Esther Perel says distance breeds desire, not the other way around. The speaker argues that mystery and separation in a relationship—separate hobbies, different friends, not knowing every detail of each other's day—actually revives sexual attraction. Couples who spend time apart return with fresh experiences to share.
Chapters
They say familiarity breeds contempt, and that is absolutely true, because when we become too familiar with our partner, we can think that things become rather predictable and dull. But Esther Perel has a saying which I really like, which is distance breeds desire. And although in my relationship that is both a physical distance and some degree of emotional distance as well, where things are mysterious because I don't know what he gets up to half the time, and I quite like that. For other people that are living together, it could mean actually establishing some independence from each other, where you do activities not always together, where you have interests, where you go off and you spend time doing things with other people and enjoy the stuff that perhaps your partner doesn't enjoy, but you can come back together and share what you've both experienced. It's about doing things that mean that there's some degree of distance so that when you come back together, there's something that you can share, and there's a little bit of mystery attached as well because you haven't been in each other's pockets the whole time. So if you are in a long-term relationship, how can you establish that distance to become sexually interested in each other again?
