Liberalism’s marketplace of ideas has given rise to a marketplace of moralities: as free unbounded agents, we get to decide what is right for us. But when our bespoke moral stories clash with those adopted by other people in our lives, things get tricky: how do you resolve a conflict when you cannot agree on the rules that mediate it? Who do you turn to, to help you decide?

That’s clear and insightful writing.

This is excruciating. I couldn’t get through the article. Some years ago in the US, there was a well-known rabbi who worked with troubled families – on TV, as “infotainment”. One such family lived down the hill from us. We passed by the TV crews for a week as we took our kids to school. I didn’t watch when it aired but the few I knew who did said it was agonizingly painful. I can’t imagine why they did it – exposing their hurt for all the country to see. Why wouldn’t the couples cited in the article seek private counseling?

Much prefer Gottman’s work on love, parenting, romance and friendship, and it seems intuitive to me that all strong relationships would have certain characteristics in common. My perhaps unkind conclusion is that she excuses nonmonogamy as a necessity for broken people in a broken world. Maybe it works for some but think there are better things to aim for

I see the author is getting piled on, but as much as “reality” media turns my stomach, I think it’s important that the multiple complications related to cultural therapization are teased out w/ nuance, and I think she’s doing that.

I see way too much “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” these days, and it’s a hair trigger reaction around which we all need to be vigilant. That kind of response has been prevalent on the Left for a range of reasons I’ll save for my own article, but can happen in our own understandable outrage at the forced disasters we see happening all around us.

Some therapists ARE sincere, and some are even competent, operating from a more spiritual, humble place that nurtures personal growth and interpersonal responsibility, accountability, and genuine love of God, self, and others. This medium, right now, may be the most effective way this therapist can crowbar open just a millimeter of light and air into the vacuum sealed, daily condensing cesspool of collective human ego that our culture seems to have become.

We all understand that metaphor–the cracks are how God lets the light in, or our own self-imploding dark nights of the soul where we forget that there is something larger, but via grace, meditation to which we drag ourselves, mentally, kicking and screaming, or even an Ativan, get a little perspective. The best teachers, counselors, parents, friends–just people–are able to open up this space on a more regular basis. They might carry the same “name” as others w/ initials and followings, but they’re vitally different, and you know it when you see it.

On one plane, no pigs are more equal than others, nor a human being better than another, but on another, certain human behaviors, characters, and contributions are vastly better than others. Just because we’re sitting in stunned horror at the consequences of the appalling early human development unfolding on social media, doesn’t mean those media can’t be used for human good.

Thanks to the author for wading into this morass. Keep up the good work.

Sounds like Perel is more prophet than priest, to invoke the Biblical distinction. The priest is a functionary, loyal to what’s trademarked, like a manualised therapy or formulaically invoking trauma. Prophets speak freely, diagnosing particularities, appealing to the soul via challenge more than comfort.

Umm, Perel has a Masters in Art Therapy. She says affairs are “Acts of exuberant defiance?!” Oh hell no, people cheat because of poor character and narcissism., No one forces anyone into monogamy, it’s not “a cruel twist of fate” — it’s a choice. Esther Perel can bite me (Thanks Chump Lady)