Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Love in War - Where Are They Now?

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Three years after Esther spoke with a Ukrainian couple separated by war, she calls them back to learn where they are now and whether their relationship has survived intact. They have made their way back to each other, but though they have reunited physically, they find themselves more emotionally distant than ever before. Knowing that she can’t change the circumstances of their lives, Esther offers suggestions for them to maintain their sense of playfulness, imagination, and connection, reminding them that people live and love even in the most dire of circumstances. Producer’s Note: When our anonymous guests do a session with Esther for the podcast, it is an act of generosity for everyone who listens. These sessions are meant not only to support the people in the room with Esther, but all of us who learn from their stories. Our stories have many chapters, and what you hear is just one moment in someone’s journey. So even though the sessions are anonymous, please remember that real people are behind them and they may be reading your comments. Also, please join me on Entre Nous, my new home on Substack for anyone who wants to live, love, and work with more connection and imagination. I invite you to sign up and become a free or paid member at estherperel.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed, but their voices and their stories are real. Support for this show comes from Nordstrom. Oh, what fun! holiday invites are arriving, and Nordstrom has your party fits covered. You'll find head-toe looks

for every occasion, including styles under $100. Dresses, sets, heels, and accessories from Bardot, Princess Polly, Dolce Vita, naked wardrobe, coach, and more. Free styling help, free shipping, and quick order pickup make it easy. In stores or online, it's time to go shopping at Nordstrom. Support for this show comes from Nature's Sunshine, all-new Marine Glow, It's that time of year when the summer heat is fading. The air is getting crisper, the leaves are turning red, everything starts tasting like cinnamon and pumpkins. As the sun sets earlier, we spend less time with beams of sunshine

and more time with the glow of blue light. That's why Nature's Sunshine New Marine Glow contains the blue light blocking power of Lutein and other antioxidants to combat the damage to skin and eye health from blue light exposure. Experience more radiant skin and proven eye protection with nature sunshine new marine glow. The only collagen product clinically proven to support eye and skin health and defend against blue light. Try nature sunshine new marine glow now at nature sunshine.com. I left on the third day of war.

It was difficulty with. It was like an open wound. But anyway, the decision should have been made because there was no option, also thinking about our children. It was very hard to separate our family. But I know it's better for Alon, be in the safe country. And I know I have responsibility in my country. Every day you go to bed and think about maybe in this night, I will be done. When I met them the first time, she was in France with her 16-year-old son

where she had found refuge for the few months since the war had started. He was in Ukraine with their 18-year-old son. Men that could be drafted were prevented from leaving the country at that time. I was in France somewhere looking at the couples. I was feeling lonely. I was feeling not love. My man of my life is not being. besides me. I knew that he's going through air alerts five times per day. He has to go to

bunker to save himself and our son. And I need just to be loved. I want to be loved. I want to hear compliments. I want to be the same woman for him. My first reaction was, what are talking about? But compliment, we have war. And I never forgot about them. And I suggested that one point that we reach out and find out what has happened. Where are they now? And I found out that a year ago, they had reunited and were now living in Switzerland. And he had made the difficult choice of leaving his country to preserve his family. When I come, everything good. We can touch its other every day. It was a really like dream, but now I don't have job. I don't no local language. And our roles in family change. And I need to start from zero. And for me,

it was a big, big shift. It was a difficult decision. It wasn't a choice between good and bad. It was a choice between, let's say, bad and worse. Now that we are together, it is still very hard. We are in completely different stages of life. Because I already went through the process of adapting to this country and integrating while he's only starting and it feels like one life has ended and another life has just begun and we're trying to meet each other somewhere in between they were physically together but they were emotionally more apart than anyone could have anticipated so i decided to offer another session love in war part two Hello.

Hello. Hi. You became younger. You look so beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, time doesn't work for you. I don't know. Like, the power of one's imagination.

Good to see you, good to see you both. So catch me up a little bit. I mean, we met two and a half years ago. and we talked about what it was like to have a long-distance relationship and to preserve love in war and to find a way to bring aliveness to the digital relationship that you were now having

and you were living very different realities at that time and I think you had no idea how long this was going to last none of us did but the war is still going and is that a good memory what I'm bringing back

yeah yes yes thank you so much Esther it's a very special moment again to see you and have this conversation the conversation that we had last time obviously brought a lot of

pain enjoy at the same time And these weren't easy years, like two and a half years. We never imagined how long it would take us, how many months or years we have to wait. And every decision is just hard. Yeah, it was long two and a half years before we united. And all the time we tried to figure out what's good for us both.

And for me, it was a hard decision to leave country. It was like, I have too bad decision. Stay in Ukraine and my relationship with my wife will be struggle, and a lot of couples divorce, a lot of couples break their relationship. And I know we had good. foundation we just had good relationship but foundation yeah foundation but it's like bank account if you not put some in this bank of love you just only spend sometimes you be zero and it just scary me and I understand that good

way for me it's like leafy grain yeah it's what was woman. Aliana, what was happening on your side? On my side, yes, we received a residency and the work permit, so I found a job as an English teacher teaching children, which at first seemed to me like that's definitely not something that I want to do, but it turned out that that was a very healing thing because I could track with kids, with their souls, that was healing. And I found apartment.

And we just stayed here with just me and my son. He's doing okay. I mean, the younger one, he studies in business school. He speaks French fluently. So things are going well for him. So, I mean, it seemed like our life is going more or less okay. I felt a part of the community. I was well integrated.

But at the same time, I felt the fatigue, and I was exhausted to wait, to live in this uncertainty. The only thing I knew is that I want to be faithful to this man. And now, how many months have it been since you came to Switzerland? When they come? Yeah? One years ago. One year ago. Okay.

So you make this difficult decision between bad and worse. And I can only assume that a couple that met in Switzerland finally, not just for a short visit, but with a new plan of life, is not a couple that said goodbye to each other two and a half years before. So tell me about what's happening today between the two of you and who met and changed. It's a good question. And first months, it was like paradise because... Paradise. Paradise. It's like after two and a half years, you reunited.

It's like Holy Moon with your wife. You can touch her. You can buy a flower, you can take a cup of coffee. And it's like you have endless vacation because it's a new place, new country, it's no bombing. And really, it's like I have nightmare two and a half year. And I wake up a new life. And I'm really sorry, maybe it's like my reaction, but I'm for me. about all these things what was bad and I just forget about all the struggle what

people have I'm really blame little blame myself because you live in this circumstances and then change 100% in like all things good you have wife you have peaceful place you don't need to go to shelter all the night many times I I wake up in the middle of the night, oh, no, it's not bombing. It's someone closed very loud door. No, it's not bombing. It's just some motorcycle because my body erect and we were happy. But after a couple months, when I encountered with some reality, it's new country, new language,

very competitive markets and I couldn't. I still can't find the job here on employment. And my wife, find a apartment, find job, no French language, very quick for communication. But I realize that I'm so slow for change. And our role changed because whole my life, I earn money for my family. I have zero expectation for money from my wife.

I say, baby, if you want work, if you don't work, do what you like. Because I'm a warrior. Money is in my shoulder. But now I just put in the position with I have no income. I still study French. I still find a job. and I understand many people in Switzerland can find job and leave this country

because it's very competitive market it's like I come from Ukraine like okay where is Ukraine in Switzerland I was commercial officer leader okay it was in Ukraine what's your international experience for me it's like I'm really down

and I was disappointed but for one side, I have a lot of support from my wife. For another side, I understand, maybe she had little expectation. When I come, I help her with job. I help her with money. I share your burden, but I couldn't. And now I continued in the process. And what has that done to the relationship? it was pressure it was pressure we asked counselor for this problem because this year my dead passed away and i couldn't come back in ukraine and be in his funeral and it's okay just stay there for a second yeah just i just i just you can't go back back

at this moment? I couldn't because it was a big chance that I couldn't come back again. And I now in position, like, I just feel this pressure for me. It doesn't mean that my wife gave me this pressure, but sometimes I hear how she tired after work and we really struggle with communicate when I come in Ukraine before war we have regular conversation every week we have date we have a lot of time to have but now but in Ukraine you also had clear roles yeah very clear roles and you were a a warrior who knew what you were fighting for and you had status and you had a clear identity

and now your roles are upside down. Your roles are in flux. They're changing. Part of you feels like you lost your purpose, you lost your identity, you lost your power to communicate outside in the world and you are dependent on her. You are dependent on her, you don't like it and she doesn't like it necessarily either. You had a kind of an interdependence

before that had unfolded over 20 something years and that functioned very nicely. And now the new dependent structure is very destabilizing, I assume to you, but I'm looking at Leona and I'm thinking it seems to be destabilizing to both of you.

So now you are together, but you are no longer the people that you once knew. Your relationship is what happens when people reunite after they've been apart for two and a half years, torn by war, living completely different realities. You don't wake up at night. He wakes up a year later wondering, you know, what's the banging. And your nervous systems are completely different. It's not just your heart, your mind, your bodies, but it's visceral. It's visceral.

And that brings up a different sense of loss, particularly for you, Aliona, I would imagine. Yeah, totally. It's not that I imagined something a certain way when he would come, because the only thing I dreamt of was just being together back again, just going to the same bad kissing good night. and yeah falling asleep in his arms that was just the dream of course

and I felt like the moment he comes it's not only the romance that will be revived in a way but also the masculinity that he will bring back because I'm tired of caring

feminine masculine part of being within me which mixed feelings of gratitude on the one hand for where you are right now because you are in a beautiful city, one of the most expensive cities in the world, you have a job contract, you earn some money, I mean, enough for providing for life, but not too much to really afford yourself something more. But I was working on that. I still had a plan how and what I can develop here as a business

and so on, so forth. And I felt like when Andrew will come, this will finally be the moment when we will be reunited, they will be empowered even more because he is by my side. He will help me with this, when this, one, this. And it didn't happen. I think the hardest

moment for me was seeing him first time in my life since the moment we started dating, just losing his masculinity, his power, his strength. And on the one hand, I wanted to help, but I wanted to be helped.

And the moment when we had our conversation with the counselors, everyone was saying, poor Andrew, we understand you. But I wanted someone to say, poor Aliona, because she has a lot to hand too. And this time was not easy for me. And I felt like that I need his encouragement, I need his shoulder. but this is not something he can give now. Like, I am a dreamer. I dream big.

I mean, I want to do so much in this life. And I felt that energy flowing, and I felt like we are totally, like, on a different size of this spectrum, like from the man who was always saving because he is very wise with money. So I knew him as a man who has this responsibility for me, our family, our children.

And it's not about earning a lot. It's just managing well what is given to him, dreaming, planning for our family. And now he's like, I don't want anything. I'm not dreaming of anything at the moment when I'm dreaming of everything. And we couldn't really match. We couldn't talk. We went one day next to a riverbank and we went and had a conversation just sitting on the bench, watching the ducks.

And it feels like that. we forgot what it is to talk to each other on a deep level and the level of feelings because I'm afraid to hurt him with all my dreams because it brings a lot of pressure. And he couldn't share because he said, I'm okay with the minimum now. I don't need anything other than just a piece of bread and bottle of water. So I have to accept what is. right now but it's just hard for me I believe just to see him struggling to see him disempowered to see him without confidence that you've always known to see him in a refugee status to see him in a major transition and to see him somewhat depressed dealing with

with the loss of his country, to see him with the loss of the sense of predictable future. He has no sense of what the future is. I mean, I'm watching your head shake when I say things, Andrew, just to know if I'm speaking truth or if I'm off.

Yeah, it's like I go through difficult time for me because I lost confidence. I only why I leave it because my wife believe in me. And every day I say for myself and because she said me, you matter, you can do it. Because for me, when I come, when I don't know language, when I had response for my CV every day, no, thank you.

Are you not much for our position? I lose confidence, I put in depression, and I say, okay, why I'm here? Yeah, I with my wife, it's why I'm here, but I lost everything. It's like, okay, now I'm like baby in your world, and I think, okay, I need support, but I know she needs support too. It's hard for me. I really have some... But you are more likely to be able to start with the job that comes from inside the church through the Ukrainian community that doesn't really demand for a CV. But that knows who you are and can translate your experience in Ukraine

and knows the qualities and the talents and the skills that you have. My sense, I don't know if it's a truth, but it's certainly an observation for me that most of the time refugees found their first jobs within their own community. Yeah, we hope. The obvious thing would be to say that he's depressed.

