Friday, July 10, 2015

Esther Perel: Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved




Affairs are an active betrayal but they are also an expression of longing and loss. 

At the heart of an affair you will often find a longing and yearning for an emotional connection, for novelty, for freedom, for autonomy, for sexual intensity, a wish to recapture lost parts of ourselves, or an attempt to bring back vitality in the face of loss and tragedy. 


When we seek the gaze of another it isn’t always our partner that we are turning away from, but the person that we ourselves have become, and it isn’t so much that we are looking for another person but another self. 

Affairs usually follow recent losses … death of a parent, bad news at the Dr., a friend who went to soon.  They are an attempt to beat back deadness, and an antidote to death.  They beg to ask the questions “Is this it?” “Is there more?” “Will I ever feel that thing again?” 

Today in the west, most of us are gonna have 2 or 3 relationships or marriages and some of us are gonna do it with the same person.

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