The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

by Esther Perel

Terry Real, who has written extensively about men in relationships, describes a particular “unholy triangle” between “the powerful, irresponsible, and/or abusive father, the codependent, downtrodden wife, and the sweet son caught in the middle.” These sons, he expands, become unhealthily enmeshed with their mothers, and as adults, they “become afraid of their own range of emotions.” They are kind souls who feel they must curtail their own feelings and take responsibility for the happiness of Mom and the women who follow. Real calls this “intrusion trauma,” which lives not just in the psyche but in the body—hence its power to inhibit physical intimacy. Garth fits this pattern well, and it goes some way toward explaining why he feels so beholden to the women he loves, yet is unable to be aroused by them. The emotional resonance between his relationship with his parents and his relationship with his wife is so strong that it leads to an unfortunate cross-wiring. Hence, the feeling that sex is “wrong,” almost incestuous. When a partner starts to feel too familial, sex will inevitably be the casualty. Ironic as it may seem, at that moment the taboo of infidelity feels less transgressive than sex at home.

So too in sex, you can let go only if you trust that the other is sturdy and will be able to receive the force of your desire.

I explain to Garth that desire needs a certain degree of aggression—not violence, but an assertive, striving energy. It’s what allows you to pursue, to want, to take, and even to sexualize your partner. The prominent sexuality researcher Robert Stoller describes this kind of objectification as an essential ingredient of sexuality—not treating the other as an object, but seeing the other as an independent sexual being. It creates the healthy distance that allows you to eroticize your partner, which is essential if you want to remain sexual with a person who becomes family.

For men who are afraid of their own aggression and seek to segregate it, desire becomes alienated from love. For them, the greater the emotional intimacy, the greater the sexual reticence. Men with extreme versions of this split often end up affectionate but sexless with their partners, while avidly consuming hard-core porn or engaging in various forms of transactional sex. In these emotionless contexts, their desire can manifest freely without the fear of hurting a loved one.

Her act presents a woman who is anything but fragile. She is sexually assertive, even demanding, and never reminds him of his victimized mother or his overwhelmed wife. Her confidence and availability are a turn-on that frees him from any caretaking responsibilities. As psychoanalyst Michael Bader has written, her lustfulness allays the fear that he’s imposing his primitive, even predatory, urges on her. Hence, his inner conflict around his own aggression is temporarily lifted. He can safely let go in ways that he is unable to do with the wife that he loves and respects.

“Tell me about the beginning of your relationship. You didn’t have any trouble making love to her at first?” “Not at all. We had sex every day—sometimes a few times in a day.” “Really?” I ask. “Yeah, well, that’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it? If I don’t have sex with her every day, she’ll think I’m not into her.” “But did you want to have sex every day?” I probe. “To be honest, I didn’t always feel like it, but I did it anyway. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, but sometimes I would worry that I wasn’t going to last very long. I didn’t know if she came or if she enjoyed it as much as she had with other guys. So I got a prescription for Viagra, which Kristen didn’t know about. Sometimes I would take it even when I was naturally aroused, just to impress her.”

In the meantime, it’s little wonder that men like Scott are obsessed with performance—so are all the researchers. Studies of sexual desire are vastly skewed toward women. Why study male desire if we assume that it is always in ample supply? Hence, if the erection isn’t there, it’s a mechanical issue. We think of women’s arousal as being on a spectrum, but for men it’s all or nothing, hard or soft. None of these stereotypes is good for men’s self-esteem or their relationships.

“This macho view depicts a large, powerful, untiring phallus attached to a very cool male, long on self-control, experienced, competent, and knowledgeable enough to make women crazy with desire.”

When it comes to desire, men and women are in fact more similar than they are different. Nothing in Scott’s sexual blueprint makes me think that his sexuality is any less complicated or less emotional than the female version. Nor is it less relational. When I hear the pressure Scott puts on himself to please his girlfriend, the way he grades himself by the number of her orgasms, and his fear that she liked it better with previous boyfriends, I hear shame, performance anxiety, and fear of rejection. “What else should we call these emotions if not relational?” I ask him.

A lot can be said about the differences between prostitutes, strip clubs, full body massage, and porn, but in this sense they all yield common emotional dividends. They put men at the center of the woman’s attention, relieved of any pressure to perform and in a position where they can fully receive.

In light of the multiple emotional transactions involved in marital lovemaking, the simple equation of a few bucks for an anonymous fuck starts to seem like a better deal. When he prefers to pay to play or opts for a solo porn session, he buys simplicity and a seemingly uncomplicated identity. He purchases the right to be selfish—a brief hour of psychological freedom before hopping on the commuter train home.

needs? When a man feels lonely or unloved; when he’s depressed, stressed, or disabled; when he’s caged by intimacy or unable to connect, is it sex he buys or is it kindness, warmth, friendship, escape, control, and validation all delivered in a sexual transaction?

Sexuality is the sanctioned language through which men can access a range of forbidden emotions. Tenderness, softness, vulnerability, and nurturance have not traditionally been encouraged for men. The body is the place where they have sought to satisfy these needs disguised in a sexualized language. When we say about men that all they want is sex, maybe we shouldn’t take this literally. Sex is the entrance to their emotional antechamber.

Interestingly, the opposite may be true of women. Their sexual needs have not been culturally sanctioned, but their emotional needs are well acknowledged. Perhaps hidden in women’s pursuit of love lies a host of physical yearnings that can be justified only when wrapped in an emotional package. This turns the old...

For his part, Jonah had felt affirmed as a man by this powerful, sexy woman, and hoped she would redeem him from his geeky self-image. What a surprise, then, when he slowly realized that she wanted him to remain that guy. He had been recruited for a role he was all too good at—taking care of a woman’s needs, which was exactly what he’d done when he supported his mom through her divorce. But secretly he resented the hegemony of her wants. To be clear, neither Danielle nor his mother had ever asked for such sacrifice, but this is what loving boys do.

For years Danielle and Jonah wished for more erotic zest, but both colluded in creating the vacancy. Danielle had a real stake in keeping Jonah in a caretaking role and assuming he was incapable of roaming. By desexualizing him, she made him safe. And Jonah’s problem was not that he couldn’t sexualize his wife, it was that he couldn’t sexualize himself.

She’s reading about the guy that he is trying to be somewhere else—the guy she doesn’t want him to be at home.

When Danielle asks him if he would ever do it again, Jonah confesses that he misses the exclusiveness he felt when he was the center of Renée’s attention. And sometimes he longs for the bad boy he had just gotten to know. “I miss whatever part of me was stimulated by the secrets, the danger, the thrill. But I have decided that the great place you and I have arrived at is too valuable to put at risk.”

Working in the trenches of couples therapy has cautioned me not to impute moral superiority to a guy like Dexter just because he didn’t stray. His brand of fidelity borders on vindictiveness and codependence, and his years of treating his wife so poorly also spell betrayal with a capital B. Indeed, too many partners whose behavior is subpar will eagerly vilify the one who cheats and claim victimhood, confident that the cultural bias is in their favor. Infidelity hurts. But when we grant it a special status in the hierarchy of marital misdemeanors, we risk allowing it to overshadow the egregious behaviors that may have preceded it or even led to it.

Rodrigo couldn’t muster up an apology. He knew he hurt Alessandra when he extended a business trip for a more personal kind of business. But every time he began to say, “I’m sorry,” he would think of the years of aggressive lack of interest his wife had perfected and a feeling of justification would surge inside of him. “Who should really apologize here?” he demands.

If the first question that such scenarios typically provoke is “Why didn’t they leave?” the next predictable question is “Did they try talking about it?” In the era of democratic couples communication, we believe in the talking cure. And to be sure, there’s nothing like a good heart-to-heart to make us feel heard. But when our lamentations fall on deaf ears, the loneliness is worse than being alone. It’s less painful to eat by ourselves than to sit across the table from someone who has tuned us out.

Many despondent partners have tried every variation of talking. They started out gentle and considerate; they ended angry and defeated. When they eventually stop begging, and take their battered hearts’ desires elsewhere, their indifferent partners finally begin to take note.

Being cheated on makes people feel insignificant, but feeling insignificant for years on end may lead people to cheat.

When your partner disappears at six P.M. each day to the den with his six-pack, you have ample time to go online and look for a guy with a different kind of six-pack.

When you’re tired of fighting over every stupid thing, a colleague who appreciates your sense of humor reminds you that you were once more than just a bitch.

