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Infidelity promises “lives that could never be mine,” as journalist Anna Pulley writes in a beautiful essay about her affair with a married woman. “I was,” she writes, “a road she would never take. . . . Ours was a love that hinged on possibility—what we could offer each other was infinite potentia…

“I’ve always been good. Good daughter, good wife, good mother. Dutiful. Straight As.” Priya comes from an Indian immigrant family of modest means. For her, “what do I want?” has never been separated from “what do they want from me?” She never partied, drank, or stayed out late, and she had her firs…

Sometimes, when we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves. Mexican essayist Octavio Paz describes eroticism as a thirst for otherness.1 So often, the most in…

The idea that infidelity can happen in the absence of serious marital problems is hard to accept. Our culture does not believe in no-fault affairs. So when we can’t blame the relationship, we tend to blame the individual instead. The clinical literature is rife with typologies for cheaters—as if ch…

Trust and truth are intimate companions, but we must also acknowledge that there are many kinds of truth. What are the useful truths, for us as individuals and as couples, in light of the choices we are likely to make? Some kinds of knowledge bring clarity; others just give us visions to torture ou…