Esther Perel with Chris Cuomo: The State of Affairs — Rethinking Infidelity

Look, this is a lot more interesting than what I normally have to talk to people about, but then again, it's what I've been talking to people about more and more in the news. I took notes. I reviewed the book very carefully. There really is so much in this book that will defy expectations if I could brag about it for a moment, don't worry, I'll cut you down for about 35 minutes, but first I'll start with the knowledge that there really is something. This is a topic that almost all of us in this room do not know clinically how it does for us, it is anecdotal, empirical, episodic and when you look at the book, the different chapters are a beautiful diagram of how to exceed your own expectations, your own delusions. wishful thinking, so I was really impressed by no means, but on page 47 there is a serious error.

No, then these and the topic itself, the ten commandments; possibly three are about this topic we were talking about backstage. I just did some research in the last three years in New York State, now that we no longer have the same process for dissolution of marriage, functionally there is a no-fault divorce, over 50% of the applications are based on

infidelity

and now we know that more than 50% of marriages end, this is rampant, this is an epidemic, so I love your language when you say universally prohibited and universally practiced, so I want to ask you the question that you asked here at the beginning of your book , where should we start whenever you want?

To take people through this topic, what is the right place to start? I'll read it please, that probably answers part of your question when I first became interested in the topic of

infidelity

. I used to ask the public if anyone had ever experienced an affair. Surprisingly, no hand was raised, there aren't many people who publicly admit to having been cheating or cheating. With this in mind, I changed my question to how many of you have been affected by infidelity in your lives? Overwhelmingly, they've thrown up their hands and done so in In every audience I've addressed this question, by the way, it's usually around 80% when I ask the lover's children, the friend whose shoulder is wet with tears , to the friend who is listening to the stories and, of course, to the two main protagonists, a woman. saw a friend's husband kissing a beautiful stranger on the train now the question of whether she should tell him or not weighs on their friendship a teenager discovered that her father's double life was the only thing she was a mother she can't understand why her son has I was left with that cheek when he refers to the fact that his daughter-in-law is no longer welcome at Sunday dinners.

Echoes of secrets and lies resonate through generations, leaving unrequited love and broken hearts in their wake. I'll continue later, but where I start is basically here. It's this theme that is omnipresent, that it is the only commandment that is repeated twice in the Bible, once for doing it and once for just thinking about it and it's funny because it's true and it's been around since marriage was invented and in many ways it has a tenacity that marriage can only envy and yet it is often treated with great judgment in very polarizing ways and I thought we can do better we need a new conversation we need a new model of helping people that is more compassionate, that be more empathetic and help people Dealing with this crisis helps them get through it, make sense of it, and then decide what they want to do next.

So I started by asking general questions. When I start with the topic, I start by looking at what they told me, how they trained me, what. I want a question here? Does this really appear like I was told it did? And if not, I start analyzing one by one all the assumptions underlying the conversation, because if I change the assumptions, I change the practice, however, one of the fundamental problems here is that you are asking people to have a mind. open mind about something that has always been culturally very absolute despite its ubiquity, is wrong and if we discuss it in some way that mitigates the error, that is dangerous, so I can't have an open mind, it has to be wrong and if ever happens, they've gone well, how do you get over that?

When are you going to go back to the book and go back to the book because this was literally? You know I couldn't move forward in the book until I had answered these questions correctly. Every time I told people I wrote, they would say are you for or against, as if there were only two options, and I would say yes, you know, and perhaps in a more cryptic tone. answer I could try to uncover some of the deeper layers of this problem I have every time I say I write about this I say this is not a justification this is not a condonation understanding doesn't make it right and sometimes things are hurtful That doesn't mean They are wrong and this is a great cultural distinction.

Now the numbers aren't that different when you cross the pond to Europe versus the United States, but what about cultural expectations? How is this received in the United States versus the United States? let's say in France, so I have a French accent, but I'm NOT French, but you said in France before, that's why I said it wrong cultural, it comes across as the kind of day you know, on the other side of the argument, I think it's probably one of the The big difference between a Latin-European perspective and here is that it does not hurt less, let's be very clear, it does not hurt less, but it is not always experienced as wrong, it is experienced as hurtful, it does not have the same moral code and can be just as destructive betrayal is betrayal deception is deception lies is lies but there is something about understanding that such a thing can happen is a little giving in to the reality of life that makes you so I am not so surprised that this can happen to me, that is probably one of the nuances of the difference and you are right, the numbers are not different, infidelity is the main cause of divorce, one of them at the moment is no different in Denmark or in France or in the U.S. and that's what I think is really important for us to understand: what the ravages of modern infidelity are, how this has become the reason for ending relationships to the extent that it does.

Does it hurt differently today than before? to what is specific to modern love and to the way we experience the abuses of trust and betrayals of love today deep one aspect of this is deep this is what makes me uncomfortable but I want to know more I feel why I shouldn't be too curious you know yeah, it's not easy you know you're lucky you guys have the lights on because I know there's a lot of things, oh no, I would never do what she just said, I never thought that in my life, but why is that page folded?

Because it's not who I am in the end, what your wife oh, you threw me in there first when, so, my wife, when I was getting ready to do this, my wife had heard about the book and a talk from a different friend and when He saw the book huh in the apartment he said what are you reading? That's too deep for you this book and I said I thought it was about starting fires here in the arm. so language, language, matters, you spend a lot of time on it and it's one of the things that's useful, I think, and the discursive Nisour, this book is non-monogamous language as a category, it's something that will be an interesting proposition for non-monogamous people. monogamous and even fool around.

As a vernacular, you make a very strong case that there really is nothing silly about infidelity. I know we refer to it that way, but it was probably some kind of vaccine against the reality of what it really is that we started calling it nonsense, so start with that, why do you think it was called that when clearly the pain, Does pain and the reality of it work against those types of people? You know a harmless harm label because certain words are meant to take away the seriousness of it if Say I fooled around you're trying to say don't worry, it wasn't a big deal, it's no real threat to us, it didn't mean anything, but there's a lot of feeling when you try make something meaningless.

