# Bonus New Year's Gift: Esther Perel  Author:: Savage Lovecast  ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > **Affair Victims** > - The victim of an affair isn't always the victim of the marriage. > - Affairs are often symptoms of pre-existing marital problems. > Transcript: > Dan Savage > I just wanted to unpack it with you really quickly, if we could, before we talk about the art of desire. And that is the victim of the affair is not always the victim of the marriage. I don't think there's anything that you've said that landed with quite the boom that that did. ([Time 0:01:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/279149b0-78dc-4064-8b6d-9345c42382ea)) > **Infidelity as a Symptom** > - Infidelity is often viewed as a symptom of a flawed relationship, with the transgressor as the perpetrator and the other partner as the victim. > - Esther Perel challenges this notion, suggesting that relational betrayals like indifference, neglect, or abuse can be equally damaging and may precede infidelity. > Transcript: > Esther Perel > You look at infidelity from the point of view of a victim and a perpetrator, and that it is a symptom of a flawed relationship, that the transgression is way more serious than any other Relational betrayal that may have existed in the relationship before. And I remember thinking to myself, but relational betrayals come in many forms. Indifference, neglect, abuse, years of sexual rejection. Why are we not integrating that? Why do we single out the sexual infidelity as the ultimate betrayal, as the mother, as the queen of all betrayals? ([Time 0:03:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a4b66f8d-6c1d-4fa4-80d8-03f58d5707b5)) > **Infidelity and Relationships** > - An affair exists within the context of a relationship, not in isolation. > - It's important to acknowledge prior relational issues to add nuance and complexity, which helps with understanding and potentially healing. > Transcript: > Esther Perel > I wanted to make a point that it's easy sometimes for the person who is betrayed who feels violated who feels lied to who feels deceived to enter the role as if nothing before that proceeded And to say you did this to me when the story is often 20 30 years earlier of so many things that have happened between us that give context they don't justify they don't condone but they Give context layers complexity nuance and we need all of this if we want to help the thousands of people that are living with the experience of infidelity and affairs. ([Time 0:04:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/768d31fd-50ab-456e-8b06-b3785198afa6)) > **Why People Have Affairs** > - People having affairs often report feeling more alive. > - They may not want to leave their partner, but rather the person they've become, seeking to reconnect with dormant parts of themselves. > Transcript: > Esther Perel > The line I could hearing from people is, I love, you know how in mating in captivity, people would say to me, we love each other very much. We have no sex. And I began to hear a parallel line in the state of affairs. I love my partner. I'm having an affair. And I feel torn about it. And I don't know what to make of it, etc. But what they would say to me is, I feel alive. More than sex or anything, the experience globally, worldwide, the one word that kept repeating, I haven't felt so alive. The aliveness had to do with a lot of other dimensions of relationships. But what they would say and what I got from it is this. Sometimes it's not that you want to leave your partner, but you want to leave the person that you have yourself become. And it's not that you're looking for another person, but you're looking for another self or to reconnect with parts of yourself that have gone dormant for decades. And those lines made it so no, affairs are not always symptoms of troubled relationships. They actually are more existential sometimes. They're a quest for something. They're an antidote to deadness. ([Time 0:06:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2ef31b36-ffac-49ae-9fb9-cca3034a312e)) > **Committed Relationships and Free Choice** > - In relationships based on free choice, partners must accept the possibility of change. > - This awareness prevents taking each other for granted and encourages continuous effort. > Transcript: > Esther Perel > You have been married to someone. You are in it for life. And it's a different conception of marriage. But if we want a marriage or a committed relationship that is rooted in free choice, then we have to live with the anxiety that that choice can be at times changed. > Dan Savage > The gift of embracing that anxiety and living with it and living with the existential howling void of it is it really does solve for something else that threatens relationships, which Is being taken for granted. That's right. If you know your partner can leave at any time, could fuck anybody else at any time, then you know that you kind of, and I say this to people and sometimes it makes people mad at me, you have To earn your partner every day. That's right. I think there's something fundamentally transactional about all relationships and you pay in in an intimate, loving, committed relationship with time, attention, affection, Prioritization, sex, you pay in. And to earn all of that back from that person, you can't take them for granted or take what they're bringing to you for granted either. And so if you just embrace it, like, yeah, they're free to go at any time. And so I don't want them to go. And so I'm going to show up for them. ([Time 0:14:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d82cadc2-df6e-437f-9b56-426c92e6ef6e)) > **Relationship Crossroads** > - When romantic love fades in a couple, partners must decide individually if they're content or desire rekindling. > - Denying a partner's romantic needs while restricting their other options creates a power struggle rooted in fear. > Transcript: > Esther Perel > You are an affectionate companionate couple. You are deep friends. You are no longer romantically involved. What do you want to do with that? If both people say, I'm good with this at this stage, there's not much that we need to talk about. If one person said, I still want to feel this thing, will I ever get this back? Will I never be touched again? I mean, I can't live like this. I'm drying on the vine. Then you say to the other person, this is a power trip. If you say no, but you can't have it anywhere else either, you're in a power struggle here. And the question is, what are you afraid of? You can't trap your partner into the desert to protect you from your fear of abandonment. Or you may not want to reach out anywhere else because you are afraid of the consequences of this. And we don't need to make a decision, but we do need to have a conversation about any of this. ([Time 0:21:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b98bce2b-d7e9-4db5-a77e-84eafb4dd8c2))