UBT: Esther Perel on Beyonce
Chump Lady had a very late night last night, and couldn’t craft sentences this morning even if you put a gun to her head or threatened to take away her pinecone elves. So today you get a rerun. The Universal Bullshit Translator shredding Esther Perel’s cultural commentary on Beyonce. Enjoy.
The UBT can’t even.
An alert chump forwarded me this from Belgian cheater-apologist-therapist-thingy Esther Perel: “Beyonce’s Lemonade: A Refreshingly Un-American Affair.”
Un-American.
Because you Europeans, Africans, Asians, Latinos, and canucks are just invigorated by betrayal unlike us dim, moralistic Yankees.
Gentleman, if your kid looks like Guillermo the barista? Quit being a pussy. Just consider paternity testing the price of sophistication. Like ascots or those tiny yogurts in a jar.
Every time the Universal Bullshit Translator takes on Esther Perel, it has to tighten its sockets for the bullshit onslaught. Please quit sending it the TED talks. The UBT’s going to need a transmission overhaul before it can even face that mountain of crap.
Meanwhile, please accept this:
Dear friends and colleagues,
… deluded chumps, spambots, and assorted therapists who were dropped on their heads.
Like millions of people, I watched Beyoncé’s new visual album film, Lemonade, last month. Typically, I do not comment on the successive infidelity scandals that occupy our cultural stage.
Because I’m allergic to specifics. Comment on the Ashley Madison hack in support of Exuberant Defiance? Answer a direct question? You’d quickly conclude I’m a wingnut. Bombard your senses with nebulous zeitgeist-y word salad instead? I’m a subject matter expert on infidelity!
However, after watching the premiere of Beyoncé’s provocative new project, I offer some of my thoughts on the topic of infidelity, and its representation in contemporary American landscape.
I cannot resist commenting on the biggest contemporary reconciliation narrative on the American landscape that doesn’t feature a Duggar.
Beyonce is eating shit sandwiches and pronouncing them sophisticatedly delicious? Damn straight I’m talking. The recent scientific study, the largest ever conducted, by academics with actual credentials, which found that people who leave cheaters are better off? Shut the fuck up!
“Are you cheating on me?” Beyoncé asks. She throws open a door, and water gushes forth—an apt metaphor for the flood of emotions that her question, and its implied answer, unleashes.
As a couples therapist, I’ve sat with hundreds of women, and men, in the turbulent aftermath of infidelity. What struck me about Beyoncé’s album was both the universality of its themes and the unusual way in which it presented them. Whether autobiography or simply art, her multimedia treatise on unfaithful love represents a refreshing break with this country’s accepted narratives on the topic.
In the American backyard, adultery is sold with a mixture of condemnation and titillation. Magazine covers peddle smut while preaching sanctimony. While our society has become sexually open to the point of overflowing, when it comes to infidelity even the most liberal minds can remain intransigent. We may not be able to stop the fact that it happens, but we can all agree that it shouldn’t.
Condemnation, smut, preaching, intransigent minds…
We can all agree infidelity shouldn’t happen. But it’s not what cheaters do, it’s how you’re reacting that’s the problem. Quit judging!
Lots of things shouldn’t happen. Like tornados, the Zika virus, or my TED talks. It’s no use railing against natural disasters. Accept!
Another thing most Americans seem to agree on is that infidelity is among the worst things that can happen to a couple. The dialogue here is framed in terms borrowed from trauma, crime and religion: victims and perpetrators; injured parties and infidels; confession, repentance and redemption.
All those active verbs! It’s crazy! Language with accountability? Viewing infidelity as a choice and not an oops! I-slipped-on-a-banana-peel-and-into-your-genitals kind of serendipity?
Look Puritans — banana peels HAPPEN. No one is a victim here. Quit with your trauma talk.
As a European, I can testify that in other cultures, the betrayal is no less painful, but the response is more philosophical and pragmatic.
When we find our partners in bed with another, perchance we grimace. But then we offer our partner’s lover a cigarette, cook a perfect bouillabaisse, and retire to the sofa together to watch Jean-Luc Godard films.
Americans do not cheat any less than the supposedly lascivious French; they just feel more guilty about it, because the experience here is framed in moral terms.
Yeah, only in American is infidelity “framed in moral terms.” A couple millennium of major world religions condemning adultery notwithstanding.
As Brazilian couples therapist Michele Scheinkman has pointed out, the notion of trauma provides a legitimizing framework for the pain of betrayal, but it limits the avenues for recovery. This clinical approach denudes the pain of its romantic essence and its erotic energy
Being cheated on isn’t just painful, it’s sexy.
Focusing on pain and trauma is a buzzkill. If you want to reignite the sexy (so you can THRIVE! not just survive!) embrace the drama!
Don’t think of it in terms of betrayal, think how hot it is when your husband fucks someone else. Don’t you want to up your game? Let that jealousy fuel you towards erotic recovery!
—the very qualities that must be reignited if a relationship is to not only survive but thrive. Jealousy, rage, vengeance and lust are as central to the story as loss, pain and shattered trust—something European and Latin cultures will more readily admit than Americans. Infidelity is not just about broken contracts; it is about broken hearts.
