Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Esther Calling - First He Loved Bombed Me And Then It Was Over

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

She's grappling with the aftermath of a tumultuous relationship with a narcissistic partner. First, he love bombed her and made her feel special only to turn manipulative and aggressive in a time of need following her father's death. She doesn't know how to bounce back or how she will learn to trust again. Topic: Dating & Romantic Consumerism 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

Hey Esther, so in the last couple years I had a relationship that was basically an emotional rollercoaster of like the best of everything at the beginning and then kind of really just turned into absolutely nothing and now six, eight months after stopping contact with this person completely, I feel destroyed from it and that I'm like worthless and incredibly replaceable and I know other women have had the same exact experience with this person but also I really truly felt so much hope at the beginning of my relationship with him and I felt that I was different, I was special and he really did make me feel that way and I'm not the kind of person who just goes into any relationships or likes

that many people. It's really pretty hard for me to end. I'm 44 now and I started this relationship with him when I was 42. He's 10 years younger than me. I was confident and happy at the time, but also had given up on finding love and he offered so much. And for a minute it felt really great

and there was so much promise. And then it really started to dissolve in this way. And it also dissolves at the same time as my father was dying and he died and then everything really kind of came to a head of like just knowing this person is absolutely wrong for me and not the person I thought he was and it took another year for me to really end things with him. Three months later he's engaged to a new person and I don't know how to like bounce back

and I don't know if I can trust anybody ever again. And I want to because I want a partnership. I want long lasting love. And that was the main reason I ended things with him because I knew it wasn't gonna happen with him. And I still want that, but I don't know that I can trust anybody anymore. This is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, the show about what happens when media and tech collide.

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It's hard to listen to it too, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to listen to the parts about feeling worthless, you know? So, yeah. And that it's hard to hear that it's so much about him still, you know? Like, I've lost myself in that. You've lost yourself. Just that I lost myself in the entirety of that relationship and the idea of it and just let my own like interests and joys and who I am as a person just be very like bottom of the totem pole. I understand the principle of what you're saying, but I would love to understand the

particular. Like what happens? How did you guys meet? And then I'll ask you a little bit about who was there before, because your sense of trust can't just hinge on one man. So give me just a little bit of the story as you have lived it? So I met him on a dating app and the context was that was, you know, about two years after a very long-term, 10-year relationship that I had with somebody. And I dated some other people since then. I kind of just turned about 42 at the time. And I was just sort of like, well, you know what?

I'm just going to date on dating apps. I'm gonna maybe just have fun with it. I'm not gonna care, I'm not gonna have expectations. I mean, not exactly true, because I'm not capable of that, but I just wanted to be more carefree with it. So I opened up to dating younger men, and he kind of popped up, and then I went to meet him,

and he was a mutual friend so he knew people in our friend network. And so I kind of trusted that a little bit and then at first I just thought it might be fun and he was attractive and he traveled a lot and there was a spontaneity to the way that we interacted, you know. He was very proactive and like very, I mean, now I guess what I see is a little bit love bombing, but he was kind of measured with it at the beginning and it was very like, it just felt, it felt good. It felt comfortable. It felt like this kind of interaction I was looking for with

a man that I didn't have to work extra hard to know where they, how they felt about me. He was kind of giving it to me and I was taking it. I was like, okay, I like this. I like the way I feel with this person. And I knew he had had a lot of previous relationships, but I was trying not to like poo poo on that and just feel like, okay, maybe this person really does like me and does want to be with me. And I kind of just like went with it and enjoyed it. And we moved in really fast.

We just started like talking about not even marriage, but kind of alluding to it. And even talking about babies at like a very early stage in our relationship, maybe like two months in. And for me, I was like, this is scary territory because I'd kind of given up on having children. My last relationship ended when I was 38. I was sort of just dating and I was now 42.

I was like, I don't know if that will happen in a biological sense, but he made me kind of think, or we together felt excited about that. And it was all very fantasy and very beautiful fantasy and I just leaned right into it. I felt really good about that for the first couple of months and then things kind of changed, it shifted. So at two months you move in and then right after that things begin to go down?

Yeah, maybe a few months after that. So he moved in sort of like May and then June, July. I started to feel things just didn't feel the same and the intimacy changed. Like our sex life was very intimate, very connected. I was also like, this is the first time I've had this kind of sexual relationship with somebody and then things just kind of shifted and I tried to talk to him about it. I tried to just be like, what's the deal? And I was met with this intense kind of aggression like, oh my last girlfriend just said that same thing and you just don't want me to fuck you anymore. So that like just very mean language like that I wasn't used to and I was just like taken aback

by it and I just didn't know he was so prickly whenever I would want to talk about something it just felt like a dismissive aggressive and ultimately like why are you pushing this like stop trying to push this and it was like you're just being insecure you're just you know it's your problem yeah it's my problem and tell me something given that he was a mutual friend or that you had mutual friends and that you knew he had, that you were what you called a pattern of his and not nearly that special and chosen.

Yeah. Or you were chosen to enact a pattern one more time. Did you ever meet or speak with anyone else who knew him? That had dated him, like been with him or just knew him? Or knew somebody who had dated him. You know, this kind of information in a circle of friends is actually stuff that gets shared quite widely. It doesn't mean you hear it and you listen to it. No, of course. And I may not have either.

I mean, some of what had happened, he kind of told me about a little bit. So one of my, I think he's kind of good at keeping it from some of his friends, but in the bigger network, there was a lot of talk about and concern and actually somebody reached out to a friend of ours and told her to tell me not to trust him. But they never told me because it was right around the time that my dad died. And so everybody was worried about me and I'm trying to protect me, I think, but obviously, like scared for me. Because there's also other stories about physical abuse with past partners, some of which he had told me about in the context of our relationship.

So I kind of felt like, okay, he's talking about it. Maybe there's some learning there or whatever. Is the death of your father a big loss? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So you've just had in rapid succession two major losses. Yeah. And I think that regardless of like the information I know about him and some of what

I found out about my ex was much later after I was in like broke up with him. But one of the things I started to feel when my dad died, it was a real switch. Like he was angry and aggressive towards me and it felt like he didn't have alone time because we were living together and it was the day after my dad died and I just didn't understand who the person was I was with. I was like, who are you?

Like you told me you wanted to take care of, we wanted to take care of each other. And here I am in the worst kind of thing in my life and you're complaining about alone time and shouting at me and also he was physically abusive towards himself when I was still angry with him and I was still hurt by the way he was acting. He would physically like hurt himself and hate himself. Like hitting himself in the head and banging his head on the table and storming out. And then he would five minutes later send me pictures of us or a song or something very like emotionally manipulative.

Did you use that word then or did that word need maturation till it came up? Definitely needed maturation. I think I understood what was happening a little bit at the time, but I really didn't see it fully. I just also, I know his history is really complicated. He had a lot of deaths in his family. He is from an abusive background. He has had a horrible life in a lot of ways.

So I made a lot of excuses for him, I think, that made it hard for me to see what was happening as it was happening. You have a fairly clear understanding of what was going on and who you were with. You know that it's not personal. I mean, I'm saying it in a simple way, but there's some relief sometimes in knowing it wasn't me. It just could be anybody and the story will be the same. But sometimes we so much want to feel special that we'd rather think it's me and totally undermine our sense of self-worth. But at least we are the protagonist of the story rather than the auxiliary. I'm saying it with care because you try to understand

him, you try to make excuses for him, you try to be empathic toward him because you try to understand him, you try to make excuses for him, you try to be empathic toward him, you try to explain his current behavior because of his past history as if it's a straight line. There are lots of people with hard lives who turn out to be caring and considerate and not nearly that selfish and not nearly completely unhinged the moment

the other person isn't completely focused on them. And the invitation that I have for you is to experience the grief and the loss that your life hasn't followed a certain trajectory as you had imagined, but without taking it on yourself. There is such an attempt to blame, you know, that we so think that we are in charge of destiny, we're brought into this notion that it's all in our control and it's you make your life, and part of it is very much the case, but there are circumstances and there's that big unknown called life. You know?

Your father's illness, your father's death, you were close to him? It's complicated. I'm close. He was always in my life. He's a big presence, but he is a complicated person, presence in my life. And the way I feel about him, it, you know, of course, I mean, not of course, but it does mirror a lot of the things I have in my relationships with men. Such as? Just my sensitivity to the levels of affection. He was not a very affectionate person.

He was constantly telling other people how proud he was of me and how much he loved me, but I never heard that myself. To me it was like, oh, yeah, it's okay. You did this thing, whatever. And that reminded me a lot of other relationships I've had where they might be very like, you know, giving and telling of other people, but when it comes to me, they struggle.

They, you know, I was also the one to always poke my dad, like in the sense of like pick on his things that I didn't think he was doing right, and I didn't agree with, and I was always the one to speak up to him and challenge him. And I don't think anybody in my family appreciated that. Like, they were just like, you should be quiet, you know. Because? You should be quiet because?

Because he was an angry man. And I think my brothers were... They saw you were stalking him. Yeah. And I think I had a little bit of a protection barrier being a girl. And I don't think my brothers felt that. I think they just didn't want to deal with it. I don't think they had protection in quite the same way. Yes. How many brothers? Three.

And you are a number? Four. Three older brothers. Older brothers. And is there anyone else? No. Just my three older brothers, my mom and my dad. And mom and dad? They were together until he died. I mean, they separated for a little bit.

He cheated on her at one point. I don't know. It's hard because I've always kind of seen my dad as this very weak character that I just don't respect. But he was always also kind of there all the time and I think my mom loved him. I mean, I don't know, you know, like I know she loved him and she gave so much to him, but he really wasn't a very good parent. I don't know if he was the greatest partner either, but I think she stuck with him for a lot of reasons. And when you say he wasn't a good parent,

what sits in there? I think my dad had a lot of arrested development. I think he was like, his dad died when he was 12 and he was the caretaker of his brothers and sisters. And he was just like kind of angry. He was short tempered. He couldn't really express love and emotion in a way. Like I never really could talk to him

about anything I was thinking or feeling. Like I just, I would see other like, you know, women or friends of mine that had a relationship with their father where they felt like supported and loved and cared for. And I, I rarely felt that with my dad. There were glimmers of it, but it was so few and far between that I just felt kind of neglected by him and I felt like I triggered his anger a lot and I think he was very reactive to that all the time. So he was like a pretty aggressive parent.

He was a big drinker. He drank a lot. And I found that really hard to be around. Like just, he would just be talking about himself 24-7 and like couldn't listen to other people. But I really, it was more that I just saw how sad he probably was as a person. So that's where you had learned to bring in an additional layer of understanding and empathy for the story behind the behavior that you would then use to kind of make this behavior more tolerable and maybe even more acceptable to yourself with dad and with ex-boyfriend.

Yeah. Yeah. What about the one before? Yeah, I think always. I mean, to what extent is your ex-boyfriend a pattern for you? Well, true. He was different in the sense of, like, he's still disassociated, disconnected, and kind of not really reliable, but in a different way. My other partner was, like, maybe not reliable and scared and would just, like like kind of hide away from confrontation.

He was also like, I didn't really rely on him a lot. But now you're talking about them. Yes. And I'm asking about the pattern of you. You know, the constant factor in these very relationships is you. And this is not in order to find fault. This is also in order for you to recognize your own mind field, to recognize your own sensitivities, your own vulnerabilities, and to give yourself a sense that there is loss.

