A SELF - HELP NOVEL

By Toby Klein Greenwald and Dr. Michael Tobin

Carmen's Dilemma - One Woman's Struggle with Love, Passion and Marriage and the Two Choices She Makes

When Carmen married Dan she wasn't planning on having an affair. Her goal was to create a deeply satisfying marriage with a partner who was her friend and lover.

But something went wrong. Nothing serious at first - it rarely is - just the usual problems: work, kids, money conflicts, a promise made and a promise forgotten - the kinds of small hurts that you dismiss a dozen times until that last one pushes you into a place of bitterness and despair where you have no more explanations or forgiveness left.

That's where we find Carmen and that's why she is so ready for an affair. The affair with Eric offers the possibility of a deep emotional connection and passion.

As she stands at the threshold of his hotel room, she is torn between the desire to fulfill herself as an alive, attractive and sensuous woman on the one hand and the commitment to preserve her marriage on the other.

The Affair is composed of two parallel stories. In each story Carmen makes a different decision. Both stories deal with the attraction, consequences and solutions to marital infidelity and the marital crises that precede it.

Together we enter into Carmen's inner world and through her parallel stories we begin to understand the challenges and crises that most serious relationships eventually face.

Among the questions that the two stories deal with are:

What are the factors that can lead to an affair?

Can a couple work through the effects of an affair, and if so, how?

What is true marital love?