If you’ve never listened to leading psychotherapist Esther Perel’s TED Talk on infidelity, you should, if only for the kind of knowledge you should keep, just in case—you know, like that trusty fire extinguisher in the glass case with the sign that says, “Break in Case of Emergency.”
Perel provides answers for such important questions: “Why do we cheat? And why do happy people cheat? And when we say ‘infidelity,’ what exactly do we mean? Is it a hookup, a love story, paid sex, a chat room, a massage with a happy ending? Why do we think that men cheat out of boredom and fear of intimacy, but women cheat out of loneliness and hunger for intimacy? And is an affair always the end of a relationship?”
Perel is a relationship resource that becomes even more invaluable when a partner cheats and the other believes, on top of the weight of the betrayal, that their partner’s cheating is, somehow, reflective of their inadequacy or that they are “not enough.” Perel believes that “the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.” To which the church all says, “AMEN.”
This episode of Red Table Talk introduces Perel on a broader platform in an audience-friendly format that aids understanding of a really painful aspect of our relationships. Perel is also the creator of the groundbreaking podcast, Where Should We Begin.
.
.
© Copyright 2019 Donna Kassin. All rights reserved.
Do you have information you want to share with Donna? Here’s how.
.
RELATED VIDEO: Rethinking infidelity … a talk for anyone who has ever loved
