Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

In a Marriage, Who Strays and Who Stays?

Aired August 23, 2001 - 08:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: You know one of the interesting things about this story that has captured the public's imagination has a lot to do with the affair that Congressman Gary Condit told investigators he was having with Chandra Levy. And Chandra Levy's parents say Condit was indeed having an affair with their daughter. Now take a look at this, I mean, here's trouble in a marriage, and yet on the cover of "People" magazine coming up, there is Carolyn Condit standing by her man, and she joins frankly a long list of high-profile people who have gone through similar problems and yet stayed together. Remember Gary Hart? Gary and Lee Hart are still together. Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford are still together, and who can forget Bill and Hillary Clinton.

So who strays? Who stays? Why? Theories this morning from infidelity expert, and not just any expert, Helen Fisher is an anthropologist at Rutgers University and has studied this very issue.

Good morning, Helen.

HELEN FISHER, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: Good morning.

LIN: So, you know, every time the story comes up. You know, first it was Bill and Hillary Clinton, and you know, Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford had their share of headlines, and now we're looking at the situation between Gary Condit and Chandra Levy. And the question that comes to mind is, why can't these guys say no?

FISHER: Right, well, don't forget, I've looked at adultery in 40 societies, and you find it in every part of the world. Now this isn't to condone it, but it's very, very common. And every single time there is a man who is sleeping around, he is sleeping around with a woman, so it's not just a male problem, it seems to be woman's problem too.

LIN: What does it say about the women who sleep with them?

FISHER: Well, I know in America, 25 percent of men apparently have affair at some point during marriage, and something like 15 percent of women do. Now it says something about both of them.

I basically think that we've evolved three distinctly different mating emotions -- the sex drive, the craving for sexual gratification being one; the second one being the elation of romantic love; and the third being attachment, that sense of calm, and peace and security you can have with a long-term partner, and these three mating emotions aren't well connected, so you can feel deeply attached to one person while you feel romantic bliss with somebody else or feel the sex drive for a third person. So we've all inherited a very complex sort of way of attacking our love lives.

LIN: So what determines -- it's not as if everybody is out there cheating on their spouse.

FISHER: No.

LIN: What determines who cheats and who doesn't?

FISHER: I think there is all kinds of psychological reasons that people cheat. Some people want to get out of marriage. Some people want to get caught and patch up their marriage. Some people want to supplement the marriage. Some people are lonely when they're out of down. They're lots of psychological reasons.

LIN: You are saying it's in our blood. You are saying it's in human kind's blood, it's one of our basic primal instincts.

FISHER: I think we have a lot of basic drives. I think we have a tremendous drive to attach, and we also have a drive to cheat. But also we've evolved a huge part of the brain with which we make decisions. We can decide, and we can change, people can change behavior, too.

So now, of course, Gary Condit has got to really patch up his marriage, and at some point, psychologists say, he's got to toe the line and begin to behave in ways so that she trusts them. And she's got to unfortunately eventually...

LIN: She doesn't have to stay. So why would a Carolyn Condit or a Hillary Rodham Clinton stay, especially a woman like Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has own career, her own resources?

FISHER: Right. I think because many reasons, of course. Every marriage is built on all kinds of agreements that the rest of us don't know about. We don't know about her sex life, her love life. We don't know about their past. We don't know what their goals are in the marriage. But I do this as an anthropologist, that attachment, that sense of attachment, has a deep and profound network in the brain, and that these people could probably -- they might even have a somewhat happy marriage. They might be deeply attached to each other, have the same goals in life, the same outlook in life. And if they can get over this, they can go on.

So attachment is a very strong chemical system in the brain, and it can overcome something as big as adultery, but adultery is one of the main reasons for divorce around the world.

LIN: Well, at the altar, nobody said it would be easy.

Helen Fisher, Rutgers University.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com