It’s at the heart of the conflict in Casablanca, Tristan & Isolde, The English Patient, Anna Karenina, Notorious, Brief Encounter, The Painted Veil, and countless classic love stories. And yet for many readers, it’s a deal-breaker, particularly when it comes to genre romance.
As a reader and a writer, I don’t dislike infidelity or adultery plots per say. Infidelity is an uncomfortable subject but uncomfortable subjects can make for good drama. It can definitely be a challenge to give a story a happy ending after someone’s been unfaithful. Of all of the stories I mentioned at the start of the post, only Notorious has a conventional happily-ever-after ending. The others have unhappy or bittersweet endings. If the marriage survives the infidelity, you need to believe that the couple can get past it, that it won’t happen again, that the betrayed partner won’t constantly blame the unfaithful partner (which is pretty mucht he conversation Steve and Miranda have with their marriage counselor in the recent Sex & the City movie). If the unfaithful lovers end up together, one can find oneself sympathizing with the betrayed spouse. (Notorious pulls it off by making the spouse a villain, albeit a complex one who genuinely loves his wife).
Of course the terms of the marriage and the expectations go into it affect the level of betrayal. In my historical romance, Rightfully His, there’s a subplot between the heroine’s sister and her husband who have a society marriage in which both have lovers and they get along quite amiably. However, in the course of the book, they realize that they love each other and the terms of their marriage change.
I write about betrayal a lot, so when I write about infidelity, I like to explore how it compares and contrasts to other types of betrayal. In Secrets of a Lady Mélanie has undeniably betrayed Charles in a number of ways, but I deliberately left it ambiguous as to whether or not she committed adultery. I actually was explicit about it in an earlier draft of the book, then decided I wasn’t sure myself so I left it open to question. I figured out the answer for myself a bit later, and at some point, when appropriate, I’ll work it into a subsequent book.
They do confront the issue of infidelity and their different expectations going into marriage, in a scene in The Mask of Night:
You didn’t intend to be faithful when you married me.”
She regarded him with that scouring honesty with which she confronted uncomfortable questions. “No, I didn’t. But then I’d never hold my own behavior up as a model of anything.” She smoothed a crease from her skirt. “Did you? Intend to be faithful?”
“Yes, as it happens. But it was hardly as though I had a very active career to abandon.”
“And you take your promises seriously.” In the warm wash of candlelight, Mélanie’s gaze had the bruised look he remembered from last night. “Fidelity hasn’t been a word in my vocabulary for a long time. It might have been once. When I was a girl playing Juliet in my father’s theatre company. Before—”
“Everything else.” Before she’d been raped by a gang of British soldiers, seen her father and sister killed, been left penniless and homeless.
“Being raped was the least of it,” she said, in the low, rough voice he’d learned to recognize from moments when she dredged up long-buried truths. “I could have got past that, I think. It was losing everyone I cared about, fighting for survival. I had to claw my way back to a sense of purpose. When I did, so much I’d used to value didn’t make sense anymore.”
“There’s more than one kind of fidelity, Mel. You’ve been remarkably faithful to a number of things.”
Her gaze fastened on his face. “Charles, you know that I—“
He looked into the scarred, beautiful eyes from which he’d never been able to hide things. He found he didn’t want a declaration based on duty or guilt. “I know you,” he said.
How do you feel about infidelity in books? Is it a deal-breaker? If not, what you think makes it work in some stories? Does it make a difference whether it’s the hero or the heroine who is unfaithful? What the terms of the marriage are? Whether it’s a story about a couple overcoming one or both partners’ infidelity or the story of a pair of unfaithful lovers? Do you think Mélanie was unfaithful to Charles after they married? Why or why not?
I just posted a new Fraser Correspondence addition, Mélanie writing to Simon about the love affairs at the Congress of Vienna (where fidelity appears to have been in short supply).
June 16, 2009 at 5:07 am
In classic fiction, it seems that adultery by a woman is punishable by death (Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary), but from the C20th this is less often the case (Lady Chatterley for instance).
