SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I happened to see an article in the October 2017 issue of The Atlantic magazine, by Esther Perel, titled, "Why Happy People Cheat." You can Google it and read it online. She makes the point that she isn't condoning affairs, and they are painful and destructive, but people have them to get in touch with a part of themself that has been lost or downplayed. They are falling in love with a new and exciting version of themselves, rather than meaning any harm to their partner, whom they still profess to love deeply.

Okay, I tried to keep an open mind, and not have a knee-jerk reaction to the article, but as a BS, it left me feeling very upset. The one thing I kept thinking was, "Great! You are on a journey of growth and self-discovery. Awesome for you. I'm sure your betrayed spouse would love to have the same opportunity. Your spouse would love to have new experiences, too, but somehow they have enough empathy and depth of commitment to be faithful to you."

I think it is the most selfish thing to treat your spouse as a prop in your life, as if they don't have preferences and autonomy. I think it's going to be a while before I settle down.

Obviously never personally affected by infidelity either directly through a spouse or SO or in immediate family or other close relationship. Write again once you have first-hand experience, lady. We'll see if you have enlightenment.

That's rather self-indulgent...

The Chump Lady pretty much sums up my thoughts on Esther Perel perfectly.

Esther Perel doesnt' have a clue in my opinion. She gets paid to make this shit up and thats what she does.

What is her explanation for the horrible people WS's turn into during their A's or the ones that feel guilt all the time but can't stop. I guess they falling in love with the new improved them? What a load of crap.

I read some of her stuff and listened to a podcast.....she just likes to hear herself tak.

They are falling in love with a new and exciting version of themselves, rather than meaning any harm to their partner, whom they still profess to love deeply.

Well isn't that special? How wonderful for them to come to this exciting place in their lives. Not giving a shit about the possible destruction of a home and family due to their revelation of this new and exciting version of themselves.

Should we stand and cheer for them?

Give me a break.

Cheating is the lowest, cruelest, shittiest, self serving, egomaniacal, narcissitic, fucked up thing someone could do to their spouse. They check out of their marriages and families without bothering to deliver that memo to their spouse.

Fuck them.

Esther Perel pretty much always makes a point about how she's not condoning affairs... right before she goes on to condone affairs.

If you ask me, her opinion isn't worth the paper it's printed on. "Journeys to self-discovery" don't necessarily have to involve giving your unsuspecting spouse a venereal disease, PTSD, or breaking up a family, right?

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 8:41 PM, September 22nd (Friday)]

Well at the risk of sounding awful, she's right if you think about it.

If how you see yourself depends on another human being (think narcissistic social media attention whores) of course, you would need someone new. Why? Well your BS has seen your shitty underwear and heard/seen/cleaned up your puke, they know you fart excessively. They're probably not as jazzed up about your sexually because they have discovered the horror of your humanity.

A WS DOES actually need that to inflate their ego, but it sure enough it's about a self discovery. The got an air leak in their ego and needed some hot air and smoke up their ass.

As a BH, I actually found the article to be fantastically freeing, and I don't feel like anything she said absolves my WH of his accountability for what he did.

Esther writes:

> "We used to get married and have sex for the first time. Now, we get married and stop having sex with others. The conscious choice we make to rein in our sexual freedom is a testament to the seriousness of our commitment."

This resonates with me and sheds light on something of which I was not aware within myself: I'm upset that he cheated not only because he violated something sacred but because he got to go play and I didn't. Before WH and I met, we had a lot of other people. I had more than he did, and I think that's part of the reason I wanted to cheat back.

It was a mark of personal pride that I could walk into the club, pick a guy, make him my king for the evening, and then move onto the next on the following night. Perhaps that was a personality deficiency on my part that I never resolved before we were married. I just put it away, never to be spoken of again unless it came up in conversation and certainly not in his presence lest I be disrespectful to the thing we now shared. It was so important than since then, I have made it instead a mark of personal pride to turn down advances when they are offered whether drunk, stoned, or sober.

...And it hurts that he hadn't the same pride in himself, in me, or in us.

> "For these seekers, infidelity is less likely to be a symptom of a problem, and more likely an expansive experience that involves growth, exploration, and transformation. [...] Sometimes, when we seek the gaze of another, it’s not our partner we are turning away from but the person we have become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves."

Omg. That explains another aspect of why I wanted to cheat back. In feeling like I'd sacrificed ego-building play time to be with WH, I felt like that sacrifice was wasted when he cheated, and when I nearly did cheat, I got a validation from it that I felt was lost in his one-nighter. It was reinvigorating to know that I could still find a one-nighter if I wanted one, and it was like armor plating against the insecurity that came of feeling unwanted. All of a sudden, I wasn't nearly 35, showing signs of aging, and trapped in a marriage with a cheater; I was attractive, and I had the power to walk away if I felt like it. I reclaimed a piece of myself that I had put away for his sake, and instantly, I was a stronger version of myself that I liked more and could face this better.

I think that's why I ultimately didn't cheat. Going through with it would have wounded my sense of ethics, and I would not have felt good about myself regardless of the offered justification that he did it first.

