Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - I've Had Better

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

This is a classic session, from the first season of Where Should We Begin? A couple, together a decade, with three young children. He reached out because a year after the discovery of his affair, they aren’t fighting anymore, but they certainly haven’t moved on. Esther’s not convinced they’ve ever really been able to hear each other. Can they recover from this? And do both of them really want to? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's not the affair that hurts, it's the betrayal. It's that somebody else was more important. What you're about to hear is an unscripted, one-time couples counseling session. It contains mature themes and listener discretion is advised. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. 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. We've been married for 11 years and we have three little children and we build a great life for ourselves. Then everything kind of fell apart because of what he did. I was unfaithful to her for over a year. She found out about that not by just like me coming clean but actually kind of finding out about it.

Part of my anger is coming from that I feel like I've done a lot for him. Changed my religion for him. My wife is Russian Orthodox. I'm a Muslim American. We come from very different backgrounds. But I went for him, you know, and at the end he turns around and does this. I think I need to show my partner that she could trust me again, but I also personally need to feel like she is in love with me and wants to be in this relationship. So here we are with the couple one year after the revelation of the husband's infidelity.

And while they would love to be able to reconcile and continue as a family, the wound, the violation of trust, the hurt, the disillusionment that she experiences feels insurmountable. I honestly don't even know if I want to have this relationship anymore. I don't know if I love him, if I can ever love him after this. How do you work on your feelings?

How do you love somebody again? This is Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel. I'm not that angry anymore. It's almost like I just don't care about it. Like a little bit of indifference. And we're more like friends. No sex.

Because? I don't want to. Because? I don't want to. Because? I don't know. Because when I gave myself to you, you didn't respect it. And now I'm not going to protect myself. Yes. Say it in your own words. I think because I was hurt to the point where I just don't feel intimate anymore.

So I feel that we have a family, we have three children, and we get along very well on all the levels. Except that level. And that was the affair, it just killed it for me. Do you miss it? And him? Or the two of you in that way? No. I feel sad about it.

That everything had to change like that. Because I didn't plan for my life to turn like that. But then I also see a lot of people going through this after having little kids and things are different. And there's a lot of affairs around from what I see. So maybe it is normal, I don't know. But it's not the affair that hurts, it's the betrayal. Like it's not the sex part, it's the betrayal. Like it's not the sex part, it's that somebody else was more important, I guess.

I don't know. I am hoping that the time just will put things in place because I can see with the time, like even like two months ago, I was so angry, like uncontrollably angry so maybe that was my angry stage and now better but you know that angry because you're numb what you call indifferent and that's not necessarily where you want to stay. How do you fix that? I'm assuming just time, right? No.

Time never exists in its own. It's what happens in it. You have to give it meaning. You have to shape it. How? I think you've just began now. You began now when you started to say there's something to the betrayal. And I don't know that he has heard that and from that place.

I don't understand. I think you tell me that there's a part of you that wonders if he ever truly appreciated how much you had given yourself to him. I don't think he does because he said I wasn't paying attention to him. I wasn't there for him. I wasn't, which I don't think it's true. I had three little kids and I was home and doing everything. What I sensed was that trust had not come easy to her. And she had allowed this man to enter her life. She had completely given herself to him. And by him trampling that, by having another woman become more important than her,

it devalued everything she had done. It sapped the meaning out of it. And from that place, she did not know how to come back. So she was frozen and her tears were streaming down her face. And sometimes she didn't even know she was crying. And she was experiencing the flood of emotions

and the frozenness of emotions at the same time. For me, the problem started much further back than when I chose to be intimate with somebody else. It was more about just feeling like I didn't have a connection anymore, we didn't talk anymore. And then eventually it just became easy to get attention from somebody else and it just, you sort of grab onto it. And I knew that it was wrong and I tried to justify it in my head a lot of different ways, but I didn't stop it.

And I think we were both mentally in the same place, in this bad place. I just acted upon it much earlier and much more significantly. I mean, I think one of the things was that, and this was before she knew anything about me and what was going on, and I kind of woke up in the middle of the night, saw she wasn't home, it was very unlike her. Initially she told me, oh, I was just out with her friends. And then we found out that she had gone home with somebody that she randomly met. I believe her that she has never done that before and whatnot.