It doesn't mean that there isn't any feeling of meaninglessness, so you come up with some language whereby you're trying to give some false assurance that sometimes also restricts your responsibility and you say it was just stupid with all the vocabulary of this. The thing is, you know, it could be a study on its own, there are no morally neutral terms, the language is often so critical that it collapses, clutches at the impossibility of talking about it and then stops the conversation, you know, every time I speak. When I wrote a line, I felt like I had three more that I needed to add to round it out around the... because everything held together when it was alone, it took on a meaning of its own and then it just took off and I felt like I had to constantly qualify it, contextualize it, and layer it. to really come to grips with the truth of life and the fact that love is complicated and infidelity even more so, so non-monogamists does sound like a pass, that sounds like they're going to get a pass people won't want to call non-monogamous people because we are supposed to be monogamous if we are in the

state

of mind to get married, all those great quotes from 1908 GB Shaw that paraphrases that marriage is one of the craziest and most deceptive passions that requires you to swear that you will stay in that been to death, which you know, it was clever once I read it three times because my wife was right, you know, I didn't understand it the first time, was that you got into it, would you make a distinction between a rat system marriage romance, you know language matters, these things mean different things, you get to it a

state

of mind through passion that is not the sustaining principle and most of these real marriage partnerships and that's something that people don't know when they get into this and they don't know how to reconcile when they're trying to decide whether or not they have to get out of there, so this whole discussion, this whole issue is right in the middle, so how can they do it? you make people open to the idea that they need to see infidelity as more than just their own reality, you know they mean it's more important to examine to be open than just the fact that it happened because where we end our analysis correctly Many people will tell me that after an affair they are actually having conversations with a level of depth and honesty that they haven't had in years.

Are these the non-monogamous hours? copper, these are the two, people sometimes look at some things break, so I can't see much, they go to the lawyer, the others come to me, so I have people who want to remake it, it's different or they want to find out. I find out if there's anything left to redo something with and they may or may not do it together but they're giving each other some time otherwise that's not me they call and when I say I'm not monogamous I needed what I was going to do? I call these people all the time cheaters traitors womanizer perfidy womanizer what's the vocabulary so I chose one but it was all very effective.

I want to have used all the words I could and sometimes I was also able to use the non-monogamous one because because I started to understand a number of things and one of them was that if I just called this person the traitor, there were times when I actually This betrayal was one of many in the relationship and that betrayal sometimes comes in many forms, indifference, neglect, contempt, violence, era. It is often very tempting to want to see this betrayal as the one that surpasses all others and the societies of the side of the person who went somewhere else, not the person, but the partnerships on the side of the person who retained, not the person who went somewhere else and so sometimes I also called it non-monogamous, not because it was an endorsement of something, but it was a description to say that this person was no less committed, this person was no less of a father, this person was no less of a father. breadwinner this person this person was the one who was non-monogamous What do you think is the right way to approach understanding whether or not something can be learned from the cheater?

So you're sitting there in the room with one of them. If you're both lucky and this comes out as something you think this is the end of the conversation this happened that's it there's nothing worth talking about there's no value in this other than the fact that it happened how do you see The infidelity What are the possibilities for positive growth that arise from something like this? So if you come to see me the next day, I will tell you right now. You've just been broken, destroyed, gutted, you don't believe anything. Don't know. You don't trust him or her, but I also know that you probably don't even trust yourself and your own perception.

It's not just because you feel like you've lost your partner, but sometimes you feel like you've lost your senses. of yourself, you have an identity crisis that you're going through right now, this is not all at once, you know, the destruction of the great ambition of love, which is really why I think this has become more How painful in the sense that it used to be and I normalize it and I normalize it and I say to the other person, did you imagine this? Have you ever considered this and do you know that sometimes they have and sometimes they haven't andWhen you see the person break in front? of them it is simply unbearable to know that I am the one who caused the next thing I want to see in learning is the person who hurt the other person capable of having remorse and guilt for what he has done even if he thinks that what they experienced there was very important to them, you still created something here, can you take ownership of it?

That means you have to be able to empathically take in the pain, the raw pain that is in front of you and then from there we go through a trajectory that covers the crisis phase and then the inner phase and then the vision phase and one of the things that I know will help people in what they will learn is not the first phase, the first phase. I can go into detail, but really what I do is provide security, calm structure, and sometimes I have to say that your experience and your feelings about the affair are not the same as your experience and your feelings about your 26 years together. that this becomes the fatal blow that redefines all that because it is not always like that for everything I am going to say, I am going to say that there are other examples, you know what they are.

So, if I see people who are capable in the middle of this fight, they may also say, "You know," but I know that while this was going on, you know that he or she has been there for my dying father, he or she has been there like Dawson. in the book, I'm sure that's not his real name, but he's one of the people I just want to interrupt because I thought it was an interesting twist on this, so Dawson is one of the people in the book, a of the couples who have gone through therapy and say I was there for you when your brother came to live with us I was there with the cancer I was there for you with all these things you can't just judge me by where I am and then there's a different phrase that he uses alone you can't judge me on this alone how often there is some kind of positive reception to that idea it depends when in the process two days later no seriously you've lost all your share of entitlement you're done you've lost all your credibility so what are you in this conversation?

There are a lot of people here this is me talking to Dawson I have to get up in 2 hours and 15 minutes now I'm never going to sleep I want you to know right away you can't do that because you have no sense of anti-aging it's all about the first moment the Attention is focused on the person who has just woken up. One person's nightmare may be ending but the other has just begun. be very clear, you may have said this, you know, because you can sleep more three years later, because you wanted to be good, because you wanted to confess, you know, did you do this for me or did you do this for yourself, so now what I?

I'm sure what they're accusing me of right now, so you're saying that when he shows up when Dawson says "okay," I admit, that's about him sometimes, that doesn't do anything, that's very conciliatory, yeah , sometimes you really want to know if you did this. because you were actually thinking that this is what your partner wants to know or you did this to clear your conscience and what can the other person do with this now you have them all against me now you are happy to know that I have worked. I think it's important to say when you say it's not his name.

I received 1,500 letters after giving the TED Talk on Issues. Most of the people who wrote to me are wounded men and misguided women. The two groups we talk to the least with. then I traveled all over the world and worked with hundreds of thousands of people on this topic and there is not a single word in this book that is inventive but also says that there is not a single story there, this is a broad topic, do you know when ? You walk into Dawson's, it turned out that he had been there for his wife and then he tells her and this will become all about me.

