Partial profile · Book Profile — full narrative profile planned
The State of Affairs Rethinking Infidelity
A veteran couples therapist reframes infidelity not as a simple story of villains and victims but as a complex window into desire, identity, marriage, and modern love that, when understood rather than merely condemned, can transform relationships.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Drawing on decades of clinical work with couples on multiple continents, Esther Perel challenges the reductive, moralizing conversation around affairs and replaces it with a compassionate, layered inquiry into why even happy people cheat, why betrayal wounds so deeply, and what infidelity reveals about our contradictory longings for security and adventure, belonging and freedom. The State of Affairs moves beyond prevention-and-recovery clichés to explore the meanings and motives of affairs—self-discovery, aliveness, transgression, unlived lives—while never minimizing the trauma of betrayal. Through vivid stories of the betrayed, the unfaithful, and the lover, Perel offers a 'both/and' bridging narrative that helps real people navigate crisis, meaning-making, and visioning, whether they stay together or part. Provocative, humane, and cross-culturally informed, it is essential reading for anyone who has ever loved, been betrayed, strayed, or simply wondered whether monogamy and desire can coexist over a lifetime.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A partner, lover, or betrayed spouse grappling with infidelity who wants to understand what happened and find a way to love, trust, and feel alive again—together or apart.
- The problem
- An affair (theirs or their partner's) has fractured the relationship, the shared history, and the future they planned. They feel humiliated, enraged, insignificant, self-doubting, and unmoored, unsure whether their feelings and choices are even legitimate.
- The plan
- Separate your feelings about the affair from decisions about the relationship, especially in the crisis phase.
- Move through recovery in phases: stabilize the crisis, then make meaning of the affair's motives, then envision a future.
- Explore infidelity from multiple perspectives—what it did to one partner and what it meant to the other.
- Ask investigative questions about meaning rather than detective questions that retraumatize.
- Rebuild trust and eros by inviting curiosity, freedom, and honest conversation rather than surveillance.
- The payoff
- A relationship rebuilt with greater honesty, resilience, and erotic vitality, or a separation conducted with dignity and grace. · The ability to hold the wound of betrayal within a larger, coherent life narrative rather than being defined by it. · Renewed self-worth, trust that can coexist with uncertainty, and a more alive, curious partnership.
See our guide
Additional reading
- The State of Affairs: Explorations in Infidelity and Commitment · Edited by Jean Duncombe, et al.
The author credits this academic compendium for its title and for emboldening her to explore the psychological dimensions of adultery with a serious, layered approach.
- Mating in Captivity · Esther Perel
The author's first book, which explored desire in long-term relationships. The intense audience focus on its single chapter on infidelity prompted her to write this entire book on the subject.
- After the Affair · Janis Abrahms Spring
Cited as eloquently voicing the existential torment of the betrayed partner and for concepts like the 'transfer of vigilance' used in the recovery process.
- Monogamy · Adam Phillips
Cited for its provocative insights into the paradoxes of love and commitment, such as 'Two’s company, but three’s a couple.'