These erotic aspects of the drama are unapologetically displayed in Beyoncé’s fierce performance. She does not present herself as victim, but as a woman invigorated and empowered by love.
Like that way she throws herself off a building. Empowering!
She even voices one of the great unspoken truths about the aftermath of affairs: the hot sex that often ensues. “Grief sedated by orgasm,” she intones, “orgasm heightened by grief.”
The pick me dance is hot. (To the cheater. Did you vomit afterwards and get the shakes? Quit being a victim!)
Don’t think about where that thing has been. Orgasms are heightened by STDs.
Has your life been shattered? Feeling humiliated? Disrespected? Shat upon? Hey, the important thing to remember is hot sex.
Perhaps most strikingly, she is unashamed to announce to the world that she intends to remain Mrs. Carter.
Millions of dollars and a global reputation at stake, it’s totally striking that she’d wish to remain Mrs. Carter. #whoddathunkit
“If we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious.”
Beyonce? I confused you with your song lyrics. I never thought you’d take back a cheater. You deserve better.
Esther? You’re full of shit.
Here’s a curious thing. I was looking for UBT/Esther Perel reruns for today and coincidence! every single article of hers I’ve UBTed has disappeared from the interwebz or she changed the URL (like today’s piece).
Huh. UBTing is just exuberant defiance, Esther! Embrace critical thinking. Makes the public discourse stronger.
She’s a grifter not an actual thinker. She’s not looking for honest unbiased discourse or the actual truth that’s just a marketing facade lol. She knows she has a product to sell and she knows who her mark is. Any attempts to balance her worldview with actual perspective will render her ability to sell her product (cheater coddling and chump blaming apologia) pretty much inert.
So she’s not oblivious to Chump Lady. ???????? Even better. You got her on the run.
Has EP ever actually gone through betrayel? The way she tries to minimise the trauma is despicable. The physical and mental pain that occurs after you find out you’re supposed person has been banana slipping into genitals all over town that the
gives you HPV, depression and changes your past and present cannot be downplayed or romanticised. She should be ashamed with herself. The blanket statements about culture are awful too. And as for the hot sex? It can happen without a cheating lying partner. What a horrible piece by her.
She’s never been cheated on because she’s the cheater. That’s why she’s the cheaters apologist
Ding ding ding ding! This is the answer.
Spell check *your person*!
#Sometimes … they weirdest image “POPPED” into my brain this morning with the phrase,
“The pick me dance is HOT” … It totally made me think of the whole “Erotic” Pole Dancing…
Maybe we can start selling them as “Esther’s”
Who btw was supposed to be one of the most beautiful people in the bible!
How ironic! ????. I just can’t anything Esther Perel…..ever! Philosophical and pragmatic? Fuck her! She is such a piece of shit (a Belgian Schijtluis if you will). Just peddling her crap to the unsuspecting and desperate to gain a dollar in her pocket. God has a special place in hell for people like her!
Exactly right SC. If Perel wasn’t making $ off her BS, she wouldn’t be spewing it. She overlooks the basics of human decency… that which we teach our CHILDREN from a tender age… LYING is a NO-NO.
Cheating requires incessant Lying.
This behaviour is not to be applauded. Especially towards your spouse whom you vowed to love and cherish. Human Decency 101.
Amen! You know what gets me most about that article she posted about Beyoncé is she acts like European’s just accept that cheating happens and that it is a “natural response”. The last time I checked Esther emotions run deep regardless if your American or European…it’s called being a human! Duh!!!!! I wonder how her European Philosophical and Pragmatic response would be if her ass caught an STD from her cheating asshat? Or, if they bled her bank account dry? Or, if they character assassinated her to her loved ones? Or, if they bombarded her into years long court battles?
She seriously needs to choke on her “European Pragmatic shit”!
As a European:
A) There are differences in character between north and south.
B) We may use differently coloured language than our fellow American chumps, but the emotions and hurt felt are quite the same.
C) About European pragmatism: until not so long ago, the chump who shot the cheater and the OW/OM in bed, would have been acquitted or given a minimal sentence on grounds of “honour killing” or “extreme provocation”…
(coming to think of it, it is pragmatims!?)
D) Who the hell is Esther Perel, totally unknown over here (she probably would not sell…).
“Extreme provocation “. This is great!
I’m not suggesting anyone commit murder, but those old laws sure don’t sound forgiving of infidelity.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Perel can dish it out but she can’t take it. Just like RIC therapists preach keeping marriages together after betrayal but who would never, ever, put up with that shit from their own partner.
Of course they wouldn’t. They’re dishonest, self-centered kibble whores. They’re the abusive, manipulative ones. Best case, they’re spackling their own chumpdom while profiting off of others’ pain and confusion. Still dishonest and manipulative.
I Googled “Chump Lady and Esther Perel” and all your columns about the UBT showed up!
To be clear, all the links I linked to in these columns have been deleted or moved. Not my actual columns.
please say you updated the links! It would be funny to keep doing that …she removes and you put them back LOL
Yes, I did, where possible. Some stuff she deep-sixed.
Dang! You ARE changing the narrative –
Yes, Esther is right that chumps should embrace eroticism, lust, and rediscovered verve after being cheated on. They should lust after the sexy NEW people around them. They should and can remember the passion they felt for their ex by falling in love with a brand new person – preferably one who has no connection to their loser fuckwit, with whom they will never speak again.
Spot on! Honesty and fidelity is sexy.
Yep, I got the thrill of a brand new relationship thanks to fw. I didn’t get the thrill of deception and sneaking around, but I choose honesty and respect so I am good with that.
????
If you use Big Words and sit with Hundreds of Couples, what YOU say must be true, even if it contradicts the eerily similar FEELINGS and EXPERIENCES of the hundreds of cheated-on clients you are talking about. You too can be a ther-pist! Just declare it so and it is so!
Dear Esther,
Sadly my cat did not read your book before I brought my new baby home. My cat failed to understand that having a baby was just a Quest for Aliveness and an Exuberant Act of Defiance. He landed a well-aimed claws-out swipe on my forehead which has scarred me for life. He is just jealous because he is an American cat and not quite as sophisticated as his European counterparts.
Today on Dr. Phil…. the cheater, the wife, and the side piece. I’ve seen him roast cheaters before and I hope that’s what he does today.
This should be very interesting.
European cats are so not sophisticated, just relax, I had one for 19 years and she was neurotic, because thats what sophisticated probably means.
I read CN comments but I could not read today’s CL’s comments (no offense, CL) because I’d be exposed to yet more of Perel’s traumatizing jargon cluttered claptrap.
Perel has rubbed salt in the deep wounds of chumps all over the world.
For money and ego. Ugh.
I’m not very worldly and I know cultural context will differ from one sociological sphere to the next regarding complex things like kinships and relationships BUT I can’t help shaking my head and thinking “So… you’re telling me that only North American chumps are traumatized by adultery and it’s only because we are socially conditioned to be? That a European chump isn’t shattered by the experience?”
I can’t imagine my French or Dutch chump doppelganger not being destroyed and rebuilt by the experience of sustained adultery (with a bonus STD), gaslighting, financial failure, humilation, temporary homelessness, abandonment, single parenthood, and the pain of being instantly replaced before you even knew that was happening, but… y’know… maybe I’m just not cosmopolitan enough to understand these sorts of things. Maybe I’m just not thinking of how erotic all those experiences are.
*Thinks hard* *Remembers* *Tries… really tries*
No, Esther. Nothing about that time was sexy.
I am French living in the US and 100% a chump. I’ve been chumped in France by a Frenchman and more recently in America by a native, and I can testify it hurts the same. I must not be a sophisticated kind of French I guess.
You are right on with all of this, Fourleaf (as usual). Great comment.
I wish so much being European (whatever she means by that, beceause there are almost 50 countries with very different cultural background and traditions) would spare me the enormous pain of being cheated on. I can asure you, I’m from Europe, from one of many countries at least, it hurts, it’s not considered sexy or wordly or sophisticated, it just sucks.
Perel is a stupid bitch.
That is all the time I’m willing to spend on her stupidity. We all know the saying about arguing with an idiot.
As for Beyonce, all I can say is while she’s free to make her own decisions I’m truly sorry that she doesn’t think she deserves and can do better.
Yes, Kim, I agree. I used to think she was a confident, powerful woman who wanted to help other women feel and truly be powerful.
Now I think she has set a terrible example for women and girls, basically encouraging them to stuff their feelings (because you can never again fully trust a partner who has lied to you and cheated on you) so they can hang on to a man. That is anything but powerful. Certainly not mighty!
Makes me proud to be an American.
????????????
Very timely repost. It was just the 7th anniversary of the Met Gala elevator incident which occurred between Beyoncé’s sister Solange and Cheater Jay-Z (Every chump could benefit by having a sibling like Solange).
I live in France and my French neighbour’s husband has cheated on her from day one – almost 50 years at this point. Don’t tell me she’s fine with it, when she sat at the bottom of her stairs at 4 a.m. smoking and pregnant wondering where her AH husband was!! She’s a neurotic, nervous wreck who lives on coffee and cigarettes – and that AH made her like that! She’s adorable but I fear it’s too late for her to leave him now. Every so many days she comes round to my house for a coffee and a whinge session and I see what a job he has done on her and her self-confidence. The AH even asked ME to have an affair with him after my husband left. I put him VERY firmly back in his place after that but chose not to tell her because she had already made up her mind she “couldn’t afford to leave him” at nearly 70 and I didn’t see the point in twisting the screw any more. She’s known what he is like from day one (as did her parents, sadly). No, there’s nothing “sophisticated” about betrayal even to Europeans!
I have a nephew who is a chronic/cheater liar living in Arizona. He’s always treated his wife with no respect at all , no physical abuse mind you , just a supreme asshole. A textbook narcissistic sociopath. After some 15 years of his BS she finally left and moved back to her home state. I asked her why she just doesn’t divorce him. Her reply gobsmacked me with utter logic. ” As long as we’re married he’s locked out of any other marriage , he’ll never file for fear of losing half of everything , so me , having no interest in another relationship ,will just wait for him to die and I get everything.”
I had to chuckle.
I hope your friend lives long enough to piss on his grave
Here’s a situation where one can’t help but wonder how Esther would react if her own husband cheated on her.
I was thinking she is a chump and that she came up with all this shit to convince herself that she isn’t married to a lying asshole. And of course to make money.
Maybe I am confusing her with someone else.
Found it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/survivinginfidelity/comments/jmm8jg/what_exactly_does_esther_perel_teach/
NotRickDeckard1982
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11m
Walking the Road | QC: SI 162 | RA 143 Sister Subs
Somewhere, I once saw an audience member ask her if she’s monogamous with her husband, or if they’re in an open marriage, or if they’re ok with each other cheating.
She basically told them to mind their own business and then went on a rant about not being judgmental.
I wish I remember where I saw that.
Lol, sounds like she’s an AP or something. Total OW word salad and deflection. Clueless is the word when someone mentions EP. Also the Disney little girl meme comes to mind.
I think you may be. There is some thread somewhere (different site) where someone ASKED HER about infidelity in her marriage and the fact that she brushed them off leads me to believe that she’s a cheater.
Most chumps will at least pause a beat.
I’ll try to find it but it’s been more than a year.
You might be right I had looked all over and can’t not find where her H cheated, or she did. She seems to have it wrapped up tight.
Of course he could have easily cheated and she never knew. Of course she would be ok with that I assume.
I doubt she would care as she is busy cheating on him and has all the money. He’s just there for show. She can rent whomever she likes for window dressing.
Ester Perel is not the first or only “cosmopolitan and sophisticated” voice I am sick of hearing. So far above the rest of us they sit on their lofty perch, telling us about the many ways they exceed us. Dishonest and pandering to her base readers she slings her BS around creating the cognitive dissonance that so F’s with the human mind/emotions.
She helps not the victim but the cheater.
Wish Beyonce was stronger, on a big stage her choices influence others.
When my kids were in middle school, singing along to ridiculous lyrics (“I’m in love with a stripper”), I tried to remove the power of the so-called music by calmly explaining that many popular musicians push the envelope for two reasons: to get noticed, and make as much money as possible. The ultimate compartmentalization, but hey, if it makes millions, why not?
Too bad Esther didn’t pick up on this big advantage of cheating.
Continuing the rhetoric that all “Europeans” are more automatically worldly and sophisticated… and all Americans are prudish bumpkins is its own brand of gaslighting.
I have traveled to a good portion of Europe and other places in the world and my experience has been that most people are normal people. We connect in similar ways. How could we not? Europeans fall in love and trust their partner just as most everyone else does. I’m doubtful that ANYONE who marries another is totally cool with a DDay of discovering hookers, APs, lying, gaslighting, financial destruction and all around secret keeping.
Pretending that all Europeans (as if Europe were one homogenous country) are by birth and location more sophisticated doesn’t even make logical sense. But I guess when Esther calls herself an “expert,” she can post whatever she pleases as fact… and sadly we chumps usually start off lured by hopium and “experts” until we realize that FWs of all nations are useless sacks of shit.
Let Esther bang all the FWs for us and let all nations of chump move on to gain a life in peace.
On behalf of the majority of Europeans I would like to publicly disown Esther Perel. She does *not* speak on behalf of the general European public. We are *not* behind her. She represents noone but herself and a small marginalized group of followers.
I am tired of these “sophisticated” European cover up stories. They are just antiquated lies that cover up an exploitative system that only benefit the rich and powerful. Follow the money: the high ranking politicians with simultaneous multiple families, the industrialist with his mistresses and of course the RIC. And everyone eats it up because it’s more glamorous than the reality and it sells better. But they are not victimless crimes and it should just be exposed for what it is finally. It’s about time, it’s not the 1950s any more. Esther Perel is just an old Belgian Madame, and the heady perfume just barely covers up the bullshit stench.
“Esther Perel is just an old Belgian Madame, and the heady perfume just barely covers up the bullshit stench.”
Perfect.
“Old Belgian madame—yes! Lol. And a double-talking esroc who undoubtedly dips her pommes frites in mayonnaise. Evolved sophisticate? Je ne pense pas.
She’s just a pervert. Honestly, that’s all this is. My ex is a sex addict and she sounds exactly like him. And people roll their eyes at the word sex addict but what I’m describing is a man who masturbates until his penis is raw and literally bloody and then becomes covered with scabs. Then he continues masturbating until he rips off all the scabs. He will do this because it’s easier to masturbate or have sex with someone without the scabs.
He’ll roll his eyes and say well of course it’s not ideal that his dick bleeds and scabs over but can’t everyone instead focus on how sexually free he is and how erotic it is that he loves so hard and completely it hurts him? Esther Perel is the person who will watch him pick the scabs off his dick (to reduce friction during their “amazing” sex) and then let him stick his bloody dick in her orifices. And they’ll both scoff at those of us who want to vomit from hearing them gush about it.
And for the record, I didn’t know that’s why he was having these dick problems. I was taking him to doctors. I changed soap and detergents dozens upon dozens of times. In the early days, I saw all the results of the STD tests so I was like omg, this is not a disease, what is happening to you?! It wasn’t until the divorce and finding out the tip of the iceberg on all his horrifying secrets and joining a group for partners of sex addicts that it finally made sense.