I heard, but I also heard, you know where, he was nowhere to be seen. has emptied his life savings, okay, you know, I'm thinking about him and that makes those words that come out of this guy or that guy that I think Ian wrote about him and I remember he was like you, you know? He would never do it, he sure as hell never would. You know I have less, I'm not sleeping and this, and meanwhile he had mistreated her terribly for years, for years, and I finally had to say, you know, my dear betrayal comes in many forms.

I really think you have the moral high ground because you didn't do that and to myself I thought maybe you're just not nice enough. You see that's the complicated part of all this. That is why the genius of the book in its relevance and its authenticity is very useful because there are stairs that say that there is nothing, in reality there is nothing, everything is subjective, of course it is, but these are real clinical experiences It's very useful to understand because this idea of ​​okay. you did something bad, but now we have to be open to this discussion about what is a bad thing, what is perfidy, what is this, what is a violation of fidelity, what is valve rupture and if anyone hears this, they did it .

Now it doesn't happen without reason, that's another complicated component of this because you can't blame the victim, but in the therapeutic environment you end up coming to the idea of ​​well, if we want to see something, if we want to hold it, if we want to persist after this event, we have to understand what happened. I read it, I understand it. I also remember it from your first book. It's not easy to coach the victim because why would anyone want to be open to what's going on? it's that they could possibly have done that thing that would make this person do something that was so obvious and hurtful that it's never the way I think you created causation now yeah why would you use it and then it becomes victim blaming?

Yes, I'm seeing a In the context there is a relationship. I look at the relationship as a whole and want to know if there is something that happened in the context of the relationship that was also happening. Still, you made your decision alone. Two people are responsible for the relationship. A person. chooses to have an affair which is very clear but sometimes these experiences have nothing to do with the relationship which is one of the biggest surprises for me when writing explain how it is possible that it has nothing to do with the relationship I love my wife I love my husband I love my husband between two men two women I am having an affair I have no intention of leaving I have no intention of going anywhere else What we have is dear to me I am experiencing something I have never in my life thought I would do Most people I see are not chronic womanizers, they are people who have often been faithful for years and decades, they find themselves crossing a line they never thought they would cross and then I start to find out what it is and that idea you just said. is one of the big assumptions guiding the conversation right now.

Affairs are a symptom of a problematic relationship, or there is something wrong with your relationship, or there is something wrong with you, but it is a symptom model, it is a deficiency model and, in fact, sometimes the meanings in them, already You know, there have been reasons that have to do with loneliness and resentment and rejection and sexual frustration and all the negative things that can happen, but sometimes it has nothing to do with this and that. I became much more interesting, it's like mating in captivity, well, I wouldn't have written a book about people who don't get along and don't want to be sexually intimate with each other, that's all, but the people who would come. and saying that we love each other a lot, we don't have sex, that really became a question for me and the same thing started happening here.

My partner is an amazing person and they go on and on and on and I'm having an affair that It's not always described as I'm having an affair, sometimes it's possible to love two people at the same time, the questions become very different and from that Instead I decided that I am not always going to see it as a simple symptom, but I will look at it for its own meaning and when you explain that to a partner you know that it is a very different story, this has nothing to do with you, you had a good relationship and you are an amazing couple, the fact that you are going to understand what could have happened how they lost each other how they became complacent with each other how they stopped having depth with each other how all those things that happen in that's marriage that's that's not a cause that's not a blame and changing the conversation from reaction to reflection, from blame to understanding is ultimately what helps people get through this, get over this, so that they do it. know, so as not to destroy everything they had, that is why sometimes it is necessary, but not always, what do you think? the numbers are look, I didn't deal with numbers because the numbers you know are 28 to 70% or depending on the definition, there is too much subjectivity in terms of the actual circumstances, there is no universally accepted definition of infidelity, so I went for the stories behind this I worked as an ethnographer story after story to try to see other themes here and I came up with some themes that I hear for people who do it, so when I was wondering why people do this Why Why would people risk losing everything they've been together for and not for sex?

Not only is it a little more complicated than that, so you know, we don't know the numbers if there is a topic that people lie about about sex and even more forbidden sex for men to exaggerate men brag men inflate themselves and women have always had to face much more dire consequences, including the nine countries where she can still be killed for going astray and that's why she has learned to be quiet, but we don't know the truth about these things, all we know in the past is that there were all kinds of babies that didn't have the color of your hair and now we don't have that anymore, so now what is it, is it porn, is it the chat room? it's a massage with a happy ending it's going back to Facebook to reconnect with your exes it's staying active on your dating apps that you're already dating someone for X amount of time where where that line is you say the line is there's an equation there that creates infidelity full disclosure I was going to skip this when I was reading the book.

I thought I knew what it was and I read it all. Actually, I really have no idea, but where is it? The line is where it is not because yes, its poses fail. You know if the person is online. Do you know what that is. What if he never meets someone or what if she never meets the person? But this is if there is only an emotional connection. there's no emotional connection, so you came up with three components: secrecy, sexual alchemy, which would be a great name for a band, by the way, and emotional involvement, so explain to us how that takes shape, because we've been seeing this well, I want I mean, with with social media adaptations and we know the scandals that we've seen publicly about it, but well, I've never met them, well, it's just online, you know, I don't even know, I don't even know who they are, how do they adapt these three? components and I understand that where you appear in the book and where you appear is subjective, obviously people are going to weigh these things differently of course, but how do those components play out in terms of what to take into account when It's analyzing behavior, so I'm going to link this to something you asked me before when I told you that a lot of times people have these conversations after this, what I'm going to tell you now is part of the conversations that you wish for people . you would have when things are going well in the relationship not after a crisis it is like this crisis pushes you to the core and then you start to really talk because people avoid them before and why it is subjective it is subjective because you no longer have important religion institutions and you no longer have pregnancy and mortality and some important things that define the lines today on the Internet you can have massive amounts of commitment that is sexual without being physical, what does that mean?

You know, so I decided to look at it. Structurally, by definition, an affair or any infidelity is organized around a secret. The secret is the constitutive element of this topic. If it is not a secret, it is about something else and that secret has multiple ramifications because it is also intergenerational. It is transmitted but from generation to generation. These secrets become part of the DNA of people's lives. The secret is corrosive on the one hand and can be very exciting on the other. The secret is for many people the place where for the first time they are experiencing something that is only their own, but then you have to combine that with emotional involvement to one degree or another.

