Why Do Happy People Cheat?

High interest debt is one of the toughest opponents you'll face unless you power up with a SOFI personal loan. A SOFI personal loan could repackage your bad debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment. It's even got superspeed since you could get the funds as soon as the same day you sign. Visit sofi.compower to learn more. That's s o-fi.com P-O-W-E r loans originated by SoFi bank and a member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply.

NMLS 696891 hello, hello, it's Stephen Hussey here, and I'm going to keep the preamble short today because I want to dive right into this thoughtful, content, rich, powerful conversation between my brother Matthew Hussey and none other than Esther Perel, a fantastic writer, one of the leading psychotherapists and thinkers on relationships, love and dating in the modern era. It's a fantastic conversation and I'm going to hand over right now to Matthew himself.

If we are incredibly fortunate in life, there will be moments or a moment where we get to sit down and have a genuine conversation with our intellectual crush. The woman that I am about to introduce you to is that for me? Her name is Esther Perel. She wrote Mating in Captivity and most recently, the State of Affairs. She has one of the most viewed TED talks of all time on relationships. The hour that I sat and talked with Esther was one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had on relationships. In the section of this talk that I'm going to present to you today, we talk about infidelity, which I know is a highly charged issue for so many people. But what we're about to talk about, I believe, is this essential viewing for anyone who wants to apply a more rational, kind and humanistic approach to one of the most taboo subjects in relationships. Without further ado, I present to you the wonderful Esther Perel.

We have this narrative, so many of us, that happy people don't cheat. And you challenge that?

Yes.

And you say, not necessarily true. And I thought to myself, if that's.

The case, how did that idea come across to you?

For myself, I didn't have a largely emotional response, but here's what I imagined some of my audience may be feeling. If that's true, how can I ever relax if even happy people in a relationship can cheat? Where now is my barometer for whether or not I'm likely to be cheated on?

I think that when you enter a relationship, it is part of your awareness that such A thing could happen. You don't live with it, you hope it will not be. But it's not like it's far fetched. It's that we have to be alert. But alert in our awareness of that so that.

So the same way we're living. I live in LA and we pack a bag for an earthquake should it ever happen. But we don't sit here every day freaking out about a potential earthquake.

I mean, it's a strange thing to say. It's like it's a terrible thing. You imagine it won't happen. Our contract isn't based on this. You hope that the relationship is solid enough, you hope you, you can meet your partner's needs enough. But to make, to think, to live with the naivete that this is never going to happen. No, you actually say this could happen. And I'm going to do everything I can for that not to be the case. But I'm not going to live with the naivete that this is inconceivable. But that doesn't explain why even happy people cheat. And I don't want to say it's happy people cheat. I want to say it's people who are in happy relationships. People come to me all the time and they say, I love my partner very much, I'm having an affair.

Well, I thought one of the really empowering things you said in a way was if I. We live in a society now where we're shamed for staying in an unhappy relationship, not shamed for leaving.

Yes.

And if we're cheating instead of just leaving, that means there are parts of the relationship that are good enough that we want to salvage or that we don't want suddenly.

Just not even about enough. Not even just about enough. Listen, some people cheat because they want out. Some people cheat because they are grandiose and entitled. And some people cheat in order to preserve their relationships, as weird a thought as that may actually be, because they.

Know it will alleviate some desire they have or because they're self sabotaging so.

That their partner will find out so.

They can have a more honest dialogue.

Both. Both. Or because they have tried to say something for a long time that was not being responded to.

Right.

It's, you know, we want to say, why didn't you bring it up? If you're unhappy enough to cheat, you're unhappy enough to go. Seriously, it's much harder to stay than to leave and to rebuild and to see and to take a crisis like any other major crisis and to say, we will get through this. Because a relationship is more than just what happens between the two of us. There's a whole system that depends on this relationship. It's a whole life. When you leave a relationship that's of years, you live a life. And I don't always want to live that whole life.

You said that you have to, with your partner, decide what the legacy of your affair will be or their affair.

Yes.

For a woman who has been cheated on, how does she overcome the anger and the resentment that I have to grow and do something in response to something you fucked up?

Yeah.

Why is it half my job to create the legacy for what this will all mean? Now I understand the. You know, that is a very evolved point of view. If you've decided the relationship is important enough to stick in, then ultimately that's the way it is. But how do you overcome that anger from having to being put in the position where you're forced to grow?

