The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

by Esther Perel

The intricacies of love and desire don’t yield to simple categorizations of good and bad, victim and culprit. To be clear, not condemning does not mean condoning, and there is a world of difference between understanding and justifying. But when we reduce the conversation to simply passing judgment, we are left with no conversation at all.

But more often, what I see are scores of committed men and women with shared histories and values—values that often include monogamy—whose stories unfold along a more humble human trajectory. Loneliness, years of sexual deadness, resentment, regret, marital neglect, lost youth, craving attention, canceled flights, too much to drink—these are the nuts and bolts of everyday infidelity.

Some infidelities are petty rebellions, sparked by a sense of ennui, a desire for novelty, or the need to know one still has pulling power.

Love is messy; infidelity more so. But it is also a window, like none other, into the crevices of the human heart.

But then they ask, “Did we really have to go through an affair just to be able to be truly honest with each other?” I hear this often and share their regret. But here’s one of the unspoken truths about relationships: for many couples, nothing less extreme is powerful enough to get the partners’ attention and to shake up a stale system.