AMERICAN GENIUS

When you care enough to risk everything ... (Alex Johnson, MSNBC, August 17th, 2005)

It is a greeting card, decorated with a depiction of purple flowers. Inside:

“My soul has been searching for you since I came into this world”.

“All my life I have had this emptiness inside, like a part of me was missing and I was incomplete ...”

“And now I can’t imagine my life without you ... Even if I have to share you.”

Even if I have to share you?

This, clearly, is not a card for the wife — not the sender’s wife, at least.

In fact, it is specifically for anyone but the wife. Called “My Lover,” the card is one of 24 in the Secret Lover Collection, published by a former advertising executive in Bethesda, Md., named Cathy Gallagher. If you are having an extramarital affair, Secret Lover cards can make it an affair to remember.

Gallagher hit upon the idea a couple of years ago. Like most couples, she and her husband had friends whose marriages had been affected by extramarital affairs, with all their attendant “conflict and emotional intensity,” she said in an interview.

“I’m thinking, ‘So how do these people communicate? It’s a secret love affair,’” Gallagher said. “So I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, what better can you do than give someone your sentiments in a greeting card? How special is that?’”

Very.