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this moment—what to do when someone’s tempted to stray—and we’d developed an adultery killer, a solution so simple there could be no possibility of confusion.
    This wasn’t a theoretical, what-if conversation.
    There was some history.
    Two years into our marriage, with our daughter still in diapers, I had an affair. I wasn’t overwhelmed by young fatherhood or turned off by a lactating wife. I had a “deeper” rationale—I felt it was crucial not to commit completely to any relationship; I thought it was soul-saving to keep a sliver of me for me. And, inevitably, I met a young, newly married lawyer at a conference who felt the same way. Hours after we met, we were having incendiary, bounce-off-the-walls sex.
    I got caught because I was a fool. My lover and I collected the small bars of gourmet soap you get in better hotels. To use that soap at home produced a secret smile in the morning. And to see that soap next to the grocery-store brand that Blair used gave me a sense of abundance.
    Yes, I was quite the sophisticate.
    In a matter of months, Blair figured out something was going on. Holy hell followed and weeks of no sex, a punishment that punished us both. Then something surprising: a fresh idea, reality-based, looking a lot more like wisdom than the dull affirmations you find in the how-to-be-married guides.
    What I proposed was this: If you’re tempted to stray—if you find yourself moving beyond an innocent flirt—you’ve got to stop and tell that person: “I have a partner who is the dearest person in the world to me. Cheating may be okay for others, but it’s not okay for me, not okay for us. So I can’t do this alone.”And then ask: “May I bring you home?”
    Our theory—Blair immediately saw the logic, so I considered it our theory—is that any couple is a group of two. So is an affair. It’s just a different person who’s on the outside. But if you expand the circle, nobody’s left out. An infatuation that might have become marriage threatening is reduced to … an episode. A couple can then grow old together without hypocrisy or deception.
    But here I was, considering a solo hookup with Jean Coin once a week for five or six weeks, a complete violation of my understanding with Blair. Not a misdemeanor—a felony.
    Why was I about to do it?
    When you’re justifying yourself, you always have answers:
    I’ve been so good for so long, I’m owed.
    My wife knows me, every last corner; I know her, in every possible way; we’re bonded. And while that’s thrilling, it’s also diminishing—I’ve become nothing more than half of a couple.
    I’ve been feeling a pressure that needs relief, a pressure my wife can’t tap. I wear sunglasses even on cloudy days so I can check out the breasts of women walking my way. I follow any woman with an attractive ass, just to watch. If I don’t do something to relieve the pressure, I’ll start locking my office door, watching porn on my computer, and …
    I’m not as hot for my partner as I used to be. I crave someone new. And I just happen to know who …
    Those reasons are all the same reason, which is the punch line of this joke: Two guys walk into a restaurant. At a table, alone, clearly waiting for someone, is the most beautiful woman in the world. One of the men says, “Somewhere there’s a guy who’s sick of fucking her.”
    I wasn’t sick of Blair. I didn’t crave a new thrill. I didn’t feel that years of fidelity entitled me to a no-fault affair. I had success in my work and stability in my home and, most of all, I loved Blair even more than I did on our wedding day—I envied my own life.
    So why get involved with Jean Coin?
    I told myself that Jean was a dream lover—a nomad in her work, a hermit in New York. A walking secret and almost certain to remain that way. Somewhere inside,