Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Motherless Women

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

This is a classic session, from the first season of Where Should We Begin? A couple with two small children are at physical and emotional odds in their relationship. One has given herself over entirely to the children, while the other struggles to find her place within the family dynamic. She yearns for the physical closeness she once had with her wife, while the other is, as she puts it, “all touched out.” Esther encourages them to see their different roles as mutually beneficial and stresses the importance of “feeding the relationship” away from the children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I told her I didn't know it was going to be like this, that once we had a child that I would be, like, downgraded,

because it's now, like, all about the kids. I remember very clearly us having a conversation. I think you asked me point blank, who's more important to you, her or the baby? And I said, the baby. I guess I feel sometimes like I wish that the way she would treat me would be like I'm just as special as the children are to her. I just feel like she just wants me around

because I pay the bills. Like if I had to choose, you know. You said if a bus is coming or something and they're gonna run both of you over, I would help the baby. And I was like, okay, that's understandable. No, but I think she got really upset and I think that was like a turning point

in our relationship because I think you were like, I thought I was the center of your universe and now you're not. Not that I want her to be my mother or anything like that, but it's like so evident when she sees the children that she is like, oh, come here, me. And then when she sees me, she's like,

we need to take out the trash. Like... Sometimes when she brings these things up, I'm done, you know, I'm touched out is exactly the term that I sometimes feel like. Just put me in an isolation tank and, like, don't talk to me. We meet this couple at a particular developmental stage when two become three, or in this case, four.

And what you find is that there is one partner who has entirely invested herself into her role as a parent and the other who is no less invested as a parent but still very much yearns to also have a connection with her partner. What you see is the situation that I often call eros redirected in which the entire erotic energy has been transferred onto the children. With the children you play, with the children you're curious, with the children you're focused, with the children you are caressing them, you are holding them, you're hugging them.

And that energy has been sapped away from the couple, who at this point is experiencing less time, less communication, less intimacy, less resources of any sort. And at some point, the energy needs to be redirected back to the couple, or the couple will become vulnerable. This is Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel. That's been the premise of since we had kids, we unfortunately don't have any time to bond. You know, these are the clothes that we've had for like 10 years.

But once, you know, we're buying new things for the kids all the time and we don't think about ourselves anymore. Even as a couple, like since the younger, the two-year-old was born. I think today is probably the second date since she was born. I almost feel bad having to go in the office i should just leave the room we were in we were downstairs having a coffee and we were like well we're here without the kids but anyway give me a landscape the social landscape just so that i have a sense you have the two of you you have the two girls and who else is around you not no one that's why it's sort of difficult.

Like, her family's in Finland, my family's in Brazil. We have friends that we've made in Canada. Pretty good friends, but... But friends that are part of the family landscape? Or friends for whom you need a babysitter to go see them? No, no, actually it's friends who have kids our age. So we've made really a lot of friends actually in Canada, but, you know, they're not very deep friendships

because we see them with the kids and the kids are running around and we're trying to have a conversation, but, like, you can only go so deep with these friendships because, you know, we don't really see them without the kids. Because we don't have time to get to know them I guess without the kids but do you have people who share in the caretaking or do you find yourself it's all alone and all on you or do you have a community where if you know that you know the only ones who love you little girls it's starting to get to

that point I don't think it's there yet but yeah we don't feel too comfortable with leaving our kids with just anybody and you're same on that well in a way yes but i'm a little bit more um i think she would be more like i don't care i just want to be spend time with you yeah i think i've always been urging her like because she's sleeping with the youngest now and i'm for the longest time i was like i want to go back to the. I want you to put her in the crib. I want you to not breastfeed her all the time. But, you know, but then she says, well, she's only going to be little for so long and I need to do what I need to do to get the most sleep.

So I understand, but at the same time, I'm like, frustrated kind of because I didn't know it was going to be like this, I guess. I don't know. One of the things that we learn from listening to this couple is that we tend to assume that some of the role distribution is due to gender. That by nature, the woman is more inclined to become full-time parent and the man is more willing and interested in remaining also invested in the couple. But in fact, my experience with same-sex couples, with gay and lesbian couples, as well as with heterosexual couples, is that it is less about gender and more about role. In every couple, you will find one

person who becomes the frontline parent, which is the parent who more completely merges themselves with the needs of the children. It's often more related to personality, to sensory threshold, to sensibility, and to their own history as a child and with the parents that they had. We're just totally different when it comes to maternal feelings. My mother died when I was born, so I didn't have a mother. I love my kids, but I love my kids, not all kids. I didn't really specifically grow up wanting to have children, I love my kids, but... She has some different... I love my kids, not all kids.

