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Why do we cheat?

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And why do happy people cheat?

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And when we say "infidelity,"
what exactly do we mean?

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Is it a hookup, a love story,
paid sex, a chat room,

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a massage with a happy ending?

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Why do we think that men cheat
out of boredom and fear of intimacy,

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but women cheat out of loneliness
and hunger for intimacy?

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And is an affair always
the end of a relationship?

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For the past 10 years,
I have traveled the globe

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and worked extensively
with hundreds of couples

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who have been shattered by infidelity.

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There is one simple act of transgression

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that can rob a couple
of their relationship,

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their happiness and their
very identity: an affair.

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And yet, this extremely common
act is so poorly understood.

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So this talk is for anyone
who has ever loved.

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Adultery has existed
since marriage was invented,

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and so, too, the taboo against it.

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In fact, infidelity has a tenacity
that marriage can only envy,

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so much so, that this is
the only commandment

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that is repeated twice in the Bible:

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once for doing it, and once
just for thinking about it.

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(Laughter)

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So how do we reconcile
what is universally forbidden,

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yet universally practiced?

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Now, throughout history, men
practically had a license to cheat

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with little consequence,

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and supported by a host
of biological and evolutionary theories

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that justified their need to roam,

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so the double standard
is as old as adultery itself.

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But who knows what's really going on
under the sheets there, right?

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Because when it comes to sex,

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the pressure for men
is to boast and to exaggerate,

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but the pressure for women
is to hide, minimize and deny,

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which isn't surprising when you consider
that there are still nine countries

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where women can be killed for straying.

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Now, monogamy used to be
one person for life.

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Today, monogamy is one person at a time.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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I mean, many of you probably have said,

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"I am monogamous in all my relationships."

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(Laughter)

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We used to marry,

45
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and had sex for the first time.

46
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But now we marry,

47
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and we stop having sex with others.

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The fact is that monogamy
had nothing to do with love.

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Men relied on women's fidelity

50
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in order to know whose children these are,

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and who gets the cows when I die.

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Now, everyone wants to know

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what percentage of people cheat.

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I've been asked that question
since I arrived at this conference.

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(Laughter)

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It applies to you.

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But the definition of infidelity
keeps on expanding:

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sexting, watching porn, staying
secretly active on dating apps.

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So because there is no
universally agreed-upon definition

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of what even constitutes an infidelity,

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estimates vary widely,
from 26 percent to 75 percent.

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But on top of it, we are
walking contradictions.

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So 95 percent of us will say
that it is terribly wrong

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for our partner to lie
about having an affair,

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but just about the same
amount of us will say

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that that's exactly what we
would do if we were having one.

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(Laughter)

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Now, I like this definition
of an affair --

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it brings together the three key elements:

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a secretive relationship,
which is the core structure of an affair;

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an emotional connection
to one degree or another;

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and a sexual alchemy.

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And alchemy is the key word here,

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because the erotic frisson is such that
the kiss that you only imagine giving,

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can be as powerful and as enchanting

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as hours of actual lovemaking.

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As Marcel Proust said,

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it's our imagination that is responsible
for love, not the other person.

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So it's never been easier to cheat,

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and it's never been more
difficult to keep a secret.

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And never has infidelity exacted
such a psychological toll.

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When marriage was an economic enterprise,

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infidelity threatened
our economic security.

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But now that marriage
is a romantic arrangement,

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infidelity threatens
our emotional security.

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Ironically, we used to turn to adultery --

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that was the space where
we sought pure love.

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But now that we seek love in marriage,

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adultery destroys it.

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Now, there are three ways that I think
infidelity hurts differently today.

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We have a romantic ideal
in which we turn to one person

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to fulfill an endless list of needs:

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to be my greatest lover, my best friend,

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the best parent, my trusted confidante,

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my emotional companion,
my intellectual equal.

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And I am it: I'm chosen, I'm unique,

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I'm indispensable, I'm irreplaceable,

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I'm the one.

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And infidelity tells me I'm not.

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It is the ultimate betrayal.

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Infidelity shatters
the grand ambition of love.

