Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - How Many Times Can I Forgive You?

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

A year after explosive revelations of cheating and the existence of a 14 year old son her partner never told her about, a woman receives a call about a fresh round of betrayal. She is humiliated and in crisis, while her partner’s ability to compartmentalize has rendered him a ghost in his own life. They love each other and parent two boys but may not be able to find a shared reality in which to move forward. If you have an individual question you would like to talk through with Esther, please send a voice memo to [e-mail]. If you would like to apply for a couples session with Esther, please click here: https://bit.ly/40fGHIU. Esther’s two new courses on desire are now available inside The Desire Bundle. Go to https://www.estherperel.com/course-bundles/the-desire-bundle to learn more about Bringing Desire Back and Playing with Desire. 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

None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Lumen. Lumen is a hand-held device designed to track your metabolism in real time, through your breath. They've even sent me one to try, and I've enjoyed learning more about how what I eat

and what time I eat affects both my digestion and my overall health. If you want to stay on track with your health this holiday season, go to lumen.me slash esther to get 15% off your lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N dot me slash esther for 15% off your purchase. And thank you Lumen for sponsoring this episode. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential, a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks, performed by a select few.

Well, Claude, by Anthropic, is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Claude's Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Claude can transform your business at anthrophic.com slash Claude. Last May I got a call from someone that told me her friend had been in a relationship with my partner for two years. But I had absolutely no idea. And then I also found

out he had a child 14 years old I had no idea about. July 24th I got another call. Hey I've been friends with your partner and actually been sleeping with him. Both of them were frenzied and had no idea that he had a family. Never told them that he had a family. So it was just like beyond. She's coming in on the heels of yet another revelation, of yet another affair, after having found out that there was a 14-year-old son that she never knew about that her partner had. I mean, I'm so sad and angry. Just the level of humiliation, like feeling so, like, again, like, are you kidding me?

Am I an idiot? Am I totally blind? I need somebody else to tell me if I am delusional. She's bereft. She's in crisis. She thinks they are in crisis, there's imminent decisions to be made, and there's a sense of urgency about what has just been revealed. He says none of this. I think I've always had a lot of trust issues.

I'd want to work on being more vulnerable. I feel like I've been in the belt since I was like 13, 14. Just because that's kind of how I was raised. I've always had a life of hiding. Like nobody knows anything about me because I don't trust anybody. And sometimes that gets really hard. I don't even know how to explain it.

I struggle with it. And it's kind of a worry because I don't want to end with my partner. How can you have one person talk about so many shattering revelations where the other person doesn't even mention them? It was like, what is this session gonna be about? And if he doesn't mention it, can he even acknowledge it?

If he can even acknowledge it, can he express any sense of remorse for it? I mean, where is he at? And what instantly becomes clear is that as I begin to meet him, I enter a web of secrets, a veiled reality where no two pieces of his life have any contact with each other. So he keeps it all in little pockets, hidden from everywhere. Nobody knows the next person he knows. And I have to say that this was a very intense experience for me to speak with someone who showed such a way of living as a ghost in his own life. What would you like us to do here?

What would make this a useful conversation, a helpful conversation? I guess maybe clarity on some things. To understand a little bit more than I did when I got here. And I would like more clarity on... Relationships, I guess past relationships, like how they affect my current relationship, my parents' relationship that in turn affects my relationship. What's something specific from your family relationships that you say, that thing has gone with me? A lot of like selfishness, I guess.

That's a big word. Who was the master of selfishness at home? Everybody, probably. Can you give me a sense? Yeah, my dad was on his own since he was a teenager. Since he was like 14. Couldn't read or write. But he was smart, he was handy.

And then my mom worked in a bank. And my mother was like business. She was like high up in the bank for like a very long time. So they were like complete opposites. But my dad's kind of selfishness was more of, I don't want to go back to ever being poor again. So I have to like kind of hoard everything. And it doesn't matter if anybody needs something.

