为什么幸福的男女也会出轨？（英汉对照）| 大西洋月刊

长按识别二维码关注我们

Why Happy People Cheat？（Part 1）

为什么幸福的男女也会出轨？ 原文刊发《太平洋月刊》，公号“英文联播”翻译

“Most descriptions oftroubled marriages don’t seem to fit my situation,” Priya insists. “Colin and Ihave a wonderful relationship. Great kids, no financial stresses, careers welove, great friends. He is a phenom at work, fucking handsome, attentive lover,fit, and generous to everyone, including my parents. My life is good.” YetPriya is having an affair. “Not someone I would ever date—ever, ever, ever. Hedrives a truck and has tattoos. It’s so clichéd, it pains me tosay it out loud. It could ruin everything I’ve built.”

“大多数问题婚姻的描述都不适合我的情况。” 普莉娅坚称。“科林和我感情很好，我们的孩子很乖，没有经济压力，从事着热爱的事业，有挚友。科林是个业务能手，长得特帅，是体贴的爱人，身体健康，对包括我父母在内的所有人都很慷慨。我的生活很好！”可普莉娅出轨了。“他并不是那种我会约会的对象，完全不是。他开卡车、身上有纹身。这种想法很俗气，大声说出来太难了。它会毁了我建立的一切。”

Priya is right. Few events inthe life of a couple, except illness and death, carry such devastating force.For years, I have worked as a therapist with hundreds of couples who have beenshattered by infidelity. And my conversations about affairs have not been confinedwithin the cloistered walls of my therapy practice; they’ve happened onairplanes, at dinner parties, at conferences, at the nail salon, withcolleagues, with the cable guy, and of course, on social media. From Pittsburghto Buenos Aires, Delhi to Paris, I have been conducting an open-ended surveyabout infidelity.

普莉娅是对的。在婚姻生活中，除了疾病和死亡，很少有什么事情能有这么大的破坏力。作为一个治疗专家，多年来我遇到过数百对因不忠而关系破裂的情侣。我不仅在隐秘的治疗过程中谈论出轨，飞机上、聚会、会议、美甲店，和同事、修电视的工人，还有社交媒体上，我的谈话都会发生。从匹兹堡到布宜诺斯艾利斯，从新德里到巴黎，我一直在进行一场关于婚姻不忠的开放式调查。

Adultery has existed sincemarriage was invented, yet this extremely common act remains poorly understood.Around the globe, the responses I get when I mention infidelity range frombitter condemnation to resigned acceptance to cautious compassion to outrightenthusiasm. In Paris, the topic brings an immediate frisson to a dinnerconversation, and I note how many people have been on both sides of the story.In Bulgaria, a group of women I met seem to view their husbands’ philanderingas unfortunate but inevitable. In Mexico, women I spoke with proudly see therise of female affairs as a form of social rebellion against a chauvinisticculture that has long made room for men to have “two homes,” la casa grande y la casa chica—one for the family, and one for the mistress. Infidelity maybe ubiquitous, but the way we make meaning of it—how we define it, experienceit, and talk about it—is ultimately linked to the particular time and placewhere the drama unfolds.

婚姻被创造后就有了出轨，然而人们依然不能理解这种常见行为。当我提起出轨这个话题，全世界的人反应各异，有心酸的控诉、被动的接受，还有人谨慎地表示同情或者坦言感兴趣。在巴黎，这个话题会直接引起餐桌交流风波，我也因此注意到很多人不仅出轨过，还被戴过绿帽子。在保加利亚我遇到一群女人，她们似乎将丈夫与他人的调情看作可悲却无可避免的事情。在墨西哥，与我交谈的女人骄傲地把女性出轨率上升看作是一种对沙文主义文化的社会反抗，这种男权文化长久以来助长了男性拥有“两个家”的风气，一个住着老婆、一个住着小三。出轨也许很普遍，不过我们对它进行解读的方式最终与事情被揭发的具体时间和地点有关，如我们如何定义、度过、谈论它。

In contemporary discourse inthe United States, affairs are primarily described in terms of the damagecaused. Generally, there is much concern for the agony suffered by thebetrayed. And agony it is—infidelity today isn’t just a violation of trust; it’sa shattering of the grand ambition of romantic love. It is a shock that makesus question our past, our future, and even our very identity. Indeed, themaelstrom of emotions unleashed in the wake of an affair can be so overwhelmingthat many psychologists turn to the field of trauma to explain the symptoms:obsessive rumination, hypervigilance, numbness and dissociation, inexplicablerages, uncontrollable panic.

