Video summary
In this discussion, Esther Perel challenges common assumptions about infidelity, arguing that cheating often stems from a profound sense of deadness within a relationship rather than mere lust or boredom. She defines this "deadness" as complacency, neglect, estrangement, and a lack of laughter, play, curiosity, and imagination. According to Perel, who has studied the subject for decades, most people seeking therapy are not chronic philanderers or sexual addicts but committed individuals living monogamous lives for years before crossing an unexpected line. The driving force behind such betrayal is frequently a desperate desire to feel alive again; when partners report their affairs, they often describe feeling vibrant and exuberant in ways that were missing at home. Perel emphasizes that the ability to tolerate difference is one of the most profound incompatibilities facing couples today. In healthy relationships, individuals must learn differentiation—the capacity to accept that a partner perceives and experiences situations differently without it being threatening. A key early warning sign of relational deadness occurs when partners stop engaging with each other's inner worlds; for instance, if one person shares an interesting thought about a movie or book while the other is distracted by their phone or simply cannot follow the conversation, curiosity dies. This lack of engagement creates a dynamic where individuals feel they must hide parts of themselves from their partner to avoid judgment, leading them to express their true selves only with friends rather than within the marriage itself. The speaker clarifies that eroticism in this context is not synonymous with sexual acts or physical excitement but refers instead to a fundamental sense of aliveness and vitality. She notes that one can have sex without feeling anything, just as one can feel deeply connected while doing very little if there is sufficient imagination involved. Perel suggests that the person returning home from an affair is often not meeting their spouse at all, highlighting how partners become bored with each other because they fail to practice love actively rather than viewing it as a permanent state of enthusiasm. Love and passion are verbs that require conjugation in multiple tenses through daily rituals and actions, much like playing a sport requires preparation and routine, contradicting the myth that relationships should be purely spontaneous surges of emotion. Ultimately, Perel proposes shifting away from polarizing approaches to infidelity toward more human and helpful methods that address these underlying relational dynamics. She observes that while it is easy for couples to yell at one another, being patient enough to take a breath before responding or tolerating the other's pain is significantly harder yet essential. The core issue often lies in how partners manage difference; if they cannot remain curious about who their partner truly is—someone distinct from themselves and not merely an extension of their own ego—the relationship stagnates into deadness. By bringing even 10% of the creative imagination used during affairs back into primary relationships, couples could potentially transform their lives, preventing the loss of vitality that often leads to betrayal.
Read the full video transcript
I read uh a piece from you recently
where you said the real reason people
cheat isn't always about what we assume.
It's not just about lust or boredom or
one too many margaritas. It's about
something far more unsettling and sad. A
sense of deadness in the relationship.
What's deadness?
>> What is deadness?
complacency,
neglect,
estrangement,
lack of laughter, lack of play, lack of
curiosity.
um management inc 99% of the time.
Um
criticism,
indifference,
um if I'm here or if I'm not here, does
it make a difference? Does it matter?
Except you may not want to be alone, but
that doesn't mean you really want to be
with me.
Um all of these are expressions of
deadness, lifelessness,
loss, loss of vitality, loss of
vibrancy, loss of imagination.
It's a lot of things that I mean
interestingly
and you know I wrote a whole book on on
infidelity after 10 years of studying
this state of affairs and the one word
that I heard all over the world when
people would talk about their affairs
and there's a ton of different kinds of
affairs and I'm in no way romanticizing
nor approving nor condoning nor
encouraging. Just want to put that out
there before I even say a word. But
people just said, "I felt alive."
And the truth of a therapist office is
that we don't work with the majority of
the people we meet are not chronic
philanderers nor sexual addicts nor
narcissistic pricks. We see people who
have been or narcissistic pricks. If you
want on the other side, it doesn't
matter. But what we see is people who've
often lived, you know, rather committed
monogous lives for decades, 10, 20, five
years, and then one day they cross a
line that they never thought that they
would cross themselves.
And so for a glimmer of what? Why would
people try to risk losing everything
they worked for so long and so hard for
what?
And that's when I began to think,
there's more here. You know what is this
deadness that people are referring to
that would make people act out acts of
exuberant defiance
to the point of really losing their
pants
and skirts whatever this I'm not this is
not a gendered story at all and so um I
got very very interested in what are
relational betrayals and um uh and how
do we address them and how do we create
an approach that is more human and more
helpful than the polarizing. And you're
going to hear that theme for me all the
time. It's like I um it's not difficult
to yell at each other.
>> That's a great point. It's very
difficult to be patient with each other
though, to be understanding, to take a
little bit of time, to take a breath
before you respond.
That's much more difficult.
>> Yes. to tolerate the other person's
pain. lot of lot of things to to really
you ask me you open the conversation by
saying why do some couples succeed and
why don't they and what is the
fundamental incompatibility I think the
most profound incompatibility is the
ability to live with un other
difference
much of relationships is managing
difference
and other person who stands there sees
the same thing as you and has a very
different experience of it. How can that
be?
