For some people, a one-night stand doesn't make any difference in a seven-year love affair. I don't believe the degree of betrayal… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For me, the constitutive element of an affair is the secrecy. It is the secrecy that leads to the lying, to the… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Success, to me, is helping one person or many people counter the isolation and pseudoconnectivity of our lives by boosting their ability… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
There is no sex without a cue. People who date have their cues at home, before they meet. You think about where… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Romantics value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion. But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily at… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
The vast majority of unfaithful people are experiencing a conflict between their values and their behavior, and that is the mess of… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Secrecy fuels erotic intensity because it makes you feel like you're doing something that is entirely yours. It gives you the sense… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Affairs can be powerful detonators. They can invigorate a marriage that's flat, jolt people out of years of complacency. Fear of loss… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Even a good marriage leaves people with longings for certain things their marriage will never be. So, do they accept that, make… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
People grow up learning to be silent about their sexuality, so where are they going to learn to talk about it when… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
People cheat on each other in a hundred different ways: indifference, emotional neglect, contempt, lack of respect, years of refusal of intimacy.… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
If a woman isn't feeling sexual with herself, she won't respond to advances from any partner, male or female. When this woman… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
In committed sex, in marriage, people don't feel the need to seduce or to build anticipation - - that's an effort they… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Many couples have never had a conversation about sexuality and sexual boundaries. The presence or lack of sex, the quality of it,… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I believe that the vast majority of people that are unfaithful are monogamous in their beliefs. The ones who are not monogamous… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I say no to a double standard that men can roam and women must stay put at home. I say no to… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
In my community there were two groups of people, There were the ones who did not die and the ones who came… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I have more than thirty thousand hours of family and relationship counseling experience under my belt. Over the years, I have seen… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
The one word I hear when people have affairs is that they feel alive. They don't talk about the fact they're having… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For some people, the experience of sexuality is that they are entirely inside their body, but others feel they have totally transcended… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life:… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
It’s hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For some people, a one-night stand doesn't make any difference in a seven-year love affair. I don't believe the degree of betrayal is always… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of intimacy and… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships . . . which are basically a reflection of your sense… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
If you start to feel that you have given up too many parts of yourself to be with your partner, then one day you… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
On some level we trade passion for security, that's trading one illusion for another. It's a matter of degree. We can't live in constant… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is acknowledged and… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic desire for… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