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But if throughout history,
infidelity has always been painful,

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today it is often traumatic,

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because it threatens our sense of self.

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So my patient Fernando, he's plagued.

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He goes on: "I thought I knew my life.

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I thought I knew who you were,
who we were as a couple, who I was.

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Now, I question everything."

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Infidelity -- a violation of trust,
a crisis of identity.

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"Can I ever trust you again?" he asks.

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"Can I ever trust anyone again?"

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And this is also what my patient
Heather is telling me,

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when she's talking to me
about her story with Nick.

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Married, two kids.

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Nick just left on a business trip,

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and Heather is playing
on his iPad with the boys,

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when she sees a message
appear on the screen:

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"Can't wait to see you."

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Strange, she thinks,
we just saw each other.

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And then another message:

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"Can't wait to hold you in my arms."

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And Heather realizes

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these are not for her.

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She also tells me
that her father had affairs,

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but her mother, she found
one little receipt in the pocket,

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and a little bit of lipstick
on the collar.

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Heather, she goes digging,

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and she finds hundreds of messages,

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and photos exchanged
and desires expressed.

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The vivid details
of Nick's two-year affair

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unfold in front of her in real time,

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And it made me think:

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affairs in the digital age
are death by a thousand cuts.

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But then we have another paradox
that we're dealing with these days.

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Because of this romantic ideal,

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we are relying on our partner's
fidelity with a unique fervor.

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But we also have never
been more inclined to stray,

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and not because we have new desires today,

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but because we live in an era

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where we feel that we are
entitled to pursue our desires,

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because this is the culture
where I deserve to be happy.

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And if we used to divorce
because we were unhappy,

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today we divorce
because we could be happier.

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And if divorce carried all the shame,

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today, choosing to stay when you can leave

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is the new shame.

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So Heather, she can't talk to her friends

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because she's afraid that they
will judge her for still loving Nick,

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and everywhere she turns,
she gets the same advice:

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leave him, throw the dog on the curb.

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And if the situation was reversed,
Nick would be in the same situation.

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Staying is the new shame.

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So if we can divorce,

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why do we still have affairs?

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Now, the typical assumption
is that if someone cheats,

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either there's something wrong
in your relationship or wrong with you.

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But millions of people
can't all be pathological.

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The logic goes like this: if you
have everything you need at home,

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then there is no need
to go looking elsewhere,

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assuming that there is such
a thing as a perfect marriage

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that will inoculate us against wanderlust.

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But what if passion
has a finite shelf life?

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What if there are things
that even a good relationship

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can never provide?

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If even happy people cheat,

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what is it about?

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The vast majority of people
that I actually work with

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are not at all chronic philanderers.

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They are often people who are
deeply monogamous in their beliefs,

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and at least for their partner.

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But they find themselves in a conflict

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between their values and their behavior.

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They often are people who have
actually been faithful for decades,

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but one day they cross a line

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that they never thought they would cross,

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and at the risk of losing everything.

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But for a glimmer of what?

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Affairs are an act of betrayal,

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and they are also an expression
of longing and loss.

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At the heart of an affair,
you will often find

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a longing and a yearning
for an emotional connection,

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for novelty, for freedom,
for autonomy, for sexual intensity,

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a wish to recapture
lost parts of ourselves

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or an attempt to bring back
vitality in the face of loss and tragedy.

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Now I'm thinking about
another patient of mine, Priya,

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who is blissfully married,

187
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loves her husband,

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and would never want to hurt the man.

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But, she also tells me

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that she's always done
what was expected of her:

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good girl, good wife, good mother,

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taking care of her immigrant parents.

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Priya -- she fell for the arborist
who removed the tree from her yard

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after Hurricane Sandy.

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And with his truck and his tattoos,
he's quite the opposite of her.

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But at 47, Priya's affair is about
the adolescence that she never had.

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And her story highlights for me
that when we seek the gaze of another,

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it isn't always our partner
that we are turning away from,

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but the person that
we have ourselves become.

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And it isn't so much that we're
looking for another person,

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as much as we are
looking for another self.

