There is one simple misconduct that can take our relationship from us, our happiness and even our personality. It is extremely common: this is a novel on the side. How to relate to him? The opinion of psychologist Esther Perel, addressed to everyone who loved.
At this very moment, in all four side of the world, someone betrays or endures betrayal, thinks
to start a novel, listens to the victim of the triangle or the lover with whose help the triangle arose. There is no other aspect in the life of a couple that would give rise to more fears, gossip and delights than treason. The adultery was legalized, discussed, politicized and demonized throughout history. And yet it always existed.
Most of the history of the man changed most of the story, because they had an approved opportunity to act in this way and not be too afraid of the consequences. The double standard is as old as cheating itself. I doubt that King David at least for a moment thought about his marriage status when he seduced Virsavia.
And today, the tendency due to our culture is to individualize and pathologize such widespread social reality as infidelity. But can we really explain it – so common! – just as a result of individual disadvantages?
Why are betrayal and what they mean?
I give lectures about love and sex around the world. For the first time became interested in infidelity, I used to ask my listeners if they have any experience of the novel on the side. Not a single hand in the hall rose – nothing surprising. There are a little people who publicly admit that they changed or that they cheated on them. There was a time when a divorce was experienced as something shameful, today we have a new stigma – infidelity.
Betrayals can teach us a lot: what are we waiting for, what, as we think, we want, and what, as it seems to us, we have the right
Taking all this into account, I changed my question to “which of you has encountered infidelity?”. And suddenly a mass of hands began to rise.
The woman sees in the train how her girlfriend’s husband is confidentially talking with some beauty, and wonders if he is telling or not. The young man describes the betrayal that preceded the divorce of his parents. Another young man – the “child of love” of one of his parents – tells how he grew up with his half his own brothers and sisters, whose attitude towards him passed all the steps from envy to indignation.
An elderly gay for a long time is talking with his best Lesbian friend, who suspects that her partner is cheating on her with her former. A long-married parental couple does not allow his daughter to be at their 60th anniversary to the wrong husband of his daughter. And the young groom wonders if he did the right thing, canceling an invitation for one of his chaffers – a famous jest – at the request of his bride.
I listen to all these stories, and this convinces me that treason is a general play that includes many characters: family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors, and unfolds its scenes on the internships of the Internet and smartphones, sites and mobile dating services.
Betrayals can teach us a lot – with regard to relationships – what we expect, what, as we think, we want, and what, as it seems to us, we have the right. They lead to a deeper discussion of our values, human nature and the fragility of Eros, and push us to some of the most alarming issues: how can we maintain a shaky balance between our emotional and erotic needs? Is the ownership of love initially or is it only a secret rudiment of patriarchate? Is it true that what we do not know about does not cause pain? How do we learn to trust again? Can love be not the only one?
