SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Never before have our expectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide—security, respectability, property, and children—but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends and trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot.

Contained within the small circle of the wedding band are vastly contradictory ideals. We want our chosen one to offer stability, safety, predictability, and dependability. And we want that very same person to supply awe, mystery, adventure, and risk. We expect comfort and edge, familiarity and novelty, continuity and surprise. We have conjured up a new Olympus, where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling, and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul. And the long haul keeps getting longer.

We also live in an age of entitlement; personal fulfillment, we believe, is our due. In the West, sex is a right linked to our individuality, our self-actualization, and our freedom. Thus, most of us now arrive at the altar after years of sexual nomadism. By the time we tie the knot, we’ve hooked up, dated, cohabited, and broken up. 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. By turning our back on other loves, we confirm the uniqueness of our “significant other”: “I have found The One. I can stop looking.” Our desire for others is supposed to miraculously evaporate, vanquished by the power of this singular attraction. (from Esther Perel’s book The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity)

I disagree with Esther Perel. She seems comfortable in redefining what marriage is within modern society. All a psychotherapist has to do is snap one’s fingers and declare it so and it is so.

I definitely entered marriage with a certain mindset. First, marriage is for life. I got married because I had found the one. We dated for two years and, despite perceived shortcomings, I asked her to marry me. I agreed to forgo all others and remain dedicated to her. She made the same agreement.

She wanted to be a SAHM. I have been the major bread winner for most of our marriage with her choosing to go to work much later in life. There were no expectations other than love, respect, fidelity and support.

All that was blown to hell.

I am sure infidelity has been around forever. But it seems to me that infidelity has become rampant and sadly accepted by society. It is promoted by Hollywood. It seems to be sanctioned by some churches and ignored by others. Society’s icons are often on their third or fourth marriages and still in affairs. No one seems to care.

Based on my utter disbelief at Ms. Perel’s quoted comments, I would like to ask SI members, BS and WS what they expected out of marriage and when, where and how it went wrong.

We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide—security, respectability, property, and children—but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends and trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot.

Shouldn’t we want the following from our partners:

To love us?

To desire us?

To be interested in us?

Shouldn’t we be:

Best friends?

Trusted confidants?

And passionate lovers?

In your own words please tell me what marriage is/was to you? Did you have expectations? Were you expectations reasonable?

Our desire for others is supposed to miraculously evaporate, vanquished by the power of this singular attraction

Esther Perel is full of shit. Marriage isnt based on some lunatic belief that desire for others is magically vanquished by the power of a singular attraction. In fact, marriage fully recognizes that desire for others will always he present. Marriage is therefore a sober, clear-eyed promise to forsake all others. That promise is expressly included in marriage vows specifically because of the recognition that temptation will be ever present.

Esther Perel has made a career trying to normalize infidelity. Wayward love her. But making something normal doesn't make it right. As an analogy, obesity is now normal in the US. However, physicians still view it as a health problem.

For those who wish to continue being sexual nomads, the answer is simple: dont get married.

Or, fashion marriage vows that expressly allow extramarital sex, like some people do in open marriages. Be mindful of your promises.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 1:02 PM, August 21st (Wednesday)]

I disagree with Esther Perel.

I stopped reading after you wrote Esther Perel.

Esther Perel is full of shit.

I started reading again after I saw this.

Shouldn’t we want the following from our partners:

To love us?

To desire us?

To be interested in us?

Shouldn’t we be:

Best friends?

Trusted confidants?

And passionate lovers?

In your own words please tell me what marriage is/was to you? Did you have expectations? Were you expectations reasonable?

I don't feel like I had/have unrealistic expectation when it came to marriage. I expected trust/honesty/respect (because I feel like those three things are all intertwined), a partner and a monogamous sex life.

I didn't expect my husband to be the only person in the universe to fulfill all my needs. I didn't expect my husband to make me feel good about myself. I didn't expect my husband to do every single thing with me.

I had other, non-sexual relationships for that. I had my mother to go kill hours with at Bed, Bath & Beyond debating dish towel quality and patterns.

I have my four family friends from childhood with that are like extended family that I know I could call up at any hour if I needed help, and I brought WH into that circle.

I have three best girlfriends that whenever they had serious boyfriends or husbands, would go on double and group dates with.

I have four friends from high school that I get together with 1-2x a year, sometimes with boyfriends/husbands, sometimes not.

I have gone to therapy when I had issues I needed to work on.

I have always been involved at my children's schools and on the PTAs, even if I didn't really have any "mommy" friends.

My husband had me. He expected me to make all the social plans, be there to listen to his craziness, have my family help him out when convenient, make him happy, make things happen, and when he was depressed and repeatedly refusing my suggestions to go to therapy and/or quit smoking and drinking, I became the problem. The kids are I were holding him back. We were why he never got to go out and have fun anymore.

My husband had completely unrealistic expectations when it came to parenthood, even though he was the one who was more gung-ho about me getting pregnant, and about marriage, also. Somehow in his mind, I just didn't want to go out. The fact that we had a really tough, colicky infant that no one wanted to babysit was me making excuses. The fact that he never once tried to find a babysitter to make these things he wanted to do sans-kids never seemed to cross his mind once.

And then came in his AP, a morbidly obese older woman at work, who had a grown up daughter so even though she "understood" being a parent, she wasn't in the middle of sleepless nights and four hour long crying sessions every afternoon.

Telling him he was such a great guy, such a great father, he deserved to go out and have fun because people do it all the time.

Telling him that his wife is trying to control him, that she looked at his facebook page and saw he didn't look happy in the pictures for the past seven years (funny how it never occurred to him he wasn't happy until the other woman told him that.

My WH has unrealistic, unreasonable expectations, not me.

I expected truth, honor, fidelity.

My husband decided early in our marriage that he wanted to FUCK other women.

He agreed not to cheat even before we were married

He cheated several times.

NOW he wants me to treat him as if he never cheated or lied.

I didn’t cheat, I don’t lie.

It isn’t difficult not to cheat, not to lie.

And the women he cheated with,

Married women with long histories of cheating

I don't think I ever expected or asked for much other than honesty, love, loyality and partnership. I think with each decade and milestone we both change and over the years we are far from that person who made those vows but some of the expectations never fade. Careers and children make a massive impact on a relationship. I was always grateful to make it to the next anniversary as I don't ever think it's been an easy ride. I must say though, the disillusionment that I have now experienced will take a lot to overcome. I don't think I have any expectations at all now. I am learning to value myself more than I ever have before and that is more important than any expectation that requires something from someone else who may let me down.

I honestly don't know what in the hell Esther thinks marriage is. I'm guessing a prison for one's genitals?

Seriously, if you want novelty in sex more than you want the companionship of a monogamous marriage, then don't have a monogamous marriage? Be an adult and seek out those who also want an open relationship? It's not that hard. I have a close friend in a poly relationship with his long-time girlfriend. And hey, cool, no one is getting gaslighted or lied to. She has dates, he has dates, and they sleep with each other too. Grown adults can decide to have those relationships. They require lots of honesty and the willingness to grant the same privileges to your partner that you want for yourself, so maybe that's the hard part for some people.

Shouldn’t we want the following from our partners:

To love us?

To desire us?

To be interested in us?

Shouldn’t we be:

Best friends?

Trusted confidants?

And passionate lovers?

Yes. However, nothing is sustainable at a high level indefinitely. Things wax and wane, you disconnect and reconnect. There are some days you don't even like your partner, let alone love them. I think what some people are thinking is that this all exists at a constant rate. It doesn't. Some days it's really HARD to love your partner. That's normal, but I don't think a lot of people understand that. We listen to our "feelings" which can be fleeting instead of choosing the right thing. WSs are often about feelings and interpret those fleeting feelings as "true" (both the limerance towards the AP and the disconnect from their spouse).

