Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - The Arc of Love - All The Things We Never Said

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Often when a relationship ends, we're left with regrets, questions, and conversations we wish we could have had. Esther helps a woman process the things she left unsaid including the sexual grief and loss she feels after her husband unexpectedly died. What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, repair and rupture, polyamory or monogamy. The episodes can be listened to in any order you want but were curated with a beginning, middle, and end. For the first time on the U.S. stage, Esther invites you to an evening unlike any other. Join her as she shines a light on the cultural shifts transforming relationships and helps us rethink how we connect, how we desire – and even how we love. To find a city near you, go to https://www.estherperel.com/tour2024 Want to learn more? Receive monthly insights, musings, and recommendations to improve your relational intelligence via email from Esther: https://www.estherperel.com/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls the arc of love. Each session centers around a couple's story, whether it's issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, repair and rupture, polyamory or monogamy. The episodes can be listened to in any order you want, but we're curated with a beginning, middle and end. As always,

none of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel's. 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.

Shall we listen to your question? Shall we listen together? Of course. Hi Esther. My husband and I, we had a wonderful relationship together. We were married for eight years before we started having children. And it was just lovely. The two of us, we fit well, really good. But once we had our first son, that created pressure on our relationship. And also his health started deteriorating. And some things were left unsaid. I feel that he was trying to keep it together and provide for the family and not complain too much.

And I feel like I failed him in not helping him address the health issues that he had, but kind of almost tucking it away and letting him deal with it. I probably could have done better. Some people could say that his health was his responsibility. But everyone knows in the relationship that's not really how it works. You become two halves of a whole. And I should have done more. The one thing I'm really struggling with is how is

it that I didn't connect the dots between his health and our sexual health and we never talked about it and for me that was really important piece of our relationship and more and more time passed without us having sexual relations and that was a reflection of kind of a tension that we had in our personal relationship and that was a reflection of just intense pressures from outside you know having a second child who has special needs and then getting through COVID with two little kiddos. And then my third pregnancy, his very stressful new job, just all of it combined. So we never talked about it. And I had an intense need to talk about it, but he's no longer here. And I was actually so desperate that I had two sessions with a medium

to connect with him on the other side. Not that I am certain that I believe in it, but it was like one attempt for me to say things and to hear him say things back, whether or not it's true, but it provided some level of comfort for a little bit in the first year I haven't had that urge since then but thank you Tell me about the session that you had when you spoke to him and what happened to him actually. Yes, he had a family history of high blood pressure. Actually, he was not raised by his biological father. So this family history was kind of lost to us. We knew there were some issues that his biological father had a couple of strokes.

So we knew that there is some history, but later we discovered that it's actually pretty pervasive. So he was healthy as a horse until he was 35. And then all of a sudden his blood pressure started going up and his cholesterol levels were up and we were kind of caught by surprise. And he passed away at the age of 47 from an aortic dissection, which is basically when your aorta bursts open. Definitely not something I expected. And so it was the day of my oldest son's eighth birthday. I left the house with him and I got a call from my husband saying he's not feeling well that they called 9-1-1 he collapsed at home and they couldn't revive him so he was gone in half like within half an hour and I found out when I got to the hospital and they had to tell me so that was an out-of-body experience so he

passed on my oldest son's birthday and a day before my birthday. So since then, every year we go away, my oldest son and I, we go away and we have a beautiful travel experience so that we move forward. How many years ago is that now? That was three and a half years ago. And you have had some conversations with him. Tell me more. Yeah. Well, one of the reasons why I love your work is that you speak so frankly and openly about the role of sex and the relationships. And very few people do.

And it's really powerful. And it rings really true to me. So leading up to his death, I was feeling very emotional and very strong about the fact that we didn't connect at this level since the birth of our third child. We haven't had sex since the birth of our third child, who haven't had sex since the birth of our third child who was eight months old when my husband passed away. So that's a long time. And yet my husband wouldn't bring it up. And I was afraid to bring it up because I was afraid to hurt his pride and I'm pretty sure that's what it was about but internally I I it was it just felt like I had a lot of feelings and unsaid things and I loved him very much and when he passed it was just like wait what it's kind of like cutting a conversation

in the middle what were you able to tell him when you had the session with him? And what did he answer you? Well, I wasn't really sure what to expect from that session, but the way the two sessions that I had went is that he had things to tell me. And the medium said, like, is there anything you want to ask him? And had some specific questions but the main message from the other side typically is I love you and and there was I'm sorry which I also wanted to hear and I wanted to say but I think the way the medium translate what they hear is not in the same tone, with the same pause. You don't always feel like they're translating what he would have said. It was just kind of a stream of consciousness.

