Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Esther Calling - I Lost Him, But I Lost Myself Too

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

She lost her husband five years ago. Now, she's finally ready to start picking up the pieces of her life to begin dating. Esther talks her through what it might mean to reframe her memories of their relationship. This conversation contains discussions of depression and death by suicide. Please take care listening. For the first time on the U.S. stage, Esther invites you to an evening unlike any other. Join her as she shines a light on the cultural shifts transforming relationships and helps us rethink how we connect, how we desire – and even how we love. To find a city near you, go to https://www.estherperel.com/tour2024 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 next session, we will be talking about death by suicide. I want to take a moment to warn you in case this material is not for you. I lost my husband of 25 years to suicide back in May of 2018. It was the most emotionally devastating experience I've ever had in my life. And while I've done the work to know that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, what I'm most curious about now, as I think about potentially entering new relationships. There's no one on the horizon, but just something I think about. What I'm curious about is what did I miss?

Like what behaviors did I normalize and settle for? Because he was so different from men I had come to know in my childhood and early adulthood. You know, I often did the heavy lifting emotionally in our relationship, concerned that I normalized behavior that was maybe abnormal. How could I have saved myself from such an emotionally devastating experience? Like, should I have left sooner? Just trying to get to the bottom of that if I can. hello hello how just out of curiosity how do you know where should we begin or how do you know? Yeah, I started listening somewhere in like 2018, maybe 2017. And I would play them sometimes at night, hoping my husband, something would resonate in there for him. What message did you hope would infiltrate his sweet dreams or not sweet dreams. Yeah. Just that everybody's struggling and that relationships take work.

And was also hoping that he could just, I don't know, get a glimpse or hear something that might help him, not just us, but him. He had a pretty tough, not so much a tough exterior, but probably was a little confused about what was going to actually help him. He was usually thinking that the surface stuff, the next big job, the next big title, the next big salary, that those things were going to help him. With what? With his mood, with him being depressed, with his anxiety. Was that the main thing he grappled with or was his anxiety about something? His anxiety was definitely always around work. Whatever problems we had typically stemmed from some situation that he was having at work. He just made that his identity. I almost felt like sometimes it was his wife. And his source of identity meant his sense of competence, self-worth, place in the world, status.

Competence, all of that. He was a young man born in the projects, Puerto Rican, and only boy in his family. His father died when he was young. He worked really hard to make a life for himself and to define himself in other ways. And he always grappled with that being taken away. And somehow he was going to end up back in the projects, even if it wasn't even something real. It just seemed like sometimes it was often things that maybe he fabricated in his head out of, like the fear would just take over. So he was a young man of color who came out of poverty and was haunted his whole life about.

Yeah. And I won't say out of poverty. He grew up with his parents. His father was a police officer, but his father died of cancer when he was like 16 years old. And so he did see the people around him that weren't doing well. So it was always like this dual personality. He lived in the projects, but he went to a very prominent private school. So it was always this living in that world and then having to come home and live in a different world. What do they call it? When you think you continuously are a fraud and you don't belong and you're going to be found out. Imposter syndrome. Is that a word that was ever used? No, never used it because he was so brilliant.

He was so smart. He was so bright. There was nothing that he could not put his head to and achieve and was always striving. And so I lost him in 2018. 2018, he hung himself in our home after several months of really, really deep depression and anxiety. It was like the worst I had ever seen for him. He just couldn't see his way through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just really couldn't see his way through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just really couldn't.

And you tried for how many years to help him? Yeah, so we were married for over 25 years. We had celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in September, and then he took his life in May of the following year. And you tried to help him to see the light or some light? Yeah, it was always, it was episodic, you know, like over 25 years, there were these pockets of times when he wasn't doing well, but it always was around work. You know, I just want to ask you before, because this has been such an enormous and devastating experience for you. Is that what you want us to talk about today?

Because those were the 25 years you've lived. We are five years later. And you tell me I need to process more the suicide of my husband, what I did, what I didn't do, what I wished he had experienced, what I wished I had said or didn't say. We can go there. But you may have another question too. I just want to make sure that we start where we need to start. Yeah. I think where I am now, five years later, I know that there was nothing that I could have done differently, nothing I could have done to save him.

But what I grapple with today is what did I miss? What did I miss? What did I miss? What did I allow? What abnormal behavior did I normalize? Of yours or of his? Of his, because I think ultimately now he's gone and I'm the one left, you know, and I struggle with, could I have done something to save myself from experiencing that level of trauma to come in and see that? And yes, I've done a lot of work and I'm very much healed from knowing that I could have done something different to have impacted him. Now what I'm concerned with is... What happened to me? What happened to me when he did display behaviors that were abnormal? Why didn't I leave?

Meaning? You know, telling lies around work, like he was going to get fired or things that just never really seemed to be true. Also, he would check out, just basically emotionally be checked out. Now, I know some of that had a lot to do with his anxiety and depression, but there also were times that we didn't have a very active sex life. So I think about when you're in it, it seems like you don't necessarily see it that way. But when you're outside of it and you start to see the totality of it all, I can be a fixer, I can be a rescuer. And I feel like I always did the heavy lifting in the relationship, that I had the emotional capacity to do that. And I just wonder sometimes

if I didn't do right by myself, didn't do right for me. Someone had pointed out to me, they said, well, but if you had left and then he had taken his life, you probably would feel that somehow you should have been there. But it's five years later and I would like to at some point be in a relationship. I'm 55. I had a lot more love to give. And I just want to make sure that I'm right, you know, in terms of making decisions and not rescuing people and looking out for myself. Tell me if I hear it correctly. As I understand it, you spend 25 years or whatever years, you spend a lot of years focused on your husband, on his mood, on his crisis of self-worth, on his panics about how he was going to be dispossessed.

And you accepted a disconnect between you and him because he felt he had nothing to give, so he didn't have much to give to you either. You became his nurse. You were constantly watching for him, tracking him, making sure that he's not doing what he ended up doing anyway. I'm sure this was not a complete surprise or is that accurate? Yeah. I see your head shaking. Yeah. At the end, it was pretty obvious. Yeah. Right. And basically you put your needs aside because he became the focus because while he felt very very weak on the inside he actually took up a lot of space between the two of you and you could not ask for any connection

any intimacy any sexuality any physicality and basically to keep him alive, a certain deadness entered into you. Yeah. And you wonder, what did that mean for me to live with that kind of abnegation? And what effect does it have on me today? I know something about myself that I can be a real caretaker of the first degree, a fixer, a rescuer. And I would like to be in a relationship, henceforward, where somebody takes care of me for a change, a little bit at least. Yes. And I don't want to portray that the 25 years was all just horrific because they weren't. They really weren't.

He was a good man. He was a loving man. I never doubted that he loved me and cared for me. I just knew that he cared for work a lot more. And I didn't grow up with my dad and I didn't grow up. I don't have any brothers. But the men that I did know, it was kind of like, okay, there's worse things someone could chase after. You know, he's chasing after education and

titles and credentials and like, he's not chasing women. So, you know, it's okay. I don't hear any blame from you. This is not about a revisionism of the marriage or a blame. This is you saying, kind of taking stock and saying, now that I can finally think a little bit about me as well, I want to know what happened to me over this many years in this relationship. And what do I want to pay attention to from here on? I don't hear you trying to say I feel this because he did this to me. We have to take a brief break. Stay with us. So how did you become such a good rescuer, such an amazing caregiver? Some of it was meeting him, I think. Yeah, but you had skills, or did you only hone your skills with him?

You know, I had been in a helping profession, you know, work with cancer patients. And I don't know, it's probably just my heart. I think I've always just had a bit of that. Can't say that it was taught because I didn't really gain that at home. But did you learn it in your own growing up? Did you have circumstances that made you hone those skills? Yeah. I took care of my little sister. Oftentimes, we were nine years apart. We were nine years apart or we are?

We are. Sorry. We are nine years apart. I just want to make sure that I know. And you said it with a smile, actually, you know, your whole face just lit up as you're thinking of her. So tell me more, because this is a very different experience of caregiving. So caregiving comes with a smile and caregiving comes with a sense of heaviness and loneliness. You see, you just showed me two experiences of yours for caretaking.

So tell me about the smiley one. Yeah. I have older sisters as well, two older sisters. So just having someone to kind of take care of and someone that I had to look out for that I could help my mom kind of be the helper. And I think the difference in age, I mean, when it was time for her to walk, I would carry her on my hip and my mother would have to tell me to put her down or she'll never walk. Or if she would stumble, I would rush over and my mother would say, don't you move. Let her fall and get herself up. And I think about when I left to go away to college. I was really sad to leave her. It was difficult because you really felt loving and responsible, like a mama, like a bigger sister.

Yeah. Yeah. And today? Today, she's still my little sister. Although I've allowed, I've been able to step back and realize that, you know. She can walk alone. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. But I love her and my other sisters very much. You see, what I'm hearing is you've had more than one experience of caretaking. Not always does it mean that you erase yourself, you efface yourself, and you just have no needs. You have an experience with your sister where caretaking is not about keeping someone alive, but about helping someone grow. And it comes with a smile and tenderness and softness and juiciness. And that you don't want to erase that entire part of you that you call the caretaker. Yeah. And I experience caretaking now.

And I actually, I have a wonderful neighbor. She's elderly. She helps me grow and I help her grow. And I enjoy her spending time with her very much. And, you know, the other day she says something about the relationship being one way or something. And I told her, I said, it's funny, our relationship developed at a time after I lost my husband and I take great joy in being there for her and helping out and things like that. So yeah, that's a good, I'm glad you pointed that out because that is how I do have different experiences.

Giving often is very much a form of receiving. You know, in the case with your husband, you feel I gave him so much. And he did. He gave me a lot early on. He drowned in his own sorrows and in his own challenges and crisis around self-esteem and feeling that he would never really belong and he would never have his place or that his place was ever legitimate enough. And in the course of that, he stopped paying attention to you? Not as a caretaker, but also as a woman, as a sensual woman, as a woman who would love to receive some attention and some love and care. Yeah. Even when I would tell him sometimes, I would just say,

what am I supposed to do? He would just shrug his shoulders and just like walk away. He literally had no answer and it didn't come from him. And you felt he had no empathy either? There were times definitely in our marriage that he lacked empathy, for sure. My stepdad passed away and he was supposed to show up for the funeral. He didn't show up. He didn't call. He didn't say he wasn't coming. And I think that's when I realized that I'm the heavy lifter. I'm the one. He's just not capable. The heavy lifter is a word that you used, you know, in your head a lot. But what you're also saying is I was there for him and he stopped being there for me. He could barely be there for himself and he stopped being there for me. And I have other experiences where being there for someone feels nourishing to

me. With him, I began to feel more and more lonely and empty. Yes, that is how it felt. And you're saying, I don't want to feel like that when I meet the next partner. You have such a thirst for life and so much love to give, but you'll be less afraid when you meet someone. At this moment, you meet a person and in your mind, you're thinking of your husband versus you meet someone and you think of your neighbor and you think of your sister. And who else? Are there other relationships of giving and receiving in your life?

Yeah. I would say that most of my relationships are pretty balanced. Okay. So tell me, why do you think about him as the primary reference, besides the fact that he's a man, besides the fact that you say, I didn't have a father and the presence of a man in my life means something in particular. And maybe that's not a besides.

Maybe that's actually really crucial. But you have so many other examples in your life and they need to be right there on the forefront. When the fear kicks in, they need to talk to that fear and say, hey, I have many fantastic experiences. This was one. This is not the pivot of my life. I think maybe I give it so much weight because he's the only man that really loved me in

that way. I didn't have a lot of great relationships. We met and married in nine months. I was young in my early twenties and he was the first man that really was genuinely interested in me. Do you remember what that felt like? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I felt special. I felt loved. I felt a level of companionship that I had never experienced with anyone else. Were you lovers? Yes, early on we were. But I'd say a few years into the marriage, the imbalance started in terms of intimacy and

those sorts of things. When he would withdraw and he would become recluse and he would be living with a sense of dread that the world under his feet can instantly disappear, you knew he wasn't doing this to you? When I first experienced it with him, I would say that I did think it was personal. And that was before there was ever any talk about male depression or anything like that. I thought he was just mean or just not a happy person. And we did break up for a short time. It was around 9-11, and I just thought the world could end tomorrow, and here I am, stuck with you.

So we separated for a time. And then we got back together, and he was better. He was better after that. Was he in treatment? At the end, he was, but during the marriage, no. We would have episodes where we would see marriage therapists or something like that, but he never understood that the problem was not going to be fixed with the next big job or the next degree or the next title. So when he did get into treatment because he had had a couple of attempts, but he still wouldn't be truthful with the psychiatrist or the psychologist. And then I

would sit in and I would say what I observed and it would be so different from what he had been telling them. Oh, how lonely it must have been. But it must have been so lonely for him to think that he alone can change this and that it's all on his shoulders. But because you say, I want to start to date. And I have grieved, I have mourned, I have processed, and I want to now live again and love again and be loved and feel special again. Is there one particular moment when you think about the time when you felt special and energized with him?

Is there a moment like that that you can retrieve? Oh, several. Several over the course of, you know, 25 years. And it took a while for me to reach back to those memories because often with such a tragedy, the tragic way in which he died, that becomes the lens in which you see things. But I do now, I do, you know, as the last couple of years, I do recall the good times and the times. Tell me one, before you even tell it to me, as you bring it up to your awareness, I want you to imagine how you're bringing it from way back in the past to the front and bring it literally in front of your eyes and hold it in your hands and look at it. So it doesn't stay in the recesses of your memory, but it really begins to move ahead and take precedence over other memories. But really see it. Don't just think about it. Imagine it, see it, feel it, remember it. Go right back there. And when you really have it in front of you, then tell me.

Yes, you can close your eyes and just go to that time when you felt special, adored, seen, desired. There were like many times when he was able to just show his affection. It wasn't sexual intimacy. He had a special whistle for me when we were in a department store, like a Marshalls or TJ Maxx or something. And he would do the whistle. And that's how we found each other. He would be whistling for me. And I would whistle back. And I would whistle back.

And he would ask me, are you ready to go? Stay there, stay there, stay there. Say to me in the present tense. So I hear him whistling and I'm whistling back. I hear his whistle and I respond back with my whistle. And we would miraculously meet somewhere. We would follow the whistle and we would be able to, we would find each other. And once we found each other, he would ask if it was okay, like, are you ready to go? You ready to go? And if I wasn't ready to go, he could say, I'll be in the car. And say to me as if it's now, it's right in front of you. It's no longer just in the past. I feel like sometimes those moments are more fleeting, but I can remember like whole conversations of things that weren't good.

But the, the other things, they seem harder to, like, I remember them and I know he loved me and cared for me, but it seems hard to- Would you be willing to try something with me to help ground the other memories because those are the ones you want to take with you when you date again so i'm going back with you to marshall's we can start there because what year are we in when we are at marshall or what season is it? What's the day like? What are we wearing? I don't know. But you hear the whistle. I hear the whistle because we whistled a lot. No, no, in the present tense.

I'm going to ask it to you today. I am a young woman. It's the first few years that I've been with my partner, my husband, and we develop these little private codes that couples have. You know, those little things that nobody else knows. And we know exactly what that whistle means. And the whistle changes tones and it instantly changes signaling and it's intimate and it's tender and it's just ours yeah yeah and I see the smile on your face or I imagine it because my eyes are closed because for me to be at Marshall's with you I too

have to close my eyes and then when we find each other in the store there's grace would you like to go back then you say no I want to stay a little longer and he says okay I'll wait in the car and so you know that you can go play it's like a kid that goes off to play but they know that the adult is there holding the fort grounded and I'll wait for you when you come back. Yes. Not too long. Not too long.

Not too long. No, no, no. Not too long. But it allows me to feel completely safe while I'm exploring the store, knowing that someone is waiting for me right outside when I'm ready to come back. It's delicious. Am I seeing it? Are you seeing it?

I see it. You see it. And where in your body are you feeling it? Describe to me the sensation of the whistle and the free time to roam around while he's waiting for you. And there's no urgency and your needs are not too much. And somebody's there just for you. And that feels very special. Yes.

It's like I can feel it in my upper body. Tell me more. I can feel it around my shoulders and my heart and my neck. So you hold your hands crossed over, and you are literally hugging yourself as you felt hugged when you could stay in Marshalls with him, just waiting for you, being there. Yeah. Yeah, let it come out, yes.

Yes. Yeah. we are in the midst of our session and there is still so much to talk about we need to take a brief break so stay with us Sometimes he would give me these things called smooches on my head. Or he had a nickname for me, but called me Moose. Just weird little things that only we knew. Little things, our little language, our little ways of communicating. And they were beautiful and they were special. Do you see moose right now?

I do. I do. We had traveled somewhere. I think we were in Minnesota somewhere. And there was this moose in the store. And after that, it just became a thing. And moose, can she go on the dates with you? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We enjoy dining and going out and just enjoying each other's company. Yeah. Can you do a deep breath into Moose, the dinners, the company? Just soak it up up just take it in because that too is part of your relationship and that too is part of your history and that part is slowly moving in front of you and entering through your arms into your body and it's going to accompany you it's part of the memories but it's they've been fleeting as you say and they need to become more central or you want them to be more central when you meet people you want them to meet moose you don't just want them to meet the wife of someone who hung himself and who felt so tortured in his life. You want them to see Moose.

And I think I do carry that with me. Like, I love to smile and I like to laugh. You have a beautiful smile, you know. Thank you. I'm seeing it through Zoom, so imagine if I saw it in real. And it's a smile that comes immediately when you think of your sister, when you think of Moose, when you think of the whistle. You don't just remember it, you relive it.

Yes. you don't just remember it you relive it yes i know i am capable of loving again but part of me does feel like it'll never happen again like that was just it for me like it's just a little teeny part okay well we keep it tiny yes and the truth is we don't know, but we do know that when people walk in the world with a smile like yours and the radiance and mousse and her choix de vivre, that it attracts. We do know that. Yeah.

And that ray inside of you, that radiance wants to go into the world now. It's not the only part of you, but it's one that you feel is yearning to come out. What would Moose say? How does Moose talk? I don't know. He gave me that name. It's not a name I would call myself, but it was cute. Right. Okay. And who is she? What does she say to you? She's like, girl, get it in gear. Get it in gear. Yeah. All right. Now do me a favor. Show me the body of Moose. What's her posture? How does she say this? It's like, get it in gear, girl. Get

yourself together. There's lots of life to live. There's lots of loves to have, not just one, many. Lots of loves to have. She's feisty. She's feisty. She's feisty. And that God's got my back. She's alive. Yes. Yeah. Very alive. Very alive. And God's got my back. She's alive, yes. Yeah, very alive. Very alive. And she's got your back, yes. And she goes with you into this next stage. Because Moose didn't die with him.

Moose is alive with you. So you go, girl. He's a major part of your life, but he's not the one who's going to date with you. Moose goes on a date with you. Is this a good place for us to stop? Yes, I think so. I guess the end is that, you know, I wanted to know what did I miss? Moose!

I guess, but I mean, what did I miss in the relationship that, you know? Part of the things you say you miss is moose. It's go girl, I got you back. We're going to live. We have lots of loves to experience still. We're hungry. We cherish life. We have this smile that wants to go into the world. Moose is what you lost.

And the whistles that come with that. But the whistles is your playfulness. It's not just him. And my ability to kind of respond to playfulness. And he was a serious man, but he also can have his moments of being playful. And that's what I miss. And that's what I'm going to find. I want to be playful.

I want Moose in with me. I want to, you know, that body of yours that instantly like Moose, she sits up and she's a force. She charges. And I don't have to be so serious all the time. Do you, do you still have the question, what did I miss? I miss me. I lost me. I forsake myself for him is what I did.

And I don't know what it would have looked like if I had done something different. I don't know whether that would have looked like, I think up to this conversation, that looked like leaving. Like, why didn't I leave? That was the question that I kind of was thinking. But now it's not about leaving or going physically. It's about leaving and going mentally.

And how maybe I just allowed myself to be, just succumb to his illness. Just like it took him. You know, it didn't take me in the same way, but I succumbed to it as well. Yes, his depression became his life and your life. I couldn't have said it better. What you say is profound. It certainly is, because that's not what I was thinking

before I joined the call. I was kind of like, why didn't you go sooner? Why didn't you leave? And you could have avoided experiencing all of that. But nope. And I'd say he checked out, but I checked out too. Experiencing all of that. Nope. And I'd say he checked out, but I checked out too.

Checked out from myself. I lost connection with me. Yes. That's really the bottom line. You know what's very apparent? Every time you speak from that place, it's like the energy of moose enters your body. What the hell happened with me? Yeah. Yeah. I lost. That's the energy that accompanies you in your next phase of life. Yes. It's actually with me now. I think sometimes I just lose it because I think that I did something wrong or I think that I could have

done something different or something better. And so then I second guess, you know. Do you feel that this has given you a different, a different what? Yes. A different perspective, a different perspective on how I responded in the situation. It wasn't that I missed something in him or something. I was busy loving him and taking care of him and I just lost myself. And I will not do that again. For no one. That's a manifesto. I won't do that again for no one. That's a manifesto. I won't do that again. Yeah, there's nothing.

There's no points for martyrdom. No points for martyrdom. So just want to experience love again there's nothing i can promise you but that smile i can tell you will attract love in any form maybe not romantic love but all kinds of other loves you said in plural there are other loves you will have other loves i don't know which form it will take yes and i thank you very much thank you thank you esther thank you so much Thank 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, Eva Walchover, Destry Sibley, Hyweta Gatana, Sabrina Farhi, Eleanor Kagan, Kristen Muller, and Julian Hatt. 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, Jen Marler, and Jack Saul.