Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - How's Work? - The Preacher's Wife

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

She has never quite fit into the mold of the preacher's wife in their small town. He has put his self-worth solely into his career, as a bandaid over deep-seated childhood insecurities. They have never been able to come to terms with the resentment they both experience. This is the first part of a special two-part episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How's Work is an unscripted, one-time counseling session focused on work. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names, employers, and other identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real. When it comes to Smart Water Alkaline 9.5 plus pH with antioxidant, there's nothing to overthink. So, while you may be performing mental gymnastics over whether the post-work gym crowd is worth it, if you'll be able to find a spot for your yoga mat, or if that spin instructor will make you late for dinner again,

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Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. She has commented at times that the church feels like a third member of our marriage. Oh, I want to talk about work, but his work slash our work slash the fact that I don't really like it being our work. In many relationships, home and work exist in separate spheres.

On occasion, one person will tell their partner about what's going on at work. But my experience working with clergy or family doctors or politicians is that work becomes a family member, a presence in the house at all times. And it is no longer one person's job. It's everybody's involvement with that job. In my work as a pastor, there are certainly a number of expectations placed on me. There are also expectations placed on you. For me, I don't know that it feels so much like, oh, I want more attention from you, as it feels like I don't want this organization to be the kind of focal organizing point of our lives. In the case of this particular couple, they are a young couple, young in age, but also young in terms of the very few years that they have been together. They met through school in a big city. Together, they have

moved to a small town where he has been named as the pastor of a rather central church. They are learning what it means to be the pastor. And I am saying they are learning because it isn't just his career. It also has become a daily involvement on her part, more than she ever hoped for or bargained for. She has her own career as an academic, but his job, the church, has become the third member of their relationship. So your request is, I would like... Go ahead.

I would like to have an understanding of how we can flourish as partners together, as a married couple, but also how I would like to understand how we could flourish not only for ourselves but for the people that we serve together, even though she doesn't get paid for it. I'm the only one that gets paid for it. Because I do think my own religious beliefs lead me to understand that we have a dual

responsibility of service to a particular community. And I believe that if we are flourishing, that will help the community that we serve flourish as well. And if I understood something, many times the community flourishes and you experience it at your expense. Or you find yourself, as I have sometimes said, recruited for a play that you didn't audition for. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, one tricky thing is that I would maybe reframe it, a play I thought I might be okay participating in, and then as I've gone along acting have thought,

oh, this was maybe not as great for me as I've gone along acting have thought oh this was maybe not as great for me as I thought it was going to be say more that's an excellent reframe but say more yeah because we were very clear before getting married I mean I knew exactly what I was signing up for and you and he said that to me many times well I mean't think she did. Well, I mean, I knew. Well, she thought she knew the play, but then she read the script again and she understood it differently. Maybe, let me put it this way. I knew the outlines of what it involved, both from my own childhood and from you saying, you know, you realize marrying me would mean this. And I said, yep, I can do that. I think I maybe did not realize the cost to me or what my experience of it would be. And of course, you can't really know in advance fully what your experience of something was going to be.

Like, I think I sort of felt like, oh, I can do that. And I don't remember. I can do what? I can be the cheerful person who shows up and chats with people and hosts the party and is the supportive wife and wants to, on the side, devote herself to the church. One thing that occasionally comes up is if something happens at the church that I vehemently disagree with, like wanting to fire the youth minister, like hiring the police officers, like various examples. And I, in my strong opinions and strong sense of justice, I'm like, this is wrong and dig in my heels. What's especially hard for me is I feel like, yes, I have voice and so far as I live with him and he has to literally listen to me. But I don't have formal voice.

I could never be part of the governing body of the church. I can't show up and advocate. I get no representation, I would say. And that's not because you're a woman. It's because you're my wife. Exactly, yeah. And I agree that I should not have representation. They happen to be the same.

Well, yeah, I should not because they make decisions about your pay and hiring, for instance. So it's a very appropriate wall, but then it frustrates me because I feel this kind of helplessness that I don't like to be. The kind of passive. Like I sometimes feel like I am endorsing something by my presence and support that I don't actually want to get behind. Go back a second. I am here today so that... Oh, I mean a few things. I do sometimes have this kind of wish to be free of it, the church, and the responsibilities. sometimes more than others. Honestly, there have been points in the last year that have been some of my happiest moments with the church.