I mean, even hit-and-run has a certain commercial component to it, so there's a human dimension to that and a human emotional experience to a full love story. and a life parallel to an anonymous connection there is feeling and then the most interesting thing for me was the concept of sexual alchemy and alchemy became the key word because when I asked people from all over the world what they experienced with the word that they did not they came up with no alchemy no what is alive alive they feel alive that would never occur to me no matter how many words they feel alive they feel that for the first time in a long time they experience a sensation of vitality energy of renewal of vitality that they have not felt in themselves or in their life for a long time, okay, so when they say that the immediate rejection is that you are so selfish that you shipwrecked, they did it just for that with all these otherresponsibilities and things. you don't think I want to feel alive you can feel alive and I'm not alive and now by the way you essentially killed me so now you're alive and I'm dead and all because of what you do.

That's right, that's the program, it's selfless, welcome to my life, they are selfish issues, they are entitlement plots. Matters are things that you give to yourself with a series of rationalizations. Why do you always deserve it and in fact sometimes my vitality kills you and you are going to tell me that you think I liked the way this was, because now I know that an affair will illuminate the scorecard of a relationship and all the compromises you are willing to do for the greater good that you made because I have eliminated all the reasons why you were willing to accept things you didn't want to accept, but you didn't do what you did.

I did, so sometimes you're jealous. which sometimes you're even jealous of you would never do it but you wish you had it's this kind of thing so you got mad at me twice you're really mad at me because I did it and you're mad that I did it and you didn't. Yes, that sounds like marriage. It's like a real marriage. ankle because that would never exist in any other relationship you're mad at me for what I did and you're mad because you didn't do it yeah that's just in marriage it never does it goes further and goes further and then alchemy is really this idea that You know that the kiss is only erotic, it is such that a kiss that you only imagine giving can be as powerful as hours of making love, you don't have to act to have the energy.

It is perfectly understood the desire that with your erotic mind you can live a whole life, a whole love story in your head that completely distances you from your partner without ever touching anyone and that is wrong because you really sold it when you said it there, that's why I was reminding them that what was given here is not a practical course, the third component ends up being what used to be said in isolation, emotional participation, right, this is something that has been used as an excuse and explanation in memory of this. she didn't mean anything he didn't mean anything to me it wasn't anything else it wasn't sex so it didn't mean anything and then on social media it's okay you never met them but you really like them, you're connected to them, it's emotional and that's even more hurtful than the physical, this is how we have seen those manifested, what is your calculation with that dynamic, you know, so that I understand emotional infidelity since I knew from my wife that this was going to happen, these are just questions for later I have every time I can't go home so it's fun naki keep going so the emotional thing emotionally involved in what is called emotional infidelity is that you have gone to another person to share parts of yourself that you should share with me and that you expected to share with me and a Part of that has to do with that concept of emotional infidelity.

It's actually quite recent and comes along with more marriages becoming the search for the soul mate, so journalist, I'll explain it to you. Listen. You can say that it is correct. It's wrong, it's right, I'm trying to give people dignity and if I'm just going to say one word, I'm never going to help the people that come to me because I may think this is wrong, but I'm also looking at this person. Who still wants to live with this person? What am I going to say to this person? I'm going to shame him for continuing to care, love, even admire the person who just opened it and I have to be able to hold both. why I continually work from a dual perspective: what it did to me and what it meant to you if I just go and cut you off.

I also cut the lifeline of this person who sometimes wants to find a way to feel good by still choosing to do it. being with you, which today has often become the new shame, it used to be that divorce was the stigma, now it's choosing to stay when you can leave, that's the new stigma, that's the Hillary Clinton story and that means now that not only do I have your secret. but on top of that I'm protecting you from my friends who I can't talk to now because they're going to judge me for not throwing the dog and the sidewalk so now I have a double secret I lie about what you've done to me and I allowed them the fact that I still want to be with you and that's why I can't just go and throw these kinds of words at people who are not in my role.

Two questions, yes, one is for you, but me. I'll ask in that second I really can't see, so you have some N and M grade. No, it's better this way. No, I will tell you why, after listening, because this is what you know objectively. This is very persuasive. Someone who spent so many years understanding something not only conceptually but empirically by seeing it lived. It's a dynamite combination. How to raise your hand. It's not the question. You think it's something big. Although you deserve it after how you've been laughing. to me for the last 35 minutes that is open to the idea that God forbid this has happened haha, but God forbid this has happened in your own life, God forbid, no one wants to have to deal with this, although maybe there is something positive that can come. outside of this, but we'll leave that aside, who is even open to the possibility of you trying to weather that kind of storm and find a way to get through it and stay with the person?

What a bunch of liars you see, this is a more honest answer than you normally get, I would have raised my hand if I was there, especially if I thought I had made eye contact with you, okay, that's it, that's interesting, right? question for you, yes I have given enough, here is my question for you and I see how you have explained it here in several different ways with the variety of moral endorsements that people have here, there is an interesting dialogue component in the book where it is this happened well it's always bad that the guys had to leave and someone said, well wait you know we have to be a little more subjective and then you know they know it's not subjective.

Have you ever thought that maybe when something occurred to you it didn't? -Monogamy as a concept, have you ever thought that it is a really difficult thing for people to be successful for a long time? that marriage really is hard work, not unnatural, but difficult, well, difficult, man, please, our model today is that I want you to be what we always wanted from marriage, companionship, financial support, family life, social status . I also want you to be my best friend, my trusted confidant, my passionate lover for the long term, a long road that is twice as long as it used to be.

You, to be my best father, my intellectual equal, the one who inspires me in my career, I want you to be my anchor and my wave, I want you to offer me security and stability and predictability and I want you to give me transcendence and a whole mystery. And surprise, it is a person who that gives us what an entire town once decided to give, that is the modern concept, therefore, it goes further, it goes further because there is a union analyst, Robert Johnson, who I thought gave me away and it is something in which think.

Really brilliant in our secularized society, romantic love has become the most important driver of the Western psyche, which is why we turn to romantic love for things we used to look for in religion, ecstasy meaning wholeness, transcendence, all those things we used to look for. search the sanctuary. from the divine and today I want you my beloved to offer me all these things so when you say that marriages work I always ask you what model of marriage first then I will know what is the work that we need to do for today's marriages that managed to face this in the That we combine the spiritual and the relational by calling our partners our soulmates makes it better than all the marriages of the past, that's Eli Finkel's research in his new book, but the vast majority cannot face this new Olympus.

