If You Want To Find The Perfect Relationship, WATCH THIS! | Esther Perel

The relationship becomes the holder of all that stress. And that is part of the divorce rate at the moment. And the weight that has felt on the relationship. It's not just people didn't get along. It's that.

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The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. What is the main thing you would recommend people work on themselves, whether in transition of relationships or in a relationship. Is there one thing that they could always be working on to improve themselves to be better for other relationships?

If their entire story about the relationship that just ended is about what the other person did wrong to them, something is missing in the story. That doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them, but add to it Who were you in this relationship?

Absolutely.

What role did you play? What did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to? What things do you wish you had done differently? What pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently? Where did you wish you would have said less and where did you wish you would have said more? What do you learn from this relationship? And if when you say what you learn, it's just that I want to make sure that the next person is.

Gives me what I need.

Or is less of this or more of that, who do you want to be in the next relationship?

How are you going to add value?

A relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough? So, there's a cast of characters in a relationship. And it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition. What, I think that's it. I mean, you can, but they are both directions. If you find yourself with a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive, receptive stance, you're missing a whole pan of the story.

And you're probably more of the problem of the relationship than them, if you're just focusing on them probably.

A relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationship. It's not an essentialist view, this is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic. You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had dynamics with certain partners. and of course it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition. And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of let's put your jealousy. But you may meet another person who acts differently and you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you, but it doesn't get activated because this person is responding very differently to you. And when you say, where were you? They don't say, why do you always have to ask me that question? They just say, I just want to do this, it's all good darling. I'm right here, I've got you back. And then you don't go into your chest pain, you know, pain. So this is very important to understand, we are not the same person with different partners. We may have certain things that come out depending on what is being sent over to us. So the relationship is a figure eight. It's what I do. that makes you do something, that then makes you react to me a certain way, that then draws that out of me, that draws that out of you, and each one actually creates the other. And when you get that view of relationships, when you come out and you're in transition, you say to yourself, let's say I was with someone who completely disconnected. Okay. They disconnected. Did I push them away? Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection? And that is not self-blame. That is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself. And you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them. It's not a blame dance. But it is an understanding of what did I do that made you do what you then did to me, then made me? That's the relationship.

And if someone's like, you know what? They're listening to you Esther, they really want to have an amazing relationship. They want to have a rich life knowing it's not going to be perfect, but they want to create beauty and adventure and play and go through life through the sadness and the adversities and all the things that happen in life. And they're thinking to themselves, how much should I pour into myself for my dreams, my health, my friends and family? How much should I pour into the other person? into their life that I'm creating a partnership with and how much should I pour into the relationship itself? What would you say to that?

But you asked me, it's different questions, right? What keeps a relationship alive is one question. How much do you invest in a relationship is a different question. So, I'm going to go to the one about what keeps it alive. Because it's part of, and I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking, it is what I'm mostly interested in. Because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive? What keeps us hopeful? What keeps us engaged with possibility?

Not physically alive, but connected to life.

Connected to life, life force, life energy. Why? Because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive. Teams that are not dead, companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving? And because it is part of my personal history, and I come from a background of survivors, of parents who were in concentration camps, and I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp? So that's why I got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this, but sexuality is not eroticism. You can have sex every day and feel nothing. Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it.

Yes. Right?

It's the story that's attached. So eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship. So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together, taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone. Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, It's love, but it's not exciting. It's not erotic. It's not necessarily desire. It's calibrating your expectations. So that you have, and that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections. For me, intimacy doesn't mean sexual either. It just means people that are important to you, that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life. These treatings, expectations, calibrating expectations, diversifying your social connections, and taking risks and doing new things is the research of Eli Finkel for thriving relationships. But then in that piece, I think play is essential.

It's huge.

It's huge. It is actually the quality of emotions that is the least talked about.

How often are you playing in your All the time.

All the time. We have humor is essential. It's an essential salve and balm in my relationship. I can be in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh and then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again. It's flirting, it's teasing, it's making fun of. It's that whole realm of We're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious.

And what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing?

Look, I had a teacher who once said to me, if a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left, it is diagnostic.

Really?

Now, is it true, you know, nobody has proven that scientifically, but what you know is that humor, And if you listen to my podcast, if you listen to the sessions on Where Should We Begin? or On How Is Work? you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma, painful event, major fight, strife, I laugh with them. I manage to see if they can see themselves, if they have a bit of distance, of perspective, if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into, the things over which we fight, the way we do it. And even if it's just a glimmer, a smile on the side, on the corner, I know they know that, I know that we know. And it creates that complicity and it invites a new possibility.

Some people may be resisting the humor, they may be like, they want to hold on to the seriousness. Yes, yes.

If you want to hold on to righteousness, to I am right, to victimization, to I have the view that is the only view that matters and only my and my experience is the truth, then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding. Humor and play is possibility. Possibility invites change. Change invites healing.

Yes. I want to ask you a few more questions, then I want us to play your game for a little bit. Over the last two years, was there anything that came up for you personally? in your own inner world that you noticed, oh, there's something, like we talked about, it created a lot of pressure for people if there were things that came out. Was there anything for you that you were like, huh, there's something I still need to work on myself or need to continue the healing journey of that came out in the last couple of years with being at home and, you know, not doing things the way they used to be?

I will answer this in two ways. The way that I experienced the pandemic. So in the first, in the beginning, right after I left you, I went back to New York and I went in lockdown. And basically it was in the, you know, suddenly kind of, I got gripped with a bit of a panic and primarily because I thought I can't catch this thing.

Right.

Because if I catch it, I am now suddenly considered elderly. I'm past 60.

But you were 35.

Yeah, yeah. For the pandemic it changed. It suddenly shifted overnight. I became elderly. And that meant I wasn't sure if we entered the hospital, me or Jack, that we will pass the triage.

Interesting.

And he's older than me. And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post-traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience. That sense that overnight, this whole life I have built could just disappear like this. And it was irrational. I was terrified that Jack would die to the point you wanted to know about Yom Kippur and my relationship. So we have in the middle of construction at the time and the workers and at day point he comes to me and he says, I asked the workers to dig a hole in the garden. I said, oh yeah, why? He said, so that when I die, you can just roll me right in.

Oh my God. Wow, talk about humor.

But I cracked up because he showed me, Girl, you gripped in fear. And I just started to laugh and I just realized, no, no, no, he's not dead. Because I was ready to stop construction. I said, We're not making this.

No one can come here within a thousand yards of our... No, no, it's.

More like we will not survive.

No way.

I really, when it's post-traumatic, it's trauma is the word, right? So I really was very, very, very scared. And his humor diffused it for me and just brought me back and said, We're continuing to build. We're gonna live. We're gonna survive. Don't worry, girl. It's like, so this was one. And it slowly, you know, I entered into the long term of the pandemic. It dissolved. And that's when I understood this came out of that. I missed my friends, I missed my dinner parties, I missed intimacy. And I created a host of different group experiences, pods. I had a movie club on Zoom, on three continents. I had a book club. I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now that is over two continents.

Wow, that's cool.

And I had a hiking group, I had a swimming group in the summer, and then one day I said, I need to play. And I need to continue to have conversations where I learned something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic.

Sure, sure.

And I said, I'm gonna create a game.

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Not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and what it represented, I just thought, oh, I want to do something creative and I'm going to, I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this in lockdown, you begin to have the same conversation.

Of course, yeah, of course.

So I just thought, How am I going to make couples have fun? Get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else. And I thought, we need to play because play is a container. Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask, certainly not to your partner, because we get more you're more shy with the people that we live with than with strangers.

Really? Interesting.

You know, you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers.

You're never gonna see again.

Or people you've just met than the person you live with for decades on end. That's interesting. I just, so play became very, very central. When you play, you still are able to lift yourself from the ground and it means you can enter the world of imagination where the rules are different. And every child at this moment, you know, around the Ukrainian crisis, you can see when kids are still able to play, it is the moments when they are not in hyper vigilance. It is an essential survival skill.

Yes, yes.

Underrated. And from that place came That's correct. Where should we begin?

It's one of the key things in relationship and in life, is what I'm hearing.

It's essential.

It's essential. Now here's another side question before we get into this.

Play is problem solving, play is creativity, play is risk taking, play is spontaneity, it's the other side of fear.