Plus, beyond the perversion, you know Esther is full of shit because she’s only in favor of freedom and exploration and finding yourself for the cheater. The person being cheated on is supposed to shut up and take it and avoid anything that could take us on a path AWAY from the cheater. If she really cared about people finding themselves, she would fully support a person choosing to leave after discovering cheating. Because that’s their path. Think of all the new experiences they’ll have away from their spouse with a whole new life!
But she does not. Because she’s full of shit. She just wants the cheater to get whatever they want and she wants to shame their partner into staying with them no matter what. That’s not empowering Esther. That’s living a life based in shame which you seem to preach against. Imagine being so untrue to your powerful, erotic self that you let some two bit therapist shame you into staying with someone who makes you want to puke. LOL
My ex had similar issues, and I, believing he was faithful, thought it was some weird body imbalance or some correlation to his psoriasis. NOPE. Thank fucking god I repeatedly tested negative in the aftermath. It’s absolutely abhorrent that someone who had proclaimed to love me remained silent on what this all could have been (inwardly scared – he told me later) because he knew what he was doing. I didn’t. That man gambled with my health. There is not any word salad in the world that would make this shit sexy.
This is for Katie P.
How often do you need to get the shots?
I relate to the innocent and caring way you reacted to his issue -you were worried, concerned, and took action on his behalf by taking him to a doctor and changing detergents, searching wildly for the answer that could help him.
And all the while he knew the answer.
Rinse and repeat – this was my whole marriage. I believed what ever lie he was selling, and reacted with genuine concern and love. I felt like I was constantly surrounded by mysteries – which slowly slowly eroded my ability to trust myself, my instincts, and my reality, until I found myself having a nervous breakdown that I couldn’t understand the source of.
I should of realized then I wasn’t losing my mind due to decades of gaslighting, I was becoming more sophisticated and European
I’m sorry you went through it too. It was my whole marriage too and I had the nervous breakdown, was diagnosed schizophrenic, heavily medicated and the gaslighting and lies helped cause the misdiagnosis which meant my untreated autoimmune disease nearly killed me. I try not to be angry but it’s pretty monstrous when I think about it and there’s just no way to pain it nicely. Thankfully I’m healthy now.
What did you for the autoimmune?
It’s pernicious anemia so I just need B12 shots and folic acid. I’m lucky that I was able to fully recover after having symptoms and being untreated for 30 years.
It’s a very easy fix for what I have and I’m lucky for that but I was misdiagnosed for decades and pernicious anemia is fatal. I was dying a terrible death and doctors were writing me off as dramatic and mentally ill.
I was having balance issues, and went through all sorts of tests, I do have some nerve damage, (most likely just age related) and a vitamin B issue. I have done PT and have been taking B12 supplements for right at a year now, and just a few weeks ago, I noticed a marked improvement in my balance.
I doubt it will ever be perfect, but at my age I will take it. At my next drs appt he is going to check again for my B levels. We may have to adjust to prevent too much.
If you’re taking oral supplements and seeing improvements I highly recommend trying the shots. I don’t know where you are but in the states you don’t need a prescription for them and they aren’t expensive. I use boca vitamin and vitamin quick for mine.
I think B12 issues are more common than people realize. I’m glad you’re seeing improvement.
“I should of realized then I wasn’t losing my mind due to decades of gaslighting, I was becoming more sophisticated and European.”
????
I agree – NotAnymore, what you wrote is hilarious. Thanks for the laugh!!
Yeah, that’s gross. He really does sound like a sex addict. It exists, but it’s pretty rare. The diagnosis is being used by creeps to excuse their exploits, with con artist therapists greedily cashing in on it with expensive seminars and retreats for couples, because of course the chump is part of the problem and must participate. What a crock. Even Bill Clinton tried to claim he is a sex addict. Nah, just a pervy creep.
I think they’re all gross creeps just using sex addiction as an excuse but the term works for me so I use it. But I see it as a choice, not a real addiction.
I’m just ashamed this “lady” perel has the sacred name Esther. She’s no Esther
Also so happy to not know anything about Beyoncé and jay Z (isn’t it funny too- my phone just typed her name that way)
And finally I think in the book “Cheating in a Nutshell” it explains perfectly that it’s a natural instinct to not accept betrayal. Lying.
As a child, if your “friend” hurt you or lied you had the gut instinct that they weren’t “good” and reacted accordingly. We’re prewired with what we need. It’s just using it rather than sugar coating or ignoring our gut
She makes me sad actually. According to Wikipedia, Perel is Jewish, the daughter of two Polish-born Holocaust survivors. She was raised in Antwerp, Belgium. She attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel,…Perel grew up amongst Holocaust survivors in Antwerp, and was influenced by Holocaust survivors.
It makes me sad that the direction she took with her knowledge and experience was to tell chumps that they need to be more sophisticated like Europeans and do what the cheaters “need.” It’s just sad.
And also ironic. Being Jewish and Polish and living in Belgium… she not “sophisticated” from the perspective of other Europeans (French, German, Italian, etc) who are too often antisemitic and mock Poland and Belgium.
There’s just a lot to unpack with Ms Perel.
Esther Perel is another component of our post-factual world, telling people what they want to hear and refusing to provide substantive evidence or engage in genuine debate. Like those who sell overweight people “diet cookies,” and people with cancer “psychic surgery,” she will always make money and compound the suffering of the desperate gullibles she attracts. Just as we have laws against child abuse, and elder abuse, we should consider laws against taking advantage of those left vulnerable my emotional trauma.
True, and the sad truth is, the less it works, the most it sells. If it didn’t take the first time, buy more diet cookies, more gonzo therapy sessions, it’s bound to work the 10th time right? And if doesn’t, you’re a failure, because everyone is doing it, so it must be working right?
There’s still a chance Beyoncé is aligning herself. Perhaps she had Fuckwit sign a post nup? Sure as hell hope so. She could turn this rig around and inspire so many young, impressionable fans to love themselves first, accept ZERO shit sandwiches, stop the pick-me dance trend that’s sweeping the Nation, and kick asshole to the curb. I haven’t lost hope in Queen B just yet. That girl can out-dance the best of them. Perhaps we will see asshole Fuckwit on Dancing With The Stars as he makes the reality show circuit after she kicks his lying, cheating sorry ass to the curb. One can hope and dream…
Yes, I’m sick of people making excuses for bad behavior. At this point, my inner circle consists of people who don’t do that. I’m fine walking away from the rest if it suits me.
Not long ago Richard Grannon (Spartan Life Coach) coined the term “very cruel person” (VCP) instead of using “disordered person” related to people with personality disorders, diagnosed or not. I don’t like everything he does. He does ramble on in his YouTube videos, but I found that helpful. I do some online work that is very routine and boring, so I listen to a lot of that sort of thing at times to keep me on task.
Bottom line, my ex was a multi-factor VCP. We are no longer married, and I am not in contact with him. Further explanation is really not required.
“Disordered” does not sound as targeted against another person as “very cruel person”, and in that sense VCP is much more accurate. They know what they are doing. If they didn’t, wouldn’t the response to the pain they inflicted be some sort of a wake up call? I asked my ex point blank in all of the moves and “re-sets” we had, where he could start anew and not pay people for sex and lie to me about it, why didn’t he take that opportunity to stop? All he could say was “I don’t know”. There is a degree of cruelty that goes into the continuance of cheating and lying and hurting a person you claim to love.
Y’all might enjoy this self-contradictory tidbit from Perel’s website;
“We carry the responsibility of our desire. Why? Because desire is an expression of our free will. Nobody can force us to want. So if it is ours, then it is also our responsibility to activate it. Freedom always comes with responsibility. We can turn ourselves on and we can turn ourselves off. We can have thoughts that will instantly shut us down and thoughts that will keep us open to possibility and curiosity.”
Except with cheaters, of course. We can’t ask them to shut it down, turn themselves off, or take responsibility for what they do.
The rest of the article is mostly word salad gibberish about finding your erotic self or some such gobshite. My erotic self wants monogamy and shuts down with people I can’t trust, but apparently my erotic self is just close-minded. I also hate most French food and most French films, so I’m sure I’d be a philistine in her eyes. Good. I want absolutely nothing in common with that twit.
What an awesome UBT, CL. Hilarious!
With her ridiculous cheater apologist theories, I can only surmise that Esther is a cheater herself.
Anyone know her backstory?
A 2019 survey of couples in which a partner cheated, showed that only 15.6% of relationships survived the betrayal. Ebola has a higher survival rate than that.
Maybe Ebola just needs a better spokesperson. Who wouldn’t feel alive and even sexier surviving a killer disease that causes you to bleed from every orifice, including your eyes, ears, rectum and nipples? Who couldn’t benefit from a bleeding stomach lining and throwing up the characteristic coffee-ground vomitus? That sounds HOT as hell! Sign me up.
Here’s to us puritanical Americans, with our big-ass steaks, WalMarts on every corner, and our small-minded inability to look at intimate betrayal with sophisticated Euro ennui.
LOL, the Ebola analogy…
Being cheated on is emotional Ebola.
Reminds me of David Brooks’ sickening article re his wife. See: https://www.chumplady.com/2021/08/ubt-leaving-and-cleaving/
Both EP and David Brooks like to tell chumps how they should respond to betrayal. EP says we Americans should hang up our Puritan hang-ups and be more “philosophical and pragmatic.”
David Brooks tells chumps (like his wife) that they should, “…suppress vindictive flashes of resentment and be motivated by a steady wish for the other person’s ultimate good. Without accepting the idea that she deserved to be left, the person being left has to act in a way worthy of her best nature, to continue the sacrificial love that the leaver may not deserve and may never learn about.”
These two perpetuate damaging societal attitudes–the idea that chumps are bitter bunnies and that cheaters exist on a higher plane, not constrained by man-made institutions like marriage. Those who object (i.e., chumps) need to open their minds.
Their condescension sickens me.
Typo: I think Brooks met “cheater” not “leaver.” Right?
God that man pisses me off.
sigh… I want to live in a world where Chump Lady is famous, not Ester Pearl.
