CLEARY: The subtitle of your book is “Rethinking Infidelity.” Why do we need to rethink it, and why now?ĮSTHER PEREL: If I ask a group of people, “How many of you have been affected by infidelity in your life?” about 85 percent will raise their hand. I met with Perel on “the couch” - a very comfortable sofa where her clients open up to her about their deepest secrets and betrayals - in her New York City office, steps from The Museum of Sex, where we discussed adultery and existential crises. The State of Affairs takes a fresh look at infidelity, broadening the focus from the havoc it wreaks within a committed relationship to consider also why people do it, what it means to them, and why breaking up is the expected response to duplicity - but not necessarily the wisest one. There are many ways spouses disengage from one another, and having a secret affair can be one of the most devastating.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.Īnd though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.Īlmost 100 years later, Belgian relationship therapist Esther Perel applies similar thinking to adult relationships in her second book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity : “Our partners do not belong to us they are only on loan, with an option to renew - or not.” This approach, she says, doesn’t compromise the commitment, but rather encourages us not to take our partners for granted. IN A 1923 poem by the Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran, he writes:

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