Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Esther Calling - A Secret I Can't Even Tell My Therapist

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Their marriage was turbulent and the divorce is now two years behind her—but she still can’t let him go. Torn between the part of her that knows it was unhealthy and the part that still longs for him, she’s preparing to see her ex again, keeping it a secret from everyone—including her therapist. Esther helps her delve into the importance of reconciling the different parts of herself and the role of her current therapist in her journey. Esther Callings are a one time, 45-60 minute interventional phone call with Esther. They are edited for time, clarity, and anonymity. If you have a question you would like to talk through with Esther, send a voice memo to [e-mail]. Want to learn more? Receive monthly insights, musings, and recommendations to improve your relational intelligence via email from Esther: https://www.estherperel.com/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this following session, we discuss a salt, and I want you to know this before you listen. So why are we here? What made you say, okay, I need this. Why now? And what would make it helpful? I suppose I kind of feel like I have two opposing parts that I have not been able to reconcile for years. One part is this logical part, the part that listens to my friends and family, and that part says my parents and family. my past relationship was unhealthy and I should not be with him I am not currently with him we're together for nine years married for three have been divorced and lived in separate states for two years now and then there is this deeper feeling part that can't let go

of him that i have never felt so lit up desired excited seen with anyone else before and so why now um he through all this time away has stayed constant in his love for me. He has also dated other people in the meantime, but he reaches out every few months. And we started talking again maybe two weeks ago. And I know how this sounds. Tell me that everything he says sounds right. Obviously, I'm not there, so I can't, I can only speak to what he's told me. But it sounds like he has made major changes in his life. He owns up and takes responsibility for the worst parts of our relationship.

He seems to be reckoning with those things within himself. and so we have been talking about spending a weekend together in a few weeks. When you're with Ambeck's Plathom, you get access, you get access to exclusive. Dining Experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best hapice in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca.

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With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more. See the Tim's app for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Does he know you here? Yes. How did that come up? I told him because I wanted to say everything to him before I came to you. So my therapist, close to two years ago, shortly after I left, had me write a break up letter to him. And this letter was a collection of the worst things in our relationship,

the worst moments, a sort of justifying to myself and him or reminding myself of why I left. And so I recently read that letter to him before coming in here today. because I wanted to hear how he would react, being reminded of those worst moments. And I think he reacted well. You know, he was quiet. It was clearly hard for him to hear those things. And he apologized and owned up to it.

you know when we were together I often told him it was like there was two people within him there was the person I was in love with that I knew loved me and then there was this other part that I called the stranger and this other part would take over and all of a sudden talk to me like I was the enemy and that was very combative, you know, led to a lot of arguments.

And so I asked him what happened to that part? Where is the stranger or how did you deal with that? And he said, it's still there. I recognize that it's still there, but I have to, it's a, combination of making decisions, putting myself in the right place, to not get sucked into that, and to recognize what triggers are likely to bring that part of him forward. Does your therapist, he, she did, know that you, she, does she know you here? No, no one else, no.

Okay. Does she know you're going, you're planning to have a weekend with him? No. Okay. does the logical the contingent who lives on the logical side of you do they know anything no no one else knows no family no friends he is the only person who knows okay so the emotional passionate side of you is having a secret with the logical side of you is having a secret with the logical side of you one is having a secret of the other okay so I suppose I want to be clear that I am not a victim if I ever was I am not anymore and I will never be again I know that leaving was the best thing for me and I have done a lot of work on myself, a lot of growth. I feel like a completely different person than I was when I was with him

and certainly than I was when we met over 10 years ago. Can I ask you for me to have a sense of a few of the things that are in the breakup letter? Mm-hmm. Is that okay? yes yes um talks a lot about fighting there was a lot of fighting frequent argument often i didn't know why we were fighting why he saw me as such a bitch he seemed to react to me in a way like i was looking to hurt him which i wasn't most of the time The first time that I noticed some disconnector that he wasn't emotionally supportive, this was in our very first year together, and I was finishing up grad school.

