#199 Esther Perel: Cultivating Desire (2019)

0:00:02 If you trade passion for stability,
0:00:05 you basically trade one fiction for another.
0:00:07 Both are products of our imagination.
0:00:10 It really comes down to the imagination.
0:00:15 I mean, it is with our mind that we create stories
0:00:18 and those stories basically shape our experience.
0:00:21 If you live with a story of things never change,
0:00:22 you live in one reality.
0:00:25 And if you live with a narrative that says,
0:00:28 things always change, they continuously change,
0:00:31 then you live with a very different set of beliefs
0:00:35 about how you love, how you work, how you live.
0:00:37 (upbeat music)
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0:01:22 This episode is a re-release of episode 71
0:01:25 of the Knowledge Project Cultivating Desire
0:01:26 with Esther Perot.
0:01:29 This is one of the most downloaded and shared episodes
0:01:30 we’ve ever released.
0:01:33 Millions of people have listened to it,
0:01:36 but I also realized that many of you have never heard this.
0:01:38 And importantly, if you have heard it,
0:01:41 it’s really worth another listen.
0:01:44 The goal of this podcast is to master the best
0:01:46 of what other people have figured out
0:01:50 and ideally do so in a way that is timely and timeless.
0:01:53 And this conversation is a testament to that.
0:01:56 If you didn’t know it was a re-release,
0:01:59 you would think it was recorded yesterday.
0:02:01 Esther and I talk about the story of her parents,
0:02:04 the difference between living and surviving,
0:02:07 erotic intelligence and why it matters,
0:02:09 permanence versus impermanence,
0:02:13 dating, growing apart, common argument patterns,
0:02:16 criticism and what it takes to maintain pleasure,
0:02:19 desire and excitement.
0:02:22 It’s time to listen and learn.
0:02:24 (gentle music)
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0:03:50 Your parents were in concentration camps,
0:03:53 I think from your mom from 18 to 22
0:03:57 and your father was 25 to 31
0:04:00 because the war started very early for them.
0:04:04 What did your parents credit their survival to?
0:04:10 – Wow, we’re going right to the heart of the matter.
0:04:17 I think my parents always said luck came first,
0:04:22 just sheer luck that they were not rounded up
0:04:24 out a certain morning when they would take 1000 people
0:04:29 and move them from the labor camp to the extermination camp.
0:04:34 But secondly, I think they had sheer determination
0:04:39 that they were gonna be there to, first of all,
0:04:43 to be witnesses, to still be there.
0:04:47 They imagined that they would have members of their family,
0:04:50 actually, that they would hopefully see again.
0:04:56 And they were extraordinarily determined to stay alive
0:05:00 and active about it.
0:05:05 I think they had a very clear sense of where they came from,
0:05:08 who they were and why they needed to survive.
0:05:12 And the rest is the stories that they told
0:05:16 about the multiple things they had to do in order to stay alive.
0:05:19 – What are some of the stories?
0:05:27 – My mother spent a year hiding in the woods when she was 18
0:05:30 and became petrified by the barking dogs
0:05:32 and the sense that every morning she would wake up
0:05:35 in a different place and not know what the day
0:05:36 was going to be.
0:05:38 And she basically surrendered by herself
0:05:40 to a male labor camp,
0:05:43 figuring that maybe they would need somebody in the laundry
0:05:46 or in the kitchen and that at least she would know
0:05:47 every morning where she wakes up.
0:05:52 I didn’t know many people who went by themselves to the camp.
0:05:54 And when the camp was a better option
0:05:58 than the hiding in the woods and stealing eggs from farms
0:06:01 and potatoes from fields and stuff like that
0:06:03 to just stay alive.
0:06:07 My dad, the last year and a half in one of the camps,
0:06:08 he was in 14 of them,
0:06:12 basically organized some kind of a black market
0:06:15 with the kitchen around food and potatoes
0:06:17 or potato peels more correctly
0:06:21 and managed to actually feed the Germans as well.
0:06:26 So DSS basically liked him in the kitchen.
0:06:27 He was better for him.
0:06:29 He ate better, as he said, when my dad was there
0:06:31 than when my dad would go to the factory.
0:06:32 If you went to the factory,
0:06:36 you basically lived another week and there was that
0:06:38 because you had to walk an hour and a half
0:06:40 in frozen weather to get there.
0:06:44 So it’s just stories of how they beat the system basically
0:06:49 and stories of how they made connections with other people,
0:06:51 how they created deep friendships,
0:06:54 how he had a man, another man who became
0:06:59 his kind of lifelong brother with whom he fought together.
0:07:01 I think that it was very clear
0:07:03 that neither of them ever attributed
0:07:06 what their survival to themselves alone.
0:07:08 They had strength.
0:07:10 My dad always talked about how they came
0:07:12 from tiny villages in Poland
0:07:14 where it’s frozen weather in the winter
0:07:18 and they were more robust, they were more resistant.
0:07:20 He carried bags of cement on his back
0:07:23 and therefore he knew how to work hard in the camps.
0:07:26 He didn’t come from Paris or Corfu
0:07:28 or Mediterranean weathers.
0:07:31 So they had this whole way of describing
0:07:34 what made them strong basically.
0:07:39 – Did your parents meet in a concentration camp?
0:07:43 – Interestingly, my parents met the day of liberation
0:07:47 on the road as they came out of the camps.
0:07:49 They were in neighboring camps
0:07:52 and people just basically wandered the roads
0:07:57 and as my mother would say with cotton balls in your head
0:07:59 and looked for whoever they knew
0:08:01 or whoever knew something about the towns
0:08:03 they came from or about their families
0:08:08 or their whereabouts and people basically would say,
0:08:09 “Oh, there is such and such.
0:08:14 “I just saw from that village and go find them.”
0:08:16 So they met each other like that
0:08:18 and they knew of each other
0:08:21 because my father traded with my mother’s family
0:08:24 when they were still in Poland.
0:08:29 They probably would never have met or married for sure
0:08:34 because my mother was orthodox aristocracy,
0:08:38 educated aristocracy and my dad was rather illiterate
0:08:43 and uneducated and a grand man
0:08:47 but not necessarily an educated reader.
0:08:49 So they were completely of different classes
0:08:55 and he always thought that he had found
0:08:58 a beautiful princess that he had like,
0:09:03 come on then, “le gros l’eau” that he had the lotto,
0:09:05 that he had won the lotto with my mother.
0:09:08 And they came like that.
0:09:10 Basically, people gathered on the roads
0:09:12 and began to travel and wonder where they should go.
0:09:14 I mean, they were not gonna go back to Poland.
0:09:19 It’s refugee stories of today, it’s the same stories.
0:09:24 And my dad had helped somebody from Belgium in the camps
0:09:26 and that man gave him a name and a false address
0:09:28 and just basically said, “Come to Belgium.”
0:09:30 So they arrived like that to Belgium
0:09:33 where they had a permit to stay for three months
0:09:35 and then they were supposed to be dispatched
0:09:36 in a number of other countries
0:09:40 which at the time were willing to take the Jewish refugees
0:09:42 and they decided to stay.
0:09:43 So they stayed another five years
0:09:45 as illegal refugees in Belgium.
0:09:48 I mean, it’s quite remarkable
0:09:51 how what I grew up with the story is my first passport
0:09:53 which was a stateless passport.
0:09:57 I mean, that all of that is so, so current.
0:09:59 I think that the relevance of the story
0:10:02 is not so much about what happened then
0:10:05 but about the fact that so much of us thought
0:10:07 this will never happen again, this cannot happen again
0:10:10 and it is happening again all over the place.
0:10:13 – I wanna explore that just a little bit
0:10:16 before we sort of dive into relationships
0:10:21 because what does it mean to come back to life
0:10:24 after surviving the Holocaust in a community?
0:10:26 I mean, what’s the difference between living
0:10:27 and sort of surviving?
0:10:34 – I mean, it’s a distinction that I began to think about.
0:10:36 I didn’t grow up with that distinction,
0:10:39 though there were loads of stories about that,
0:10:42 about people who were depressed,
0:10:44 about people who were bitter,
0:10:46 about people who, you know, you’re married
0:10:48 because I have nothing, you have nothing,
0:10:51 I’m alone, you’re alone, let’s get married.
0:10:54 But often these people had no reason to be together
0:10:57 except rebuilding and so they had a lot of energy
0:11:01 in the initial phases and they had children right away
0:11:03 as a way to prove their humanity.
0:11:06 But after that, sometimes they would look at each other
0:11:08 and these people had nothing in common
0:11:13 and my parents had friends like that who were couples
0:11:15 that didn’t really have much to do together
0:11:18 except surviving but not living.
0:11:21 But when I wrote “Mating in Captivity”
0:11:23 is really when I began to think about it
0:11:25 because mating is about how do you maintain
0:11:27 a sense of aliveness?
0:11:30 It is about erotic intelligence.
0:11:34 And in so doing, I began to look at my community
0:11:38 and noticed that in fact I could make a separation.
0:11:42 It’s a metaphor more than an accurate description, you know?
0:11:44 I don’t know that people I would describe this way
0:11:45 would necessarily agree with it
0:11:49 but I remember thinking in my community,
0:11:52 I often noticed that there were two groups of people
0:11:57 and the people who survived, the people who did not die
0:12:03 often were quite afraid, reticent,
0:12:06 continuously aware of danger, untrusting.
0:12:10 Nobody literally could enter in there
0:12:13 and there was a certain kind of morbidity in the homes.
0:12:15 There was often survivor guilt,
0:12:19 there was often a sense that life had broken them.
0:12:21 And then on the other side,
0:12:24 I saw people who were gonna take life
0:12:27 by the horns with the vengeance.
0:12:29 It’s like I didn’t survive for nothing
0:12:31 and I’m going to make the best of it
0:12:33 and I’m going to live grand
0:12:35 for all those who didn’t make it.
0:12:38 And for me, the way I described it is that
0:12:42 they understood the erotic as an antidote to death, basically.
0:12:46 It’s, what does it take to maintain hope,
0:12:49 to maintain a sense of meaning, to have imagination?
0:12:50 Because if you have hope,
0:12:53 you need to be able to project yourself.
0:12:55 You know, whether you’re in a camp
0:12:56 or whether you’re in a relationship,
0:12:59 you have to be able to imagine yourself,
0:13:01 to have a sense of anticipation,
0:13:04 to project a better situation than the one you’re in
0:13:06 or something to look forward to.
0:13:11 And that whole way of cultivating the imagination
0:13:13 is something that I then began
0:13:16 to really talk to my parents about and understood that.
0:13:20 In fact, you don’t have to be in a concentration camp for that.
0:13:23 This is an essential tool for life,
0:13:27 for experiencing joy and meaning
0:13:29 and freedom and possibility.
0:13:32 – I was thinking as you were saying that,
0:13:34 we often take tomorrow for granted,
0:13:38 but I imagine that that’s almost impossible for you
0:13:40 growing up with your parents in that situation
0:13:42 and in a community like that.
0:13:47 – I would say that it’s the opposite for me.
0:13:52 I think I live with tremendous energy
0:13:57 and I do a lot and I live quite full,
0:14:02 but underneath there is a kind of chronic sense of dread
0:14:07 that everything can stop any moment.
0:14:11 I have no sense that tomorrow is taken for granted for me.
0:14:14 I think that I’m gonna get a big surprise
0:14:16 and it won’t be a small boo boo.
0:14:21 But I try not to think about it the whole time,
0:14:23 but it is continuously there.
0:14:26 And I think on the one hand,
0:14:28 you could experience it as something that is terrifying,
0:14:32 that deflates you, that constricts and contracts you,
0:14:34 or you can experience it as
0:14:37 because anything can stop any moment,
0:14:39 I’m gonna give it its fullest right now.
0:14:44 So in a way, it really naturally creates a stance in life
0:14:48 in which the present has to be savored
0:14:51 or fully experienced or dealt with.
0:14:52 It’s not always a positive thing,
0:14:55 but basically it’s not an effort
0:14:57 to be in the present in that sense.
0:15:00 – If things are sort of impermanent, I guess,
0:15:03 in a way where you’re constantly questioning tomorrow
0:15:06 and what could be there and what might be there,
0:15:09 and how does that affect our relationship
0:15:13 as individuals with trust and vulnerability?
0:15:18 – I mean, the question of permanence and impermanence
0:15:21 is the question that also points to the distinction
0:15:23 between East and West.
0:15:26 We believe that there is such a thing as permanence
0:15:29 and we believe that there is such a thing as stability
0:15:31 and predictability.
0:15:35 There are entire philosophies who look at the world
0:15:39 and at life as being in permanent flux.
0:15:40 That’s the state of impermanence,
0:15:44 that things are continuously changing and morphing.
0:15:49 And therefore, to imagine that you can create stability
0:15:50 is basically a fiction.
0:15:54 And I think there’s something very powerful about that.
0:15:58 That means that you actually are…
0:16:01 I don’t think it necessarily doesn’t permit you to trust
0:16:03 or it doesn’t allow you to feel vulnerable.
0:16:06 It just is a different awareness about the world.
0:16:09 It’s a different philosophical stance.
0:16:12 Look, for example, in mating in captivity,
0:16:15 I remember a moment when I read that sentence
0:16:17 and it made a lot of sense for me, right?
0:16:22 The idea that you should trade passion and for security,
0:16:25 for example, from the Eastern perspective
0:16:27 or from the perspective of impermanence,
0:16:29 if you trade passion for stability,
0:16:32 you basically trade one fiction for another.
0:16:35 Both are products of our imagination.
0:16:38 And once I began to think like that,
0:16:41 it offered for me something way more flexible
0:16:45 in what people can do in their relationships
0:16:48 to maintain a sense of vitality or a sense of aliveness.
0:16:51 And it really comes down to the imagination.
0:16:56 I mean, it is with our mind that we create stories
0:16:59 and those stories basically shape our experience.
0:17:03 And if you live with a story of things never change,
0:17:05 you live in one reality.
0:17:07 And if you live with a narrative that says
0:17:10 things should always change, they continuously change,
0:17:13 then you live with a very different set of beliefs
0:17:17 about how you love, how you work, how you live.
0:17:21 – Can you talk to me a little bit more about the stories
0:17:23 that sort of shape how we see the world
0:17:26 and your experience with them a lot
0:17:29 in terms of your psychotherapy is that,
0:17:31 are you replacing narratives with people?
0:17:34 Are you sort of trying to get them to open up
0:17:37 and expand their view in a relationship therapy?
0:17:39 Or how does that work?
0:17:40 – It’s a great question.
0:17:44 So look, I am a therapist that integrates
0:17:48 a lot of different modalities and different approaches,
0:17:51 but the narrative approach is very dear to me.
0:17:54 And because I do see relationships as stories.
0:17:58 So yes, when people come in
0:17:59 and they come in with one version
0:18:02 or one way to tell the story of their relationship
0:18:06 or the story of themselves in their relationship,
0:18:10 my first thought is, what else is there?
0:18:13 What other story is here that has not yet been told?
0:18:14 But is this really the story?
0:18:17 Is this the only way to look at this story?
0:18:19 That is very much how I think.
0:18:23 Because I do believe that language shapes our experience.
0:18:27 If I say it certain ways, I will feel certain things
0:18:30 and have certain thoughts that accompany those exact words.
0:18:32 And so I have in my mind
0:18:35 that when you come into a first session,
0:18:37 I’ve just said it yesterday,
0:18:39 you come in with a particular story.
0:18:41 By the time you leave that first session,
0:18:44 my goal is that you will leave with a different story.
0:18:45 And if you leave with a different story,
0:18:48 you leave with a different experience of yourself
0:18:52 in your relationship, which opens up possibilities
0:18:55 for new insights, for changes,
0:18:58 for new degrees of responsibility,
0:19:01 and for freeing your perception of your partner
0:19:04 as stuck in the story that you have put them in as well.
0:19:08 So the change, the story is to create movement,
0:19:11 is to create possibility for change.
0:19:15 And that is basically why people do come to therapy.
0:19:18 – I think narratives affect more than our relationships, right?
0:19:20 They affect how we live, they affect how we see the world,
0:19:22 they affect how we see others.
0:19:24 And part of understanding and connecting
0:19:26 with other people is not necessarily agreeing
0:19:28 with their narrative, but seeing their narrative.
0:19:30 – So let me give you an example, right?
0:19:32 Because I literally had this experience
0:19:34 a few days ago, a couple of days ago.
0:19:38 So a couple comes in, and the original presentation
0:19:40 is that they have big fights, nasty fights.
0:19:44 She becomes very mean, she gets abusive, she curses.
0:19:47 She grew up in a very abusive household herself.
0:19:51 And it is about, the story is really presented like,
0:19:53 she’s fine, basically.
0:19:56 It is not that he’s fine, nothing is said really about him.
0:19:58 And she’s the problem.
0:20:00 That’s a classic presentation.
0:20:01 One person’s the problem.
0:20:04 And then it turns out that he’s not just okay,
0:20:06 he’s actually a saint.
0:20:08 He’s the little prince.
0:20:09 That’s how he ends up calling himself.
0:20:13 He’s the little prince who actually can do no wrong.
0:20:16 And therefore, anytime she asks for something,
0:20:18 if she says, I wish you bring me flowers or something like that,
0:20:23 it instantly becomes a slight to him, an indignation.
0:20:25 Because he’s so good, how could he do anything
0:20:29 that is missing or shortcoming or…
0:20:33 And gradually, the session evolved into taking her out
0:20:37 of the role of being the identified patient
0:20:41 and looking at how they actually were in a dynamic together,
0:20:46 in which de facto, there was nothing she could ever ask or say
0:20:49 because he appeared like he was so put together and strong.
0:20:51 But in fact, he was very, very fragile
0:20:58 and always at risk of feeling fractured in his, you know,
0:21:01 in his attempts at creating a strong identity,
0:21:04 but it wasn’t nearly as strong.