In the Poldark novels, the repercussions of both Ross and Demelza’s infidelities echo for many years, continuing to put strain on what is otherwise a strong and loving marriage. With a long series covering many years, there is plenty of scope for a writer to work through the issues raised.
I don’t think infidelity is necessarily a deal-breaker, but it depends on the characters involved, and the circumstances. I know many readers couldn’t forgive Gelis in the House of Niccolo books, and felt that the reasons given for her behaviour weren’t sufficient to justify her actions.
With modern romance fiction, it can be tricky to pull off. “Boy meets girl; boy betrays girl; girl forgives boy (or vice-versa); boy and girl live happily ever after” isn’t always plausible in 300-400 pages. However, if the story starts after the infidelity has already occurred, and is mainly about the couple working through the reasons why, and learning to forgive, that can be very satisfying (as in The Slightest Provocation – to cite it once again).
June 16, 2009 at 5:30 am
It is fascinating to trace adultery plots in different eras, Lesley. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” is a good example of an adultery plot that doesn’t end in tragedy (and perhaps of a cultural turning point).
Frustrated as I was with Ross’s behavior in Poldark (not so much that he committed infidelity as the circumstances), I thought both his and Demelza’s actions and their workng through of the problems was believable. I do think it helped to have a series in which to deal with the issues (one reason I love to write series; I can’t seem to come up with conflicts that can be entirely worked out in one book
).
I completely bought Mary and Kit working through their past infidelities in “The Slightest Provocation” as well. Pam did a great job of showing both characters had grown and matured, and also of showing the strength of the bond between them.
I had issues with the House of Niccolò in the end (while at the start, I liked it better than the Lymond Chronicles) but not because of Gelis. I could understand why she did what she did, and I could believe she and Nicholas got past it. Though ultimately, when everyone’s motivations were revealed, it all got a bit murky.
June 20, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I’m not a fan of infidelity stories but they aren’t necessarily deal-breakers–except, perhaps, in genre romance. I think it’s because infidelity undermines the concept of a loving, committed union that’s at the heart of the genre’s HEA. (There’s more wiggle room in other genres, like mainstream fiction or even mystery; I’ve encountered several mystery series where the main characters stray in one book but eventually reconcile in a later title.) The other problem with infidelity is its overuse as a plot device. Want conflict between a couple? Have one of them–usually the man–cheat.
The double standard in infidelity plots tends to annoy me too. I just read a romance about an estranged couple attempting a reconciliation after the death of their child. During their separation, which lasted several years, the husband had a series of fleeting liaisons. The wife remained chaste, but was considering an affair with a man who’d become a friend, when circumstances forced her to return to her husband. Damned if the husband didn’t consider himself the more injured party even though the wife hadn’t actually cheated and he had. He never acknowledged his own hypocrisy, and his wife had to apologize to him for even thinking about straying. At that point, the book almost went airborne, but I didn’t want to damage library property.
I was just as turned off by a two-timing heroine. She was a haughty English aristocrat unofficially engaged to another aristocrat who’d been a friend of her late husband. The hero was a “bit of rough” by her social standards, though not wholly ineligible. She slept with him, which was a pretty crappy thing to do to her intended. Then she planned to still marry the lord, which was a pretty crappy thing to do to her lover. Eventually, she broke the engagement and accepted the hero’s proposal, but by then I disliked her for her lack of integrity too much to root for her HEA.
In other genres, a couple fighting to reconcile despite affairs on one or both sides can make for compelling reading. Lesley’s already mentioned the Poldark saga, as an example. I want to add that Demelza’s betrayal provided another interesting conflict, though it didn’t create as many problems as Ross’s. While I don’t think two wrongs make a right, I couldn’t help feeling a glimmer of satisfaction that Ross finally got to experience a bit of what his wife had endured for years, during his obsession with Elizabeth.
One of the most interesting infidelity stories I’ve ever read comes from Welsh history. Llewelyn the Great caught his wife Joan and her lover in their chamber; he executed the lover and banished Joan, but less than a year later, he took her back and the marriage survived. Sharon Kay Penman and Edith Pargeter both treated this incident in their historical novels, and both seem to agree that Llewelyn and Joan must have loved each other to have ultimately gotten through this crisis.
