Women Get BORED with Monogamy When Men Do This! | Esther Perel

Look, we know that women get bored with monogamy much sooner than men. Wow.

Is this a factor?

That's research.

Okay.

That's not just fact. That's. That is man's desire in long term relationship goes down gradually. He actually is much more able to remain interested and maybe just because he's interested in the experience itself and he has a partner there. Women's desire post marriage, really? Wow. And it's always been translated as well, that's because women care less about sexual rather than. It's because women care less about the sex that they can have in their committed relationships, which is often not interesting enough for them. And it often has to do with the fact that the story, the character, the plot is not in, is not seductive. The romance, which is an essential ingredient of turn on for the woman, often disappears in the long term relationship. It's like people look at each other at the end of the day and you want to fool around. You want to do it. You're up for it tonight. Now this is really not. This is not very much of a turn on for most women. And the idea that foreplay often starts at the end of the previous orgasm, you know, and not five minutes before the real thing. Right. Which for her is not the real thing. The whole. The real thing is everything else.

So it's essentially the game. Yes, it's creating a game, seduction.

It's a plot, it's a coming close. It's a team mystery. It's what animals call pacing. It's that I come to you, but I don't overwhelm you. I come just a little bit so that you can come a little bit toward me. And then I don't immediately answer. I actually go back a little bit too. Have you ever seen animals? They do this kind of pacing and it is an essential playful ingredient of seduction and excitement. So women's desire plummets. But we interpret it as women are less interested in sexual rather than women are interested in probably just about the same kind of things that many men are. But women have always known what to choose above, what turns them on, which was what gives them stability and security.

Safety.

Security.

Family. Someone to protect. Be there.

Right. So what people do. Look, we want one partner today to give us everything that involves stability and security and everything that involves playfulness and mystery. Okay. That's the grand ideal. Okay. I want to be cozy with you and I want to have an edge and I want you to surprise me and I want you to be familiar and I want you to give me continuity. And I want you to give me novelty. That's it. As if it's a. And no Victoria's Secret is going to solve that. Yeah, right. So then it becomes what is desire? Desire is to own the wanting. If you ask people a question that goes like this, I turn myself off when I turn myself off by not you turn me off when. And what turns me off is you're going to hear, I turn myself off when I do emails, when I spend too much time on the phone, when I overeat, when I don't exercise, when I have bad, bad days at work, when I don't feel confident, when I numb myself, when I feel dead, when I don't feel thriving, when I'm not alive. You will really hear that it has very little to do with sex. And when you ask people, I turn myself on when or by I awaken my desires, not you turn me on when. And what turns me on is. Which is that is you're responsible for my wanting. What people will talk to you about is when I'm in nature, when I'm connected with my friends, when I get to do my sports, when I play music, when I listen to music, it's stuff that gives me pleasure, that is alive, that is vibrant, that is vital, that is erotic in the full sense of the word as life force. And from that place, people remain interested in having sex with somebody else for the long haul, not because they've scratched their arms for two seconds. I feel good about myself. The biggest turn on is confidence. Confidence. You ask people, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner? Every description has to do with when they're in their element, when they're on stage, when they're doing their sport, when they are radiant, when they are in their studio, on the piano, on the horse, you name it. It's when they are in their element, that is, they don't need me to take care of them.

They're not depressed and down, lonely and.

Sad, they're not needy, they don't need me. Because desire is about wanting you. Love is also about needing you. Caretaking is a very powerful experience in love and it is a very powerful anti aphrodisiac.

So how do you experience love and desire at the same time?

You calibrate it.

So sometimes you're.

It's the same as when you walk. You have to move from one foot to the other. A balance is not about staying on one side. A balance is the ability to see. Right now we don't need caretaking. We can be Mischievous. We can be naughty. We can be playful. We can break our own rules. We can stay home and not go to work at 8 o', clock, right? And now we are in a playful zone. Now we are feeling that we are bringing our own little transgressions home. We are alive. We're not just being dutiful, responsible, good citizens, Right? It's that it's very small. You know, I always think when I go and I see people at lunch and you see them talking and they're well dressed and they're awake and all I see who is here with their partner. Because you can see them, they're engaged, they're giving the best of themselves. That's erotic. No, the majority are not there with their partner. They're there with their friends, with their colleagues. Their partner is going to get the leftover when they come home at night. Sorry, you know what? Forget the night date. Meet at lunch, when you actually have energy, you know, and in the middle of the day like that, when you're awake, when you have something to offer, it's a very small thing. But they don't do it. They don't do it. And you say, why not? Why not? Why don't you stay an hour extra at home in the morning? And not just. Because when you have a headache and just say, this matters to me. All in all, you know, committed sex is premeditated sex. It's not just gonna happen because whatever is gonna just happen already has. So you're gonna make it happen because you say, we matter, we're important, let's do this, let's spend. Doesn't mean if you're gonna make love or have sex. It just means we're gonna take this hour. And there's nothing else that matters in this moment but just you and I to be together to check in and then we'll see what unfolds. That's the erotic space in which sex may happen. Probably will, doesn't have to, but it is the place from which it is much more likely to emerge. But people don't do that. They do the responsibility. That's the love, right? The citizen, the commitment, the caretaker, the burdens, the safe. And then they say, I'm bored. I would be too.

Exactly. There's no mystery. There's no risk taking.

Right?

Exactly.

Yeah, there's no risk taking. That's the word. If you want desire, it's risk. And the risk is an emotional risk. It's not about sexy risks. It's really a risk on the emotional front. Is that I bring something else to you differently from, differently from the way I typically present myself. You know, how can I do this? What can I do today that will be different from the ways that I've done it until now? How can I do something that I think would actually improve our relationship? Me, Right. Not something that I want or that you want but that I think would be actually good for us, that third entity, the us. Right. And you check every time. How often do you just go on the tried and trodden as in, you know, it works. Sex that just works for most people is really not interesting enough.

Right.

There's something really interesting about this country in relation to sexuality. There is an enormous taboo on sex education rather than the understanding that it is actually the repression that will unleash a kind of sexuality that is often about smut and titillation. I think there's a number of things in a relationship that.