0:21:08 And gradually, it became clear that maybe she wasn’t just
0:21:12 the fragile was one, but he was as well.
0:21:16 And that there was a whole story behind, you know,
0:21:20 how he lived with this idea that he is so good all the time
0:21:24 and he’s been so good to his very sad mother her whole life.
0:21:28 And therefore, any comment is unfair to him.
0:21:30 And it totally changed the dance.
0:21:32 It totally changed the dance
0:21:35 because it looked like she had been this unreasonable,
0:21:38 hysterical woman who would come up with these big requests.
0:21:41 No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all.
0:21:44 And we laughed and we rewrote the story.
0:21:48 And we changed the whole equilibrium between the two of them
0:21:51 in terms of who does what and who’s responsible for what
0:21:54 and who triggers who, how, and when.
0:21:58 And movement got, you know, air came into the room if you want
0:22:02 and air is what, you know, air creates expansion.
0:22:04 So you breathe differently. You sit differently.
0:22:07 You listen differently. You move differently.
0:22:08 And the story begins to evolve.
0:22:11 And from that place, we began to, you know,
0:22:15 chisel away at some of the stuckness of the relationship.
0:22:16 It’s that what I mean with the story.
0:22:19 It’s not just you sit, you know, and talk.
0:22:23 It’s that the story that is linked to emotions
0:22:25 and emotions are embodied experiences.
0:22:27 So when people tell you a story a certain way,
0:22:29 they also sit in a certain way
0:22:32 that leads to telling that kind of story.
0:22:33 If you change the story,
0:22:35 the body will move differently as well.
0:22:39 It’s a very holistic kind of thing.
0:22:41 But it was so clear in this instance
0:22:44 because it was a while ago that I had had one of those
0:22:47 where you read the intake and you think, wow, you know,
0:22:50 there is a healthy one and a not.
0:22:53 And whenever I get one of those stories
0:22:56 and the not is willing to agree that they are the not
0:22:58 when they’re not, they’re not.
0:23:01 Everybody has their adaptive child inside of them
0:23:04 with which they try to survive in the world.
0:23:06 But underneath is the other one,
0:23:10 the one that dealt with the vulnerabilities if you want
0:23:13 and then came up with all these coping styles, you know?
0:23:16 So that was a way of changing the story.
0:23:18 The guy came in with a rather inflated
0:23:22 lofty sense of himself and left with a more realistic way
0:23:23 of thinking about himself
0:23:25 and a very different way of thinking about his wife.
0:23:28 – What happens after that?
0:23:32 – What happens after that?
0:23:38 Basically, I gave them an exercise
0:23:41 which I suggest that they do a few minutes every day
0:23:45 by which she makes statements to him or requests
0:23:47 or just says certain things.
0:23:52 And he gets to answer to what she actually says to him.
0:23:58 I said, you know, I would like you to just very simple,
0:23:59 right?
0:24:01 She would say, you know, I would love you
0:24:03 to bring me oranges tonight.
0:24:05 And instead of doing his typical,
0:24:08 when is the last time you brought me the strawberries
0:24:09 that I like?
0:24:11 That’s kind of his modus operandi.
0:24:12 It’s always, you know, you want something from me?
0:24:14 What about you?
0:24:17 You know, he could simply say to her,
0:24:20 I know you would like me to bring you an orange.
0:24:22 Very basic reflective listening.
0:24:25 But that reflective listening for him
0:24:30 starts a process by which he’s able to hear.
0:24:32 He’s able to just stay with her,
0:24:34 not make everything about him,
0:24:37 because every time he makes it about him,
0:24:41 it makes her think that indeed there is no room for her
0:24:42 unless she screams.
0:24:44 So she goes back to her childhood
0:24:46 where you needed to scream in order to be heard.
0:24:48 But it’s not just because that’s how she is.
0:24:51 It’s because there’s a dance between them.
0:24:53 Because literally there is no way for her
0:24:54 to say something about her
0:24:57 that he doesn’t make about him and in a defensive way.
0:25:01 So we began to chisel away at the defensiveness.
0:25:03 And we did it with humor
0:25:05 and with all kinds of crazy statements
0:25:07 because if you bring in some of the absurd,
0:25:09 you can highlight that it’s in the form
0:25:11 and not in the specific content that this matters.
0:25:14 And it was really for him to actually understand
0:25:16 that when you just repeat something
0:25:17 and acknowledge something,
0:25:19 that you don’t have to be responsible for it.
0:25:21 You didn’t do anything wrong.
0:25:24 It’s like all he heard all the time at any very request
0:25:25 is that he had done anything wrong,
0:25:27 which wasn’t what she was saying.
0:25:32 So what you have in a couple is people hear the inaudible.
0:25:35 They hear what they heard in their childhood,
0:25:37 but it’s not really what is being said to them
0:25:38 in the present moment.
0:25:41 And you need to bring reality in
0:25:42 so that they can become the adults
0:25:44 that they both need to be.
0:25:46 And I do it with enactments
0:25:50 and made them say, you go home and do this for a bit.
0:25:54 And write to me, write to me every night just a check,
0:25:56 just to say it did it.
0:25:58 Because if you practice this
0:26:00 and you do it with a good dose of humor,
0:26:03 gradually you get the point.
0:26:05 The point is much more serious and deep
0:26:06 than the little exercise.
0:26:11 But basically it changed the entire perspective.
0:26:15 So from there, you begin, therapy is like sculpting.
0:26:17 At first you carve away gross shapes.
0:26:20 You make big motions, big interventions
0:26:22 so that you get the basic.
0:26:24 And then you start to chisel.
0:26:26 And it’s the middle phase of therapy
0:26:29 where you literally create the lasting shape
0:26:32 of how this relationship could really enter
0:26:35 into a new dance with each other.
0:26:37 And the dance will be that I think, you know,
0:26:39 the goal is that she won’t lose it,
0:26:41 that she won’t end up cursing him
0:26:44 where he indeed feels like he did everything wrong,
0:26:46 that they don’t get to that place
0:26:47 and that they certainly don’t get there
0:26:49 in 10 seconds from zero to a hundred.
0:26:52 And that he doesn’t spend his time
0:26:54 constantly proving that he’s the little prince
0:26:56 and that he can therefore hear her
0:26:58 without constantly, you know,
0:27:01 just measuring his image in his mirror.
0:27:04 It’s that fundamental change that needs to take place.
0:27:06 They’re less, they’re a young couple
0:27:08 in terms of how long they are together.
0:27:11 And so it’s actually really not too encrusted yet
0:27:14 and they will have a different relationship.
0:27:17 You know, they will, if they stick to it
0:27:19 because they want it
0:27:23 and because I think they have what it takes.
0:27:24 – You mentioned that they were a young couple
0:27:27 and that sort of call, I have a question about
0:27:29 what are the important conversations
0:27:31 to have with your partner early in a relationship
0:27:34 and how do those differ from the important conversations
0:27:36 to have later in a relationship?
0:27:42 – You know, there is a theory that says
0:27:45 that basically whatever you discuss
0:27:47 the difficult conversations, if you want,
0:27:49 that you discuss 20 years later,
0:27:51 they were all there in the first two dates.
0:27:55 People actually know their things.
0:27:59 They know their key conversations from the first moment.
0:28:02 It’s not that you have different conversations.
0:28:03 The conversations evolve
0:28:05 because you have different life stages.
0:28:07 You have different stressors.
0:28:12 You have different seasons and phases in a relationship.
0:28:15 There are new members sometimes that join, children.
0:28:17 There are people who leave, death and loss.
0:28:21 And all of those shift the system.
0:28:23 A couple is a relational system.
0:28:28 And that system is continuously morphing and adapting itself
0:28:31 to external things, work, money,
0:28:36 where they live, moving, et cetera, health and internal things.
0:28:41 And the conversations that you have are about that, you know.
0:28:43 But there are a few basic ones
0:28:44 you want to have in the beginning.
0:28:47 This couple, you know, they have 20 years apart.
0:28:48 They’re young as a couple.
0:28:51 They’re not necessarily both young in age.
0:28:53 She has more experience than him.
0:28:57 Even though she’s 20 years younger in terms of relationships,
0:28:59 he’s actually quite new at this,
0:29:03 at a more kind of committed long-term relationship.
0:29:06 Where do they want to live?
0:29:07 They’re both foreigners.
0:29:10 Do they want to have a family together?
0:29:13 How will they arrange their professional lives together?
0:29:15 You know, in this instance,
0:29:17 he comes from a rather traditional family
0:29:21 where he’s used to come home and there’s food on the table.
0:29:23 Well, is that the woman you picked?
0:29:26 You know, is that been discussed between the two of you
0:29:27 or is that an assumption?
0:29:29 And if it’s an assumption,
0:29:32 you only make a statement when the food is not on the table.
0:29:35 And she says, why don’t you cook on occasion, you know?
0:29:37 So it’s about people’s values.
0:29:40 It’s about people’s expectations.
0:29:43 It’s about people’s vision for life.
0:29:46 What do they look for in life?
0:29:49 And is there a compatibility about that?