And I was going into my very last final. And that morning, he's sitting outside smoking a cigarette, looking at his phone. And rather than kind of send me off in love, he said, oh, will you go buy me a cup of coffee before you go? And I was so stunned and confused. I don't have time for that. Why are you asking me to do something for you on such a big morning for me? For exactly that reason.

What do you mean? You're too busy with yourself. You have too big a day. It's about you. It's about your professional autonomous pursuit. It symbolizes you being able to do things without me. It highlights my dependence on you. It highlights your independence from me.

And I don't like the fact that you are completely involved in something that's important to you when what should be most important to you is me. Yes. And so you may not be shocked to find out that that attitude continued. And at the time, I had never been in therapy. And so my kind of untreated whatever childhood wounds, I was at that time looking for a source of identity in another person. How old were you? I was 20.

I had just turned 24. Okay. And how much is the age difference? He is 10 years older than me. Okay. So maybe it's not only about childhood wounds. Maybe it's also about being young and immature. Yeah.

I mean, they may be both, but just to put things in a developmental perspective as well. Yeah. And I had decided that I did not want to stay in the field that I was, in graduate school for, but I also didn't have another plan. And so this guy who came along was very charming, had a career of his own, the idea of, oh, I don't have to decide. I will attach myself to this person and that will be what I do. He will be my project. And if he is not feeling well about us, my project will be to find every way possible to reassure him, make him feel secure, make myself feel deserving of him, make him appreciate me. Anymore?

All of that. And I stopped working on myself, stopped investing in my own social life, my own career and became very resentful of him that our life, you know, after a couple years when we kind of stalled out professionally, developmentally, it was all his fault in my mind. If he would just do X, Y, and Z, then I would be happy. if he would do what for example make more money work harder in his own career treat me better

allow me to do whatever I wanted if that meant sit on the couch all day and he should love me anyway and be thankful to be with me so you know we both contributed thank you I appreciate and I highly respect your insights your honesty

your ability to see how it takes to to create some of this he became your project and you needed him to justify all the sacrifices you made and so now he had to perform on your behalf so that you would not be as resentful for what you had given up. Exactly. If I am no longer me and you have to fill me, then I need you to be a double dose of everything at least. Yeah.

And the less I liked myself and the more resentful I was toward him. Yes. And him? you know, resentment built back up because I think he initially was attracted to me because I was smart, driven, independent, had friends and I, over the course of a few years, stopped being all those things. But I told him he couldn't say that to me. You can't criticize me.

Because I made it look like I did this for you. Yes. And you are not giving me enough back, and therefore you are never good enough. Yes. And so that becomes a relationship of two people who don't feel good enough and who become very fused with each other and end up at each other's trots. Yes. physically too

yes a few times mostly shoving can I ask you something in the name of this really

beautiful moment of accountability do the people who belong to what you call the logical part of me do they see the dynamic or did they buy into mean guy sweet woman i mean a few of my friends and family have used the word you are perfect they think i am perfect and he's the bad guy so the secret isn't necessarily

that you're going to see him the secret is how either you've come to represent yourself or how the story was told back then and so it becomes the story of abusive control narcissistic guy sweet victim perfect woman who needed to save herself and you're therapist what story does she go by

I don't think she would describe me as perfect good but I also think at some point I think she decided he is irredeemable he is irredeemable yes I started seeing her with him he actually found her and we went together and in the first few months she helped us immensely. Our relationship got to the happiest point it had ever been. And then he went to rehab, checked himself in, decided the drinking was unsustainable. And then when he got out, he stopped trying to work on anything else. He seemed to kind of hold on to that sobriety.

as a kind of defense against doing any further work. So I kept going, and then the arguing continued. He slipped back into old patterns. He refused to go to therapy. And after listening to me, cry and complain about his behavior for a very long time, she finally said you see it and then i couldn't avoid it anymore and it felt like she was my last hope that i couldn't get him to change on my own and when it became clear that she couldn't help either I knew I loved him, but I could not, I would not stay in that relationship as it was.