It may seem obvious that secretly transferring our desires outside the marital bed trespasses on our commitments. But how are we to think about those situations when the marital bed might as well have a NO ENTRY sign on the headboard? I don’t mean a general decline in frequency to once a week or even once a month. Some degree of waning desire is natural over the course of a relationship, and differences in libido are to be expected and managed. I’m talking about partners who have steadfastly been unresponsive to the sexual advances of their mates for years or even decades, even while they remain affectionate and close. Nobody wants to return to domestic rape or duty sex, but we also need to acknowledge that when one partner unilaterally decides there will be no (or very little) sex, that is not monogamy—it’s enforced celibacy.

But when sex is woefully lacking, and not by mutual agreement, it can leave a gap in an otherwise satisfying relationship that is unbearable. And when we haven’t been touched in years, we are more vulnerable to the kindness of strangers.

Brad feels at the mercy of Pam’s “I don’t feel sexy” mood. “Every night, her iPad is there between us, like a sex shield. I bought her lingerie and asked her to wear it for me, but four weeks later it’s sitting on the chair, still wrapped. She only wants to spoon, which means ‘you soothe me, then we go to sleep.’ I can’t be in a relationship where I’m so sexually frustrated, but she tells me she can’t do anything about it! She feels like she is not enough for me, although I tell her every day she is all I want.”

With or without sideshows, our sex life has been a drought for years. I find it outrageous that she insists my infidelity killed our marriage.”

Commentators on sexless marriages have decided that fewer than ten times a year might as well be nothing. Who knows how they came up with that number? Fifteen to 20 percent of couples apparently belong to this category. So if you have sex eleven times a year, consider yourself blessed. If you want to see the fate you’ve narrowly escaped, check out the popular Reddit forum deadbedrooms (membership in the tens of thousands). Big data analyst Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reports in the New York Times that Google searches for “sexless marriage” outnumber searches related to any other marital issue.

“Tell me how you were loved and I will know a lot about how you make love”

Some manage to turn the tide. But others, despite their best efforts, are unable to bring back the erotic rush. Are these couples just meant to accept that they can’t have it all—that sometimes sex is the price of preserving a family? Or is sex such a fundamental part of life that its absence warrants dismantling an otherwise loving marriage? How good can a relationship be when the sexual intimacy is gone? I’m not just talking about sex, the act: foreplay, penetration, orgasm, sleep. I mean the sensual, erotic energy that separates an adult romantic relationship from one among siblings or best friends. Does a sexless marriage inevitably set us up for infidelity? As long as both partners are okay with the situation, love can flourish and stability abounds. But when one person is filled with unmet longings that stretch from one life stage to the next, they become like dry brush waiting for a spark. Given this dual mandate of sexual fidelity and sexual abstinence, we needn’t be surprised when the lustful urge finally bursts free.

By the time I met them, Finn was sleeping with his mom in the king-size bed and Matt had scrunched up on the couch in the den. Mercedes wanted to want, but she didn’t miss it that much. As a matter of fact, she’d never been particularly into sex. And she had other priorities now. It was plain to see that they had organized around his desire and her refusal. In the beginning, he hotly pursued her and she was in the responsive role. She welcomed his advances. Gradually her interest gave way to resistance, and his wanting morphed into neediness. That was such a turnoff that it made her double down on her withdrawal. The more he begged, the more put off she was. And the more closed she was, the more clingy he became. In a classic pursuer-distancer dynamic, each of them would reinforce in the other the very behavior they abhorred.

On Monday, Matt stated his yearnings clearly. On Wednesday, he would merely hint, so as not to burden her or activate her sense of sexual inadequacy. By Friday, he would touch her so lightly that if she didn’t respond, he could pretend he’d never asked.

Inevitably his exasperation would build. Why was it all on her terms? Did she not know she was torturing him? Brooding and aching, he tried to contain his rage, but as another new year came and went, he would explode. “I’m tired of your bullshit! It’s unfair and selfish!” He knew he wasn’t going to get sex after that statement, but then again, he wasn’t going to get laid anyway, so what did it matter? At least he was getting it off his chest. If Mercedes had ever felt guilty about enforcing abstinence, now she felt entitled. “How dare you!” she would fire back. “Is that supposed to turn me on?”

