How Love Dies: The Psychology of Cheating & Attraction - Esther Perel

She argues that adult romantic relationships tend to mirror the earliest relationships formed with caregivers in childhood. These early patterns create an "echo chamber," shaping adult attachment styles often without conscious awareness. While attachment theory remains a powerful framework for understanding human relatedness, Perel urges a nuanced view that it is just one among many theories—and like others, it may not be absolute truth but rather a valuable vocabulary or lens through which to explore relationship dynamics.

Male Emotional Expression and "Mankeeping"

The conversation shifts into modern relational dynamics with attention to the so-called "mankeeping" trend—where women feel burdened as primary emotional caretakers of men. Esther resists polarizing this issue into strict gender binaries, instead encouraging a view that such dynamics stem from cultural roles and social systems rather than inherent male-female divides. Often men lack rich social support outside of their romantic partners due to cultural norms discouraging male vulnerability and emotional expression. This can place overwhelming emotional demands on women in relationships.

Perel draws attention to the historical and cultural context: men's friendships traditionally differ from women's in structure and expression, shaped partly by evolutionary and social factors. Boys are socialized to suppress vulnerability and manage emotional pain differently, manifesting loneliness that is exacerbated in today's digital, contactless culture. While men may engage in online interactions and video games, these lack the unstructured, physical, and spontaneous social negotiation found in childhood street play, resulting in impaired emotional development.

She also explores how men are often less equipped with social tools to navigate emotional hardship, leading to an internalized loneliness. Interestingly, men may express a public desire for increased support but often fail to be emotionally available to other men, partly because male coalitions feel simultaneously competitive and conditional, unlike female bonds which tend to be more nurturing and solidaristic. The stigma attached to male weakness is not just an external cultural product but also fiercely policed within male communities themselves, contributing to the isolation many men face.

Masculinity, Vulnerability, and Cultural Scripts

Expanding on these ideas, Perel points out that masculinity is not innate or simple; it is performative and accompanied by relentless pressure to prove itself. Unlike femininity, often culturally considered "obvious," masculinity requires constant performance, making it both fragile and difficult to internalize. She notes the absence of equivalents to phrases like "woman up," which highlights the gendered nature of emotional licensing. Men learn to express forbidden needs for tenderness and affection primarily through sex, turning sexual intimacy into a coded language for emotional connection and vulnerability that is otherwise disallowed.

For women, there are different cultural constraints, particularly around sexual openness, which are policed by societal norms and often enforced within female communities. Thus, the pressures to embody and police gender norms come not only from outside but also from within each gender group, creating further tension and restriction.

The Rise of Authoritarianism

One of the most compelling themes Perel addresses is the adversarial and tribal dynamic increasingly driving men and women apart in modern culture. She traces this tribalism historically and sociopolitically, linking gender polarizations with the rise of authoritarianism. Fascism and other authoritarian regimes historically impose strict gender roles, demanding men and women retreat to "their places," reinforcing binary, hierarchical orders of control. Such environments suppress complexity, fluidity, and nonconformity, further intensifying gender divides.

Perel also reflects on how technological, economic, and cultural shifts—especially those disrupting men's traditional roles as providers—fuel insecurities that encourage this tribalism and retreat into rigid gender camps. In particular, advancements threatening male economic dominance exacerbate anxieties around usefulness and identity, driving men and women into antagonistic roles, often at the expense of healthy, integrated relationships.

Deadness in Relationships

The discussion deepens with Perel's reflections on infidelity and the perception of "deadness" within long-term relationships—a crucial psychological underpinning of cheating often overlooked. "Deadness" encompasses emotional numbness, complacency, indifference, neglect, and a profound loss of curiosity, playfulness, and aliveness. While many might assume affairs stem from simple causes like boredom or physical desire, Perel reveals a more unsettling truth: people risk everything to break free from emotional lifelessness. They seek vitality, a sense of being seen and alive again.

She underscores that the antidote to deadness in relationships is the cultivation of curiosity—the erotic nature of curiosity itself—where partners find each other fascinating, alive, and continuously engaging. Relationships require active, ongoing effort, imagination, and vulnerability. Love, Perel insists, is a verb, not a static state; it demands conscious practice rather than passivity.

Female Sexuality

Addressing the provocative assertion that women get bored with monogamy faster than men, Perel draws on research into female sexuality emphasizing its contextual and fluid nature. Unlike the stereotypical view of male sexuality as mechanical and unprompted, women often desire based on relational context, emotional safety, and narrative—what she calls "the plot." This means that a woman's sexual desire is deeply influenced by feeling cared for and liberated from caretaking roles, allowing focus on her own sensations.

A key concept Perel explores is the "predatory fear" men carry—the need to know their partner's desire is genuine to quell deep-seated anxieties around causing harm. This dynamic shapes sexual interactions and desire considerably. Where men often crave frequency of sex as a way to satisfy emotional closeness, women's sexual desire tends to hinge on feeling safe, surprised, and emotionally engaged.

Workplace Relationships

Perel extends her insights into intimacy and trust beyond romantic relationships into the workplace, pointing out that the pillars of trust, belonging, recognition, and collective resilience are universal relational needs. In the modern economy, where work-from-home and digitization have ruptured conventional social contact, these relational elements have become critical to organizational culture and performance.

She notes how the absence of physical presence in workplaces has eroded incidental social interactions and rituals that nourish relationships and allow transgressions that spark joy and connection—like office romances or informal chats—that are vital for humanizing environments. The contemporary work environment demands relational soft skills as indispensable assets.

Conclusion

Throughout the dialogue, Perel links personal psychology, culture, and social systems to explain how they shape intimate and broader human relationships. She calls for moving beyond polarizing narratives of men versus women and instead embracing curiosity, patience, and understanding as remedies for relationship deadness and social fragmentation. Her emphasis on play as a tool to learn relational skills and break down tribal barriers offers a hopeful avenue for cultivating resilience and connection.