But that, instead of it kind of being a wake-up call to me, and I wish now that it was just a wake-up call to me to stop what was going on that I was doing, I just sort of used it as a way to justify it. This is a couple who is at a very vulnerable stage in the cycle of life. They have three young children, they have work lives, and they are gradually becoming more and more disconnected and estranged from each other.

They both seek comfort, attention, love, responsiveness in other places. But they also both use the other person's transgressions to justify their own. Each of them has a plot of entitlement and a series of justifications about why they could do what they did and why what they did is less severe than what their partner did, which is not an uncommon story. I thought he was different. I met a lot of men that I knew not going to be faithful. I knew, like, maybe they're wealthy, maybe they're handsome. Like, I thought he was going to be the man who was just going to love me. He had the values that he presented to me.

I thought he had such high values. So partially why this is heartbreaking for me because he's not what I thought he was. There's another way of looking at this. Is if a man that has such values ends up doing something that is unthinkable even to him, then there's something important to figure out there. I don't think it's unthinkable to him, then there's something important to figure out there. I don't think it's unthinkable to him.

I think he's been like this before, during. I just didn't know him well. It's true that, you know, when I've been with other people, I have not, you know, I haven't been faithful. But when I got married, I was like, this is it. Like, I'm not going to be that way. And I remember even my friends. But everybody say that.

Everybody say that when they get married. Maybe. From what I learned. Maybe, but I knew that the people I was with in the past weren't the right people. And at any time I wasn't faithful to them. It was just because it was kind of over at that point. And so one of the things that kind of scared me mentally when I was getting to that point was, I mean, I felt like we had lost this connection. Did you go to tell her? I didn't.

And I should have. I wish I did. Meaning, did you tell her, did the two of you at any point say, something's off here? I always did. Like about the year before I found out about the affair, I told him, listen, you're not home a lot at all. You're not with kids. I understand you work hard, but I am lonely.

You're not there for me anymore. And he said, well, you can sit sit me home but i'm not going to be happy and i'm thinking okay i don't want him to be unhappy i said fine travel do whatever you want but then i also gonna do what i want so it's like when mike you're just gonna stop using it because you're looking at me and you're talking to me. And he's shaking his head and shaking his head. So you can both tell me all kinds of things. Right. And I can listen to each of you.

I'm married to none of you. So it's very easy. Okay? But you need to reach each other. Oh, we did. We talked so much about this. I see the two of you talking. And most of the time

you wait for the other one to be done and then you start to give your version and you don't hear and nothing is absorbed. Your thing doesn't integrate any of what he says. His thing doesn't integrate anything of what you say. And usually you counter each other. That is not communication.

I understand. I totally understand him. But there is understand mentally, and there's a way in which you feel that the other person connects to it and cares about it. And at this point, neither of you really has had the experience that the other person actually gets it, connects to it, cares about it. You may go over the conversation again and again, but you need a bridge. that the other person actually gets it, connects to it, cares about it.

You may go over the conversation again and again, but you need a bridge. Otherwise, you basically are on a minefield. And the next time, it will be you. And you will feel vindicated, and you will have a competition about who destroyed the relationship first. I don't think I'll be competing over anything. At first, I think that she is so mad that she's mad even at me.

But then I realized that this is not opposition or resistance. This is what happens sometimes in the aftermath of pain. So what we often do is we farm out one half of the equation. So one person becomes the holder of the positive pole and the other person becomes a holder of the negative or reverse. But basically it's called splitting the ambivalence. So at this moment, he holds the flame and he says, I believe we can come back from here. And she says, yeah, really? Show me, prove it to me. But at the same time, I won't make it easy for you because I will not be duped again. And they are in a standstill at this moment where a part of her wants to be loved again. And a part of her wants to be loved again and a part of her wants to say to him,

I can live without loving you and I'll go find myself someone else too. And that's the vindication. It was almost frustrating for me to hear why I married you because you had good values. Because I appreciate that. But at the same time, I feel like we married each other because we loved each other.

We love each other. And it still frustrates me that a lot of times that you're just okay. I'm happy that things are better. I mean, from a day-to-day basis, things are better. There's not the tension and things like that. And I think that's probably what just gets better with time, but I'm still unhappy about the fact that I feel like your response has just been whatever.

It's just a new life now, and I'm not going to care anymore. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. What we had and still have is worth fighting for and I'm hoping that at some point that changes in you to say yes it's worth it to put in the time and the effort and to to love each other again not just cohabitate. Of course I married you because I loved you but you look at other things also when you marry people. You look at the person that you think can last.

