An economic slump and a move away from the tradition when factories and offices shut for August have forced many couples to take at least part of their holidays separately. The result, says Miriam Tomponzi, chairwoman of Italy’s best-known private eye agency, is a wealth of amorous opportunities for stay-at-work wives.
“These women are not predators, it’s just that summer is the time when they really want to break away from the daily routine,” said Tomponzi, who has had to hire extra temporary staff to help suspicious men keep tabs on their wives. “When the husband’s away, and especially when he takes the kids with him, these women suddenly find they have the means to do that.”
Tomponzi — who is capitalising on her fame in Italy by opening her own academy for sleuths — estimates that the number of women embarking on affairs while their husbands are on holiday has risen by 30- 40% over the past three years.
Evasion techniques need to be ingenious, given Italy’s predilection for mobile phones. A female member of parliament whose husband was away at the seaside would call him on her mobile phone a few minutes before trysts with her lover. “Darling, I’m about to go into a meeting,” she told him.
She was then free to switch off the phone.
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Another adulterer, a successful businesswoman, would use a device that supplied alternative backdrops to her mobile phone conversations, including office, airport and railway station noises.
According to a survey of 700 couples by the Observatory on the Family, a private research body, 15% of married men on holiday are betrayed by their wives who remain at home. “Women have learnt to treat sex like a good meal and they go with nonchalance from one to another,” said Willy Pasini, a sexologist and author.
According to Tomponzi, there is no shortage of would-be seducers. “In Italy, many men feel they almost have a duty to woo beautiful women,” she said. “The men worry that otherwise they will seem asexual or homosexual.”
Affairs, increasingly consummated on the first date, are a lucrative source of business for Tomponzi. They account for 15% of her turnover even though in most cases the liaisons are short-lived and the marital relationship endures.
Tomponzi, who studied criminology at Cambridge and has spent 30 years in the detective business, ran through a few do’s and don’ts for wives conducting affairs. She suggests buying a second mobile phone for sending potentially incriminating text messages and paying cash to avoid embarrassing entries on bank statements or credit card slips.
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Her best advice to men anxious to ensure that their wives remained faithful was simply to be good husbands: “Make marriage a continuous game, even if there are problems with the kids and the mortgage. Woo your wife, surprise her the way you did when you first courted. And keep her on her toes by making her a little jealous every so often. Jealousy is a strong aphrodisiac.”
Alternatively, husbands could enrol at the Tomponzi Academy, a school for sleuths that will open in October. Those who have signed up for the first £2,350, six-month course include industrialists, magistrates, lawyers and policemen. They will learn how to inspect their telephones and computers for listening devices, how to encrypt their e-mails and how to make their bodyguards pass unnoticed.
Asked whether she was worried about infidelity, Tomponzi replied: “I’m in love and faithful. And so is my boyfriend.” For the past year he has been working under her authority as the company’s vice-chairman.
He would have a hard time hiding an affair from her. Helped by a friendly dentist, she once had a listening device installed in the mouth of her former husband to show him what she was capable of.
“He kept saying I couldn’t do this or I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I’m competitive by nature, I wanted to prove him wrong. So I put the mike on his tooth. It recorded everything, chewing and all. Luckily there was nothing to worry about.”