0:29:52 You know, I think one of the big conversations
0:29:54 that accompanies every relationship
0:29:57 is about closeness and separateness.
0:30:02 What is together and what is individualistic or what individual?
0:30:06 You know, how much money do you get to spend alone?
0:30:08 And how much money, you know,
0:30:10 is involved that you start to have a conversation with the other?
0:30:12 Do you travel alone or only together?
0:30:15 Do you go to bed together every night?
0:30:17 Or can you go to sleep when you’re actually tired
0:30:19 without having to become a unison?
0:30:23 You know, how do you want to parent?
0:30:25 How do you envision family life?
0:30:28 How do you see your relationship to the extended family?
0:30:30 What are the boundaries with the grandparents
0:30:31 or with your in-laws?
0:30:33 What do you do with your exes
0:30:35 or with your deep friendships with other people?
0:30:37 Do you continue them? Do you maintain them?
0:30:40 Can you maintain them alone or do they become couple friends?
0:30:44 The issue of boundaries of what is ours and what is mine?
0:30:46 What do I get to still decide alone?
0:30:48 What is my zone of freedom
0:30:52 and what is our zone of commitment and togetherness?
0:30:56 I think this is probably one of the very important conversations.
0:30:58 People don’t discuss it with those terms,
0:31:03 but they factor that is what they are talking about.
0:31:07 I love the idea of sort of couples discussing values.
0:31:09 And I don’t… Are those values permanent?
0:31:11 Do values change over the course of a relationship?
0:31:15 Do what you expect out of a relationship, does that change?
0:31:18 Because often people say they grow apart.
0:31:20 Is that true? How does that happen?
0:31:22 Yeah, but I’ll answer that in a sec.
0:31:26 It’s a different… For example, I saw a couple this week
0:31:29 and they’re having infertility issues.
0:31:32 And one of them wants to really get in there
0:31:36 and use all the means possible that science and medicine can provide.
0:31:39 And the other person basically is a more religious person
0:31:44 and says, “If it’s meant to be, those are not things we decide.”
0:31:48 And this is a real philosophical value question.
0:31:54 What is the right of an individual to tamper with fate, if you want?
0:31:58 Or to tamper with what life puts in front of you?
0:32:01 Do you go at it and try in every way you can
0:32:04 because your agency is what’s at the center?
0:32:09 Or is what’s at the center an acceptance of what life puts in front of you?
0:32:12 Or if you want, what God puts in front of you?
0:32:14 But they’re not discussing it like that.
0:32:16 They’re talking about should they go for infertility treatment
0:32:19 and when is the next IVF cycle.
0:32:22 But what they really are talking about is that.
0:32:25 And once you actually put it in terms of values,
0:32:30 it becomes much less a debate between them about who is passive and who is active,
0:32:32 who gets things done and who is lazy.
0:32:38 And it becomes a kind of a “you bad” rather than “you different.”
0:32:42 That’s why values become really important in these conversations.
0:32:48 You know, we discuss feelings, we discuss values, we discuss beliefs,
0:32:54 we discuss political assumptions, we discuss our view to the universe,
0:32:56 you know, and how we see our place on this planet.
0:32:59 But we don’t discuss it as if we’re in a philosophy course.
0:33:05 We talk about it in terms of how we relate to food and to excess or to abundance,
0:33:09 how we are either looking at what’s missing or at what’s there.
0:33:15 It takes place in small micro moments, but in fact, the conversations are about big ideas.
0:33:18 So when you ask, do people grow apart?
0:33:23 Look, when people grow apart, it’s not because they have a difference of opinion necessarily,
0:33:26 because some couples have major differences in opinion,
0:33:30 but they continue to remain deeply connected, curious about each other,
0:33:38 respectful of who they are, and they’re not threatened by the difference of the other, basically.
0:33:41 Other couples, the slightest difference is World War III.
0:33:44 You know, so it’s not in the difference itself.
0:33:46 It’s in the way that people experience the difference.
0:33:50 If you’re secure, you can be next to somebody who doesn’t eat meat
0:33:55 and you don’t need them to be like you in order to validate yourself.
0:34:00 So when people grow apart, what’s happening is both there are two kinds of growing apart.
0:34:06 There’s either bickering, chronic conflict or high conflict,
0:34:10 or there is disengagement and indifference and separateness.
0:34:17 You can either have too much or too little of the thing that actually makes people grow apart.
0:34:20 You know, that’s really the choreography of growing apart.
0:34:27 It’s constant fighting, or it’s so far apart that you don’t even notice if the other one is there or not there.
0:34:29 That’s the apart.
0:34:36 In the instance of high conflict, what you get is people who are in very critical relationships.
0:34:38 Everything is negative.
0:34:40 There is a blame and defense dance.
0:34:44 You do, I defend, I counter-attack, you defend, you blame me.
0:34:48 And we just go at this all the time and we react to everything the other person is doing.
0:34:51 For everything you do, I have something to say.
0:34:56 You know, and people basically feel diminished and they feel like they don’t recognize themselves.
0:35:01 And, you know, they constantly blame the other for their misery.
0:35:06 That’s the other thing, is they really hold the other person responsible for how unhappy they are.
0:35:10 On the other side, what you have is people who no longer share much of anything.
0:35:17 And they live entire separate lives and there’s very little that brings them together.
0:35:25 And there is a sense of isolation, of sometimes of loneliness, of indifference, of neglect,
0:35:30 of lack of contact, of lack of what we call bids for connection.
0:35:34 You know, ways in which it’s clear that you’re part of my life.
0:35:37 You’re part of the fabric of my every day.
0:35:39 It’s like they’re just so far apart.
0:35:45 And both of these are descriptions of couples that grow apart.
0:35:48 You mentioned something in there that I just want to explore a little bit.
0:35:49 I’m curious about, which is secure.
0:35:52 What does it mean to be secure in a relationship?
0:36:00 I’m going to give it to you as an image of a little child.
0:36:03 You know, do you have kids?
0:36:04 I do, yeah.
0:36:05 All right.
0:36:07 So, how old, if I’m just so I can read the metaphor.
0:36:08 Oh, ten and nine.
0:36:09 Ten and nine.
0:36:13 So, at ten and nine, you still have it very much and you’ve had it from the beginning.
0:36:21 They sit on your lap or they hold you or they rest on your shoulder or on your chest.
0:36:23 They are nested.
0:36:24 They need nothing at that moment.
0:36:31 They’re just kind of a completely at ease or they’re trying to console themselves,
0:36:37 but they are drawing from you their sense of comfort and consolation.
0:36:40 And at some point, they’re done.
0:36:41 It’s all fine.
0:36:46 And they get up and they begin by crawling or they go, they run.
0:36:52 They basically leave you to go and be into their own world, to go to play, to go to do
0:36:53 their thing.
0:36:55 They are now experiencing freedom.
0:37:02 They’ve just experienced safety and security and attachment and nesting and now they’re
0:37:05 moving into the world and they’re going to do hide and seek.
0:37:10 They’re playing their own imaginary realm and in order to play, they have to be free
0:37:15 and unselfconscious and free of worry, otherwise you can’t play.
0:37:20 To be secure in a relationship is to have both of those things, is to be able to come
0:37:25 back to the harbor, to anchor yourself, to feel rooted, and then to get up, to leave,
0:37:28 and to go and play without having to worry.
0:37:29 Now, what is it that you don’t have to worry about?
0:37:34 You don’t have to worry about the fact that when you go, you’re leaving somebody there
0:37:39 who is suddenly bewildered and anxious and depressed and angry, but actually somebody
0:37:45 who is totally at ease letting you go or that you worry that when you come back, they won’t
0:37:47 be there.
0:37:51 And that hide and seek, that’s why that game is so important, is to know that even when
0:37:54 I’m gone, I live inside of you.
0:37:57 Even when I’m gone, when I come back, you’ll be there.
0:37:59 Even when I’m gone, I take you with me.
0:38:06 And so I experience freedom and connection at the same time that is security in a relationship
0:38:09 for adults and for children.
0:38:10 I like that a lot.
0:38:14 And one of the other things I wanted to follow up on was sort of, it sounded like we were
0:38:18 almost getting into common argument patterns within couples.
0:38:23 What are the most common argument patterns that you see and how do we learn to have better
0:38:27 conversations with our partner?
0:38:33 There are three primary choreographies of arguments.
0:38:38 One is fight-fight, fight-flee, flee-flee.
0:38:43 So either we go at each other and both of us go at each other and we enter into the
0:38:51 more conflict, you know, bickering, chronic picking.
0:38:57 The other version is one person attacks, but the other person flees or stonewalls or withdraws
0:39:00 and you get pursuer-distancer.
0:39:04 One pursues the whole time and the other one is distancing.
0:39:08 And the third one is you’ve got both people basically closing the door, going into their
0:39:11 room and not talking to each other for the next two days.
0:39:15 That’s three main choreographies of arguments.
0:39:21 And what’s really important in terms of couples and relationships in general, I will say,
0:39:26 is that it’s probably one of the golden rules, is to understand that the choreography, the
0:39:30 form, is way more important than the content.