美国的当代讨论主要讲述出轨造成的伤害。逐渐地，人们对背叛带来的伤痛的关心在增加。然而痛苦之处在于现如今出轨不仅是违背信任，更让人不再相信爱情。这种打击使得我们不断追问我们的过去与未来，甚至怀疑自我。的确，遭遇出轨后释放的情感破坏力太过强烈，以至于心理学家转向创伤领域来寻求解释以下症状的方法：强迫性沉思，过度警觉，麻木、不合群，莫名的愤怒以及不受控制的恐慌。

Intimate betrayal hurts. Ithurts badly. If Priya’s husband, Colin, were to stumble upon a text, a photo,or an email that revealed his wife’s dalliance, he would be devastated. Andthanks to modern technology, his pain would likely be magnified by an archiveof electronic evidence of her duplicity. (I am using pseudonyms to protect theprivacy of my clients and their families.)

最亲近的人出轨很伤人。要是普莉娅的丈夫科林无意中发现妻子调情的一条短信、一张照片或者一封邮件，他可能会崩溃，且因储存技术，妻子表里不一的证据对他造成的痛苦可能被放大。（我这里使用假名以保护客户及其家人的隐私。）

The damage that infidelitycauses the aggrieved partner is one side of the story. For centuries, whenaffairs were tacitly condoned for men, this pain was overlooked, since it was mostlyexperienced by women. Contemporary culture, to its credit, is morecompassionate toward the jilted. But if we are to shed new light on one of ouroldest behaviors, we need to examine it from all sides. 

出轨使得另一半受委屈，这种伤害只是故事的一面。几个世纪以来，当男性出轨被隐忍地原谅时，这种痛苦就在被忽视了，因为这种痛苦大多由女人承受。值得称赞的是，当代文化对被抛弃的一方更富同情心。然而如果想要重新解读这种由来已久的行为，我们必须从各个方面去考量。

In the focuson trauma and recovery, too little attention is given to the meanings andmotives of affairs, to what we can learn from them. Strange as it may seem,affairs have a lot to teach us about marriage—what we expect, what we think wewant, and what we feel entitled to. They reveal our personal and culturalattitudes about love, lust, and commitment—attitudes that have changeddramatically over the past 100 years.

我关注创伤和恢复，很少关注出轨的意义和动机以及我们能够从中得出什么教训。听起来可能很奇怪，但出轨事件能教给我们很多婚姻之道，比如我们期待什么、我们认为我们想要什么以及我们觉得有权获得什么。诸如此类揭示了我们对爱、性欲以及承诺的个人以及文化态度，在过去一百年里这种态度发生了翻天覆地的变化。

Affairs are not what theyused to be because marriage is not what it used to be. For much of history, andin many parts of the world today, marriage was a pragmatic alliance thatensured economic stability and social cohesion. A child of immigrants, Priyasurely has relatives whose marital options were limited at best. For her andColin, however, as for most modern Western couples, marriage is no longer aneconomic enterprise but rather a companionate one—a free-choice engagementbetween two individuals, based not on duty and obligation but on love andaffection.

出轨不再是过去那个样子了，因为婚姻也与过去不一样了。在一些历史中以及当今世界的一些地区，婚姻是一种务实的联盟，它保障了经济稳定和社会凝聚力。作为移民的后代，普莉娅当然有那种亲戚，他们的婚姻选择不多，有选择还算好的。然而，就像大多数现代西方情侣一样，婚姻对于她和科林不再是经济上的结合而是一种两情相悦，一种两个个体间基于爱和感情而非责任、义务的自由契约。

Never before have ourexpectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still wanteverything the traditional family was meant to provide—security,respectability, property, and children—but now we also want our partner to loveus, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friendsand trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot.

