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Ok, so, was looking for an infidelity podcast to listen to on my walk today and found this. "Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel". So I thought, why not, lets see how this goes.

First podcast was a WH and BW. And honestly, left me pretty pissed. The A was pretty much brushed aside and the focus was on getting the BW to see things from her WH's perspective. Basically, they didn't have a great sex life and he felt lonely! (heard that one before) So Esther is telling the wife she needs to understand those things and basically, her role in her WH's choice. Sure, she says he should have talked to her instead of cheating, but it's pretty much brushed aside.

The focus is on the couples lack of communication skills, and sure, if this was MC (without an A in the mix) this would all be sound advice. But, HELLO, he fucked another woman and you want the BS to listen to his "reason" which pretty much puts the blame on the BW just laying there during sex like a dead body? Fuck that shit!

I mean, what the hell? If I had listened to this close to my Dday I might have just swept it under the rug and thought it was the right thing to do!

This is bad...bad...bad advice! She literally tells the BW that she is bad at communicating and that she has to listen to her WH. Granted, she says he's not that great either but it certainly seemed to me that the BW got the brunt of the burden to work on the M because she doesn't want to have sex with him anymore. Hmm...Thoughts?

Yeah. Don't listen to her. She is an unremorseful wayward spouse's dream.

[This message edited by HellFire at 7:59 PM, February 19th (Wednesday)]

A lot of this out there.

Reminds me of snake oil sales people.

Prey on panic

Reminds me of some friends of mine when I was in the early stages of infidelity. They said a lot of the same things. One even blamed me with the thought that anytime a spouse betrays, the other is at fault for not being able to see it coming and preventing it. Then one of them had their wife cheat on them. Then they understood it. Sometimes that's what it takes.

[This message edited by thatbpguy at 8:43 PM, February 19th (Wednesday)]

Easter perils?

I heard this when it first came out!

Totally agree with you- it was extremely triggering!

***Please don't read if you are interested in listening, as there are spoilers! And it would be good for you to judge for yourself, BUT I don't recommend it to new BS or any who aren't feeling very strong yet. It's quite a difficult listen. ***

To add, it was incredibly insensitive and downright cruel when the WH made the comment that having sex with her was like having sex with a dead body. She was so clearly upset and he said something like he 'didn't mean to hurt her' (yeah right, on what planet is that not a horrific thing to say to your wife let alone your BW in R) but I don't remember him sincerely apologising, if he did apologise at all. He seemed quite detached for lack of a better word and I remember listening horrified and in pain for her, the humiliation of having to hear that during a therapy session with a therapist, Perel of all people that would be shared with the world!! I would have walked out of that session with no explanation to him and tried my best to stop it from being shared. That moment in particular was gut wrenching and I commend that BW for staying and participating until the end.

Also, he when he was criticising their sex life (excuse/not remorseful) she said she had suggested (& still was willing to if I remember correctly) that they go to hotels to which he didn't feel right about doing. She then said 'but you did it with the girl' (OW) and his response was 'that was different'. No appreciation for the fact that she was trying before the A to do this to improve their sex life, no appreciation for her being gracious enough to try this again during R.

And then just like you said, Perel did not hold him accountable. At this point Perel should have pointed out that at least his BW was trying, whereas he offering as a solution? Nothing but complaints and blaming. What kind of answer is 'it was different with her?' Seriously? How triggering is that.

Lastly (for now, I always write too much), another thing that stood out to me is when he asked his BW soemhting like 'do you honestly think that having the affair meant I don't love you?' Like he was shocked that she could possibly draw that conclusion, and then when she answered yes he was even more shocked.

I found this to be manipulative, like the typical WS lying to their BS insisting that they love them despite their betrayal and deceit instead of owning up to the fact that what they did was obviously UNloving; but there was something particularly unremorseful about this guy, it's like he couldn't acknowledge the actions of the A as being unloving whereas at least even unusually unremorseful WS will point out that they never still love/never stopped loving their BS. This WS was being quite unremorseful/unempathetic throughout, didn't really point to 'I love because I did this and this and this for you/was a good/faithful spouse for years'. He just expected her to accept that he cheated and lied while not making an effort in the marriage, yet blamed her and still does, but oh, none of that means he doesn't love her.

I can't think of one thing/point where, and please please correct me if you can, he actually does show love for her/towards her.

She on the other hand I feel, really tried despite his coldness (he wasn't openly cold either, that's the disturbing part). For example Perel said she always contradicts what he's feeling or something (victim blaming nonsense) and the BS graciously said 'how do I stop doing that'and Perel said 'that's a beautiful question' which was SO patronising. Clearly Perel was on board with blaming her and didn't seem to expect the same effort from him. Where were his 'beautiful questions' showing empathy to his BW for the pain he caused her, or for the hurtful comment he made (of which there are many I'm sure judging from his surprise that this would upset his wife)?

There's anothe podcast if you can bear it, with a WH who gives his wife an STD, and Perel is actually quite hard on him at one point about not expecting his wife to always tell him what she wants because she doesn't always know and that he shouldn't expect her to believe that he wants to be there, that he needs to be vulnerable and initiate affection ect. Ect. She wasn'tnesrly hard enough especially about the STD for which the WS didn't seem fully remorseful about and kind of brushed it aside, however, it showed me that Perel peel actually hold a WS accountable when she wants to. Unfortunately in this case, she didn't want to and was happy to make the BW the 'problem' which made it very hard tk listen to. It also came across as manipulative and insincere when she pretended to be on the 'BW's side's which I know therapists aren't supposed to to do but she seemed more on his side for 99% of this session and for the 1% where she empathetised with the BW she said somehting like 'I said this so she doesn't feel like I'm disagreeing with her, she feels that im holding her'. I just wanted to scream because this poor BW with her tough exterior actually needed someone to hold her, not for it to 'feel' like someone is holding her, but for them to actually do it. I highly doubt she was getting that or would be getting that from her WS unless they get counselling from a professional who knows what they're doing or he is honest with her. This wasn't a WH that I feel really loves his wife or WANTS his marriage. Don't think he would stop cheating either, he seems to content to get our if it what he wanted, everything seemed to be about him.

I did not see this effort reciprocated and got the distinct feeling that this WH, from the things he said and way that he spoke, in particular around the 'it doesn't mean I don't love you comment', that he was insisting that they could R, not because he loved her, but because if they did then that would prove that his A wasn't that bad. Does that make sense? Like one of those WS that knows it was damaging, isn't remorseful enough to understand fully but still knows, yet doesn't let on that he knows how wrong he was in the hope that his wife won't 'make a big deal out of it' and they can rug sweep his A, blame it on her and the bad marriage, then he can claim that it was a positive thing because the BW is a better wife and they have more sex therefore the marriage is 'better'. That then would have divorced if not for his small indiscretion.

Don't get me wrong, this BW is tough and she knows she's not perfect. However to me, it seemed like she was ready to give it a good go for her children if not for him. He really doesn't deserve the gift of R. You never know, he might be on here. If you are sir, I hope you realise it's rational to think that your doesn't love you or want to remain married to you after you've cheated on them. That they could very well leave you for hurting them like this because it IS a big deal, it's life chaining and life destroying. That you are not entitled to the gift of R and should be grateful that your BW was willing to attend a therapy session with you. That it's incredibly harmful to make comments like that about or to your your wife and even if that was honest it wasn't appropriate or necessary to say in that way AT ALL. Notice that she didn't criticise your skills in the bedroom even after you hurt her by saying this, and that it comes across as very arrogant to insult your wife after cheating on her, as if you're a great lover because you had a good and exciting sex life with your OW for which you actually made an effort for. Instead of just shutting your wife down for every solution she gives to improve your sex life, whereas you didn't acknowledge that you weren't such a great lover given that you didn't even care about her pleasure and risked giving her STDs(really?? But you 'love her'? Sure)

Sorry for that long post. This was a trigger nightmare... :( God bless you BW, I hope you found the outcome for you and your children.

^^^ So much this! You hit on so many of the points where my jaw just dropped! And they both seemed to delight in putting her in the corner and making her see things their way! Pretty fucked up!

