The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity – An Enlightened Exploration of Modern Marriage and Why Happy Couples Cheat

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.

In this book, Perel presents her Ted-talk famous revolutionary ideas about infidelity, and it is certainly fascinating to go through them in depth with her. Her thinking is refreshing and intelligent, and also not dogmatic, as she soothes the reader: “this might not be for everyone”. At times, though, I found myself wanting more psychological facts in the book, those explanations that help us understand the roots of infidelity, the process, the resolution or solution thereof. At times, I also wished for it to be more solemn about the pain of the person who has suffered the infidelity. Yes, very often it might be that the ‘victim’ of the affair indirectly contributed with neglect, lack of attention or intimacy, etc. to the affair, but there are cases in which the ‘victim’ really gave the relationship a lot, and still there was cheating. I felt that the book is sometimes reductionist about the causes of an affair, which can make it hard for those that fall outside those definitions to draw insights from the book. However, overall, it is a great book to read to understand a much debated life crisis, and maybe see it under a different light. It is not necessarily a self help book, thus, I would not recommend it for someone straight after they have learned after infidelity, as the intellectualization of the topic might hurt a bit when one is in that initial pain.

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!

There's a lot to love about this brave, bold, beautifully written and impeccably researched this book. It should be read by any one going through or recovering from an affair and by any one who is counseling a friend or loved one through the experience of infidelity--including other clinicians! I love how Esther brings a more nuanced, compassionate and less judgmental approach to this topic that is more commonly subject to vilification and endless judgment. It's very easy to blame and reflexively want to label who's right, who's wrong, who's good, who's bad, etc--but that often doesn't allow for much growth or greater understanding in a relationship which is a crucial path for maturing and expanding as a human being. Offering a refreshing, radically different perspective on love, desire, infidelity and more, The State of Affairs offers the means for many more people to become emotional grown ups. It's lovely to read how Esther brings her whole heart to this subject and her clients; it's the combination of her big heart and brilliant mind that makes this book super compelling and allows her to have such a dramatic impact on her clients. Thank you, Esther!

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.