When you look at it, affairs are merely a false validation of those feelings. Life with the AP would quickly become similar to life with the spouse.

In your own words please tell me what marriage is/was to you? Did you have expectations? Were you expectations reasonable?

I expected to share a life together, to be his support in him working towards his personal and professional goals and I expected him to be my support. I expected to be shown love and respect as I wanted to show love and respect in return. I wanted to be a part of a team in confronting and dealing with life's curveballs.

I expected fidelity, both emotionally, sexually and financially. I expected to return the same, and I did.

I don't think this was or is excessive.

Cat

She also says in that book: "A lot of people have positive, life-changing experiences that come along with terminal illness. But I would not recommend having an affair than I would recommend getting cancer.” ... “At their peak, affairs rarely lack imagination. Nor do they lack desire, abundance of attention, romance, and playfulness."

I think she did a better job in her earlier book Mating in Captivity and at parts of State of Affairs of making the points that the erotic aspects a relationship has early on fade over time and affairs rekindle them...they go away because of our desire for security and losing intimacy. Not that this is right or should be sought out. But we expect romance and sex with our security. We look forward to lives of fulfillment and many end up disappointed.

There are many ways to rekindle eroticism or excitement in a marriage that take work (and may fail), that are a far better move than the betrayal and breaking vows. The takeaway should be not to go cheat but to WORK at the real intimacy and connection that affairs falsely but provide temporarily in convincing fashion.

I went into marriage knowing that 50% of couples divorce, but I told myself that we'd never be in that 50%. Similarly I assumed we'd never be part of the 20% of couples affected by infidelity. So much for "forsaking all others." Because though we all thought we found "the One" half of the time that wasn't the case but for US it was different. The expectations were reasonable... and then they as you said got blown to hell.

I think she does have a fair point that we go into marriage with perhaps unrealistic lofty expectations. Fidelity is a fair and expected one, but in the modern day we have high expectations of our partners that are a lot different than 50,100 or 150 years ago. And 25 year old you may have a different mindset than 45 year old you. Relationships are complicated. In the past many marriages were sexless. Women had zero power in the relationship to work or assert their viewpoints or wishes. In the modern day we expect a lot more... maybe we should. But does it set up failure for many. And when kids come along it's a wonderful and extremely taxing game changer. Nevermind all the other life twists and turns from careers, money and health.

Should I expect my spouse to be faithful, ABSOLUTELY. But the long haul of relationships will test the participants in ways they could have never expected. Expectations may be unrealistic for some. One may have to accept flaws or setbacks they never saw coming.

We live in an age of texting, apps, online porn, all things we never could have comprehended decades ago. Certainly it's part of the rise of infidelity and the steady flow of participants here. Yet surveys still show 9 out of 10 people think infidelity is wrong. Though more are doing it more also feel that it's wrong. Huh.

the 25 year old me that married my 26 year old W had a lot of life learning ahead until year 16 when it got rocked by a dday.

Perhaps most importantly, in the fall out of infidelity, what are our expectations of marriage now, and how do we make sure they are met and what happens if they're not. That's a lot more important now than the idealistic and perhaps unrealistic view I went in with.

I really disagree with Perel vehemently.

And I must be a unicorn because my current marriage has all of those things. All it takes is a bit of effort from both partners.

I expected a lot more than I got that's for sure.

I expected:

Love and respect

Good boundaries

No cheating

Issues should always be discussed

No lying

Great friendship and confidant

A healthy lover with the capacity for emotional intimacy

Help with parenting ( He helps now after all the damage )

I don't believe in M now nor would I ever get M again. The risk is too much. I enjoy myself more

Should I expect my spouse to be faithful, ABSOLUTELY. But the long haul of relationships will test the participants in ways they could have never expected. Expectations may be unrealistic for some. One may have to accept flaws or setbacks they never saw coming.

This is the truth of it. Marriage is challenging in ways that some people are ill-equipped to handle. And people are going to make poor choices. I would be happy if cheating was just less common rather than so many sucking at monogamy.

