Martina Chyba Is Right: Emotional Infidelity Hurts More Than Physical Infidelity

“Sharing a bed and bits of skin is one thing. Sharing ideas, feelings and complicity is another.” For Martina Chyba, the deepest narcissistic wound comes when someone discovers that the person they love has also formed an emotionally intimate relationship with someone else.

That view of betrayal sits at the center of A Particular Date, the latest novel by the well-known RTS journalist. The book considers love after 50, when bodies change and desire becomes less straightforward.

The reviewer praises Chyba for putting into clear words feelings that people often experience only vaguely. She describes the author as examining society with a sharp eye while treating its “small arrangements with the living” with tenderness.

The narrator strongly resembles Chyba herself. Through her, the novel explores the ways people build relationships and negotiate intimacy later in life. The reviewer considers Chyba’s perspective on love and infidelity particularly convincing.

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Sharing a bed and bits of skin is one thing. Sharing ideas, feelings and complicity is another, and the deepest narcissistic wound comes when you discover that the person you love has also formed an emotionally intimate relationship with someone who is not you.