Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Esther Calling - He Doesn't Believe in Marriage, But I Can't Let Go of the Hope

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

When her younger sister gets engaged, a woman finds herself spiraling with unexpected grief and frustration. She’s spent years in relationships with men who shy away from marriage, and the news stirs up deeper childhood wounds—secrets about her family and questions of belonging. With Esther’s help, she begins to face the shame she’s carried and the tricky balance between wanting to be seen and wanting to stay true to herself. 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

My younger sister just got proposed to. And the hurt, the heart that I feel, it's so overwhelming. My partner of age years is amazing. After multiple, multiple conversations that we had, he just doesn't believe in the institution, doesn't believe in the ritual, doesn't believe in the romantic side of it. And he made it very clear that this is not the path for us. and most of the time I'm okay with that. I can't kill the hope, but I live happily

and those moments when somebody close to me experiences something that I deeply so much desire. I feel the pain really, really deep. My other sister, I'm the oldest of the three, also got proposed about three years, four years ago. And it was also a very difficult experience, and I remember processing it in a little bit different way. I think I tried to just bottle my emotions

and pretend that I didn't need it. Today it's a bit different. I feel like I want to let those emotions out. Growing up as a child from a different biological father to my sisters, created quite deep wound for me of being somehow not enough or different or just outcasted. Maybe this experience is kind of replicating this desire.

because I had multiple relationships and we always had that same issue where the person would be against it and I would drop the relationship. It's just without that ritual, without that jewelry, without that party, without that public declaration. But that pain, like I feel now,

it beats me. I feel like maybe it will never go away. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from The Guardian. Not all journalism is the same. Take the Guardian. Their coverage has something special, fierce independence. Nobody owns them or tells them what they can and cannot say. So they seek to report the whole picture.

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It was, I think it subsided a little bit. But when I send it, I don't even remember pressing the button, you know, to record it. because it was so raw it just had happened and it took me by surprise what took you by surprise your announcement or how much it pained you how much it pained me because i thought i had already resolved it within me and it just clearly showed me that it i didn't can i ask you Yeah. A question about what you said. When you say it hurts so much and there's something about it that taps into my need for belonging,

my fear that I'd want, and what's the pain point for you? It's embarrassment. It's some kind of shame. It's like a pain of being left out, a pain of somehow being not. good enough to get into this VAP club, somehow that there is something broken about me. Right, right. That's what I heard as well. Why can't I join you?

What's it about me that I can't enter here, that I can't be legitimized in this way? Will I always be one down, one out? yes that's that's the fear and that's the feeling yes have you brought this at all to your boyfriend

not with a request but even just simply has he ever heard that message yes he has because I was resolving other issues of being different and especially when I started exploring

this pattern of me being from the different biological father when I started to get into the topic through. So I have made a connection for him. Why is it so difficult for me? And I think he does truly understand, but he doesn't really see how deeply it is affecting me, wanting something that is beyond him and he has made it before that he said it will never be enough for you and he's not the first man that told me that the ring will never be enough for you the ring will not be enough for what to be fulfilled or like i've complete or feel like i've arrived or is that really the case i mean do you experience that too it's not a about is it true? But do you experience some of that? Do you wonder, is there something deep

inside of me that continuously questions my sense of belonging? Or would this symbolically actually give you an experience of being welcomed into what you call the VIP club? I think it does feel like, probably both hand and all. also like I do feel that the public declaration that means quite a lot to me. So when I imagine or dream about the event, it's usually what brings out the most joyous sharing it with people. And so we will be sharing with my work colleagues or sharing it with my friends or my family instead of something like two people experience together. Because I feel like I have all that.

Like I have the marriage. I feel like I have it. The relationship is close and we feel connected and we always think about growing all together. So all that I feel like I have. Right. Can I ask you to tell me a little bit more about the family constellation?

that you grew up in because what I'm hearing from you is there's a set of very deep and painful feelings that travel with you through life and they originated in your family of origin and then there is the relationship that you are in and then there is the meeting between these two and how one is telling the other here are some things I need from you what how How did you enter the family you grew up in? So it was always a taboo. It was a secret. I was never meant to know it.

Okay. So we... Okay, let's hold on a second. Just sit with this. Because the secret is on the other side of the public declaration. It's important that we understand why this matters in the way that it does. Otherwise, it's just we're going to have, I don't believe in marriage, I don't believe in the institution, I don't, I want the ring, I want the white dress, I want. There's something, there's a deeper story here that involves shame, that involves secrecy.

It's about that, more than about marriage. It's the stuff that marriage tries to cover up and sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn't. So you were not supposed to find out. So there's a story here. Tell me, can you tell me a little bit of the story? Yes. So my biological father left us when I was two years old because he had another family.

And my mom met my dad very soon after, and he adopted me. And they decided to never tell. But we lived in a very small town. and where people don't keep secrets very well yes and I started to hear it

when I was seven first from the kids because they heard it from their adults in the neighborhood then they heard it again in school but I never told them I wrote in the diary in the separate color and I remember used to hit these pages used to flick through them

but I told them what they told me and you told who Just the diary. I never really told my parents or anybody about. So you told your diary, I know a truth that no one wants to talk about, but you did not approach mom or dad. You called him dad? Yeah. He thought he was your dad. Yeah.

And I didn't approach my parents to let them know that I had heard something. And so how did you, as this little girl seven years old, live with that discovery? That must have been so heavy, so confusing. Yes, it was very heavy and it was so embarrassing and I hated these people. I can see their faces now when I remember them saying it in their childish way, really, saying, well, I've heard that this is not your dad, but I somehow just pushed it away. Can you say it in the language it was said to you? Chenotavutatus, that's a Lithuanian language.

And they would make fun of you when they would say it? I felt like they pitied me. They pitted you. That was exactly the words for me. Yeah. There's where children or adults? Some older a little bit, some younger, some of my peers at different stages when I was 7 and 12. I think I remember two occasions.

that really stuck in my mind. But then over the years, I just never brought it up. And I brought it up once to my grandmother, but she said, oh, don't listen to them kids. You know, they talk nonsense, and that was kind of brushed off. So I felt good in the moment, but I still felt like there was something not right.

My dad showed me so much love. I never, you know, felt excluded. If anything, I felt like more probably paid attention. too. But then we had a big conflict when I was 18 and it kind of came out or was about to come out and I just said to him, I know what you're going to say. He was very surprised because he couldn't believe that I knew. And I said, I knew all my life.

I knew it. That's such a big thing to hold and carry all alone like this. even from people who wished that you would just have a normal childhood that you would never feel excluded I mean in a way what they wanted so much to achieve by creating the secret is what they ended up creating yeah they wanted you not to feel ashamed they wanted you to feel like you belong they wanted to feel that your dad was your dad that the man who raised you was your loving father and yet because you knew it, then what did you do with those two realities? I just, I feel sometimes that I had these feelings that my dad wasn't good for me,

that somehow I was creating conflict with him. And I think over just past five years when I started to uncover this and that the deep wounding that it has caused, I started to change the relationship with him. started to say more thank you for what he has done for me and that I know he was not perfect. He

struggled to show love to any of us because of his own upbringing and he was a bit distant so the household was run by the women, by my mom, my grandma. So my sisters came a lot later than me. But now I

just feel like our relationship got a lot better since I have spoken about this openly, but not to him. I spoken to my mom who still struggles to go back to that time. I still try to piece together the narrative of what happened in those first two years, but it's like pulling and pulling, trying to get more and more information. Unfortunately, my grandmother, who really wanted to tell me, I think, the story, she passed away before I started to dig deeper into this five years ago.

So five years ago is when you were 18 and it all came out? No. So I'm nearly 40. So five years ago, I actually started to check. What happened five years ago? Well, first of all, what happened at 18? What was this first revelation when you said to your dad, I know what you're going to going to tell me. And he realized that you had lived with a truth or with a secret that they thought they had been able to keep from you, hoping to protect you. But in fact, it inflicted a big wound. If we had time, I would say what happened at 12, what happened at 7, and what happened at 18 and what happened at 34, right? Those are four major milestones for you, but we may not be

able to get through all. So let's start with the 18. So after that, my parents were going through a very difficult time in their life, in their relationship. I think that's, I was always kind of in the middle of this, this conflict. Obviously, he was distraught. He thought that he was going to lose me and I just wanted to soothe them, say it's fine. It doesn't mean anything. I know that you're my dad. I don't want to know anything. That was my 18-year-old talking. I'll take care of you, basically. Don't be sad. I will take care of you. Don't worry about it. I'm not going to hold it against you. And you were all focused on him. And mom, maybe more even though. And to mom, you said what? That I'm okay, that they do need to worry about anything.

And I was soon after left and never came back. That moment of the 18-year-old just was, I never explored it. I never wanted to go deeper. I just wanted to make sure that they are okay and they're not making, I'm not making them feel worse. Because making them feel worse, meaning what happened? your parents had their fair amount of conflict. But your mother always had to be thankful that her husband had married her when she already had a child.

Yes, and she had her own shame. She still has, I feel, like, this big shame, because she was very, very young. I think my dad may be sometimes. use this situation with her. I don't know the full story. But your mom had a relationship with a man who was married. Yeah. And she was a young woman and she got impregnated and he disappeared and she had the child alone with the help of her mother and father. And father. And they welcome you? Yeah, it was so much love. I feel like my grandparents were, I adore them. Well,

they're not here anymore, but. Yeah, but they welcomed you. Yeah. Yes. We have to take a brief break. So stay with us. And let's see where this goes. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Shopify. Starting a business means that there's a never-ending to-do list. So finding the right tool that can help you simplify everything can be life-changing. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S.

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for future generations. For limited time, in honor of Jane's life and legacy, 100% of net proceeds from the Jane Goodall collection will support the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation Fund's critical conservation work. We lived in this very small household. We lived in a very small space, a lot of us.

So I was always protected and felt very loved. And was your mother loved for having gotten pregnant with a married man? Or did the love come to you and the shame went to her? And then she just had to find someone to marry her and not wonder if that was the man that she wanted to be with or loved or felt loved by, that she just had to take whatever was going to be available to her or whoever would want her because she no longer belonged to the VIP club. Yes, and it was a small town. It was a lot of shame in there, especially in those years. She had big support, though, from my extended family.

I think they really protected me, all of them. They protected you, and my question is, did they shame her? Not that they needed to do anything very proactively, that behavior in itself. She never expressed it, but when I tried to talk to her a few years ago about this, trying to find out the story and narrative she feels so ashamed and she is she she cannot go there she struggles and i mean it's been nearly 40 40 years and she struggles to go there so i think she still carries this big guilt or maybe shame shame more than than guilt and how do you think her shame

for what had happened to her influenced how she related to you you say everyone else protected you how about her I feel like I

protected her a lot I felt I feel like her emotional state kind of was declaring my safety. So if she was safe, I was okay. Or if she was okay, I felt safe. And if she, she was very emotional throughout our lives, tried to control a lot of the environment. And I felt like it was very, we were very codependent. So it felt like we were talking all the time.

very entwined in our together and separate from sisters, more so. And I just felt like I needed to break that connection and reconnect in a different way, because it felt too painful, felt unhealthy. It felt really like she was living her life through me in many ways. I was always supposed to be the perfect one to go to get a degree, to get to study, to be the first one to achieve things. All things that she had not been able to do? I think so, yeah.

So she was going to live vicariously through you? I think she did until these past years when we started to change the dynamic in the family. So you started the journey of differentiation? Yeah, it was very painful. but I made really big steps since COVID. COVID just opened the whole pot of it, really. That's when I started to feel again that shame that I was getting into relationship. Another one, a third one, where the marriage was not on the cards.

And I felt again that I was going to drop and leave because that's what I always did. I would get committed, I would get to the point and I would leave. And I didn't want to leave this time. This time I wanted to, because it was so obvious that it was happening again, exactly the same story with a very different person. And exactly the same story meaning? That I get loving, I get in a very good relationship, we're very close, we are very happy

but then it's just thought enough to make that step to make that commitment like that public commitment it would always be something that stops it and I didn't know why and I always felt like

no that's not working I'm going to try again I'm going to try with somebody else I spoke to my sisters and my mom and how was your conversation with them it was very painful but I think

they understood it, my sisters especially because they felt like my and mom's relationship were very odd. Was the VIP club that they couldn't enter? Yeah. Right? There are many VIP clubs in this system. So you and mom had a particular closeness

that your sisters could not compete with and could not enter. And you wanted to decide on your own terms if you want to be in a relationship that may not materialize, or evolve into marriage without having to feel that you are actually repeating what your mother went through.

So every time you left, you were basically saying, I'm not going to experience what my mother went through. I never thought it like that when I did, but... I know. I saw your face. But that's another... It just adds another layer to this.

It's that she too, started out her story with someone who wouldn't be public. It's, you know, it's not just that there was a secret inside of you, but you were a secret in this man's life. Yes. With mom, you were not a secret, but there was a secret about who you are and where you come from. come from and all of that.

And do you ever discuss the possibility of what you call the public declaration separately from marriage as a symbolic act of acknowledgement, celebration? I have brought it up not longer. I think it's because I listen to many different ways of doing it, but that's when he said I don't think that will be enough for you. But that's maybe not for him. to decide. Yeah.

I mean, that's a good answer to kind of say, I don't want to do something, and it won't be good for you either, so we should do it. But we don't know. And even if it doesn't take care of the entire wound, there's something about the symbolic nature of just having a few people at a table

or not at a table, wherever you want, for that matter, who recognize, acknowledge, celebrate, ritualize your relationship. If you celebrate your birthdays, you may celebrate an anniversary. You know, it may not fill the entire gap of the original wound, but so what? Maybe that's not the purpose either. The purpose is to do small gestures.

that respond to the shame. Shame is about hiding. When we feel ashamed, we hide. We don't want to see people. We don't want them to see us. And we think there's something wrong with me rather than something happened to me. When we make a public declaration,

it's exactly the opposite. And you can do little gestures like that. They honor, they legitimize, they make it known they're not hiding maybe little things maybe little things between the two of you too

it doesn't just have to involve the community and because you grew up in a small town you had the village but basically you had the community at your doorstep and they came in

even if you didn't want to here you would get to invite them and you would choose who you want to invite and so would he and it would just It doesn't need to carry a name even. It feels so strange.

I don't know. It's like as if I am scared to do it. Scared to. It's not so much that he would not let me. It's more like that I somehow don't want to do it. Say more. That's when I was thinking about this. desire thing, an obsession, I feel sometimes that maybe it's me who doesn't want it.

It's that just thought that just came to my mind very, like in the past maybe 48 hours. Me that doesn't want what? To declare it publicly. Him, us, it? It, like, the relationship that. that it's I don't know I have this feeling that deep inside is what he actually wants that he would like that but not you

yeah and I know it sounds twisted but I don't get it no it's just the opposite of what you said before but it's you know I like twisted so tell me more So what's, if you had the voice that he's the master of ceremony and that just creeps up right now, where's the resistance? That it's just not me. It's just not what I do. It's not, I never dreamt about it.

I never imagined it. I never had, you know, even. I never imagined. What? Any of these rituals, I never imagined ever in the dress even, or I never imagined myself going through the ritual. How did I imagine myself? Just being okay with things as they are, being unique and different

and kind of proving that I don't need this. They call me the daughter-in-law. So when your sister announces that she's getting married, your first response is loss. Yeah. Loss of a certain story, loss of a certain set of societal expectations that you won't be following upon, loss of the sense of homogeneity between you and your sisters.

And then it switches from. from the loss and the sadness and the pain into I'm different, not just because I had a secret, but now I'm taking that difference and I'm turning it into how I choose to live and what I want to live by and which one of the rituals of our society I actually want to adhere to.

And so I turned the whole thing upside down. Okay. But that just happened 48 hours ago. Yeah, like, very recently, I just don't even know why that thought came to me, because I was thinking, I was preparing what to say, and over a sudden it just kind of came that thought. It kind of came as a question, like, do you really want to do this, or is it just what you told yourself for past 10 years? And then you added to it, but I think he won't. wants it more than me? Yeah, because I said it's about he doesn't believe in institution,

but he's writing the wedding speeches for his friends, you know, as if it was his full-time job. And he loves attending all these ceremonies and all these, it just seems a bit odd to me that somebody who doesn't believe in an institution participates in it so wholeheartedly. Everyone, their contradictions. So when he says to you, this won't be enough, what's he really addressing?

Because now you've conveyed, I say I want something that may not really be the thing I want, but I want something. So what is the it and the something that is not being properly named? That he says, no ceremony will take care of it. And you both seem to never name this it. or at least I have not I'm not sure I capture but you seem to each know

something that lies underneath it's not so much my worth but it's like a prize it's like the final jewel you know in this whole thing it's like a final piece of the puzzle so I have this whole thing that works for me but I'm missing that one little

puzzle piece maybe I thought that was that commitment that ritual that ceremony would kind of put that piece in but I just don't

now I say it and I don't think it that it would can I suggest a thought for you just came up for me and you tell me if that adds some clarity When you talk like that, I want to have a ceremony, I want to get married, I want to have a celebration and all of that because I think it would officialize me, it would make a declaration and all of that. On some level, you don't mention him. It's like he's being recruited for a part, but it's not about him.

And I'm wondering if part of him saying, I don't want to do this, this will not add it, this won't fix it. It's because you're asking him to do something that isn't really his role. In a way, you're asking him to do something that your parents haven't done. You're asking him to legitimize, to officialize. And he's not the first person I asked that as well. but he's the one where you decided not to go so there's a part of you that knows

that there's certain things that you want from him but it's not about him and it's actually not about marriage either no I just don't know what I want what is it really that I want we'll be back with a session right after this and while we love our sponsors if you want to listen to this session ad-free

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Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca.ca slash y-annex. If you turn to your parents now, not to your boyfriend, but to your parents. And you talked with them about a public declaration, turning shame into pride, acceptance, acceptance that doesn't sit on a secret. and primarily, releasing the secret so that you don't have to hold it in order to protect them. That's the release.

They told it, but it was too late. They said it. No, they just said one thing. Where was the conflict you had with your dad at 18? That led him to let the cat out of the hat, as they say? I discovered his affair and told my mom about it. He called me. He was very, obviously he thought that that was it.

There was at the end and he was angry and he just wanted to hurt me, I think, at that time. I was in university back home. I only went there for a very short time before I moved away. So he was saying you want to hurt me by making me public to your mom. Let me tell you. And I know what I can use to hurt you. But he couldn't because I kind of interrupted. But that wasn't he told me.

That wasn't him telling you. No. That was him basically exercising revenge. You think you have one up on me? let me tell you what on you. That's a different game. And your mom, you still haven't had a conversation with her about it. I had it in terms of, when I had five years ago started to go through this,

I called and cried and said, you know, this is really deeply hurt me. So I did say everything then what I felt. And was she able to hear you? Not fully. think we had another conflict a couple of years ago where I she took it so badly that she said you know because I I said I'm still she still wanted to have the same physical kind of connection you know where we were very close and I I needed space and she took it very badly she took it very hurtfully she was hysterical and I after she can't

down and I calmed her down as I said to her that it's it's not that I don't love her is that it's suffocating me and that's that I need to disconnect from her and I need my sisters to step up into this relationship so I am not the one who is always looking after her emotional being and you know all these conflicts with my My dad that she had, she used to share with me, and I said, no, not anymore. I don't want to hear anything anymore. And actually, their relationship would be proved now because I think I stepped down. I stepped down.

I stepped away. I moved. My sister stepped up. They started to feel a bit more out of my shadow. So you did a lot? I did a lot for the family. You did a lot of family restructuring. Yes.

Beautiful. but she still struggles to talk about it but she's trying she wrote me a lot of letters to say how she doesn't know what comes over her and I understand because I know how these wounds work

she's been very gentle and soft in our conversations but also I feel like she downplays the experiences of my sisters which is not fair because, you know, I want to celebrate with them. You know, they are beautiful experiences for them and important, and I want them to celebrate it.

But I feel like I'm just always in the way with all this with my stuff, especially with the trio, the triangle of me, my mom and my dad, and the invisible man somehow. It's four of us there. And then they are on the sidelines. Tell me if I hear this, right? I look at my parents' marriage, and it is official, and it is sanctified by the church, and it is legal by the state, and yet it is filled with secrets. my secret of my origin

but also my father's affair and who knows what else I look at me and my boyfriend and my partner and we are not sanctified nor legal nor recognized by any public institution but we don't have secrets

we grow we are open we're there for each other and here I am facing the opportunity, but also the falsity of what the official declaration presents and means versus what happens in the actual experience of the relationship, even if the titles are not there. Did I hear it accurately? Yeah.

Yes. So I always wanted an opposite of the relationship. That's what I always was going for. I want truth, authenticity, trust, honesty, safety, discovery, exploration, growth, all these beautiful, juicy things in a relationship. And I want that to be declared. I can find ways to create rituals and celebrations. and opportunities to bring in the community, whoever I invite. It's not sure that I want all the titles,

when in fact it feels that behind that there's a web of secrets and unacknowledged truths. And I started this process five years ago, and my sister's announcement of her marriage, led me to the next step in this process. Yeah, I feel like it's a big step what happened over these past 48 hours. Something shifted, I think, more than it shifted then, even.

How is this? it's it's it's landing it's um it's landing better but i hope i'm not just trying to soothe myself it's you know like because i'm such a storyteller like i'm just hoping that i'm not just doing it because it sounds good it sounds better yeah um so that's what i think i'm i want to start to see if if this thought is taking because it's quite fresh. This is a story, but so is the other version. And you can decide which story you want to live by. It's not like there is one true story and the other is not.

At least not here. 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, 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 esteraparelle.com. Where should we begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnific.

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, Destry 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. I'm really pleased of the Jane Goodall Collection with Brilliant Earth connects to my vision of how we can live in harmony with nature. Every choice we make ripples outward and you can choose what sort of impact you make. I know that the things I've worked for all my life will carry on.

Discover the Jane Goodall Collection exclusively. a brilliant earth. I'm Beth Gerstein, co-founder and CEO of Brilliant Earth. Our partnership with Dr. Jane Goodall has always been deeply personal, reflecting our shared mission to protect people and the planet

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