Well, you can't, when you're playing and as an athlete, When I'm playing, I'm not thinking about other things. If you're playing, you get in the zone, you're flow. And you can't put your attention somewhere else. When you do, that's when you mess up the game, right? You're not in your best flow state when you're thinking about something else. So play allows you to get out of that, which I think is really powerful. And my friend Matt, he's like, I'm always playing.

When you play, do you play for fun or do you play for To win? Yes.

No, I play for both. Yeah. I used to only play to win. Now I play for fun, but I also, you know, it's like me and my girlfriend, we play cards a lot. We have a game that we started playing over the holidays called Nerds. It's kind of like speed solitaire, right? Where you both play and there's like some shared space in the middle where you play as well. And I'm a, we play for fun, but I'm also, I want to win. So it's like I'm competitive, but it's okay. I can just play and have fun too.

And you can appreciate a good game absolutely.

Absolutely, yeah. Because it makes me want to go again. Let's play again, you know? So I love playing, yeah. But I used to be only, I have to play to win. And it was like an obsession. And now that's shifted to, I'm still a very competitive human, but I can play for fun.

So I used to play without having to create a situation where there is a winner and a loser so that I could have fun.

That's great.

And then I did, it was the same idea here. That's why you created it. There is no winner. It's a storytelling game. So there is no winner so that you don't have to compete so that you can have fun. That's great. Some people, I like, yeah.

I want to get into this in a second, but there's one thing I want to ask you about this last couple of years. If someone's listening or watching and they're thinking to themselves, Here's Esther Perel. She is one of the top people in the world on healing and therapy and connection. And she's been studying this and created bestselling books and podcasts and games. And this is your life's mission. And yet she has post-traumatic stress or things that come up for her still. And she's the expert in this. Is there anything that you feel like you still need work healing in order to let certain things go or are these things always going to be with us at certain times? Different stresses or pains or wounds or PTSD from the past of our individual lives.

Look, the notion that when you heal, something utterly disappears is one component of healing. But the other part is that you need a bigger trigger to reactivate an old wound, but there is a whole new range Where the wound can live without being activated.

You've healed a certain amount of triggers, but there might be a bigger...

So, you know, you come back from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from all the wars that people have fought here, or you are a refugee from Syria or from Afghanistan, I mean, all sides. You may not, at every siren, jump anymore. But if suddenly, if there's a bomb, yes, you will jump.

Gotcha.

So the range and the response, you know, to the danger shifts. That's the piece around healing. I think for me, it was a real surprise that this fear that I got to experience, I didn't remember that. It had been a long time.

Because you're constantly doing the work. You're constantly in the work.

I have kind of created a life where I have a sense of ownership, I have a sense of control, I have a sense. But I always live with dread.

You do?

I do.

Still today.

That my whole life. Live with dread like... That every minute something could happen.

The sky could fall and...

The whole thing could disappear.

Really?

Because that is the core story of my family. But I don't have the dread all the time. But when it grips, in the past it would grip without anything happening. It just was like happening to me because I had a day where I just didn't know what I was going to do with my life. So it disappeared. I could talk about it, but I wouldn't necessarily feel it. It's physical, it's visceral. It's like you described the chest for me, it's the gut. It says, But when the pandemic arrives, it's a trigger that is strong enough to bring back that sense of dread. And at that time, I wasn't aware of my dread. I was feeling my dread. That's very different. That's what I mean by the external versus the internal. Now, what people struggle with, people have struggled with prolonged uncertainty. Here are the five things of the pandemic that have affected relationships the most. One is a prolonged sense of uncertainty. It's not just that you're not sure when this is going to end, but you're not sure about you're not being sure. Okay, this thing keeps coming and going all the time. One minute you say it's gone, the next minute you realize, oh, it's not gone at all. Okay, that. Then it's the notion of what we experienced was a collapse of all the boundaries. Here I am, I'm at home, I'm on my chair, at my kitchen table, And I am a therapist and a supervisor and a podcaster and a mother and a friend and a wife and, and, and, and. And I haven't left the chair. Oh, my God. And I am still just in sweatpants with the, you know. And I'm like, where is work? Where is life? Where is morning? Where is night? Where it's just like all the roles have collapsed. And we are not made like this. We are physical people and we are spatially oriented. And we we change location for our activities, we change clothes for our activities, and they help us enter the role. Now I'm going to work, now I'm going to play sports, now I'm going to the club, now I'm going out, now I'm going to visit my mother. And I look, I feel different, I look different, I wear different, I have rituals, I have things, a different bag, a different racket. None of this, do you know what it means when your entire Arsenal of rituals that give meaning and frame your parts dissolves, you get exhausted. So that was the collapse of boundaries. Then there was the sense of ambiguous loss. You know, we lost spontaneity, we lost plans, we lost the weddings, the graduations, the parties, the promotions, everything.

Sports games, everything, yeah.

It's not there is the loss of death, but there is that other loss, the buildings that are standing but they're empty. They're physically present but emotionally vacated. We have the grandparents and the parents that are physically gone but emotionally present. We call that ambiguous loss when they are either physically present and psychologically gone or psychologically present and physically gone. That ambiguous loss became a part of what then Adam Grant began to describe in the languishing. Languishing is you're not depressed, you're just like, eh, lifeless, flat listlessness. Nothing is really giving you the sense of meaning and purpose and joy that you generally want. That has happened in your relationship. And what happens when you are in a period of liminality like this, where the big dilemmas are not getting answered, is that all the unknowns are filtering onto your relationships. And the relationship becomes the holder of all that stress. And that is part of the divorce rate at the moment and the weight that has felt on the relationships. It's not just people didn't get along. It's that people needed in the relationships to deal from the political polarization to the racial reckoning to to the economic insecurity, to the ambiguous loss, to the prolonged uncertainty, all of that fell on relationships. This is the story of the last two years, that people know, they feel it, but they don't necessarily articulate it.

Hard to make a relationship last if you don't have the tools and you're not willing to work through it.

How do you stay grounded when the ground itself self is moving.

It's quicksand.

It's the great adaptation of this moment. And so relationships began to see the cracks inside their relationship, and people also began to see the light that shines through the cracks. Both ends.

Yes. Well, play is key in a relationship, and I'm glad that I'm playful and I'm down for this game. Where should we begin?

I'm gonna hook you to this game so that you and Marta We play.

It all the time.

We tell stories to each other like Never before.

This is a game that came to you, you know, this is one of the things that came to you during the pandemic because you wanted to have creativity, you wanted to have play, connection, all these different things. So you created this game, Where Should We Begin? A game of stories by Esther Perel. And there's no winner, there's no losers, so it's not the type of game I, you know, I'm used to playing. Exactly. Yes, exactly. So we both have a set of cards.

Do I pick any or should I give you I pick from mine. I'm gonna have you pick from mine.

Should I go first or you go first?

Yeah, you go first.

You sure? Yeah. Let's go with the safest one. Okay, so then I pick, and do I get to say if I wanna answer it or not?

No, you have to answer.

I have to answer it, okay. A rule I secretly love to break. A rule.

When are you root breaking?

I feel like I'm always breaking the.

But it's a story.

Okay, I'll tell a story.

It's a story.

Okay. Why?

I actually think stories, relationships are stories. Stories are bridges to each other, stories bind us. So...

Here's a rule I like to break consistently.

Yes.

Since we're going on the story of play, in some ways I feel like I've emotionally and physically matured and grown up. In other ways, I feel like I've kept this childlike curiosity inside of me. It's one of the reasons why I love to interview people and do the podcast. It's one of the reasons I try to make people feel uncomfortable when I meet them for the first time by asking them questions that maybe they wouldn't have answered with a stranger. So one of the things I love to break is in my relationship, is trying to bring play to every moment, even when it's stressful.

Do you like to be goofy?

I love to be goofy, love to be silly, and tease. And I think there's a difference between teasing and bullying. I don't want to be a bully.

It's a world apart.

Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be a bully, but I love to be playful and tease and just throw a little, what about this? You know, a little comment here. Martha, she says that she thinks I was like, a Mexican in another life because she says I have the humor not of a white person from America, but of a Mexican because I'm teasing and playful and I have a sarcasm that she says is similar to the way that she grew up. I think for me, I don't take anything too seriously, especially in the relationship, which why I love that you said play is one of the keys to success. Which is why if someone is not reciprocal, then it becomes challenging if they're.

Not wanting to play.

It's like throwing a ball that drops the floor. Yeah. You're playing ping pong and it just. Yeah. With yourself. Yeah. Yes. So that is a rule I love to. To secretly break is just being. Being a child. Having childlike energy, but having maturity at the same time.

