Elizabeth Landers

Why did I write this book? Is there anything new to say about affairs?

Yes and no.

No, because it’s always the same pattern, the same stories.

Yes, because the stories you hear about what happened in an affair are not the whole story. Not the true story. So exposing the true story is something new; and when you know the truth, it changes everything.

I’m often asked if this book required a lot of research. Again, yes and no.

No, because affairs are all around us—the famous, the unknown, the celebrity, the neighbor, the boss, the co-worker.

But, yes, because affairs, by definition, are secret. This means that once the affair becomes public, it’s easy to make up stories about what happened during the secret time. However, it’s the secret time where the truth is revealed.

Now, with The Affair Playbook in front of us and by extracting the facts that are revealed by public figures like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, we can put together the true story and learn what happened behind closed doors.

I wrote The Affair Playbook in order to shed new light on the emotions that define an affair and how these emotions and the restrictions and enhancements which define an affair also contain within them the seeds of destruction which may doom the relationship. These seeds include secrecy, unrealistic expectations for the future, and a creation of a story built on a foundation of lies. Only by knowing and understanding the Playbook can this damage be understood and maybe avoided.

When you learn these truths, you will not be living in the dark anymore; and you may be able to stop the damage that affairs cause in our lives and our workplaces every day.