First of all, you do not have to overcome all the anger. I think that you are perfectly okay when this comes up, even two years later, to still be utterly fuming. And then I say to him, you see this woman, this woman who is saying to you, how dare you do this? You took something that was ours and you brought that to this other person. This was for us. What the f were you doing? And I said to him, you wanted a woman who fights for you, you got her. This is a woman. This is no longer just a mother who is taking care of her children. You wanted a woman. Here you have her now you need to be able to handle this. You know, this is not about being Pollyannish about it. She should if she's. You know, there are certain things that you won't forgive, but that doesn't mean that you don't just say, when it comes to this, I don't forgive him. But in the rest of our life, the guy has still been really amazing. And he showed up when my mother was sick, and he showed up with my alcoholic brother, and he showed up when I got whatever issues that I was doing. And the thing that really shows you the ones who can do this versus the ones on occasion, you have to say the end is. The end is when I'm actually able to say, you messed up here, but you actually still are a decent human being in other areas. And I'm not erasing the whole thing. I don't think that because you did this, you have destroyed everything we ever had. This truth does not stand to annihilate all of what we have built and you don't judge an entire relationship by the affair. That is unfair to the marriage, unfair to the relationship, whatever it is, you know, if it's married or not. It really puts this thing as if it stands to tell a bigger story than everything that preceded. You know, you've got people, they buried their parents together, they raised children, they have a handicapped child, they've gone through economic downturns, they've done so much. And this thing is going to become the ultimate truth of their relationship. I don't think it's fair to the relationship and I don't think it's fair to the enormous investment that people have put in. That doesn't mean it's right. The last thing I will ever do is condone this, make this be the good the writing to do. But you get through it. You do get through it. Now on occasion, she will remind him and she will tell him, you know, I will never, never forget this. Don't worry. And I like when she has that fire.

Yeah, yeah.

Because in a way, she's fighting for him. And if he can't handle her wrath, too bad. You wanted attention. You wanted to see if she cares. You got it. Now you have to deal with it. Stand up.

I really hope that you enjoyed that conversation. On both an intellectual and a personal level, Esther's is a voice that needs to be heard. She is a clear headed thinker who applies an incredibly kind and rational approach to the human condition. And these aren't easy issues to talk about. I think it takes a brave voice to confront these kinds of taboos in life, like infidelity. She does it with such kindness and such nuance and I'd love for you to hear her approach. Thank you for watching. Pick up a copy of the book and thank you to Esther for being part of this with me. I really appreciate you and as always, I look forward to seeing you all next week.

I love that through this conversation and Esther's work, we can see that there isn't always a one size fits all solution to a problem as complicated and big as cheating. And yes, some couples decide that their relationship and trust is irreparable and decide to part ways at that point. But there's also couples that Esther's worked with who have rebuilt after that experience and turn their relationship into something beautiful, into something more honest and have managed to come out of that experience as a stronger partnership for it. And I think that's an inspiring message to know that there's many different solutions to the same problem. So if you enjoyed that episode and you actually want to hear more of Matt and Esther talking. That clip is actually taken from an hour long conversation in our Attraction to Commitment program. And we don't usually do favorites in our company, but Matt has been on record about saying this is the most comprehensive and the program is the most proud of that we've ever made because it literally goes from the early stages of attraction right to what conversations you need to get into commitment and the principles and behaviors that keep lasting love. And you can get that@getlastinglove.com if you go there. You can sign up to our members area and hear the full hour long conversation with Matt and Esther. And if you are going through the pain of heartbreak and infidelity right now, just know that you are not alone. So many people we have worked with have been in that dark place and they feel that they're completely isolated and it can feel like no one understands your pain. Just know that you can dig through this right now and find your way back to the light again. But what you don't want to do is beat yourself up, live in regret, start chastising yourself for past mistakes and wondering, maybe if I did things differently it would have turned out another way. These are all forms of self torture. And the best thing you can do for yourself going forward is to start being loving to yourself, start being an ally, lift yourself up, do things that are good for your self esteem, look at people who support you and lift you up right now. And you can start on the way to defining the next chapter of your life. Turning the page. And you can see this experience, this pain as just a moment, just a chapter, a footnote in your romantic history. And it can become the story of how you flipped it all around. And you can look back and go, my God, I can't believe the place I was in then. Look at how far I've come. Now the first step is up to you to take the pen, get a fresh new page and decide what the story is going to be going forward. Make it something that empowers you, something that's beautiful, something you can be proud of, and we will see you soon.