Why don't I always understand? I think I'm thinking I'm thinking I could keep telling you it's deep, so it's deep, let's dig deeper, you had like you know 30 variables that go into marriage if you listen to what people say. they say to each other in vows is this when they get mad when they do theirs oh my god I hate that was just me I hear it and I'm like oh listen to this guy with you you know he took a look at her like one day before, he, you know, just ripped it off, called his only friend, he was a lit match, you know, but he promises her the moon, you know, and you think, my God, if these people make it to the first moon of honey, it will be incredible.

The way people are, it's always been that way when you choose a person, you choose a story and this is the story that you will write together and you edit it, you edit it. One day I came up with this lion after mating and it just actually became one of the most hopeful lines when I work with people who are struggling with infidelity. I said that most of us these days will have two or three marriages or two or three committed relationships in our adult lives, some of us will do it with the same person, so how does that manifest?

It means that we know that we came together and had a particular contract between us about dependency, a particular style of relationship in which we negotiated what was separate and what was together, a particular power. dynamic between the two of us a set of rules about sexual boundaries between the two of us all kinds of things that at some point people we knew their license regularly people don't renew their marriage they never think they think they started in their 20s or 30s they'll stay that way for thirty forty years without even sitting down and just saying how is this Union how are you doing this little company of ours what is it like for you where are we at the shareholders meeting yes yes yes marriage shareholders meeting where people really know him, but no From a consumer perspective, is this a good deal for me?

You know, I'm meeting my needs, but really, what have we built together? What do we care about here? How do you see this continuing? What are the things that would make you want to go somewhere else? Do you think that? Do you need a therapist to help with that part of the transition or do you think that can be done in isolation between the two of you so that I don't have to tell you my instincts? Well, it's a difficult renegotiation if whoever opens that topic I think is looking for a beating, yeah, I think whoever says, hey, you know, I'd like to have coffee today, you have to do it, oh, you have time, no, but that's me I.

I want to rethink it you know if you want coffee or you want to talk about our marriage I'm going to want to drink it in a very soft cup in case they throw me in the head I think it goes how you motivate yourself because I think it's actually something about how many of you are married or have committed relationships of any kind, please, it's like fewer hands are raised. Wow, this is really useful, this book, is it Teresa, the one who is married, you get a committed coroner, less hands, I mean, if that doesn't.

I'm not telling you the truth of the situation, nothing. I usually make a difference if we just answered how many of you would like to be in a relationship. No, I would like to be out of the relationship, at least on occasion, this is also a good show of hands from people who didn't come with the other person they are with, I tell you why I mention it there, we all know that anyone Anyone in a committed relationship knows it's work, and usually, even outside of a major crisis, you see. people are not committed to work and we all know couples like that in our own lives where someone is tremendously advantaged and disadvantaged within it, but I think the idea of ​​how to approach this issue is significant because I think there are many useful ones that are not to disinfect this or make it antiseptic but you have changes in life you know you are getting married you are of an age you have a set of dreams a set of aspirations life changes and manifests and whatever happens between you and it is necessary for RIA to reach out to Minh to find out how it is different now you know, now we are raising children well, now the children have grown up, now what do we do.

I mean, these are all huge things that certainly can't evolve easily. without any reconsideration that's why I'm wondering what is the correct mechanism for the appearance. It is very clear to me that every relationship like this comes first. I imagine a world where people can experience a sense of vitality and vitality in their relationship. Because? Because ultimately it is the quality of our relationships that will determine the quality of our lives more than anything else Friendship hasn't changed much in the last 200 years The relationship between siblings hasn't changed much If there is a unity of being that has gone through an extreme makeover is the couple and in the past you heard every fight that couple had because the walls were porous and the windows were open today your friends can get divorced and you're surprised because you didn't see it coming that's the kind of isolation you experience most couples in more pressure to succeed more pressure to be happy more pressure to do well and less involvement more time with the kids more time at work and less with each other with a list of expectations like that and then say you know that sometimes you go on a retreat, go to therapy, sit down with some friends that you really trust and analyze life, all the other organismsthey need to grow to thrive, if it becomes obsolete it will fossilize and unfortunately what happens sometimes is that this crisis drives people to know what happens at the beginning of a relationship, they live face to face and look at each other another and then they spend years living next to each other and what this crisis does to some people is it brings them face to face again to realize what they stand to lose by realizing that they really loved each other and they haven't told each other.

It took a long time to realize that you actually couldn't imagine a life without each other and that raw pain is actually shared by both people and that's what you want to reconnect them with because what do I want to know if I still do? I remember if we work differently? It's that you choose, we choose each other again and start a second marriage together, that's when this can really produce something you don't want, you know it didn't need to happen for that, but sometimes nothing more. It seemed to have done nothing more than it had the force of havoc that this thing could attract people in questions from the audience oh, this is a villain, when would you tell the non-monogamists?

Do not tell her. PS: That's my advice to friends who ask. I'm wrong, it's a great question, so you know why you want to tell it and what you want to say, do you want to say what you want to say? I have fallen in love with another place. I slept with someone. I was stuck in a hotel. I have an STI. What do you need to say? Does taking care of the person you are saying it to or does that care make you feel better? Do you have any idea if your partner wants to? to find out if that person's partner wants to know you know it and you don't know it beforehand so many people thought they wanted to know and then they tell me I wish I had never known I can't get it out of my head you know, but what I say is slower, don't just say yes or no, slow down, there are consequences and the price of telling the truth and there are consequences and the price of secrecy and sometimes when a person asks a question, ask them. first you want to know the answer to your question or you want your partner to know that you have the question it's like I want you to know that I'm thinking about this but I'm not so sure I want the answer because once you have the answer your whole life is about to change, when you have friends, don't do it.

I think sometimes the best thing is to let them figure it out and ask them the right questions and not impose our own opinions on them because you will never have to live with the consequences of that. What are the best words to use when you would like to end a relationship with someone and they want to work on it? Those are beautiful questions. What you want is wonderful. What you want is beautiful. I wish no one else to have someone who wants to follow and persevere on the path that you don't want to do with me but I don't want to anymore I don't want to be with you I want to leave and I want you to bring that energy, that fervor and that commitment to someone who can reply.

