Why there’s no shame in forgiving a cheating husband
A best-selling new book argues affairs don’t have to end a marriage – and can even make them stronger . . .
At this very moment, in all corners of the world, someone is either cheating or being cheated on, thinking about having an affair, offering advice to someone who is in the throes of one, or completing the triangle as a secret lover.’ So begins the opening chapter of the State Of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, the provocative new book from controversial couple’s counsellor, Esther Perel. In it, Esther, 58, a psychotherapist who has practised in New York for over 30 years, turns conventional wisdom about relationships and infidelity on its head.
Having an affair doesn’t have to end a marriage, she says — in fact, it might just save it. Drawn from eight years of research in real-life therapy sessions, lectures and conversations with married couples all over the world, Esther believes that betrayal can make relationships stronger, by uncovering the truth about what we really want from a partner.
What’s more, she says, there’s no shame in forgiveness after infidelity — and even staying with your cheating spouse.
‘As a culture, we are ever more open about
sex, but infidelity remains shrouded in a cloud of shame and secrecy,’ she explains in the book. ‘I take the subject of illicit love and see what it can tell us about the crevices of the human heart.
‘Many affairs are break-ups, but some are make-ups. Sometimes the relationship that comes out is stronger, and more honest and deeper than the one that existed before because people finally step up.’
It’s a radical approach, to say the least, but one that is geared towards eradicating the humiliation spouses often feel if they stay in a relationship after one partner has been unfaithful.
‘once divorce carried all the stigma,’ she says. ‘Now, choosing to stay when you can leave is the new shame.’
Fans can’t get enough of her revolutionary take on modern marriage — the book, just released in this country and the u.S., is already a New York Times bestseller.
Her two online talks on the subject have also been viewed more than 20 million times. When she spoke at a conference of 12,000 women earlier this month, she got a standing ovation.
But critics aren’t so sure, with concerns that Esther’s approach to infidelity threatens the sanctity of marriage — and rather than saving rocky relationships, might actually encourage wayward spouses to cheat. So why is it proving so popular?
The timing is opportune. Affairs, it seems, are everywhere we look.
Earlier this month, seven million of us tuned in to watch the finale of BBC series Doctor Foster, to see whether a spurned wife, unhinged by her husband’s betrayal, would take him back.
The Sky Atlantic series The Affair (for which Esther was a consultant) follows the chilling consequences of an extramarital fling, while the 2012 crime thriller Gone Girl, which sold 20 million copies worldwide, centres on the actions of an unfaithful husband.
THIS morbid fascination with infidelity is based on personal experience: Esther estimates that 80 per cent of us have been directly affected by an affair — whether our own or a loved one’s — at some point in our lives.
When it comes to our own infidelity, the statistics vary: between 26 and 70 per cent of married women have been unfaithful, and 33 and 75 per cent of men.
The one constant is that men are more likely to have affairs than women, but women’s betrayals are on the rise: there has been a 40 per cent jump in female infidelity since 1990.
Despite all this, as a society we are deeply opposed to cheating. A 2013 survey found that 91 per cent of adults consider affairs ‘morally wrong’, above polygamy (83 per cent), human cloning (83 per cent), suicide (77 per cent) and, intriguingly, divorce (24 per cent).
This, Esther says, is where the problem lies. The prevalence of affairs in our society is telling us something: infidelity isn’t immoral — it’s part of the normal human condition. She isn’t, she is at pains to insist, encouraging married couples to cheat. But she is urging us to accept that if it does happen, it doesn’t have to spell the death knell of a relationship — contrary to what most other relationship counsellors might suggest.
She says we should refrain from seeing women — or indeed men — who choose to stay with cheating partners as weak or pitiful. Rather, they should be applauded for finding the strength to form what she dubs a ‘second marriage’ with the same person.
‘Exhibit A is Hillary Clinton,’ Esther explains. ‘Many women who otherwise admire her have never reconciled themselves with her decision to stay with her husband when she had the power to leave. “Where is her self-respect?”
‘Certainly, there are times when divorce is unavoidable, wise, or simply the best outcome for all involved.
‘But is it the only righteous choice? The risk is that in the throes of pain and humiliation, we too hastily conflate our reactions to the affair with our feelings about the whole relationship.’
Another of her contentious beliefs is this: if one partner has an affair, it doesn’t mean