> "Perhaps this explains why so many people subscribe to the symptom theory. Blaming a failed marriage is easier than grappling with our existential conundrums, our longings, our ennui."

This does a great deal to unravel my own insecurities about my WH's cheating. In unpacking what it is the WS got from the cheat, I feel like it has been explained clearly why it's not my fault that he cheated. He was bored, lonely, or hating himself, and I can accept that. I can accept that he cheated because of a flaw in his character and the way he perceives himself. I can work with that. It doesn't hurt me that he got bored. Heck, I'm bored. Let's do something about it that doesn't involve cheating. *sigh* I wish that had been a difficult conversation over dinner instead of a bunch of hurt feelings trying to figure it out because he had to be a cheater.

That article was a salve to me. Thank you for sharing it, BrokenDancer.

[This message edited by Untenable at 10:06 PM, September 22nd (Friday)]

Perel is an idiot. I wonder what her take is on serial murders or serial rapists. What psycho-babble will she offer up for them?

Please!!!

Seriously though she is part of the problem. Stop justifying cheating. Stop blaming your bad childhood or alcoholic mother or poverty or stress. I am sick of it already.

Cheating is a choice. Plain & simple fact. The cheater made a CHOICE to cheat. Just like you make a choice to eat spaghetti for dinner.

People know right from wrong. A one way street is a one way street and if you drive down it the wrong way - suffer the consequences!!

And yes I coukd have cheated on my H during our entire M. I look young for my age and I still get plenty of opportunities. The difference is that I always told my H about them b/c my opinion of that person just changed.

I now view them as pigs. No integrity or morals. Just low life bottom feeders. Not interested!!

A revenge A (IMO) only adds to your problems. Because now you don't have the integrity and class you once had. You are now as bad as the CS.

My Motto is "be classy". Hold your head up high and no matter how people treat you - act with class and pride. Don't be like the losers. Be better than that.

I would never have an A. It doesn't resolve anything and would not make me happy.

My opinion is that reasons don't matter. To even say there are reasons is to state the obvious. Of course cheaters have reasons. Maybe even rational sounding ones. Maybe Perel has those "reasons" nailed perfectly.

The issue for me on cheating is that reasons are irrelevant to to the outcomes, and since it is the outcomes of cheating that matters, the discussion of reasons is moot. I don't think she is saying that because of the reasons, that cheaters get a pass.

In my view "Why Happy People Cheat" is an unimportant question. Maybe a better why question is "Why Cheaters Destroy the Lives of Those They Love". That would be a more productive "why" question and book.

Yep. The better question is definitely "Why cheater hurt they people they say they love?

I asked my wh that and his answer was probably what most say " I don't know".

Maybe another book is "Whey people don't consider consequences before damaging others". Or maybe

"Learn to think before you act"

From the article -- this:

"Secluded from the responsibilities of everyday life, the parallel universe of the affair is often idealized, infused with the promise of transcendence."

My wife's affair was an escape from responsibility, on this we have agreed. She didn't like the support and advice I was offering to help her through a couple of frustrating issues she was having at the time, so she chose the one person she knew who would not mind hearing her complain about her problems without doing anything to address them -- simply because her AP/ex-gf was just happy to have time with her! Her ex was always "happy to see her, just happy to be with her," and my wife says that is part of the reason she continued the affair, even when she knew in her heart it was wrong. My wife owed her no responsibilities, and that made her the one she chose to be with as often as there was opportunity.

"It seems to me that in the past decade, affairs with exes have proliferated, thanks to social media. These retrospective encounters occur somewhere between the known and the unknown—bringing together the familiarity of someone you once knew with the freshness created by the passage of time. The flicker with an old flame offers a unique combination of built-in trust, risk taking, and vulnerability. In addition, it is a magnet for our lingering nostalgia. The person I once was, but lost, is the person you once knew."

And this! One of the first things I recall her saying when I asked, "why her?" was that they were familiar, and she didn't have to do anything to get to know her. Even with a toxic history, my wife liked that she didn't have to bring a new friend up to speed; her ex was perfectly happy to sit and talk as long as possible because she loved having my wife back in her life! I am afraid I have learned it was pretty easy for my wife to fall back into many of their old patterns, when I thought our 15 years had changed the locks and erased those old connections. It has been devastating to learn this. And while the affair was not engaged in for sex, I think the "risk-taking" of seeing the one person on Earth that my wife knew would devastate me, and their familiarity with each other, created a sensual tension (my wife says she felt no attraction to her ex, but did find her wakening things she thought were dead) that kept her interest for most of the six months. I think the pursuit was part of the escape from responsibility. And when the familiarity began to resemble the old issues and problems, my wife says she wanted it to end.

delete bc posted on wrong thread

[This message edited by TheBish at 8:53 AM, September 23rd (Saturday)]

...people have them to get in touch with a part of themself that has been lost or downplayed.

I believe it's the opposite for a large group of WSes - they cheat in order to avoid a part of themselves that they suppressed.