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leaving. He was devastated, sobbed and cried and hugged me, but he also, he didn't fight me or try to convince me otherwise. And he has said since then that he wished he had put up more of a fight, but I actually really appreciated that he didn't. It made me feel like he was listening like he heard me like he respected my decision and when you see the patterns came back you're referring to what he would kind of get in his own head do you know why I just smiled no when you say the word pattern you instantly think him. Now, he may come to you

and tell you all the ways he has changed or what he's accountable for or how he understands what happened. But if when you use the word pattern, you instantly point finger at him, then the change is not reciprocal enough. It's just an observation. If the first word out of your mouse is he, then your frame hasn't shifted.

I hear that. I hear that. So previously in our relationship, when I say that he would get into these kind of antagonistic moods and would pick a fight and I was often left feeling like, why, whoa, why are we fighting? Why were you offended by that? You are clearly hurt and defensive and kind of counter-attacking. And in the early days, you know, I would try to reason with him. I would cry and think, oh, if he sees how much he's hurting me, then he will realize what he's doing.

That didn't matter. matter and then eventually I started fighting back well fuck you you know if you're going to talk to me that way then I'm going to punch back twice as hard and surprise none of those worked so when he came back from rehab and started in with that old behavior I had was still in therapy still working on myself and had enough growth, internal boundaries, backbone, to just not engage. Got it. Not engage, not react.

And then I watched him. Double down? Spin on his own. Have the argument with himself. And I realized, oh, it's not about me. I am not a player in this game. You'll have the fight all by yourself. And so that's when I started to detach and kind of look at him with a sort of pity.

And that was what led to the end. How much were the two of you living with this secret? Like did people think you had a perfect, you were the perfect couple? Like people think you're the perfect person? No, no. My friends have since told me that they didn't like the way he talked to me or treated me or there was something that my dad asked me multiple times before we got engaged. Is this the one?

Are you sure? But I knew they weren't crazy about him. I'm sure they did since. something in him or in our relationship that they thought was unhealthy. I think they also, he was scary to them. He was 10 years older. He's from another country. And so I think they were afraid or felt like he was going to, and I guess to some extent he did kind of steal me away from them. Was there a part of you that wanted to get away from them?

Yes. Can we talk about that? Yes. Years ago, I would have told you that I had the best childhood. My childhood was perfect. And so why wasn't my life going? What was wrong with me? I had the best family, the best childhood,

and a previous therapist helped me see that she called it emotional enmeshment with my mother who saw me as an extension of her, a little her. I was her best friend, her confidant, her therapist. She shared so much about why my dad was not a good husband. And they eventually got divorced shortly after I left high school. So I moved halfway across the country, I think, to get some breathing room. And my dad was also very controlling, authoritarian, rigid. And I ran away to have some space, to find myself.

And this relationship was the first big decision I made, not because I should or anybody else wanted me to, but because it's what I wanted. And then you went and recreated the same emotional enmeshment. Yes. you went with the attachment model that you knew yes okay I lived with a lot of shame through our relationship shame that I wasn't thriving doing enough for me shame that I was allowing behavior and treatment from him that I know my family and friends would not be okay with.

And since leaving, I have addressed a lot of that. I'm independent. I have a thriving social circle. My life is filled with a lot of love and energy. And I still have a bit of shame about the way I feel about him. Like, I shouldn't be curious, I shouldn't be loving, I shouldn't be wondering, I shouldn't be longing for him. If I really, if I am a strong, healthy, independent woman, I would not feel this way. Can I try something for? from the other side, since you said,

I live with parts of me, different voices, different pulls and pushes. And part of you says, if I was a really strong, independent woman, I would have none of these inclinations toward him. I would know better. And another part says, I am such a smart and strong woman.

It cannot be that I made such a such a smart, such a mistake that I was so wrong in my judgment, that the one time I finally decide something that I want and not that I should or that everybody's expecting for me, it went all wrong. What if I knew something that nobody else knows? Yes, yes. I do think I'm smarter than the average bear and I can't help but think there's something other people don't see

I've got some inside track here that I guess I haven't been able to explain to the people who love me. What's it like to hear me say it? Because you often voice that one out loud. It feels a little bit like, ah, you see it too, and I have an immediate suspicion that there's a butt coming

or that it's foolish. for me to think that, that you are highlighting it so that I can hear how foolish that sounds. That's not what I was thinking, actually. I often have a sense that when people commit to someone, they are making an engagement with that person. But I often find that they're also making a bargain with themselves. This person will not.

lie to me, will not cheat on me, no one will abandon me, this person will see what no one else has seen, you know, I know something, you know, with a almost grandiose sense of confidence. I know something that no one, the inside track that you're talking about. And what is hardest sometimes from people to disconnect with is less the person that they are leaving than the conviction that led them to that person. I have tried so hard to let this go. I mean, I have drawn or tried to draw such a hard line with myself since I left. That is the past.

That was not healthy. You cannot go back. the future is ahead of you, in front of you. There are other people. But you can say to me and to yourself, that conviction I want to follow it. I'll take the chances. You know, the first time you left because you needed a root canal.

You know, it's not what you wanted. wanted. It's what you thought you should do. And it's what other people wanted for you. This time, you'll see. If you stay, it'll be because you want. And if you don't stay, it will actually be the real departure. You will maybe have to take on the next level of emancipation, which is to tell yourself, your therapist, your friends, your family, there's one more thing I need to do here that I know from the outside will look a reversal, a regression, a lack of awareness, you know. And that may all be true. But you may say, despite all of that, I feel like I need to go. And now that I know more what I want, I want to go and decide this on my own and make that

decision myself and that's a conversation for you with your therapist too so that you don't you know feel like I'm sneaking I'm sneaking behind to you don't owe anybody you know I mean in your mind I'm sure you think these people all help me leave and now and you know they're all they're going to want is to hold me back they see me plunge into the same cesspool etc but maybe you need a different leaving see your question is about can there be a new start and that's a possibility but I want to add to it and can there be a different kind of leaving you don't have to decide a thing right now you just have to watch two people come back in a conversation with a whole different level of

accountability when people come back and all they say is I'm sorry the first question to ask is for what? How much do they actually see and have taken in and taken stock and taken responsibility for their contribution to what happened? How much do they see who they were in the relationship and what they did? To just say, I'm sorry, not enough. To just talk about behaviors, not enough. Patterns, not enough. But the deep sense of understanding understanding, clarity, responsibility, accountability, that's where it starts. But the issue of the secret is important because part of it is vis-à-vis him, the other part is vis-à-vis your entourage and your world to whom you say, I need to know what I know.

In some way, if I continue to just do what you all want me to do, I stay in the same pattern in which I grew up in. I continue to be compliant and resentful, rather than independent and accountable. Do you understand? Yes, yes, yes. We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about, so stay with us.

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Listen to Criminal Wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for Criminal Plus at thisiscriminal.com slash plus Tell me what resonates for you when I'm saying

what's useful what stands out what's irrelevant what needs to be sat with what is new and feels empowering is to recognize the way I have continued the pattern of this Greek chorus is wiser than me or I owe something to them or I should do what they say

and kind of reclaiming some of my autonomy that I don't have to justify myself to them or explain myself to them. And I certainly don't have to make life choices based on what take a poll and ask the audience. I would like to think about trusting myself, trusting my own decisions, and knowing that I am the only one that has to live with the consequences of my decisions. And that feels new and different? It will be very different if you do it behind their back because that's pseudo-autonomy.

The point is, can you listen to them and listen to you? The audience sometimes does see something that you don't see. And because of that other voice that says there's something here that only I know and I have a certainty about it and you know there's a grandiosity to that piece it accompanies itself with I can take it

it's not as bad I can change it I manage to make the perfect concoction so they see that too you're smiling with your head nodding big yeses

I just want to make Yes. Okay. So you understand what I'm saying? If you're just going to shut them out and say, you know, I know better, I know something I need to go check it. And I need you to stay close by me because I don't always have a good sense of when bad is bad. When dangerous is dangerous.

When unprotected is unprotected, when abusive is abusive, when violent is violent, twin. So it's both ends. I know and I may not always know. You know, on some level, he's secondary to the plot. He's a minor plot in a bigger story.

Yes. How did the two of you frame this gathering, this meeting? He has been kind of asking for something for a while. You know, he reaches out in emails. But he reaches out for an opening or for a proper closure? For an opening. And I'm on a summer break from work.

I have some free time. And I was feeling strong. and impulsive and free. And I said, let's meet for a weekend. You fly here and we'll have a couple days. And I'm not going to tell anyone because they'll be upset and afraid and try to talk me out of it. I mean, I think my sister might lock me in her basement until I, said I wouldn't go.

But there's another way of saying this. It's not I won't tell anyone because they will. I won't tell anyone because it will activate the other part of me and it will put me in such a state of ambivalence. And I find myself either in a state of denial where I don't want to hear any of what they say

or in a state of ambivalence where it's hard to hold down to some of my own feelings because all I hear is what they say. Yeah, that if it stays a secret, I don't have to reconcile all these various voices. And I say, or I suggest, that is the purpose of the meeting. This needs a proper closure before anything else. And that closure is not just about reverse. viewing what happened between us.

It's the reconciliation of these two voices. You know, I said at the beginning, I was hoping to kind of reconcile these two parts of myself, and before I even talk to anybody else, I feel. Like I'm not as split within myself. Like these two opposing sides can talk to each other. Don't have to be in opposition. That maybe they both bring useful insights. Yep.

And I can listen to both. Tell me, where is your therapist based? Los Angeles. And she's wonderful. You know, I started worrying that saying, I have the secret from her. She's been incredible. I think that you take the session and you share it with her. And then you send us a voice note or together with her.

I think that would be a very beautiful coming together of different sources of support. Yes, I love that idea. Many people have a therapist and come to do a podcast episode, and to find ways to reconcile those two experiences is always important. Yeah, I mean, she's so loving that there is part of me that's terrified that this will hurt her feelings. Then you tell her that. That's exactly what you say. I feel like I'm letting you down.

Yes. Like you worked so hard to help me extricate myself, and here I am, you know. But I don't want to go behind you back. I want to actually use this to find my own confidence and not to feel that it can only exist if I'm hiding it from others. Yes. And everything you said to me, there's nothing that a therapist here wouldn't want to know and hasn't heard.

And, yes, every time a person is in a relationship that carries its shame and then they say they want to go back to it, they feel like they're betraying the therapist. But if they don't do that, then they feel that they're betraying themselves. Yes.

And that definitely belongs in a conversation, there. Yes. Yes. And if she says, I'm disappointed, she will never say I'm disappointed, but she may say, you know, what are you doing? Then you will say, I need to go and find out for myself. Because as long as I don't know it that I made the decision,

then I will always question and I will always live with a fantasy of there's a truth that I know that no one else does. And that fantasy does not allow me to actually connect with someone else. And on that note, I do have to go. Thank you so much. Thank you. We talk soon. Thank you.

Yes. Bye bye-bye. Goodbye. This was an Esther calling. A one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world. If you have a question you'd like to explore with Astaire, could be answered in a 40- or 50-minute phone call. Send her a voice message, and Astaire might just call you.

Send your question to, producer at esterapurell.com. Where should we begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise? We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destri Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julianette. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of where should we begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.