Not like if you want something, but if you need something. My mother would have to go, you need to give me money for it so I can get school stuff. And I think in turn that I grew up a lot of my own. I had my parents, I had both my parents, till I was an adult. But I did a lot of things on my own. Tell me if I hear this accurately. I learned to take care of myself. They were there, but I was on my own. But neither did they offer me an ear to my needs. And neither did I learn how to listen to the needs of others, especially of my partner here

Yeah, and and I'm sure of a lot of people I know what I need to do, but I know what to do when you need something from me. Oh Yeah, correct Or how to ask for it if I do need something right if I need to move a sofa, or somebody just try to figure it out on my own, because I could probably ask somebody, but. I don't.

I don't. Because? Doesn't even occur to me? Well, yeah, they're probably busy, they're gonna say no anyway, so I'm not gonna. So you internalized your dad's voice. They're gonna say no anyway, so why bother? They're going to say no anyway, so I'll just figure it out.

So refuse helped out too? Oh, yeah. Refuse. I mean, boy, my refuse. You just added something. Not only do you not ask for help, but you refuse it. Do you not say when you're upset, or when you're mad, or when you're frustrated, or when you're hurt,

that's part of the, you have to handle everything yourself? Yeah, I'm kind of just the same all the time. Like, she is mad, she is mad, like I'm not, like I don't get excited about things. Like, I'm just like, ah, you know, it was okay, it was good. I don't want to get too excited to come down from being excited. So if I can just kind of stay in the middle. That's an amazing strategy.

So I don't let myself get too excited, neither on the positive side nor on the negative side. So I can stay in the middle and keep things in control and not get too hurt or too disappointed or too shaken out of my boots. Yeah. So you're a master compartmentalizer. Sometimes I have to be and I guess the times

when I shouldn't be, I still am. Right. That is the essence. Nobody becomes a master at something without thinking that they have a good reason, but then they make the reason everywhere and so they begin to have the same behavior even when it's not necessary. Can I ask you where are some particular places where you've compartmentalized? Work?

Which I guess that makes me just a little better at my job sometimes because I can do that. Work how so? Just work like on, you know, we have like dead bodies and stuff and big fires and like I'm, I don't get too like jacked up off it. Fire's over, fire's over. Some guys like, I want to be up for 15 hours now.

Cause there are journalists still going on. I'm like, yeah, it's over, it's over. Bad car accidents and stuff like that. I did it with my family. I have an older son that was kind of separate. I just learned about him a year ago and he's 14. So that's compartmentalized. And the other relationships you've had? Yeah, that are...

Yeah, I've always had multiple something. Nothing's ever been together. It's multiple women or multiple cars? Everything. Everything. Yeah. Work life, auto work life. Work friends, of work friends.

Nobody knows each other, nobody knows anything. And multiple friends are known to her, yes? She knows some of my friends. Some of them, well then I learned these two people were both friends. I had no idea that we existed,. He had a family, none. He said not one word. So I didn't know these people existed and they didn't know we existed.

These are people I've known for years. For years. They're friends, they're lovers, they're what? They were just friends for the very long time. And then, yeah, there was two different situations a year apart from each other. And they became lovers? Yeah, I guess that's the term. Yes. Okay.

When I start to work with couples who come in, in the immediate aftermath of the crisis of an affair. I always think, how do I create a container that can hold two very, very different experiences of the same thing? And that means what he did to her, and then also what it meant for him. And this one starts to feel like it's gonna be a hard one to hold because there's so much. After talking with him about his family of origin,

about how he equates the challenges from his childhood as the strengths at his job, about some of the secrets that have trickled out. I start to feel like we at least have now an agreement about some of the basic facts. And so now I want to hear from her. Thank you. It was a long intro. And I would just love to bring you into the conversation. Do you hear him often speak like that?

A little bit. When I first found out about all of this, well, the first time when I learned about this friend and his son on the same day. And this woman is the son on the same day. And this woman is the mother of the child? No. So there is yet another person? The mother of the child was an ex from a long time ago.

They got together apparently one time while we were on a break 15 years ago. How long have you been together? We met over 20 years ago, but it's been off and on for a long time. Throughout or only in the first years? The first few years were definitely off and on. And then the last 14 years have been pretty steady, except for,

it was a brief period of time, maybe seven years ago or something where we were broken up for a little bit. Yeah, that's, that's right. So when that happened last year and my everything came shattering down, I learned about that he had this other life of people. He didn't talk about us at all.

This woman had no idea. This friend thought she was friends with him for a while. Had no idea that we existed. It was a terrible time and we had some conversations where it seemed like he was opening up. We were acknowledging all the, the comprimentalizing and... How did you find out? Did you find me out? Well, we had a call when I was with,

we're still with our family on a Sunday morning around nine o'clock, someone called me. Said, oh, my friend's been in a relationship. Oh, and by the way, did you know he has a 14 year old son? I was like, no. And then he admitted it, well, admitted the child. I was, we were with our children. I had to like, it was horrible.

And then like, and I came home to pictures on my doorstep, she had left, started emailing me, it was awful. Pictures of them. Yeah. To show to you that they had a relationship. Yeah, she wanted to. Which you did not know. No, until the day before, so she left.

And she did not know about you. Right. We went to, started going to. Which you did not know. No, until the day before, so she loved. And she did not know about you. Right. We went to, started going to couples therapy. Didn't really feel like it was going anywhere, but I thought we had some good conversations and I felt really, I was really in a lot of pain, but I felt like he was doing the right thing. I was not suspicious for a second until four weeks ago where I get another phone call. I just got off to work.

I had a call from a number and I immediately felt like dread answered the phone. Hi, I'm so and so. I've been in a relationship for the last, you know, off and on. And I was like, wait, what? Relationship. It's my friend, but we've been sleeping together.

I'm like, wait a second. We've been sleeping together? It turns out they had, I was like, when, what? It's my friend, but we've been sleeping together. I'm like, wait a second. We've been sleeping together? It turns out they had, when was the last time? And they found out it was the day before we went on a trip. It was just, and I immediately just had to told the work. I had an emergency and left and he left work and I just got home and started screaming. So it turns out he almost immediately started

doing the exact same thing. It was the same story. Another unattractive single mother with probably low self-esteem who thought he was so nice and so wonderful. And then she kept calling me and then I was like, oh, she's trying to tell me how this was this meaningful thing and this had been going on. And then she left a bunch of stuff in our driveway, pictures and cards and it was just awful.

And that was like exactly four weeks ago. Oh wow. So you're in the thick of this. Yes, and I've already been through that, I just feel like completely between numb, filled with rage and very sad. Of course. I'm just like blown away.

If you could do this like again, like blown away. Like I just feel like I'm with a stranger. I feel like a sense of disgust. I've never felt like last year I felt hopeful. Now I'm just like, I don't know who you are. I don't know what's going on. I'm very mad at myself. So for not seeing this, I feel like this is insanity. Like this behavior is so insane. Like this is not okay. And he's, I know he feels bad. So I'm like, what is, like something is very wrong.

There's no trust, like none. I trust him to take care of our children. I don't trust him like that again. Like I feel like total fool. I haven't told him like that again. Like I feel like total fool. I haven't told one person about this. I can't tell my friends, it's humiliating. I feel like we love each other very much. I am very afraid of the future.

We have to figure out like the kids in the house and if we really, it just doesn't feel real. It doesn't even feel like what I want. I, yeah, I just feel't feel real, it doesn't even feel like what I want. Yeah, I just feel like I'm going crazy. All of this superposition of contradictory feelings that just come knocking at you, all normal and there for a while, unfortunately.

That's why it's like, again, like irony is just coming out of it and then you like. And by the way, it's still not about you. I believe that I'm sorry. It makes it harder sometimes but still not about you That doesn't mean that you want to live with it, right? And I don't know what you will decide Like I'm scared. I really Don't know who yeah And what he's capable of.

No. It's like, did I fall in love with a con man? He just can make things up and I don't know. He can want to change, but if he can't change then nothing is going to happen. It's going to end. Am I supposed to just wait here and hope that he doesn't do it again? I don't know. It's very important to lift the pressure

that in this one session, she will figure out what she wants to do with her life. A first session where things are being revealed and laid out like that, sometimes for the first time. I see my role primarily as creating a safe container for two very different experiences that are coexisting, but also it's about providing structure, calmness and reassurance. You are flooded, overwhelmed, confused.

There is no decision to be made in the moment. And that's okay, because she's often surrounded by people who instantly say, what are you going to do? And that is not always so helpful. We have to take a brief break. Stay with us. a brief break. Stay with us. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Queen's.

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That's quince.com slash Perel to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash Perel. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude, from Anthropic, may be the answer. Claude is a next-generation AI assistant, built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability.

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How does it land on you? I just, I try to listen. It makes me feel terrible as a person and as a partner. Like it makes me feel terrible. I know that I'm better than that as a person. It sucks. It makes me feel like a loser. That I can make her feel like that. That would make anybody feel like that. It makes me sad. I think sometimes it makes me a little nervous but I think

sometimes the nervousness is trying to figure out where it comes from, where it stems from. Because most of the time you're just like, yeah whatever, it's just like yeah, just living life. It's not really affecting anybody. No, it's affecting until it does. Quite a a few people you open their hearts Yeah, but before that like you just out here just living What do you understand about the nature of your relationships with the women I Mean what happens to you? Here you are

Asking me this very poignant question, what of my family is lingering with me, basically influencing how I respond to the barrenness that I felt emotionally in family. We were a practical family in which there was very little room for emotion. I learned to shut it all down, but that doesn't mean it disappears. It goes underground. I'm listening to this. It is an interesting moment. He began to articulate his remorse and his guilt. And I begin to notice his squirm, his sadness, his overwhelm. And normally I would continue. It's okay. That's what happens when you begin to really take in the magnitude of your actions. But with him, I went to a safer place.

I basically went back to his original question. What about my family history is setting me up for the kind of behaviors that I have today and that I can't make sense of. I mean, that's, I think it was, we moved when I was 14. And like we just moved and, well, me and my mother moved. But it would just happen. And it wasn't like, this is an explanation. So at that point I was like, oh, I guess nobody cares

what I'm gonna think about this. They divorced? They separated? Not as, they separated for, we moved for six months. For six months. And then we moved back, we're like, oh, we're moving back. So I'm like, all right, I guess we're moving back. Nobody asked me anything and...

Meaning that your world was being toppled upside down and you had no idea what was happening? I know what was happening but we moved and I went to school the next day. That's all I knew what to do. Probably since then I was like, ah, nobody's going to ask my opinion on anything or nobody's going to be concerned. I'm just going to figure it out. Nobody's gonna be concerned. I'm just gonna, you know, figure it out But they no one ever asked how was your day or Is this strange? It was awful, but I was just I

Guess this is what life does So I can't spend like a solo warrior for Forever I a solo warrior for forever. I listen to you talk about this emotional desert. I hear you talk about the solo warrior. How nobody asked me how was my day, or nobody said a word when they uprooted me and threw me in a whole new reality, and it's as if one didn't exist.

But then you have established these relationships with women, who I'm sure ask you your day and how things are, and you almost keep it on the side, secret, cherished, like a treasure chest of your own, so that nobody can touch it. Of course, you leave a group of women totally distraught and broken afterwards, but in the experience, it's as if you went and hidden in the back room of your life, you went to create the love, the tenderness, the openness that you've been craving for your whole life. There is such a big need.

It's so much more than what one person could potentially even give you that you created this amazing stage of love. Tell me how that reaches you. Um, I think the words make sense. I can throw a picture of it in my head. Okay, tell me what you see. And this will help her too, because it will help her make sense of this, that this is not just about being a con artist and a psychopath, but that actually this little boy went and created in his backyard these little universes

Supposed you want to hang out is that Tell me first what you saw That's why I saw a person hanging out with nothing around and then find one thing that I could fit into my hand. I can put this in my pocket. I'm good with this Nobody sees it's just there. So it's kinda like happiness and joy and things that I don't show. It's lonely in there.

You get used to it. I know you did, but let it come right now. It's lonely, but... But I think life is... No, don't talk yet. Kind of lonely. It was very lonely. It was beyond lonely.

In a lot of ways, yes, because... I've always had people all around. Yes, but people who don't see you. But that's, you know. Sometimes loneliness. And I would stay in my apartments for Christmas, which is me by myself. This is normal. No, it's not normal. Well, it felt normal, hadn't it?

I know it felt. It's not normal, and it's not normal to feel so lonely with people who are right next to you, in the midst of them. When I listen to this piece in the session, I can hear some people say to me, but you are feeling bad for the bad guy. And where are her feelings? And when is he gonna take responsibility

for what he did to her? And here's what was going on in my head. I need to see if he can experience some compassion for the child that he was and for the feelings that he had so that he can respond today for her feelings and for what she's going through. Otherwise, he can't express the remorse without instantly feeling such guilt and being such a loser and feeling so bad about himself that he can't feel bad for what he did to her.

I want you to go back to that image. I carry my secret friends in my pocket. You know, this is what kids do. Your five and a half year old may have an imaginary friend too. And you went and you created imaginary friends. Of course they're real. And they give you a smile on your face that nobody even knows where the smile comes from. You know, affairs have meanings.

They exist for a reason. These kind of affairs, right, of women who come to tell you, we had a whole relationship. He promised things. I didn't know you existed, and you became a secret friend too. If everybody's secret, I can't lose it. Nobody can take it away from me. This is more trauma than calm. Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like both times, like the first question I asked him last year was like, did you love this person? He's like, no, of course not. Are you crazy? Like a friend. I was not like at all. Like I am with you. It wasn't holding hands and...

It wasn't. Okay. He may not, but he certainly enjoyed them loving him. Oh, absolutely. I feel like that's kind of what I thought. I mean, enjoyed is a trite word. He nourished himself on them loving him. Clearly, and that's also what feels so crazy.

Now finding out about this number two, it's like the same kind of person. It almost feels like the same exact same. But they have to be mothers. They have children. Yes, both of them are single mothers. Yes. The point is that you're not a mother.

You're the partner, which is good. But there is the search for the mother for a certain kind of motherly love. He doesn't need to love them, he needs them to love him. The mighty have to have sex with them. Like that is part of also what's so baffling is like, we were having sex like every day. So like, you still wanted more,

so like you had to go get more sex? Like what? Like you had sex with someone else? While we were having sex? Like regularly? Who should think that I was doing that every day? Doesn't matter, you did it at all. But the point is, this isn't the story of two people that hadn't been connected or hadn't felt like attracted to each other. That's not our story. That makes me feel insecure and grossed out and...

You need to give her a little bit more meat on the bone. You can't just say, I don't need a reason, and then leave it at that. Because your partner is bereft, broken inside. I'd just say, like, she goes, you had to have that much sex only no only No, but it's not the quantity or the frequency that matters. No, she said why do you have sex? I mean I I'm not gonna say that I don't enjoy having sex that would be a lie. No, but the question is What was the nature of your relationships with these women? If we don't know what it means for you, she can't make sense of this.

Making sense is just the beginning. It's just some basic understanding so that she doesn't go crazy. And what does it do to her is, did you think of her when you were leaving the house? What were you thinking when you would come back into the house? Oh, I felt awful. I felt awful every day. See, all of that she needs to know. Oh, I would tell her. Because when you are with other people, one of the main first things anyone would be thinking is, did you think of me?

Did I still exist in your universe or did I vanish in one of your pockets? Well, I felt like a horrible person. Tell her more. I think that's not enough. I woke up, I felt awful every day. In general, I felt like a bad person, but that made me feel worse because I'm not unhappy. I love our relationship and I love our family and that made me feel even worse because it was like just making the situation worse.

You're still not explaining like why sex? Like why are you going and having sex? Or why'd you have to fuck them? Like you were friends, why did you, why? It wasn't like on the checklist of like. No, but like what makes, like what, how do you like? Probably out having drinks. We'd have like a conversation of like, hey at this time.

No, that's not what I mean, having a conversation of like, hey, at this time, I'm bubble. No, that's not what I mean. What do you know about how you needed to create another secret friend? What I know about it? Yeah, because you lose one secret friend, and on the heels of that, you go and you create another. The sex is what makes it secret friend. And on the heels of that you go and you create another. The sex is what makes it secretive.

The sex is connecting, the sex is intimacy, the sex is tenderness, the sex is a lot of things that men need to call sex because they can't call it other things. So at the moment that you lose that friend in your pocket, as you said, you basically took another friend and put her in the category emotional nurturer, mom. I don't know if I was a nurturer. I don't know. Don't worry, I got to read every card. Is it dead or am I off? It was definitely like there was a sweetness, like thanks for being a good friend. Like it wasn't the things he was saying to me. I saw her drop her stuff off. My phone went off.

That's almost at our door. I'm at work and I pull up the phone and I'm just shaking. I can see her car pull into my driveway and I see her start unloading her car and I'm watching her from the doorbell, getting obviously furious. And she must have printed off every picture she probably had and printed off every card.

And she's part of while she's making argument why she's, you know, she knows she meant so much to him. I'll show you all the cards. Oh my gosh, it's going to be the same thing. If it's the same kind of stuff he says to me, I'm like, really, I can't take it. Like if it's like, I love you. It wasn't that it was, it was definitely more of a French. It was like, you meet your French.

It means so much to me. Thanks for being there for me. It was a lot of that. Very sweet things, he said. It wasn't the same things, but I was still just like, why did you get her? The Mother's Day card, the Valentine's Day card. But yeah, I think that was, she obviously wanted me to see all the evidence that this was obviously like a good friend.

This was an emotional thing. And when she called me, she said, oh, you know, I've seen him cry a bunch of times. Like, okay, thank you for telling me, but whatever. She wants to know what is so special about these women and what does it say about her? And I said to her earlier, it's not about you. I mean, when I imagine the scene of the women bringing those boxes with the

pictures and the Mother's Day cards that he wrote to them, this is a stage. He creates this whole theater where these mothers can talk about how special this boy, now man is, and come to show evidence of the uniqueness of their relationship, evidence of how important he is, anything but the invisibility that he felt at home. They are exposing him, they over her driveway for her to see not how important they were, which is a piece of it too, but also how important he was. And I start to think that that is part of why they are mothers. What he's doing there is very much a quest and a longing that he felt as a boy. And the sex becomes the language through which he can make this into an adult experience because no one wants to experience the regression of feeling like that nine-year-old or that 14-year-old kid.

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Just go to indeed.com slash Esther right now and say you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com slash Esther terms and conditions apply need to hire you need indeed Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos,

and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at hubspot.com slash marketers. It's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at hubspot.com slash marketers. We fuss over every single detail of the show. We sort through thousands of applicants each year to pick the stories that we share with you. And the conversations that I have with couples

start off as three-hour sessions. And then we thoughtfully edit them to one hour and then go back and listen to them at the notes and sometimes even a critique of the session. It's kind of what is in my head as I listen to the session that I didn't say in the session. We create original music and sound design to bring the sessions to life. Where Should We Begin? Involves a whole team who have been there since the beginning with me to bring my office

to you. It's about eight years that we are telling the stories of raw, intimate encounter between people that you are invited to listen in, like a fly on the wall. It's an expensive and quite time-consuming effort to create Where Should We Begin, and which we gladly undertake because you tell us time and again how valuable these conversations are to you, how they accompany you in critical moments of your life, how you see yourselves even in stories that have nothing to do with yours, and how it has helped you. And that is probably the most affirming thing people can come and tell me.

So now we need to ask you for more and for your help. And you can do your part not only by listening, but by joining my office hour subscription on Apple podcasts. A subscription to Where Should We Begin gives you an ad-free version of these sessions and all the Aster callings, and more importantly, a way to continue the conversations with me on all the topics that come up in these sessions, from sexlessness, to work conflicts, to infidelity, to secrets, to betrayals, all sorts of relational betrayals, to ending relationships. And we offer follow-ups with the couples because people always ask me, you know, do you see

them again? Do you hear from them? Do you know where this session landed? So I go back to the couples and I ask them for a follow-up which they share with us and which I then share with you. And just like our relationships, what you say isn't as important as what you do. So I've heard you say how much you enjoy the program,

how much it adds to your understanding of your own relationships. But now it's time for me to do an offer and an ask, which means click on the subscribe button to the Where Should We Begin show page. I'd love to see you in Esther's office hours. His mother had a stroke eight years ago and he was living with her, taking care of her. He did not leave, like even once we got pregnant with our son, I was living by myself with our son. It was so not what I wanted, but he would not leave his mother's house. He wouldn't move in with us fully until she was moved out.

Once she moved, he moved in fully with us. His dad also died five months after our son was born. It was like a lot, what stuff he's gone through. I mean, he was caring for his mother, like bathing his mother, like intense stuff. So I was like, okay. Did Mom finally recognize you? Did her heart ever open up or did you do all of that?

No, I just did it. I know you did it. But you don't just did it, you did it. It's amazing, right? She thanked me a couple times. Listen, I'm gonna say something that you of course know as well. Some of the most deprived children are the most devoted.

They got the least and they give the most. And they try to tell you I just did the right thing, but no, that's not what it is about. And that's part of why she comes back. Because in the midst of your doing this very hurtful behavior, she knows there is a golden heart. She knows there is a golden heart. And she's shaking her head, so I'm getting my cues. Yeah, no, I know. But it's like, there's no time I want to go back to

because it always felt like this was too hard. That's why I was like, I think I can't do this anymore. But right now, if I understood what you said a voice inside of you says You should get out but another voice inside of you says I Don't want to do that because we actually have a unusual maybe but a very deep

strong connection a a family. And I feel loved by him. And there's another voice that says, if you stay, you're weak, if you stay, you're naive, if you stay, you will humiliate yourself. And then there's another one that says, I don't care. Maybe there is strength in staying, maybe there is growth in staying.

It goes back and forth like this. You can take her more than the hand if you want. You can come closer. It's red. Because you see, you're doing the hurtful behavior and she walks around with her own shame. How can I let this happen? How did I not see this? And what if it happens again?

And what's wrong with me that I love this person? Is he really as good as I think he is, or am I completely wrong, completely mistaken? And I'm with a compulsive liar, and I think he's the kindest person. It's a mindfuck. It's a heartbreak and a mindfuck. You wanna add? I also feel like,

I feel like we owe our sons, like, we have these two brown boys. I, they're like the world to me and us. Like I just, it breaks my heart to think like, did I just create a situation for these kids that didn't have a choice? Like I want them to have, to see a good example, love and unconditional love. And he does not, you can see that he's not where he, he doesn't get it. Like I could say, I see it, it's just not where he comes from. Like a transactional, like there's a lot of, I feel like, and he's tough and just can be

short tempered, also can be very loving with them. Like very loving and very tender and very sweet. And where does he get that? Where does he get that? I don't know. I'm sweet. I know you can be. I know you are. That's why I would come here. I'm not gonna like, I'm not total masochist. There is the little boy that you probably were

that was very sweet and sensitive and in need of mom and dad. And then there is the boy that you became because that's how he adapted to his circumstances. And you've learned to live life from the place of the kid that adapted. But you've yearned in all kinds of ways to have a space to be that other person. I need a hobby. to have a space to be that other person. I need a hobby.

No, I know, like I can sense that he wants to be like, he is an emotional person, like he just, and we want to connect more, you are an emotional person. And I'm, I'm not, by no means am I trying, you know, I'm, communications, like it's not easy for me either, and I want, I really wanted to work on that, communications, it's not easy for me either. And I really wanted to work on that with you. And I thought that's what we were doing last year. And it just did not. We weren't, it didn't happen.

And it's clear that the relationship needs to change. And that fundamentally nobody here really wants to go anywhere Neither you But you need to find another way to bring the kindness and the tenderness and the motherliness in your life in a way that doesn't hurt and Destroy your relationship and your family and destroy your relationship and your family. To go and find what you didn't get in your family and then destroy your current family would be an irony.

It's still like, it's still scary to me. It's like, then what? Okay, then what? Then if that's your coping skills, have sex with a homely looking middle-aged woman, or single. Or I wasn't doing things to take care of my own self. So that's another thing that we've been talking about a lot. Ever since his dad died, you could see him not taking care of himself and that was always very like concerning to me. You'd stop exercising, you started drinking more, like you were gaining weight, like you were just

not in a good place. And I would, oh, you wanna go do this? It was always no, no, no, no, no. Do you ever wonder if there's been a lingering depression? I know it's not something I'm over. Right. And you don't call it depression because you put yourself in shutdown mode. And if you don't feel anything, then you don't call it depression because you put yourself in shutdown mode.