You can't get around that, and there is grief. There is a questioning of yourself. But there doesn't need to be a condemnation of yourself to the point of, I don't trust anybody, I don't trust myself, I have no idea if I will ever meet. Life is a big unknown and a deep ocean in which you don't know necessarily what lies underneath. But the attitude with which you enter in that big unknown has something to do with what you discover.

Yeah, yeah. So if you go in there saying there's nothing there, there's nothing there, your eyes won't be looking with the same intensity and the same curiosity and the same aliveness and the same ability to imagine. Then if you go in there and you say, that was a bad choice, that was not a good relationship, that was somebody who completely seduced me and ensnared me and I fell for it and I loved it and I actually still want it. I mean, that felt really great, but I want wanted from someone for whom it's not just a kind

of allure and then a hook. And the next time somebody wants to move in after two months and somebody is promising me the moon, I take it, I listen to it, but with a little bit of a healthy dose of skepticism, of a healthy dose of curiosity, of let's see where this goes, of a healthy, you know, slow, slow, right? Yeah. We have to take a brief break, so stay with us, and let's see where this goes. Support for this show comes from NPR's Planet Money.

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for full details. So where's the pattern in you? Where's the constant factor. Yeah, I was just talking to my therapist about it earlier about trying to understand who I am in those relationships. And sometimes I wonder, am I also the person bringing a similar dynamic, but I just don't have the recognition of it. Like maybe a sort of, I'm all about it, I want enmeshment, but then I withdraw at the minute that something feels hard or difficult or I don't know what to do with it and like I can't sit with it. And I...

Is that a question mark or a description? I think it's both because I don't know. I think for such a long time I thought, well, I'm not like that. I'm not afraid of conversation and I'm not. But I think there was a dynamic that existed in my long-term relationship where I think I was the one that was more dismissive and angry and frustrated. And I took a lot of things out on him, but I always thought that it was cause he was just,

he was doing things to bother me, but I didn't look at myself. And so I did see that dynamic a lot for, and I tried to understand myself a lot and who I was towards him and why he might have felt the way he felt, you know. I'm still trying to understand that, to be honest.

And I think maybe what I, you know, I did was then swing the other way because I like saw this other person is just somebody that wasn't afraid to like be with me and just say, I'm fully committed. I'm doing all this stuff. But then I just just I didn't then bring my whole self there. I didn't kind of like acknowledge when things didn't feel right and express it or I did and then once I met with something difficult, I stopped, you know. I started becoming smaller and less communicative and like in a way that I saw my ex was towards me, you know, and so I was... So you've been on both sides of the sub-dynamic.

Yeah. Yeah. And every time you say, I am this way because of the other person, I'm this way because you, you can also say you are this way because I. Yeah. Yeah. you, you can also say you are this way because I. Because relationships are a figure eight. The more I withdraw and the more I withdrew but still wanted a lot at the same time, I don't know. How does it show up?

How does it show up when you withdraw while you want a lot? I mean, you make it look like it's fine, it's fine, I don't need anything. But underneath, if you went really granular about it, relationships are lived in the details. Yeah, absolutely. So I always imagine if I am a camera on the wall, what am I seeing here? How does this thing play out for you? You're describing a very entrenched dynamic with dad. You didn't mention mom at all, but with dad, you know, you're the daughter of the house, you're the fourth, you have a bit of a leeway that your brothers don't have, you want his attention, you want

his affection, but in effect, you learn to become as removed as him. Yeah. So that if you don't get the attention or the affection, he won't even notice it because in fact you're acting like him with the expectations of you. Mm-hmm. Yes. One would see, if I look at you on the outside, what I see is someone who is removed and reserved and maybe even avoidant like him.

If I do a scan and I go on the inside, I see someone who's longing, who's yearning, who would love to know what she means to him, who would love to get close to him, but neither does she tell him and neither does he know. And part of her doesn't tell him because she doesn't think she would get it, because she doesn't think he's capable of it, but she continues to hope for it. And so there is an inside and there is an outside. And there is what she shows that is based on what she thinks that he can handle. That's the figure eight.

