The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

Spectacular book — an easy read. I truly couldn’t put it down. The topic is especially relevant if you’ve experienced betrayal. I also appreciated how this book opened my eyes to other things: events, behaviors, and different people’s perspectives. I would definitely recommend it.

What can I say, a book every person should read. I decided to read the book after watching numerous interviews of Ester. Her thought process, reasoning and advice are all so enticing. You just want to binch all her material. The way she brings complicated relational issues to us, and how she delve deeper is mind blowing. This book is no different, her words fly off the paper and her reasoning and conceptualization of each couples delimma is absolutely beautiful. The way how she doesn't judge your wrongs but understand she is there to listen, delve deeper and help one make sense of the why. I am in no way in a marriage of infidelity but I know ppl who had gone through it, who had done it to their partners, who are being judge for it, and of whom had lost partners and yet they have no closure of the "why". I was one of those who would simply just judge someone who committed infidelity and see the partner as the victim, never thinking even in this story their are two sides to the coin and if we take the time to delve deeper we too would realize often time there is no victim because both parties have a part in what transpired. And this is the reason why I wanted to learn more about why ppl go astray, why we wonder or long for something different at times and what to do when that happens. I realized we are all just imperct human being, cheating is not just the physical, it is the emotional. Some of us cheat in our minds and that is also something we need to talk over and deal with. I certainly have found myself in the mind cheating sphere and this book really help you dig deeper and finding answers. This book is not only for those who committed infidelity or who had been cheated on, it's for everyone because we are all capable of infidelity in one form or another. The sooner you learn about it, the better you'll be able to understand and be less judgmental to those even yourself committing it.

Great book, has really helped me with my marriage and helped me understand more about affairs. Take note that I read this book almost 6-8 months after discovery of the affair and months of marriage therapy so I believe this book would not have been as helpful earlier in the process. I don’t believe my head would have been in a place of willingness to hear some of the things in this book. However, every scenario described in the book, at first I’m always upset at the cheater and can’t understand why they would do that, but after Ester explains both sides, even though I don’t agree that an affair is the right choice or a good solution, I do understand better and see that there is not always a clear right and wrong party. Overall I really like this book and feel it has really helped me in understanding affairs in general as well as in my own marriage. I will caution, like previous reviewers commented, a chapter near the end of the book suggests that maybe the problem isn’t infidelity but our society’s definition of marriage and maybe we need to rethink the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is allowed in a marriage. This, in my opinion, is flawed and goes against everything I believe. Besides this one chapter dedicated to this idea, there are moments sprinkled in the book where she hints at this notion but she herself seems confused on if that is the best solution as most of the time the relationships with more liberal open rules still end up having affairs, so her defense on this idea doesn’t have much weight. Other than those moments I love the book and it has truly helped me understand and forgive and move on, not forget, but forgive and move on. My favorite part of the book is a chapter near the end that talks about three different types of couples (referring to ones that stay together after infidelity), the ones who never move on, they stay hurt and constantly bring up the affair and the pain and blame each other, the ones that sweep it under the rug and almost pretend it never happened and “move on” but they don’t really move on because they live in denial that anything even happened, and then there are those that use the affair to transform their marriage and find the positives from the affair and can connect more deeply because of it. I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 mainly because of the ideas I don’t agree with regarding redefining marriage, a notion that half the time she seems to be on the fence about herself but has a whole chapter dedicated to it as well as sprinkled hints about through out the book. Other than that I do like the book and found it insightful and loaded with good ideas and mainly understanding.

I read this book about 3 months after my husband confessed to cheating. In short, it has helped me begin to heal. She does NOT excuse cheating, but humanizes everyone involved and explores various facets of the situation from the standpoint of each individual. I actually re-read it about a month after my first reading and found it just as helpful the second time around. She delves into other aspects of the relationship that may have contributed to the choice to cheat- NO, she does not blame the person who was cheated on. She states plainly that the person who cheated made their own choice. I did not feel blamed OR that she was excusing the person who cheated. But, if you are trying to heal and/or wanting to try to make your relationship work, it is unhelpful to ignore everything that came before the affair. She assumes that if you want things to work with your partner you also want to improve your relationship overall- even if your relationship already felt happy and whole before the affair took center stage. That all said, this book will be more helpful for situations in which the person who had the affair is remorseful and/or wants to change, which is of course not always the case. As someone who has been cheated on, I whole heartedly recommend this book!