I can't say goodbye without hurting you. This will hurt you a lot. I will live with that forever, but I have already made a decision. be willing to acknowledge that you are going to break someone's heart and that you are going to live with yourself you can't have it both ways I don't feel the same about you now as I did before you said, I mean this is one of the many verses yeah, that That's right, no, but it's terrible to hear sister, I'm not even concentrating on the questions right now, I just don't even know what I'm going to do now, how do you explain?

Oh, this is it. Well, how do you explain and define infidelity to children? Do you argue or hide? First of all, my first question is always how old are the children? The question is a development question. You don't respond the same way to a four-year-old. old man who probably shouldn't get caught up in adult messes, so a 12-year-old who tripped over his computer or a 14-year-old who doesn't understand why he's leaving his mother or father with whom they thought he I had a life and I can't understand why you can't tell them that my husband hasn't touched me in 12 years.

What are you going to tell them? You want them in your room. No, so by definition, you are going to try to say positive things about your partner. and you will be accused of being the unfaithful person for destroying the family, who should speak. I think it's every parent with every child alone, you talk differently to different kids, who goes first. I mean, I have a lot of examples from kids. I have a case on the podcast that we should start where the kids, three of the kids, one of them doesn't talk to him about her because she decided to stay with him, he cheated on her for forty years and he leaves her with her in Stockholm.

Syndrome and they simply can't accept that she hurts them, they don't talk to her, much less to him, so I have the person who is the person who leaves with someone else and has never talked about anything with their children about their marriage, but for what would do it. them and certainly not about what happens in the bedroom of their marriage and then you know that when they leave the adult children, one doesn't invite him to the wedding and the other doesn't know, so it's different scenarios with different children that you have. establish a very personalized relationship with each child and they will have different conversations with you, it is not a pact, it is not like when you have parents who are going to announce to their children that they are divorcing and they are introducing you, you know, this is what we will do .

Be changing our family from now on. This is a very different story and the degree to which you involve people. I am of the opinion that if your children are not part of that story, you do not involve them. I have had people who count. the five year old child why mom is crying and he should know and they know what kind of idiot his father is and what that is doing to the child, so there are people who use children to share their anger with them. their raft their broken hearts their revenge there are people who have children who come across a complete digital file and they need to help these children understand who this father of theirs is you know what these are when it is a digital file it is a father it is a thinking Mother , it doesn't matter who this person is you just know what this is all about and then it's a different conversation and it's not a unique conversation.

This story will unfold over years. I need hope, yes. In the book you talk about the hope of what can come from this, how this too is withering, real, raw, harsh, mean or negligent, but ultimately all negative, how do you get to the point where you know what is the mechanism, what is what is the dynamic that allows us to go from such a dark place to anything that comes close to the light but this is what happens when you go to a crisis it is danger and opportunity and when you go to the Hope, what is starting to happen is that it starts with the people who for me have managed to transform this and they will tell you that today we have a relationship that is much stronger than the one we ever had.

More open, more honest, more intense, more alive, we wish we didn't have to go through that. this, but this took us, you know, for a walk and what we know, what I am, I would not have wanted to go back to the marriage that we had, but it depends when you asked, if I asked this in a year or two right after, not what . What I did was I looked at people 5 10 15 years later and they didn't say, you know, when she cheated on me when they said we had a crisis, it became a little story and we rewrote our story after this crisis and we became the authors of the new chapters of our lives and you know, we really know that it is something that needs to change and this is what made it happen, it becomes a very different way of talking about this, those are the people that when you go later say You know, there's a feeling of victory that they didn't let this ruin them and that they turned it into a better relationship.

It is not semantic, it is subjective, it is substantial. When they say it's our story, it's because that's what they decided. do with that, yeah, how do you consider happy endings? And the question started, it started, then they crossed it out, what do you consider half endings?, but they crossed it out, although that would have been an interesting question, too, happy endings, how do they fit together? In this I mean that what I just described is a kind of happy ending, a happy ending because of the way the story starts very dark and becomes hopeful, that is one version, if I don't understand, I thought he was the question that I was going to like.

Does that count as cheating? Oh, that's not what they meant. That's where my head is at. I think there may be something like, how do you find something positive in this? And that's what you were talking about, but I'm saying the reason I'm asking it again this way is because it's kind of defining, you know? I don't think about it in terms of happiness and, right, no, that's not what we want, we want, we want it to be better, we want that. If we're going to go in there and we're going to do therapy after something like this we want to come out on the other side better, that's how weird and sometimes better it is with you with my partner the way I just described it and sometimes the best It's that I decided that this was not the relationship I wanted to have and I was going to love and be loved differently than you and I had together.

I think for me this is not about being happy. But it is something that is an important point is that still in our society we consider longevity as the marker of a couple's success. I've been married for 35 years half the time people applaud like it's a relic of the past, you know, you know how I did it like you know and some relationships end and they were good they achieved what they needed to achieve people had children together people dealt with with illnesses people buried their parents people dealt with earthquakes people dealt with economic crises people supported each other these were good strong relationships and they end and I think for me it is an ending that should be included, but yes by definition when it ends we say it failed, it's a failed marriage, we're doing no service to the marriage or the commitment and resistance that people sometimes have for 20 or 30 years and then it's over and we say it failed, it's not fair, that PC is right. , that would be the pushback, that would be the push package, that's the politically correct thing you're trying for. so that everything is fine but at the end of the day there are moral absolutes and you get married he says until death do us part anything other than that is failure this deception is failure you can spin it however you want maybe we will overcome the problem is when we will be together but it is I'm not going to get anything from them I'm not going to learn anything from it if someone cheated on me this is what they learned about because they were the problem this is something ingrained in people yes since the 1300's when you know that marriage came into common existence, right?

I can give you some others that were really programmed and equally moral, yes, virginity, how many of us, Hamid? There are many people here in this room who remember what it would have been like morally if we had had sex before marriage then we got married and had sex for the first time now you get married and you stop having sex with others and that was a moral in homosexuality moralizing and pathologizing, I mean, there have been so many, you know, monogamy. monogamy was a lifelong thing throughout history. I have patients tell me that you know I'm monogamous in all my relationships and it makes perfect sense to them that I'm a sociopath.

