Iconic couples’ therapist and bestselling author of Mating in Captivity Esther Perel returns with a provocative look at relationships through the lens of infidelity.

An affair: it could rob a couple of their relationship, their happiness, their very identity. And yet, this extremely common human knowledge is so badly understood. What are we to make of this time-honored taboo-universally forbidden however universally used? Why perform people cheat-even those in content marriages? How come an about The Situation: Rethinking Infidelity affair hurt so much? Whenever we state infidelity, what exactly do we indicate? Do our romantic expectations of relationship set us up for betrayal? Is there any such thing as an affair-proof marriage? Is it possible to love more than one person at once? Can an affair ever help a relationship? Perel weaves real-life case stories with incisive mental and cultural analysis with this fast-paced and convincing book.

For the past ten years, Perel has traveled the world and worked with hundreds of couples who have grappled with infidelity. Betrayal hurts, she writes, nonetheless it could be healed. An affair could even be the doorway to a new marriage-with the same person. With the right approach, couples can grow and study from these tumultuous experiences, together or aside.

Affairs, she argues, possess too much to train us about contemporary relationships-what we expect, what we should think we wish, and what we feel eligible for. They offer a distinctive windows into our personal and cultural attitudes about like, lust, and commitment. Through analyzing illicit love from multiple angles, Perel invites visitors into an honest, enlightened, and engaging exploration of contemporary marriage in its many variations.Fiercely intelligent, The State of Affairs provides a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. As Perel observes, “Like is messy; infidelity more so. But it is also a window, like no other, into the crevices of the human heart.”