June 21, 2009 at 6:12 am
The double standard bothers me too, Stephanie. I tend to prefer books where it’s the heroine who’s been unfaithful, because in so many it’s the other way round. While I certainly wouldn’t advocate it as a strategy to heal a marriage, I too felt a certain satisfaction in Demelza’s infidelity, which did seem to balance the scales a bit.
I love happy endings, but I think I’m less wedded to a romance genre happy ending than a lot of readers. At least, my definition of what makes for a happy/satisfying ending doesn’t change with the genre. I can read a romance with an ending that seems less than perfect, just as I can a book in another genre. As long as it doesn’t seem as though the infidelity (or whatever else the conflict is) is being glossed over.
I haven’t read either of the Llewelyn/Joan books. They sound interesting. And that’s definitely quite a conflict to overcome. Not only the infidelity, but his executing the lover.
June 21, 2009 at 1:22 pm
The two Llewelyn/Joan books are Penman’s “Here Be Dragons” and Pargeter’s “The Green Branch” (the second book is her Heaven Tree trilogy, which is an impressive series on its own). HBD is probably better known, but I personally prefer TGB when it comes to handling the Llewelyn/Joan storyline. Pargeter’s Joan owns her mistakes in a way that Penman’s doesn’t–the latter never seems to progress beyond being a little girl with daddy issues (Joan was King John’s illegitimate daughter). Both versions of Llewelyn are compelling, though.
June 21, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Thanks, Stephanie. I’ve heard of “Here be Dragons,” though I haven’t read it (I’ve read other Penman books–I loved “Sunne in Splendour”). I haven’t read Edith Pargeter. It would be fun to compare the two takes on the story. There’s a book by Nicole Galland (largely fictional though some of the characters are based on real people), “The Fool’s Tale,” also set in medieval Wales, which has a somewhat similar situation in terms of a triangle, though the outcome is different (more tragic).
June 22, 2009 at 12:06 am
I like “The Sunne in Splendour” too, not least for its Ricardian slant (I was converted by Josephine Tey already, but having to write a reference article on Shakespeare’s play, which involved consulting contemporary historical sources, further convinced me that the traditional story shouldn’t be taken as gospel). I’ve read other works by Penman, but TSIS still strikes me as the most accessible of her historical novels and the most focused on its main subject.
I’ll be sure to check out the Galland, if I can. A friend of mine said she attended the same high school as Galland and got to read her most recent book as an ARC. I wish I could remember what she said about it, though.
June 22, 2009 at 5:01 am
I like the Ricardian slant of TSIS too, Stephanie. I read “The Daughter of Time” at the age of 12, and I’ve been a firm Ricardian ever since(I have a love-hate relationship with the Shakespeare play, which I enjoy as a play while at the same time getting annoyed at the historical slant).
Do try the Galland book. She has three books out now, loosely connected. Beautifully written, and very interesting characters and plots. She’s a friend of a good friend of mine, and I had a great time talking writing with her at a party a couple of years ago.
June 24, 2009 at 2:33 pm
How trivial traits may derail even the most beautiful of relationships is subtle and unexpected. The results, however, may be explosive and catastrophic. This scenario is not uncommon; it is endemic to our modern society. As a family physician, I see the consequences and regrets daily. The question is how can couples avoid what they really do not want?
Perhaps, the best way to prevent infidelity would be to step into the future and look back. This is of course impossible, but seeing so many people who have allowed their relationships to slip away and are left suffering with their regrets, I undertook writing a novel to illustrate this exact problem. So many couples will be able to identify themselves and hopefully gain insight into their own lives and avoid disaster.
http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/InfidelitysFool.html
Mannie Magid
June 24, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Thanks for the comments and the link to your novel, Mannie. I think novels can often show eloquently how trivial details can turn into a crisis in a marriage. I think the trick to showing a couple overcoming infidelity in fiction is to convince the reader that in the future this couple will be happy together, and that they’d have deep regrets if they separated.
November 13, 2010 at 6:19 am
Tracie, your insight into infidelity is right on.
Sam