I know they have had two marriages. They were monogamous in all marriages, but in all of them. true, that's not what I thought No, but these were absolute the idea that it would be a person for life not now it's one person at a time the idea that when you got married you couldn't live even if you were miserable and they beat you to death turning yourself into pulp, you couldn't live, especially as a woman, because let's face it, this issue of infidelity is not a story of gender equality, this is a story that has a double standard throughout history, men practically had a license to deceive and women women were punished for everything if she seduced him if she was the mistress and if you know that there is no homewrecker in the male, I mean this whole conversation is manipulated from all kinds of relative moral things, so the fact that some people Say it's wrong, it's not what you promised.

It's not in our contract is a fact, but for many people the story is not about broken contracts but about broken hearts and they need help to mend their broken hearts and anger and moral judgment about themselves and their partner and about everything they have. created before doesn't help them, so we need, if it's that widespread, we need something a little more compassionate that doesn't do it right, that doesn't condone it, but it's helpful. How did I like your push box? He's good, he was kind. by unenthusiastic to be honest with you I mean because I just don't believe it I just don't believe it I've never believed it I've always thought that I believe there is first of all this is what I believe but this is what here's why I'm giving it some context I see a lot of this, you know, I mean, I've spent years and years of my life cataloging disastrous marriages, you know, because they spawned so many great crime stories that I've covered over the years and the intimacy between two people, as always, is the basis for some of the strangest human behavior, but I think anyone who was married this Thanksgiving will be sixteen years for me and Christina for me, for mewife and me.

I come from a family where you know my mother and my father, you know, my father used to wince when he thought about life before he got married and it was real, like he really believed that he really was like yeah, no, I wasn't there. married at some point. period, but I've been married my whole life to Matilda and they were from a generation where I don't care what happened now, being physically abused, being emotionally abused, that even for their generation that was understood as something that was never supposed to happen. was acceptable, it was supposed to be acceptable, but at the end of the day it's so hard to stay married it's hard for people and people don't know this when they get into it, they don't talk about it while they're in it unless they're drunk or there's some flashpoint that everyone knows about so you might as well talk about it anyway and it's one of the most common realities that gets ignored in normative behavior if you think about it, I mean, you all say yes except due to his strange imbalance with his hands.

I mean, you know if you're in a relationship, people tend not to talk about what's most true about the relationship, which is that. It's work and it's hard and bad things are going to happen, you're going to have to find a way to get through it and what I've seen in the rise in divorces, which is new, right, it's easier to get divorced now, it's not as expensive. getting divorced now no-fault divorce is much more common, social acceptance is better now than it was a generation ago, but when you listen to people as they are coming out of this, I am often unimpressed with their reasons and I am of the same school of thought as the person who asked the question.

I don't get involved. I spend enough time on controversies in my daily work and personal life. I try not to get involved in these situations, but I often find the reasons. that people are dating or it's really Pettit, especially when they have kids, you know, and especially when they're men, that more traditional male dynamic, like you know, kids get to be like 11 12 13 and all of a sudden, A guy starts to feel like he doesn't have his charm anymore and you know he needs to be revitalized and suddenly there's a new person in his life who could be his son.

I mean, we've all seen this many times and while I don't judge behavior, I think it speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the work involved and what the promises and duty involved are, but all of these things are subjective, that's what attracted me. of the book was that you create a framework. of a certain objectivity the way you have to look at these dynamics if you want to make sense of them you can make them however you want if you don't want them to be rational but if you want them to be rational you have to look but this is probably what is more difficult than this what is more difficult that this look this is one of the most painful experiences you have because it is with someone with whom you are intimate to be betrayed and, by definition, you know that you present a case here I don't want to make a definition, but a definition, this is what worst thing you can do.

I'll tell you what's more difficult, but it's me personally and that may be why I developed a more positive, but more resilient attitude towards this experience, you know and me. I never thought this was connected, but one day it happened like this. I am the son of two Holocaust survivors. My parents were the only survivors of their entire family. They were betrayed not by their partners but by humanity and could have stayed that dead. Inside, I was not dead, I was surviving, but without any jewels or anything to fight for and yet they chose the other side and I come from a community in Antwerp that were all Holocaust survivors and they were two groups, those who did not died and those who returned. life and I learned how people become true to love again trust again to have children because you know that in that world it is better not to have children if that is what is going to happen and that gave me real faith that this is possible, never They doubted that life was worth living and loving again and starting families and having sex and having pleasure and going dancing and all that, that vitality and that place.

I draw my inspiration when I work with people who are broken and think like this about this whole life they have built. it's just been torn to pieces and then I start rebuilding it because I know it's not possible for everyone and not all the time, but there is absolutely nothing PC about it. I think it's a real source of resilience because when people say when you trust you're broken how do you heal and I think to myself you know I'm going back to Viktor Frankl and I'm going back to my parents this is the story that's been written this isn't the first time Now sometimes you'll heal it with someone else not the person who just broke it but that's all I've said I'll read somewhere else it's called from suspicion to certainty certainty is searing but knowing that suspicion is its own kind of agony when we begin to suspect that our loved one is deceitful we become relentless scavengers sniffing out our desires carelessly scattered clothes and clues expert in sophisticated surveillance we track the slightest changes in his face the indifference in his voice the unknown smell of his shirt his mediocre kiss We count the slightest inconsistency.

I kept wondering why he had so many early meetings in the office when he was supposed to start at 10:00? His Instagram posts did not match where he said he was. Quotes don't lie. He was baffled because he had to shower and put on deodorant. before going out for a run, that's a rookie mistake, she was suddenly so eager to invite Brad and Judy to dinner, he was around so long she didn't even like them, does she really need his phone in the bathroom at first? We can stay with our questions to ourselves afraid of falsely accusing if we are wrong even more afraid of facing the facts if we are right but eventually the desire to know is the fear of knowing from Trump and we begin to probe and interrogate we try asking questions to which GPS has already given irrefutable answers, we set traps.

Every dark secret I will discover best if I pretend to be a scheming figure who in Mozart's classic opera we act like we know when we only fear. Anton tells Josie that he has proof that she has been sleeping with someone, it doesn't make sense. By continuing to lie about it you can tell me he says I already know everything but it's a bluff to feel trapped Josie tells him more than he had expected now he can't get the images out of his head in a common twist Josie tells him He told me that initially Anton's suspicions had been unfounded, however, as his spying increased, so did his frustrations and evasions, eventually becoming resentful of his life under surveillance, he says that he was so convinced that he had been deceiving him all along that he decided to do it.

Seriously, that's not a positive piece I should find a hopeful piece I should look for a hopeful piece I'll wait I love that you went I took note that you asked about the Showtime series the matter and that scares me that that series was shot on Long Island , that's where I live and that's what you thought when you started reading what they wanted to do. I'll give you some time to find something more positive than that dirge you just read. when you started reading what it was going to be about what resonated with you in that story, you know the show well, the thing, well, so one of the lines that became very clear to me and one of the most surprising findings when I started to look into this why people in happy marriages cheat he has a very good relationship he loves his children he is happy with his wife he doesn't like his father-in-law well it's that sometimes when you turn to look at another it's not because you're looking another partner, but because you're looking for another self and he wasn't trying to leave his wife as much as he was trying to leave who he had become and that doesn't mean making him nice or anything, but that notion that this man had an enviable life living in Park Slope, you know, he had an enviable life, what was what and this had nothing to do with his marriage, it has nothing. to do with his relationship with his wife so it was his it was what it was the fact that she had decided you know when he met his wife in college he needed structure in his life he needed someone to ground him he needed someone who came from a family that could provide something he needed someone to act with and every now and then you know that his demons caught up with him but you only know that in series three, series one, what you know is that he encounters this and she comes across this. man and she lost a son and I learned to ask a lot of people who are in Foreign Affairs: has he lost anyone in the last two or three years of his life?

Because I began to see that for many people the presence of mortality is what often pushes them. doing that thing they never thought they would do could happen in all kinds of aspects of life, this is just one situation and a parent dying, a friend going too soon and bad news to the doctor, I can't tell you the number of people who They have seen them have adventures when they themselves have been sick and they get out of there. Something about mortality makes people say, "This, there's more, am I going to live like this?" and it gives them that audacity that they would do it.

I had never done it before and then I started watching it. She had a great relationship with her husband. It's also like you knew that they had lost a child and there was grieving and she couldn't leave herself anymore. she saw it everywhere and then she throws herself into this complete abandonment where she already knows and they destroy two sets of families. I mean, it's a but you know you're going to make me talk again and it won't be positive, it won't be able to. I don't make you say, I don't think anyone can force you to say anything nice, but look, of course, if you could be pollyannish about this, if you could, you know, if this were such an obviously optimistic situation, we wouldn't do it.

I need the genius you apply to your book. I wouldn't have done this if I thought it was a no-brainer and easy. It's the difficulty. It is the need to sometimes face things that are difficult that makes your experience so valuable. just in the clinical setting, but for the rest of us who just want to read this so you can get it in your head and, if you're open enough to challenge some of your assumptions and not see, that's what I was trying to get at. arrive. before I think it's hard for people to do that I really think it's harder now eating the book changed something for you.

I'm open, but I've heard a lot of people write to me who have read this and it's just coming out, you know? I started I like it you know but slowly you made me see things you made me forgive my father you made me forgive my mother you made me understand I have a person there who literally thinks it's the worst thing that can happen to him then he realizes that his father and his mother were actually having an affair and that he was the son of that relationship. I mean, people discover things about themselves, you know, and that's a change of perspective, it's not just about what you think, is it a good thing or the bad thing is that that's not the question that's asked, but if you can really understand the complexity of the human drama that emerges through this without having to go to the Opera and do you understand that when you read this you will too? knowing how to create a relationship that can develop the buffers to possibly prevent or forestall it.

I think that not only do I agree with the premise, but what the book does is that you don't need to have this in place in your relationship with yourself to learn from the dynamics surrounding how to survive it because if you don't, this crisis will be something else and that was eye-opening for me and also the idea of ​​what happens on both sides, that is symptomatic in nature. You know your section, not to help you find your own section of your book, but page 226 that I had marked when the matter preserves the marriage and the passage at 227, do you think that might fit what you would like to leave already? a 26 a 26 I was actually looking no, you see, what do you think of that?

No, except it fits perfectly for you or it's not much of a provocation, though for those two pages in the book, right? You do not like? 27 Actually I was going to read you about Transformers, that's all, so I want you to finish however you want. Yes, as ironic as it may seem, as twisted as it may seem. Matt and Maggie's perspective has a logic. Many people have

affairs

not to get out of their marriages, but to To stay in them I have three more years until the child no, this is not a happy piece, but I have a different view, but go ahead, do it now, let's ask a question, It's okay, I can walk away, but I will win.

Don't let it go, my heart says yes, but my head says no, a gentle hug will draw me back in for another dance. Is it a simulation? The books are better than you knew before interviewing an author. This is an interesting crime. I'm not sure I understand it, but maybe you do. I'll understand, last question, yes, have you ever counseled a couple who are themselves the perpetrators of an affair? Would you consider it constructive? Have you ever done so? I have known couples in which both were partners; We are the people who were unfaithful in their respective relationships.

Yes. I have not met their partners in those situations. I don't know both. If this is the couple that appears, I will not know the spouses, so let's be very clear and what is theask. If you're constructive, yeah, what do you do with that? So one of the couples I wrote about in the book met at university, they moved out, they both got married, they both lived on different sides of the Atlantic and they reconnected and they're absolutely torn, they have kids, they have little kids. kids have prayer partners one has a better relationship than the other they have no desire to leave the kids to not be there and they are absolutely torn and that was the conversation.

I often do all-day sessions and sit back and let them think. I take it out and I just give them a safe space where they can actually talk, maybe say goodbye, which they've probably already tried to do. I am 10 times over when I meet that couple, that couple in particular. I don't feel like I'm sitting with the perpetrators. I'm sitting with two people who are in a love crisis with each other and their partners and I don't have an answer for this. I can humbly lend my skills to help people discover their own self-determination in their lives and that's what I do in those moments I don't remember what page they're on, but you'll recognize them.

Noted psychotherapist Mr. Rogers once said that in times of crisis look for helpful people, we have things that are difficult in marriage and they often revolve around infidelity, we need helpful people, you are one of the helpful people, thank you for writing the book, thanks for talking to you.