So I'm very aware that there are lovely things about it, some real friendships happening. But sometimes I just kind of think, oh, my word, can I just be on my own to do my own many projects and not have all of your projects also heaped on me. And you have a career of your own. Yes. Yeah. It's a lot. And then even little things like, oh, like every Sunday I do the children's message, the time to talk to the children or like singing in the choir, or especially as he started graduate school this year, like times I've delivered meals on Saturday or like trunk or treat, like just the various things,

it just feels like, oh my word, can I not, can I do them because I want to do them and not because you're telling me you need me to do them? Like I imagine that I would still choose to do some of those things all on my own. So when I hear her describe her career with students and obligations and allegiances to a university, that is not where the tension lies. The tension is in the fact that she doesn't ask him for anything in order to achieve in her career, whereas he relies heavily on her. I find that my own spiritual life has become a long to-do list,

and it's squelched some of the joy and meaning out of it for me. And I would like to reclaim some of it. When have you felt it? I mean, for the longest stretch of time, at the church I was at before we got married, which I mean, I'll probably cry now. I grieved leaving that church like a person. It's sometimes I think a painful point because I try not to idealize it. I think you sometimes feel jealous. Like that's where she really wants to be or that's where you really want to be. So that was... So there is the current church, which is another member of the relationship.

And then there is the previous church, which is like an ex that you still love. Yes. I'm just trying to get a sense of who else is part of the relationship. No, I think it's a fair analogy. You probably have felt some kind of jealousy around it. Yeah, she's still in love with her ex. It's not an accident that I almost always refer to the current church as his church. I think only recently in the last few months have I sometimes switched to saying my church or our church. Yeah.

Yeah. She always refers to it as, oh, those are your parishioners. Yeah. And what does it do to you? It makes, at times it has made me feel sad because it feels like she's not all in with me with this. And she made a statement that sometimes she wants to be free from the church. And I've gotten better about this, but especially in the beginning of our marriage, we've been married about four years now. Actually got married at her old church. Did you panic? No. actually got married at her old church. But it...

Did you panic? No. Did you panic when she would say that? Yeah. And when she would say, you know, when she says she wants to be free of the church, in the beginning I almost felt like it was a way of her saying she wanted to be free of me.

Yes. That's why I ask if you panicked. Because it's a statement of I want to leave you. Yeah. And it took me a while to actually believe that she wanted to be with me and love me. Irrespective of church matters. Irrespective of church, yeah. Okay.

So that's a separate statement. Say more. I came from a very dysfunctional family. My mother left us with her parents, my brother and I, when I was around two and he was around four. My dad was not in the picture and then my dad came back into the picture and we were with him for a while but he had his own demons and so he left. He left my brother and I with the woman he married after my mother. We've just made a sharp turn. From talking about the manifest differences and pressures of their careers,

he has just made such an important statement that is less about his role and more about the sense of himself and how his sense of self-worth is intricately connected with her and with their careers. I don't know where it's going, but I know I have to follow him. And I never felt like they really loved us. They kept us for a little while. My step parents, grandparents, they kept us around because my dad and my stepmom had a girl, my younger sister, but I never felt like they really loved us, my brother and me. And they loved your sister? loved us, my brother and me. And so... And they loved your sister?

Yeah, I think they loved her more. I mean, they let her do anything she wanted, and we were... Yeah, it was... You just saw something. Yeah. We were not treated right. What did you just see? We were treated as second-class citizens.

And we were verbally and sometimes physically abused. Not sexually abused, never sexually abused, but physically and emotionally. This is a choice point for me. I've asked him twice each time he tells me a little bit more his voice changed his face left but he didn't want to take us there in a specific way but i think we can all pretty much imagine it so he need not say any more on that. And we kept following him. My grandmother, my biological, my maternal grandmother, my mom's mom,

I believe was the only woman that truly loved me. Only person that I felt like loved me unconditionally. She died in 2013. And I've had a series of people coming in and out. My grandmother was the only constant. My brother was the only constant until I was 16. And when I was 16, I moved to another town to be with my mom. We reconnected.

I would say my mom loves me, but in a weird way. I mean, she's a hot mess. Why did your mom leave? I don't, I, I, I don't think she was meant to be a mother. That's, that's the simplest way I could put it. She was, she had some mental health issues and I think frankly, it was, some of it was selfish reasons. It was drug, sex, and rock and roll. And I think she was 25 when I was born.

And I don't think she has grown up since. And when she hit 40, she became a little more responsible. But by that time, I was a teenager. I didn't really have a mom or a dad that really loved me or valued me for who I am. And it created a lot of instability in my life. And the church was an important... Church has always been a source of stability

and family for me. And frankly, my vocation in the church has been a way for me to rise above much of the trauma and chaos of my origins. My parents don't have any college degree. I have a master's degree. I'm getting paid a professional salary. I mean, we're not- You're working on a PhD? We're not uber wealthy, but we have a house. We own our cars. We're thoroughly middle class. My parents were never that. Working on a PhD. And the church was, theologically, I mean, through the church, I came to hear the story of salvation.

But in a very practical sense, the church has saved my life. Because on the whole, people that come from the circumstances that I came from end up as addicts or in jail or not really doing something good with their life. I have risen above all of those odds. When did the church become your home? It's always been my home. How little were you when you first said you wanted to be a preacher? I can't remember a

time. So it has been a genuine calling for me to do this. It has been a real family that I never had at home. May I throw something out? Because one of the topics that we are talking about is what is the extent of one's obligations to a community and what is the range of one's own free choice? And if I listen to you, the people who acted with their own free choice didn't act very caringly or morally or responsibly. And so in your organization, duty and obligation and acting with others in mind takes on a whole new meaning versus free choice. Yes, I'm also, I can be selfish. Thank you.

Let's add another layer. Yeah. Yeah, I can be selfish. I feel like... You can be selfish in how important your sense of responsibility has to be in overriding whatever else your wife thinks is important. You always think that your thing is the most important. Yes.

It's kind of a whose career matters more on some level. I think mine matters more. That's what I thought you said. Yeah, I believe it does. Because? Well. Not that you need to justify yourself. I'm just curious, when you say that statement, it comes with a whole set of beliefs. Yeah. Maybe some arrogance and maybe some selfishness and maybe some fear. But even though I'm admitting that it matters more, that is not to say that there isn't room for negotiation about what happens with her career. But I do believe it matters more because I'm feeling angry. You're not being challenged. I'm feeling angry. And I'm not angry at anyone. Maybe impassioned. I had to fight to get where I am. And I'm not going to work as hard as I have worked to have it taken away. I did not have anyone holding my hand or showing me the ropes

about how to go to school, to make connections, to do what I needed to do to get ordained. I had to do all this myself. I hear you. And I've worked too hard to be a show in someone else's play. I've never put it that strongly before. No, you have a few times. Oh, I don't remember this. You've never said my career matters more.

That's new. But may forgive me, I'm going to call it the entitlement of kind of like, I work too hard, I deserve it. That I've heard some of that before. Yeah. Well, and I deserve it. That, that I've heard some of that before. Yeah. Well, and I do not. So her background is very different from mine. The major event in her life would, I guess, would be her father's death,

which was from total natural causes when she was young. But her mother is a doctor, family practice physician. She comes from a family of academics, a family with means. And so in some sense, she's always lived a very stable and comfortable life. And I am getting to a place where I'm experiencing some of that for the very first time, and I'm already an adult. Tell me if I heard you well. Because when I'm hearing you say, my career matters most, or more, which doesn't mean yours doesn't. But it does mean mine matters more. It's a more because I busted myself to get there and nobody helped me or some people helped me, but still, I did this. And there's an anger about how much I had to do this all alone.

And then there is a fear that it may not stick. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm so afraid of fucking up. Or I'm so afraid of something else out of my control happening where what I have worked so hard to achieve crumbles. And that has happened to people. In my line of work, I see it happen to people.

But it also has happened to you as a child. It has, yeah. So that fear is a fear you know well. Every time you think you have a new place and there is some stability, it can be ripped from underneath you at all times. So you don't really have a sense of constancy. But the fear is not a fear that is rooted in the here and now of your profession. Correct.

Okay. That is very true. That lands as true to me. Yeah. So put it in your own words. Because when you argue with your wife about career matters and priorities and who should say what to whom and who should be helpful and when can you demand her help rather than just ask for it

and she could say yay or nay. And there is that sense of urgency and ultimatum for which she cannot really say what she really wants to say because she feels your panic. So the conversation looks like it's about our jobs and who needs to support who for what but it sits on top yeah something much more raw but i also make more money than she does don't go there the making more money is not what gives you the sense of panic the fear of losing it may so we're going back to the fear the fear the panic the sense that it can disappear at all time

is what makes the conversations about work between the two of you more fraught yeah that's that feels right to me it? That seems very right to me, yeah. At first, the emphasis was on his sense of entitlement and his sense of arrogance and even selfishness. But it's deeper than that. On some level, he experiences her privilege as a birthright, that what she has is natural and she deserves it. And he lives with the internalized sense of precariousness, of neglect, of loss, of trauma, that his legacy issues from his childhood and the notion that

whatever he has achieved could at any moment disappear. That precariousness as if he hasn't fully internalized it is a driving force underneath his role as a pastor and his relationship to his congregation. But I also, I do want you to be your own person. Yeah. I mean, we're both kind of strong-willed in various respects. This has not always been the case, but in the most extreme circumstances in the past few years, there have been times where I felt like I'm putting out this fire, and now I've got to put

out this fire, and then I'm moving back here, and then back and forth. Yeah, like I'm running from here and yonder. We've had some significant events in the life of the church that have been really... I would say that in general, that's a great source of stress for you. And certainly some of our worst fights surrounding the church have involved you feeling like you have to put out a fire that I started. Because sometimes I start the fires. She has started a fire. Not normally on purpose, but yeah. Say more?

Like, we want to talk about the mayor the most egregious case oh in covid days after george floyd was killed there was all of the unrest we live in a conservative southern town there was this community police kind of exchange it went i think think, terribly. There was just all this talking past each other. You know, the police officers kept saying, like, we didn't kill George Floyd. Like, we don't have control over every police officer in America. Stop yelling at us. But then I also felt like they were not listening at all to the fears being articulated by the people in the crowd. So I, maybe being a little bit paternalistic, was sort of like,

I want to try to summarize what I heard and wrote a post on Facebook that was not a like, here's my political view. I really, I meant it as a summary. Like, this is what I heard. Here were the points where I heard people talking past each other. And for various reasons, some of them having nothing to do with me, it really set off the mayor of our town who is a member of his congregation. And someone who writes or wrote, he might not be writing checks anymore. He used to write large checks to the church. And I was kind of aware that he was upset. And I had reached out to him directly and said, hey, I see you're upset.

Do you want to talk about this? I'd be happy to talk to you and explain what I meant. Or if you're bothered, please tell me. And he never responded, never followed up on that. But he sent a furious email, which now, we really do laugh about it now. Now at a distance, it's funny, the things he was saying about me in this email. But it was like the worst caricature of saying really nasty things about me, the implication being like, you need to be in control of your wife or I'm withdrawing my money.

Like, it was kind of a direct line. So you felt incredibly panicky about having to put out that fire and did not tell me that he got the email until he was about to go to a church meeting where he was going to read this email to the entire governing body. And I, of course, lost it. Like, you can't not tell me that you're getting these complaints. Like, I felt like this is my problem. Let me deal with it.

Like, just respond to him and say, great. Talk to my wife. She'd love to talk to you. It was also my problem, but it was, of course it was. But so yes, that's like our paradigm incident. We worked through it, but it was rough. It was your problem. It was also my problem. That's why it's such an example of how we can't fully disentangle. Like, I want to insist, no, just let it be my problem. But of course it can. I do realize that. Yeah.

I wish I had handled it differently. Because I was in panic mode. I felt like, OK, I've got to bring more people into the conversation before this blows up and gets out of control because he was sending screenshots of her post to people all over town. Look what she's saying. Look what she's doing. So I felt like, okay, major fire going on.

I don't want this to explode. So I went to my leadership and said, you need to know this happened. This is my side of the story. And I did not include her in any of those conversations with the leadership, which that was a source of pain for you. Yeah. I felt like I had no voice. I said this to you repeatedly. Everyone is talking about me and no one will talk to me. I would handle the situation differently. I don't know what I would do, but I would do something different. I think that was a turning point. Yeah, in some ways it was.

I think since that moment, at least in my way of operating as the leader of this community, I have tried, not always successfully, to be more reflective and intentional about how I respond to things. Well, part of it, I would say, is the church came through for both of us. They had my back. Like, basically, their reaction to hearing this letter was, this is absurd. Like, does he know that person? Does he know who she is? And one of them even kind of called him up and said, you've got to stop saying such absurd things about her. Like, no one is taking this seriously. No one thinks all of this stuff you're saying is true. Yeah, so he made himself look bad, really, is what it amounted to. And we were very supportive. Yeah, yeah. They had our backs.

Yeah. I mean, it seems so obvious to you that when the shit hits the fan, it's all on you and only you can handle it. Because that's exactly how you got here is by having only you. That's why I left her out of it. So if you want to act differently next time, you have to understand that the more panicked you are, the more you rely on yourself. Yes. Which is the opposite. Yeah. Of what your relationship can offer you. The more panicked you are and the more you act like you think you made, you know, I made it by myself. I made it here all on my own. And that's what I do when I'm extinguishing a fire too. I mean, it is an incredible thing.

You describe a past where, except for grandma, none of the adults ever were there for you. No. And then you marry a wonderful woman, and the entire thing is predicated on her being there for you. That's surely part of what attracted you to me. I'm a pretty stable person in that respect. Yes. Yeah.

But the dynamic is one in which you have to continuously prove to him how much there you are for him. Yeah. I feel like my personhood is validated when she says yes. It's not just the fact that she says yes. It's the fact that somebody as strong-willed as her says yes. It's not just the fact that she says yes. It's the fact that somebody as strong-willed as her says yes. Yes. So what would it take for you, without being prompted,

to look at your wife on occasion and just say, you've just, the way you continue to play a part in that play that is not the play that you had imagined. And the way that you're even trying to edit it so that it becomes more and more a play you can be a protagonist in deeply, deeply moves me. Because you are doing something that I don't think I could ever do. There's no way in hell I can do it.

And there's no way in hell I would. This is the, you see, the accommodation that she made for you is beautiful, but it's an accommodation that you could never make. And I think that acknowledging that, because that's a power dynamic, and it's an act of generosity as well, and it's an expression of flexibility. What she is doing by joining you in your track, and this may not be the last church, and she's going to continue to follow you, and she's going to every time have to make that world her world. It's like the expat's wife. There are different professions that carry this dynamic,

where one person is the actor and the other person is the follower, the enabler, the one who makes it possible, the one who sets it up. But the focus is all the time about how this one needs to adapt to the choices of the other versus about how much the one who makes the choices depends on this one doing this in order to be able to continue on their track and having to say, thank you. I am so deeply appreciative because you're doing something for the life of me I could not have done. I could not be the sideshow. And I guess just realizing that is making me more grateful for you. But I'm feeling guilty that I have not said that unprovoked.

Honestly, it's a source of a bit of shame on my part. I mean, how could I be so blind not to see the cost? We all miss stuff. The what? I said we all miss stuff. Yeah. all miss stuff. The what? I said we all miss stuff. Yeah. I miss stuff. As I've reflected back on these last four years and even back on our time and our relationship,

I think my panic, as much as it has helped me, that it has also distorted my perceptions of reality. So as much as it has helped me, it has also hurt me. Do you know what he means? Yeah. Can you translate for me? That when he gets in this panicky, fearful mood, I'll use the kind of coloring shades metaphor.

Like things become very black and white. There's not a lot of room for the kind of compromise and negotiation that I want. It's either like this way or this way. And the conversation is over. And I have to either hop in line or totally check out. In the simplest terms for me, it's like it's just not really a relationship. There's not the back and forth. I want to have a dialogue. Yeah. To respect her freedom is to truly see her as a partner, as what I want instead of, I want this relationship to be a partnership and not a dictatorship as it has been in the past.

The nature of their interdependence in which she is the accommodator is a really important dynamic in many partnerships, in many pairs, in many romantic relationships. There is one person who can make the accommodations of speaking another language, of living in another country, of raising the children in a different culture or religion, of being the one who follows their partner from their own. It's just that they have a certain latitude and flexibility to make an accommodation that their partner most likely would have been unable to make. And in that sense, they have power. It is easy to think of the accommodator as the weaker person and the follower, when in fact, often the accommodator is the weaker person and the follower, when in fact, often the accommodator is the person who has the power, the power to make this relationship possible. Let's go back to the first sentence you said.

The church is a member of the family. The church is a third person in the relationship. In what way? So now we're going to go to this dynamic. When you feel that she supports you, which is translated when she makes me feel good about myself and I can be proud and she becomes the perfect extension of who I want to be in the world and when she becomes a part of me that I have to be ashamed of.

But it becomes all reflections on me. Uh-huh. I do love her as her own person, but she's good PR for me in the church. I know you're very proud of me, but my cynical interpretation is that you sometimes wear it like a badge. It's more of a like. It is a badge. I am proud in our own right, but it's like, look what I managed to attract. Look what is interested in me.

If she, someone of her pedigree, she earned some of her degrees at prestigious institutions, is interested in me, then that means that you need to take me seriously. It affirms that I'm not white trash anymore. I grew up in white trash. She's proof that I'm not white trash anymore. And that means? I feel it means that I am better than my parents. I'm better than the people who were a part of my childhood. I don't know what I can bring to her.