Nice. Yes.

Okay, so then what? I finished the card, and now it's your turn.

Right now we're doing it like this. But, you know, sometimes I put two cards and then I get to pick for the other person or people pick themselves. Then we have little orange tokens in which when you play with the group, we can put pressure on the card. And then we have the group says, We want you to talk about this.

So it becomes very-- To make someone kind of like have someone do it, yes.

So there's all kinds of variations.

But it's-- I kind of want to do a sex one with you. I think we took all those cards out. But here, I'll let you just choose one.

Asked for us to take them out, so I was gonna go.

I know. I should have.

Oh, God. The most humiliated I've ever felt. Oh, God.

The most embarrassing.

No, I can tell you immediately. The thing it's. It's. It's. I'm like 10, 11. So it goes back a long time. I I stole a candy.

Oh, that's it.

Well, you don't want to be caught.

You got caught.

I got caught.

By who? Your parents? By the store person?

The person that was waiting in line.

They saw you.

That saw me and said to the person.

She stole it. No way. What did you have to do?

I gave it back. And she said, you, have to pay for it. I said, I don't want it. She said, you, have to pay for it. I said, I don't have the money. She said, you, leave me something and then you come back with the money.

Wow. So you had to pay for it even though you didn't take it?

Well, I didn't have the money. So I went home, I got the money because I had to leave my school.

Oh my gosh. Oh, you had to leave like some collateral, some like your ID or your phone at the time. Yes.

Yes, I had to leave collateral and bring money back.

That's so embarrassing. It's humiliating.

It's like, yeah, because if you're gonna take something, you're not supposed to take the whole point of it.

Is then I get caught.

It's not to be caught.

You know, it's interesting. And I probably love this because I bet other people have conversations when you answer and then it triggers something in someone else.

Yes.

I stole for a couple years from, I don't know, 10, 11, somewhere around there, 11, 12.

Candy, yeah.

What was the candy? Candy all the time.

Also candy.

Right, candy. And I thought I was so smooth. I never got caught from a store. But one time I went to my, this was the most humiliating probably and embarrassing and probably most shameful thing. you know, as a kid growing up, I, my dad brought me and a friend of mine after basketball practice to go to one of his clients. He sold life insurance. And we had to drive, I don't know, 45 to an hour away to a farm. He was like a client of his at a farm in Ohio. And we go there and my dad's like, okay, you got, you kids like hang out on the farm or whatever in the house and walk around. I gotta talk to Mr. So and so for an hour to go over stuff. So we're walking around, nosey little kids, you know, 12 years old, go down in the basement, and I'm like opening up drawers, I'm doing stuff I shouldn't do. And I see a wallet. I take out the wallet, I open it up, there's a $20 bill and a $5 bill. And we're looking at each other like, Should we do this? And like, he will never know. I take the five, my friend takes the 20. I get woken up that night at, I don't know, 4:00 a.m. in the morning. My dad is hovering over me. At this time, my dad's pretty intimidating still and he's hovering over me, Did you steal from so-and-so, money? And I go, no. Right away, I'm like, Am I dreaming? Am I awake? I'm like, no, I'm defending myself, right? Lied, right to my dad. And he goes, Mr. So-and-so was going to buy food for his cows, right? Or for his animals on the farm. and he doesn't have the money to go buy the food. Like it's gone. I go, I don't know what happened. You know, I just lied. But I was also like waking up, I was like disoriented. And then he calls my friend's parents and he admits to it. And it was the most humiliating, embarrassing, shameful thing because I had to drive back alone. My friend didn't have to go, but I drove back for the hour with my parents in the front seat, me in the backseat just so ashamed. and I had to go face this guy and say, I'm sorry, with like the most, you know, he was so frustrated and angry and upset, and I never stole again after that. So I don't know, did you steal after that moment?

No, you know, my moment is I'm taking the thing and somebody goes like this.

No, they did that?

Yes.

No way.

I still have the book.

Oh my gosh.

And it's like you freeze. Oh, the shame. Did you even...

I'll never forget this guy's face. Like I was 12 years old, right? Okay.

Oops.

Okay. If I could whisper something in the ear of my younger self, I would say... And I'd probably say something very loving. Part of me wanted to be playful, but I'd probably say something loving because that's what I needed to hear. I'd probably say that you are loved, you matter, and it's all gonna be okay. That's what I would say. Because I think that's what I needed to hear the most. And it's funny because I've said this so many times on my show, so my audience is gonna get tired of me saying this, but I'm gonna show you this. Over a year ago, I put a photo of my younger self on my screensaver. I've talked about this so many times now. And so for the last year, this is my therapist, Clara, had me do work on my inner child. on healing the relationship that I had with myself back then and really having intimate conversations, exercises with the five, six, seven year old that was sexually abused. I've talked about that with you before, which I never really fully healed, you know, that whole conversation with. And it's been a beautiful journey to have intimacy, connection, you know, and bridge the gap from five, six, seven till now and be able to have a conversation between that space and time and really bring the two together, you know, my inner child into me.

So what does this one say to you?

What would he say to me? Oh, my gosh. That's a good. Actually, that's really good.

May I bring him back? Yeah.

Yeah.

What does he say to you?

Oh, my gosh. He probably says. Let me think. Let me get in my heart here. He says, thank you. Thank you for being willing to be courageous in all these scary emotions, all the scary emotions that I'm feeling right now, the things that I'm uncertain about, the things that I'm afraid of. Thank you for having the courage to dive in and be, you know, put all your emotions on the table, address the messiness, handle it all and supporting me in finding peace and healing that I've always wanted. That's what it would say. Yeah. So, yeah, I know it's crazy. It's crazy. Oh, okay. Okay, I'm going to the next one. This is what I do. I laugh when things get deep. I get deep and then I'm like.

You laugh while your tears are streaming down.

Of course, of course. Okay, this is you.

Oops. I would sell everything to be able to. It's interesting. I don't have a dream, you know, I live a lot of my dreams at this moment. So I don't feel like I would sell, but I think if I was to I would sell everything to remain healthy. Or I would sell everything for my kids or my partner to be healthy. And if I needed to, I would go everywhere in the world just to make sure that if there's something that can keep them, it's not just alive, it's healthy. Because I don't want them just to.

Suffer and be alive. Not just suffering and alive, yeah.

Yeah, I think that at this point.

That'S the only... Is that the biggest fear for you?

Yes, but you see, when I say I live with dread, you jump to, like, really? Because it's not the, you know, I live with the fear of loss. It's not dread, just bad things happening. What's underneath is the fact that my parents had lost everybody, and so, their entire families, they were the only two that came out. And I, this is part of my DNA. And so the fear of loss, of traumatic loss and the grief, that's what I fear. So health or selling everything or, you know, imagining myself, you know, cruising the world to find the best doctor that could help. Yes, with something. is part of preventing that loss.

Have you had major losses?

No, except actually I on a personal level have not. But I often, you know, if one of them drives, I often at night...

They're worried.

You know, I just, I've never said don't go, but I just like the little call when they arrive.

You're like my mom too.

I can feel, I can easily imagine accidents.

Oh, man.

I can easily imagine, yes, I am a catastrophizer in that sense, you know? But I, so what does therapy do? It allows you to just, in your mind, it's like, no, it calms the mind. If you go out, it calms you. But I still like the cold.

Of course, there's the assurance.

So the fear is loss. And the dread is the manifestation of that fear. So I would sell everything. Actually, I don't know what it's like. I could put it like that. I would sell everything to be able to live without dread.

Ooh.

That would probably be the... What would.

It take from you to process, to let that go?

I look at people who don't have those fears, and I think they are free of this. It's like, what does life look like without worry?

Peaceful.

You know, they have other things. Yeah, they have other things. But it's an amazing thing when I see people who don't have, you know, that is not their thing.

Yeah.

I don't have their things.

You don't have jealousy or insecurity.

Yeah, I don't have that.

Do you work with a therapist yourself?

I have. I don't do, I don't work with a therapist at this moment, but I have over the many years of my life, yes.

Do you think it's important for therapists to have therapists?

Absolutely, absolutely. First of all, if you don't, then you will be triggered by things that people bring into your office and you will be projecting things on them that don't belong to them. We call that countertransference. So, you know, there is what people put on you, but there is what you put on them.

Because you have something unresolved.

There is what you can't work with because of what is happening inside of you. So it's necessary.