Having found what he was missing, he no longer feels the need to choose. His affair is a stabilizer, a way to take the pressure off his primary relationship, not destroy it. The third party functions like a fulcrum that helps to keep the couple in balance. It allows him to avoid the Faustian bargain of losing his family or losing himself.

Consensual nonmonogamy means that both partners have equal say in the decision to take unfulfilled hankerings elsewhere. In contrast, infidelity is a unilateral decision, in which one person secretly negotiates the best deal for themselves. They may imagine that it’s the best deal for all involved—safeguarding the marriage and busting up the sexual gridlock—but it is nevertheless an exertion of power over the unsuspecting spouse. Of course, as one man countered, “When she says no every night, did I get a say in that? Who’s been making unilateral decisions here?”

In our marriage-is-for-everything culture, divorce or sucking it up tend to be framed as the only two legitimate ways to go—which makes it unsurprising that many opt for the unspoken but increasingly popular third alternative of infidelity.

“We’ll break the marriage rules that don’t work so well anymore before we’ll condone revising them.”

We’re quick to blame infidelity for the breakdown of relationships, but perhaps the more destructive factor in many cases is a dogged insiste...

For most people, the mention of sexually open relationships sets red lights flashing. Few subjects within the realm of committed love evoke such a visceral response. What if she never comes back? Can’t he appreciate the good we have and accept that he can’t have it all? What if she falls in love? Marriage is compromise! The idea that one can love one person and have sex with another makes some of us shudder. We fear that transgressing one limit leads to the potential breach of all limits.

Too many people pretend they are working on rekindling their desire. They like the idea, but they actually don’t want the reality. They want the family, the companionship, or the life they’ve built together; they don’t really want to get down and dirty with each other.

Vera checks her hair in the mirror and glances out the window. The table is elegantly set, the champagne is on ice, and the tomato salad, fresh from the garden, glistens invitingly. He said he’d be here an hour ago, but she won’t let herself call. She paces the small but elegantly appointed one-bedroom, returning to the pane to watch for his car. Even after three decades, she still anticipates the rush when she first sees him step out onto the street below. Glowing, excited, and a little nervous, she looks like any other woman in love. But she’s not any other woman. She’s the other woman. Also known as home wrecker. Man snatcher. Mistress. Secretary. Whore.

When word got out that I was writing a book on infidelity, I started receiving messages that began, “I am the lover of a married man …” “I am the proverbial other woman …” “I am the third person in the triangle …” They shared their stories, their hopes, their fears and their guilt pangs. They invited me into their dilemmas.

“How long should I wait?” “Should I force him to choose?” “How do I deal with the jealousy? The loneliness? The frustrations?” “Will his marriage always dictate the schedule of our love?” “Will I ever be able to have his child?” “I wonder if all he wants is sex. Will he ever actually choose me?” “I feel like I’m breaking the sisterhood—betraying another woman.” “He’s lying to her. How can I be sure he’s not lying to me?” “I am a good person with morals and principles, but seem to be breaking all my personal rules. Can you help?” “How can I keep pretending to my family that I’m single?” “How can I maintain my dignity?” “How can I end it? How can I not?”

Many lovers go so far as to demand sexual exclusivity from their married partners: “He lives with her, eats breakfast with her, shares a bank account with her, and goes out in public with her. Since sex is basically the main thing he does with me, at least this should be ours only.”

When she compares herself to her friends, it confirms her conclusion that she has the better half of the deal. Many of them live behind a “mask of marital satisfaction”—seemingly contented in public, but sleeping in separate beds. “I don’t think they are any better off than I am,” she says. “We’re all just stumbling around in search of happiness. We all compromise, and we all rely, to some extent, on rationalizations for staying in our relationships.”

Despite the benefits, I’ve seen over and over the heavy toll these covert liaisons take on the one who is the secret. Yes, the lover gets the lust without the laundry, but she lives without legitimacy—a position that inevitably erodes self-esteem and confidence. She feels special because he goes to such lengths to see her, but devalued by remaining unseen by others. She vacillates between feeling adored and feeling ignored. Oftentimes, psychological issues of self-worth, childhood abandonment, and insecure attachment keep her entangled. Her sense of herself as “not enough” is matched by her willingness to accept crumbs as more than enough.