We met outside office after a year or so. I told myself that the guilt I felt was because Chennai was conservative, but I knew where it was going," she says. It started as an emotional affair for both of them, she insists. "My husband was always patronising. So it felt great to be with a man who treated me as an equal, and valued my opinion. Honestly, it was me who made the first move to take the relationship to the next level." The downward spiral was quick. A few clandestine meetings later, she was contemplating divorce when he told her that it was over. He had decided to give his marriage another try. "I didn't understand. We fought. It got dirty and it was over." For the last four months, Preeti has been going to a psychiatrist. She asked her husband for a divorce, but he didn't agree. Fights were frequent, but she couldn't admit her affair. "I was going insane, and finally, decided to seek help." Her therapist says there are countless others in similar predicaments. A survey done in 2007 showed that 15% of married men and 7% of married women have had sexual affairs, and that the affairs usually happen between the third and fifth years of marriage. The figures are higher now, even in India, says a social anthropologist working with NIMHANS, family psychiatry centre, who did not want to be named. "Preeti had a discreet affair. More than the breakup itself, it was this discreetness that caused her eventual breakdown. She couldn't talk about it to anyone, and this self-enforced silence and the guilt of having 'sinned' messed her up," the social anthropologist says. "Once upon a time, women in unhappy marriages didn't have much choice but to stay in it, or get a divorce. The few who strayed did so after much wooing by the man. That's not the case anymore," she says. Now, women have flings for emotional and physical satisfaction — the most obvious reasons, and for material rewards like career advancement. According to her, the reason why more married women have affairs are opportunities. "And globalisation. Because they can!" she adds. Technology is indeed aiding extra-marital affairs. Social networking has taken the taboo off strangers. At the workplace, too, a fling is increasingly becoming the easy way for women to climb the ladder as sexual harassment cases usually favour them. Many successful men, with universally acknowledged IQs, learnt it the hard way after all. And some women are now opting for recreational affairs too. Dr Vijay Nagaswami, author of The 24x7 Marriage, feels most married women start a fling "for the same reason that married men have affairs — because something's missing in the marriage and they're not ready to walk out of the marriage." It might have been rewarding for the few enterprising women who squealed harassment post-affair, sued the man for millions, and won. But sadly, not so for most others. They walk into it with eyes wide open, which partly close midway, and then, become blind at closing time. Extricating their hearts after massive disappointments wasn't something they were ready for. One reason why women suffer when an affair ends, Nagaswami says, is because they are usually "more emotionally invested in the affair and if they're not offered a committed relationship, they sometimes have a tough time dealing with the aftermath." Many women, says a Bangalore-based counsellor, "in a bizarre game of self-destruction, cling on to any affection thrown at them, as if they don't deserve any better, or from some convoluted sense of romance." She finds it absurd that most encounters follow a pattern: a bottle of wine and lots of listening on the male's part before some 'action' sooner or later; and then the sudden exit of said male. The married man feels that he is safe because she has a husband to go home to, just like he has his wife. She obviously can't drop everything to chase him like in the movie Fatal Attraction. "It is much easier to target them as they can't make a hue and cry when the affair ends," says Arvind Balaraman*. "Nowadays, women are open to short-term feel-good flings, and are willing to forget all about it. But there are some who mouth the right words, but deep inside hope for permanence." The next best thing, he says, is to go underground when she can't let go. *Names changed on request