I haven't read the whole article, but it sounds like she may not condone As, but she sure romanticizes them.

but she sure romanticizes them

^^^^this^^^^

They are falling in love with a new and exciting version of themselves

ummm... ok

yeah like a fun-house mirror self, drunken addict part that believes in rainbow farting unicorns

sure that get's defined as "new and exciting"

turn on the lights and "pop" it was all fantasy... since lurve of that cheating version ain't connected to an authentic relationship

I think I will take what my husband wrote

"after much thinking and praying I realize what a spiritual poverty it is to ever think any kind of happiness can be built on the pain and ruin of another...through my terrible behavior and relationship with you I added not love but self-hatred to the mix"

yeah, now that sums up infidelity IMO

self-hatred

As a BH, the first half of her article was really difficult to read without wanting to throw my laptop, and I think a lot of BSs here aren't getting past that point. The good stuff is in the last half of the article. A commenter above me mentioned that she felt self-hatred summed up infidelity well. The author of the article addresses that in the last half, and the first half makes better sense.

The issue here for me as a BH is that I don't want my WH to have any 'good' reasons for cheating because then I feel like there's a justification. I agree that it is a choice to cheat much like it's a choice to eat spaghetti for dinner. Why did H want spaghetti for dinner though? How long has it been since he last had spaghetti? Did he see an ad that made him hungry for it? If I know why he wants spaghetti, but I'm not in the mood for it, I can find something else that will suit his craving. Maybe pasta, in general, will suffice. Maybe we can go out to a restaurant so he can have what he wants while I have what I want.

If I know why my H cheated, I can learn something about him. I can learn the way he ticks. I can make a more informed decision about whether I want to divorce him because I can make a determination about whether or not I'm prepared to accept his random spaghetti cravings and what drives them.

Folks, this article isn't about making it okay that a WS cheated. It's about what was going on in their head that pushed the decision. Yes, these things seem ridiculous to us who are BSs, but they were, in our WS's fog, important and driving factors that needed attention. Those factors were given a voice in the A where the WS felt they couldn't express such a voice in the M. That's a very clear breakdown in communication. Why didn't my WH want to share those fears and insecurities with me? Was he afraid of me? Again, the answers to those questions don't make the A okay; they simply tell us what work needs to be done on the part of the WS to keep it from happening again. As someone dedicated to R with my WH, I feel like it's important for me to know that so I can see what progress actually looks like for him and have some assurance that it's truly being made.

[This message edited by Untenable at 4:10 PM, September 23rd (Saturday)]

We must take into consideration that Esther Perel is considered an "expert" on sexuality and relationships, and a subset of that is infidelity. Her hows and whys of infidelity often explore the raw core drives that factor into cheating . . . and we all know that the closer we get to the truth, the rawer and uglier it becomes. Her writings are challenging to BSs for that reason. I agree that much of what she writes comes across as seeking excuses for the WS, but i think she means to delve into the deeper meanings of affairs . . . something that is not simple, as we all know!

I am not apologizing for her, as often she speaks and writes about sexual exploration in such a way as to give the impression it is all okay. But if we ignore that our wayward partners may have experienced excitement and awakenings in their various affairs, I think we would be missing an opportunity to see them honestly.

I know it hurt to hear that my wife was curious to see if she could still get her ex-gf off sexually. Why did she have that desire in the first place, after over 16-17 years away from her ex? Ouch! That hurts. But if it is the truth, I want to know. She didn't just trip and fall face-first into her ex's crotch that day! She was weak and wimpy and for a moment, oh-so betraying of her vows that she entertained her ex's need to rebel against her own mother by initiating sex while her mom was home, just down the hallway. I have spent almost two years analyzing that set of circumstances . . .and yes, some of Perel's theories play out in that ugly scene.

Wow I find Esther to be full of BS. She is obviously a narcissistic POS and has nothing to back up her rediculous conclusions. Except for the part that the WS feels new again. Ugh I want to vomit 🤢 on her head.

There is another thread in this forum that identifies the fact that EP holds a degree not in psychology, but 'Expressive Arts'. Not to say that a psychologist can identify absolute, indisputable truths, but EP is basically a chancer who is earning very nicely out of pretending to be more of an authority on infidelity than any other person on the street. The fact is, she isn't. I am sure that her 'product' makes a lot of cheaters feel good, but is there really any validity in it?

Here's a simple question that I hope will re-define the debate here. If someone could explain, at passionate length, the thrill and pleasure that Ted Bundy got from killing young women, does it, in any way, make what he did right?

And if EP explains the thrill and pleasure a cheater gets from cheating, does it, in any way, shape, or form, redeem the action of cheating?

For me, it doesn't.

I really don't need to hear why a burglar enjoys making money from selling stolen goods, or to hear why a rapist gets his kicks from his power trip, while his victim screams, because that knowledge does not in any way excuse or justify the damage that those actions do to the victims.

EP seems far more interested in the joys and motivations of the perpetrator, as if that means something, or anything, beyond callous, cruel, uncaring selfishness. For me, that stinks.

I don't care about the how's and why's that someone used to enable themselves to do something disgusting to another human being. The whole debate is worthless. But if you can hit on a subject like making guilty people feel better about themselves, you can make a lot of money. Ker-ching!