You've got to be cleansing yourself constantly probably. Interesting. What do you think, you said you haven't had a therapist in a while or worked with one in a while. Where do you think, what would be.

What would I go to for today?

Yeah, what would you, what would be available for you today if you were doing that?

Today I would go to a coach because I need practical help. It's less internal at this moment. Yes. It's more, it's more more practical things.

What's holding you back from...

I don't. I am a person who likes to receive help, so I don't... You just.

Haven'T found the right coach.

I wrote a whole piece recently about asking for help in the blog, and because I realized that it's very easy for me to ask for help. Actually, when we met early on, I asked for help.

Absolutely.

And I just thought... Like, I've never.

Done this marketing stuff.

Yes, but yeah. I know nothing about marketing. You're like the genius marketer. therapist who suddenly finds that and I just thought I know people and they can help me and I don't feel like I have no problem saying I know nothing about this. But because I know I trust what I do know a lot about and this is new for me. So I don't experience it as belittling or admitting or vulnerable or I think it's an amazing thing to ask for help. I love, and by the way, I did ask on social. I asked people, you know, how do you feel about asking for help? And like 70 something percent of people said, I don't do it. I don't like it. That doesn't make me feel good, et cetera. And then I said, and how do you feel when other people ask you for help? And the same 70% said, I love it. And I'm thinking, you know what? It's like when other people ask, you don't think they're stupid. They don't know they're vulnerable. They're, they're, they're.

You know, you think you want to help.

You want to help. Well, why don't you think that when you ask for help, other people enjoy that, too? So I'm big into the asking for help these days. And therapy is a piece of that. At this moment, therapy is not the.

Thing that you need.

But that doesn't mean that, you know, Jack thinks I should meditate. That actually.

Maybe you need a meditation coach.

So I do. I do. But in movement. I get calm when I walk. When you walk, you're like, I sit. That does not work for me.

What's the one thing that triggers you the most that you would like to evolve beyond? What's the thing that irritates you or triggers you or frustrates you?

Bureaucrats. Rigidity. Rigidity, which is the opposite of playfulness.

Not flexibility.

Add arbitrariness, rules for the sake of rules, bureaucracy, in the big sense of the word, and bureaucrats as a whole. Rigidity, which means that you write, you don't listen to others, you make your point. Conversations that are not conversations, people that yell at each other for the sake of yelling at each other, cancel culture from all sides. Frustrates you, yeah. Yes, I mean, my work is about helping people have the difficult conversations that they need to have, want to have, don't know how to have. As long as they want to, I can do something. If they think they know it all, and if they think they know you even better than you know yourself, but they have no curiosity, I find that challenging. I love curiosity. I hate. What's the opposite of curiosity?

Fixed. Yeah.

Yeah. Certainty. But certainty is the enemy of change.

Right, right. I want to go one more question each. I want to make sure I'm respectful of time. I think we got about 10 more minutes. Yeah. Before I ask the. I think it's mine. I'm gonna pick, before I ask, because I want to pick it, but you just brought something up to me that I had a conversation with another therapist, Dr. Romani, and she speaks all about narcissism.

Yes, she was the keynote speaker at a conference that I went to this year, too.

And this video got so much attention that I did with her in this interview. And we don't have to go into it for too long, but you were just mentioning how people have like, that don't want to do the work. Right? You mentioned like they're fixed, they're shouting for shouting, they're not willing to look at themselves. And she was mentioning how it's really hard to diagnose a narcissist because they have to be willing to come to therapy and most of them will never do it unless they're forced to. In your practice, do you interact with a lot of narcissists? And she also mentions how it's almost impossible. I don't want to say exact words she said, but I think she said it's almost impossible possible for a narcissist to change and evolve. Unless they do therapy every day type of mentality where they really are practicing this thing on a consistent basis. And I'm sure there's a spectrum of narcissistic personality traits and a range of how strong someone is in that. What's your thoughts on narcissism in general and can people change or evolve out of it?

I can answer it clinically and culturally. I mean, maybe we should start by talking about like Christopher Lasch talked about it. We do live in a narcissistic culture.

Selfie culture, the likes, the likes.

In a culture of narcissism. Once you are continuously evaluating yourself, proving yourself, performing, demonstrating yourself, you know, posting about yourself, engaging in fake news about yourself, you are in a narcissistic culture that, you know, criteria, diagnosis, Accompany the culture of the day. In the 19th century, we talked about hysteria. We do not talk much about hysteria today because we realize that the majority of these hysteriC women, supposedly hysteriC women, were actually women who had experienced sexual abuse. They were not hysterical, they were traumatized.

Yes.

Narcissism is the word that we come back with on the 21st century. stress and anxiety and depression was the 20th century. So every century and every culture has its expressions through mental illness or mental manifestations. Eating disorders exist in some cultures and not in others. A diagnosis, a personality disorder, doesn't just exist like that. without a background. So that means that it's easy to make these issues very personal, but they are also societal. That said, I have sat with people who have a whole range of narcissistic tendencies. To get to saying somebody is a narcissist, somebody is depressed, somebody is, you know, I think that there are, there's more to us than just that. Right. But you see a lot of people with narcissistic tendencies, and you see a lot of people who are not just exhibiting it with manifest narcissism, but there's a whole other form of narcissism that is called covert narcissism, which we talk about much less because we don't name it in those ways.

What is the difference?

That is a long conversation. It's really a long conversation.

In the short form, what is the...

You know, Power can come from above and power can come from underneath. You can have power through victimization, you can make people feel guilty all the time, you can be passive aggressive, you can make people continuously feel that they are responsible for your life, that if they don't do what you want, that you may kill yourself. There's loads of ways to make other people submit themselves to you.

And that would be considered That is.

These are expressions of more covert narcissism.

Covert, it's not like this domineering, but.

It'S a psychological, from the top and you can control people from underneath. Yes, yes. You know, I think that there is a certain profile at this point of when we say narcissist, everybody has five or six associations that are quite similar. And this is really a whole other conversation. What I will say is that, yes, I have sat with people who have very little regard. People who bring everything onto themselves. People who see everything as a reflection of themselves. People who are charming, charming when they need to seduce you, and then once they think they have you, they turn and they go into the next people who they need to charm, but those that they have already recruited are disregarded and discarded. So those...

They got the most out of them already, yeah.

You know, people who can lie pathologically to you, people who have very little empathy for what is happening. So there is a cluster of things, but I think for me, I tend to look at behaviors and I tend to look at interactions because I'm a relational therapist and I'm a systems-oriented therapist. And so I less I spend my time labeling a personality. I think it's useful on occasion, but it is not my primary vocabulary.

Yeah.

But she's very, very eloquent about it.

Yes, yes. We'll have to have you back on to do a whole two-hour conversation on that another time.

It's really, I do not want to talk about complex topics.

In a short amount of time.

In a short amount of time. Because it doesn't do them justice. And I don't like to reinforce notions that have not been examined.

Absolutely.

But that are easy to grab on.

We'll have you back on for that. I'll do one final card and then I think I've got to make sure I'm respecting him the time.

That you're gonna touch on me. Yep. What is that?

Okay. I'm my own worst enemy when It's interesting. I... You know what? You wanna give me a different one?

Yes.

Okay.

I wanna give you this.

Okay.

Because of what happened just a few minutes before.

Last time I cried was, I mean, yesterday, you know, in terms of, my father just died two months ago. And so I've been crying a lot, you know, every couple of days I hear a song that really connects me to, a memory to him. And to the whole, it was a sad experience because he happened into a car accident 17 years ago, had a severe brain trauma, was in a coma for three months. Then he woke up in a different country, in New Zealand at the time. I was in college. Then he came back and it was like my dad was physically here, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually not.

Ambiguous loss.

-Yes.

-This is it.

-I never was able to fully grieve.

-That'S ambiguous loss.

-My father, he was physically here, but.

The ambiguity... -Around the same person.

