Tag: unfaithful

I had been divorced for a couple years when my former husband called with a surprise. Thankfully, it wasn’t the type of surprise he delivered the night he sat me at the table and told me he had been unfaithful for more than a decade and was leaving me for someone he met in Las Vegas.

No, this surprise had to do with our 12-year-old son. He said he was taking him to China for a vacation. I got that feeling you get when you walk in on a conversation and everyone is laughing and looking at you like you know what they’re talking about.

A colleague and I were discussing the concept of "flame addiction," a term used to describe the behavioral and psychological changes associated with infidelity. The syndrome includes typical addictive behavior such as obsession with and dependency on the affair mate, as well as the secondary consequences of addiction, such as being secretive and taking depleting resources from work, friends, and family.