You know, and I the ability to to to
really and then be curious about this
person who is other, different, not you,
not an extension of you, not there to
make you feel good about you, just is
whoever they are. And how do you come to
accept that? It's called
differentiation,
you know, in a relationship that you
know that they perceive, experience,
respond to the same situation
differently and that that not be
threatening to you.
>> What are the
early signs of deadness or what are the
ones that maybe people, you know,
>> recognize?
You know, there's one that I often think
is an interesting one, right? You go,
you have dinner with a bunch of friends,
you talk, your partner starts talking
about the movie they saw, the music they
listened to, the book they read, and you
have no idea who's talking, you know,
none of it. And especially these days,
it's in the computer, it's in the phone.
You don't even see a book on the table.
So, you know, or not even a Netflix, you
know, when you used to get a cassette,
something culture was visible. Now it's
like
so but they talk and they have
interesting things to say and people
listen to them and then you go into the
car and it's like who's going to the
supermarket tomorrow morning or who's
picking up Joey or did you call your mom
or like nothing
and you just say why don't you continue
the conversation that made this person
actually interesting to you?
>> You were alive there but you're dead
here. Yes, curiosity is erotic. When I
talk about erotic, I'm not talking about
sex and turnons and excitement. I'm
talking about a fundamental sense of
aliveness. You can have sex and feel
absolutely nothing. Women have done that
for centuries. It's not the act itself
is not doesn't tell you anything about
the experience.
So it's really how do people feel alive
and and that means you can do very
little and feel a lot just because
you're imagining because you're you know
the kiss that you imagine giving as P
says is as powerful as the actual kiss
just use your imagination. So what may
what is deadness is when people have a
kind of nothing to say to each other,
don't engage with each other. It doesn't
have to be conversation, but some
something that says I want to
reach out to you on the other side of
the bridge like knock
who's there.
I've seen that in relationships, my
friends relationships where they've
turned up to dinner and, you know, they
are one person when their partner's
around and they're another person when
their partner's not there. Uh, you know,
even the presence of their partner at
dinner. And maybe part of it is that
sense that God, if I let myself loose
and become my true self with my friends
in the presence of this other person,
they're going to feel like they're going
to know that there's something up.
they're going to know that I don't feel
that excited to speak to them, that I'm
not that curious about them, that I have
these thoughts and this level of energy
that I just struggle to bring to this
relationship. So, I guess given that
those are the those are the early
warning signs.
>> So, I sometimes say to people if pe if
you brought 10% of the creative
imagination
or if people brought 10% of the creative
imagination that they bring to their
affairs into their primary
relationships,
their life would be very different. It's
an it's it's very interesting how people
become lazy.
>> Is that a conscious choice? Is that is
that something that people can
consciously step in to do? Or is passion
something which is bottom up and it's
emergent and you're it it sort of comes
out of you.
>> No, because love is a verb that you
have, you know, it's not a permanent
state of enthusiasm.
You you practice it. This is an Eric
from idea, you know. It's not that
wasn't the original think of that. It's
like you you it's a verb. You conjugate
it in multiple tenses and all the time
you do things that express this. If if I
play a sport, if you play a sport, you
it comes with a whole ritual. You get
your what what sport do you do? What
what's your
>> cricket? Cricket like a good British
guy.
>> Yes. Yes. So you you get your stick, you
get your you know you have your clothes,
you have your there's a whole ritual
that says
I'm going to play, you know, and nobody
says it should be spontaneous, it should
be passionate and just kind of sweep
you. It's it's a very interesting kind
of way that we have about thinking that
there is a surge, there is a force. It
feels like you're fearless in those
moments and you're you're ready to, you
know, to to embrace life with a
vengeance kind of thing. But
truth is that I often have said to
people, the person who comes home to
your partner, to your spouse is
absolutely not the person who is the
other one is meeting. And now you want
to tell me that your wife is boring or
your husband is boring.
>> I mean, seriously, you are boring, too.
Well, they were interesting enough to be
able to get this person to sleep with
them,
>> you know. So, it's uh
you know, I think I think we could have
two hours only on the subject of
infidelity because it's it's a very
powerful and and painful and destructive
and and and also repairing, you know,
experience in people's in people's
lives. Um I
Interestingly, after having spent
four decades pretty much, you know,
researching couples and families, I
began to think about other pairs. I got
interested in other forms of
partnerships, you know, friendship. I'm
deeply interested in friendship. These
days, I'm interested in creative
partners. I'm interested in co-founders.
I'm interested in parents and adult
children. I I I'm interested in in the
concept itself of pairs because pairs
are rarely just two. There's often a
third one lurking somewhere.
The lurk the third one can be the
previous manager. It can be the parent.
It can be you know it's not not just in
the concept of infidelity. Do you have
thirds?
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