Despite its disapproval, an out-of-marriage secret relationship is a common phenomenon in every society. In this book, Esther Perel, a well-known American psychotherapist and a specialist in couple-therapy, encourages the reader to reconsider and think twice about secret relationships, so that one could find new ways for conversing about this issue. With a scientific approach, while referring to her actual psychotherapeutic sessions, she tries to stimulate the reader to think critically and analytically about the roots and causes of the problem and to go beyond the common viewpoint, in which secret relationships are totally condemned without question. As she emphasizes in the book, her point, in no way, is to approve or to encourage secret relationships; instead, she motivates the reader to reach a deeper level of understanding about this phenomenon. In the meantime, the book also provides a suitable framework for understanding the fine differences between love and desire. Helen Fisher, an American researcher, and anthropologist says this about the book: “Who hasn't been in touch by infidelity in one way or another? Perel brings a dramatically fresh and remarkably unbiased perspective to this age-old agony that will help anyone caught in this angst of the heart”.