See that this is a partner that you can survive with for so many years and get old together. That's what I mean by, like, I thought you had values. I mean, we should be able to survive this, right? I mean, we... This is hopefully the hardest test we'll ever have but I should survive it I feel like something died for me after this like I just cannot get over this I felt like we had difficult life like difficult but leading to good right so I was willing to work for it and I was happy in that but after you betrayed me I was like what was all the hard work for yeah I mean I understand how you feel because

I felt the same way it's very hard because you want to equalize it. Let it exist in its own unique experience. But if you keep saying, me too, then her answer is going to be, but I didn't do this. Together, we're going to aim for a different conversation, a different exchange. Okay. How do I do that? I will try to help you. But one of the things you can do that may be useful, just reflect back. You just repeat to the other person. So what I'm hearing you say is that forces you to stay on the other side a little bit longer.

You don't have to agree with anything. You just have to be open and curious. Okay. I can do that. Yeah? You have both people continuously saying, you don't understand how lonely I felt. And every time one says I felt lonely the other person says I felt more so

and It's breaking that the more the more type of cycle Where they compete rather than empathize So the first part is for me to see if he can listen to her. It could have been either order. There was no deliberate choice in why I started with him. It just happened to be at that moment, I thought, let's start here.

So tell me what it is that you're feeling. I feel... It was good. The love. Feeling is lost. That if we just stay friends, sometimes I feel like something is coming back to me. Like I am... I can hug with you, I can go out with you, I can, you know...

I can be intimate with you, I don't know why. Because I don't feel this way, I can go out with you, I can, you know, I can be intimate with you, I don't know why. Because I don't feel this way, I guess. Tell him about the experience of betrayal. It hurt. The experience hurt. Painful. Painful. One of the important things for me would be a guy who loves me. Do you think that the betrayal meant I don't love you? Yeah. There was an emotional affair.

You guys talk a lot, you travel together. So it's not just sex. I think it was more than that for you. That's why... Do you ask him or do you suppose? I think so. He denies that right do you ever ask i don't deny you completely i so i don't can i answer answer um it was not an emotional affair for me in the sense of, like, that I felt so attached to this person that I couldn't let them go.

But I think that one of the things that kind of that I was looking for that led to it was companionship. And I think that maybe we're talking about the same thing, but there was a companionship aspect to it that I missed us having, and I was trying to find it somewhere else for sure because I did feel like that was one of the things that I really missed that you and I had that we didn't have anymore.

I get it because it's the same for me. You know, people come home to the kids, to the problems. Or you have a companionship that you don't have all these problems. You just have fun and sex. This is your out. Maybe people need that. Totally get it. But how unfair is that?

You know? So, but I get it. And I'm thinking, like, I dated a lot of selfish guys, which I think he's one of them. So when you picked him, he was the golden apple in the basket, and now he's been relegated to that category called men. Right, but I also think... Not a very flattering category.

Don't blame him, because I feel like all men are like that. Like I feel like everybody, I start asking around and everybody has an affair. So I just don't know what's normal in me. Right, but between what is normal and what is hurtful, I think we are going to stick with the hurtful. Okay. He also is telling you, in a roundabout way, that when he feels lonely, he seeks company. I was home.

Well, you were home, but he didn't find you. Now, he didn't look for you either. Enough. But when he says, I didn't find you, you tell him, kids, normal, that's life. But how was I supposed to do it other way?

I don't know yet. Because I also know that he didn't bother coming and telling you or you to him. We need to reconnect. We need a conversation. We need just a walk. We need to hug. We need in the midst of the three young children, which is always a period. Oh, we did hug and we had sex during all that time.

Yes, but I'm not talking about that. You can have your routine sex. That doesn't mean being connected. Come on, women have done this for centuries. Right. And felt nothing. So that is not a proof of anything. Right, that's how it was.

But I felt like I had to have sex with him because he's my husband and he needs it. And no matter what, you know, I would give you sex. And then after all that, he tells me, I didn't even want to have sex. Why did you come to me if you just want to have sex with me? You know? So there are two people here who could use learning a little bit of how you go to

the other when you disconnect, when you feel lonely, when you have three young kids, and when you've got pretty much the most stressful period for any couple, for any couple. So inside that is going to be a depletion. Depletion of time, of resources, of attention, of playfulness, of creativity. It's all being redirected. It's very hard for some people to be able to just shake it and just say, hey, hey, meet me in two years. But with a smile that just says, I know what's happening to us. So that the complicity is maintained.