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Now, all over the world,

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there is one word that people
who have affairs always tell me.

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They feel alive.

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And they often will tell me
stories of recent losses --

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of a parent who died,

207
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and a friend that went too soon,

208
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and bad news at the doctor.

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Death and mortality often live
in the shadow of an affair,

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because they raise these questions.

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Is this it? Is there more?

212
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Am I going on for another
25 years like this?

213
00:13:01,870 --> 00:13:04,362
Will I ever feel that thing again?

214
00:13:06,377 --> 00:13:10,814
And it has led me to think
that perhaps these questions

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are the ones that propel
people to cross the line,

216
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and that some affairs are
an attempt to beat back deadness,

217
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and be an antidote to death.

218
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And contrary to what you may think,

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affairs are way less about sex,
and a lot more about desire:

220
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desire for attention,
desire to feel special,

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desire to feel important.

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And the very structure of an affair,

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the fact that you can
never have your lover,

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keeps you wanting.

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That in itself is a desire machine,

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because the incompleteness, the ambiguity,

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keeps you wanting
that which you can't have.

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Now some of you probably think

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that affairs don't happen
in open relationships,

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but they do.

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First of all, the conversation
about monogamy is not the same

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00:14:03,522 --> 00:14:05,743
as the conversation about infidelity.

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00:14:06,468 --> 00:14:09,975
But the fact is, that it seems
that even when we have

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00:14:09,999 --> 00:14:12,658
the freedom to have other sexual partners,

235
00:14:12,682 --> 00:14:16,736
we still seem to be lured
by the power of the forbidden,

236
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that if we do that which
we are not supposed to do,

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then we feel like we are really
doing what we want to.

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00:14:25,331 --> 00:14:28,951
And I've also told
quite a few of my patients

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00:14:28,975 --> 00:14:33,562
that if they could bring
into their relationships

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00:14:33,586 --> 00:14:37,213
one tenth of the boldness,
the imagination, and the verve

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00:14:37,237 --> 00:14:38,895
that they put into their affairs,

242
00:14:38,919 --> 00:14:41,124
they probably would never need to see me.

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00:14:41,148 --> 00:14:43,148
(Laughter)

244
00:14:44,362 --> 00:14:46,647
So how do we heal from an affair?

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Desire runs deep.

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00:14:50,371 --> 00:14:52,242
Betrayal runs deep.

247
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But it can be healed.

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And some affairs are death knells

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for relationships that were
already dying on the vine.

250
00:15:02,753 --> 00:15:05,929
But others will jolt us
into new possibilities.

251
00:15:05,953 --> 00:15:07,952
The fact is, the majority of couples

252
00:15:07,976 --> 00:15:10,150
who have experienced
affairs stay together.

253
00:15:10,766 --> 00:15:13,405
But some of them will merely survive,

254
00:15:13,429 --> 00:15:18,103
and others will actually be able
to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

255
00:15:18,817 --> 00:15:22,460
They'll be able to turn this
into a generative experience.

256
00:15:22,484 --> 00:15:26,198
And I'm actually thinking even
more so for the deceived partner,

257
00:15:26,222 --> 00:15:27,564
who will often say,

258
00:15:27,588 --> 00:15:29,390
"You think I didn't want more?

259
00:15:29,415 --> 00:15:31,207
But I'm not the one who did it."

260
00:15:31,968 --> 00:15:34,126
But now that the affair is exposed,

261
00:15:34,150 --> 00:15:36,260
they, too, get to claim more,

262
00:15:36,284 --> 00:15:38,891
and they no longer have
to uphold the status quo

263
00:15:38,916 --> 00:15:41,800
that may not have been working
for them that well, either.

264
00:15:44,221 --> 00:15:47,126
I've noticed that a lot of couples,

265
00:15:47,150 --> 00:15:49,277
in the immediate aftermath of an affair,

266
00:15:49,301 --> 00:15:53,603
because of this new disorder
that may actually lead to a new order,

267
00:15:53,627 --> 00:15:57,175
will have depths of conversations
with honesty and openness

268
00:15:57,199 --> 00:15:58,824
that they haven't had in decades.

269
00:15:59,743 --> 00:16:02,695
And, partners who were
sexually indifferent

270
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,295
find themselves suddenly
so lustfully voracious,

271
00:16:05,319 --> 00:16:08,634
they don't know where it's coming from.

272
00:16:08,658 --> 00:16:12,547
Something about the fear
of loss will rekindle desire,

273
00:16:12,571 --> 00:16:15,840
and make way for an entirely
new kind of truth.

274
00:16:18,133 --> 00:16:21,030
So when an affair is exposed,

275
00:16:21,054 --> 00:16:24,165
what are some of the specific things
that couples can do?

276
00:16:26,133 --> 00:16:30,260
We know from trauma that healing begins

277
00:16:30,284 --> 00:16:34,196
when the perpetrator
acknowledges their wrongdoing.

278
00:16:35,339 --> 00:16:39,076
So for the partner who had the affair,

279
00:16:39,100 --> 00:16:40,688
for Nick,

280
00:16:40,712 --> 00:16:42,443
one thing is to end the affair,

281
00:16:42,467 --> 00:16:47,975
but the other is the essential,
important act of expressing

282
00:16:47,999 --> 00:16:50,865
guilt and remorse for hurting his wife.

283
00:16:50,889 --> 00:16:52,350
But the truth is,

284
00:16:52,374 --> 00:16:55,421
I have noticed that quite a lot
of people who have affairs

285
00:16:55,445 --> 00:16:58,509
may feel terribly guilty
for hurting their partner,

286
00:16:58,533 --> 00:17:01,676
but they don't feel guilty
for the experience of the affair itself.

287
00:17:02,135 --> 00:17:03,976
And that distinction is important.

288
00:17:05,230 --> 00:17:08,856
And Nick, he needs to hold
vigil for the relationship.

289
00:17:09,293 --> 00:17:12,342
He needs to become, for a while,
the protector of the boundaries.

290
00:17:12,366 --> 00:17:14,975
It's his responsibility to bring it up,

291
00:17:14,999 --> 00:17:16,975
because if he thinks about it,

292
00:17:16,999 --> 00:17:19,975
he can relieve Heather from the obsession,

293
00:17:19,999 --> 00:17:23,975
and from having to make sure
that the affair isn't forgotten,

294
00:17:23,999 --> 00:17:26,332
and that in itself
begins to restore trust.

295
00:17:27,570 --> 00:17:29,435
But for Heather,

296
00:17:29,459 --> 00:17:31,190
or deceived partners,

297
00:17:31,214 --> 00:17:35,182
it is essential to do things
that bring back a sense of self-worth,

298
00:17:35,206 --> 00:17:40,245
to surround oneself with love
and with friends and activities

299
00:17:40,269 --> 00:17:43,912
that give back joy
and meaning and identity.

300
00:17:43,936 --> 00:17:45,975
But even more important,

301
00:17:45,999 --> 00:17:50,808
is to curb the curiosity
to mine for the sordid details --

302
00:17:50,832 --> 00:17:52,975
Where were you? Where did you do it?

303
00:17:52,999 --> 00:17:56,107
How often? Is she better
than me in bed? --

304
00:17:56,131 --> 00:17:58,531
questions that only inflict more pain,

305
00:17:58,555 --> 00:17:59,959
and keep you awake at night.

306
00:18:00,674 --> 00:18:05,396
And instead, switch to what I call
the investigative questions,

307
00:18:05,420 --> 00:18:08,650
the ones that mine
the meaning and the motives --

308
00:18:08,674 --> 00:18:11,213
What did this affair mean for you?

309
00:18:11,237 --> 00:18:13,975
What were you able to express
or experience there,

310
00:18:13,999 --> 00:18:16,190
that you could no longer do with me?

311
00:18:16,214 --> 00:18:19,262
What was it like for you
when you came home?

312
00:18:19,286 --> 00:18:22,761
What is it about us that you value?

313
00:18:22,785 --> 00:18:24,737
Are you pleased this is over?

