Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - I Want to Feel Wanted

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? After ten years, a husband tells his wife he no longer wishes to be married. A month later, stuck in limbo, they come to Esther. She helps them have an honest conversation about their expectations, desires, and the ways in which their role as parents has left little room for intimacy.       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

Two weeks ago, my husband announced to me that he was no longer interested in continuing our marriage, which just kind of blindsided me. What you are about to hear is a classic session of Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel. None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel's, and each episode 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. And the way he told me was so shocking because it was such a short conversation. He said it like in 10 minutes and was gone out the door. It was hard for me to say those kind of things to her and see her upset. I was hoping that things were mutual.

I felt like, you know, we were intimate. I didn't want to go through another 10 years, another 20, 30 years of life being mediocre. I suspect that it has a lot to do with his weight loss surgery. He had weight loss surgery a little bit under a year ago. Many relationships don't survive post surgery. Even though the surgeons warned that weight loss surgery can lead to the dissolution of the marriage, what they meant was that in this new landscape of bodies there often is also a quest for a new identity. You change on the outside, you also start to re-explore who you are on the inside.

I can think of a thousand reasons to stick it out, based on the kids or commitment, her, family. There's nothing about my happiness or what I want. Nobody's ever thought of things like, what makes you happy? Nobody ever asked that question. I would always see him working and doing so much for the family. And, you know, I would always tell him, what do you need from me? I could never get an answer.

When I meet this couple, they are at the height of a crisis. He has just announced that he wants to leave the marriage with no preparation, with no preliminary notice about his unhappiness, about his frustrations, nothing. But they are here and he agreed to come. And when I sit with two people in the room, I never know which way it will go. So I work from a place of hope.

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Download Thumbtack today. On my side of the family, we didn't have a lot of marriage examples. So I took a lot of my cues, believe it or not, from television. Bill Cosby, Carl Winslow, just different people you'll see and how they interact. And if you know it from sitcoms, it always ends up happy, it's a 30 minute show, it's always positive, there's never any kind of arguments

or anything like that. You just saw people who never fought and were in La La Land. Or you saw people who fought mainly. All the time, right. All the time. Now I kind of grew myself when we got together to, you know, what am I idea of what a husband supposed to be?

I got to be the protector, provider. It was always like, I got to protect and save the family. Like a superhero kind of guy. That's kind of how I looked at it. And it was like... How old were you when you met? 24, I think. 26?

Yeah, yeah, just turned 26. And where did you meet? It was at a masquerade party. How did you catch her eye? She had like a cool confidence about herself, like she just seemed you know. You're drawn to cool confidence? Well it made me a little more nervous because I was used to interacting with people who have flaws but she seemed like she was comfortable with herself. So I didn't know how to react to that. So it kind of made it interesting for me. How would you describe you? I think over time I've had easier time describing her and things like that than myself. That's why I'm asking. That's precisely why I'm asking.

We often become very good at describing the other. Mm-hmm. Or at least you would think, you know. Yeah. So how would you describe you? Hmm. I made myself into who I had to be to, who I thought I had to be to help the family and that kind of thing and help her and be around.

And so subconsciously, I think I turned off a lot of the receptors, a lot of things that are tied to me because I felt like my job is to be like, you know, be there for them. And the surgery has something to do with trying to realize that I'm not being fully me, but I'm being, I look at it old pictures and it scared me. It was like, Oh my God, that can't be who I was. Like literally, like it's one thing to mentally be different, but when you physically see,

it's like somebody altered the picture on Photoshop. Like there's no way that was, that's how I look. Cause I didn't, like I literally didn't see it that way. That kind of scared me. You're at risk and you need to take care of yourself. She was able to see at that time what you couldn't see. I remember an incident where she was upset to the point where she was crying about my health.

So I'm thinking she'll ever react and it ain't that bad. And then I realized looking back how bad my health was, I'm like, oh God. Have you thanked her for this? Oh yeah, yeah. Real thank you? I think so, do you feel like I have? I don't know.

I have a knowledge that's one of the biggest things. Acknowledge is not the same. Acknowledged is when you look at a picture and you say, oh, that really looked much bigger than I remembered myself to be. Thank you is I was not aware that I was at such risk. And you really helped me when I couldn't see it. I think I've expressed it, but I don't know. I'm not confident if I've expressed it well.

Alright, then you know what happens? When you're not sure, you can never go wrong by saying it again. Okay. It's not a thing you only have to say once, by the way. Right, right. It's like every time you look at a picture and you say, wow, I didn't see, you turn to her and you say, thanks so much for seeing that with it,

which I couldn't see. And it's been a theme even throughout the marriage. I think like she's always said things. I think I said this to her yesterday where it may hit me. I say you can speak to her and to you. You say things and maybe, it might be two weeks or a month later and then the process, what that means.

I don't catch it all the way, but I've learned to trust that when you say something, it's always kind of hit later or it takes time to sink in. So I feel like some of those things are divine. You know, turn to each other for a moment and just look. Sometimes the place to start is just thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being on the road with me.

It's so easy for us to plunge into the problems and the things that are wrong and all of that. You've gone through a lot, you've done a lot, you've been there for each other a lot. And that is your interpersonal intervention. That is not just a divine intervention. That's the two of you. Thank you for being here.

Yeah. I sense a lot of discomfort. Well, I've turned off a lot of the emotional or intimate parts of me I haven't been comfortable with as far as sharing. I haven't been comfortable with as far as sharing. But I don't want that to interfere with you knowing the value that you've had for me. So I do appreciate what you have given me and that kind of, you know, I do. When you say the things that you've given me, it's as if you've just said, here is a plate with food. But now I want to ask you, what is the particular food that is on the plate? You've challenged ideas and things that I've been raised with.

Even something as simple as going to cut down my first real Christmas tree. I never really would have considered that because we always grew up with the artificial. I got to experience another side of life that I wouldn't have. That's what I mean by, it still means something to me, like, you know, you as a person, or somebody that's good, and anybody would want to be in their life.

Would you like to hear all of that? I appreciate those words, but it's hard to hear knowing that he doesn't have a desire to do a little bit of work that might be required to repair things that have been so damaged between us. We've had a lot of hurdles and we came through those hurdles. We didn't come through unscathed. We've had a lot of trauma and we just kept going. We never even acknowledged the effect that it may have had on our psyche. It affected how we interacted with each other.

It affected how we behaved with each other. And it... How? We handled the business of the family together. We didn't... You never went back to the masquerade party? No, we didn't. You did not have fun anymore and laughter anymore and more joy and more sex and more intimacy. That whole part?

Right. Of a relationship? Well, I think we have fun and laughter, just in having intimacy and sex. Okay. For the last few years, this couple has weathered layoffs, death, losses. Sometimes when a couple has to manage adversity and hardship one after the other,

everybody else gets the attention. Everybody else gets whatever nurturance they need, but the couple is left depleted. And now the weight loss surgery, which was meant to bring a physical rebirth for him, has led him to actually want to come back to life, but without her. I think I gave her the analogy of type A versus type B. Type A is that high school popcorn love, you know, it's more emotional type situation. And type B is what I consider real love,

like, you know, protective, just choose what you choose to do for somebody every day, that kind of thing. So far, if I hear you well, you agree. She calls it a business, you call it type B. But you both are saying something between the two of us, certain quality of interaction and intimacy and sexuality and sexual connection got lost. I know that at some point it had to be there, but I don't remember how it feels.

But what you're saying is you're aware of how much you care. You're less aware of how much you desire her. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I think so. Did you miss it? Absolutely. I would try to go in for it really gently. And like, I think I'm pretty sensitive to the energy that you're giving off. If I'm not feeling as though you're open to it,

then I back off. You probably knew more earlier than I did that, okay, we probably should be operating in this way and that way. She knew that we had to do something. Why did I have to work so hard to get into that mode? How was it when you first met? On one end, I wanted to kiss her and do the physical things.

And on the other end, I just wanted to be around her. Like, I just enjoyed that space. And how would you describe the beginning? I recognized right away that I made him uncomfortable. And what drew you to him? The conversation we had, because at first, especially after the first date, I thought it was a little bit weird because of how he interacted with me and how he was afraid to get close to me and to touch me.

And then after, of course, we got past that, I something, how he is very laser focused. And he made me feel beautiful. He made me feel sexy. And when you said that, you know, I recognized earlier that we needed to do something or we needed to be interacting with each other in this particular way, it wasn't that I recognized that we needed to, it was that I wanted to.

And I think that's an important difference to acknowledge. It wasn't that I felt like, okay, we need to do this out of obligation. It was because I wanted to interact with you in that way. I think I said to you the other day, I felt like- Hold on one sec. Okay. Register this first. That was a very important distinction.

So before you ride over it with something you said, just take this one in and then punctuate, so that she knows this landed. I think we did interpret that differently. It was kind of a surprise to me. I think you described you wanting to do this versus feeling like it was a need. To me, it didn't make sense when you say that. I have a hard time trusting even now because I feel like, how do you say you're in love with me or you had these kind of feelings for me?

I didn't do anything and I haven't been doing anything to put seeds in the ground to initiate that kind of growth. How can you say you love me when I don't feel I deserve your love? That's exactly what I heard. Why do you feel like you have to earn that? You can't, I feel like you can't just be in love with somebody in that kind of way when you don't receive reciprocation.

When I listen to the conversation again, I realized that I misunderstood him. It wasn't necessarily that he didn't feel he deserved to be loved. It's how can you desire me when I have not desired you? And so it leaves us with the perennial question. It's, how can you desire me when I have not desired you? And so it leaves us with the perennial question. Can we love someone who doesn't love us back? Can we desire someone who doesn't desire us? And the answer is yes. These are not always mutual experiences. not always mutual experiences. 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. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Nutraful. Your hair is so much more than what you see when you look in the mirror. And if you're experiencing thinning or shedding, Nutraful might be able to help. Nutraful is the number one dermatologist recommended supplement for hair growth, trusted by over one and a half million people. Their whole body approach to hair health works from the inside out to help you start loving your hair again. You may see thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months with NutriFull. Start your hair growth journey with NutriFull. For a limited time, NutriFull is offering our

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Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. What you're saying is I've been your companion and partner. I haven't been your lover.

Right. I haven't been intimately, erotically bonded with you. And if you actually want that with me, you must be out to lunch in some version. Because how can you want that if I've just been your companion? Right. Are you really saying that I'm choosing to do what's been comfortable for 10 years,

choosing to be in this place because it's safe? Are you curious about it, or are you questioning it? Because that's not the same. I think I'm questioned. All right. I suggest you turn your questioning, which is challenging it, into a curiosity. OK.

Change your suspicion into a real question. What is the source of your type A towards me being that we've been the way we've been almost for a decade? Meaning where do you draw your desire for me from when we haven't really had that kind of relationship for so long? Yes. The source of my desire for you is it never changed.

As life happened and all of those layers got laid on top of it, I never forgot that it was there and I would try to go back to it. I understood your taking care of us as those deposits of love and taking care of us as those deposits of love. And because this particular area was of one of sensitivity for you, I wanted to show you that I'm sensitive to what you need too.

So if you don't want me to engage you in this way, I'll engage you in the way that makes you comfortable, even if that means suppressing it, what I necessarily want. Do you understand what I'm saying? Well, let me repeat it back to you, so I can make sure I can confirm that. I'll use for understanding purposes my type B expression. Name it, name it. We're not dealing with blood levels here. Blood types. Well, I don't know what to call it.

I wanted to want to find intimacy. And it just never felt natural. This is several years back. Do you have a sexual relation together? Not really. I'm not talking about having sex. Do you have a sexuality between the two of you? I don't think so.

She said that she feels it. Do you look at each other the way people who are sexualized look at each other? Do you touch each other in ways that are not just family touch, but that are adult, erotic touch? Do you touch each other? Do you stroke each other? Do you caress each other? Do you stroke each other? Do you caress each other? Do you? We've had interactions periodically

Like what you're describing at least last five years for me hasn't been there I've tried to do things to initiate like, you know, let's say we're in the same bed together You know, she's available I would try to So both of you will say I initiated but I didn't experience a response from you? Well, at the time she said things were weird or uncomfortable or I was thinking too hard trying through that. And to some extent she was right. This was one more way that you were trying to be somebody

but it didn't feel so natural to you? Right, correct. Another one of what's expected of me that I need to perform? Right, right. I wish I could just be like this. I wish I could feel this way. Your real question is not to her. Your real question is not how can you want me when I haven't I've been missing in action. Your real question is why is it that I don't want? Right and that's been something I've struggled for for years and I've kept it to myself. And you know that? Yes.

She felt it. You felt myself. And you know that. Yes. Of course, you felt it. You felt it. Yes, I did. What we're trying to tease out here is the diversity of feelings between caring for someone, loving someone, and desiring someone.

And till now, he kind of emphasizes, how can you desire me when there's no desire coming from me to you? But the real question is, what is the absence of his own sexual feelings for his wife? And I want to explore with him, what is this sexual block that he has been experiencing for all these years. And it's a little bit like tapping on a wall with your two hands and listening where it's

hello and where you can kind of begin to enter. I'm trying to track something that you just said. When I met the confident woman, the woman who intimidated me, the woman with that cool confidence, I knew for a fact that I wanted her. Every time you talk about a woman that you don't desire, you don't present the cool, confident woman. You present the woman you need to protect.

Hmm. It's the same woman, but it's not the same woman. Mm-hmm. The woman that you don't desire, your experience of her. Finish my thoughts. The experience of her has caused you not to want her. And which is what? Having to protect her, having to provide all of this support, having to provide for the household, having to cover the family, having to do all of those difficult life skills.

The woman you take care of in that way is the woman that you don't desire in that way. Right. But at the same time, I got a lot of good feeling and well-being from being able to do that for her. It made me feel good. I believe you. It's kind of weird. I totally understand. You know, love and desire, they relate,

but sometimes they also conflict. Right, right. I have no doubt that you love this woman deeply, but what you're telling me is that the part of you that loves her and the way you love her doesn't know how to coexist. Right. Right.

With also wanting her. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's what's been difficult. And I think that when I made the initiation to you that day, this wouldn't, it kind of felt like maybe a surprise sprung up on you out of nowhere. You know, I was, I was afraid to go there because surprise, it sprung up on you out of nowhere. You know, I was always afraid to go there because you never want to initiate something

that you don't know the result of that down the road. I'm comfortable here, I enjoy her, I love her, I love my family, I enjoy coming home. So I've always been hesitant to speak that truth. I always try to suppress that just because. Is this the first time it comes out like that, as clearly as it just did? Well, I don't know. I mean...

Yes. Yes, that clear. Laying it out as those two, not knowing how to coexist. For it to be that clear, that is the first time it's been said that way. Yeah. You did a good job recognizing that. You did a good job of leading me to

the well. I told her that that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. And then what made it twice as hard was when she reacted the way she did it in shock. Like I was hoping that maybe she feels the same way. She doesn't have the same conflict as you. I know. And I didn't realize that. And it was like, whoa. The person I love and I care about the most, I just dropped a bomb in her life. And I was the one, the protector. That was so difficult to me.

I had to literally just grab my stuff and go. You know, I felt bad. I felt selfish. I felt guilty. So once I said that emotion, I felt bad. I felt selfish. I felt guilty, you know. So once I said that emotion, I couldn't bring it back. And it was just like, it's hard for me. By coming here today, you put a pause on the button. It's not because you said it and because you suddenly say, what kind of a person am I? That me, the protector of this wonderful woman,

is the one who says I'm going. And now I have no other choice but just to keep going. When I don't even know why I'm doing it and what I'm doing it for, all I know is that I'm struggling with something. I also know that I lost a massive amount of weight, which for the first time gives me a whole different experience about myself physically.

And it's as if now that I hurt her, I have no other option but to bear my cross. Is that what you're saying to me? Not necessarily. I mean, on one end, I felt like the two things couldn't coexist. Two things couldn't coexist, so I felt like on one end, I felt like the two things couldn't co-exist. Two things couldn't co-exist. So I felt like, you know, do I keep protecting?

Do I keep doing the things that are going to make you feel comfortable? Or at some point, do I have to make that exit and find what's happy for me? I was trying to confirm, am I really losing something to me? And that feeling hasn't changed. But you understand why that was the case, right? Because you didn't have to deal. No, I did have to deal. No, but you didn't have to see my reaction

and to interact with me and how it made me feel and be forced to sit there and look at it. I wasn't there. But me dealing with you is going to affect, because my nature is to protect her. So if I see you hurting, then I can't go? Right. Is that what you're saying?

So I need you to be away so I can keep running without looking back? Exactly. Exactly. I can't run without looking back, but to confirm. That doesn't confirm anything. It doesn't confirm squat. What it confirms is that you can't bear the thought

of hurting her. So you kind of go, you plop your decision, and then you run as fast as you can, lest you would look back and realize what you've just plopped. And that's exactly what you did. I think that's her truth. I think that's how she sees it.

I just saw it too. Well, yeah, that's what you see. It's not that I plop plot my decision and ran from it. You're correct that there is a fear of hurting her. And being around her, going through that is extremely difficult. So that part is correct. What's also correct is my desire to take that exit hasn't changed. Because I feel like, because I wasn't strong enough to make that exit hasn't changed. Because I feel like... Why?

Because I wasn't strong enough to make that decision. Why do you want to go? Why do I want to go? Because I feel like those two things can't co-exist. Have you tried? Actually, I have. In my mind, I've tried for years. These feelings have been there for a while.

It's not something that has just come overnight. I believe you. But they were not discussed together, right? You kind of had conversations with yourself about this. She was a woman. They were not discussed together. Right, it wasn't discussed together. I just didn't see that she had the capacity

or that she wanted to or not to affect the change. She couldn't make me love her or make me be attracted. I had to want to do that. I feel like when it's natural, you don't have to work so hard at it. Sex is beautiful and natural, and it should just take you. It should take you over without you having to do the slightest effort.

And it doesn't. It's not like that. Sometimes in the beginning, of course, there is plenty of attraction, but there is also a plot and a story that goes on in your head while this whole attraction is being cultivated and stoked. And so for him, when he doesn't feel it and he hasn't felt it, there is a part of him that says, I should just be drawn to her. I should just be attracted. If I'm not attracted, then maybe I don't love her. And says, I should just be drawn to her, I should just be attracted.

If I'm not attracted, then maybe I don't love her and therefore I should just get out. And he's been holding these feelings alone in his head. He's had all these conversations with him and himself. And now the only thing he basically told her is, I'm going. going. We are in the midst of our session and there is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break. So stay with us. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro,

you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Vox Media podcasts are hitting the road and heading back to Austin for the South by Southwest Festival, March 8-10. We'll be doing special live episodes of hit shows including this one. Where should we begin? With me,

Esther Perel. You can also see Pivot, A Touch More with Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, Not Just Football with Cam Hayward and more, presented by Smartsheet. The Vox Media Podcast stage at The Republicans have been saying lots of things. Just yesterday, their leader said he wants to own Gaza? The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it. On Monday, the Secretary of State said an entire federal agency was insubordinate. USAID in particular, they refused to tell us anything. We won't tell you what the money's going to,

where the money's for, who has it. Over the weekend, Vice President Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, tweeted about the same agency that, you know, gives money to the poorest people on earth. We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead. But what have the Democrats been saying?

People are aroused. I haven't seen people so aroused in a very, very long time. Huh. That's a weird way to put it, Senator. We're going to ask what exactly is the Democrats' strategy to push back on Republicans on Today Explained. Republicans on Today Explained. The thing that blocks sometimes is what is sometimes called a predatory fear. In order to be able to be sexual with somebody, you have to be able to take them in the good sense of the word, to ravish them.

If you see the person as too fragile, it starts to feel predatory. You can't be sexual with her if you keep thinking about your need to rescue her. Well, I heard you saying, and it's a new revelation. If you keep being so protective of her, you can't play with her. Not only that, if I'm protective of her, I can't explore myself. That's right. But she hasn't asked you any of this.

Right. Let's be very clear, this is not coming from her. It could. Mm-hmm. But it's not in her case. She's not. Right. In fact, what she says is, I actually would love to play with you. I'd love to be not just your companion in hardships, but also your lover. And you say, it's hard for me to be the lover of a woman in a place where I put this role on me, that I have to be the protector and the rescuer

and the caretaker, because when I'm in that mode, the last thing I can think about is to be sexual. Is that describing it? Yeah, that's very clear. And it's been that way for as long as I can remember. I know. And do you know what I'm gonna tell you? This is gonna travel with you.

Every time you're going to start to love somebody, you may run the risk of then wanting to protect them, because that's the way you are such a giving, loving man. And every time you're going to start to care about them like that, it's going to be hard for you to go inside your own body, inside your own pleasure, inside your own excitement, inside your own mounting sensations and stay connected to yourself enough to be able to make love to the person you love.

So the lack of selfishness in a sense has turned a lot of those things off. Isn't that weird? But yes, you understood it exactly. Meaning if you want to make love to this woman, you have to become, but not selfish in the shitty way. Right. Not in the asshole way. Right.

Selfish in the, I stay connected to me. I'm in my own body, I'm in my own pleasure, I'm in my own turn on while I am with you. What's happening with you at this moment? Let me do a pulse check. A lot of the things you're saying, I recognize them and I've kind of said them to him in a different way, but of course the way you're describing it is very clear. It's only very clear because you've felt it, because you've been on the receiving end of this. It's not because of my words. Okay. I understand that. I can only imagine ten years of this.

I think that goes back to what I was trying to say earlier. You know, when you said that she wants to be more than a mom. She wants to be a woman. She wants to be loved. No, no, no. She's loved. Okay, she's loved. She wants to be wanted. She wants to be wanted. All these things. Do you understand the difference?

She knows she's deeply loved. She wants to be wanted. Wanted and desired Do you understand the difference? She knows she's deeply loved. She wants to be wanted. Wanted and desired. I agree with that. And I feel like, well, I haven't given you that. What is it about me that still wants you to pull it out of me? Beautiful question. It's because I see you.

I see you. No, I feel like if you see me, then you I see you. I see you. No, I feel like if you see me, then you will see that. What she described, I'm not able to generate that because of what I've... It's not that you're not able to. You have to learn how to, and it's a practice. I can be a mom and a wife, but you can also see me as a sexual being, as a woman. The difficult part is finding balance. And right now you're having a hard time finding that balance and you can't understand why

I still want you in that way. But it's because I see you for who you are. I see you as a person that is deeply caring, that is very sensitive, but a person that has this idea of what you should be like, and you work very hard to keep that idea going and that image going and that persona projected. Everything you describe to me, if I give you love, you give me back desire. I don't understand that equation.

I guess that makes sense. The desire that I have for you developed early on and it hasn't gone away. I try to invest in every area of the relationship. Like I even take care when I'm going to sleep, I wear pretty underwear. But he has not seen you like that. No, he hasn't. And that must feel very lonely.

It does at times, but I try to account for. You make it up by saying how nice he is. How caring he is. And I recognize that. I'm not saying that you don't want the desire intimacy, but I'm saying that's the makeup of fate. Now, I say Gregory comes off the street, he meets you, y'all work together,

he's bringing you flowers, he's depositing those types of things into you. What is it about me that you're still so locked into me that you don't receive that from a Gregory? I'm not saying Gregory's not doing that. I could receive it from Gregory, but that's so superficial. The guy that would want her, what would he be like? What would he do?

What would he feel? What does turned on, drawn to, attracted look like? Because he experiences himself as paralyzed and numb. And so he invents this character, Gregory. Gregory is the man who would bring flowers. Gregory is the man who would throw himself on her. And amazingly, she seems to know exactly who Gregory is. But this guy doesn't exist.

Both of them have just fictitiously brought in this other man. I haven't done life with Gregory. So you're saying life translates into desire for you? No. Life plus desire, paradise. Desire without life. It's a good time in the moment. It's a good time.

It's a good time in the moment. Good. Glad we all agree. Yes, it's a good time in the moment. But life without desire is just comfortable living, right? But it's not... No, she hasn't been comfortable. She's been longing.

Like you, the two of you have been missing it. It's not like one of you here has had an easier time at it. I think she wants it and I want it, but it's that it hasn't been a chemistry between us. That's what I'm trying to say. It's not about chemistry. If you stop seeing her as woman, because you engage with her from that place like you engaged at home, caring, protective, rescuing and all of that. You cannot desire in that space. These two things don't go together. There's a certain ruthlessness to desire in the good sense of the word that is the opposite of the kind of rescuing that you want to do. You can't be a rescuer and a lover in the same moment.

Hmm. Mm-hmm. Nobody told me that when I was 24. You wouldn't have understood. You wouldn't have got it. Right. That doesn't mean I don't. It shouldn't be this amazing man, rescuer, loving protector that you are.

But the two of them, at the same time, don't go. So you need to find a way to create a masquerade ball together. A space with boundaries that says, this is my erotic space. This is the space where I go to play. This is the space where I don't have to be the rescuer. But that doesn't mean it has to be

only outside the relationship. Leaving may end your turmoil, but won't solve your problem. Okay. You happen to have a woman, a partner, who is completely gay. And I think she's also very clear. It's not just because I like the family and the stability. It's because I actually want this with you, because we probably had some of this at first. But the more you entered into your loving protector role,

the less you could continue to see me as a sexual woman. I become mama. And when I become mama, you cannot remain sexual. Because we don't want sex with mama. That's true. No. That's a bad pattern. It's terrible.

That's why it starts to feel like it's impossible. Yeah. Like, I can't have that feeling here. But I can't have that feeling here because my perception of her is distorted. I can't hit that feeling here because my perception of her is distorted. The love-lust split is not only an issue for men. It is not about gender. It is about our attachment style,

which precludes our ability to integrate intimacy and sexuality. Of course, a part of it is how he sees her and how rigid his perception of her has become. He can't see her any other way. And on the receiving end, it's very difficult because you may wonder why does she stay? Because we stay with the people who love us and we mourn the fact that they don't desire us. Why is it my responsibility to make sure that she feels safe and protected

because I don't feel like I have... But this is not coming from her. Right. This is not something she's imposed on you. I'm so good at being this guy. That's the challenge. And then secondly, I feel like she's being herself. So I'm uncomfortable with making her change be something that she's not.

You're making decisions for me. That's what you're doing now. I feel like that's what she needs. She's keep drawing to me. I'm like, you're drawing your own. I am talking to you. You say, I need to learn to think about me. That's what we're doing right now.

And every time you think about you, you talk about her. I need space to think about me. Take it. What does that look like? How do I take my space? Pick one thing. It doesn't have to be the biggest one. What's one thing where you say, I wanna redistribute?

I want something for me. You've never asked this from anybody in your life. You've always been the one who listens to everybody else and what they want from you. to everybody else and what they want from you. Right. I think I'd want my freedom. And maybe I've enslaved myself, but- You became very sad when I said to you

that you've never had a chance to ask for something. And if you're gonna ask for freedom by leaving, then you haven't asked for something. And if you're going to ask for freedom by leaving, then you haven't asked for something. Do you understand? Because if you leave, then the other person can't give it to you. What you want is the experience of an intimate relationship where you can ask for something

without feeling crippled by guilt or responsibility. I think I've known what she's needed more than I've known what I needed for myself. That's right. But in the same sense, I can't tell her what I need, but I feel like if she was, if she locked onto me like I was locked onto her, she would know what I need more than I needed it. If that makes any sense. No, it doesn't because you're asking me to read your mind. I read my mind. And yeah, doesn't, because you're asking me to read your mind. I read my mind, but.

Yeah, that's exactly what you're saying. How would I know for you what you don't even know for yourself? Well, let's say if a house is on fire, I feel like she's going to ask me, how do I help? No, and you used this example before. And I gave the example of, I'm sitting in the living room. I smell something strange.

Hey, what is that? No, it's nothing. Go back in the living room, I smell something strange. Hey, what is that? No, it's nothing. Go back in the living room. You sure? What is that smell? You need my help with something? No, it's fine. Go back in the living room.

That's essentially what you've done in this whole, in this relationship. So you're saying it as if I'm unable to help you. It's not that I'm unable to help you. It's not that I'm unable to help you. When I've offered help, you sent me away. The person in my head says, move over. I got this with you. Even if I'm programmed to do it alone,

you know it needs to be done more than I do. You push me to the side and help. You know what I mean? So this is very interesting. And it's kind of a little convoluted way. You've actually asked for something. When I say, go back to the living room, because that's all I know to say,

I would like for you not to go back. I understand that now. I do. I understand that now. And just like you say to go back. I understand that now. I do. I understand that now and just like you say, I recognize, again, I recognize that now but it's not as if I could see the fire. He blocked me from seeing the fire. I recognize that there was a problem. This is not a critique. This is a request. Okay. It's that if you wanna know one thing, and he knows that he doesn't know

how to tell you take the hose, or here is the hose, is that there's a private wish that you would take the hose regardless. I understand that now. That's it. When you met her, she was taking the hose. More of the hose. Yeah. But not her hair. She could have taken it more, and you told her, she was taking the hose. More of the hose. Yeah.

But not her hair. She could have taken it more, and you told her, don't bother, and you told her, don't bother, and she took it less. And those two were feeding each other. Mm-hmm. So all I wanted to say is that we managed to get you to ask for something.

The hose is a metaphor. Right. For a lot of times, where you would like her to know that you struggle letting her take care of you. She will do more because she knows now, and you will ask for more, rather than hope that she would do more so that you don't have to learn to ask.

Ask for more. Yeah. From your wife. So what is this metaphor about? In a way, it illustrates one of the main dilemmas of men in relationships. I've been told that as a man, I have to do things myself.

And I don't ask for help. And this position of his, of I have to handle everything myself, he applied to the domestic. He applied to the erotic. He applied to his own, he applied to the erotic, he applied to his own sexual conflict and his obstacles and his lack of interest in her. And ironically, the one time he was finally going to step up with his needs is the need to leave.

How sad. I do not know if he will stay or if he will leave, but I hope that they got a glimpse of how they can bring freedom and responsibility, asking from her rather than away from her, so that he gets a sense that these two seemingly incompatible experiences of belonging and independence can coexist better than they have so far in his life.

You just heard a classic session of Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. To apply with your partner for a session on the podcast, for the transcripts or show notes on each episode, or to sign up for Esther's monthly newsletter, go to estherperel.com. Esther Perel is the author of Mating in Captivity in the State of Affairs. She also created a game of stories called Where Should We Begin? For details, go to her website,

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