-And every interaction I had with him was reminding me of the loss. Was, I'm grateful he's here and it's great to experience some time with him, but every time I go and say hello, he says, Louis, right? Didn't you, didn't she used to play? Where'd you, what sport did you play growing up? Where did you go to school again? So he could have a conversation with you and speak conversationally. But it was the same story over and over again. I'm needing to remind my father for 17 years. For 17 years of the memory loss that he had. Show him photos of him with me taking photos of me playing sports. the second half of my life with him was beautiful. He showed up, he transformed, he overcame a lot of the anger and resentment he had. And I had two different lives with him. When I was 13 before, I had some love, some scary with him. Then after 13, it was like this incredible friendship. So it's like I lost my dad, but he was physically here. And every year there was some type of health scare. He had a couple of strokes, a heart attack, he had multiple surgeries from the accident, just the complications from the accident. And so every year I didn't know if he was going to survive or not. And it was always, is it going to happen this year? Okay, he's in the hospital now. Is he going to make it? Do I need to be there in this 17-year cycle of learning to accept something and doing my best to be okay with it? and accepting and loving where it's at. So for me it was 17 years of, I want to say numbing, but it was acceptance and just like managing it the best I could. And then when he passed in February a couple months ago, it was just full circle, kind of like going back 17 years ago and reliving that and then reliving my whole childhood and allowing myself to be to have a full range of emotions. And I think it's beautiful because you.

Feel like this time, actually, you can fully grieve.

I feel like I can't. Because it's.

See, this is ambiguous loss, what you just described. Can't grieve, can't mourn because he's there, but he's not there.

Yeah.

And this one gives it. Now you can experience the full range.

Absolutely. I didn't feel like I could. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I feel like I have a more. spiritual connection to him now than in the last 17 years. You know, every night I'm connecting with him in my own way and in my little meditation room. And, you know, throughout every the days, there are things that come up where I feel the spiritual presence, and it's. It's a beautiful, sad. It's beautiful. It's emotional. It's. It's a wide range of emotions. And, you know, there's a lot of sadness I have because I wish it wasn't that way, but I also.

I have some relief.

I have some relief and I'm also doing my best to create meaning from the whole thing so that it's not just this thing I'm frustrated with constantly, but like, you know what? I probably wouldn't be doing this without that pain and sadness and loss. I want to be a curious, hungry, I wouldn't have been as resourceful if I had him there. So, yeah, I mean, I've been crying a lot. I've been crying a lot and it's been beautiful to have a safe environment in my relationship with someone who allows that. Because I think that's hard for some people to allow that, especially for men to be able to express their full range of emotions and for that, their partner to feel safe with that, too. So I feel very grateful. Absolutely. It's not It hasn't been fun, but it's also been allowing me to have peace with it.

It's an amazing thing that if you ask people, When's the last time you laughed? Nobody has to justify laughing.

But crying.

But crying, people have to justify it. They have to...

Interesting you asked that.

I mean, it is the absolute natural emotion to feel in sadness, in grief, in loss.

What?

Men, women, they, them, whoever.

I had a woman on two days ago who hasn't cried in years. And I had a man on yesterday who hasn't cried in, I think, 10 or 12 years. And it's interesting. It's like there's something there, I think, to be able to have the full range.

Of course.

Not saying you need to cry all day long or something, but allowing yourselves to feel. But that's probably for a whole other conversation.

I mean, I would say, say that it's hard for people to really fully say yes if you can't fully say no. And it is hard for people to fully laugh if you can't also cry. If something is funny, you automatically do this. If something is sad, the fact that you stay like that, affectless, or that you repress it, or that you hold it in, or that you don't even notice it, or that the Something is coming down your face and you don't even realize. I've had people tear in my office while they say, I never cry.

What does that mean when someone isn't able to fully laugh or fully cry?

What would it be like if a person comes into this world and doesn't scream? I mean, if a baby doesn't scream when they come out, you think they're death at birth. What is it like when people make love and make no noise? When it's impossible. I mean, you're a sports person, you know that if you lift something, you make noise.

Screaming and grunting here. Yeah.

The voice is, it's just, what does it mean when this whole thing is closed off?

There's something inside that's missing or dead or trapped.

Or trapped.

Yeah.

Or was shoved down or can't come out or, but for sure it is a blockage.

Yeah. We've got another session we're gonna have to do because I'm feeling the time and I want to be responsible. respectful of what you have next after this, but I could talk to you for hours. This game is a lot of fun. Where should we begin? A Game of Stories by Esther Perel. So make sure you guys get this, get a few for your friends. How about your company table? Wedding season, graduation, schools, parties, births, all these things are happening now. So this is a way for you to connect. I think this is brilliant because I don't think most people have these type of intimate conversations. This is something that I've- As intimate.

As you want, by the way. You can stay perfectly light and- you-.

Can just do sexual fun talk and you can go deeper and all these different things. So get the game. It's gonna be powerful for you. And I think the world is craving connection and conversations in this way.

You know what I was thinking? If people want to have an opportunity to have a conversation like we have. We're casting for House Work.

Yes.

For the work-related podcast. So they're live.

Where can they go to do that?

Esterperel.Com/Podcast.

Okay. There's a casting on there.

There's a casting on there.

What do they get if they're selected?

A three-hour session with me, recorded anonymously.

So they don't say their names or yeah.

No, all identifiable features are removed. so that it becomes a conversation for all of us.

Sacred, yeah, still. They get a free session. Yeah. You're in high demand. You're like, a wait list is like three years, so that's a big deal. So if they go to askyourpower.com/podcast, they can apply for that to see if they can get a session.

If you want to work on a relationship issue that pertains to work. And the fascinating thing is that it seems that people have a harder time talking about the romantic relationship than about work.

Why is that?

That's for when I come back.

So many topics for the next conversation. Exciting. We've got this, we've got narcissism, we've got the trapped emotions of not crying, all these things. They can go to game.esterperel.com to get this game. Where should we begin? I recommend you guys getting it. Esther Perel, everywhere on social media. Where are you spending the most time these days on social media? Where should they, is it Instagram or? Instagram. Okay, cool. So we'll go there and also your two podcasts. Make sure you guys subscribe. They're both on Spotify, right? Power of We Begin. Yes, where should we begin is life changing. If you want to master your relationships, you're gonna hear so many crazy fascinating stories about people. I should say it's life couples therapy. Life couples therapy. Fascinating. You've done how many seasons now? Two, three? No, six. Six! I've only heard the first two, so I need to get caught up. Okay, so six episodes, six seasons of that, and then you've got Housework, which is all about work dynamics. Yep. You've got some fascinating stories there, so I'm very excited about those. Make sure you guys subscribe. Get the book, two books you have. Meeting in Captivity. Meeting in Captivity. It's the State of Affairs. Yes, get those books. We'll link all that stuff up as well. Two final questions for you. that I've asked you before, as your fourth time on, but I want to see if it's changed after the pandemic. Imagine it's your last day on earth many years away, but you get to live as long as you want to live. And you've gotten rid of dread in your life, right? So you've got no more dread. But for whatever reason, it's the last day for you, many years away. And you've got to take everything with you that you've created, or we don't have access to the games, the books, the podcasts anymore for whatever reason. but you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, three truths that you would share, and this is all we would have. What would those three lessons be for you?

The quality of your relationships is determined, or I would put it that, the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your lives. When people tell me, you,'ve changed my life, when people stop me on the street, to talk about the podcast all over the world. But what they say is, you changed my life, you accompanied me through my relationship, my divorce, my affair. I just feel like I have a reason to be here. It's a tremendous affirmation. It's what I've done for others, what it means for them to have been in conversation with me. And this is true for my friends, this is true for my patients, the people who listen. So what I take with me is the people who would tell me what my presence has meant in their life. And the third one is I live with three men, my husband and my two sons. And I really, if I go, I want them to take all the love, the joy, the fun, the laughter that we have experienced together and go and experience it with other women. They happen to be into women, so they should all go to other women.

Right, right.

That I will continue to live with them through the relationships that they will have with others.

Wow, that's beautiful. I want to acknowledge you, Esther, for the way you continually show up in this world, because I think I've known you for like six, seven, eight years. and the conversations we have here and off of the podcast are always so inspiring to me and also to so many people that watch and listen. And you're amazing at what you do and you help so many people. So I really acknowledge you for consistently living a life of service to help people on the thing that is the most important, which is the quality of their relationships, the relationships with others and work, intimacy and with themselves. So I really appreciate you and acknowledge you for giving us the wisdom and advice we need to help mend these relationships. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

I would love to hear what a thousand people must have defined this for you. And I'm curious what I answered on other times about this. I think that I like the sentence from my friend Terry Real, who you should have on the podcast. and who will talk to you about narcissism and grandiosity in people.

Okay.

On the other side of grandiosity, you know, it would be a great conversation to have with you about grandiosity. But greatness is when you can see yourself as a flawed individual and still hold yourself in high regard.

I don't think you've shared that before.