0:39:35 If you have people who are going at each other, they go at each other about everything.
0:39:38 It’s not the specific topics that make them go at each other.
0:39:43 Their style is we attack and every subject will be spoken like that.
0:39:48 If they are into we close the door, it’s not the particular issue that makes them close
0:39:49 the door.
0:39:52 They close the door and every issue they will discuss, they’ll address it with the same
0:39:54 dance.
0:39:59 What you’re challenging in a couple is the dance, is the rigidity of the way that they
0:40:01 go at it.
0:40:06 One person instantly raises their voice, the other person basically shuts down, rolls
0:40:11 their eyes, says, “Here you go again,” waits, all of these motions.
0:40:16 That’s what happens in a couple that struggles with this stuff.
0:40:17 You’re asking me about arguments.
0:40:21 So those are the three choreographies of arguments.
0:40:26 When I was doing research for this, one of the things that struck me as incredibly insightful
0:40:31 and I wish I had known a long time ago was you said behind every criticism is a wish.
0:40:34 Can you expand on that and explore that with us for a little bit?
0:40:39 Yeah, why don’t you ask me a question about my new podcast, for example, right?
0:40:43 That would be, I actually would like you to talk with me about my new podcast.
0:40:45 But I won’t say that, right?
0:40:47 Why don’t you bring me flowers?
0:40:49 Why didn’t you say good morning?
0:40:51 Why didn’t you thank me when I did?
0:40:53 What is actually what am I saying?
0:40:54 I’m saying, I wished you had thanked me.
0:40:58 I wished you had noticed that I bought you this new suit.
0:41:03 I wished you had shown me your appreciation for, I wished.
0:41:07 But if I say I wished, I have to put myself out there.
0:41:10 It means I want something and I can be refused.
0:41:12 I can be rejected.
0:41:14 I can be not heard.
0:41:20 And that in a relationship that is not secure, I will defend against that.
0:41:22 I don’t want to show you that side of me.
0:41:26 So instead of saying what I want, I’ll say what you didn’t do.
0:41:28 That’s the criticism.
0:41:34 What you didn’t do and what’s wrong with you is safer in some bizarre way than to tell
0:41:38 you what is special about me and what I would have wanted.
0:41:39 Is that selfish?
0:41:43 No, I don’t think it’s selfish per se.
0:41:47 Because you’re valuing yourself over the relationship by doing that, aren’t you?
0:41:50 By putting it out there, you’re saying in a way, and maybe I got this wrong.
0:41:51 So correct me.
0:41:55 In a way, by putting it out there and being vulnerable, you’re saying us is more valuable
0:41:59 than what I’m feeling and my vulnerability.
0:42:03 And when you hold it in and you’re unwilling to be vulnerable and you’re just criticizing,
0:42:08 isn’t that saying that right now, at this particular moment, I’m valuing myself more
0:42:10 than I’m valuing this relationship?
0:42:11 No.
0:42:13 I would put it to you differently.
0:42:21 I’m saying that you didn’t do something because I actually really, it’s very interesting.
0:42:23 I’m going to try to explain this to you.
0:42:25 It’s not about being selfish.
0:42:30 It’s actually about feeling not worthy enough.
0:42:37 I actually believe on some level that maybe you really don’t care about me or that I’m
0:42:42 not loved or more than I’m not lovable.
0:42:50 And because of that fundamental lack of sense of self-worth, I say you didn’t do this rather
0:42:53 than say, I’m not sure I deserve to get this.
0:42:56 I’m not sure you love me enough to want to do this for me.
0:43:01 I’m not sure that I’m good enough a person to even deserve to have this.
0:43:03 And that’s why I put it on you.
0:43:04 That makes sense.
0:43:05 Do you get it?
0:43:13 It’s a, if I say, you never ask me how I’m doing, you come home and you just start talking
0:43:17 about your day, and then when you’re done, you basically go to your phone and you do
0:43:18 it.
0:43:22 When’s the last time you asked me about me?
0:43:24 What am I actually saying?
0:43:26 I’m saying I feel neglected.
0:43:28 I’m saying I feel ignored.
0:43:32 I’m saying I wonder if you’re still curious about me.
0:43:36 I’m saying maybe you’re more interested in many other people when you don’t really believe
0:43:41 that I have anything important to say, or maybe I’m saying you’re selfish and you only
0:43:45 think about you, which just goes on with, you know, I’m not important enough for you
0:43:49 to think about me.
0:43:54 That’s all some of the things that go underneath, or I’m saying I’ve already told you five
0:43:59 times that I would like on occasion that we also talk about my day and you really are
0:44:00 not interested.
0:44:04 You’re not listening, and I don’t want to say it one more time and again feel hurt that
0:44:10 it’s not coming because you are so selfish to think about you the whole time.
0:44:18 So it’s basically, it’s actually a protective device, interestingly, to criticize the other
0:44:21 person is a protection against being hurt.
0:44:24 I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:44:26 As wonky as it sounds.
0:44:31 Yeah, I mean, you said it and I’m like, Oh, I was totally wrong.
0:44:34 Is there such a thing as too much honesty in a relationship?
0:44:40 And is sort of the opposite of transparency and honesty a secret, or how do you, how do
0:44:47 we think about these, these dynamics of honesty and transparency and secrecy and caring for
0:44:49 our partner?
0:44:53 Look, I will say to you like this.
0:44:57 I tend to not think in categoricals.
0:45:05 I think that all of those behaviors, values, interactions, honesty, transparency, confession,
0:45:08 they are all contextual.
0:45:14 They are all contextual relationships take place in a context.
0:45:23 And once you agree with that premise, then you ask, what does honesty mean in this relationship
0:45:24 at this moment?
0:45:29 Is it caring or is it cruel?
0:45:31 There’s consequences to honesty.
0:45:35 What will it be like for the other person to live with what I just said?
0:45:39 I actually really think I should never have married you.
0:45:40 You’re dumb.
0:45:44 You haven’t said an interesting thought in God knows how long.
0:45:49 I actually still really think about the person that I was living with before, but they died
0:45:54 and I remarried you because I had four kids, but what was I going to do?
0:45:59 What if it’s hurtful but causing you problems like I’m no longer in love with you?
0:46:01 Well, deal with it.
0:46:02 That’s hurtful for your partner though.
0:46:03 Is that something?
0:46:06 If you don’t, if you have doubts, deal with it.
0:46:11 There’s no need to, what can the other person do with those doubts?
0:46:16 I mean, it’s like, you know, what am I going to say, I’m not attracted to you anymore?
0:46:21 What can the other one do about that, assuming that they still try very hard to look good
0:46:27 and all of that and they haven’t gained 75 pounds and even then, it’s like, you know,
0:46:34 if you have doubts, at best, you figure it out alone and then on the things that the
0:46:39 other person can’t do anything about and then you basically say, you’re a fantastic person,
0:46:45 but I don’t want to live with us anymore and I know this is going to hurt you terribly,
0:46:51 but you don’t put the other person in a bind about something, they can’t change.
0:47:00 You know, some honesty is cruel and, you know, I wish I could leave you, but I don’t because
0:47:04 I like our lifestyle, excuse me.
0:47:06 You know, that’s your problem.
0:47:09 That’s not the other person’s problem.
0:47:14 I think we should really not confuse sometimes what are things that we need to take responsibility
0:47:15 for?
0:47:18 What I’m going to be angry with you because I feel trapped.
0:47:19 They’re not trapping you.
0:47:22 You want to go, you go, but I don’t want to go, but I’m angry at you for the fact that
0:47:24 I can’t go.
0:47:30 These are all the dances and the games that people play with each other in the name of
0:47:31 honesty.
0:47:35 Of course, I think a lot of things need to be shared and discussed because we live in
0:47:42 a time where we really value that kind of intimacy as true telling and intimacy as a
0:47:44 discursive experience.
0:47:45 Right?
0:47:48 Intimacy is what I share with you about my inner life.
0:47:54 That’s a very, very recent Western new definition of the word intimacy, into me see.
0:48:00 I’m part of that culture too, but I also am aware that people say things, “Well, you told
0:48:01 me I should tell you how I feel.”
0:48:04 Well, I think you’re a freaking slob.
0:48:06 Is that useful?
0:48:09 Do you get something from that?
0:48:10 No.
0:48:11 It may be true, but it’s not useful.
0:48:16 I find myself saying so often to people, “You may be right, but you are alone,” and it’s
0:48:20 not difficult to be right and alone.
0:48:24 Is your goal to get your partner to change and to do more of what you want, and this
0:48:26 is really not helpful?
0:48:31 Oh, but it’s authentic, okay.
0:48:34 It’s authentically useless.
0:48:38 I do this with my kids sometimes where I’m like, “You’re right, but you’re not going
0:48:39 to get the outcome that you want.”
0:48:40 That’s right.
0:48:41 That’s right.
0:48:42 What is it you want?
0:48:44 You want me to tell you how you think?
0:48:45 I got it.
0:48:48 You want us to agree on something differently?
0:48:53 You got to go at this and not like that, because every time you tell me you’re right, you’re
0:48:57 implying I’m wrong, and if you’re implying I’m wrong, I’m less likely to cooperate with
0:48:58 you.
0:49:02 It’s like, don’t lose the compass.
0:49:04 What is it you’re actually trying to achieve?
0:49:13 People say lots of stuff to each other in my office, and I’m like thinking, “You probably
0:49:14 are right.”
0:49:16 In myself, I’m thinking, “I could see that.
0:49:21 I can totally see how after all these years, this is how you see your partner.”
0:49:23 But seriously, you want to be close, right?
0:49:26 I find that’s supposedly what you said you want.
0:49:27 You know what?
0:49:32 After the dump you just made, I’m not sure you’re going to get close, so tell me what
0:49:33 is it you want?
0:49:37 You want to shrink your partner and shrivel them up and make them feel terrible about
0:49:40 themselves, or you actually want something from them?
0:49:43 If you want something from them, you’re going to have to do this very differently.
0:49:46 So sorry.
0:49:51 How often are those conversations high stakes because we’ve waited so long to have them
0:49:59 versus we should have had them months or years or perhaps decades earlier, and now they’re
0:50:00 so hard.
0:50:05 We have an internal conversation with ourselves that just comes out almost like a fire hose
0:50:11 at this point, whereas had we had it earlier, it would have been a trickle.
0:50:16 How do we learn to bring those things up when the stakes are low?
0:50:21 So I will first challenge you that the stakes are not necessarily low because you’re in
0:50:22 the beginning.
0:50:29 There are lots of people who come with heavy suitcases.
0:50:34 And it doesn’t take long, you know, a few months, a year for the suitcases to open,
0:50:39 and everybody brings their history with them, and the way that they learned to interact
0:50:44 with people, particularly their loved ones, and what they learned at home.
0:50:52 So it’s not necessarily that people are always just so nice in the beginning and they accumulate
0:50:53 over time.
0:50:59 You accumulate because of the resonance of the stuff that is happening with your partner.
0:51:04 If the stuff that happens with your partner is so instantly similar to what you experienced
0:51:07 at home, it doesn’t take long.
0:51:12 It’s not the time, it’s the actual echo chamber of what you have in your relationship
0:51:15 and how it mirrors what you had in your family of origin.
0:51:19 That’s what creates the intensity.
0:51:26 That said, what does happen over time is that the patterns, the back and forth, the conversation,
0:51:34 I had a couple this week, it’s really interesting, lesbian couple, wonderful couple, but they
0:51:40 are four years together.
0:51:45 And basically, I kind of could see in the conversation within five minutes that what
0:51:52 they were saying to each other, this was probably number 197 times the same conversation.
0:51:53 Like this is it.
0:51:55 This is the one.
0:52:02 It’s so patterned, predictable, rigid, narrow, and boring.
0:52:03 And they’re trapped.
0:52:04 They know they’re trapped.
0:52:08 That’s why they’re there because they’re stuck because it’s the same old, same old.
0:52:14 So at one point, I basically switched seats and I made them reverse roles.
0:52:18 And each one for the next 15 minutes basically spoke as if she was the other.
0:52:19 It was phenomenal.
0:52:23 It’s like, if you’re worried that they don’t hear each other and that’s why they need to
0:52:26 repeat the same thing again, no worries.
0:52:29 They know each other’s words by heart.
0:52:33 They could play the other person to the teeth.
0:52:38 So then once we established that, I said, okay, now we can maybe start to have a different
0:52:39 conversation here.
0:52:43 I mean, this is like, you know, one says one thing, the other one snaps right in there like
0:52:44 a banana peel.
0:52:49 You slip on it and up you go, you know, and I say this and she says that and it’s this
0:52:50 ping-pong.
0:52:56 But once they did the role play, they actually began slowly to get into the experience of
0:53:02 the other because you really do enact what the other one is really trying to tell you.
0:53:08 And then you ask them, and how does it feel when you’re saying this yet again, you know?
0:53:18 And it’s that thing that you try to break is the rigidity and the immediacy where you
0:53:24 want to create space for something new to be able to come in so that change can occur.
0:53:31 Otherwise, people do sometimes come dead upon arrival because what you’re looking for is
0:53:36 their motivation on the part of each person to want to do something different.
0:53:41 You know, most of the time people don’t come to couples therapy or relationship therapy.
0:53:46 It’s the same with families when I see families to say what they want to do different.
0:53:49 They come with a long list of expectations of what they want their partner to do different.
0:53:55 You know, it’s like a drop-off center, came to bring you my partner, you fix it.
0:54:02 And you’re trying to say therapy becomes helpful in relationships when each person
0:54:09 is willing to do something new, regardless, non-contingent on what the other person is
0:54:10 doing.
0:54:13 You become committed, you’re not going to do the usual.
0:54:18 If the usual is you close your door and you don’t say another word, or if the usual is
0:54:22 you just up the volume, or if the usual is you go on the vicious attack, or if the usual
0:54:28 is that you just kind of talk about the weather when the other person is talking about their
0:54:33 dying mother, you’re going to make an effort to change what you do.
0:54:39 Because if you consistently start to do something different, at some point the other person has
0:54:42 to adapt, because it’s ping-pong.
0:54:47 If the ball goes to a different corner, you can’t stay standing on the other side.
0:54:50 At some point you will move.
0:54:56 Why does good sex so often fade in relationships, even for couples who continue to love each
0:54:57 other?
0:55:04 There are loads of reasons, I think, that sex fades.
0:55:09 And when I say that sex fades, I think that it’s important to distinguish.
0:55:13 I’m not talking about the act of sex itself.
0:55:23 People can have some type of regular sexual activity, perfunctory, comfortable, or less
0:55:28 comfortable, but I’m not interested in the performance of sex.
0:55:36 That is not really what the people come to me for, I would say like that.
0:55:40 Some people come because they’ve become really sexless relationships.
0:55:48 Sometimes they are deep, affectionate couples that are de-eroticized, that are desexualized.
0:55:53 But sometimes what they want is to reconnect with a degree of intensity, of aliveness,
0:55:56 of erotic charge.
0:56:01 And that’s very different than just the act of doing sex.
0:56:08 So that said, there’s a long list of things that make people disconnect from their erotic
0:56:11 self, basically.
0:56:13 And some of them are not of their choice.
0:56:14 They’re stressors of life.
0:56:15 They have to do with health.
0:56:18 They have to do with economic difficulties.
0:56:25 They have to do with employment struggles, et cetera, et cetera, and children and family
0:56:26 life and all of that.
0:56:32 But sometimes it’s also, I think, and that’s where it became the exploration that I got
0:56:33 interested in.
0:56:37 It’s really a kind of a breakdown of the imagination.
0:56:45 It’s a willingness to go for the least, basically.
0:56:52 It’s the same difference as cooking a beautiful meal for which you thought about, you bought
0:56:57 the special ingredients, you took the time to prepare it, you set a nice table, you looked
0:57:03 forward to sitting down, to enjoying it, to having good conversation, maybe good wine
0:57:10 that accompanies it, et cetera, versus cutting a tomato, which is perfectly fine.
0:57:15 But it doesn’t have the same poetry attached to it.
0:57:21 And that’s what happens to people’s sexualities, is it becomes the kind of basic lasting on
0:57:27 the list that you should do at the end of a long day as if it’s one more chore in a messy
0:57:33 room that is rather uninspiring without much playfulness, without much imagination, without
0:57:36 much creativity.
0:57:42 You can do it, but doing it is not the same as the quality of the experience that comes
0:57:44 with it.
0:57:45 And that’s why it fades.
0:57:51 It fades because people don’t necessarily invest in it and value it as something, you know,
0:57:54 in the beginning it seems to come on its own, supposedly.
0:57:56 So you don’t have to do anything.
0:58:00 And people have this idea that it should be spontaneous, and it should, you should just
0:58:02 be in the mood, and it should just come.
0:58:07 And all these shoulds, whatever is going to just come in a long-term relationship already
0:58:08 has.
0:58:11 So it demands predetermination.
0:58:13 It demands really creativity.
0:58:19 It demands intentionality and premeditation, which is very tricky to premeditate sex, because
0:58:23 it supposedly goes against this romantic, you know, “I just was swept and it came all
0:58:25 over me.”
0:58:30 Part of why we lose it is because we are filled with mistaken ideas about what actually it
0:58:35 takes to create pleasure, desire, and excitement.
0:58:38 Oh, that’s a good segue into love and desire.
0:58:42 What’s the relationship between pleasure, desire, love?
0:58:48 Is love about closeness and desires sort of like finding new experiences or adventures?
0:58:53 And how does that fit in?
0:59:00 I mean, I at one point played with the idea that love is about having and desire is about
0:59:02 wanting.
0:59:07 And therefore, it’s two different verbs that often pull us in different directions.
0:59:13 Love thrives on closeness, it thrives on deep knowledge with each other, it thrives on minimizing
0:59:18 the tensions, on narrowing the gaps, and on a sense of predictability.
0:59:22 You do want to know that you’re going to have the same person the next morning, how
0:59:25 we’ll still love you and that you will still love.
