Hello, hello, it's Stephen Hussey here and I'm going to keep the preamble short today because I want to dive right into this thoughtful,

content rich, powerful conversation between my brother Matthew Hussey and none other than Esther Perel,

a fantastic writer, one of the leading psychotherapists and thinkers on relationships, love and dating in the modern era.

It's a fantastic conversation and I'm going to hand over right now to Matthew himself.

If we are incredibly fortunate in life, there will be moments or a moment where we get to sit down and have a genuine conversation without intellectual crush.

The woman that I am about to introduce you to is that for me. Her name is Esther Perel.

She wrote mating in captivity and most recently the state of affairs.

She has one of the most viewed TED talks of all time on relationships.

The hour that I sat and talked with Esther was one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had on relationships.

In the section of this talk that I'm going to present to you today, we talk about infidelity, which I know is a highly charged issue for so many people.

But what we're about to talk about, I believe, is essential viewing for anyone who wants to apply a more rational, kind and humanistic approach to one of the most taboo subjects in relationships.

Without further ado, I present to you the wonderful Esther Perel.

We have this narrative so many of us that happy people don't cheat and you challenge that.

Yes.

And you say not necessarily true.

And I thought to myself, if that's the case.

How did you, that idea come across to you?

For myself, I didn't have a largely emotional response, but here's what I imagined some of my audience may be feeling.

If that's true, how can I ever relax?

If even happy people in a relationship can cheat, where now is my barometer for whether or not I'm likely to be?

I think that when you enter a relationship, it is part of your awareness that such a thing could happen.

You don't live with it.

...