How does that resonate with you, what I just described? I mean, it sounds exactly right. I would say there's also a way of putting a smile on it, too of like being still, you know, like withdrawn, seeming kind of like disconnected and not available but also like maybe passive aggressive towards the person like not telling them how I feel or having to figure out the most elaborate scenario to make sure I kind of express it to them in a way that they can handle, that they can manage, that it's like I'm having to kind of control the scenario

and I think of moments like that with my ex. So you have to package it. I have to package it very, very carefully. And then you package it and at the same time you resent having to package it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So you're presenting it with a smile, but in fact your teeth would like to bite. Yeah.

Exactly. I feel very angry that I have to work so hard to bring a conversation to somebody in a way that isn't going to, going to ruffle their feathers, but I don't know how else to do it because I try other ways. Or maybe I have, I didn't try enough, but it's like I get to a boiling point. So it's like I withdraw and sometimes I've done this in friendships, you know, where I feel maybe hurt by them or I don't know how to deal with what I feel. So I just kind of go into myself

and then I get more and more frustrated and I can just spin my own wheels of like overthinking and feeling like, well, they don't care about me. This person doesn't really love me. This person doesn't really want to know me. And if I do want to tell them how I've felt in my relationship with them, I have to be very incredibly mindful of how I bring it to them.

But sometimes I just want to be really blunt and honest, but I don't, I worry that that's, we'll, you know, fuck things up with people. So I'm like, I can't do that. I've got to just like really think about it and really take my time and process, which isn't terribly bad, but it's sometimes, I don't feel like it's always the most truthful. Right. What would happen if you told them what you feel in a more unfiltered way? Are you afraid of your anger? Do you think they would leave?

They would prove to you that they really don't care? Probably. And you have to constantly put everything into cosmetic? But then you resent the fact that you have to so lose your authenticity in order to preserve your attachment that it's like they like you, but who is it they like? Yeah. They like a you that they don't know because you can't really tell them what you feel?

Yeah, exactly. Is there one person at this moment where you are in that very dynamic? Where you are in that very dynamic? Yeah, I mean I felt like it with my friends. Sometimes I feel like I can't always be myself. I mean after all of this stuff happened I was very, very, very low. And I had a lot of horrible thoughts. And sometimes I felt like being honest about those scared people and made them retreat

and I felt isolated. So I do have a fear that if I'm really honest, I'm either going to frustrate people or scare people. And I had a recent dynamic with, I don't know if it's quite the same, but this guy that I sort of started talking to and through friends was very full on. I went and saw him and hung out with him and then it just sort of changed very quickly. And I had my reservations in the beginning of when I first started talking to him and then it just sort of changed very quickly. And I had my reservations in the beginning of when I first started talking to him

and some of my friends were like, well, you thought you knew that it was gonna, or you had feelings that it wasn't gonna be great. And I was like, yeah, but I don't wanna be proved right. Like I have so much skepticism and fear going into situations. But I also try to also remain super open. And how did you interpret that?

When you say they proved me right, basically they said you knew, you heard them say you knew it, so therefore why are you so disappointed? Yeah. You knew it, what's the surprise? Yeah. You knew it, what's the surprise? Yeah. You knew it, what's the surprise, move on.

That's how I feel about it. When it's said to me like that, it's kind of like, well, you knew that, now you know, so let it go. Yeah. And then you say, or you would like to say, we can have two buckets. The part of you that says what you actually say and the other one of what you wish. Well, what I'd like to say is, well, no, fuck that. Like there's a part of me that wants to like speak up and tell this person like, hey, why do you treat people like this that you date? And like, there's a part of me that is like the fighter,

but then there's also like the part of me that like listens to everyone else. It's like, oh, don't, you know, don't give this person the energy. They don't deserve it. And so I'm like, okay, fine, I'll just move on. But there's this part of me that's like so I'm like, okay, fine, I'll just move on. But there's this part of me that's like over here being like, no, like, realize who you are in this world in this

