Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Esther Calling - I Want To Fit In, But I Don't Want To Fit In

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

She is a single mother by choice. She lives in a very tight knit community with very traditional values. Now that her child is almost one, she's ready to date again but doesn't know where to begin. She seeks Esther's advice on how to embrace her new identity as a mom, find a suitable partner, and how to manage the community expectations on her choices. 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

My question is about finding love as a single mother by choice to a baby girl who I conceived with a donor via IVF. I am a completely different person now as you can imagine to how I was before. I was living in a foreign country, living and working abroad, and decided to move back to my hometown to be closer to my family and my friends and my community because having that network of support has been absolutely invaluable. And I'm also considering a change of career. I've been able to fulfill some financial goals that I could only really fulfill here. And so all in all, my life has just opened up

to so many possibilities and my daughter has brought me so much love and so much joy that my heart bursts when I just think about it. But my life now is, my identity in fact, is just completely different and I don't really know who I am now as a mother, as a person, as a woman. And finding love, given those kind of uncertainties, is a little bit scary and I don't really know where to start with it. So although I'm not in a rush, I'm a year

on, my daughter is very much still my priority. I still have, obviously, my needs and my desires, and I'm trying to figure out how to balance those with my daughter, who is not just a part of my life, she is my life. And I'm wondering how I go about doing that. You know, the kind of man that I would have chosen before is certainly not suitable in any way for my daughter,

especially for my daughter. For me, of course, but the idea of them providing a role model that has changed. I now need someone who is stable, who is secure, who is kind, loving, and you know the men that I chose before were this way as well, but they were not emotionally available. These are things that I begin to think about that now that I am so emotionally available. It's a bit difficult for me to kind of figure out the dating pool as well as bringing someone who is stable, secure, loving, safe more than anything for my daughter to be around.

So these are the fears that I have, and I would love to talk them through with you to see if we could kind of figure this out together. figure this out together. as you make plans to cruise through Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30, lease the 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. No frills? Delivers! Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders.

Shop now at NoFrails.ca. Tell me a little bit how you made all the changes. You really turned your whole life around and in a way that sounds fantastic, especially when you talked about coming home to the family and the community and the support that you got, you're completely lit up. I don't know where you were or what you were doing, but give me a sense of how you took and redesigned your life. Oh, well, to be honest, it was more about instinct and knowing that it's going to be the best thing.

I was raised in a community, originally Southern Italian, but I was born in the UK and we had a very strong close-knit community here, very close-knit family as well. So I just knew when I was living, I was actually living in Rome and working there, I didn't have that network there. And I know raising a child, when you're in a couple, when you're in a family, you need several people to help you. So really it just made sense on a practical level.

On an emotional level, not so much. I still felt very connected to Rome, to my independent life, to being away from my community as well. But my mum was very supportive. She really wanted me to come back. And financially as well, it made sense. So really it was a very practical based decision. Is your donor a known donor or an anonymous donor? Anonymous. Yeah. And if I hear you well, you're saying, I wanted to be a mom.

I wanted to raise a child. I wanted to do it with family and community around and in a very supportive way. I wanted to know that I can take care of her by myself and that financially I can provide and therefore I don't need to find a partner. I may want to find a partner. Yes, exactly. Tell me more. So then the need really is as you've identified, it's not a necessity.

I don't need any practical help from a partner. And from what I've heard, they're not much practical help when it comes to raising a child anyway. But it's more the romantic side. I would like that emotional connection. I do want the intimacy that a romantic partner will bring. So having said all of this, I'm also very conscious that he needs to be right for my daughter as well. So my whole process of choosing a partner is very different now.

But do you imagine when you think, I'd love to meet someone, you're thinking about creating a family with this person, you're thinking about this person taking on a parental role with your baby, or do you think, I want a lover, I want a person for me, but I don't necessarily want to create a family with this person. Or that's certainly not the initial goal. That's two different aspirations. Yeah, of course. And I don't think that I'm...

I definitely don't want a replacement father for my daughter. I believe she already has a father. She doesn't know him, but he is there. And that's for her to discover. Can she find him one day if she wants? Yes. But I would like a role model. So I already have my brother, who is a very good male role model.

But I would like her to have, if I am to find somebody, that he provides that role. And ideally, I would love him to have kids as well. So if anything, we'd probably have a blended family, but I'm certainly not looking, that's not my goal anyway. And are you dating? No, I'm a bit scared. So what has made you scared?

And is scared just because you now have a child? Or has scared been a part of your love life before? Yes, it has. But having a child has emphasized that a bit more. So whereas before there was less at stake, of course, my heart, my emotional well-being, but now my daughter is at stake as well. I wouldn't want her to get attached to somebody who isn't good for me. That's my thinking now. But I'm also scared of, you know, I don't really have the time and I don't know how

I would actually have a relationship with so many demands on my time and that side of thing is also a worry as well. But if you had a partner, you'd have to devote some time to that relationship too. If you had conceived a child in the context of a relationship, you'd have to do that too. You couldn't just, I mean, that is what some people say, I'm too busy, I have a baby, I have no time for you. This is not unusual. But the idea is that there is that, especially if you have a lot of support that you actually can also devote yourself to friendship and to romantic love and to various activities and you know that you have a life.

Yeah, and I think I mean, I am seeing friends. That's not an issue. I think the fear is, it is about the safety of my daughter, that's for sure, but also I don't know what it would look like. It's all so uncertain. Whereas before, didn't really matter. I could have any kind of, I feel as though before I could have any kind of relationship. It didn't matter so much. But now my feeling is it needs to be more stable. It needs to be more reliable. And I don't know if that's really what I want. That depends what you're looking for. If you say, I want a boyfriend, that boyfriend may or may not know your daughter or may have met her once, but that boyfriend does not enter

into the unit of the family. It's your separate relationship. You may have friends who meet your child and who have a relationship with your child, and you may have friends who see your child once a year. If you say, I want a partner who joins me in the frame of my life, who we either live together or perhaps not, but may, that's a very different project. And part of it, you may not know in advance. You may have a sense. I would like a boyfriend. I would like to experience love, affection, sexuality, intimacy.

But I don't necessarily want it to enter into my life at home. And that is one choice, totally. Another choice is I want someone who has his children and therefore he has his activities and his schedule and his constraints on his time and his obligations and he understands that I do too. And we carve out little windows of time where we meet together. Another one is the one that you hinted at before, I want somebody who comes with a family and understands family and wants to expand the family and create a combined

family between his and mine. He may have a combined family that involves another partner in which the kids have different homes and parents that alternate, that is going to be different from you no matter what. You may find someone who doesn't have an ex-partner and therefore they are alone with the children. I have six, seven scenarios just like that at the top of my hat of the kinds of relationships and the kinds of relational networks that each one of these relationships would presuppose. So I don't know. The one that you talked about is the blended family.

If that's your image, that's very different from a boyfriend. That's very different from a boyfriend, that's very different from a lover. That's really, you know, I have a family, you have a family, shall we make a new family? Yeah. And if, to be honest, all of those scenarios seem nice to me. They all seem good. Well, that gives you a range of options. It does, however, I mean there's a reason why I left this community and that's because of all the expectations that are put on me.

You know the idea of having a casual relationship is, I think emotionally, of course no one would care, this is the thing, but I think emotionally I'm still tied to that expectation that I will not participate in those kind of relationships in my hometown with lots of people who know me around me. So that's also something that I'm sort of struggling with, being back here. But, if I may, I would imagine you tell me that there are not that many people who have left your community the way you did. That there are not that many that went ahead and had a child with an anonymous donor like you did, without having to depend on a

partner to do so. There are not that many who went ahead and created a career the way you did so that you could be totally financially independent and provide for your kid. So by now you've kind of established, I am a part of you, but I'm not necessarily like you. Yeah, very much so. And regardless of that, people all said, or at least your family has said, and your friends have followed, come back.

We'll be there for you. So the message has been sent to you. We accept your life choices and we'll participate in them. So it's a little late to start to suddenly worry about what people think. Yeah. Yeah. And funnily enough, I didn't care what people thought when I got pregnant, like you said, with Anna anonymous donor.

So yeah. Take it in and then take a moment and then respond to me. I think for me, the big one is it is those expectations. It is that there is a part of me that still cares about what people think. And the thinking is what? What are the sentences? God, did you hear about her? She's a slut.

Oh, she's been with everyone, that one. Oh, no, you don't want, she'll never get married that one. She's too liberal. These are the things that I hear in my head. And what have you heard on the street? How did you do this? This is amazing. This is what I've heard.

This is what people congratulate me for. I wish my daughter would do this too. Yeah, thank God you've done this now and it's not too late. This is, these are the things that I've been told. So who are you hearing in your head? My mother. I'm not hearing my father, but I'm feeling the shame that's related to upholding his masculinity. Meaning? If I'm doing what I want, if I'm expressing myself as I feel, it shows that he can't control his women. So, I mean, this is ironic because what I've done is probably the most shameful thing I could have possibly done as a woman in my community, and it turns out to be the best

thing that I've ever done in my life. What was shameful about it? To what? The fact that I don't know who the father of my child is and the fact that I'm not married. Which one is the worst? That I don't know who the father is. Right. That's why the masculinity comes in. Okay, so you don't know who the father is, but you didn't do it from sleeping around. No. So that kind of resurrects you?

Yes, it does. It does. I mean, you did it as a deliberate act of technological procreation. And it was very much my choice. It's not a, I just found myself in this situation. Right. Right. But that may be even more complicated. Sometimes there's more sympathy. Ironically, there's more sympathy if you're the victim of something than if you deliberately made that choice. Have you ever had a conversation with your dad about any of this? No, because he passed away.

So he passed away six years ago now. And the last thing that he said to me desire that I haven't fulfilled for him. And that you would like to? I don't think I want to get married, but I do't tell me if you want this relationship to involve you or to involve your daughter and you. I want it to involve my daughter and me. We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us.

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Wifi available to airplane members on equipped flights sponsored by Bell Conditions Supply, seniorcanada.com. Hey there, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, and this week I'm talking to Scott Frank, the writer and director who moved from movies to Netflix, which is where you can see Department Q, his newest hit. We talked about how no one knows what the future of Hollywood is going to be like, except that it won't be like the past. This business hasn't landed where it's going to land yet.

And people keep looking backwards and saying, no, we just need to get movie going back to where it was. That boat sailed. That's not going to happen anymore. That's this week on channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts Okay, so You want more than a boyfriend yeah Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. And have you had a conversation with mom? About the shame element?

You tell me. Yes. There are a lot of voices in your head. Yes. There's a whole village. There's a whole village in your head. So there was dad, dad's dead, but his voice is loud and clear. Yeah. Now let's hear mom and then let's see who else is in the choir.

So the first thing we talked about this, because when I told her, this is what I'm doing, she said, but what do we tell people? And so I had to talk to her about, you know, this for me is, it is feeling shameful, but I don't want it to be shameful. I'm trying to work past that. And we worked through, I appreciate that she's from a generation where this was important.

It was so important. It meant, you know, if a woman had done what I had done, obviously in a different way, then she would never get married in our community. So it was important for her and I understand that, but we, instead of addressing that element of it, we worked through what she would tell people. So I'm proud of my daughter. She's done an amazing thing. You don't need to go into the details of the conception. In fact, I would prefer not to,

but I don't want her to express it as, oh, you know, she's at this age, she had to do it. Otherwise she couldn't have kids or, you know, she's just not being able to find a partner. So this is a second best thing. That's not the message I wanted her to communicate. And she found your scripting helpful? Yeah, she did.

She did. And also I think it's helped her as well just to kind of understand that times have changed as well. And in me explaining why I don't find this a shameful thing anymore, obviously initially I did have that emotional response, but I think she's been able to see that this is the, you know, now that my baby's born, it's the best thing that's ever happened to all of us, you know, so it's kind of put that to rest. How did you do it?

How did I? Switch the script for yourself. With lots of talking. Because you have something to tell to a lot of women. Whether you are from southern Italy or not. Yeah. And I mean also when my father passed away, I made a commitment to myself that I would live the life that I want. I don't want to regret not having at least tried. So whether I feel shame about it or not is something I just have to get past because I'm going to love this child and that's more important to me than feeling shameful or regretful about not having done something when I could have. And then? I just decided I'm just gonna go for it and see what happens because there's no

guarantees. It could happen, it couldn't happen, who knows. But I got pregnant straight away, so the first time. So then and then it just became irrelevant. Then it just was all about the baby and all about what's best for the baby and the growing feelings of, oh my goodness, how am I going to do this? So really that just overtook it. And now that my baby is born, the love that I feel for her is just, it's so much more important than whatever else I was feeling at the time.

I mean, I totally understand this, but do you have reactions in your community of people who stay away from you because you're too emancipated, too dangerous, too independent, too much woman making her own decisions about her own life? I haven't felt that. In Italy actually, some relatives in Italy that I told, interestingly, the ones who I thought would be most judgmental about it really weren't. They were really happy for me. But there were a couple of people who really didn't, they just couldn't understand it. They couldn't quite understand why would you do such a thing? Or how is it that you're in this position that you have to do this?

Is something that a man said to me, one of my male relatives said to me. And what's underneath that question? What's wrong with me. Not now anyway. I feel that I'm a great mother. I feel I've given my child everything. So there's nothing wrong with me. I've just made a choice. No, but the question that he asked is what's wrong with you that you haven't found a man? Yeah, exactly. Or, as I interpreted it, why does a man not want you? And there is no way to want to have a child without a man.

Exactly. Yeah. So you depend on the man for the man, and you depend on the man for the child. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's it. And then what did you do with that voice inside your head? Well, this is going to sound really cruel, but I don't respect his opinion because I don't really respect him. I've traveled the world, I'm an independent woman, there's many accomplishments that I'm proud of. My baby is the most important accomplishment.

So why would this man's opinion matter to me? Good for you. Yeah. You know, but I'm collecting the voices because sometimes even while we are able to kind of push them away and refute them, they do kind of penetrate through the cracks and they become layers of the collective voices, the village that lives inside our head. You know, the village and the community provides close support in all traditional cultures, as long as you do what's expected. Yeah.

I mean, the support is not just, you know, for whatever. The support is contingent on your following the rules. And the rules is you're incomplete as a woman if you don't have a husband. And therefore, all your efforts are about finding the husband because that's the person who's going to give you children. And when you say, I haven't found this husband yet, and I don't see why I have to not have children until I find a husband. In fact, I'm going to have children and hopefully it'll actually make me more likely to find a husband. Yeah, yeah. And you want that husband to be from your community as well or it doesn't matter? It doesn't matter to me, no. I say that but I would, in an ideal world, yes.

I don't know how possible that is, just because I know a lot of them and there's no one that I'm interested in. But it's not something that is essential, no. And why would you prefer from your own community? I think because we understand each other on a deeper level. So what's really important to me is family. That's my number one value. So if he, I mean, I say this, but I

know many people from my community who really don't value their families. Or they pretend, but actually they don't value their families or they pretend but actually they don't. So no, maybe it's not so important. May I suggest, if it was a person from your community then you would finally be fully Potentially, yes. Yeah. Do I want that though? I'm just wondering if I want that. Well, what price do I have to pay in order to be finally fully accepted? And is it worth the price?

The short answer to that is I don't think it's worth the price. Okay. I thought you would say that too. Yeah. Do you meet men when you travel? I have done, yes. I have done. They have, you know, I've had some really lovely relationships, I've met some really

lovely men, but they're all emotionally unavailable, which reflects how I was at the time as well. They would shy away from intimacy, not want relationships, not want commitment and make that very clear. And sometimes that suited me, sometimes it really didn't. But as I've become more available emotionally, and I'd say that certainly in the past two years that's been the case, I've been more direct in expressing that I want a relationship or I wanted commitment or what it was that I wanted or needed at the time. And what changed in the last two years? I can't pinpoint anything in particular that has changed, but certainly COVID, being on

my own in COVID. I was on my own for the whole of the lockdown in Italy and it was very much a lockdown, yes. But that really showed me that I do want intimacy and I miss the connections that I had, especially in my community. I've really missed that. And also my father passing away really showed me that I found vulnerability and expressing vulnerability very difficult.

And my needs, especially my needs and my desires, I found that really difficult. Really, my dad's death put that under the spotlight. How so? I think the connection that I had with my father towards the end of his life was really profound. It was probably the first time that he had ever told me that he loved me. And he showed me in many, many ways that I didn't understand.

He had cancer, so we knew he was going to die from the cancer. I think that just brought us really close together. And his approval, him telling me that he was, he loved me and that he was grateful to me. And really, I'd never seen that side of him before. That really showed to me that I want that emotional connection and that vulnerability in all of my relationships. So when he said, I want you to marry, he didn't say it from a place of make me proud.

No. He basically was saying, I hope you find love. Yes. And I want you to be looked after. And in his world, that meant marriage. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

So this is not about expectations. No, no. Okay. No. Okay. That changes a lot. Yeah. Okay, so this is not about expectations. No, no. Okay. No. Okay, that changes a lot. Yeah. That changes. At least it changes my understanding of the last thing that he said to you. Yeah.

Yeah. I hope you find someone who looks after you. But that's not necessarily the way you're looking at it. No. Because you are being looked after, which gives you're looking at it. No. You are being looked after, which gives you a lot of freedom. It does. It does.

So now, what stands in the way? I think ultimately it's fear. It's a feeling that I can't trust as well. I can't trust that he'll be reliable and that if I need him he will be there. It's not about him being faithful or unfaithful. That's never been an issue for me. It's more about does he really mean what he says? Is he really going to be there for me if I need him?

That I think has underlied a lot of my relationships. And that's a fair request. That's not necessarily just a fear. I want someone who I can count on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who when he says they're going to show up, shows up, who is attentive to the things that are important to me. Yeah, that is a... If you said that about a friend, you wouldn't say, I have fears.

Yeah. Yeah. You would say, here are things I expect from friends. Yeah. But you wouldn't say, I have fears. Yeah. You would say, here are things I expect from friends. Yeah. But you wouldn't say, I'm afraid. You would say, here are things that I see as part of friendship. So why, when it comes to men, do you frame it as a fear? Basically, let me ask you the real question. You come from a community, as all communities for that matter, that has a lot of ideas and

a lot of clear assumptions about men and women and relationships and marriage and trust and cheating. It has a very clear code. How much is one of the messages on the street, as you said, because you already slipped that out before when you said that you need a man to help you with the raising of the hitches, but we know they're not that useful in that department. That's street talk.

Yeah. You understand what I mean by street talk is like, it's the vernacular of how people, what can you count on men for? What can you count on women for? Women are this way, may matter. Men are clots, they can't really help in the house. That's not necessarily true, but that's, you know, you go with that statement.

And the next one you just uttered now is, you know, it's really hard to find a reliable man. Yeah. Men are unreliable. These are declarations, statements, you know, plenty of statements about women, about those kind of women versus those kind of women, the virtues. You already talked about the slots. You've kind of brought in an entire society of characters. Is it a village where you are or is it a big city?

It's quite a big town. It's a city, but it's a town really. But there is a strong Southern Italian community that lives in this town. Exactly. And that basically has brought with them a lot of very strong established notions of how we see men and how we see women and what each gender is good for and what they're useless at.

Exactly. And a lot of this stereotype is part of mother's milk. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So is the one about how difficult it is to find, you know, are you afraid because something happened to you, or are you afraid because basically you've been fed that mother's milk?

It's the mother's milk, definitely. It's the observation that most women that I know in my community, I've grown up with lots of women who felt very unhappy in marriage, very repressed. I mean, one of my friends said to me, you're the only one who has freedom and is actually using it. And yeah, and I felt really sad because it's true.

I'm the only one who's taken my freedom and run with it. And that's kind of how I've seen marriage and male-female relationships. So you're in a trap. You would like to get married, but in fact when you look around there is nothing particularly attractive about it. Yeah, it's a trap. That's exactly how I describe it. I was raised to be a wife really not

someone who has a career and But that's a trap as well, you know And the wife is not necessarily a woman Nor a career person nor a free person And so this is the essence of what you're, if I hear your question. I would like to get married or to, not married, I would like to have a partner,

but everything I've learned is about how life in that context is fairly miserable. Exactly. And why would I lock myself up into the very structure that every friend around me wants to get out of? 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, click the try free button to subscribe to Astaire's office hours on Apple podcasts.

Almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details. The data analytics company Palantir has been working with the U.S. government for about 15 years on all sorts of things. This year, ICE is going to pay Palantir $30 million to improve how it targets and surveils undocumented immigrants. And your response to this probably depends to some degree on your politics. But the Trump administration is also expanding Palantir's reach on something that would affect all Americans. The idea is to link together all the data that the government has about us. This is unprecedented. So anyway, Theo von freaks out. This sounds crazy, dude. And confronts

JD Vance. It can tell if your kids are, you know, if your kids can have a limp or whatever, if they'll be in the Christmas play. Veep is like, it's going to be okay, but FYI, I also just learned about this. I actually just read about it earlier today or maybe yesterday. Coming up on Today Explained, what's Palantir up to? You know, there was a time, I must have been, you just made me think of this, about nine years old or so, nine, ten, and my mother was surrounded by a group of friends and their

husbands were dying at the time. And I remember saying to my mother, they must be so sad, they have lost their husbands. And my mother said, they're so happy, they don't have to wash anybody else's socks anymore. And it's really stayed with me like one of these most important, like she just cleaned me of the romantic, you know, haze. You know, haze. In one comment, it's like, girl, don't misunderstand. There is love, there is romance, and then there is marriage. Yeah, exactly. Now, of course, I think we've gone a long way to try to create a different kind of marriage,

but you're saying to me, there's something I think I want, or at least I think I should want, but in fact, when I look at at it I don't really want it. Yeah, yeah that's right. Yeah. Okay. And it's called relationships, partnership with a man, a life partner, even if you don't officially marry them. That's okay. If you don't marry them you may have a little bit more freedom but here's where you're going to need to learn to trust yourself. And that means it probably it may not be from the community.

Yeah, and that is something that I was thinking about. I don't know. Because my identity now is so different, I don't know if I trust myself. I don't know who I am, first of all, to be able to trust myself as well with those decisions. Why? Why? I think there's a lot of self-doubt now. I definitely feel less confident. I'm just not sure about who...

Why less confident? I actually don't know why. I just feel I haven't been at work for a year now. I've had a long maternity leave. I don't function the same as I used to. My thinking, it's hard to think sometimes. I'm so consumed with what does my daughter need? What do I need to do now?

What do I need to do tomorrow? That I find it hard to even sometimes remember words. So that has changed. My body has changed. I don't even look in the mirror anymore, just because I don't have time or I don't, like I said, I'm so busy thinking about other things. These things for me have knocked my confidence.

And I don't even know if they've had a knock on effect yet on my romantic life, but I do feel wary about, am I still, am I the woman that I used to be, I guess. No, but that doesn't mean that I should completely deny the woman in me, because I am also a mother. Yeah. I mean, the new exercise is about retrieving the woman from behind the mother and making room for various parts of your identity. So if you say, I was raised to be a wife

and I don't just want to be a wife, and you say, I want to be a career woman and a mother and a lover and a woman, then now you're going to take this project of these multiple parts to my identity and you're going to see this as a unique opportunity to actually straddle them all. And you will of course learn that you cannot be perfect in all of them because that's how it works. But the fact that you even have access to all of them is a unique opportunity that most

women in your community have never had. So you can't just get away with saying, I don't have time to look in the mirror for a minute. You have good support, you have mom, you have friends, you have probably other relatives. You need to find your time to look at yourself in the mirror, in the symbolic sense of the word. Yeah. And you have a ten-month old, so this takes time.

This is not happening right now. But the permission and the value that you assign to it have to remain a part, because this is the change that you assign to it have to remain a part because this is the change that actually happens. If you then voluntarily do away with it, then you may not be the wife, but you'll be the widow. And that ironically is what a lot of women in my community do. They, you know, if their husband dies, they never ever have another relationship.

Or, you know, if they get past a certain age, traditionally, that's it for them. They just give up. So you haven't gone that far to now voluntarily give up on all of it. It may take a few years. You know, I remember it took me a few years before I remembered the beginning of a book when I reached the end. So your attention changes, your brain changes, you focus on your children.

But that doesn't mean that you become invisible to yourself. That doesn't mean that only the needs of your daughter matter and that you don't pay any attention to your own needs. And that takes a while to figure out, but the value has to be present with full permission. And partly, it will also be a better model for your daughter, because the model of sacrificing and chastity is not the most inspiring one today for your daughter either. I don't want to imprison my daughter in that either. Okay. So you plan to go back to work?

I will be going back to work, yes. Okay. And so your daughter will learn that she's being raised by a community, that she has grandma, that she has multiple maternal figures, that she has some parental and paternal figures, and she will be different than some of the kids in the village or in the community. And when I say village, I mean it in a... Because basically, the people in the community have brought the values of the old village into the big town. That's right. Yeah. Into another country with a different language, but with the same values.

At least a certain generation. And they stayed there. Right. So your daughter is going to know that she's different. When she goes to school, she will come with a different family reality than some of the others. But the others by now are different from what they were expected to be too. So in your community, change is happening, but the recognition is slow.

Yes. And you will talk with your daughter about that. And that will be one of the messages is your mother wanted very much to have you, and she found a way to do so. And she didn't have a male partner at the time to have you. And so she got a wonderful person who she's never met, who was generous enough to want to make your life possible. I mean, that story will have to come up very soon.

And with that, because, you know, when you grow up, that comes a little later, you will be a mother maybe, when you grow up, that comes a little later, you will be a mother, maybe, if you choose to, and you will be a woman, and you will be a career person, and you will be a daughter, and you will be a friend, and you will have multiple parts to your identity. And you will find that it's not always so easy to do what you want. But sometimes when you do it, you feel like it's the greatest sense of agency, autonomy and freedom that you could ever imagine. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.

How is all this landing on you? It's a funny one because all of it is so inspiring and empowering and the future feels so amazing when I think about all of these possibilities. But there's also a slight sense of grief as well. of you know this is something really new. Yeah I can only describe it as a feeling of leaving behind a lot of very important parts of me. Say more. Well, there's so many women who have defined their life in this way. They're all part of my family. A big part of me as well has been defined by not having these freedoms. So yeah, it does feel like I'm leaving that behind, but there's a very conflictual feeling of that's great, but it's also a bit sad as well.

I don't know if that's making sense. What is it that you're leaving behind for you? I think it's beautiful what you're saying. Because you're saying, I want to experience this feminist revolution inside of me. I want to be that pioneer, that woman that strikes out on her own, that makes decisions that no woman in my community have ever done. But at the same time, when you leave to do these things on your own, the word on your own is also in the sentence.

And that means you have to bear the consequences alone in a way that in a communal structure, if things didn't work out, you're not blamed for it in the same way. Yeah. It feels a bit like a responsibility without it sounding... Freedom. Yeah. Yes, freedom and responsibility go together.

Yes. Yeah. You know, if you do what everybody does, you can kind of hide in the pile. Yeah. If you stand out, everybody's looking at you. Half of them are cheering you on, hoping that you succeed at it, because it's everything they've never dared to do, but have dreamt about a lot along. And the other half hopes that you fail because they didn't have the guts to do it either. And if you fail, then at least they know for a fact

that they were right not to try. This is true when people strike out in a family or in a company or in a society or in a tight community that is identified by shared values and shared assumptions about life and about gender roles and all of that. So when you say there is grief, what's the parts that you think you're leaving or losing? Are you leaving or losing? Just the fitting in, the feeling of it's such a step forward in the direction I want to go, that maybe it's a bit too much for the community.

I mean, I say community, but it's not like there's all these people looking at me, but it does feel like the disapproval would be quite a lot to bear. I think I would be leaving behind a big piece of that. So tell me something. What made your mom say come home? And maybe other people, aunts, uncles, neighbors, cousins. It's the love that she feels for me, the desire that I'm okay, that I'm looked after.

So you've been fitting in for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you didn't fit in, they would not have called you back. They would have called you the daughter who lives far away. But if they brought you back and they said,

we're going to raise this kid all together. So you're fitting in. Yes. Remember that? If you didn't fit in, in a tight-knit community, when you don't fit in, you're not invited back. True. Yeah, very true. But you are right that if you do your own thing and you strike out on your own, you lose that cushion.

You lose the cushion. They all follow a trajectory that has been drawn in front of them. And they follow the steps that have been prescribed. You are charting your own course. That charting your own course gives you more freedom, more creativity, more empowerment, but also more aloneness. Yeah. And they go together. If you don't follow the prescribed and assigned route, then you pick your own trajectory.

And when you pick your own trajectory, you're in charge, but you're also more responsible. You get to create it, but you then bear the consequences of your decisions. So when you left for Italy, they didn't, I don't know if they said, go for it, have a great time, explore the world. They have done several times before that. So even when I was, you know, I've traveled a lot and I've, the first time was very difficult for my parents because I was quite young. But now they just, you know, this is just what I do. It's just, they know I'll come back.

So that puts you in a wonderful place. Yes, you are a pioneer. Yes, you charge your own territory, but you have a family that basically says, do what we have not done. Yeah. And we will support you to the best way we can. That feels really loving actually.

That does make me feel very loved to think of that. And as I say that, I can imagine even my female ancestors probably saying the same thing. Go and do it. Does it fit? Yeah, absolutely. You are the woman who will do what we could not. That's a mission. You're a woman on a mission. In that sense, your life is bigger than just the choices you make for you and your daughter. They have implications for many other women. So that's the transcendent dimension of your life, is that the choices you make affect the lives of other women.

And that is the price of being different and the privilege of being different. Anything you want to add to our conversation as we approach the end? There's a lot to think about, a lot to go away and consider and reflect on. But the responsibility part, the going away from your community, what that feels like, that I hadn't really thought about. But also that I really do want to fit in, but also don't want to fit in.

And I think that's okay. It's okay to have that feeling of not really fitting in, just being more comfortable with that, but also knowing that I'm supported and loved. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. 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, 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. you