Add to the list of recent exposed cheaters NFL star and Today show correspondent Tiki Barber. He joins the likes of Tiger Woods, Jesse James, John Edwards – and these are just the people who’ve been exposed recently. Every time we turn around it seems someone larger than life is being brought down by confessions or allegations of infidelity. Barber announced he’s leaving his wife of 11 years (who’s eight months pregnant with twins, I might add!) for his 23-year-old mistress, a former NBC intern. It seems like the affair disease is spreading like an epidemic and I do believe infidelity and adultery can be treated like a disease, brought into the light, discussed and thereby hopefully rehabbing those who have faced it or succumbed to it. In fact, not long ago it was discovered that there’s a link between a specific gene and the way men bond to their partners, thereby making them less or more likely to be disposed to cheating.

The Infidelity Gene?

As I talk about in the book, Make up Don’t Break up, connecting infidelity to a gene, or labeling it as a disease does not give the perpetrator a free pass – it merely serves to help us better understand the cause and effect and to treat it effectively instead of continuing the trend of leaving devastated relationships in its wake. As we’ve seen, adultery is becoming an epidemic and is a disease similar to alcoholism – and it’s time to stop it. We need to stop glamorizing it, or – alternatively – bastardizing it, accept that it happens and move on. I believe that we CAN cure and forgive adultery (an idea I go into in-depth in my book by the same name.) Typically, those in the spotlight have high burn out rate and they’re looking to alleviate the pressure and stress, and nowadays with all of juggling so many things, it doesn’t take being a politician or an actor of a sports star to fall into the cycle of adultery. It feeds off what I call the biochemical craving for connection.

If you’re in the habit of not addressing your subconscious feelings, people often look instead for that next thrill-seeking high. The quest for this high becomes all-consuming even though to a rational mind the quest seems quite dangerous. Similar to alcoholics and other addicts, those who are dealing with the affair disease are frequently putting everything on the line for that next fix.

Of course there are other factors at work here – like if you grew up in a home where one of your parents was unfaithful, or if you move in circles where discreet infidelity is somewhat accepted. But some people must fight against infidelity like others fight against alcoholism or anger.

This doesn’t mean they get a free pass. The key is to acknowledge this about yourself and keep fighting it however you have to – through therapy, support groups or counseling.

I’ve been noticing a somewhat disturbing trend in the way some women interpret their sense of power. It has to do with what used to be considered shameful, and downright humiliating, but now is common practice: admitting, or even advertising, that you’re the other woman and you’re having an affair with a married man.

Now, I myself have dated a married guy. It was many years ago, when I was young and immature, and I tried to convince myself that the things he was telling me were true. I wanted to believe that he was no longer sleeping with his wife, and that he would eventually leave her for me. I wanted to believe he would make good on his promise to marry me instead.

Who Is The Victim Here?

As you might imagine, there was a lot of anxiety and heartache that went along with this relationship, but what made it even more difficult to bear is that I felt I had to go through it alone. I was way too ashamed and frightened to share my indiscretions with anyone, and it sure as hell never occurred to me to call the newspapers and advertise what was going on. During all that time we struggled through our doomed relationship, I never would have dreamed of blowing the lid off everything. Something inside me knew that even though we were in love, and even though we told ourselves and each other that it would all work out eventually, we knew we had rung a bell we couldn’t un-ring, and that eventual disaster was the most likely scenario. And the greatest victim? His wife, of course. I often feel sad about the pain she had to go through because of what we did, and that was even without anyone else knowing about it.

All For The Money

So now, fast-forward twenty years… and where are we now as a culture? Well, announcing your infidelities is not only acceptable, it’s downright fashionable! Women are coming forward in droves to alert the media of things they should more appropriately feel humiliated and regretful about. “Hey everybody, check me out, I had sex with Tiger Woods!” What a wonderful example of what womankind is willing to sink to – thank you for taking us all down with you in your trampy media frenzy. And why on earth would a woman do this to herself, behave in such a vile, disgusting manner with no regard for the feelings or lives of others? One word: money. Money is the reason these women come forward and spill to the tabloids all the details of whom they slept with and when and where. Money is the reason we know about all the details of the celebrities’ private sex lives and affairs. It all comes down to these women seeing dollar signs and not being able to listen to the voice of integrity. And this is the new type of prostitution – getting paid to share your sexual indiscretions with anyone who will listen.

Is Low Self-Esteem The Culprit?

I’m curious to consider what would cause some women to take such a gigantic step backwards in our cultural evolution – why, after so many hard-won strides forward, a woman would sabotage herself by unraveling everything we have done for ourselves and worked so hard for? It’s impossible to say. I think, though, that we can start pinpointing the cause if we look at one particular area that seems to be lacking: self-esteem. If you have no personal integrity, no desire to go out and make an honest living rather than leeching off the misery of others, then the things you tell the news reporters say a lot more about you and your infidelity than they do about the people whose lives you are ruining.