He's so happy to see you. What language did you speak together? We spoke English. Okay. Yeah together we spoke english okay yeah we spoke english to each other and i i asked her is he uh sad is he hurt that he cannot be here with his children and me that he's missing this life and she said you know there's a short transition period but then they're in the light and they're okay. Because that was one of my worries. The pain he experienced before passing

and the pain he must be feeling from missing the life and missing seeing his children growing up and missing our life together. But you wanted to also speak with him about your sexual intimacy. Did you get to speak about that when you met him? Yes. Or are there other things that you would like to say when you say we have things we've never said to each other. Does it start just with the end when we are no longer intimate after the birth of our third child? Or is there other things you want to tell him about your sexual connection to him when it was still very active and vibrant? I didn't think, well, I don't know if I didn't think of saying it or at the time when I was calling because it was the very first year or months when it's very raw.

I had the urge to talk about it, but I was still maybe embarrassed to talk about it. So I didn't call out that specific issue. Okay. Yeah. And so what is it when you say, I would love to talk with him about our sexuality and you no longer feel it's not okay because he just died and who talks about sex with their dead partner just after they're gone, right?

It's as if it's like, but yet I have thought many times about our connection, who we were together. I feel his hand sometimes over me. I feel his kissing me. I remember it vividly. And there's so many other parts of our connection that I would like to talk about with him. So what would you like to tell him? And you can talk to him in the first person. If I talk to him in the first person, I'm afraid I'm going to cry. Of course you will cry. Of course you will cry of course you will cry there's grief there's longing there's yearning there's sadness there's loss there's joy there's the heightened of the erotic memory that you have there's so many pieces here yes and you're sitting

in your closet and i don't see you. And it's you with him. You're in one side of the door of the closet and he's on the other side of the door. Well, I think I'm upset with him for hiding. With you. I'm upset with you. Yeah. I'm upset with you for not acknowledging the problem and giving us an opportunity to fix it. There have been a long time since we've been intimate.

And I remember I was feeling so upset about it, but I couldn't talk to you about it. There have been a long time since we've been intimate. And I remember I was feeling so upset about it, but I couldn't talk to you about it. So I sent you a message and I said, we obviously have a problem. And it's one of two things. Either you're not attracted to me or you have a health issue, which we can do something about. And then I held my breath. And then you responded later. And you said, I love you very much. And I'm very much attracted to you. And there's nothing wrong with my health. And I feel that is true that you have loved me till the end, but you lied to yourself about your health issues and you didn't address it. So is it, am I hearing this well, that I knew something was the matter with your health?

Yeah. Because the way that you withdrew sexually told me, okay, so it's true. So sexuality revealed to me that something was not going well health-wise. Okay. Okay. Now I understand. And it's not like I didn't know you're not attracted to me I actually knew that so I kind of fished and when you told me there's nothing wrong with your health then I knew there's really something going on and I couldn't talk about your health and I couldn't talk about sex either yeah because how do you talk about sex with someone who's not healthy? They have bigger fish to fry. But I couldn't talk about your health because you didn't want to address that with me

either. And so you left me in a state where I was scared and helpless. Yes. And vulnerable. And? And I felt like, it felt like a puzzle that I have been trying to solve on my own for years until the pieces clicked and the puzzle was solved at expense of his life you know just in retrospect

i was like okay of course high blood pressure leads to erectile dysfunction disorders and but it just didn't connect clearly enough and maybe it was the fog of childbearing age. And just, yeah, I don't know. But if I connected it, I wouldn't be taking it so personally. I would push him to see another doctor. I would try to change our diets, push him to exercise. I actually expressed that to the medium about me being angry with myself and also being angry with him. And she said that he said on the other side that it was his responsibility

to take care of himself and I shouldn't blame myself, which is easier said than said I'm done. No, you may have suggested all those things, and it doesn't mean he would have followed suit. Yeah. It doesn't mean he would have listened to you, neither on the food nor on the exercise or anything else. But did he withdraw from you sexually completely did did was there no touch

anymore was there no kissing hugging stroking was there zero physical touch and connection or did he withdraw from intercourse penetrative sex um no he he expressed his love and he did touch and kiss me except that i was getting upset with the situation and i was withdrawing at that point and the situation was the erectile challenges well him not initiating him not initiating okay And at the same time, we had three children, right? So for our third child, that was one of the best lovemaking we've ever had, but it was very intentional. It was connected to our special needs child and wanting, it was kind of primal. It was nonsensical to have a third child with everything going on. And yet we said that to each other and he was a very logical person. So I just really loved that he went with the gut,

that we both wanted to have another baby. And it was very gentle and nice and intentional lovemaking that resulted in our third child but we never had intercourse since conceiving our third child so that was nine months of pregnancy and eight months after birth of the baby that's 17 months with no sex so as you can imagine by the very end I was I was just I knew there's a problem but there was COVID and there was this newborn and trying to keep a job and I think I was just in a fog and I didn't even know where to start and so my priorities always went to my children not our relationship and I in the back of my head, I was like, well, figure it out.

It's not a priority right now. It's just not to drown with everything else. And now you think if I had been more vocal about it, I could have helped him to get help and we could have intervened on his behalf and he may have been around? Yes, that's how I feel that there would have been a chance, that it wouldn't be a fatal mistake. It feels like a fatal, well, it was a fatal mistake not to prioritize that over other things. It just couldn't imagine.

Couldn't imagine. And when he said to you, this was my responsibility, did he manage to enter your heart? Or did you continue to say, it doesn't matter. You could be in denial, but I should not have been. I should have been more vocal. It doesn't matter if we had a young baby. It doesn't matter. If it was COVID, it doesn't matter. I should have just said, your sexual withdrawal tells me that you're not well. But I was also more concerned with the fact that you were not initiating. And so there was also a relational component to this.

I did not only think about health i also thought what's happening between us does that feel right yeah yes yeah and what do you mean when you say i wanted him to initiate we had a Yeah. and that was the direction, and then I would respond in kind? Or did I initiate as well, and then he stopped it? No, I think we were using the script of our relationship that worked for the first 10 years of our relationship, where I wanted him to initiate, but I would let him do it and him being turned on by me would turn me on. I don't think I historically was comfortable initiating it because there's some kind of deep script in my head that if I initiate, there wouldn't be a foreplay, like it would move too fast. But if a man initiates,

then it will take the time it takes and will be organic and nice. It's just this yin-yang thing that worked for us. And having children is very challenging because you don't know how much time you have and you can be interrupted at any time and you're not getting enough sleep it's it's the one of the hardest most challenging times and i think in a couple's relationship but none of this was discussed even the script had never been discussed well it was understood it was mutually understood i think he did mention a couple of times that it would have been nice if I initiated. But I also told him, if you touch me and I see that you turned on by me, I am turned on. It's a loop.

That's how I am turned on. So at some point, he stopped touching me because I think he was worried about feeling inadequate in bed and that was a major pride thing for him. I mean, for most men probably. We have to take a brief break. So stay with us and let's see where this goes. And what would you want to say to him today as you sit with these thoughts and these feelings. He's right here. He's in the space with us. And you can talk to him directly.

I'm not a medium, but I know that we talk to the dead. We talk to the living, we talk to the dead. Sometimes we don't talk to the living and we finally say it all once they're no longer with us physically well I tell him I tell him that pretty much every day I mean it's pretty simple in the end.

I say I love you. I miss you. And I'm sorry. That's pretty much a conversation. But I have more that I want to say to you. I do say those things, but there is so much more. Sometimes I can write you long letters in my head, unsent love letters.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I will come to that point when I can manage my guilt and just focus on the love that we had, but I don't think I'm quite there yet. I haven't fully forgiven myself but and when i say that i haven't forgiven myself it's it's what it's because i i was so busy dealing with the feeling of rejection of your not being enough interested and turned on by me which had always been such a source of pleasure for me, that I ended up not responding and stepping in and taking charge and doing whatever I could to help you take care of yourself better? Is that what I hold against myself? I think because I was not happy and he was really trying his best. He's right here. You can tell him you.

You were doing your absolute best to take care of all of us, to keep me happy, to have a beautiful home to have the best advantages for our family for taking the job that was kind of killing you just so we have what we have and I did not support you enough. I didn't express gratitude enough. I was just so hung up on the issue of our sexual relationship, which was to me a core issue of our physical relationship. And I was waiting for you to address it.

And instead I made you feel bad about yourself and inadequate, inadequate. I felt it. And we made the penis the king of the relationship. The penis made the decisions. Well, the penis is the symbol of a larger issue, and I couldn't figure out what the larger issue was, even though it was there in the face. But I'm saying it differently. Okay. I'm saying that we equated sexuality with an erect penis,

and if the penis wasn't going to be erect then neither you nor I knew how to experience and to stay connected intimately and erotically without having the penis make the decision. Well I think if he had a kind of a diagnosis and we all agreed on what the physical issue is then i could live with having a mutual understanding and getting past that instead a couple of times when we had a issue with the penis i i got upset which is the the worst thing to do, right? Instead of being accepting and loving, I did not do that. And I'm sorry for that. I really am.

