Katie Lewin

“Infidelity hurts. But when we grant it a special status in the hierarchy of marital misdemeanors, we risk allowing it to overshadow the egregious behaviors that may have preceded it or even led to it.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

“Often, when one partner insists that they don’t yet feel acknowledged, even as the one who hurt them insists they feel terrible, it is because the response is still more shame than guilt, and therefore self-focused.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

“Once we strayed because marriage was not supposed to deliver love and passion. Today we stray because marriage fails to deliver the love, passion, and undivided attention it promised.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

“In our efforts to protect ourselves from intimate betrayal, we demand access, control, transparency. And we run the risk of unknowingly eradicating the very space between us that keeps desire alive. Fire needs air.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity