Significant Others - Esther Perel on The Tolstoys

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

World-renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel joins Liza to discuss the dynamic between Leo and Sophia Tolstoy and whether the issues Sophia faced were a product of the times she lived in.This bonus episode is a discussion of Episode 1 of Significant Others, "Countess Sophia Tolstoy." Listen to it here.  

Welcome back to Significant Others. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien. In yesterday's episode, we explored the relationship between Countess Sophia Tolstoy and her husband, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. When I was working on this episode, I thought, wouldn't it be great to talk this all down with someone who really knows about relationships? My dream partner for this conversation, Esther Perel, is the host of the podcasts, Where Should We Begin? and How's Work? and author of Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs. Luckily for all of us, my dream came true and Esther is here with us now. Esther, thank you so much for joining us. And my first question for you is, how much of

the trouble here, and there was a lot of trouble, comes from Tolstoy's being a narcissist? What's interesting is the easy conflation that we sometimes make between genius and narcissist. There are plenty of narcissists who are anything but genius. And not every genius is a narcissist. It's the combination of both genius, narcissist, and wealthy. That's exactly what I was going to ask you, in fact, was, A, do you think that Tolstoy does qualify as a narcissist? I don't know. And I would never answer it like this. I've never diagnosed somebody without meeting them. I think, and the word has changed meaning, you know, that I don't even think the word existed at the time. And certainly it was not part of the vernacular. When you talked about

Narcissus, you went back to Greek mythology. You didn't really, so I think that personality descriptions, which then become personality disorders, which then become paradigmatic frameworks for describing relationship change. The first thing when I'm asked that question is, what do you define as narcissism? How do we tend to look at narcissism at this particular moment? How has the word evolved in our understanding of relationships, intimate relationships, family relationships? Why has this word become so more mainstream, if you want, as individualism has risen. It has a different meaning in an individualistic context than in a more collectivist context. So that's my answer is,

A, I don't diagnose without meeting the person. B, we need to really understand what we mean by the word narcissism because it's a very loaded word at this moment used in all kinds of situations. I think we can have a general understanding of what are some of the ingredients of that. But when you think of narcissists, what is your working definition in a way? So I think of a narcissist as someone who is to some degree incapable of empathy or certainly not prone to it. And with someone like Tolstoy, and I think for many

creative geniuses, especially writers, empathy is sort of a necessary ingredient for that success. So, and I think their context, their historical context obviously confuses things because some of the way that he was treating her was, you know, not even up for consideration. It was just sort of the convention, right? So it's very different than a modern couple living as they lived. There are some narcissists that we are looking at in this season. And I mean, I think, again, using that word very not clinically at all, but they sort of can only justify their own behavior. They can't feel anyone else's pain, you know, that kind of thing.

And Tolstoy does seem, you know, he's the great humanist writer. That's the fascinating question is how is it that the same person that sometimes cannot show empathy and consideration for the people that are closest to them and that are often living in a very self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, are able to display tremendous empathy for their characters. So it's not like they are devoid of empathy. Right. It depends on what is the relationship. empathy right it's it depends on what is the relationship if it's a fictitious person or if it's a person that is really going to enhance their sense of self if you want then they actually

can describe with uncanny details right the inner workings of another human being, and he did have a great deal of empathy or at very least sympathy for, you know, the workers, right? So he, it revolutionized his worldview and he thought property was theft and he did not want to be the master of so many other people and he wanted to work in the fields. And so he, he was able to apply that same, he was able to get outside of himself with other people, just not, I don't know if it was just all women, like just women were not considered people in his, you know, sort of the way that he was brought up. You know, I don't know if it was specific to him. I think one of the fascinating moments of his life is that he ends up being conned by his best friend who bests him at his own game. Right, right. And because he basically was able

to conflate, you know, legging, giving away his entire estate and creation to the person who flattered him the most and flattered him basically by saying, I am the culmination of all your values. Give it all to me. And that is what is very interesting. It could have been a man or a woman for that matter. That is not, it's not gender specific. It's the fact that somebody else understood the inner workings of Tolstoy and basically could outdo him at his own manichaeisms. That's so fascinating. And, you know, she, Sophia, was so upset by their closeness that she accused them of being lovers.

And it made Tolstoy so angry. And sometimes in sort of a layperson's understanding of that sort of accusation and that sort of anger, it would be easy to say, oh, you know, he doth protest too much. That must mean he was actually secretly homosexual, but that does not seem to have been true at all. So what do you make of that kind of anger at that accusation? I mean, that kind of defensiveness, that instant reactive defensiveness, that response the moment there is a shortage of narcissistic supply. Ah, right. Got it. So as long as you endear me, you recognize me, you inflate me, and basically you are an active contributor to my sense of grandiosity. We're on better terms, even though I may no longer value it because your supply has lesser value than the supply of a person that I haven't yet

conquered. Okay. It's a lot. But you follow me. Yes. So yes, it is better, but it doesn't mean it is valued because it's only valued when it is fresh, fresh meat, when it isn't yet confirmed, when my sense of insecurity, which underlies the grandiosity, is still fighting for it. So once you show me truth, any light that you will shine on me that shows the cracks inside of me, I will respond with instant defensiveness and counterattack. Wow. I'm curious if you feel pity for her, for Sophia Tolstoy. I did not experience pity as I was reading her. I experienced a collective identification. How, look, the fact that I can have this interview with you

and you with me says something changed. Right, right. I had a sense of realization of, God, the lives of women. And Sophia Tolstoy exists today in many parts of the world. She's not just a historical figure who walks around with 12 kids, transcribes the books and the pages seven times. Back and forth, she transcribes war and peace. I mean, that's just, you know, farms the land, does his accounting system, makes sure that she holds his impulses in check, makes sure that she gives him the sex so he doesn't go berserk or AWOL. I just feel for her. I feel more than pity. I feel awe. I feel admiration. I feel a humble,

humility in front of how stuck she may be at times. And there's a reason women went to convents. And, you know, there's a reason women went to convents. They went to convents in order to be finally left alone and not have to take care of 12 children and a genius lunatic. You know, not that I think Holstein per se was, but, you know, I'm talking in general. So there's a women that women often went mad. There's a women went and sat in the hospitals of Chaco in the psychiatric units.

And this is the thing for today is that because women can live today more easily in our corners of the world, there is often a tendency to blame the ones who don't. We've gone on the other side. Right. And we don't understand the complications, the complexities of this. I mean, the fact that she on some level knows that he would never be

publishing any of this if she wasn't the one taking his gibberish handwriting and turning it into something beautifully legible. I think the rage she must have felt when the entire estate was bifurcated from her to, you know, the young girl who becomes the Oedipal victory, so to speak, in the family. That must have been such a slap in the face because you're willing to pay your dues for decades because you think at the end you will get that recognition it's not the money it's not it's the recognition it's the fact that somebody says i know i couldn't have done it without you and then it's so cruel that it took off this con man turned the country against her that she was vilified for decades right and she

she had written and she was not published and it's right but that is also contemporary i do think that it's very very easy to be judgmental and to take you know to blame one person in the relationship and only see what one person did, you know, to the other and not to see the interdependence of these two people. I mean, there's a reason I have a podcast where I do live couples therapy, because we never know what really happens behind closed doors of another relationship. So where should we begin is really, when I work with one person in therapy, it's like Swiss cheese, it's filled with holes.

Then comes the other person and one says, they yelled at me. And then you understand that they yelled at you after you told them five times that they were useless and incompetent and sheer idiots and that nobody should ever rely on them for nothing and then the person yells but what you said is taken out of the it's a phenomenal editing process when people narrate the conflicts the interactions in their relationships especially under distress so to really see how people co-create each other, that is what I think is very, very important. Tolstoy makes this young 18-year-old who he marries become who she is. She wasn't just like that. You demean someone consistently. Well, something happens in them and on the other side you enable someone consistently

you excuse them you never hold them accountable and they you feed the monster that says why should i think about anybody else that is not my place on this earth i think about others only when i write about them when i control them completely when they are the creations of the figment of my imagination. They're totally fictitious characters. Then I can be completely open hearted. Can I ask you about this tradition that was apparently fairly common in their time of sharing the diaries with your fiancé? Had you heard of this? Have you ever heard of that?

That he, as an engagement gift, gave her his diaries that, you know, sort of exposed the truth of his sexual urges and his sexual history, and she was traumatized. And I'm wondering how that, in light of this particular moment with social media, and it feels as if everyone's living everything out a certain certain people or certain ages maybe are living everything out loud that like privacy has sort of disappeared right from the list of virtues um is is it is there such thing as too much transparency do you think it's a you know do you think there's anything good that comes of that kind of like i'm gonna let you know who I really am before we do this for good? You know, honesty can be cruel.

I mean, that's the notion always that honesty and transparency and openness are acts of caring and respect. No, not always. You know, honesty can be a slap in the face. So I don't know if it was a common tradition. I'm not familiar with that, but definitely people lived with epistolary exchanges. Yeah. I think what's interesting about the sharing of the diaries is that there is a version of it today that is the sharing on social media, total lack of privacy and you go from transparency to secrecy and you bypass privacy this notion that open and out and about and everything in out there is actually superior um that is very new that is very new and the more we become individualistic

and the more transparency gets attached to it because part of what the individualism from a cultural and psychological point creates is isolation and boundaries and how will you be known the interesting thing is the question is how much does it really connect people and the data is out that it doesn't particularly do such a great job. In their instance, she also shares a story with him, but she does it in a fiction way, right? So she shares a story where a young woman is describing her relationship with a disgusting old fart, basically. And that's supposed to be him. They have an 18-year difference in their relationship.

