Behind His Back

What’s driving the increase in businesswomen who commit adultery?

By Nedra Rhone

“Patti,” a thirtysomething Florida-based newscaster, thought she had it made. She scored a plum assignment reporting on Hurricane Katrina, and the fellow journalist with whom she was having an extramarital affair was working the same story. After arriving in disaster-torn New Orleans, Patti called and told her husband she would be unreachable for a month. So he asked a friend traveling to the area to make sure she was safe. That friend, Suzanne McComas, was a private investigator.

When McComas poked around the news vans looking for Patti, she got smirks. “Husband? She’s got a husband?” guffawed one of the guys. Then he spilled. Patti had taken off on a weekend getaway with her lover, and whatever they were doing wouldn’t be broadcast on the evening news.”She probably thought the marriage was over,” says McComas, CEO of ZZ Agency LLC in Albany, N.Y. Sure enough, within a year Patti was divorced.

Welcome to the brave new world of adultery, in which women engage in extramarital affairs more than ever before and are sometimes forced to deal with the not-always-pleasant consequences. While about 13percent of married women have cheated on their spouses (compared to 22 percent of men, according to one 2006 study), it’s professional women who most often have the resources, the confidence and the opportunities to conduct affairs in ways previously reserved for men, experts say. And with more women of power in today’s workforce, adultery is fast becoming a game of equal opportunity.

“The double standard is so strong in this culture that we sort of wink when a man has an affair, whereas women we don’t believe even entertain such thoughts,” says Susan Shapiro Barash, author of A Passion for More: Wives Reveal the Affairs that Make or Break Their Marriages (Berkeley Hills Books, 2001).

But for some women who’ve reached a high level in their careers – and who have a lot to lose – adultery has become a dangerous game, adds Danine Manette, a criminal investigator and author of Ultimate Betrayal: Recognizing, Uncovering and Dealing with Infidelity (Square One Publishers, 2005).”Women are less likely to let their guard down at this level, so when [an affair] does happen, it’s a pretty big deal. It’s more than just your average little fling.”

It’s no coincidence that work is fertile ground for attraction among professional women. Long hours at the office, frequent travel or even the energy between two people who are passionate about their careers can lead to sparks.

“It’s totally unrealistic to believe that people won’t engage in intimate relationships at work,” says Johnny Taylor, immediate past chairman of the Society for Human Resource Management and a former employment attorney. In many cases, he adds, some executives know co-workers better than their own families, given how many more hours they spend at work. The inevitable result – more in-house relationships, including adulterous ones – has corporate America worried. Employers don’t really care about the relationships themselves, Taylor says, though most do have policies that forbid dating between superiors and subordinates. “What they’re concerned about is, when the relationship goes bad, how do we protect ourselves from liability?”

Drinking in the Power

Claims of sexual harassment, though, are probably the last thing on the mind of a career woman following her heart or maybe just her hormones. So what is she thinking? Scott Haltzman, M.D., clinical assistant professor at Brown University and author of the new Secrets of Happily Married Women (Jossey-Bass Wiley, January 2008), says confident professional women who rule at the office may be looking for a certain recognition they aren’t getting from their spouses. “[An affair] is a package for drinking in this power and validating their position of power,” he says.

It may start with a seemingly innocent connection to someone who finds her interesting. Eventually she may feel this person understands her better than her own spouse, who may resent her success and dedication to the job. And then – the red flag – she may talk with that person about problems at home, all the while telling herself it’s not an affair.

That’s what happened to “Rose,” a 33- year-old commodities buyer from Chicago (who, in order to protect her reputation, spoke to PINK on condition of anonymity). After seven years of marriage and two children, she was worn out. She had assumed the bulk of responsibility at home while working full time, but her husband, a securities trader, kept up his late-night outings and solo two-week vacations. He began pulling away, Rose says, and he seemed to resent her independence and drive.

When a new manager appeared at her company, the attraction was undeniable within a month. “I was spending all waking hours with someone who was treating me wonderfully,” she says.

On a business trip, they confessed their mutual attraction, but the relationship was purely emotional, Rose says. When his wife intercepted an e-mail, however, everything exploded. Rose confessed to her husband, things got ugly, and that’s when the relationship with her co-worker turned intimate. They both filed for divorce and searched for new jobs, and in a happier ending than most they began to plan their future together.

“Being a professional woman, you expect to be appreciated for what you do at work,” Rose says. “I can count on one hand in the seven years of marriage the number of times [my husband] asked me how my day was. When Mr. Wonderful walked in and thought I was great at my job, it was a turn-on.” Still, experts urge women to address marital concerns early on. Barash warns about half the marriages in which women cheat end in divorce.