Traditional wedding vows normally include express promises of sexual fidelity. These are actual promises made while looking in one another's eyes, and they match the expectations that many married people have about marriage.

In Europe it is becoming increasingly common for couple to cohabit without getting formally married. In those cases, the couples must define for themselves what their relationship boundaries are. Perhaps infidelity is more common there. Also, people are coming up with their own vows, or alternative marriage structures, etc.

My point is that there are plenty of models for relationships in which cheating, or being with others, is normal. So people who choose traditional marriage are making the specific decision to promise fidelity, despite temptation.

I roll my eyes when anyone mentions Esther Perel.

I honestly don't know what in the hell Esther thinks marriage is. I'm guessing a prison for one's genitals?

I aspirated my water when I read this - for realz.

Esther Perel is a charlatan at best. Hers was the 1st book I read after dday. I guess I was fortunate in that pretty much everything in my gut said "this is bullshit" so I didn't waste a lot of time beating myself up or excusing my WH's dishonesty and bad choices.

I can say that I expected honesty more than anything else. And not in a "we should all expect honesty" kind of way. It was a very clearly communicated requirement of my relationship with my WH - from the very beginning. Like so many (or maybe everyone) I came from some pretty fucked up FOO issues. I spent a lot of time and hard work trying to recover from it. Trying to heal. And - most importantly - learning to trust another person, and allowing myself to become vulnerable enough to marry. I was NOT gung ho on getting M, and my WH knew it. This is still a major obstacle for me to work through - that fidelity and HONESTY was specifically discussed before and after M... yet even at the time we were having those talks he was ALREADY lying to me about his POSOW (long before cell phones and facebook)

Stability was also very important. As a child of D, I got married for LIFE and he damn well knew that too. I never expected my WH to provide me with excitement or "edge" (and WTH is meant by "edge"?)

Perhaps most importantly, in the fall out of infidelity, what are our expectations of marriage now

This has been on my mind a lot lately. The gist is that I now have some pretty clear ideas about what I want in my next romantic partnership. WH and I had MC this week and I asked what he wanted our M2.0 to look like. WH's response was him being "better" at communicating and "better" at sharing his feelings. That's it. His being "better" is not - by a long shot - going to be enough for me. Can't find the words to say how disheartening it was to not even hear "trust" as part of M2.0 - it's probably the FIRST thing on my list today. Nothing about continued healing and connection. No vulnerability (which is a huge part of the trust piece).

It would be funny if it wasn't so doggone sad.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 7:08 PM, August 21st, 2019 (Wednesday)]

Old Esther is wrong on a LOT of fronts but this:

Our desire for others is supposed to miraculously evaporate, vanquished by the power of this singular attraction

This is true for most people.

Here's the thing though. You can be attracted to and desire others ALL.DANGED.DAY and remain monogamous. I feel like she likes to blame the marriage or society rather than hold people making damaging choices accountable.

I think that Perel tends to do that thing that people do where they think that FEELINGS = ACTIONS. You can feel something and not act on it. It's called being a grown up.

I entered into my marriage dizzyingly in love and completely sure we would not make it. How could we? We were so young. We had fire-y arguments. I thought, it would probably end. I was prepared. We have had a "plan" for shared custody since we had the kid. We choose each other every day. My husband has always said he felt the same exact way.

We had no grand illusions about marriage being everything. Had plenty of passionate sex (that literally never waned even during the A), romantic dates, lots of laughs and best friend bonding.

My husband still cheated on me.

There is only ONE thing that creates affairs- two people who want to have an affair. It's not expectations. It's not society. It's just two damaged selfish individuals finding each other.

We used to get married and have sex for the first time

.

I guess Esther Perel would have a hard time believing people like me still exist but she’s not an American so I’ll cut her some slack. I did cohabitate with my wife before we married BH’s she is the only woman I’ve ever had sex with.

