Elder Millennial Adultery Just Hits Different

"As an elder millennial, Erin Somers has seen it all: the prosperous days of the "young urban creative"; the brief, sparkling reign of the girlboss; the inevitable crash that followed; and now... ennui. "We've become disillusioned with ambition, especially the women I know as they're approaching middle age, so I wanted to explore that," the author says of her latest, The Ten Year Affair."

""There's two paths for the modern woman: One is you're all in on your career, and the other is you're slotted into a traditional family role. [Cora] doesn't fit into either of these groups," says Somers. Instead, the one place Cora finds contentment is in an alternate timeline, where she's having an imagined affair. "Freedom, as I conceptualize it, isn't really to be found at either of the poles of career or family."

Cora, a young mother in the Hudson Valley, balances an increasingly unsatisfying marketing job with household monotony while feeling disillusioned with ambition. She does not fit the polarized expectations of being fully career-focused or relegated to a traditional family role, and she seeks contentment in an imagined affair within an alternate timeline. The novel examines the inner life as a third path to freedom, emphasizing internal imagination over external gratifications. It also probes sexual politics and relationship dynamics among creative-class couples, highlighting emasculation, maternalized partners, and gossip-fueled confessions about infidelity.

Read at Bustle