And if you don't feel anything, then you don't feel that you're depressed either. It's just that you're shut down. And you say no to life and to the world. Well yeah, a lot of it was, I've had a lot of anger about it. About what? My dad dying.

All right, tell me more. You're wonderful. No, no, no. He usually finds it easier to be angry than sad, so let him be sad. I think I was so angry because I felt so alone. And it was fast, it was like extremely fast. I had to do everything myself. And I don't know how to get over that

because I'm really angry about it. And I don't know how to change it to something else. I have to do everything myself with my dad. Meaning? Everything. But then, you know, then once he passed away, we had the memorial service and everybody was gone. So everything else was the house and

selling and fixing and paying for everything. That was a year and a half of my life that I feel like just angry about it. And I want everybody else to be angry now. It just made me angry. It makes me angry. It still makes me angry. Because since then, no one's talked about it.

No one's asked me one thing. And that was in 2019. Am I hearing you? I'm angry that I needed to take care of everything. That nobody asks me ever how I am, that nobody asks me if I need anything, that I don't even know how to tell them if I was to need anything,

that I am there taking care of people who I have so many feelings about how they didn't take care of me. It's unfair, it's lonely, it's burdensome. And you get angry, in part because nobody has to ask you, you show up. You feel good about that. But underneath is the other side, which is that you don't know how to ask for anything. And at one point, it overflows.

Yeah, it gets overwhelming. I'm there for everyone, and who's there for me? Nobody has to ask me to be there for others, and nobody offers to be there for me. And when they do, I don't know what to do with it, I reject it, neither can I I receive and neither can I ask That's a core issue And that thing is like also of course you were amazing to both your parents and you were there for them like no questions asked

And also when our oldest was an infant when his dad got I asked, do you want your dad to meet him? He said, no. His parents never met our children, and his mother only met our children the day I got that call last year. She didn't know they existed, either. Your children? This is layers and layers of secrets.

Yeah, so the parents didn't know either. Because you didn't want to give them any pleasure? They didn't deserve it? I didn't think so. I didn't think that they deserved it. Right, you were angry at them, so you were not gonna... Like, it wasn't gonna be like how her family is. My family was the same way.

We didn't go around my dad's family. They were crazy, per se. They were crazy. didn't go around my dad's family. They were crazy, per se. They were crazy. And we went around my mom's family. But you're angry at your parents. And at the same time, you have acted out of enormous devotion and obligation. And one thing I do know about affairs

is that they are completely free choice. If there's one thing an affair never is, it's an obligation. It's a very selfish act. It's for you. And many affairs take place on the hills of illness and death. They live in the shadow of that. It's as if you have zero control over illness and death. Then an affair becomes this very chosen, free choice, life affirming experience.

Hurtful to the one next to you. Hurtful to the one next to you. And if you want this not to happen again, the anger piece is at the core. Yeah. I don't know how to get over it. It's not like whisk it away. One doesn't just get over and let go. You have good reasons to be angry, first of all. So the first piece is to acknowledge it, to not try to push it out of the system, to give

it the room that it's been asking, but to understand what it represents. Especially because you choose mothers, and the mother piece is as important as the woman piece. So you want to ask, so then why do they have sex? Because the sex is what distinguishes the boy from the man. That's just one thought. There's loads of reasons why these two people had sex. But in the story, you don't just want to be a little boy going to look for mommy. So in the erotic version of this plot, sex becomes the thing that turns it into an adult

story. And then he can continue to say, I never need anything from anyone. Which is obviously not true. They both are asking questions about the role of sex in his affairs. Not if there is sex, not how much, how often, but why? What does it say about her? What does it say about him?

And when I describe to him the notion that it allows him to be a man and not a boy, I also think that for many people, in these situations, sex allows you to have needs without being needy. But those needs are expressed as wants, as preferences, they are eroticized, and they become a kind of a concealed language. Because our sexual preferences often are a coded language for our deepest emotional needs. If you want to know where their session goes from here,

we followed up with them a few months after. You can look for it later this week on Esther's office hours on Apple subscriptions. 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, Destrie Sibley, Sabrina Farhi,

Kristen Muller, and Julian Attin. 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. Miller and Jack Saul. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI.

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