The Woman Who Can Make Affairs Disappear

Modern Love

The New York Times

Love, New York Times, Nytimes, Essay, Loss, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Redemption, Nyt

4.3 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In cities across China, there’s a special kind of consultant you can hire if you find out your spouse is cheating. They’re called “mistress dispellers,” and their job is to work their way into your spouse’s life, get close to their lover and convince the pair to break it off. When all goes according to plan, the cheaters end up believing it was their idea to end the affair. In this episode of “Modern Love,” the filmmaker Elizabeth Lo tells Anna Martin what it was like to embed herself with a mistress dispeller over the course of three years. Lo explains some of the secrets to the mistress dispeller’s success, and why working on the project played a role in her own breakup. Lo’s documentary “Mistress Dispeller” is in select theaters today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Anna. Before we start the show, I want to ask you a question. And please,
0:06.2	don't be offended if it sounds a little direct, okay? Here goes. Are money issues affecting your
0:11.5	relationship? Money can be awkward and sensitive to talk about how much to save, how much to spend,
0:17.8	who makes the decisions about what. But if you're not talking about money,
0:22.0	you can cause even bigger problems. We have an episode coming up soon where I'll be talking to
0:27.2	Ramit Satie. He hosted the Netflix show How to Get Rich. He's written books on personal finance,
0:32.6	and he's especially good at helping couples resolve their differences around money and start to actually
0:38.1	enjoy talking about it. If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, please send us a
0:43.4	short voice memo. Tell us about a moment you and someone you loved had tension around money.
0:48.4	It could be your partner, it could be a family member. Tell us what happened to set it off,
0:52.6	what you said to each other, or didn't say,
0:55.1	and how you felt about all of it. We might play your voice on the show and hear Rameet's advice
0:59.9	on what you can do differently. Please email your voice memo to Modern Love Podcast at
1:05.3	NYTimes.com by November 3rd. There's instructions in our show notes. Please check those out.
1:11.0	All right, here's today's episode.
1:14.9	Love now and all.
1:16.5	Love was stronger than anything.
1:20.4	For the love, love.
1:21.5	And I love you more than anything.
1:24.5	You're still love.
1:25.5	Love.
1:44.5	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. And on our show, infidelity comes up a lot. So much so that I got to be honest, I kind of thought I'd heard it all. But I recently learned about a way to handle getting cheated on that was totally new to me.
	...

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