dynamic with other people. And like, what would you have wanted to bring to him? I would have wanted to tell you like, you know, I don't understand what this dynamic was, why you were so full on in the beginning. And I mean, I don't understand what this dynamic was, why you were so full on in the beginning. And I mean, I don't know if I would word it this way, but I would definitely be like, you know, you came to me with all this, like, affection and texting and discussion. But then when I was in your reality and I was there and I wanted to spend more time with you and I was honest about that, you kind of retreated and became distant.

And that's confusing. And I found that confusing to be around. And I don't want that. So good luck to you. But I'm just telling you because that's how it felt to experience you as a person. And why do you need your friend's permission for that? I don't. But I just, I mean, it's like,

I don't need their permission for it, but I guess there's this societal thing of like, you know, there's like so much shitty dating culture and like men feel bashed by women, I don't know, lately, which I think they deserve, to be honest, but like, I don't know, I guess I don't want to be seen. Also, I hear my ex, my recent ex, I think he has a very terrible view of women.

And so I hear in my head how he's like, oh, she's going to claim gaslighting and she's going to, like he would talk about other women. So there's this real like societal thing where it's like women are too sensitive. Women are too like, women are too, they expect too much or, I don't know. I think there's something,

and I don't want to be lumped into that kind of like, oh, look, here's this girl telling me how I should be as a man. Great. And it is a deliberation. There's a part of you that says, I would love for you him to know how that felt on the other side. There's a part of you that says, I don't think he would get it.

Why bother? Which is what your friends are kind of saying to you too. Yeah. Certain people are curious and eager to learn and to get feedback. And some people won't just send it right back in your face. And that's kind of what your friends are opting on, is they're protecting you and they're basically saying, don't put energy on this. And a part of you says, but it's in just.

I want some sense of justice. And then you make your deliberation. It's like, I can bring it to him, but then if he wants to, he can toss me to the category of angry women who are blaming men for all their woes, but look at them and if they were so great, they wouldn't be there singing a lot 42. We can really turn this into a real fist fight, right? Yeah. Another part of you may just say, I really enjoyed meeting you and it was too bad that it took such a turn.

You know, the piece is, why are you saying this to him, hoping for what? If you need him to acknowledge something, that's one way. If you don't need him to acknowledge anything, you just need to feel like you said something because it's you and your conscience, then you say it. But that's a different set of expectations. Yeah. Then you don't look for his understanding and acceptance of your experience as a way to right the wrong.

Right. Yeah. And your friends, when they say you knew it, they're not really saying, I mean, maybe some say, you knew it, therefore why are you making a big deal of this? And some say you knew it, and don't let this person take more away from you. In a way, if you put more energy there, it and don't let this person take more away from you. In a way, if you put more energy there, it's more frustration and more hurt on you.

And honestly, in this jungle of dating, it's very difficult to know when, what, and which is the right response, let alone from you to the man you date, then for the women and the friends and the male friends, the damn friends, all the friends that are around you. And you're going to hear a range of responses. And those responses are partly dictated by their own experiences, partly by how they see you, partly by what you're telling them that day and the tone in which you tell it to them. And so you get a full spectrum here. partly by what you're telling them that day and the tone in which you tell it to them. And so you get a full spectrum here.

We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us. This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm talking with comedian Nimesh Patel. From his days as an SNL writer crafting jokes for television's biggest stage to developing his own comedy specials, he's breaking down the business of funny money like nobody else can. How do you actually turn jokes into cash? What's the real hustle behind making people laugh for a living? Nimesh tells all on building a comedy empire, navigating the entertainment industry, and

turning his wit into wealth. Don't quit your day job. There's no freedom like financial freedom to pursue something that you don't know is going to have a return financially. Whether you're an aspiring comedian or just curious about the money side of making people laugh, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash your rich BFF. This week on the gray area, conservative economist Orrin Cass walks me through the new thinking on the American right.

Would you rather get married and have kids or spend more money on vacations in Greece? It is actually appropriate and necessary for the good society to say, no, one of these things is better than the other and more important and should be valued more highly. So what would you pick? Vacations or kids? Do you really have to choose?

And should America's economic policy help push you in one direction over the other? That's this week on The Grey Area. New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. But I'm still wondering, what would happen if you actually went not to this guy but to the friends and you said, you know, when you say that, I know you mean really well, but at the same time, it did hurt me or I just find these openings very alluring and then you just kind of suddenly get shut down. And it's really a shock to my system. I experienced that with a lot of intensity.

I'm just telling you, you don't have to do anything. I'll figure this out. I'm an adult, you know. But it almost feels better for me if you don't try to make me feel better, so that I have the permission to feel bad. Yeah. And that is a situation that exists often in friendship. Don't make me feel better. Give me the space to feel bad in your presence and then I'll get over it. Yeah. Yeah, I was just talking actually this morning to my therapist about that slightly different thing, but like my another friend trying to get me to reframe how I feel about it. And I was like,

at some point I will reframe, but right now I just want to feel bummed about this situation. And she was like, I get it. I hear you. So I do feel like there's ways in which I'm trying to do that more for myself and like, and that dynamic to shift a little bit and also doing that for myself, you know, because sometimes I can get caught in a like, oh, I just have to like pivot this so quickly and I don't let myself just feel what I feel for a minute. Right. Before you get angry. Yeah. Right. Before you get angry, before you get into the trap between, do I preserve the relationship

or do I preserve my experience? Yeah, true. Right? It's really, you're going back and forth between, do I prioritize my authenticity, my experience, or do I prioritize our relationship and our connection? And at times they feel like they can't exist side by side. Though in the example you just gave me they existed perfectly fine. There was a good example of, yeah, I just need to feel bummed out. I don't need to. I am. I feel bummed out. And I appreciate your effort to want to perk me up, but I'm not there yet.

Is that okay with you? Can you handle me down? Well, I think to be fair, you know, I mean, not to be fair, sort of way to preface it, but my friends, you know, it was really hard going through what I went through. And I haven't even told you some of the other details of how my ex was bad. And my friends had to come to my, not my rescue, but they had to be like the person to tell me things about him while I was still with him. Tell me what happened. I mean, give me, give me what's important for us to know.

I mean, it was a month after my father died and he went to New Orleans and he was planning all these trips with his friends and then he came back and word got through that he had been texting with this woman and was alluding to the fact that he was in a complicated situation, which was about me. And I challenged him on that. And so one of my friends came to me with that information and he was very aggressive about it and angry and then didn't really acknowledge his take part in it. And I nearly split up with him at the time.

And then I ended up getting back together with him. And then I found out that he then hung out with this person again. And it was like a lie. He lied to me. And then he became even more aggressive. And that's when he became abusive towards himself, threatening to kill himself, doing all kinds of awful things, threatening all of my friends, saying that he was going to

go to their house. And he said awful things about people. I don't even want to repeat it, but it's just he was threatening them in this really disturbing way and it really scared me. And that was within about a month or two after my dad died. So I was like pushing him, but I was also just so fragile still

that I didn't know what to do with it all. I was just really shocked by most of it. And I didn't tell my friends the stuff that he, the way that he was. I didn't tell them until after I split up with him. But it was scary. It was very scary. But I know that they knew he wasn't safe at that point. And so I think they were really trying to protect me

and trying to be part of my life, but didn't know how to like do that well. So I think, you know, they've had experienced a little bit of their own like trauma with me, not trauma is maybe a hard word, but I think they were really scared, you know, for me. And have you ever said that to them? Yeah, I have.

I have. I talked to some of them, especially the ones that were like right at the middle ground of all that, that I understood what they were trying to do. And I, yeah. So I just think they, that's where I think they're just so, they're very protective. They are like my, I've known them since I was 13 years old, so they just want me to be, you know, healthy and happy. So I get their motivation to reframe

and to make me think about it healthier, but sometimes I'm not there yet. Do you tell them how much you appreciate it? Yeah, I do. Maybe not enough, but I do. I try to. You can never do too much in that department because if a friend sees you go back to someone

who is lying, threatening, cheating, dominating, controlling, using their power maneuvers, banging their heads to elicit your rescuing, your pity, to disarm you. And you're in that entire escalation and then they see you go back. It's scary. Well, that's why I didn't really tell them about that part of this behavior. But then you don't tell them because you feel, because you know, and you know better,

and you're ashamed because you don't want to tell them, but you feel like maybe you are so smart, and you are so capable, and you are going to change them, and you are going to stop them, and you are to stop them and you are so unique and what you had together was so special it can't be that it was just one big mirage and so there is a kind of a grandiosity of thinking that matches the grandiosity of the narcissistic abuse. Yeah. It's, I can handle this in a crazy way. No, you can't. grandiosity of the narcissistic abuse. Yeah.

I can handle this in a crazy way. No, you can't. No, it's not that you can't, you shouldn't. It's not a way to live. Neither for him nor for you, but it's not a way to live. So being there is worse than not being there. But in that moment, it feels the reverse. Yeah. It's a real distortion. But in that moment, it feels the reverse. It's a real distortion.

And it's very powerful. And it kind of completely blinds you of the reality that you are in. And the worse it gets, and the less you want to tell your friends what he said, what he's going to do, and you don't want to tell them because then he looks even more dangerous and threatening and crazy, and then you being with him looks even more that there's something really the matter with you. And so this is how these kind of cycles perpetuate themselves. Because the shame that you have about being there is now becoming the fuel for the secret

of the people who could help you not be there. Is that captured? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's taken every month that I have not had any contact with him. I understand a different layer each time of that dynamic and that what you said about the grandiosity that matches the narcissism and the narcissistic abuse and just realizing

all of that stuff and all the shame that I kind of carried. And I had my own reasons for being in it and getting whatever it was that I was getting from it. Meaning? I just think I was, I still felt this this tiny portion of love and specialness to a degree. I think that was part of his dynamic with me is that I think he could sense that I was not wanting to put up with it and then he would just double down in some ways.

But then in both ways, you know, double down in the love kind of and then double down in also the like the confusion. Yeah. And the demeaning. Yeah, exactly. And so I just, and I, that's when I really feel like I very much lost like all sense of my own intuition and thought process. Yeah. It has that effect. Yeah. The kind of back and forth between elevating you and making you feel like you're the only one who can understand him and you're so special and so special, and then basically literally dropping you on the other side

of the nothingness and the meaninglessness and the demeaning has the effect of robbing a person of their identity. of their identity. There is another form sometimes that we have of wanting to feel special that sometimes makes us think that we can handle things that in fact we shouldn't have to learn to handle. That's true. That's a different perspective of the word special. I can take it. And then when your friends say, you can take it, you're pissed.

Because you want to be able to say, I can take it, but you would like them to be able to say, I can take it, but you would like them to be able to say, lean on us. You don't have to be strong, resistant, hardcore who can take it all the time. Yeah. And so you go back and forth. And this conversation ends with three dots at the end of a sentence, not with a nice bow and not with a conclusion. But hopefully with a little more clarity. Yeah.

And what else? I think clarity and compassion is something I have been thinking a lot about, compassion and asking for compassion, but giving it to myself, but also just living in the world with more compassion and holding onto that more in a very real way. I think I've just lip service to it. It doesn't work. Yeah.

Okay. Cool. All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you very much. This was an Astaire 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 Esther, and it could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call, send her a voice message and Esther might just call you. Send your question to producer at estherperel.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 Julian Att. 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.