我们从未对婚姻有如此大的期待。我们依然想要传统意义上的家庭带来的安全、尊重、财富以及孩子，然而现在我们也希望我们的伴侣爱我们、对我们有欲望、对我们感兴趣。我们应该是挚友、可以信赖的知己、激情似火的爱人。

Contained within the smallcircle of the wedding band are vastly contradictory ideals. We want our chosenone to offer stability, safety, predictability, and dependability. And we wantthat very same person to supply awe, mystery, adventure, and risk. We expectcomfort and edge, familiarity and novelty, continuity and surprise. We haveconjured up a new Olympus, where love will remain unconditional, intimacy enthralling,and sex oh so exciting, with one person, for the long haul. And the long haulkeeps getting longer.

包含在戒指环里的是截然不同的理想。我们希望我们的另一半给予我们稳定、安全和可以预见的未来，值得信赖。同时又期望这个人让人敬畏，有神秘感和冒险精神，不惧风险。我们想要安稳、熟悉、可持续性，同时我们又想要锋芒、新鲜感和惊喜。我们幻想出一个新的奥林匹斯山，与一个人一路走来，始终保持无条件的爱，亲密无间且性趣依旧让人兴奋，且还要一路走下去。

We also live in an age ofentitlement; personal fulfillment, we believe, is our due. In the West, sex isa right linked to our individuality, our self-actualization, and our freedom.Thus, most of us now arrive at the altar after years of sexual nomadism. By thetime we tie the knot, we’ve hooked up, dated, cohabited, and broken up. We usedto get married and have sex for the first time. Now we get married and stophaving sex with others. 

同时我们生活在一个讲求权利的时代。我们相信实现自我价值是我们应得的。在西方，性是一项关乎个性、自我实现和自由的权利。因此，在长期的性开放后，大多数人现在来到圣坛前，定下盟约时，已经经历了合得来、约会、同居、分手这些阶段。我们过去结婚后才有第一次性行为，现在我们结婚后不再和其他人做爱。

The conscious choice we make torein in our sexual freedom is a testament to the seriousness of our commitment.By turning our back on other loves, we confirm the uniqueness of our “significantother”: “I have found The One. I can stop looking.” Our desire for others issupposed to miraculously evaporate, vanquished by the power of this singularattraction.

我们有意识地约束了性自由，这是我们严肃诺言的证明。通过了断余情，我们证明了我们特别伴侣的唯一性，“我已经找到了这个人，不会再聊骚了。”我们对其他人的性欲理应奇迹般地被这种单一的吸引物战胜，从而消失殆尽。

At so many weddings,starry-eyed dreamers recite a list of vows, swearing to be everything to eachother, from soul mate to lover to teacher to therapist. “I promise to be yourgreatest fan and your toughest adversary, your partner in crime, and yourconsolation in disappointment,” says the groom, with a tremble in his voice.Through her tears, the bride replies, “I promise faithfulness, respect, andself-improvement. I will not only celebrate your triumphs, I will love you allthe more for your failures.” Smiling, she adds, “And I promise to never wearheels, so you won’t feel short.”

众多婚礼上，爱幻想的梦想家们背着长串的誓词、承诺会成为对方的一切，是灵魂伴侣、爱人，也是老师、治疗师。新郎声音颤抖地说到：“我承诺会成为你最好的爱慕者、最强大的对手和你的犯罪同伙，在你失意时安慰尼。”新娘眼含泪水回答到：“我承诺忠诚、相互尊重、不断改善自我。我不仅会恭喜你的胜利，你失败时我会格外关爱你。”接着又笑着说道：“我承诺永远不穿高跟鞋，这样你就不会觉得自己矮。”

In such a blissful partnership,why would we ever stray? The evolution of committed relationships has broughtus to a place where we believe infidelity shouldn’t happen, since all thereasons have been removed; the perfect balance of freedom and security has beenachieved.

这么幸福的伙伴关系，又为什么会迷失呢？承诺关系的演变使我们相信出轨不应该发生，因为没有原因要出轨，自由和安全的完美平衡已经实现。

And yet, it does. Infidelityhappens in bad marriages and in good marriages. It happens even in openrelationships where extramarital sex is carefully negotiated beforehand. Thefreedom to leave or divorce has not made cheating obsolete. So why do peoplecheat? And why do happy people cheat?

然而，出轨还是发生了。好的婚姻、坏的婚姻都有出轨，甚至还会发生在提前就谈及婚外情的开放性关系里。离开或者离婚的自由并不意味出轨会消失。那为什么会出轨？为什么幸福的人会出轨呢？

Priya can’t explain it. Shevaunts the merits of her conjugal life, and assures me that Colin is everythingshe always dreamed of in a husband. Clearly she subscribes to the conventionalwisdom when it comes to affairs—that diversions happen only when something ismissing in the marriage. If you have everything you need at home—as modernmarriage promises—you should have no reason to go elsewhere. Hence, infidelitymust be a symptom of a relationship gone awry.

普莉娅也无法解释。她鼓吹她的婚姻生活多么好，使我相信科林就是她想要的丈夫。很明显，在出轨这个问题上她赞同传统观点，即只有婚姻中某些东西正在消失时，分心之人才会出现。如果在家里你能得到现代婚姻承诺的一切，你就没有理由去别的地方。因此，出轨一定是婚姻关系出现问题的征兆。

The symptom theory has severalproblems. First, it reinforces the idea that there is such a thing as a perfectmarriage that will inoculate us against wanderlust. But our new marital idealhas not curbed the number of men and women who wander. In fact, in a crueltwist of fate, it is precisely the expectation of domestic bliss that may setus up for infidelity. Once, we strayed because marriage was not supposedto deliver love and passion. Today, we stray because marriage fails to deliverthe love and passion it promised. It’s not our desires that are differenttoday, but the fact that we feel entitled—even obligated—to pursue them.

征兆理论有几个问题。首先，它强化了完美的婚姻能让人不去沾花惹草。然而我们新的婚姻设想未能遏制四处聊骚男男女女。事实上，在命运残酷转折时，正是我们对家庭幸福的期望将我们推向了背叛。过去，因为没想着婚姻中会有爱和激情，我们迷失了；现在因为婚姻给不了承诺的爱与激情，我们又迷失了。并非我们的欲望不同，而是我们感觉有资格、甚于说是有义务追求这些。

Second, infidelity does notalways correlate neatly with marital dysfunction. Yes, in plenty of cases anaffair compensates for a lack or sets up an exit. Insecure attachment, conflictavoidance, prolonged lack of sex, loneliness, or just years of rehashing thesame old arguments—many adulterers are motivated by domestic discord. And thenthere are the repeat offenders, the narcissists who cheat with impunity simplybecause they can.

其次，出轨并不总是与婚姻亮起红灯有关。确实，在很多案例中，出轨弥补了某些缺失或者建立了一个出口。不安全的依附关系，不想争吵、长期没有性生活、孤单或者多年来为一个问题争吵不休，很多出轨者是家庭不和睦导致的，所以就有反复出轨者和自恋狂，他们出轨仅仅因为他们找得到小三。

However, therapists areconfronted on a daily basis with situations that defy these well-documentedreasons. In session after session, I meet people like Priya—people who assureme, “I love my wife/my husband. We are best friends and happy together,” andthen say: “But I am having an affair.”

然而，治疗专家每天面对的各种情况否决了这些证据充分的理由。一场场谈话使我结识了很多像普莉娅这样的人，他们向我保证：“我爱我的妻子或丈夫，我们是好朋友、我们在一起很幸福，”然后又说：“但是我出轨了。”

Many of these individuals werefaithful for years, sometimes decades. They seem to be well balanced, mature,caring, and deeply invested in their relationship. Yet one day, they crossed aline they never imagined they would cross. For a glimmer of what?

这些人中有很多人多年来保持忠诚，有的甚至数十年。他们似乎在婚姻当中很好的保持了平衡，成熟、体贴，为婚姻付出很多。然后有一天他们越界了，这是他们不曾想过的。然而这是为什么呢？   

The more I’ve listened to thesetales of improbable transgression—from one-night stands to passionate loveaffairs—the more I’ve sought alternate explanations. Once the initial crisissubsides, it’s important to make space for exploring the subjective experienceof an affair alongside the pain it can inflict. To this end, I’ve encouragedrenegade lovers to tell me their story. I want to understand what the affairmeans for them. Why did you do it? Why him? Why her? Why now? Was this thefirst time? Did you initiate? Did you try to resist? How did it feel? Were youlooking for something? What did you find?

一夜情、风流艳事，这类不可能的错误故事听得越多，我就越会发现不同的原因。一旦最初的危机平息下来，最重要的就是给出空间去探寻婚外情的主观经验和它给当事人带来的苦痛，因此我鼓励犯错的一方说出他们的故事，我想知道出轨对他们意味着什么。为什么你要这么做？为什么是他？为什么是她？为什么是现在？这是初犯吗？是你提出来的吗？你尝试过拒绝吗？你感觉如何？你在追寻什么吗？你找到了什么？

One of the most uncomfortabletruths about an affair is that what for Partner A may be an agonizing betrayalmay be transformative for Partner B. Extramarital adventures are painful anddestabilizing, but they can also be liberating and empowering. Understandingboth sides is crucial, whether a couple chooses to end the relationship orintends to stay together, to rebuild and revitalize.

出轨最让人不安的事实之一是，对一方来说是痛苦的，对另一方可能是蜕变。婚外情让人痛苦不安，然而也能解放并赋予人力量。无论一对夫妻选择结束婚姻，还是继续在一起、重建婚姻并为婚姻注入新的活力，理解双方的感受都至关重要。

In taking a dual perspective onsuch an inflammatory subject, I’m aware that I risk being labeled “pro-affair,” or accused of possessing a compromised moral compass. Let me assure youthat I do not approve of deception or take betrayal lightly. I sit with thedevastation in my office every day. But the intricacies of love and desire don’tyield to simple categorizations of good and bad, victim and perpetrator. 

从两方面来考虑这种煽动性话题，我意识到我背负着要么被贴上“支持出轨“标签要么被指责道德标准中立的风险。我向你们保证，我不认可欺骗，也不会轻易对待背叛。在办公室我每天都能感受到这种毁灭性打击，然而爱与欲望很复杂，并不能简单分为好或坏、受害者或者加害者。

Not condemning does not meancondoning, and there is a world of difference between understanding andjustifying. My role as a therapist is to create a space where the diversity ofexperiences can be explored with compassion. People stray for a multitude ofreasons, I have discovered, and every time I think I have heard them all, a newvariation emerges.

不横加指责并不意味着宽恕，理解和辩护有很大区别。作为治疗专家，我的职责是创造一个各种不同体验都能探索并得到同情的地方。人们迷失有很多原因，我发现每当我觉得我知道所有原因的时候，一个新的情形又出现了。

Half-fascinated andhalf-horrified, Priya tells me about her steamy assignations with her lover: “Wehave nowhere to go, so we are always hiding in his truck or my car, in movietheaters, on park benches—his hands down my pants. I feel like a teenager witha boyfriend.” She can’t emphasize enough the high-school quality of it all.They have had sex only half a dozen times during the whole relationship; it’smore about feeling sexy than having sex. Unaware that she is giving voice toone of the most common experiences of the unfaithful, she tells me, “It makesme feel alive.”

普莉娅一半着迷、一半惊恐地跟我讲述她和情人的幽会：“我们没有地方可去，所以我们经常躲在他的卡车里、我的车里，或者电影院、公园长凳上，而他的双手放在我的裤子上。我就像和男朋友在一起的小姑娘。”她不停强调这段外遇带给她的如高中生活般的感觉。整个外遇期，他们只做了六次爱，比起做爱更多的是感受性感。她告诉我：“这让我感觉自己还活着。”她没有意识到她所说的正是出轨的人最常见的感受。

As I listen to her, I start tosuspect that her affair is about neither her husband nor their relationship.Her story echoes a theme that has come up repeatedly in my work: affairs as a formof self-discovery, a quest for a new (or lost) identity. For these seekers,infidelity is less likely to be a symptom of a problem, and more likely anexpansive experience that involves growth, exploration, and transformation.

听她讲述，我开始觉得她的出轨与她的丈夫及她们的婚姻没有任何关系。她的故事展现了一个我的工作中经常遇到的主题：出轨是一种自我发现的形式，是对新的或者逝去的身份的追寻。对那些汲汲追寻的人来说，出轨不像是出现问题的征兆，而更像一种关于成长、探寻、蜕变的开阔性经历。

“Expansive?!,” I can hear somepeople exclaiming. “Self-discovery?! Cheating is cheating, whatever fancy NewAge labels you want to put on it. It’s cruel, it’s selfish, it’s dishonest, andit’s abusive.” Indeed, to the one who has been betrayed, it can be all thesethings. Intimate betrayal feels intensely personal—a direct attack in the mostvulnerable place. And yet I often find myself asking jilted lovers to considera question that seems ludicrous to them: What if the affair had nothing todo with you?

“攻城拔寨？！”我听过很多人高呼 。“自我发现？出轨就是出轨，无论你想给它贴上怎样新奇的新时代标签！出轨是残忍的、自私的、不诚实的，也是一种虐待！”说真的，对被背叛的人来说，这就是他们的感受。亲密关系中的背叛直击人心，给人最脆弱的地方直接一击。我经常让被背叛的一方思考一个在他们看来也许很滑稽的问题：如果出轨和你没有任何关系你会怎么办？

Sometimes when we seek the gazeof another, it’s not our partner we are turning away from, but the person wehave become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version ofourselves. The Mexican essayist Octavio Paz described eroticism as a “thirstfor otherness.” So often, the most intoxicating “other” that people discover inan affair is not a new partner; it’s a new self.

有时候当我们寻求婚外异性的关注，不是我们厌烦了伴侣，而是我们厌烦了自己。我们在寻找另一个自己而不是另一个爱人。墨西哥散文作家奥克塔维奥·帕斯将性兴奋描绘成一种“对他人的渴望”。因此，通常人们在出轨里找到的最令人兴奋的“另一个人”并不是新的伴侣而是新的自我。

To doggedly look formarital flaws in order to understand cases like Priya’s is an example of what’sknown as the “streetlight effect”: A drunk man searches for his missing keysnot where he dropped them but where the light is. Human beings have a tendencyto look for the truth in the places where it is easiest to search rather thanthe places where it’s likely to be.

固执地寻找婚姻里的缺点以理解普莉娅这样的案例就是典型的“路灯效应”，也就是喝醉的人不在掉钥匙的地方找丢失的钥匙而是在有灯的地方找。人类倾向于在比较容易搜查的地方寻找真相而非正确的地方。

Perhaps this explains why somany people subscribe to the symptom theory. Blaming a failed marriage iseasier than grappling with our existential conundrums, our longings, our ennui.The problem is that, unlike the drunk, whose search is futile, we can alwaysfind problems in a marriage. They just may not be the right keys to unlock themeaning of the affair.

或许这可以解释为什么这么多人同意征兆理论，谴责一段失败的婚姻要比与我们的生存难题、渴望、无聊斗争来得容易。问题就在于，不像醉鬼无意义的搜寻，我们在婚姻里可以发现很多问题。只是他们可能不是解锁出轨意义的正确方式。

A forensic examination of Priya’smarriage would surely yield something—her disempowered position as the partnerwho earns less; her tendency to repress anger and avoid conflict; theclaustrophobia she sometimes feels; the gradual merging of two individuals intoa “we,” as in, Did we like that restaurant? If she and I had takenthat route, we may have had an interesting chat, but not the one we needed tohave. The fact that a couple has “issues” doesn’t mean that those issues led tothe affair.

普莉娅的婚姻剖析能说明一些问题，她挣得少、地位低，她抑制愤怒，避免吵架，有时候感觉有幽闭恐惧症，两个人逐渐成了“我们”，比如我们喜欢那家餐厅吗？如果她和我从这个角度看问题，我们的谈话会很有趣，却并非我们需要谈的东西。一对夫妻有问题并不意味着要出轨。

“I think this is about you, notyour marriage,” I suggest to Priya. “So tell me about yourself.”

