Living on the Edge? : Couples caught up in high-profile scandals face private trials at least as grueling as the public ones. Just ask Rosario Ames.

Theirs was a relationship built on a common devotion to literature, philosophy, history--and their 5- year-old son. And acts of espionage, according to the United States government.

From her jail cell, she says she is distraught and depressed, but still loveshim. He--in the same jail, different cell--says he has “still very warm” feelings for her, according to his lawyer.

Yet if the allegations are true against Aldrich Ames, a former CIA counterintelligence officer, and his wife, Rosario, they risked their love, their country--and their son--to spy for the Russians for a few million dollars. Rosario Ames has denied working for the Russians; Aldrich Ames has denied committing espionage, according to one of his lawyers, Preston Burton.

The Ames case--like the cases of convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Jonathan Pollard and John Walker--offers a fresh look at how such charges can shatter a family.

When spouses or lovers are involved together in high-stakes treachery they “are living on the edge,” said attorney Theodore Olson, one of the lawyers who represented Pollard, convicted of passing defense secrets to Israel in 1987.

Spying “becomes a perilous, hazardous, nerve-racking, emotional enterprise that affects everything about the relationship. They have things only they can talk about between themselves. They live a completely separate life from people they talk to and associate with,” Olson said.

“They know that each person, by a misstep or misspoken word or something spoken in anger, can put the other person’s life at stake,” he added.

“In one sense, it draws a couple very close together. On the other hand, because there are such strains . . . it makes their relationship under constant jeopardy.”

Couples who are accused of nefarious acts that put them, their loved ones, and even their country, at great risk fit a unique psychological profile, according to national security experts and psychologists.

People who engage in such risky business as espionage and betrayal are generally “narcissist, ego-driven and self-absorbed,” said national security expert Loren Thompson, deputy director of national security studies at Georgetown University.

“They live in almost a fantasy--a narcissist fantasy--that what they are doing is perfectly all right,” said Los Angeles psychologist and author Marion Solomon. “They lose track of the reality of what they are doing. They get to the point where they believe they are above ethics and morality.”

This loss of morality can play havoc with any marriage--whether the couple are accused spies or simply people who feel justified in cheating on each other, said Solomon, author of “Narcissism and Intimacy, Love and Marriage.”

“They think only about ‘what’s good for me.’ Then they proceed to do it. But when they get caught, they wake up and suddenly get very upset with the other person for allowing this to happen.”

Former FBI behavior specialist Richard Ault, who has studied the psychological makeup of spies and other criminals, observes that often those who engage in such activities are so narcissistic and hedonistic that even their concern for their children is different from that of many parents.

“The child is viewed as an extension of themselves,” Ault said.

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Espionage as a family activity is not new. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for espionage in 1953 in what then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called the “crime of the century.”

But the debate continues over their guilt or innocence of conspiring to transmit atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs’ sons, who were ages 6 and 10 when their parents were executed, as well as some historians and scholars, have contended that the couple were framed. Others believe there is evidence to indicate that Ethel Rosenberg was charged in the case as a way to convince her husband to talk.

Another case involved Pollard, a former Navy counterintelligence analyst, who, along with his wife, Anne, was accused of passing defense secrets to the Israelis. At the time of his arrest in 1985, Pollard tried to take the blame, in hopes of winning more favorable treatment for his wife. They both pleaded guilty in connection with the case, but she was released from prison early after he agreed to cooperate. The couple eventually divorced. Pollard remains in prison; his wife is reportedly living in Israel.

John H. Walker Jr. pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life in prison for his role as the leader of a spy ring that included his brother, his son and another man.

Ultimately, Walker’s daughter, Laura Walker Snyder; and ex-wife, Barbara, turned him in to authorities and he was arrested in 1985. The daughter testified in court that her father had tried to recruit her and had once threatened to kill her estranged husband because the man knew Walker was a spy, selling Navy secrets to the Soviets.

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Rosario Ames, 41, knows only too well the pain of being accused of such high-stakes crimes.

As she and her 52-year-old husband sit in the Alexandria, Va., city jail awaiting possible federal grand jury indictment or a plea bargain, Ames has seen her world collapse.

“I’m still trying to understand . . . why this disaster came to pass, what happened to our life,” a tearful Rosario Ames said during a jailhouse interview this week.

The Colombian-born woman said she has never worked for the Russians and has no knowledge of her husband’s intelligence activities.

Her feelings toward her husband and the devastation she feels over being separated from her son are overwhelming, she said.

“I have gone through a lot of different phases. From anger, resentment, bitterness” toward her husband. Her predominant feelings now are “great sadness . . . bewilderment or confusion.”

Asked if she still loves her husband, she responded: “Yes, I think so. I still love him.”

“When you’ve been in a love relationship with a person you’ve lived with for almost 10 years, your feelings are, obviously going to be very complex. You can’t say I hate him, I love him, I misjudged him--it’s a mixture of everything. Maybe sadness would be the word.”

Aldrich Ames’ attorney, Plato Cacheris, said his client’s feelings for his wife “are still very warm.” He is “understandably concerned about his wife and son.” Cacheris declined to allow Ames to be interviewed.

Aldrich and Rosario Ames could face spending the rest of their lives in prison if convicted of espionage.

The Times previously reported that Aldrich Ames has indicated willingness to cooperate with investigators if they recommend leniency for his wife.

Rosario Ames said she is not faring well in jail. She said she has been treated with medication and counseling for depression since her arrest. Being separated from her child is what disturbs her the most, she said.

Whenever she spoke of her son, Paul, during the interview her lips trembled and she began to cry. The boy has since been taken by his maternal grandmother to live in Colombia.

Neither parent has seen the boy since their arrest. They did not want him to see them in jail.

When FBI agents came into their Arlington, Va., home the morning of the arrest, Rosario Ames said Paul couldn’t take his eyes off all the men with walkie-talkies.

She said she didn’t cry in front of her son and tried to say goodby in a normal fashion so as not to alarm him. But once they put the handcuffs her and put her in the car, she broke down. “I was crying all the time,” in the car, she said.

“He’s a very smart little boy; he knew something was not right,” she said.

Although Rick Ames has been described in the press as having had a lackluster 31-year career in the CIA, his wife had some words of praise for him as an individual and a father.

“He is very intellectual sort of person. . . . We had so much in common--literature, philosophy, history. He’s very cultured. That was why I was attracted to him.”

As a dad, he’s “the best,” said Rosario Ames. “That’s going to be a toughie for both us.”