That's how I thought it was going to be. But it wasn't. And it wasn't on your part and it wasn't on his part. In that sense, you are both actually quite similar. When I don't feel loved by you, I wander. And when I don't feel loved by you, I wander. And when I don't feel loved by you, I cut off. Yeah, it's true. It's true.

So these are two mechanisms. But isn't it for everybody like that? No, there's a few other options. you know so the challenge for you is how do I come back you can normalize anything you want you can say oh man and this man that but you're gonna stick in your back and forth between feeling deeply wounded and trying to be indifferent in order to not feel deeply wounded. Right. Indifferent helps. Yes. It's a good analgesic. Yeah. And it sucks because it's anything but who you are. Right. So there's a part of him that wants to try to tell you, I also felt something. Betrayal comes in many forms. He didn't feel betrayed.

He felt abandoned. And you are basically saying, grow up. Right. And it's not true. And I don't think it's true. I don't think he got abandoned. You want to hear or you want to be right? I want to hear.

Then you're going to have to maybe not be so right. Okay. When I meet her, I meet a woman who is at the same time deeply hurt and deeply trying to protect herself against the hurt. And she vacillates between intense romanticism and cynicism. And she challenges everything I say. But in allowing her to challenge me continuously, we gradually begin to develop a bond. And I know that the bond is emerging when I push back and she laughs. And she laughs and she feels like I'm holding her

and I'm right there with her. And now I can begin to help her listen to him differently and not just want him to listen to her all the time. If he would come to me before the affair and told me how he felt, I am the person who would be figuring it out from the second he opened his mouth. So ask him. Why didn't you? I'm the person who would be figuring it out from the second he opened his mouth. So ask him. Why didn't you? I know we disagree on this, but I feel like I did. I feel like I did many times.

We lay down in bed or in front of the TV and we start to talk and before I can even get something out, or like I get one sentence out and now it's about like I know the kids and you know should I go back to work should I not go back to work what should I do but like I just it was very hard for me to talk to you because at the same time I feel like maybe what I'm feeling is silly and maybe I shouldn't like you know it's hard enough to talk about as it is so when you start to talk about something and about anything that's difficult when I just feel like when the other person then Changes the subject in some ways and it's hard to get back to I you know, and I wish I wasn't like that

But it just I found that I changed the subject and purpose. I was trying to get away I didn't understand what you were talking about. I was trying to keep up with what you were saying to purpose. I was trying to get away. I didn't understand what you were talking about. I was trying to keep up with what you were saying to me. I was responding to that. Obviously you weren't telling me the right thing. If you tell her I feel something and she answers with what she feels, what happens to you?

I feel like she doesn't care enough about my feelings to sort of forget about her feelings for a minute and let's just focus on mine and maybe I'm wrong but I I think I try to do that for you a lot like where I'm just like I'm gonna shut off my feelings and I'm just gonna try to listen to yours where somebody's to talk to somebody about my family. And where did you learn that? I guess maybe my parents. I mean, I had a strange relationship with my parents

because I felt like I was always very different from my family because they were more religious. But I always kind of felt like I had to live a little bit of a double life in a way. Growing up in a very traditional Muslim family, he had developed the capacity to be the son at home that pretended to be that which his parents expected from him. And then there was the man outside who did what he really wanted. So living in a dual reality, the faithful one and the authentic one,

the traditional Muslim one and the American one, living dual realities is something that he knew very well. And this was what was reactivated in his marriage as well when he had an affair. Now I think back and, you know, I guess hindsight's 2020 and I'm like, you know, yes, instead of acting that way, I should have sort of said, okay, you know, forced, I should have forced you to talk to me. I should have tried to figure out what was going on. You weren't happy with our sex life. But I actually was completely unhappy with our sex life.

I felt bad telling you. Why? Because I felt like you were not into it. I felt like you wanted me to do everything and I felt like everything was very forced. Can I be a little crude here? You thought that just because I come that means that I was satisfied because you didn't that and I did that that meant that it was great for me and terrible for you. But it was terrible for me too because it was like having sex with somebody who's just like a dead body. Because I know when you're into it and when you're not.

And I don't mean this to be... I am not like that, okay? I'm not trying to say this... Away not like that, okay? I'm not trying to say this... I'm not saying this to try to like... I'm not like that. Okay. I'm telling you that I felt that way. Okay. So either you're gonna believe me or you're not. We are maybe not sexually compatible. I don't... Then how do we continue with our marriage? So number one, I don't think that that's the case. Just so we are clear, the conversation about sex that we're having is less important than the fact that he's actually insisting on telling you what his experience was.

Okay. He could do the same thing right now about cooking. You understand? I understand. I understand that he wasn't happy with it. Do you know why? No. Okay.

Then you're not listening. Because you're listening and you're basically inside of you saying, that's not who I am. That's not how I see myself. I think of myself as a very sexual woman. I'm a very sensual woman. What is he talking about? This is not me.

It is not me. Right. But that's not what he's talking about. So I don't understand why it happens like this between us. Because on all other levels. Because you're not listening. But he never told me that. But he's telling you right now.

Okay. And it's good. He's going to continue. He's insisting because he cares about the subject enough that this one he's going to fight for. Of course he cares now. It doesn't matter. He's not getting any sex. That's got nothing to do with it.

You see, the issue is what he's actually trying to tell you is that your notion of giving it to him, shoving it down, making sure he comes as fast as possible so it's done with. I hate it. That's what he hates. That's not true. It is true. That's what it became because I would never come.

He doesn't care. He would take me. I didn't care. Come in five minutes and leave me. This is our life i mean did you have good sex with me before we got married yeah did you it was good enough i don't know what that means it was good but i don't know for the most part it was good. Say more. I've had better, but I didn't think that that would be so important. Before we had kids, before we were married, I mean it was totally different. I didn't, also didn't like the five minutes of sex. It was terrible.

Why did you do it? Why did you? You did it. I didn't plan for five minutes. You thought that's what I need to give him. No, no. And he did it because he thought that's what I can get. I don't think it's true. I didn't want it to be five minutes, but he was done in five minutes and gone.

And then nobody said stay? He's tired. I'm tired. I want to go to sleep. He doesn't want to have sex at night. He wants to have sex in the morning. It can't be like a long romantic sex in the morning, right? Why not rent a hotel and start with that? To me, like when you like are renting a hotel in your city to have sex, I just can't do it like that. You did it with the girl.

It wasn't, it was more about just the excitement. All right, let me stop you a second, people. Because you don't tell him much, he doesn't tell you much. You let this thing degrade, both of you. You're a year into the discovery of the affair. And so we're not in the crisis mode. We're not. But the second phase is what I call the insight. It is the meaning making. Why did this happen? How did this happen? What did it mean for you? What did you find there?

It's a both-hand. It's what happened to you and what happened to us. And what can we learn from it? And how did we allow ourselves to enter a place where we both were quite unhappy? Neither of us really felt the other person is going to hear it, is going to take it, is going to receive it. Just like that, without instantly switching into a blame mode, blame and defense. That's the conversation I hear you're trying to have. It doesn't really matter if it's around sex or about something else. The form is the same. Once you have this kind of pattern, just about every conversation will go in the same direction. I do feel like all of our conversations, you get very defensive.

That like I'm trying to say something negative about you, but I'm not. I'm trying to just tell you sort of my view on it. It doesn't mean it's right. It's just what I feel. So here's the way you can tweak that. She already told you, I was doing something that didn't feel good, but I was doing it for you. So when you talk to her, include that.

Neither you liked it nor I liked it, and then it becomes a we statement. That's what I mean by integrating the experience of the other. And then she can do the same. You know, here I was trying to be nice and to please you. Little did I know that that wasn't even what you wanted. And then you can say, that's not the woman I remember. So then she doesn't have to say that's not who I am and then it's less polarized then you're not

talking from the extremes the minute you put yourself on the extreme the other person will defend themselves what do I have to do different in the way I communicate what do I have to do that? That's a beautiful question, first of all. I wish that you would hopefully just kind of listen to what I'm saying without immediately feeling like I'm attacking you.

Because I promise it's not my intention with whatever I'm saying to be attacking you. I'm just trying to tell you my viewpoint. But I think I do now. She just caught herself. Good.

It's very rare that I just make a blanket statement like this. Your communication is terrible. I never knew that. I thought we were really good at communicating. No, that doesn't mean as a whole. But this thing that I'm watching here is at the root of a lot of what happens and happened.