If you know that you are imperfect, you are actually not that great. You're great, but not the greatest. And you can still hold yourself in high regard, then I think you are great.

Mm, Lester, thank you so much. Appreciate you. Appreciate you. If you enjoyed that interview, then I know you'll love what we have coming up right now. I'm going to ask you a question that may be hard to answer. Maybe it's easy. But you've seen a lot of intimate relationships work and fail over 35 plus years, right? Yeah. What's the percentage of people in your mind who are in intimate long-term relationships are actually happy most of the time?

So I have two ways of answering this. The first one is cultural. Your definition of happy and thriving and fulfilled. is probably very different than many other cultures where being healthy, having enough to eat, having children, having grandchildren, having good jobs, being respected in the community, is happy and thriving. It's happy and thriving. It's not about you and I are talking on the couch and I'm pouring my heart at you and you are telling me I'm the best thing that's ever happened to you in your life and all of that. Okay? So we-- that's one version. That's one version is you have got to look at the word happiness and thriving really in a cross-cultural context. Because a lot of us, by the way, who have the new definition, have parents who think about marriage and what is a happy marriage with the other definition. And I'm wondering, you know, that maybe we are so unhappy because we want so many other things that are maybe not part of marriage. marriage.

We have such high expectations.

We have super high expectations. I want, we want everything. We want a partner to be an entire community. My best friend, my trusted confidant, my passionate lover, my intellectual equal, my co-parent. And on top of it, I want with you to deal with all the physiCituTes of the everyday life and all of what we need to get to, all of that. And then we should also be passionate, great lovers, fantastic travelers. Exactly. You know, and very few of them.

So dancing every week, yeah.

So Eli Finkel has a best answer for you on that.

Okay.

He's a researcher on marriage, and basically what he says is that the good relationships of today are better than the relationships of history. But there are very few. Because the good, what you call that happiness, is the top of the Olympus. It's climbing the mountain, and at the top of the mountain, the view is fantastic, but the air is also thinner. And not everybody can climb the mountain. The people who get to the top, their top is probably better than the tops of the past. Now what is the top? It used to be that marriage was for survival. Then it became a romantic enterprise. And it became what I call the service economy. From the production economy to the service economy. You want children, but no longer just eight, so you only want two. So sexuality becomes for pleasure and connection, so it becomes a service economy. It's no longer a production. And then from there you go into identity, which is what? I want to become the best version of myself, and you're going to help me do so. That's the identity story of marriage. And that goes up the Maslow ladder. Now if I ask the question differently, I actually actually wanted to write that very article. About 10-15 years ago, I set out to write a piece, what are creative couples? And do you know, because creative was the word I was interested in, not so much happy, passionate, but creative. Meaning, not stable, not solid, but what is this thing, creativity? The spark. And I went and I asked, Almost 100 people. Do you know couples that inspire you? Do you know couples that you think have that spark still? And the frightening thing was that the majority of people could sometimes come up with one, maybe two, and that was it.

Wow.

You know, they knew people who were very good at renovations and people who were great parents together and people who were great business partners together, but that hole that you talk about. There were very few. And I thought that is so sad because here we are, we want something. I mean, if I say good business partners or business leaders, you would give me 10 people who you think inspire you to run a company or authors or musicians. We all have a long list. Who can say what's your favorite musician? I mean, most of us have more than one. When it comes to intimate relationships. People have very few models. Now, maybe it is because what they want is so high that there is very few models actually. And that's probably the challenge of intimate relationships today.

So how do we find, how do we create that in an intimate partner? Or is it setting a lower expectation for what we want so that we don't It's both.

I think sometimes if you lower your expectations you're much better off, no doubt. So, back to Eli Finkel's research. Calibrating expectations is probably one of the three main things for what he calls successful relationships. And calibrating doesn't mean you lower your expectations necessarily, but you also diversify them. You don't ask one person to give you what the whole village should actually give. give you. Right.

Okay. That was the first thing. What's the second? You said there's three things.

So one is the calibration of the expectation. Two is the diversification. And three, which is the one that very much speaks to me, is doing new things. That with your partner. That if you do the things that you enjoy, that's really nice, that's comfortable, that's cozy, that solidifies the friendship. But if you want to create intensity, it demands risk-taking, doing new things outside of your comfort zone, a little bit more on the edge.

How often should we be doing new things with our intimate partner?

I think as often, I mean, look, the answer to this is very simple. Often enough, but not too often that you become chaotic and you dysregulate. Right now you're asking me as a system systemic question. This is true for an individual, a relationship or a company. If you don't change or grow, you fossilize and you die. If you change too much, too fast, there's no stability, you go chaotic and you dysregulate. So how often it depends on where you are at in your life. Are you the two of you? Do you have kids? Do you have little ones? Do you have aging parents? Are you taking care of what else is going on here? We'll tell you if this is a period where you need more stability or if this is a period where it's time to go and be curious and explore and discover and go into the world and launch.

If you're a young 30-something female, I get this all the time from a lot of women who reach out to me, who are ending relationships that were really stressful for them or they've been single for years, and they're trying to figure out how do they find the right person or how do they create the right relationship for them? That's going to be a long-term partner. If you're a female in your young 30s, what should they be thinking about? Like, should they be focusing first on themselves, growing themselves, or what are the things they should be looking for in the right partner?

I just wrote my current blog, which is a little bit of a critique of this taking care of yourself yourself first.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So, because you learn to love yourself in the context of your relationships with others. You know, this idea that you go first to work on yourself here, and then you prepare this little nice little package, and you bring it to relationships, that is completely off, actually. It's interactive. You do do, you need a good amount of self-awareness, but you also need to be in relationships because it's people who help you become more aware.

Practicing it.

Practicing it, but other people let you see who you are. It's by being with others that you get to know who you are, not just by sitting there alone and say, who am I? Who am I? But this is a relational perspective on life, and I will stand by that. Read the newsletter. I really poured myself into that one because I'm tired a little bit of this. No, what I will say to you, I'm tired of Go fix yourself first and then go be in a relationship. Relationships help you to become who you are. That's what happens between children and their caregivers. The next thing is instead of constantly thinking who's the right person I'm going to find, why don't you ask yourself who do you want to be? Who should the other one be? No, maybe it's on occasion, ask who will I be as a partner? Who have I been till now in my relationship? relationships. How have I shown up? What is it that I do? Not just, you know, finding the right person. That's now. What does it mean to find the right person? And there, I will say, the simplest way of looking at it is this. There are many people you will love, and they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with. Are you looking for a love story or are you looking for a life story?

That's good.

You understand?

Yeah.

There are many people who have had love stories. This is a whole different story. I never thought for a minute I would live with these people. Take something else to have a partner in life with whom you're going to go through the pains, the sufferings, the challenges, the, you know, all of that.

Can you have a life partner and still have a love story?

Of course. Of course. You want the life partner to be a love story too, but the love Love stories per se are not life stories. It's different ingredients, it's different values. There are some things that you don't need in order to have a beautiful love story with someone. It lives in its encapsulated version on its own. You're not thinking, can I do this with you? Can I get old with you? Can I take you to my parents? Do we share similar... It's about values, life, not just about feelings. So when you're looking for the right person, It's not just what attracts you. It's who can you build a life with?

How many values in common do you need to have with your partner, life partner? Because...

The important ones. It's not how many, but there are a few of them that are really important.

Which ones would you say? That make or break based on your experience?

I think I'm not going to say them in order of importance, but one of them that really matters is your relationship to others. If you are a person that values relationships, that sees the presence of others in your life as central, and you are with somebody who does not want community or does not know how, I mean, I'm talking not about what they would like to to learn through you. But their value is you do things alone, you live alone, you rely on yourself, you don't bring people over to the house. I have a couple I just spoke with yesterday, you know, and he loves to have people over and she just nobody should come ever to the house.

She wants her space.

Her space, the whole thing. And I'm thinking, wow, this is a tough one. It's not just about the house, it's his whole life is about being with people. and her whole life is about not being with people necessarily. That's not how she experiences it. Now the question is, is she drawn to more of what he has to offer and is he drawn to more of what she... If these are totally... If these are totally... Then different values come together and they mix and match. But if you have these two separations like that, so that's why... One of the beautiful questions I ask in How Is Work? Were you raised for autonomy or were you raised for loyalty? Were you raised for self-reliance or were you raised for interdependence? Which one would you say?

For me, it was self-reliance meaning what?

