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 provoca- tive 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 mar- riage’ 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
they were unhappy. In fact, infidelity is no less common in happy marriages than unhappy ones.
Again, it’s completely at odds with conventional beliefs — but esther says that it’s crucial to understanding why infidelity is so widespread.
PEOPLE stray for a multitude of reasons, and every time I think I have heard them all, a new variation emerges,’ she explains. ‘But one theme comes up repeatedly: affairs as a form of self-discovery, a quest for a new — or a lost — identity.
‘Sometimes, when we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves.’
If all that sounds a bit too much like psychobabble — or an illjudged attempt to justify infidelity — don’t discount her thesis just yet. esther’s unconventional approach is grounded in some irrefutable facts about the changing nature of marriage itself.
In an increasingly secular society, she says, marriage no longer holds the value it once did.
In 2016, the percentage of people aged 16 and over who are married fell to just 50.6 per cent, its lowest level since 2002. As the institution changes, and more and more choose to cohabit or exchange civil promises rather than religious vows, so too does what we want and expect from a marital partner.
esther explains: ‘ history and culture have always set the stage for our domestic dramas. In particular, the rise of individualism, the emergence of consumer culture, and the mandate for happiness have transformed matrimony and its adulterous shadow.
‘Affairs are not what they used to be because marriage is not what it used to be. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide — security, children, property and respectability — but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends, trusted confidantes and passionate lovers.’
not only do we expect more of our spouses, but the ideals and fantasies to which we hold them up are more accessible than ever — thanks to the internet, social networks and dating apps which bombard us with images of perfect relationships, make it easy to check up on old flames or new flings, and put affairs within arm’s reach.
So what of esther herself? Married for 35 years to psychologist Jack Saul, she’s the daughter of two Polish holocaust survivors and says her upbringing in a survivors’ community in Belgium taught her about strength and resilience from an early age. She met her husband at university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she was 22, and today they have two sons, Adam and noam. ‘I met someone I knew was extraordinarily kind and decent,’ she says.
‘My dad always told me: “It doesn’t matter how bright or rich or this or that. [Look for someone] decent, kind, generous and thoughtful to others.’
She remains conspicuously silent on her own experience of infidelity, but dedicates her new book to her husband, with the words: ‘ For Jack, whom I have loved for three decades.’
So what does he think of her radical views on affairs in a marriage?
‘There is a strong intellectual repartee between us,’ esther revealed in a recent interview. ‘And then we take it to a more personal level. I will ask him, “What do you think about this? Would this be upsetting to you?”, that kind of thing. It becomes a rich conversation between us.’
esther’s beliefs may be contentious, but her methods are even more so. She once suggested a British wife build an altar to her husband’s lover, to thank her for reinvigorating her marriage.
Then there’s her podcast, on which real-life couples air their marital grievances on the airwaves for millions of listeners to pore over. In one episode, she asked a husband to adopt his sexual alter-ego, which involved speaking in a French accent for the entire session.
even she admits: ‘I absolutely don’t think I’m for everyone.’ But her influence cannot be ignored. The thousands of thank-you letters she has received over the years are testament to the marriages she has helped save, or successfully resurrected from the ashes of an affair.
And while there will be many aghast at her approach to loyalty, monogamy and the sacred institution of marriage, it is hard not to sit up and take notice of this radical — yet refreshingly honest —approach to relationships in the modern age.
As she puts it: ‘Shared dreams, affection, passion and endless curiosity — all these are natural ingredients found in the adulterous plot. They are also the ingredients of thriving relationships.’
If you find your marriage tarred by infidelity, she would seem a good person to go to for advice. And for those fortunate enough never to experience the anguish of betrayal, there are still plenty of lessons to learn.
THE State Of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel is published by Yellow Kite, £14.99