“Today, female infidelity is the biggest challenge to the male-dominated status quo”

This conversation between Hanna Rosin and therapist Esther Perel (who “accepts only patients who are involved in affairs, and the vast majority of them, she says, are ‘content’ in their marriages”) is fascinating. “Very often we don’t go elsewhere because we are looking for another person,” says Perel. “We go elsewhere because we are looking for another self. It isn’t so much that we want to leave the person we are with as we want to leave the person we have become.”

Other tidbits: “In America, lying can never be an act of caring”; “Female infidelity is the biggest challenge to the male-dominated status quo”; “Therapists are the worst!”; “For me, this is my fourth marriage with my husband and we have completely reorganized the structure of the relationship, the flavor, the complementarity.” And the kicker at the end:

Slate: Would you ever recommend an affair?

Perel: No more than I would recommend cancer and yet a lot of people finally understand the value of life when they get sick.