314
00:18:26,404 --> 00:18:30,801
Every affair will redefine a relationship,

315
00:18:30,825 --> 00:18:33,633
and every couple will determine

316
00:18:33,657 --> 00:18:36,142
what the legacy of the affair will be.

317
00:18:37,649 --> 00:18:41,411
But affairs are here to stay,
and they're not going away.

318
00:18:42,316 --> 00:18:44,975
And the dilemmas of love and desire,

319
00:18:44,999 --> 00:18:50,975
don't yield just simple answers
of black and white and good and bad,

320
00:18:50,999 --> 00:18:52,903
and victim and perpetrator.

321
00:18:54,221 --> 00:18:58,381
Betrayal in a relationship
comes in many forms.

322
00:18:58,406 --> 00:19:00,666
There are many ways
that we betray our partner:

323
00:19:00,690 --> 00:19:02,975
with contempt, with neglect,

324
00:19:02,999 --> 00:19:05,292
with indifference, with violence.

325
00:19:05,999 --> 00:19:09,523
Sexual betrayal is only
one way to hurt a partner.

326
00:19:09,547 --> 00:19:12,087
In other words, the victim of an affair

327
00:19:12,111 --> 00:19:14,983
is not always the victim of the marriage.

328
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:20,244
Now, you've listened to me,

329
00:19:20,268 --> 00:19:22,459
and I know what you're thinking:

330
00:19:22,483 --> 00:19:26,197
She has a French accent,
she must be pro-affair.

331
00:19:26,697 --> 00:19:29,999
(Laughter)

332
00:19:31,761 --> 00:19:33,595
So, you're wrong.

333
00:19:33,619 --> 00:19:35,174
I am not French.

334
00:19:35,666 --> 00:19:38,119
(Laughter)

335
00:19:38,143 --> 00:19:41,023
(Applause)

336
00:19:41,602 --> 00:19:43,269
And I'm not pro-affair.

337
00:19:44,674 --> 00:19:49,254
But because I think that good
can come out of an affair,

338
00:19:49,278 --> 00:19:52,389
I have often been asked
this very strange question:

339
00:19:52,413 --> 00:19:54,150
would I ever recommend it?

340
00:19:55,514 --> 00:19:58,531
Now, I would no more
recommend you have an affair

341
00:19:58,555 --> 00:20:01,085
than I would recommend you have cancer,

342
00:20:01,109 --> 00:20:03,808
and yet we know that people
who have been ill

343
00:20:03,832 --> 00:20:07,950
often talk about how their illness
has yielded them a new perspective.

344
00:20:08,569 --> 00:20:12,052
The main question that I've been asked
since I arrived at this conference

345
00:20:12,076 --> 00:20:15,417
when I said I would talk
about infidelity is, for or against?

346
00:20:16,488 --> 00:20:17,749
I said, "Yes."

347
00:20:18,162 --> 00:20:20,583
(Laughter)

348
00:20:21,868 --> 00:20:25,511
I look at affairs from a dual perspective:

349
00:20:25,535 --> 00:20:29,169
hurt and betrayal on one side,

350
00:20:29,193 --> 00:20:32,535
growth and self-discovery on the other,

351
00:20:32,559 --> 00:20:35,605
what it did to you,
and what it meant for me.

352
00:20:36,621 --> 00:20:41,355
And so when a couple comes to me
in the aftermath of an affair,

353
00:20:41,379 --> 00:20:43,228
that has been revealed,

354
00:20:43,252 --> 00:20:45,536
I will often tell them this:

355
00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:47,831
today in the West,

356
00:20:47,855 --> 00:20:52,760
most of us are going to have
two or three relationships

357
00:20:52,784 --> 00:20:54,419
or marriages,

358
00:20:54,443 --> 00:20:57,538
and some of us are going
to do it with the same person.

359
00:20:58,666 --> 00:21:00,911
You first marriage is over.

360
00:21:01,633 --> 00:21:04,474
Would you like to create
a second one together?

361
00:21:05,164 --> 00:21:06,595
Thank you.

362
00:21:06,619 --> 00:21:13,253
(Applause)