I have no idea. Yeah, I think that presses on a challenge for us, kind of both ways that I simultaneously feel like, can't you offer me something? Why do I have to be doing all the offering? But then there's also the undercut of like the flip side of, well, I'm the one with all the things to offer. Yeah. I feel like she's brought me much more than I have brought her. And does that get acknowledged out loud on occasion? Well, are you thinking primarily of material things? By material, I include both financial, but also like literally all the stuff I do? Or are do or are we talking about i'm talking about self-validation you mean like i well i do i tell you what i bring to her we have a house i have a nice salary you have a salary too but i have a

bigger one yeah you too bring those things but i, it would be sad if that's where we stopped. I don't think, she doesn't need self-validation. She is validated. That is not true. That is not true. She doesn't need it in the way that I need it. You think. Do you remember the times when I was dissertating and I would cry and say,

I feel like a failure and you would just hold me? Like that was pretty important validation. You think because I come from lower than you. That's part of your narrative. You had more and therefore you need less. Yeah. And you have different life stories for sure, but you're an idea that she doesn't need because she has,

but I need because I haven't had, and she will always have more, and I will always have had less, and the only way I can measure it is by talking about my salary and the house. No. If you've listened to her carefully, if you respect her opinions, if you ask her for her opinions, if you engage her in a dialogue over decisions and you don't impose your decisions driven by panic, if you don't make every situation where you need her to step in a proof of her

trustworthiness, because it's the only way that can diminish your catastrophizing. Yeah. That is a long list already. Hearing you say that. Did I capture that, first of all? Or are we missing? I think so. You clarify also, but I do think we sometimes work under the assumption that you're the one with the needs and I have very few needs. Yes. And then there's the layers of why that is. Yes. That's an assumption that I haven't really articulated or had articulated to me, but it makes a lot of sense. But I do think, as I'm reflecting, I think I bring a sense of resilience that we can get through something because I've gotten through something. I think that can be its own gift. Beautiful.

You're also really validating. I would say you're probably more validating if I'm struggling or ranting than I am. That's because I'm the one who needs validating a lot. So I know what it means to validate. Yeah. But you're good at offering it. Yeah. And does that apply also to the church, to your relationship with the church? If I need validating with something around the church? Yes. That is a little more dicey. Like, simple example, a few weeks ago when I said, it's becoming a bit wearing on me to prepare something for the children every week.

I think in the near future, I would like a break from this. Your first answer was like, okay, we could talk about that. But then it kind of very quickly shift to anxiety. Well, I guess there's just one more thing I'm going to have to do. You said something like that. So that there you, I think we're probably struggling because as you expressed, you felt like, well, great now more jobs for me. And is that part of your life description to work with the youth? Not specifically with children, but I am always amused the degree to which what I do talking to the children on Sunday morning is just what I do with my adult students. And to me, there's a beautiful continuity. Like in the classroom classroom I show up and we say,

look at this thing, it's so puzzling, or this word, it's so puzzling, or this story, it's so puzzling. And that's kind of my basic stance in talking to the children all the time. So I think they work together beautifully. It was an act of generosity on your part to start doing that.

That's a nice way of putting it. There's so many themes in this session that we all relate to. Whose career matters most? What is the deeper meaning of each person's career to themselves and in the relationship? How do we as couples triangulate with our jobs and the job becomes like a third person in the relationship? What is the degree of involvement that each partner has in the professional world of the other? To what degree do we need to involve our partners when we have issues at work? And to what degree do we listen to what our partner sees

about our predicament in the workplace in a way that we sometimes can't see? But nothing prepared me for what came to follow. The bottom fell from underneath them. And pretty much from underneath me as well. So much so, there was no way I could capture all of this in one episode. And so we decided to continue a second session so that together we can listen to what happened and how they dealt with it. There was a lot of shit to clean up after that in terms of taking care of the kids and people that were just wrecked by this.

In some sense, I hate him for what he did. You know, why would you do such a thing to the kids over which you had responsibility? And they loved him. Esther Perel is a therapist, bestselling author, speaker, and host of the podcasts, Where Should We Begin and How's Work? To apply with a colleague or partner to do a session for the podcast, or to follow along with each episode's show notes, go to howswork.esterperel.com. How's Work 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, Sabrina Farhi, Eleanor Kagan, Kristen Muller, and Julian Hap. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Howe's work are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, Jen Marler, and Jack Saul. Thank you.