I have been asked how, on Valentine's Day of all days, Eliot Spitzer could move with immediacy  from contact with a hooker to a public embrace of wife and daughters, not that much younger than the hooker. 

It is because of a psychological adaptation known as compartmentalization.  People who use it keep the various parts of their lives zipped up tightly, using enormous energy not to let them collide, which they inevitably will.  Often explosively. 

Think Bill Clinton.  But in Clinton's case he seems to have had a relationship with the women we know about, one where he showed involvement and caring.  Those who consistently choose hookers want a clean, incisive  break, no responsibly, no looking back.  Just zipping up, walking away, and moving on. Often with a squeaky clean cover and a public condemnation of the very way they are living.

Read SaraKay's commentary on Silda Spitzer