Do I feel like a fool now? Of course, you bet, especially since still receive “pings” of interest from younger women. My WW looks like an increasingly raw deal and nothing special who has now hit menopause — and it often makes me wonder what the heck I signed up for and why I’m sticking around.

“You’re nothing special, your beauty is waning rapidly, you gave yourself willingly to another man, and the unique quality of our relationship has disappeared.” That’s the line that runs through my head.

What makes it even worse is that she disdains my sexual “immaturity” as some one who was never with another woman. She has said on more than occasion: “that’s your problem.”

This is a really thought provoking thread. And pertinent given the last months of my marriage.

So diving right in to "Stupid shit my WH said"...

1. "I don't want to tell you what I want because then you will just fake it." This was when I asked him very point blank what his expectations of me and our marriage were. So I replied... "So you're not going to tell me what you want, but I damn well better figure it out or you'll find an 18 year old to bang?"

2. "I want a passing acquaintence with someone other than you." Ummmm... never once did I have an issue (pre-A anyways) with him having friends of any gender. He spent the last 9 years hating everyone and being unemployed and sitting on his ass at home for the most part.

3. Following in the convo from #2, "Every time I bring a friend here, you steal them from me and then they are your friends." My response? "One, I was raised by a southern mama. When people come into my home, I am gonna feed them, give them beverages, and make them feel welcome. You know - because I am fucking polite. Two - If you bring someone into our house and they immediately like me better than they like you? Then i think you need to examine that shit, cut it has nothing to do with me. And three - you sound like a 4 year old upset about a toy being taken."

All of that to say - No I do not expect my spouse to be "everything" to me. That is not healthy. I expect them to be faithful, respectful, and honest. Because I am all of those things to them because those are the vows I took when I married them.

I also expect them to allow me room to grow and to change, and that they are allowed to grow and to change too. I expect that some of my emotional needs are going to be filled by friends and/or family. Likewise with them.

I can't speak for my WH because he never did tell me wtf he wanted, but I didn't expect him to disrespect and hurt me to the level he did.

I have read on here lately about how we 'project' our own ideals and definitions of things onto the other person; I do think there is a certain level of truth to that. But on the other hand, I don't thing it is unreasonable to expect a bare minimum of communication, honesty, and respect when you get married. And to expect that regardless of whether you are in an open marriage or not.

[This message edited by EllieKMAS at 7:54 PM, August 21st (Wednesday)]

You can feel something and not act on it. It's called being a grown up.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 8:06 PM, August 21st, 2019 (Wednesday)]

I'm actually indifferent to Esther's insight. I do believe she is truly passionate about helping others.

I read the statement above, the way she speaks on Ted Talk. What she is referring to is the societal shift in what we see as normal in sexuality.

The second paragraph is pointing out the irony of our actions, as a collective. The 1960s gave way to a lot of sexual freedom/liberation for women, which advocated for putting their needs first, while the convention of marriage contradicts those beliefs.

A lot of women (and men) come into a marriage with these same selfish ideas about sexuality, due to societal conditioning, which leads to cheating, as Esther explains.

Marriage still holds the stereotype that women become sexless creatures, following childbearing.

It's the root of the Madonna-whore complex, which circles back to a selfish society, in that it perpetuates the "more is more" self-serving mentality.

Women were told through history, that we are to accept that men will look elsewhere because we are no longer desirable. Basically enabling a caveman mentality, that stands today. Men also bare the brunt of public scrutiny linked to virginity. Their verility is measured by quantity, not quality.

The 60s flipped sexuality on its head, with negative effects and consequences, that came with some positive. There is no arguing that women cheat about as much as men do and for the same reasons... always rooted in insecurities relating back to self-esteem, while the media and society dictates what's expected of us.

I dont believe she empathizes with the wayward, she is pointing out societal inconsistencies that contribute to the confusion of wayward motives.

I also don't believe this is about accountability, but I agree with others in that I could never see myself falling into the societal pressures, in relation to monogamy. Genital warts is a real thing...YO!

[This message edited by DashboardMadonna at 9:59 PM, August 21st (Wednesday)]