Is that because we're coming from different backgrounds and view things differently? I don't know how much I would put it on culture, as much I would put it on your family cultures and your experiences that you had. I do see that it wasn't good for both of you and that conversation needs to take place. Not what was wrong, but how you change this, how you learn sexual communication. I just cannot do that anymore. Case closed, sexually. Like I just can't.

Something shut down. So here's the idea. I don't know what your relationship is like sexually, but I have a sense for both of you, it's been massively outcome driven, rather unimaginative, too fast for both of you, and unsatisfying. It's terrible to be with a man who you feel is only pleasing himself and it's terrible to be with a woman who you feel is just giving you pity sex. So no matter what's gonna happen the first thing is touch. How you touch each other, how you stroke each other, how you kiss each other, and zero outcome.

That's plenty of outcome. But isn't this thing supposed to happen naturally? Why is it supposed to be work? Where the hell did you learn that BS? Why is it supposed to be work? The myth that sex is natural has done harm to so many people because it presumes that you should just know rather than the fact that it is something that we learn to appreciate, to experience, we cultivate it. It's an art. And that if you think it's natural, then in

fact you often remain ignorant. So here's what I would like to suggest to you. You're going to do it in writing. That was our best way of communication, actually, right? When we started texting to each other, we could communicate. So you're going to take out a separate email address that nobody else knows. It is the one that is reserved for the couple, not for the parents, not for the professionals, for the role of you as partner and lover.

And you're going to just talk to each other. And there's a certain kind of intimacy that you have not experienced in a long time. I totally agree with you. And I think it's amazing and it's great and it would totally work but that would be a while ago. What if right now I don't even want to do that? So what do I do? I think you need more from him and him from you for that matter to know how bad he felt. It has less to do with what he did with the other woman.

Yeah. And more to do with what you did for him that you didn't want to do to begin with. That's the betrayal. Yeah. Do you understand? Mm-hmm. Do you want him to repeat it? I want him to repeat it? I want him to repeat it.

I can repeat it. You're angry with me not so much because of what happened with the other girl, but because you felt that you did certain things and I ultimately didn't appreciate those things and then went and sought them somewhere else. It did happen. I'm sorry that it happened. I didn't want it to happen and I think that sometimes it just felt like our clocks were off and so when I wanted to have sex and you... Okay, hold on, hold on. Let me help you.

Okay. He's not better at this than you. Just so you... You see, what she needs to hear from you is to be left there feeling nothing. And just feeling like she's some vessel in which you get to empty yourself is a terrible feeling. And you need to talk to that. No, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry that I made you feel the way that you did,

the way that you do now. And especially to think that I'm the reason for it. Yeah, it's... It's the worst feeling you can imagine. Do you actually understand that or are you just saying it? I mean it. Do you understand what happened? I think so.

Because I don't think you do. Ask her what's most important for you to understand. Can you tell me what it is that you feel is the most important thing for me to understand that maybe you think I don't? I feel used. feel is the most important thing for me to understand that maybe you think I don't? I feel used. I feel like our whole marriage is just me running around your needs and you never try. Like I know that you think by providing that you did your part, but I'm talking more about emotional things. I've been trying to show you that.

I don't know if I've been doing a good job of it. You've been much better in terms of how you're at home. You're involved with the kids. It more feels like a family more now. But the love thing between us, that I don't know how to bring back. So one of the ways it comes back is when you do have the feeling that he gets it.

What does it mean to say, I feel used? That doesn't mean it's all what he did. I understand. And a part of why it went so long, if I may, is because you did absorb some very old patriarchal notions of I have to give it to him. Because that's what man needs. That's part of how we're raised in Eastern Europe. That is culture. Cater to man. Cater to them. You just give it to them.

And he doesn't want you to just give it to him. The conversation will be primarily on each of you having the experience that the other person gets it. And that you can together say, what happened to us? What did we do? Versus you did this and you did that. Don't let this sit and don't think time is going to do all of it. It needs attention.

Your kids are watching you. They're learning from you. When I talk about how dissatisfying their respective experiences have been, both in terms of the emotional intimacy and in terms of the sexual connection, this is the one place where they actually meet. And then from here, it's about understanding the particular details of their respective experience. In my work with this couple, I'm not looking for a happy denouement. And while they become at the same time very sad, they also are perhaps speaking more to each other than they have in a long time.

And they're speaking to truth more than they have in a long time. And they're speaking to truth more than they have in a long time. And perhaps this is the most we will be able to do today in this one session that I 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, estherperel.com.