Do people who are happy in a relationship cheat? Why do people cheat? Why does infidelity in a digital age feel like ‘death from a thousand cuts’? Esther Perel, renown sex therapist and Psychologies‘ sex expert says that often people don’t cheat because they are unhappy in a relationship.

“When we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t always our partner that we are turning away from, but the person that we have ourselves become,” Perel says. “And it isn’t so much that we are looking for another person as much as we are looking for another self.”

So why do people cheat? Often when you have lost someone close to you, you are more vulnerable to an affair. “Death and mortality often live in the shadow of an affair, because they raise the question: Is this it? Is there more? Am I going on for another 25 years like this? Will I ever feel alive again?” she said. “Perhaps these questions have propelled people to cross the line and some affairs are an attempt to beat back deadness and an antidote to death.”

Does infidelity mean the relationship is doomed? Not always. It can be a great opportunity for growth and to reinvent your relationship.

Watch Esther Perel’s incisive TED Talk here: