The title INFIDELITY is a little misleading. In truth, the content of the book can really be summed up as Being Cheated On. Ann Pearlman, ironically a marriage and family therapist who had her 15 minutes of fame appearing on "Oprah" to teach married women how to "keep the flame alive," is the voice we follow throughout this lifetime of coping with the agonizing rejection of unfaithful men. Not to be too snide --- there is certainly real pain in this book, and the deep wounds of a philandering father and an unfaithful husband run deep in Pearlman, sometimes inspiring insightful meditations on the influence of men on the lives of women. Unfortunately, more often Pearlman seems to want to beat her readers over the head with how "predetermined" her husband's affair seems and how unavoidable her own drawn-out and often melodramatic reaction to it.

Pearlman's experiences with infidelity are not uncommon from the everyday lives of many people: Her father was a Don Juan who would unabashedly flirt with waitresses and scantily clad ladies in front of her increasingly depressed and downtrodden mother. Pearlman spent her formative years alternately loathing and idolizing her dad, playing out, as she often indicates, some kind of Freudian archetypal attraction and repulsion with him. While in college and graduate school, Pearlman swears that she will not suffer an unfaithful mate but still finds herself playing out that dramatic pull-and-push with other dangerously attractive and flirtatious men --- men like her father. Enter Ty, football star, artist, and "poet" (although, Pearlman renders his speech in Hallmark-like fashion). He is a towering sexpot of a man, adept at both touchdown receptions and dancing the "mashed potato." Ty and Ann embark on a 30-year marriage, one that appears incredibly placid and ideal, even despite the fact that they are an interracial match and, at first, are unable to conceive children and must adopt.

Obviously, things fall apart fairly late in the game for these two --- a situation that is doubtless deeply puzzling and shocking for Pearlman. Here she has been on national television, pitching her tried-and-true method for maintaining a marriage, and suddenly, Ty begins sneaking off with another artist who insouciantly flaunts her big diamond stud earrings and wealthy Japanese husband. It is a startling blow to Pearlman, who assumed she could control her husband and her marriage by being the dutiful wife, the happy homemaker, the marriage "expert," while all the while she was somehow in the grip of forces beyond her control.

Or so she tells it. There can be no doubt that, for the most part, the infidelity of a partner is something a spouse cannot prevent. Moreover, there is some truth to the notion that a child who has witnessed her father's infidelity might have a strong subconscious pull to repeat the same pattern in choosing a mate who is somehow prone to betray. But here's where Pearlman's explanation gets weak: her argument rests too much on "proclivities," hidden tendencies, and inevitabilities. Ty was destined to cheat on her both because he had a troubled childhood of his own and, Pearlman avers, because of the very fact that she --- a child of infidelity --- chose him.

It's all too pat and determined, and crushingly fatalistic. While it is true that Pearlman was scarred by her childhood, that does not necessarily mean that she was bound to have those wounds re-opened in adulthood. Moreover, she has complete control over her own reaction to Ty's infidelity; yet it is precisely her reaction that evinces her most unexamined and puerile behavior of all. Instead of trying to protect her own 10-year-old daughter from hearing of Ty's affair, she openly and sarcastically tells the young girl that he was doomed to stab them both in the back. Rather than entering into therapy herself, or giving Ty an ultimatum, Pearlman walks about in a catatonic state, barely eating, barely taking care of her life and her c hildren, and still clasping to Ty --- up until he decides to leave for good. While it is impossible to fault Pearlman her actions --- and heaven knows how anyone would deal in such circumstances --- it is rather necessary to fault her presenting this as a sound approach to the ending of a marriage. Pearlman dwells somewhat self-indulgently over dreams of herself crucified, and the self-pity carries on far too long. The book, in the end, reaches this unsatisfying conclusion: "You never know what's going to happen next. A sudden storm or a glorious sunset." Surely, our own actions do play some part in shaping our lives; we're not victims of infidelity in the same way that we're victims of violent rain showers.

Readers of INFIDELITY need not enter into this journey skeptical of Pearlman's tale; they should merely be aware that this is merely one woman's faulty journey. Although Pearlman is somewhat of an authority on human relationships, she is, like all of us, by no means immune to their pitfalls.