Adultery always hurts - and I should know

This madam, a seasoned psychotherapist, not only exonerates philanderers, but turns the liars and betrayers into moral exemplars: "They have simply made a mistake and got themselves into a complicated, messy, dangerous situation. It is because they are good people that they lie awake at night feeling guilty and scared, agonising about how to avoid hurting the people they care about." Let the nation weep for these lost souls.

Stuff happens. Many marriages survive liaisons and I admire the patience and trust between couples who can still carry on. Humans have always fallen in and out of love and the unlikeliest of people - priests, teachers - can succumb to temptation. When it happens, nothing else matters.

However, we are sentient creatures with choices. Some choices cause havoc and those who make them need to admit that fact. Only nowadays they walk away from old love and any responsibility for the wreckage they leave behind.

As one of the millions betrayed then abandoned by an adulterous partner, I cannot stomach the ceaseless compulsion to shed guilt and shame, the editing-out of the hurt and chaos caused within the family, the long-term damage to kids.

Adulterers always claim the old partnership was rotting away or over before they found pleasure elsewhere. This is duplicity plus. Ex-partners are thus made to feel stupid and emotionally comatose. The truth is that a long-term relationship cannot compete when fresh flesh makes itself available. My rival was a student 14 years younger - no contest.

Then there is the culpability shifted to the victim. This author's husband had a fling, so she says: "I wasn't entirely blameless" and then concludes that such affairs can help freshen a marriage. What, like those cheap body sprays that zing you up?

I consulted the respected counsellor Philip Hodson, who says: "It is an absurd idea. Statistically it is far more likely that an affair will end your relationship than save it."

I should find out where Kirshenbaum lives and climb on to her roof in silly clothes to protest against these insults that add to the injuries of the betrayed, the hurt that stays for ever. Many, I am sure, would join me.