Totally off-topic, or maybe somewhat related. Anna Marie Tendler. I hope she finds this site. My heart aches for her. The shit sandwiches, the Swedish friends, the pressure of “conscious-uncoupling” that comes with being in a celebrity circle. The gaslighting! Really, John and Olivia, you just happened to meet at church? She’s on record for crushing on him years ago. I used to like Mulaney’s comedy. Now I can’t even like Seth Meyers anymore. Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard, the Intervention was a failure. Your pal traded one addiction for another. Hey, but a baby, yay.
I follow Tendler on IG and her newest artwork haunts me. I have actually had some recent nightmares including my Ex and his OWhore, and I suspect they are triggered by some emotions that Tendler’s artwork has unleashed in me. Clearly, I still have work to do on the way to meh. Kudos to Tendler, and Beyonce, for their ability to shout their voice, their truth, through their art.
As someone who’s timing with a breakup and a new relationship (fuckwit) was “icky” at best I don’t feel comfortable tagging John Mulaney as a CN level cheater.
If the reporting & his statements are accurate he separated from his wife / left the marital home in October, went on a bender, went back to rehab then sober living until early spring and then moved to LA and started dating Munn. That’s six months after he left.
It sure feels like a breakup with some “icky” timing. I’m not trying to dilute his wife’s pain – the end of a marriage is gut wrenching no matter what the circumstance (and Munn’s pregnancy is salt in an open wound). If fuckwit would have had the honesty and courage to leave before he hooked up with schmoopie it would have been extremely painful but so much better then being lied to, gaslighted and emotionally and financially tortured for 18+ months.
Also… there are red flags all over his comedy about his marriage and Tendler wasn’t at the Emmy Awards when he won because she was “too busy to fly across the country to watch (him) lose”. Ouch.
This is how I see it. He was back on drugs and possibly whoring around during that time. Using his wife in his comedy could be a red flag to HER, that he was already devaluing, and getting ahead of the narrative. Or not. Maybe just good punchlines.
Back to the addiction and rehab. I think it is so much easier to run away and go try to make a new fresh start, with someone new, who has publicly declared their obsession with you, than it is to be accountable to the person most impacted by your addiction and shitty drug induced behavior. I think he skipped a step.
He traded one high for another.
Who among us would expect our spouse to return home following rehab? This guy, didn’t. Just left, and never returned.
My apologies to Ms. Tendler if she is here, that we are speculating on the circumstances of the demise of her marriage.
“Back to the addiction and rehab. I think it is so much easier to run away and go try to make a new fresh start, with someone new, who has publicly declared their obsession with you, than it is to be accountable to the person most impacted by your addiction and shitty drug induced behavior. I think he skipped a step.”
I believe there is gold in “them thar words” to paraphrase the 49ers.
Same with cheaters. Wayyyyy to hard to rebuild a marriage and humble yourself. Just chuck it all and start again. Unfortunately when they do that; well there they are sans character transplant.
Can we take odds on this relationship?
It’s funny how bad I find myself wanting to believe the too often told lie, “we broke up and THEN I miraculously started dating someone that is sooooo amazing that we had to have a baby right away.” ???? we know better CN.
I also (of course) want to believe that he is going to sober forever. Earlier in my life I could have totally been a Munn. I am chumptastically enthusiastic for a redemption story.
But now? Uh no. Barely sober people shouldn’t have babies directly after blowing up their life. If staying sober before was hard, there is no test in life like taking care of a baby. The last time he relapsed was because he hosted SNL, where they have raging late-night parties after each show. Yeesh. Didn’t take much it seems.
My wager would be Munn is going to find herself a member of not only the marriage police, but the sobriety police as well. All with a new little one, while her husband tours and travels for television appearances.
Sure they have gobs of money, but I would’t trade places for a second. Same with Beyonce.
same!! I even left her a comment with this website hahahaha. People say that “oh its ok cause he separated. There was no cheating” uhhh, they’re having a baby after just a few months of dating? I don’t think so.
I should also clarify, I don’t remember how Perel used Beyonce as an example of enlightenment. What I recall is the power of hurt and anger in the songs. She may have chosen to stay, but she wouldn’t be silenced of her truth.
I had to stop watching Seth Meyers when I learned about frequent guest drummer/former SNL cast member Fred Armisen being a cheater.
what i mostly get from esther perel is her lack of empathy. in her eyes i see a person who evaluates what another person might be worth, you know? how another might be of use? then there’s a desire to be well-known, to garner attention, to be known. that’s why she hooked onto Beyonce in this way. to increase traffic to her site.
Cheaters get attracted to EP’s words like flies to bullshit .
“Oh look, here is a semi intellectual excuse for my abhorrent behaviour- if you don’t like cheating you are just not uptodate .”
I remember how my cheater was always telling me how much she hates cheating, when that topic came up in movies or so. I guess it depends on the perspective…
I had a date with a lady from a dating site a while ago. She said to me “ I want to live my life to the fullest . I have read so much by EP !”
I asked her if she was serious- she confirmed.
I left .
Good litmus test, I guess.
Also, if someone were to say to me that they want to “live life to the fullest,” I would roll my eyes. I just can’t. I’m too old for that shit.
Here’s what I would say: “I want to be with someone who doesn’t lie. I want to be with someone who respects me. I want to be with someone who shares similar interests, has similar values, and is financially secure. I want to be with someone who never cheated on his spouse.”
Maybe I would chase a bunch away with that, but what the hell. I’ll risk it.
Yes 100% on that one .
I have met some many women ( in my case , I’m sure you’ll find the same in men, I’m just not dating men)
“ since my divorce, I can finally look after my own needs “
I am sure that many have escaped abusive marriages .
But it just can’t be all of them .
I would rather have full custody of my children than having a child free week during which I am supposed to find myself .
I was never lost. I was married to the wrong person, that hasn’t changed my values about having children.
I could literally eat alphabet soup and shit less garbled nonsense than Esther’s detatched word salad. Fuck her. What a hag. Hope she gets a taste of shit sandwich one day.
The same old saw that if you can’t let it go after your partner is unfaithful then you are the one at fault
You are un-christian, a prude, vindictive, un-sophisticated ……
Yep. She enforces that societal stereotype. It’s so effed up.
Thanks for nothing, Esther.
Here’s the letter a French false friend sent to me, the “puritanical” American. We’re both daughters of cheating fathers but chose separate ways in response to that tartine de merde/shit sandwich.
“In terms of my personal life, I broke up in November with my sixty-four year old Andre. I lived like a nun for three months and then we got back together. Andre proposed to me, but doesn’t want children. I didn’t say yes or no. So life goes on, each of us with our own place, seeing each other two times a week, trips (Rome, French countryside, Belle-Ile). Andre is introducing me to more and more of his friends. I’m almost not hiding that he’s part of my life. But I decided all the same to do something in hopes of a reaction.
I just faked an illness so he will stop believing he’s the more vulnerable of the two of us (He, the “old man” believes I will toss him aside because of his aging for a younger man. I knew that was the reason he didn’t want a child. The fear of a double heartbreak if I leave him.)
And then I anounced that I’m stopping the birth control pill (untrue,for the moment) so he will face up to his responsibilities. I hope my way of envisioning morality doesn’t horrify you too much !”
The backstory of this thirty year old woman follows. Her long term relationship of seven years to her boyfriend Pascal ended when he cheated on her. She had always called him her fiance but there was never any proposal/ring/announcement or family gathering. She visited me in the States after the breakup and was struggling emotionally-dating and having sex with three men (including the senior citizen), got pregnant (claimed it was Andre’s), had a botched abortion and gained a lot of weight. Her own father was a cheater and I met him once during a visit to her hometown Reims, along with his girlfriend who was the same age as this “friend”. Awkward.
I found this letter from twenty years ago in a box during one of my covid purges. Since finding Tracy’s website and peeling back the onion, I wonder if Andre was in fact married. He paid for all their outings and trips. What a tragedy. Rather than getting therapy to heal from the pain of being cheated on and addressing the trauma of her parents’ terrible marriage and Papa’s inappropriate choice of a girlfriend, she went on a self-destructive rampage. Several citizens of Chump Nation recommended Ana Nogales’s book on the effects cheating has on children. Unfortunately, she only discusses two options for children of cheaters-grow up to be a cheater or cheated on.
As an European I am offended she (EP) makes assumptions for the whole continent of Europa. Such a stupid generalisation. And so untrue!
Thanks, CL, for continuing to combat EP’s surrogate-gaslighting. I subscribe to a few podcasts to listen to when I need a distraction from dealing with confusion, pain, and sadness I experience from gray-rock interactions with my cheater former spouse. Browsing past interviews of “On Being,” I saw the host Krista Tippet interviewed EP just last July … UNSUBSCRIBE
Say it ain’t so, Krista! (I’m assuming she didn’t counter EP’s view on things. Ugh.)
Speaking of Esther Feral’s bullshit, here’s a blast from the past!
“#MeToo is a teaching moment. Women must speak up about things men are doing that make them uncomfortable, says Esther.”
What the fuck? The victims have to educate their abuser? Men can’t control themselves? How insulting an idea is that. How…Esther!
Loathsome twat. If she sounded like a meth addict from the back of beyond, no one would entertain her for a nanosecond. But swan around with a different sort of accent in tailored clothes and they pay you money to be told your shitty actions are justifiable.
Okay, so women must speak up, but only IF we aren’t judgmental? Or American. Or chumps. And we must say something erotic.
´This clinical approach denudes the pain of its romantic essence and its erotic energy’ ???????????????
I’m sure it is very romantic and erotic for the two cheaters! For the betrayed partners, it’s simply traumatizing, abusive and destructive
‘She does not present herself as victim, but as a woman invigorated and empowered by love’ so ….. if I want my husband to empower me, he should cheat on me?
And she’s not only an idiot, she’s a telepathic idiot and knows what’s in Beyonce’s mind!
I can’t figure out why Beyoncé stayed with jz. Being cynical and all, I’m guessing they didn’t have a prenup because true wuv. But she got her post-cheat babies and hob nobs with the 1% and he’s 20 yrs older and she doesn’t have to pay attention to him anymore. Nobody envies their coupledom anymore since the bubble burst so she probably has more privacy. But my guess she lemonaded because it would have cost her a fortune. A bit of a heads up to Brittany. Stay engaged forever.
Yep.
I never followed the Beyonce stuff. Is she still with the cheater?