I didn't really specifically grow up wanting to have children, but I wanted to have a child with her. And you know, she loves children and loves being a mother and loves staying home with the youngest. And when I stayed home with the oldest, I was dying to go back to work. And I know that that contributes to her being like emotionally depleted and like exhausted. And how much at this point are you polarized around this? Where you say you think only

about the girls, you're completely immersed with the girls, I've lost you. Well yeah, I guess we're just starting to have those conversations. I think our main conversation that we're having these days is always like, should we have sex? Should we have sex more? Why aren't we having sex more? Do you ever

want to have sex? Do you ever think about it? Or do we have enough sex? I heard average we're supposed to be having this much sex, but we're not. The word sex, it's closeness, it's connection, it's prioritizing, it's remembering me, it's making me feel that I matter. It's all of that under the word sex. I always tell her, like, we're the foundation of the family. If we're not well, if we're not connecting

and we're not making time for us, then we're not going to be good for the children. I feel bad that I have to put all this on her. It's, like, a lot to ask from one person, but at the same time, like, we're married, and if you're not going to give me that, then we need to, like, divorce or have an open relationship or something, you know?

I don't know. I think it's what you expect from a partnership. Yeah. Is this all post-children? Is this all contextual? I think so, yeah. Before you didn't have these roles of you being the pursuer. No.

And you're feeling like, I have so much already on me, and then now you. I think sometimes when she brings these things up, maybe I do feel a little bit like that. Like, okay, I'm done. I'm touched out. It's exactly the term that I sometimes feel like, just put me in an isolation tank and like, don't talk to me. What they tell me is that one very much wants to connect with her partner, and the other feels that she has been connected the whole day with the children and what she really wants is to connect to herself and as people often say at the end of the day I have nothing left to give and all I want

is to be alone but one may also be saying is at the end of the day there is nothing more I need because when you've been with the little children, cuddling, tickling, smiling, laughing, playing, you do feel satiated as well. You feel both, taxed and satiated. And so there is a big disconnect at this moment between the two women, because one wants to connect to the other and one wants to connect to herself. Does the loneliness that you feel as a mother remind you of the loneliness you felt as a child? I'm not sure, because I had my sister growing up.

We were very close, and I had cousins and aunts. But my dad did travel a lot, and often we were with my stepmother whom we didn't care for. And what's the model you come from? Well I had almost the opposite I guess of hers because I had a good mom. I still have a good mom but my dad was more absent and he was traveling. He was an alcoholic.

He's an alcoholic so but he, so he was away a lot, working away and then coming home on the weekends. And then when he would come home on the weekends, he would usually not come home until it was very late, and then he would be drunk and we would hear, or I would hear them fighting and my mom being beaten up and stuff like that. So not very lovely childhood images but anyway my i

had a mom so my mom was there although she did work shifts so i'm the older one so i had to sometimes be kind of like coming home from school and be like okay you know i need to make sure that i need to make sure that you know i need to microwave some dinner for me and my sister and stuff where I had to sometimes be like the mom but… A parentified child. Yeah. But neither of you actually had a model where two adults navigated the adult relationship and the parental relationship.

In that, you have totally different circumstances, but similar lack of schooling. Yeah, I mean... You understand? So here's the thing I want to suggest to you. Because you actually could take those differences and make them work in a much more complimentary way. I can think about the connection between us. I can think about the couple.

I can think about our need to be together, to check in with each other, to not lose each other. I can hold the focus on the couple because I know that you're focusing on the girls and on the family and you need to say and I thank you for focusing on the couple because that way I don't forget it mm-hmm the first thing that needs to shift is that instead of saying to the other why are you always thinking about that you actually say thank you so much for thinking about that because that's the part I am neglecting or that's the part I'm not so confident at or that's the part I don't like so much.

But I'm so glad you're holding the other side for me because we need both. We need family and couple. We need parents and lovers. I do tell her all the time, thank you for taking care of us and cooking and doing laundry and all that stuff while I'm at work. But the second part is because it allows me to do work the way I do it. It allows me to do it so well because I have the freedom of the mind. Because I don't have to worry.

One parent can read a newspaper, can stay on the phone, can do something while there is a whole bunch of noise around, and the other person cannot do anything else until everything with the kids is taken care of. And then they can free themselves and the nice thing when you see it between two women that is that you actually see that it's temperamental and personality and not particularly gender yeah and if you could say to her every day i'm so happy that you continue to be into me do it remember so now you have one person that feeds the couple and one person that feeds the girls. And you have a distribution of roles and the system can thrive. Sometimes I think that we're too different.

Like I wish she was more into the kids and more involved in that style of parenting because I was thinking that that's the problem that we have, is that she doesn't understand that I'm into the kids and she should be more involved with the kids. She loves the way you're doing it. It's what she doesn't have in her. And she's very happy to have somebody else who can do it without having to change. That's the whole point. She's very happy to have this mother next to her. That's why I had children with you because I knew you would

be a good mother you'd be very loving and so that maybe in some way that I didn't realize I could sort of be the person that's there reading the newspaper which you often are I found the right example. Yeah. And then you make sure that you have your days alone. It's like one person makes sure that we have something to do and we've got a plan. And the other one makes sure that the kids are taken care of so that we can go and do the plan. And even if it's every two weeks, it goes a long way. Yeah. But I know I've come to expect that it's good for a couple of weeks, then we revert back to the way things were and you forget,

and then you get absorbed by the children again. Like you're never going to be the one that's going to initiate or set up a date. For a while, you may be the one who always brings it up and the one who reminds us and the one who keeps the foot on the pedal. And as long as you say, that's so good that you're doing this, because I don't have it in me. I let it sleep again. I forgot it's, you know. I'm going to be forgetting a lot.

Yes, yes. If I'm nursing every two hours, my body is totally in a different space. I'm filled with oxytocin. I'm not breathing any testosterone at this point. No. At least you're acknowledging it, which you do with the children all the time. You acknowledge their needs, you acknowledge their emotions. And that may be an exercise for you to put in your little calendar that just says not to forget my wife yes i need to remind myself and if she sees you putting reminders all over the house with stickers everywhere it actually becomes almost funny and it's appreciated. I'm taking responsibility for it. No, we're not in the same place, but I hear you. We even made a list of like 10 things that she could do to make me

feel loved. And I gave it to her and I was like. Who wrote it? I think I did. And I think she wrote hers like 10 things you can do to make me feel loved. And for her, it was all like running errands, like really practical things. And for me, it was more like giving gifts. And I think it was like love language or something. But and I gave her that. Like I made it easier for her, you know, but. And where are those lists? I think you put it somewhere. I think I might have both of them so why don't you first of all put them next to your two brushes yeah there's a great idea you know the problem is that somebody told us that all these things should come naturally and spontaneously and you know and so if you even have to write it down,

what does that say? It says that you're thinking and you're conscious and you're intentional. That's what it says. I think you're making a beautiful statement about the fact that adults

sometimes need their list about what they need. Maybe we'll make a new list. She's very big on writing lists. When we first met, I found a list of hers that said to clean her ears. What? I don't remember.

She had a list that said things, I don't know, among other things, it said clean ears. Or cut nails or whatever. And then it'll be good because our kids will be like, what is that? And we'll say, well, marriage is hard and we have these lists and we remind ourselves of nice things you say how do you call each other to your children um i'm well we refer to each other as babe but she's it and i'm my my so my and it is not marriage is hard my and it love each other and we make notes to tell each other of that. We remind each other.

Yeah. It's a very different message. All right. I'm listening. Mai and Aiti. Number one. Things that you can do to make me feel loved. Send me text messages that say I love you and I'm thinking about you.

The importance of that text is that there is no to do in it. So it's not can you pick this up I love you. Okay just I love you. Yes it's very important not to attach them to a to-do. Not that she minds the to-do, but she doesn't want to be a function. Number two? Plan a date. I need to plan it. Weren't we just talking about that you're the one who needs to plan these things?

But you could just say, Friday night, let's make fondue at home after the girls go to bed and for us. See that's what I do. We do that a lot don't we? I get us

baguette and cheeses and then I'm like we're having a date night tomorrow night. This is what we usually have date nights. We have date nights

at home after the kids are asleep until one of them wakes up one of them cries and then it's over. And I think too a big thing for me is like when she makes me a cup of coffee or something like without me having to ask or like she'll stop because I know she has to do a lot of things for the kids and so it's nice when she remembers something unprompted.

At first glance, it may seem that one woman loves the other more, needs the other more, craves the attention and the touch of the other more. And there is a real pursuer and a distancer. But when you listen to it carefully, you also see that they chose each other. One is able to have more needs, but is teaching the other person how to claim her needs as well. And one is more able to handle being alone, which the other one who was abandoned and lost her mother so early on also could use being more comfortable with. It's very important that we not get fooled with what we see at first glance. What it looks like isn't necessarily what it is.

What are some things that I can do to make you feel loved? Clean the bathroom. Just give me one thing. But this is, it's a tough one for me because I guess like I should need to know that you love me but I don't think about that. Well what's something that I could do that would make you realize that I think you're special

or that I love you? Like I know you always think of, like, practical things, but something just for you, just for Ira. You do a lot of, like, she's, this is the Brazilian in her. She's just so expressive. You're so expressive. You're always, you're talking all the time. You're telling me all this stuff all the time.

Like, you know, you're always thanking me for everything that I do around the house. And she just just doesn't her brain just doesn't work like that like she just doesn't think about stuff like that and you like it i think she gets annoyed to be honest yeah i think i don't know that and that's the finish in me i'm i'm humble so i feel but there are families out there where parents where the mom does everything and the dad doesn't do anything. And so I appreciate that you do that stuff. I know what she likes. She likes when I give her massages. Yeah, that's true. I like it when you play with my hair.

Yeah, that's two things I guess. But when the kids are asleep and we're downstairs and you're on your phone or, you know, your other lover as I call her phone because she's on her phone all the time and when you put the phone down and then you like, and then you start paying attention to me and then when you, then on top of that if you're actually like playing with my hair or offering to give me a massage or something like that then... You feel loved yeah okay i guess i feel like no i guess i feel like i'm i'm here i'm here now

drop whatever you're doing i'm here with me now be with me and then if you and then i don't want to like have to beg for you to want to be with me so then i'm like okay i guess you don't want to have to beg for you to want to be with me. So then I'm like, okay, I guess you don't want to be with me. So I guess I'm just going to be on my phone. I guess I'm being like... So any asking is begging. Yeah, maybe. Is that so? Yeah, I guess maybe that's kind of how I feel.

I feel like she's the one who wants all these things. But then when the moment is there that we can do it and she doesn't do anything for that but you've arranged it in a very interesting way it's like you made it be the thing she wants you said you want to connect him here i am why don't you notice me i'm so special yeah and if i need to tell you hey hey, come put your phone down, let's cuddle, it instantly becomes, I shouldn't have to ask. First of all, I shouldn't have to ask. And second, any asking is begging. And on top of it, I'm so good at seeing the circumstances because I was a very responsible parentified child. And I didn't ask for anything. And I've never, never, never learned to ask. I don't even know what I really want. That's probably true.

And I now found this wonderful woman here who knows so much what she wants. And my big luck is that what she wants, en partie, is me. That solved my problem. Then I never have to figure out what I want. And the only things you're comfortable asking are practical things. You don't have a clue how to ask for any emotional nurturance. It's true, yeah. And I think you must have felt extreme sensitivity toward your mother

and towards how much hardship she was already dealing with, and so you were going to make yourself as scarce as possible in your needs. Do you agree with that? Yeah. Probably. I mean, she had to grow up really fast. I hear it. So I'm here to help you feel loved

and give you some of that that you didn't have when you were little. Yeah, I guess now that you're saying it, I guess that's my problem always with everything. I mean, with, you know, even with sex, like I don't think I ever, I know you're sometimes trying to make me open up and say, like, do you like it this way?

Do you like that way? And I'm like, okay, so. And you don't want to teach that necessarily to your daughter. It doesn't have to pass on to the next generation. You're making me nervous that I'm somehow raising these kids to not be afraid. They're there and they see that I ask for things and I want them to see us. And that you have fits to ask for things.

Yeah. Not just that you ask, you make drama. Well, I'm worthy of it. I'm worthy of asking for things. I mean, I deserve what I want, but it's also like, I know what I want, and you're not in touch with what you want. So that makes it hard for you to ask.

I guess I guess I just really seriously just feel like I don't have the language to you know to verbalize what I want or what I need or I guess that's mostly it. Yeah I don't know if it's something you really think about or you have the imagination to be like oh I think this would feel nice. Like, maybe I'll... I don't know if you think like that. Yeah, like when you start playing with my hair,

you know, it feels good, but I don't think it would ever occur to me to ask. Because that demands a healthy sense of entitlement. there's a very interesting subtext here that is running throughout the session the woman who lost her mother early on and who emerged with a very strong voice. I have needs. I want them met. Now that she found this wonderful mother, she finally may be able to be the child she was never allowed to be. But the other woman who starts out from a place of saying, I had a fantastic mother, she made herself as little of a child as possible so that the mother wouldn't have to put so much energy into her and she could take care of the mother who herself needed a protector. From a story in which one

person says, I had no mother, and the other person says, I had a fantastic mother, emerged two stories of one person who has learned, therefore, to stand up for herself, and one person who had so beautifully learned to make herself almost invisible. One person longing for the caretaking, the other person becoming a consummate caretaker. Well, I know in my daily, day-to-day life, I do wish that I could have more time alone. Where nobody needs me or wants me to do anything for them, that I could just go in an isolation chamber. Oh, God.

And do you ask for that? Do you say sometimes, can I stay in bed for another hour and you get up? Well, I'm just picturing me staying in bed another hour and I feel like the kids are gonna come and be like, Aiti, where's the flour? Maida can't find the flour. I'm not a, I can do stuff. I, I, I know, but then if I'm in the bed for an hour, I'm going to listen to what's happening downstairs. You have to learn to insulate yourself. I know. You have to be able to say,

there is another adult down there, and she's not a total nincompoop. Just let me do it my way. She likes to micromanage me a lot. I know. You've never pushed her out of the room and said, go get a bath? I guess not. That's what you're going to do next.

Okay. When you're in that space where you say, I'm taking over, you just tell her, get out nicely, lovingly. You go take a bath. You need some time by yourself. I'm okay. I'm in charge. I'm handling. Okay. She'll come four times to check all wet dripping from the bathtub just to make sure and you laugh and you'll

just push her back out and you just say your bath is not over yeah what is important that we touch on that we haven't touched on yet well i feel like you guys ganged up on me so what's going on with you? No I'm just wondering like how often we should be having sex. See there she goes with the number again. But she just gave you a basic key. She just told you when I have been poked and when I have been holding hands and when I have been serving and when I have been in complete other care, the only thing I can think about is to just be left alone. Okay. There is nothing that stands in the way more to a woman's desire than the sense of caretaking. If I have to think about everybody else, I can't think about me.

If I can't think about me, I cannot have any access to my sexual desire. That makes sense. Okay. If you ask, what is the pathway to desire? The pathway to desire is to create the space between how i am completely absorbed by the needs of others and how i create the permission and the space to actually even have my own needs okay if that space doesn't exist there ain't gonna be sex or on occasion she'll have sex with you because she's taking care of you She's done taking care of the two girls

and now she takes care of her wife. And it'll be just more caretaking. Because she's a dutiful, responsible woman. I don't want you to have sex with me in that kind of mentality. But that is the mentality. Okay. But the place from which it will start is... If I give her time for herself to take care of her own needs.

Yes, it's helping her take it. Making her take it. Yes. Okay. It's very interesting that you think we ganged up on you. I think you've been given an offer you shouldn't refuse. Yeah. It's not about ganging up.

It's because I don't like talking. I don't want the focus to be on me. I don't like talking. I don't want the focus to be on me. I don't like that attention. But that's what we need to work on. And now I know. So there is no number. Stay away from your numbers. Because I don't know what you're measuring.

Are you measuring if we are connected? Are you measuring if it's exciting? Are you measuring if we had an orgasm? What are you measuring? What the fuck are you measuring? Okay. There's no... Meas measuring okay there's no measuring there's no measuring there is no during a particular phase what you want is to know that the energy is there and that on occasion it comes back and it reminds you we still have it even if it's once a month we still have it but of you, you need to also give yourself the permission for woman to exist.

If the only role you can have is mother, then there is no place for any of this sexuality to reemerge. Because the sexuality doesn't emerge in the space of mother. It exists in the space of woman and lover and everything else so in the beginning the presenting problem was that one partner is missing the erotic connection and yearns to be more sexual and feels rejected and neglected. And then actually we left this whole theme for the entire few hours we were together and spoke about gender roles, about mothering, about childhood deprivation, about loss. And then we came back to talking about sexuality. But then it became so clear that sex was not just about instoring a frequency and a

regularity and something that is measurable activity, but that in fact sexuality was always, throughout the entire conversation, a portal to talking about longing and loneliness and connection and intimacy and attention and lovers as well as parents. 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, estereperel.com.