When you care enough to risk everything ...

Celebrating adultery?
Gallagher says she doesn’t talk about the social implications: “I’m neither a crusader nor an advocate for this lifestyle. I’m a businesswoman.” As for her critics, she says, “People are entitled to their opinions.”

But specialists in family and marital relations have their doubts, noting that the divorce rate has risen above 50 percent in recent years.

“It seems to me really crude to use a greeting card to celebrate what, in the 16th century, was an offense by which you would be publicly hanged in the town square,” said John Mayoue (pronounced May-you), a divorce and family lawyer in Atlanta. 

Dr. Robert R. Butterworth, a psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in reactions to traumatic stress, could only laugh when told about the Secret Lover Collection.

“I can see trouble ahead,” he said. “This will be a boon for marriage therapists all across the nation, because [the cards] are going to wind up in the wrong hands. They’re going to go to the wrong address, and they’re not going to self-destruct.”

When is a secret not a secret?
For the Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway, an interfaith minister in New York, the point of sending your secret lover a Secret Lover card is hard to grasp.

“It’s not cute. It’s sad,” said Brockway, author of “Wedding Goddess: A Divine Guide to Transforming Wedding Stress Into Wedding Bliss.” “I thought the idea of having a secret lover was just that — it is secret. These cards negate the idea of sneaking around. They leave a paper trail.”

Secret Lover Collection Ready to move on? There’s a card to help you break things off.

And that, said Mayoue, the divorce lawyer, is not a smart thing for an adulterer to do.

With cell-phone records, Mayoue said, he can “circumstantially prove the adultery.” But with greeting cards, “I’m not just going to prove it circumstantially; it’ll be graphic. I would ask them which card this person chose and what the sentiments were, and then I’ll have it in their own words.

“If I’m the company, I’m probably going to have a full-time lawyer on staff just to respond to subpoenas,” he said. (Gallagher said she’d already thought of that and did have lawyers on call.)

Butterworth, meanwhile, said the unforeseen consequences of sending a card to your lover could go much deeper than just an expensive divorce settlement or public embarrassment, especially because “the recipient may not welcome it.”

“What those cards are saying is: ‘Oh, my God, they’re getting romantically involved. I’m getting really scared now,’” Butterworth said. “... Women are sometimes afraid to break it off because they are afraid of what [the other party] will do.”

His solution? “I’d feel a little better if they also had a division of ‘breaking it off’ cards. ... Maybe they should have a couple [of cards] that say, ‘We had a great time, but I realize that we need to move on.’”

Secret Lover has it covered: For $3.99, you can tell your paramour: I can’t go on like this ...

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