0:59:29 And desire is a lot more fickle.
0:59:35 Desire is to own the wanting and that wanting, how you connect to that sense of sovereignty
0:59:42 and agency and freedom that is the opposite of “you won’t make me.”
0:59:50 It thrives much more on mystery, on curiosity, on the unknown, on discovery, on exploration.
0:59:55 And the challenge of modern relationship is that we want love and desire in the same place.
0:59:57 It’s never happened before.
0:59:58 That’s the interesting thing.
1:00:01 And it doesn’t get solved with Victoria’s Secret just so easily.
1:00:03 What do you mean it’s never happened before?
1:00:07 We’ve never looked for, you know, the word “passionate marriage” is a contradiction
1:00:08 in terms.
1:00:13 We’ve never looked for passion in the same place where we looked for security and anchoring
1:00:17 and somebody with whom to pay the checks and fix the house.
1:00:20 These two things were separate for all of history.
1:00:24 Love stories took place somewhere and marriage took place somewhere else.
1:00:26 Marriage wasn’t necessarily about love in the first place.
1:00:29 It was an economic enterprise primarily.
1:00:35 But the place where you want to experience full surrender, you know, and the intensity
1:00:40 of the unknown, how do you bring that in the same place where you want to know that what
1:00:43 you have today is what you’re going to have tomorrow?
1:00:49 It’s a very, it’s a grand experiment of modern love is that we are trying to experience
1:00:51 security and adventure in the same place.
1:00:57 Now, it’s not impossible, but it is a grand challenge.
1:01:01 How do I pretend with the person with whom I’ve been living for 30 years that there,
1:01:03 that there’s still so much to discover?
1:01:08 How do I remain curious about somebody who I, at the same time, I desperately want to
1:01:10 feel familiar with?
1:01:15 How do I bring surprise in the place where I want to experience continuity?
1:01:20 How do I bring out parts of myself that I’ve never revealed to someone who pretends to
1:01:22 know me so well?
1:01:27 How do I take risks, sexual and emotional risks, in a place where I usually don’t want
1:01:30 too much of a big production?
1:01:34 And this is why it is very challenging to not just have sex in long-term relations.
1:01:39 People can have sex, but have sex that is for pleasure and connection.
1:01:44 Sex that we look forward to, that is anticipatory, that reveals us to ourselves.
1:01:49 That’s a kind of a neurotic intimacy, right, where we discover things about us that are
1:01:51 still new.
1:01:55 It’s what new conversations people can have about that.
1:02:02 What does it mean to take risks in the same place where you also want predictability?
1:02:07 What does it mean to allow yourself degrees of surrender with someone that you need to
1:02:12 rely on who’s going to wake up tomorrow morning to get the kids to school?
1:02:15 Now it becomes really a fascinating exploration.
1:02:23 We all grapple with this thing, you know, and it demands real active creativity.
1:02:28 That’s why I like the food metaphor, because everybody understands the difference between
1:02:34 putting some food on the table and eating for sustenance and having a lavish or having
1:02:43 a beautiful, thoughtful, creative meal that is about pleasure, not just about sustenance.
1:02:46 And the erotic is cultivating pleasure for its own sake.
1:02:49 It’s not about achieving an orgasm.
1:02:51 It’s not about the performance of sex.
1:02:52 We did it.
1:02:53 We both came.
1:02:59 No, it’s really about the quality of the experience and of the pleasure that you experienced
1:03:03 and where it took you and where you went with your partner.
1:03:08 That over time is a real piece of art.
1:03:12 As you were saying that, I was thinking, are there tips and tricks that people could use
1:03:16 at home that want to bring up a conversation about sex with their partner?
1:03:21 But more importantly, I think it’s how do we go about discussing something that’s difficult
1:03:22 or hard with our partner?
1:03:31 Is there a prompt or a way to start that is going to be more predisposed to better outcomes?
1:03:37 I mean, interestingly, I didn’t anticipate it at first, but I do now know that it is
1:03:45 one of the most powerful aspects of the podcast is that people would hear other people have
1:03:48 conversations that they want to have.
1:03:52 And the deeper they would listen to these other people and the more they would see themselves
1:03:56 in their own mirror and the more they would acquire some of that vocabulary to then go
1:04:01 to their partner and say, you know, I was or they listen with the partner to the podcast
1:04:03 and they say, how do you feel about this?
1:04:04 Have you ever thought about that?
1:04:06 Is that something you would be interested in?
1:04:08 Do you have those fantasies?
1:04:10 Is that what you feel with me at times?
1:04:12 Have you ever experienced that kind of a block?
1:04:15 It’s like going to a movie, right?
1:04:21 Like when you have a third entity, it allows you to speak to your partner by virtue of
1:04:27 the thing that you have just watched or shared or listened to in the case of a podcast.
1:04:31 And then you can ask the same question, you know, do you feel that kind of pressure?
1:04:34 You know, have you ever faked with me?
1:04:38 You know, because this woman is talking about that, you know, or this man is talking about
1:04:43 that, you know, have you ever felt that kind of, you know, have you ever wanted to try
1:04:45 that for us?
1:04:48 You know, it’s easier than to suddenly sit in the car and say, oh, you know what?
1:04:51 I was thinking maybe one day we should do this.
1:04:52 Where are you coming from?
1:04:53 You know, where is that coming?
1:04:58 But if you listen to something together, it gives it a permission.
1:05:05 It places it in the permitted conversations that we can have as a couple.
1:05:10 So now you will say, but what are the questions that I ask, you know, in the sessions to those
1:05:11 couples?
1:05:13 I like writing, for example.
1:05:19 So I often think, you know, with some couples, I’ve found it very useful to create a separate
1:05:20 email address.
1:05:24 And that separate email address is one in which you’re not talking about management
1:05:25 ink.
1:05:30 It’s not about the kids, the money, the family, the to-do list.
1:05:33 It’s really the lover’s nest.
1:05:38 It’s when you and I think about each other as partners, as lovers.
1:05:42 And in that place, we write to each other in a very different language.
1:05:46 I’m not talking to the mother of my kids or to the father of her.
1:05:49 I’m talking to my partner.
1:05:50 And I send songs.
1:05:51 I send jokes.
1:05:52 I send pictures.
1:05:56 And I send just sweet thoughts, you know?
1:06:04 And that creates a kind of a lubrication that I still hold you as my lover, not just as
1:06:06 my life partner.
1:06:12 And it creates that erotic space in which we see each other with different eyes.
1:06:18 And that in itself is often very sensual and creates a permission in which people then
1:06:24 start to say different things that they haven’t felt they can say, you know, the grand paradox
1:06:32 is that the idea is greater intimacy would normally free us to greater sexual freedom
1:06:34 and sexual openness.
1:06:37 But in fact, that is not necessarily the case.
1:06:43 The more we start to feel intimate with each other and we become close and we worry about
1:06:48 each other and we are afraid of each other’s judgment, and the more sometimes we actually
1:06:50 become less open.
1:06:55 Many of us were more open in the beginning than afterwards, which is a paradox.
1:06:59 And so then the question becomes, how do we reopen?
1:07:05 How do we start to talk again about things which over time we stop talking about supposedly
1:07:10 because you should know and it’s assumed and we become uncomfortable about it?
1:07:16 And I think that what my sessions are about and what I think I do actually in the podcast
1:07:23 as well is show how you how you make two people who think they know a lot suddenly listen
1:07:27 to each other again and realize that the one that is next to you is actually forever somewhat
1:07:31 mysterious and elusive if you just want to remain curious.
1:07:34 Does part of that come back to the narratives?
1:07:40 It’s almost as if at the beginning, our narratives are wide open and we see you as everything,
1:07:41 including all of your likes and desires.
1:07:47 And then as we spend more time with you, I’m thinking, possibly we start to identify,
1:07:53 oh, you’re a mother, you’re a wife, and these roles and we see less of this big broad person
1:07:57 and that shapes what we see and how we interact.
1:07:59 I completely agree.
1:08:04 I completely, I mean, you know, you see people sitting with friends.
1:08:10 Sometimes I go for lunch and I sit in a restaurant and, you know, or I go to a simple spot like
1:08:15 that and I just see people looking at each other, talking to each other, well-dressed,
1:08:18 animated, engaged, attentive.
1:08:22 And I’m thinking, who is here with their partner?
1:08:23 Probably very few.
1:08:24 Right?
1:08:28 And I’m thinking, what they’re going to do is they’re going to be so engaged throughout
1:08:31 the day and then they’re going to go home and basically they’re going to bring the leftovers
1:08:32 home.
1:08:37 And at home, they’re going to talk very little actually or they’re going to check in on the
1:08:39 day and on the logistics and all of that.
1:08:40 I’ll give you an example.
1:08:41 It was really interesting.
1:08:43 I had it myself recently.
1:08:50 I’m sitting with friends and with my husband and we were talking about playing as children.
1:08:54 And one of the people said, you know, I actually, I don’t remember playing as children like
1:08:55 that.
1:08:56 I didn’t have characters.