A pretty common recommendation here is to stay away from Esther Perel (Peril). A few seem to appreciate her but most see her as toxic. Me included.

She’s the worst ever!! She’s not even a psychologist.

I think she’s actually a wayward or AP. She the devil incarnate.

HEY HEY HEY

She might be the devil, but there is NO REASON to bring me into this!

On a more serious note, I heard the exact same garbage from my STBXW after DDay. "I wouldn't have had to cheat if you had paid attention to the signs so I could have left you first. Both times were your fault, in fact, they weren't even affairs, I never cheated, I may as well have been single."

Piss on that. Don't give Esther Perel any more brainspace.

She's a nutcase.

Sorry Incarnate

She might be the devil, but there is NO REASON to bring me into this!

This was not directed towards you!!!

One of the benefits of having a WH not doing his own infidelity research is the fact that he doesn’t find shit like EP to read and listen to.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been through the “why isn’t he on google every 2 min to find out what to do? After he found some things in the beginning that I actually didn’t want him to read as it would validate his sense of entitlement, I thought I’m happier with giving him the things he should look at rather than letting him feel validated by crap like this.

It sounds controlling but the last thing a BS needs is an Esther to tell the WS how they were actually entitled to the affair rather than address any problem they may have had by, you know (crazy right?), communicating or even divorcing if they feel miserable.

Hurtbeyondtime, do you have any info on her credentials. I looked a little and couldn't find much. Info says she's a psychologist or psychotherapist, licensed marriage and family counselor and sex therapist. Says the university she attended and who trained her, but nothing about actually graduating and earning a degree. Am I being too picky, or does that seem odd? She must have a degree if she's faculty at a college, right?

An infidelity blogger mentions questionable credentials discovered by a couple people or websites. When I googled those, I didn't find anything.

Perel has built a lucrative career normalizing infidelity. Her entire oeuvre is about explaining infidelity, as if that is the end of the discussion. She completely ignores the reality that explaining a thing is not the same as excusing a thing.

Perel's focus is on trying to get inside the head of the WS to understand her or his decision train. In the process, she enables and normalizes the process of the WS vocalizing all of the negative constructs the WS has erected internally on the path to infidelity.

If we were to apply her methods to, say, mass murder, she would have Son of Sam talking about how the barking of dogs began to sound like human voices to him, voices instructing him to kill, and the only way to silence those voices was to kill random strangers.

Fine. I can understand at an intellectual level that he honestly felt driven to do these things. That doesn't change the fact that his acts were heinous and inexcusable by any measure of human behavior. Explaining these acts does not excuse them.

Not to mention, David Berkowitz admitted that he made up the dogs. It was all a rude to try to justify what he had done. Sound familiar?

One of the benefits of having a WH not doing his own infidelity research is the fact that he doesn’t find shit like EP to read and listen to.

Luna not sure if I should have laughed as hard as I did to this but ain’t that the truth!!

Problem with Perel is she appeals to such a wide audience. She appeals to waywards who want to justify their decision to cheat by blaming the marriage and spouse, it’s an easy out for them. She appeals to the general public whose marriages haven’t ‘yet’ been upended, because ‘infidelity only happens in unhappy marriages right, takes two to tango, the betrayed is never blameless’ etc etc which in turn helps them to feel safe. But sadly, she also appeals to the betrayed who want to feel that their actions can control the behaviour of their cheating spouse, the ‘if I’m a better cook/better lover/more attentive it’ll stop them doing this to me again’.

She has quite an audience that want to hear her message

Esther Perel is garbage.

But sadly, she also appeals to the betrayed who want to feel that their actions can control the behaviour of their cheating spouse, the ‘if I’m a better cook/better lover/more attentive it’ll stop them doing this to me again’.

That would be me, but even thinking that, I still can't stand her. If I ever need a "pep talk" for why I should cheat, never tell anyone and enjoy myself consequence free, I'll make sure to put her on my phone as a audiobook. And allay any guilt I might have, because it's obviously because my wife can't cook asparagus correctly, right?

Ester is clueless and promoting all those stupid misconception of infidelity.