Over a year ago, I posted Esther Perel’s first TED Talk, in which she hyped her terrific book, Mating in Captivity.
Recently, TED posted a second talk of hers, this one entitled “Rethinking Infidelity.” It’s another great talk, in which she declines to demonize anyone or anything, and simply engages, non-judgmentally, compassionately, with a few facts:
– Infidelity is common
– There are two commandments out of ten relating to it (one, as she says, about doing it; the other, about thinking about it)
– Good people in good marriages can be unfaithful
– Infidelity isn’t one thing
– It’s far more productive to wonder what we get out of infidelity than to judge it
and…
– Infidelity is brutally, brutally painful.
This all seems about right to me. I enjoyed watching this talk. I hope you do, too.
[ted id=2252]
Wow! This had been sitting in my inbox for a while and I hadn’t dared watch it yet. Or hadn’t made it a priority (though I find my choice of words just now interesting 😉 ).
I like it. A lot. I particularly like what she said at the end. Some people manage to have a second marriage with their spouse (you come to mind, some other friends of mine), others don’t. In my case, the affair was he nail in the coffin. And as she said, no mater how hurt he feels, and how victimised, I don’t think my ex was the victim in our marriage.