Nobody will ever help you as well as you can help yourself. You only have yourself to count on. Don't trust people. You're on your own, buddy.

Or raised for loyalty.

Interdependence, loyalty. You're never alone. There's people around you. You owe others. Others are there for you. Relationships is what makes you.

I think I was both, based on like circumstances.

Correct. The circumstances made you reliable because you were alone with mom, but the messaging was you have me.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Okay.

I think both.

I think that question is a fundamentally interesting question. Okay. That people can ask themselves when they partner in business and in love.

Raise for self-reliance or loyalty?

Yeah.

Okay.

Interdependence. Do you see yourself as connected to others and it's your connections that give you a sense of anchoring, meaning, relevance, importance, all of that, or do you see yourself as fundamentally on your own? I think travel, curiosity, you often will have a complementarity between one person who is curious and eager to discover and goes on, you know, and then another person. Your question about-- wants to be alone.

Or doesn't want to travel once a--.

Doesn'T want, but it also likes comfort, likes repetition, likes the familiar. I think the religious values, if you have a person who, you know, those matter a great deal. Children, do you want family or do you not want family? If you want a family, then make sure that you find someone who wants a family. What are you gonna do, try to convince them, you know? I don't think you have to have the same values on everything. I think you have to have a similar outlook on life.

Which is?

A vision. Like exactly the same as when you have a vision. Do you, you know, do you want to own a home? Do you think that economic achievement is important? Do you want to live in an extended family? You think that living intergenerationally really is important. And you have somebody else who says, you know, I don't want your parents over. You know?

Do.

You want to live in more than one place? You know, I think these are essential, you know, money, feelings or emotions, religious beliefs, attitude toward life. It's not a specific value about something. A value is a cluster of things. It's a cluster of importance, of systems of meanings. That's a value.

And you may not find someone with everything is the same, but someone with a similar mindset, as we're saying.

I met a husband of mine, whom I am for more than three decades, who had never left the U.S. when I met him.

Really?

I never knew such a person existed. Coming from Europe, that was unheard of for us.

You weren't in Europe?

No, he lived in the States. He was American. I came from Europe. In Europe, you travel everywhere, all the time, even if you have nothing. You work one month, you get the money, and then you go to the next country, which is two hours away.

So I, I never traveled outside of the US.

He had never been outside of the US. Yeah, he will always tell me he'd been to the Virgin Islands. But, you know, for the rest, and I thought, oh my God, how does one, you know, who is such a person? But I knew it was because of the circumstances of his life and that if he could, he would, and he was intensely curious. If you just said, oh, he's never traveled, then you misinterpret. You don't want to just look at the manifest thing of, you know, you want to say and behind this is there someone who would actually like that, who just hasn't had the opportunity and is curious and just says let's go. So don't get fooled just by what you see. Find out what is the belief behind it, the aspiration, the longing, the interest and then you get a sense of what is the value.

Do you think it's, I'm going to go back to your expectation, do you feel like we should lower or should diversify expectations or what did you say the word was?

Calibrate.

Calibrate expectations or should we be finding someone that can reach that expectation that we want?

No, I think it's just impossible. I think you need to calibrate.

Calibrate. Always calibrate.

You calibrate. You constantly will be disappointed. Do you know a single relationship where you haven't been disappointed? Okay. I mean, disappointment is which can lead to suffering. It's part of a relationship. The minute you have a relationship, you have an expectation. That expectation means that you want something. Love, closeness, intimacy, partnership, you know, business affiliation, you name it. It creates dependence. The moment you have an attachment, you have dependence. That dependence means that you have power or I have power. If I expect something from you, I confer power on you. You have power over me, I have power over you. By definition, there will be moments when that power doesn't go in the direction that I want.

I'll be disappointed.

I'll be disappointed. Is there a single child that didn't have a disappointment from their parents? It doesn't exist. This idyllic thing you're talking about, it doesn't exist. The next thing is, what do you do with that disappointment? Hey, can I come tell you? I'm really disappointed. You let me down. I thought we were in this together. I trusted you. And you say, I see your point. Or do you say, what the hell are you talking about? You're just inventing this. You're delusional. None of the, you know, and everything in between. That's how you do a relationship. It's really based on the repair. It's not based on the It's how.

We heal the disappointment.

Yes. It's how you repair all these breaches moment by moment. You come back, and the repair is not, I am so sorry. The repair may sometimes be, Hey, do you want a glass of water? Or, Hey, did you see this article in the newspaper? John Gottman has this very interesting thing about that. He says, the repair is not that you come and you do a mea culpa. It's that you do what he calls bids for connection. You show the other that they still matter. I brought a newspaper in at a time when we still had newspapers. That was one of his examples. You know, I brought the paper in. Like, I think of you. I'm pissed at you. You just annoyed me. We just had a spat. But I still care about you. I still care. You're still in my life.

I still respect you. So it's how we repair disappointment on a daily or weekly or monthly basis.

Minute sometimes.

Is the success of the relationship relationship.

And that means also how you come and you say you take responsibility? Yes. I think, I actually think that taking responsibility is the ultimate freedom.

Really?

I messed up. I shouldn't have done this. You know, can I do that? You know, it really is being accountable.

What's the biggest lesson you've learned from researching and doing this work on this topic over the last few years? Biggest thing you've learned about yourself or about humanity in general.

Yeah, there are two themes I think that stand out, actually three themes probably that stand out. One, I too for a long time thought affairs only happen in troubled relationships. If you have everything you want, there should be no reason to go looking elsewhere. Then I began to hear more and more people come into my office and say, I love my partner, I'm having an affair. You know, in the same way that when I wrote Mating in Captivity people would say, I love my partner, we have no sex. And I was like, you know, I thought if you love you desire, and now I thought if you love you're faithful. So this idea that not all affairs are symptoms of relationships gone awry, that people in happy relationships also stray and it isn't because of their partner or because of something in the relationship. That there's another theme here that affairs, and this led me to the second thing, which is that you always have to look at infidelity from a dual perspective. At the heart of affairs is betrayal and hurt, but there is also longing. Longing for an emotional connection, longing for intensity. longing for a different sexuality, longing to reconnect with lost parts of ourselves, longing to suddenly feel alive because people have allowed themselves to feel dead on the inside. That, what it did to you and what it meant to me, that you have to be able to figure out both is a much more useful way to help people.

Yeah. How do we, you know, all those things you're talking about, longing for a desire of someone else or a different experience or from the past or all those things you're talking about, how do we get those things in our partner if we're feeling those things that they're missing?

Say that again.

Even if we love our partner, you know, someone comes to you and is like, I love my partner, but I feel like I'm missing these other things. How do we not miss those things or create those in our relationships?

Do you know how many times I say to people, tell me something. The person that is here in this other relationship. Is that the one who comes home? I mean, the one that your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, is dealing with is not nearly as charming and as attentive. You know, when you prepare your suitcase and you fly and you choose your carefully chosen clothes and you prepare yourself and, and, you know, you don't bring work with you when you go to, you know, but when you go home, you're on your phone the whole time, you bring the laptop. overs. You're not nearly that attentive. You're way less charming. Your humor is gone. And then you tell me that your wife is boring or your husband is boring. And you? Who are you here versus who are you there? Not who are they? Who are you? So that's the first thing. It's like what happened to you that you let this thing seep out of you? And what makes it difficult for you to bring this back into your own relationship.

Why is that?

Multiple reasons why people neglect themselves in some way, right? Why is it that there you can be such a free woman and here is this boyfriend of yours who think you hate sex, you have no interest, you are utterly, you know, frozen and this one is like it's the same woman. What happened? you know? And on top, that's the bigger lie. The bigger lie is not only that you're having a lover, the bigger lie is that your husband, your boyfriend has no idea what's the truth about you. Why? And then different stories. Sometimes it's stories from childhood. You know, I have no idea how to bring that part of me in the context of family, because family was the place where sexuality was the most dangerous. So I have never known how to experience pleasure at home. Home was a place where I made sure to be safe. Pleasure I took somewhere else. Then you start to see the way that people have carved out and compartmentalized themselves and the reasons behind it. Now is real therapy work. That's a different, you know, that's when you start to really try to understand why. Why can't you integrate the different parts of you?

Is it kind of like the idea of always dating in your relationship? It's like always trying to be your charming self and not forgetting it. How you got into the relationship, don't forget that. Is that kind of the concept?

I don't know if it's always dating, but for sure, the couples that are erotic couples are couples who maintain a level of attention on each other. They don't take each other for granted. They flirt. they are physical. They continue to play with each other.

They create desire.

They create desire. I mean, it doesn't just stay. I mean, it is an amazing thing to see how attentive people are to their creative projects, to their artwork, to their businesses, and how often rather neglectful, even at date night, it's nice, but what do you bring to the date night?

I mean, is it going through the motions or is it creating something?

You know, look, we know that if you do familiar activities with your partner, it's very nice and it creates a real sense of comfort to go back and to repeat things that you enjoy. But we know that if you want to bring excitement into a relationship, you need new experiences. You need to have this relationship be one in which you take yourself out of your comfort zone, in which you discover something, in which you explore traveling. But it doesn't have to be just traveling by going abroad. It's traveling, it's taking yourself to new places, to new experiences with each other, to new thresholds. All the research backs that up. It also breeds testosterone, for that matter. Novelty breeds testosterone. That's the work of Helen Fisher. And if you look at it metaphorically or biologically, it makes all sense in the world. Growth involves exploration, involves curiosity, involves discovery. We know it, and it involves risk-taking. We know it in business, and it is no different in the relationship, in the business of intimacy, if you want to call it like that.

Wow.

Do you do any of these things?

Of course, yeah. We do it, yeah, for sure. And if we're not, my girlfriend always reminds me, like, let's go try something new. You know, if it's been like a week or two where we've kind of been doing the same thing, it's like going to the movie or to the same place to eat. She's like, let's go try something new. And I'm like, yeah, we need to. So she's actually good at that. Cause sometimes I can just be focused on my vision and my work and just like not stop. And it's comfortable to just do the same thing and not have to think about creating something new. So But I could see a difference in that creativity and that uniqueness when we go do something different as opposed to the same thing. I can feel the desire and the curiosity. Testosterone.

-I would say thank you. I mean, the difference, one person says, It's so nice. I mean, I wouldn't have thought about it. I love it when you take me. You remind me. And then I don't mind doing it if I feel appreciated for it.

Right.

Because then, okay, it became my role. For some reason, I have more availability in my headspace to think about those things. And as long as I know that you really appreciate it, that you value this, that you're coming along not just to do me a favor, right, then I'll come up with more and more ideas. And I will keep this going for years, for years, you know, and we study erotic couples. I mean, there is, it's not an unknown. We know that there are people who maintain a certain spark. And it has nothing to do with how often they make love. But they are engaged with each other. They enjoy each other's company after decades. They still find each other interesting. They're not bored.

What else should we know about this? What else should we know about this?

I wanted to say one other thing that I had discovered that to me was really important. because it is not getting enough attention. Attention these days. Everything these days is about you make it or you break it, you end. It's not good, you leave. You can do better, you leave. You're not happy or you could be happier, you leave. And I think that the people who actually want to stay after an infidelity in their relationship are often judged and look down upon what's wrong with you. You let him walk all over you. You let her boss you around, you know?

Yeah, that's scary, too. It's kind of like your friends are constantly pressuring you can do better.

You don't even tell them.

Yeah.

The majority of people I meet won't tell their friends.

They feel guilty or they feel like weak or whatever.

Yes, yes. You dump the dog on the curb.

Right. You know, forget everything that happened.

That's right.

That five years of the relationship just... That's right.

Three, five or 25.

Right.

Out. And I think sometimes out is what needs to happen. But sometimes this happens in a good relationship and it happened and we need to know what to do when it happens. But just to judge people and shame them for staying isn't fair.

That's not good.

It's not right. I don't... And I think it really is not giving relationship the relationships, the credit they deserve.

Because they're not perfect.

Because they're not perfect. And you know what? Sometimes what comes afterwards is going to be even better than what was before.

It's the wake-up call.

It's the wake-up call. Like when you have an illness, it gives you a new perspective on life. Do I recommend you to get sick? No. But do I accept that sometimes out of that crisis you will actually reprioritize your life and live with a different level of honesty and authenticity, the same happens in a relationship.

You've seen this with couples you've worked with?

Again and again.

Really?

Again and again. But you have to believe in the strength of people to actually take this, learn from it, resuscitate and revitalize.

Yeah. So if you are the friend of someone who went through infidelity, whereas a girlfriend or boyfriend cheated on them and you're hearing this as the friend, how do you create a space for your friend who went through this to make sure that you're, I don't know, either giving tough love of like, okay, let's make sure this doesn't happen over and over or what's the structure they can give if they can't hire you or a therapist?

-I think it's a great question because so many of us have been that friend. And you know, the first thing I say to the friend is try as best as you can not to insert yourself in the story. It's not about you and what happened to you and what your mother did to your father or your father did to your mother and therefore what your girlfriend needs to do. Try to create a space. It's exactly that. Now if you have a girlfriend and every time this is now three times in a row she finds herself with a guy who treats her like shit, you really do want to tell her this is not okay. and you want to help her pull out. But if you are with a girlfriend or a friend, male friend, and they have been together for 12 years, and you know that these people have really been good together and they've built a lot of things together, tell her, figure it out. I'm here for you. I have no idea what's the right thing for you. You know, I'm here to hold you when you doubt yourself. I'm here to remind you that you you are more than just the person that just has been shafted and betrayed. I'm here to give you back your sense of value when you think that you have been completely devalued and pushed aside. I'm here to tell you that you're beautiful when you think that you probably are not beautiful enough anymore. I'm here, you know, I'm gonna hold the other view of you that you don't have in this moment because you're so low. That's my role as a friend, not to tell you do this or do that and judge you. I mean, the amount of people I've seen who say, My best friend doesn't talk to me anymore.

Oh my God.

Because I've decided to stay with, you know, and why? Not because I think he's such a great man or such a great woman. We have four children. My mother is dying. I haven't worked in 20 years. I need, you know, or I have a business together. We have a business together. I mean, there are other considerations here, and I am not ready to walk out on all of this. Even if it's not for the quality of my relationship, but it's because my relationship is the nexus on which so many other parts of my life depend upon, and I'm not willing to let all of that go at this point. Who are we to say? Who are we to say? So it's a very delicate thing. When to leave, when to stay, when to try again, when to give up, when to accept finally that this is never going to change, when to know, and I think it's different when you're with a chronic philanderer and when you're with a person who you know for years before none of this happened. And this happened, you know, what was going on? And what is the shared responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship as well? Is there things that we colluded on together? But as a friend, you really want to be there to give people back their sense of self-worth at a moment when when they feel like it's been sucked out of them. More than to tell them, leave, get out of here, put the clothes on the street.

Yeah.

You know, kick him out, kick her out, you know, how they, because the fear of staying, the shame of staying is even worse on men.

Oh my gosh. Oh really?

Oh yes.

So when men get, because we understand.

That women are used to, women historically are used to be cheated on, so, you know, therefore they need to go now because they finally have the choice to do and the possibility to go. But the guy who stays, what kind of a man are you? He instantly gets emasculated. He's weak, he lets her walk all over him, you know, he has no balls. I mean, his entire masculinity is instantly put on the line. And even more so when you go to Latin cultures and more traditional cultures. There it's like, you know, horns don't exist on a woman, huh?

Right. So how would a guy friend support or the guy who got cheated on.

Who, you know, and don't start trashing the partner right away. That's the first thing on either side. It's so because if I start trashing your girlfriend, look at her. What the, you know, what are you gonna do? You're gonna defend her. You're gonna end up cheating on her because, and, you know, it's not that bad.

It's not.

Instead of you being angry, at her. I am now showing like as if it happened to me, you know, I'm even more angry than you. So now you caught in a triangle. You know, I just need to say, look, man, this is horrible. This is. This sucks. You know, what happened there? You know? And do you think you've been good to her? Do you think that she had reasons to before you start cursing her? Maybe we check a little bit on here for the moment, too, you know? you know what? It looks like she's not really into you. I mean, she or she has issues or, or maybe she doesn't love you anymore. But, you know, you've made it impossible for her to go because you have this business together. And you basically told her that she won't get a penny when she goes. You know, if you love someone, set them free. If they love you, they'll come back. And then a few years later, I was noticing a pattern in my patients over and over again. They kept, it's like. they were all talking about the same relationship. And I thought, this is interesting.

Nobody ever taught these people about narcissism.

This is clearly what was happening in their relationships.

And I'm not kidding you, once they got educated on these patterns, they were.

Making changes like this. Some were getting divorced, some were splitting up.