Partnership psychologist Esther Perel says there are a straightforward explanation satisfied persons cheat.

In her latest book, The State of Affairs, Esther explains although persons frequently cheat for the reason that of marital dysfunction, occasionally it might come about even when there’s no difficulty with the connection at all.

4 Little Things Compulsive Cheaters Have In Common 

So why, if someone is well-balanced, mature, caring and invested in their partnership, would they cheat on their partner?

“Straying is not necessarily a symptom of a partnership gone awry,” Esther tells Mia Freedman for the duration of an interview for No Filter.

“It’s the quest for lost parts of one’s self, it is the quest for a sense of aliveness, for vitality. It’s a quest to reconnect with the unlived lives.”

In these situations, cheating is not about compensating for a thing that is missing in a partnership or setting up an exit; it is about self-discovery. For these folks, infidelity is significantly less probably to become a symptom of a problem and more most likely to become about development, exploration, and transformation.

The changing reasons why women cheat on their husbands

To someone who’s just been cheated on, the excuse “I’m sorry, I was just trying to come across myself” may be cold comfort, but Esther says when folks seek the gaze of an individual who isn’t their partner, it is not always for the reason that they’re looking for yet another lover. It is often mainly because they’re looking for yet another version of themselves.

The issue is the fact that when couples endeavor to search for which means, they practical experience the “streetlight effect” which indicates they oversimplify the concern to make it less complicated to solve.

“Human beings usually look for points inside the areas where it is easiest to search for them as an alternative to in the places where the truth is far more most likely to be discovered,” Esther says.

For some couples, focusing on the familiar territory of their connection and blaming it for causing the infidelity is more comfortable than delving into the complexities of a partner’s existential crisis and trying to grasp it fully.

Little Things Compulsive Cheaters Have In Common 

“Affairs are about hurt and betrayal and deception, but they’re also about longing and loss and self-seeking,” says Esther.

From time to time, these feelings are adequate to produce intensely faithful people risk all the things and cross a line they by no means believed they’d pass.