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The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

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Esther Perel
Esther Perel

Esther Perel is a renowned author and therapist known for her profound insights into couple relationships and sexual psychology. Her work delves into the complexities of modern marriage, love, and sex, offering readers a unique perspective. more

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“romantic consumerism. ‘my needs aren’t being met,’ ‘this marriage is not working for me anymore,’ ’it’s not the deal i signed up for’ - these are laments i hear regularly in my sessions. as psychologist and author Bill Doherty observes, these kinds of statements apply the values of consumerism - ‘personal gain, low cost, entitlement, and hedging one’s bets - to our romantic connections’. (…) in our consumer society, novelty is key.”

LoveRelationshipsMarriageCheatingInfidelity
Book:The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity
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“I, as you may have discovered, regard the whole idea of marriage with abhorrence. I hold that, as things now stand in this civilization of ours, a woman's one absolute right is her right to herself. She is her own inalienable possession. Why should she give herself up to a man; becoming his chattel, to do with as he pleases? Why should she lose all right over her own person, her own property, her own liberty of action and regulation of circumstance? Why should she change her very name for his? If the two could stand on a platform of absolute independence and equality, the thing might be bearable—for some. It would still be intolerable to me! But, as the law and social usage now stand, marriage is—to the woman—practically slavery; and, therefore, an unspeakable degradation!”

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Author:Virginia Woolf
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“So what else can I tell you?" I asked. "I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me." She triangled her fingers under her chin. "Let's see. Are you a bed wetter?" "Am I a...?" "Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter." I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn't. "No, ma'am. I leave my beds dry." "Not even a little drip every now and then?" "I'm trying hard to see how this is germane." "I'm gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?" "Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that's mostly because I was in my mother's bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze." "What adjective do you feel the most longing for?" That was easy. "I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful." "Let's say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?" "I don't understand why it matters whether he's in China or not. And of course I wouldn't take the money." The old woman nodded. "Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?" "All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me." "Are you a museumgoer?" "Is the pope a churchgoer?" "When you see a flower painted by Georgia O'Keefe, what comes to mind?" "That's just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn't it? There. I said it. Vagina.”

HumorHonesty
Book:Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
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“«La paternità, a meno che uno non sia un folle o un mentecatto, risveglia ciò che di più terribile alberga nell’uomo: il senso di responsabilità! Io sento che dovrò rimettere a mio figlio il mandato perenne dell’umanità. A meditare sul mistero della paternità c’è da diventare pazzi. E se la maggior parte dei padri non diventano pazzi è solo perché sono stupidi… oppure perché non sono padri. Rallegrati, quindi, Augusto, perché forse questa fuga ti ha risparmiato la fatica di essere padre. E io ti ho detto sempre di sposarti, ma non di diventare padre. Il matrimonio è un esperimento… psicologico; la paternità, invece, è un esperimento… patologico».”

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Book:Niebla
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“When...passion begins to subside, which it assuredly will do, and yield--oftentimes too late--to more sober reflections, it serves to evince that lost is too dainty a food to live on -alone.-...More permanent & genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure.' -- GEORGE WASHINGTON, Letter to Armand-Charles Tuffin, Marquis de La Rouërie, August 10, 1786.”

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Book:Washington's End: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle
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