That's men for you Padraig O'Morain's guide to men's health: The revelation of John Prescott's affair with Tracey Temple has made him a figure of fun. This is no doubt partly due to the public's delight - reflected in the media - at catching politicians up to sexual indiscretions.
British governments of all hues appear to be well endowed with such politicians.
I do not know whether our Irish ministers are less active in that department or whether they are better at not getting caught.
But a marital affair is no laughing matter for the people involved. An affair, or the discovery of it, throws a grenade into a relationship.
By definition, we cannot know how many people have affairs - after all, affairs are conducted in relative secrecy.
Neither do we know how many affairs go undiscovered.
We know a little bit more about what happens after an affair is discovered. The outlook for the relationship is not terribly good.
Foreign statistics suggest that something like 30-40 per cent of couples separate when an affair is discovered.
Around a third of marriages end in divorce primarily for this reason.
What is even more gloomy, perhaps, is that in about 40 per cent or so of the marriages that continue, the atmosphere tends to be negative with a theme of resentment, sadness and mistrust.
Fewer than 10 per cent of marriages are actually improved by the work done by the couple following the affair.
These are gloomy statistics indeed.
They suggest that the anger, shock and feelings of betrayal that accompany the discovery of an affair have a very, very long-lasting effect. Trust, it would appear, is desperately hard to regain.
One of the patterns that characterises the aftermath of an affair is that the betrayed partner is still hurt and upset and still wants to talk about the affair long after the other partner thinks it should all be forgotten about.
The partner who had the affair will feel that he or she has already answered every question many times in the past and that it is time to move on. The betrayed partner continually seeks details about who the affair was with, where they met, how often they met, what they did with each other and so on.
One can imagine the difficulty of talking about these things in the atmosphere that follows the discovery of an affair. And yet the betrayed partner needs information desperately though I am far from convinced that sexual details will do anything more than add to the hurt.
The other thing the betrayed partner needs desperately is a reason to trust the other person again. Again the one who has had an affair will generally take the view that his or her protestations of good behaviour from now on should be taken at face value.
But there are other things that can be done. The partner who strayed can make sure that his or her whereabouts when away from home are known at all times and that he or she can be contacted on the phone at all times.
The betrayed partner can have free access to the other person's mobile phone so as to be able to check out messages and the numbers called.
This sort of thing can seem quite unreasonable to the person who had the affair. However, the fact is that texting is a key part of affairs in modern society. Many an affair has been discovered when one partner idly began to read the other partner's messages.
The partner who had the affair and who wants to retain the marriage needs to take all these extraordinary steps, and perhaps others, in order to demonstrate that he or she can be trusted.
And at some stage in the future the betrayed partner will have to soften his or her attitude towards the other person and will have to try to extend forgiveness or they may both wind up with a marriage that is not worth having.
pomorain@irish-times.ie
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.