我向普莉娅建议道：“我认为问题在你，而不是你们的婚姻，和我谈谈你自己吧！”

“I’ve always been good. Gooddaughter, good wife, good mother. Dutiful. Straight A’s.” Coming from atraditional family of modest means, for Priya, What do I want?has neverbeen separated from What do they want from me? She never partied,drank, or stayed out late, and she smoked her first joint at 22. After college,she married the right guy, and helped to support her family, as so manychildren of immigrant parents do. Now she is left with a nagging question: IfI’m not perfect, will they still love me? A voice in her head wonders whatlife is like for those who are not so “good.” Are they more lonely? More free?Do they have more fun?

“我历来不错，扮演着好女儿、贤妻良母、老实本分的学霸等角色。”对普莉娅来说，出生于保守的传统家庭就意味着我想要什么永远和他们想要我做什么分不开。她没参加过聚会、没喝过酒也没有深夜不归，在22岁她抽了第一支大麻。大学毕业后她嫁给一个优质男，并且像许多来自移民家庭的孩子一样帮扶着自己的娘家。现在她正思考一个老生常谈的问题：如果我不完美他们依然会爱我吗？一个声音在她大脑盘旋：那些并不那么“顺遂”的人的生活是怎样的呢？他们更加孤独吗？更自由吗？他们是不是更欢乐？

Priya’s affair is neither asymptom nor a pathology; it’s a crisis of identity, an internal rearrangementof her personality. In our sessions, we talk about duty and desire, about ageand youth. Her daughters are becoming teenagers and enjoying a freedom shenever knew. Priya is at once supportive and envious. As she nears themid-century mark, she is having her own belated adolescent rebellion.

普莉娅出轨既不是一种征兆也不是一种病理，这只是一种身份危机、一种个性的内心重构。在对话中我们谈到了责任，欲望、衰老以及青春。她的女儿们进入了青春期，正享受着她不曾了解的自由，普莉娅既支持又羡慕。人近半百，普莉娅进入了迟到的青春期叛逆。

These explanations may seemsuperficial—petty First World problems, or rationalizations for immature,selfish, hurtful behavior. Priya has said as much herself. We both agree thather life is enviable. And yet, she is risking it all. That’s enough to convinceme not to make light of her behavior. If I can help her make sense of heractions, maybe we can figure out how she can end the affair for good—since that’sthe outcome she says she wants. It’s clear this is not a love story that wasmeant to become a life story (which some affairs truly are). This started as anaffair and will end as such—hopefully without destroying Priya’s marriage inthe process.

这些解释可能看来肤浅，不过是渺小的第一世界问题，或是为幼稚、自私、伤害性行为找理由。普莉娅讲了太多自己，我们都同意她的生活让人羡慕，然而现在她豁出去了，这足够使我确信不能忽视她的行为。如果我能帮助她理解自己的行为，我也许可以找出让她永远结束出轨的方法，因为她说这是她想要的结果。显然这并不是一段可以成为终身依靠（有些出轨确实是这样的）的婚外情事。一切以婚外情开始，最后也只是婚外情，希望不会毁掉普莉娅的婚姻。

Secluded from theresponsibilities of everyday life, the parallel universe of the affair isoften idealized, infused with the promise of transcendence. For some people,like Priya, it is a world of possibility—an alternate reality in which they canreimagine and reinvent themselves. Then again, it is experienced as limitlessprecisely because it is contained within the limits of its clandestinestructure. It is a poetic interlude in a prosaic life.

在脱离日常生活责任的平行宇宙里，出轨常常是理想化的，充满了超脱的承诺。对像普莉娅这样的一些人来说，这是一个充满可能的世界，是现实生活的一种替代，在这里她们可以重构并重塑自我。一切天衣无缝，因为它处于一种秘密结构中。出轨是平淡生活中一段充满诗意的插曲。

未完待续（下部分内容请见明天的看见公号）

---

往日精彩内容

合作请联系QQ：501388983

长按识别二维码关注我们