1:08:57 We had come out of a movie.
1:09:03 I didn’t have characters and I was more kind of a sport and I was very, very competitive.
1:09:10 And my husband son, he says, oh, me as a child, I was a different person every day.
1:09:15 And then proceeded to talk about the kind of games that they played in the woods behind
1:09:18 the house as children and how they were in fantasy play and all of that.
1:09:22 And I listened attentively like that.
1:09:29 Just like a story that he may have told me or not, you know, and we talked about basically
1:09:35 the power of imagination and to enter other roles and how much we do this as children and
1:09:41 how, you know, actually sexuality is one of the places where people have it as adults,
1:09:43 you know, in their, in their homes.
1:09:47 And I just thought to myself, would we have had this conversation alone where I would
1:09:51 say, what was, what did you do when you played as a kid?
1:09:57 Yet people raise children together, but they don’t ask that question necessarily.
1:10:01 And it’s such a revealing question, how you played as a child.
1:10:04 What kind of, what, did you allow yourself to play?
1:10:07 Did you have the permission to play, was it safe enough to play?
1:10:10 And what kind of play did you engage yourself in?
1:10:13 Boy, does that tell you an amazing story about a person.
1:10:15 It’s a great dinner conversation.
1:10:16 Highly recommend.
1:10:21 I was thinking, I wonder how our relationships would change if we started giving our partners
1:10:26 the best hour of our day and waking up an hour earlier and spending it with them instead
1:10:31 of the sort of like 10 to 11 PM leftovers, as you called it.
1:10:34 I wonder if we went to bed an hour earlier and woke up an hour earlier and spent that
1:10:37 time with our partners, how that would change our relationships.
1:10:42 And we would have, we’d be the most alert and the most attentive and probably the most
1:10:43 curious.
1:10:44 Massive.
1:10:46 I mean, that’s been studied.
1:10:50 And we know, we know that couples that have rituals every Wednesday at five o’clock we
1:10:53 meet in the bar and have a drink.
1:10:56 Every Tuesday we have lunch.
1:11:00 Every month we leave a night away, depends on what they can afford, what they can do.
1:11:05 But those who have that ritual in place, which really states, no matter what else goes on
1:11:12 in our life, we have a dedicated time that is ours where we check in with each other,
1:11:13 whatever we do.
1:11:16 You know, we go rowboating, whatever, whatever.
1:11:22 But it’s very clear that those who’ve done that for like decades on end, now, you know,
1:11:25 you could say it’s because they did it that they are stronger or it’s because they’re
1:11:26 stronger that they do it.
1:11:29 I think those things interact with each other.
1:11:32 But it’s, I don’t know if I would do it morning and night.
1:11:36 It depends on what other people are living in the homes.
1:11:43 But I know that if people have a regularly dedicated time that says, we matter.
1:11:49 And it’s not everything else comes first and we come last, which is what is often the case
1:11:53 for many couples, that that makes a huge difference.
1:11:55 And why does it matter?
1:11:59 Because this is the first time in the history of human relationships that the quality of
1:12:04 the relationship in the couple is what will determine if the family will survive.
1:12:07 Oh, that’s interesting.
1:12:14 For most of history, family life existed regardless of if the couple likes, gets along or doesn’t.
1:12:19 At this point, your family will exist if the couple is relatively content.
1:12:20 Something on that.
1:12:25 So if you invest in the couple, you actually preserve the family.
1:12:30 And what people do is they put all the energy in the family when there is family or in the
1:12:32 work or in everything else.
1:12:35 And the couple is often left gasping on the vine.
1:12:39 And then we need to talk about consciousness.
1:12:40 But it’s neglect.
1:12:42 It’s, it’s, it’s the other way around.
1:12:48 It’s, it’s really, if you look at most people, the couple often will come last.
1:12:51 I hate to end with conscious uncoupling, but I do want to get to it because we had a lot
1:12:55 of questions from readers and listeners about conscious uncoupling.
1:12:57 So what is conscious uncoupling?
1:12:58 What does it mean?
1:12:59 How does it work?
1:13:01 And why is it proven effective?
1:13:08 In season three, I have a whole episode that is called the happy divorce.
1:13:15 And it’s actually a couple that is getting along better now that they are no longer married
1:13:17 than they were when they were married.
1:13:22 And they actually remain very involved as a couple, partly because now that they’re
1:13:28 not married, they can finally free themselves of all the restrictions and assumptions that
1:13:32 they had about what is expected from them in marriage.
1:13:37 It’s very, it’s like they liberated themselves from the constraint of the, of the definition
1:13:38 called marriage.
1:13:42 And so now they can finally have the relationship they want.
1:13:46 So I highly recommend it, it really will explain that.
1:13:52 But for me, the conscious uncoupling is the idea that there needs to be a way for people
1:14:00 to at some point choose to separate without us still thinking that longevity is the main
1:14:06 marker for success, that if you meet at a funeral home at the end of life, then it means
1:14:15 you had a good relationship and that every breakup or separation or divorce is a failure.
1:14:17 I think it’s that that needs to be challenged.
1:14:18 We live way too long.
1:14:21 We live twice as long as a hundred years ago.
1:14:27 And not all of us will necessarily only have one relationship in adult relationship.
1:14:29 You know, we will have two or three, many of us.
1:14:35 And some of us will do it with the same person, but others will sometimes change.
1:14:41 And if you can leave and to the best of your ability, wish good to the other person, wish
1:14:48 them well and wish you well, then you actually are more prepared for the next relationship.
1:14:54 The more you remain tied in your bitterness, you know, the more you bring that with you.
1:15:00 The way people leave the previous relationships, the quality of the breakups is really at the
1:15:03 heart of how people start the next relationships.
1:15:09 How much they will trust, how they trust, how they collaborate, how they protect themselves,
1:15:15 how they anticipate, you know, what had happened, how much they bring these invisible others
1:15:22 access with them, be they ex-partners, husbands, wives, or boyfriends or founders, you know,
1:15:27 it’s really very interesting to see the parallel of those things.
1:15:29 How should you leave a relationship?
1:15:33 Like, what are the variables that you should be considering when you’re doing that?
1:15:36 We want different things in life.
1:15:43 I still love you, I still care about you, I still respect you, I still have strong feelings
1:15:48 for you, whatever the feelings are, you know, I may not love you anymore to want to live
1:15:52 with you or I may still love you but not want to live with you.
1:15:56 Love life and life is not the same.
1:16:05 So you basically, it depends if you have a family then you know that a divorce is a reorganization
1:16:06 of the family.
1:16:10 It’s the end of the marital unit but not the end of the family, it’s a reorganization
1:16:12 of the family.
1:16:18 If you don’t have a family and it’s two people then it’s about, we’ve come to a place where
1:16:23 one of us or both of us have chosen no longer to be together and the best thing you can
1:16:29 do is not want to destroy the other person as a way to kind of separate and justify it
1:16:33 by vilifying them, demonizing them, etc.
1:16:38 Basically I do this for me, I don’t do this for us, that’s a given.
1:16:43 Or I do this, whatever the reasons, and I wish you well and here are the things that
1:16:48 I take with me of what we have lived together and here are the things that I hope you take
1:16:51 with you of what we share together.
1:16:57 And here is what I wish for you and here is where I think that I could have done better.
1:17:03 If you leave and you seriously only think that it’s all about the other person, you
1:17:04 may be missing something.
1:17:08 It’s very good to know that you too could have done things differently.
1:17:12 And that is honesty by the way, you asked me before about honesty.
1:17:17 Honesty is not only what you have to say about the other person, honesty is also your own
1:17:22 reckoning and your own accountability with where you’ve shown up and where you went absent
1:17:25 and missing in action.
1:17:27 Those things go into the final conversations.
1:17:31 When I do conscious uncoupling in my office, which is basically people who are willing
1:17:37 to be deliberate and intentional about how they part, that’s the idea.
1:17:40 The same way that people do it when they come together.
1:17:46 How people start and how people end are amazingly important psychological bookmarks of their
1:17:48 relational life.
1:17:52 I think that’s a great place to end this conversation.
1:17:53 This was fascinating.
1:17:57 Where can people find out more about you online?
1:18:03 So first is estherporel.com and there you can also subscribe to the newsletter and the
1:18:09 blog or the training program sessions or the workshop for couples, which is called Rick
1:18:16 and Ling Desire and then on all the social channels at estherporel official and on Facebook
1:18:17 and Twitter.
1:18:18 Thank you so much, Esther.
1:18:28 This was a real pleasure and a treat and I had a great time with our conversation.
1:18:34 Wonderful.
1:18:36 Thanks for listening and learning with us.
1:18:45 For a complete list of episodes, show notes, transcripts and more, go to fs.blog/podcast.
1:18:49 The Farnham Street blog is also where you can learn more about my new book, Clear Thinking,
1:18:52 turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results.
1:18:57 It’s a transformative guide that hands you the tools to master your fate, sharpen your
1:19:02 decision making and set yourself up for unparalleled success.
1:19:05 Learn more at fs.blog/clear.
1:19:06 Until next time.
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