If you have had the awful experience of infidelity in a relationship, you need this book. I am only halfway through it, but have underlined so many passages. I wish I'd had it earlier. It has been years and sometimes I still struggle with this. Movies, books, songs, chats with friends - affairs and cheating comes up constantly. You don't notice until you have been through it. You cannot just forget what happened and never think about it again. What I like about this book is the non victim angle. Yes, someone has hurt you and betrayed you in a horrible way. But reading this book had a calming effect on me instead of bringing up all of those feelings again. I did cry a few times reading it, but it made me feel better, not worse. And I liked the chapter on jealousy and obsession over the other person. A lot of books don't cover that aspect which makes you feel like something is wrong with you for having these feelings. I also really like the author's casual way of writing. Some authors are too formal and clinical and this is such an emotionally charged subject. I'd rather hear someone be blunt and not talk to me like a doctor. If you are going through this terrible thing, read this book. Whether it's been weeks or years since the discovery.

An excellent and essential read for anyone who cares about loving thoughtfully and deeply. As a colleague of Esther's, I have learned and been inspired by her since her first book, Mating Captivity in 2004. She has directly impacted my lifework as a Sex & Couples Therapist. This book is rich in insight born of Esther's many years in private practice, astute clinical skill and depth of understanding of people and the workings of couples in many cultures. She has helped me personally and professionally in this book by compassionately provoking my own inner life work, affirmed what I already understood as a clinician and enriched and enhanced my perspective in both arenas. I believe this book will be the new classic on the topic of infidelity for some time to come. Esther's aim is to open up conversations on modern love through the lens of infidelity. It certainly has and will continue to for me. Thank you Esther & Bravo! Leslie Gustafson, LMFT, CST & Co-Author of Amazing Intimacy

In my opinion this is one of those books that everyone in a relationship should read, whether or not you have been affected by an affair. An eye-opener on the dynamics of love, desire and, well, relationships in and outside of the marriage - the book helps one to orient and not lose themselves in times of conflicts and uncertainty. The stories and observations gathered by the author strengthened my understanding of love and would’ve helped me to avoid inflicting a lot of suffering on myself and others if I have read it earlier.

Esther Perel is an outstanding therapist and author. One of the most well-written self-helps books I've ever read. Her ideas resonated with me most of the book, until it took a turn for the worst, seeming to accept our culture's new attitudes about "consent" to make the Poly-Amory movement OK. Just because someone agrees to participate (often with a lot of arm-twisting or one person just trying to please a potentially straying partner) doesn't make it "right" or healthy. There has been a lot of research about the need for a healthy, trusting attachment throughout the lifespan, and that includes as adults. The poly-amory movement tries to distinguish itself from the "wife-swapping" of the 1960's by establishing all kinds of "rules" and "agreements" that feign to protect the primary relationship from harm. Well, I've seen a lot of break ups and broken hearts that have resulted from poly-amorous arrangements. I will be very interested to see some longitudinal studies done because I fully expect these arrangements to not be successful long term. I'm sorry, but as an infidelity specialist for 30 years, I haven't seen long-lasting positive results from this social experiment. I was surprised that such a savvy therapist as Ms. Perel would take an accepting stance on poly-amory. Especially after the wisdom she demonstrated throughout the rest of her book.

Esther Perel is immensely intelligent and well articulated. This isn't just a book for those who have been cheated on, or who cheated. It's a book for anyone who wants to understand human relationships better.

Bonito diseño

If you have heard Esther Perel’s talks then probably one can skip buying this book if you haven’t then it’s worth buying to understand many things about relationships

This book written by a psychotherapist and counsellor who has worked with couples will be of interest to anyone interested in relationships. It is also well written with an good narrative flow. At the beginning of the book Esther Peel looks at the conventional wisdom on partnerships and marriages and fidelity in them. She points out that in Western society there are strong views that partners in these are expected to stay loyal to each other, with out straying elsewhere for intimacy and sex. She does not appear to have problems with this per se, but points out there are many divergences form this path. It is human nature to transgress boundaries, even if this is painful. What follows are a large number of accounts of cases she has encountered. This includes infidelity in conventional marriages, both homo- and hetro- sexual partnerships, open relationships (where issues of infidelity can crop up despite there being a permission to find additional partnerships) as well as ones that insist on monogamy. She looks also at issues of betrayal, the pain of discovery of an affair, how some affairs may save people from bad partnerships and also how that affairs may sometimes (paradoxically?) even save and strengthen relationships. Perel also looks at the various kind of people involved, apparently settled people, those who prefer to have affairs rather than stay in a single one. All in all the range of people discussed here is wide. Perel's aim is not to discredit monogamy, but to suggest what is needed is a little more space for people in their situations to work through. At one point in the narrative she ponders on the general state of knowledge around human sexuality. As she states it is limited. This book contributes to expanding that space a little more. An enlightening read.

This book helped me understand both sides of the coin. It is written outstandingly, without any judgment and really opening a conversation about the taboo that affairs are. I can only recommend it to couples, also if you're not going through something like this, you still can take a lot from it.