And it charms him somehow. No, it doesn't really charm him. I think that he's giving her the diary is actually an act of revenge. I think he said, you want to tell me what's on your mind? Let me tell you what's on mine. Oh, that's fascinating.

Then he justifies it by saying, I wanted you to really know who you with, as if this woman had a choice. I mean, the presumption is that she then can choose if she wants to be married to him or not. No, she's not. She doesn't make much of a decision who she's going to marry. In fact, neither did he, because I think he would have preferred to marry her sister, if I remember well. And so, you know know these two people kind of got put there together not neither of them totally choosing each other but enough but enough and then he basically says you want to you want to really get to know the old man the dirty old guy let me tell you what he's been doing and it is completely traumatizing and oh and flooding and overwhelming for this 18-year-old girl

who has probably never had sexual relationships with another man anyway. It's an act of power. It's an act of retaliation. It's an act of revenge. And it's an act of also saying, you will never be good enough. You will never have me completely. Here are so many other people that I need to have in order to be satisfied and satiated. And yes, this is who I am. And you will always only have a part of me. That is so fascinating. I had not thought of it as an act of revenge. That's

totally, probably exactly what happened. It is an act of power, of domination that says, it's not an act of, I want to invite you into the antechamber of my soul. I want to invite you into, it's not an act of intimacy. Now, it may have had many layers. I don't know the story between them. So I'm saying this more as a general idea than just specifically them two. But the question is really that when you share something, that personal, that private, that intimate, like a diary, are you doing it as an act where you are inviting someone into your inner life, it's an intimacy, it's intimacy as intimacy, see? It's intimacy as intimacy. Or are you basically using it as a way to establish a boundary? Here is all the stuff that you will never be a part of.

Fascinating. He decides to leave the marriage at age 82 after 48 years. And I'm wondering what the eldest couple you've ever worked with is. What about this, like leaving the marriage at such an advanced age? Does that make sense? Are there people you see where you think, oh, no, no, no, this is just, just ride it out. This is too late. I think sometimes it's an act that expresses an antidote to death. It's a death anxiety. So if I leave, there are still possibilities. Life is still lived. I'm not just waiting for it to end. I'm not stuck. I'm not frozen in time. I can still start something new. There is nothing more life affirming than to start something new at that age. Of course, in his case, he also did it in the midst of strife and conflict. He didn't

go very far and he didn't live very young afterwards. But it was also a kind of way of saying, I don't need you. I can survive without you. It's a kind of a pseudo act of differentiation. without you. It's a kind of a pseudo act of differentiation. And it's also, it's all your fault why I'm leaving, right? There is nothing here that is owned and that is a proprietary experience. It's very much deflected and projected onto the partner. And who knows if he already knew at that time that he wasn't going to leave her very much. I don't know in his case, in the case of Tolstoy, I don't really know why after 48 years he leaves. But there are many relationships where people one day leave. So, you know, for example, I think that a pandemic, a crisis,

a disaster accelerates relationships where people are in touch with mortality. And age is also a time when you are more in touch with mortality as you come close to 80. And you kind of say, what am I waiting for? Or you say, I've waited long enough. It accelerates, it sharpens the priorities. It says it's now or never. We have a notion that longevity is the marker of success in many relationships, which it isn't necessarily. And furthermore, we also have a mentality of sunken costs. Like we've already invested 48 years. Now you're going to leave? But that's not the way that our psyche necessarily works. It's like, yes, it's now. I can't believe I waited that long. I should have done this so much before. Or it's another slap in your face.

You think I need you to write, to transcribe, to make order that I can't feed myself. I'll show you. It's a defiance. So it's a death defying act. And it's a relational defiant act sometimes to leave suddenly in the middle of a spat, because this was not like we're going to sit and talk and discuss the viability of our relationship. It's me saying, fuck you. And I'm out of here. That's what he did at around 80. Yeah. I have a friend who used to say, I'll show me. And it feels very much like that. Yes, that I can, that I'm capable, that I don't need anybody, that nothing can hold me back, that I'm a free person and I'm not tethered to anything. There's many different scripts that can be attached to the impulsive exit of a person from a long-term relationship that is done like that on the spot.

So it's just being one of them. Well, this is just one of the many reasons that I adore listening to you talk about absolutely anything, but especially your area of expertise. It's so incredibly informative and it feels very nutritious every time I hear you talk. So thank you so much for being with us. It's a pleasure. Be sure to check out Where Should We Begin and How's Work with Esther Perel wherever you get your podcasts. Join us next time to find out which historical figure liked to sleep with naked young women but refused to have sex with them. And finally, if you enjoyed what you heard

today, be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts.