It's hard to understand love because there are so many books about affairs and other things that go wrong with the heart.

Prince and princess: One day, they were going to marry. They were going to live happily ever after. The last. They're not as simple as they seem. Marriage is a lot of work. It's not the end, but another start. One that leads to a beautiful and interconnected life, but also one that can be vulnerable and disappointing at the same time.

If a couple gets married in the beginning or middle of a book, I start to get scared. They get married and there are still more pages to be read. Problems are almost always in the form of an affair. When it comes to marriage problems, books about affairs seem to be the most popular, even though there are a lot of other things that could be written about.

The reasons for having an affair are many, and not all of them mean that the marriage is over. In novels, the reader sees a lot of different reasons and consequences. When people read nonfiction, they learn how other people have dealt with problems and are given tools to help them.

The books in the list below are all about extramarital affairs and how they can be very complicated. They look at how it affects the people who are involved from a lot of different angles. List of nine nonfiction books about affairs follows. They range from memoirs to self-help books, and they all deal with affairs.

Fiction Books About Affairs

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

You can't talk about books about love and relationships without mentioning this one. A moral outcry broke out in 1857 when Madame Bovary had a sexual scene in her book. You may have learned about it in your English classes about censorship. Madame Bovary, on the other hand, is still seen as a very honest portrayal of a woman who is bored with the simple things in her life and the terrible consequences of her feelings of being trapped.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I think this book is one of Adichie's best-known ones. A lot of this book is about race, and it talks about what it means to be black in both the United States and the United Kingdom. But this is also a love story, even though it's about social issues. When a man and a woman are torn apart, they don't let things like marriage stand in the way of them getting back together.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney's first book is a big hit. It looks at the freedom and ignorance of young people. This isn't your typical book about a love story, though. An affair turns into a complicated polyamorous relationship in which none of the people involved are safe.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The winner of the 2019 Women's Prize is a book about current events that doesn't let the reader choose which side to be on. Or at least makes it very hard. Celestial and Roy are on track to live happily ever after until Roy is sentenced to time in prison for a crime he didn't do. Choose between putting her life on hold and waiting for years for Roy to come home, or learning how to not just survive, but thrive, in the years to come.

Sula by Toni Morrison

In Sula, most of the story is about friendship, social norms for women, and how a few choices can make one woman a moral person and the other a person who isn't. People in her neighborhood don't like her because she doesn't live by other people's rules. With no shame, she lives and sleeps with one husband too many, which can have very bad consequences.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

There is a word "affair" in the title, so you know it's a book about affairs. This book by Graham Greene is a classic. Maurice Bendrix looks back on the love he had with Sarah Miles. Infatuation, hatred, and then redemption are all things that he thinks about.

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

In this powerful bestseller, a woman's mental health gets worse when her husband moves in with a younger woman and doesn't tell her where he is.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

The third novel by Zadie Smith is set on both sides of the Atlantic, and it looks at family, marriage, politics, and deception in a very unique way.

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

It's a time when President Obama has won, and two couples are on the edge of revolution or acceptance. Melissa and Michael have to deal with a new baby and new marital roles. Stephanie tries to get Damian to talk about the death of his father. When you can't reach your spouse, you look for someone else.

I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum

A love story that goes backwards. Finally, failed monogamist Richard Haddon decides to give up his adulterous ways and win back the love of his life, just as she learns the full extent of them.

Nonfiction Books About Affairs

Infidelity: A Memoir by Ann Pearlman

An author and a psychotherapist, Anne Pearlman thought she knew how to keep her marriage monogamous. She didn't, though. That is, until she found out that her husband was having an affair with a married woman. This heart-wrenching memoir tells the story of how three generations of families were ruined by having affairs outside of marriage.

Undressing Infidelity: Why More Women Are Cheating by Diane Shader Smith

After hearing that 65% of married women cheat on their husbands, Diane Shader Smith sat down with 150 women to find out why. Undressing Infidelity tells the stories of 12 women, from Midwestern moms to New York City execs, who chose to be unfaithful and why.

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs by Pearl Cleage

Pearl Cleage's memoir is very interesting because it talks about how she had to balance her marriage, politics, and motherhood, and how her rise to affluence as a writer took her away from her husband.

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel

People who work with couples Esther Perel talks about the taboo subject of affairs and why they happen even in the most happy of marriages. Things that happen in the world can help us understand how complicated relationships and love are.

It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered by Lisa Terkeurst

In this book, Lisa TerKeurst tells the reader about the things that have broken her heart and hurt her friends. Yet, through it all, she tells the reader to look at how even in the worst of situations, God is still there for us.

Unfaithful: Hope and Healing After Infidelity by Gary Shriver, Mona Shriver

There are so many books about affairs because one in four marriages are affected by affairs, so it makes sense that there are so many books about affairs. It's not clear if having an affair is the end of a marriage, but is it? Gary and Mona Shriver went through the pain of infidelity and wrote this book as they tried to save their marriage. They did this in the hope that it would help other people.

The Concubine’s Children: Portrait of a Family Divided by Denise Chong

Her grandmother was taken to the New World as a concubine by a man who left his wife and children behind in China. Chong tells the truth about how she found out about this whole other family years later.

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal by Jen Waite

Jen Waite got an email that made her think that the man she had loved for years, the father of her daughter, was having an affair. There were more lies and deception found when they did more research. They found a man who had been living a lie for the past five years of their relationship.

Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton

When a marriage falls apart, Love Warrior is the story of how you can rebuild and heal so that you can once again have hope of falling in love.

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