But that doesn't begin to capture it. It is an existential condition, not just a psychological condition that he's grappling with. He's a man who lost his identity. and became a refugee and it's landing on him very hard

and he is losing his not just joie de vivre but raison d'est, his reason to wake up and I'm thinking about the work of Viktor Frankl in this moment who wrote Man's Search for Meaning where he constantly was saying

if people have a reason to live they can cope with all the circumstances of their life. And I have a sense that he's losing that sense of purpose. So I am beginning to think about how do I bring in an erotic perspective? I don't know yet what I'm going to do, but I know I need to find some way to change the energy. We are in the midst of our session and there is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break,

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this conversation you agree it's not like you have a different sense of reality you both see the same things you both see the disempowerment you both see the loss of purpose that you're experiencing and i think what i hear very loudly from you aliona is and i want you to see that i was waiting for my confident strong men to arrive so that I could finally put my head on someone's shoulder after carrying everything for these two and a half years and in fact that's not what happens and a year later

I'm the one trying to lift you every day which I want to do but I'm also missing the shoulder that lifted me. Exactly. At one moment he dropped off the Zoom call

because he had some technical issues and he needed to reboot so I had a few moments to talk with her alone and I knew that the intimate physical connection had been a central part of their life that they had very much

valued it and invested in it for decades. So I wanted to find out where was she at with him on that, and to get a sense of what was really happening for her that she may not necessarily want to say so directly in front of him. Are you mad at him, Iliana? Yeah, I had a lot of anger that I had. At it or at him? At both.

tell me more um just seeing what's happening and he was always i was sharing a little bit about the masculine side because he was wearing suits all the time he's very attractive and i need a man to be attractive for me what he wears is very important like the smell the perfume the look everything and he is amazing in that he always looked neat And he would come just afterward, pick me up, bringing flowers in his beautiful navy blue suit. You know, I just used to living like that for 25 years. And now he's at home in one shirt just because it's comfy. It's a very, very long, not planned vacation.

Let's say it's on vacation, obviously. He's very busy with things. But it's just being most of the time. with his computer and that's very different from what I wanted the way I expected if he's 70 or if we are 80 I'm fine with that but not now at his 50s beautiful age we still have let's say hopefully 20 years for very active lifestyle but there are just a lot of layers that I have to battle with and there are a lot of losses I miss him that Andrews and so all of this

and he does too and he does too he does too he misses him too and you're afraid that it's not just a transition but that it really is kind of indicative of some of his limitations

yeah maybe so I think I'm just discovering a new totally new man I think that sometimes if a person is in a certain, I don't know, setting maybe at his job because people love him, he was managing like thousand people, he was a top, top, top, top manager. And when he's uprooted from that setting, what he told me is that maybe it was just by luck that I happened to be in this place and that's the way things unfolded for me.

But it's not like who I am. In his crisis of confidence, he begins to reinterpret his life story. Whatever worked happened to be the result of circumstances and chance. And whatever is not working now is a result of who I really am. This kind of fundamental attribution error. The positive is attributed to chance, the negative is attributed to my. attributed to myself that is such an expression of the loss of identity and the loss of confidence and it's a very distorted perception of reality and it's very very

important for him that he not slide into this here I am again like so what's next because I am already a bit tired. I need someone's help. I still believe in him and I see how many things he can do. And it's just helping him in this journey is not easy because I neglect mine as a woman and my desires. What has happened to the intimacy between the two of you as a result of this? I think it's like when he hugs you. We can start with touch. It doesn't have to go straight to sex. But when he holds you, does it still have the effect that you're...

I don't think so, to be honest. I want to revive it back. I just don't know. Like back in Ukraine before the war, we invested in our relationship one way or other. We would rent hotels like every two months, even if it's just... next street just to change places we would leave the kids with our mother we would just change something constantly just to bring the freshness in our relationships and we felt like we are building very romantic relationships but now just because you cannot afford this and that maybe there

are new ways we have to be creative with what we can do I don't know I just have to have to see him differ on me. I don't know. I have to re-see him. Just, I need that man in suit. I need him, his power. And I don't know how I can help him considering the situation we're in right now.

Andrew, are you around? Yeah, yeah. Okay, close the door. It's fine. I would like you, Iliana, just go, take two minutes. This may sound like a totally crazy idea But go put your hair up And make it nice the way you like

And I would like you, Andrew, to just take a few minutes And go and get changed and come back In the self that you often have known Ah, Esther! Go, I'll stay and I'll wait. Go. Okay. There's something very powerful in what she describes about.

I used to see him a certain way. She had a perception of him that was very eroticizing. And she has lost it. And I can sense that she's afraid that she won't recover it. So I thought, okay, new eyes. New eyes to the self and new eyes to the other. And here we are doing a Zoom session, which It's often discussed, you know, what are the limitations, what do you lose from not seeing people in person.

But this is one of those moments when I thought, wow, they're in their home. Their closet is only a few meters away. Let them go and find something in the closet. And I just sat at the laptop and waited for them to reappear. I had no idea what they were going to do. So I waited probably. four minutes and then she appears hair made up jewelry makeup dress ready to go out for the night and he shows up in that suit it's only one suit what i have white shirt dapper wow and it wasn't just

i said wow they looked at each other and i had that sense that it had been a long time since they had seen each other. So they arrived, all decked up, and it was like a whole new session was starting. We have to take a brief break. Stay with us. Right now is the AI Gold Rush. And that means everybody who builds an app,

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Try it now at figma.com slash make. That's F-I-G-M-A-com.com. Slash M-A-K-E. All right. Here we go. Hello. Hello. We're going to try to change energy for a bit, right?

Because you are together, physically together. But for the first time, you are more apart emotionally. than you've been in your whole long relationship. And everybody agrees that this is a rough transition for you, Andrew, that you have a real crisis of confidence. And you're beginning to doubt yourself to the point where you even rewrite the story from back in Ukraine and you start to have thoughts of imposter syndrome.

What I had was luck and what I don't have is me. yeah that's a real reinterpretation of one's identity and it's very corrosive it's completely understandable and at the same time it's inaccurate it's a distortion and the more you are in this stuck place that is making you more and more depressed and the more the distortion grows and the more the distortion grows and the more the gap between the two of you will grow too. And this is not your first crisis. I mean, I don't know much about...

But it's a bigger. But I can't imagine that this is the first time you're dealing with... I mean, no, you haven't dealt with being uprooted. You haven't dealt with suddenly having to support the whole family. But interestingly, both of you share a narrow... If I may say so, image of masculinity. If I don't work, I have no purpose. If I don't make decisions, if I don't manage a thousand people,

I have no idea what my value is. And there I would like for us to expand a tiny bit, just so that you can get through this phase. And maybe you have to put the suit on more often and not wait till you have the right of. opportunity, but actually create these opportunities just for the sake of it. It's a tough thing to do, uh, because the daily life can so easily rid you of your imagination. And at the same time, it's your imagination that is the ultimate freedom.

And maybe an occasion, you can put your suit on and go do a walk at a river. It doesn't cost a penny. And maybe you find another couple that's very cool and you exchange apartments for a night. That's a hotel too. Yeah. So it's how do we recapture that which hopefully migration, being a refugee or having the war in your nervous system

and all of that, that it becomes a kind of an antidote to it. It's the same theme as what we discussed last time. It's how you cultivate the aliveness in the face of what you feel is so much loss. This won't solve the problems, but this may help you manage the problems better. Yeah.

Because what you can't really sink into is a daily conversation about I'm not the man I used to be to which you say, no, you're not the man you used to be. We agree that the man that we all expected hasn't shown up. You won't survive this.

At some point, you'll start fighting. And this is your true test. Exactly, Sarah. Exactly what? Exactly, just every night when we lay in one bed, cover one blanket, my wife said me, I dreamed about this. And this little piece comes in our hearts, and we just understand how long way we went through. Yeah, but when we start our stuff doing, sometimes we just lost this connection

and what we have, our relationship is the biggest what we have. So when you fall in the trap, I will just ask you to go put on your suit. You know, it's, I don't want to be that version of myself. There are different versions of you, different parts in you. Yeah. I just love how you frame it as there.

Because, like, it's a new dance. It's dancing a new life, let's say. It's not the way we used to, not the same. Do you get scared when you see him fragile? Do you feel like if he gets weak, that fragility or vulnerability means weak? And weak means that you can't lean on him? I think when it's just an expression of being fragile, it's fine. But I'm afraid that it can take too long and he can get stuck somewhere.

And I don't think it's a good... Because I had times in my life when I was stuck. And it brought me to a bad place. I think like Alona has some fears and maybe what I show now is reflect some fears in your heart maybe that man what was before never refresh again but for me when I think that I'm not acceptance in this condition. And I have some conclusion. You need to change. You need to be

powerful. You need to come back and do something, take responsibility for family. It's not helped me move on. It's giving me like pressure. Of course it gives you pressure, but it will give you pressure as long as you think that what she says is about you. Yeah If you begin to think What she says is actually Because it scares her Then you can tell her

I'm going through a very rough time I'll get there She's afraid You may not get out of it But that's because she sees herself And the times when she thought I won't get out of it So I'm going to go back to her

And get a bit of info about that Because I think this is a major piece here. How do we react when we see the fragility, the vulnerability of the other? And what does it evoke in us about our own fragility and our own fears? Yeah, I think I'm just afraid. I have fear to just be. by myself in my own dreamy world, I want to use each day and do something. I love to act. And the time when I had depression in my life, it was when I lost my mom, and then I had

a burnout, a severe burnout, and I was in a very, very bad and very difficult place, myself mentally, emotionally. It took, I think, about five years. for me to get out of that very challenging place. Because the moment when I felt powerless, not able to do anything, I was just laying in bed and felt like I can't do anything in this world. I was in such a bad place, just inside myself.

It was a prison, mental prison, that brought me to a downward spiral and Andrew was there for me you're afraid he would go to bed and not come out or you're afraid that you don't have someone to fall on if you collapse can go in both directions

because his strength as you described became extremely important to you. Yeah. In a way that made me think there is a fear behind it. It's not just it's important because you like it. There's a need behind it. You need him to be a certain way.

And you get scared when he isn't. More than angry, you get scared. Or you get angry because you get scared. Yeah, maybe so. I do understand that we are not always strong and we are not always in our power. But it's been a year, so you think how long? It's just, yeah, yeah, it's just this maybe. And I think the most discouraging for me was just the fear of losing his even desire to want something from this life.

Just that scares me, not the outcome. but just losing dreams I mean that might be a bit of a depressive mode as well but I'm proud the way Andrew deals with all of that I mean I love this sparkling in him because he's very passionate

to love he loves life he breathed his life it's just the way he was but now he's like a bit reload reloading and you said that like how long

Like how much time? I need time. But we can be like that for five years. You learn French for five years. No, that's because you are stuck on how long it took you. Yes. That's partly because you think, wow, it took me five years. And is that what is going to happen to him?

We have no idea what will happen to him, but I understand your fear. You know, I listen to both of you, and I'm very humble by the circumstances. of your life, but I also think that at first it seemed a little bit like all things were great before, and this is the first challenging moment, but then when you talk about five years and in bed and unable to get up, when I said you've had other crises, you've had other adversity, and then you said, yeah, but not as big as this. I'm not so sure. But your hindsight, you're looking back and you say, we did it. And it is a real challenge when you are in circumstances that demand strength,

but you experience them with deep vulnerability and fear, which you know intellectually is normal, and which at the same time frightens you. It's like the very feeling that are part of this, that are part of this become also scary. If they don't get expressed, however, your bodies will do it for them. No, please.

So you have to have room for that. They'll come, they'll pass, they'll make room for a different feeling to follow. Yeah. So I can't change the circumstances at all, but I can help you maintain little islands of freedom, of playfulness, of imagination, of intimacy, of deep connection, of sensuality, of aliveness, in the midst of it. people live in the most dire of circumstances and love in the most dire of circumstances this is beautiful

you just really brought us to the place where I mean we know how to do different ways I mean you reminded us that we know how to date when we have nothing how to date when we don't have enough or how to build love in different circumstances, because it's not about the circumstance, it's about the attitude, the feeling,

the respect, love and respect and relationships. And I feel like I'm regaining this, not the power, but the sparkle of never stop to find, ways to play with life because that I know is healing itself too. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. We'll be in touch.

Much of the focus on working with people who are experiencing traumatic events is often looking at presence, joy, pleasure, curiosity, exploration, those erotic ingredients as the reward that comes after getting through those hardships. What I think they've fully understood was that pleasure is actually part of the medicine. In the session that you just heard, there is a very obvious visual moment. Astaire sends the couple away, tells them they have four minutes to come back and they're going out closed, like they're going on a date. And she does this to shift the feeling or to see if she can kind of shift the mood.

And it's so stunning to see the before and the after. So with permission from the couple, which is something we've never done before and may never do again, but with their permission, we edited a small section of the podcast where you can actually see that moment. You can see them go away and come back. So if that is of interest to you, go to Esther's substack, which you can just search for Esther Perel on substack, or go to esterporell.substack.com. And there will be a bonus later on this week that includes the video of Esther inaction. Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise.

We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. In partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut, our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destri Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julianette. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.

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