Because that made you feel defensive. And maybe that's what made you not talk about it and not want to address it. Well, once I knew that you don't respond well if my penis does not get hard spontaneously and autonomously, I decided since I can't be sure when, if, and how, then I better not let myself be humiliated. Yeah. Not just by you, but just by myself. Both of us had defined a sexuality that gave the penis a kind of a supreme reign. If the penis wasn't going to collaborate, then the rest of us wasn't going to experience any connection.

That's what I mean when I say the penis made the decision rather than the people made the decision rather than the people make the decision. And both of us did that. There was not just you. There was him and you. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you had any lover or any sexual partner since nope just my vibrator the old faithful yeah but i is that partly there's a part of you that feels i don't deserve it is the guilt standing in the way? No, I think the first definitely at least a year, maybe two years, it was just unconscionable to even imagine. I felt nauseous thinking about having a different person in my life. I don't feel nauseous. No, it's just feels practically impossible to have a relationship because it requires investment of time and energy. And I have none to give. I'm raising three children and I have a job that I love and it gives me

fulfillment. And between these two big things in my life, I can't imagine a single person that would fit in without overwhelming me or making me choose priorities. Yeah, so no. Nope, no sex. Well, and the ironic thing is that I haven't had um sex for a long time even in my marriage right it was on a decline right it was lovely it was just wonderful for 10 years 10 solid years and then once i started having kids and it coincided with him all of a sudden i guess it's a hormonal shift and men in their

mid to late 30s early 40s coinciding with his health issues that came out felt like came out of nowhere it was just downhill from there in terms of having good sex and connection. I remember even exploring, okay, we're not initiating, we're not having as much. How about we have naked Thursdays? We go to bed, not wearing anything, just to touch and hug and no expectations. And that didn't work either.

He was feeling cold. He would get cold. He's like, I need my socks on. You you put the socks on it starts killing the vibe right right right big turn off but you know does he ever tell you something about what he would want for you today knowing how much of an erotic being you are and how much you're luscious and enjoying of the physical pleasure that you were. Because we're not talking about marriage and we're not talking about disrupting a whole life. There are many other people who have lost their partners too and who are raising families

and who may want a companion on occasion. We're not talking about a big overall here. But it's like when you don't eat, you know, you lose your appetite. And since you use your vibrator quite a bit, then you haven't lost your appetite and since you use your vibrator quite a bit then you haven't lost your appetite so it's about it feels inconceivable i'm not talking in the first two years of course not but it feels inconceivable at first and then there is something about feeling that aliveness feeling the connection feeling the intimacy feeling the pleasure of the touch.

And I can't imagine that he would want you to go chaste for another decade just because of the, you know, it's not that complicated. Well, you know, I think he had some kind of premonition before passing. Because I remember he said once, if I'm gone, you will find someone for yourself. Like kind of offhandedly. And I just remember, I was just like in my head, what, like, what was that? But I couldn't respond to it in the moment. And then I just waved it off.

And I do think about it. It's like, you'll be okay if I'm gone, you'll find someone. So for me, that just triggers guilt because it was probably coming from a place of feeling inadequate to meet my needs. It was coming from a place of awareness that in his family, people could leave early. He felt like a preposition.

Yes, that he didn't think he necessarily would be a long flame. Maybe. And that it's a gift that he wasn't asking you to stay faithful beyond the grave, that he wasn't asking you to stay in mourning for the rest of your life. That because he knew he may not be around, that there was joy and

lust of life inside of you, and that you would make sure to continue to cultivate that. Yeah. We are in the midst of our session and there is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break, so stay with us. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Squarespace.

Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that you can use to build a website and help people find your ventures. Whether you're seeking a location for your podcast, teaching language courses or selling handcrafted ceramics, Squarespace has all the tools you need to create a home on the web. You can create a polished, professional place that connects people with whatever you are excited about. Squarespace also supports all forms of connecting

with those people. Whether you're selling products online or in person or offering memberships, you can make your website look exactly how you want it to be. They even have tools that help you create a custom logo. And they make it easy to create a place where people can schedule an appointment with you, browse your services or learn more about why you do what you do. Visit squarespace.com slash Esther for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code Esther to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.

I mean, in grief, I mean, there are lots of great quotes about grief, but basically it's kind of like they say, it's passing through the eye of the storm. You may not remember passing through it, but you come out on the other end changed. And so that's part of the loss that I lost who I was with him. So I'm a different person.

So I have to grieve myself too. So, yeah, I mean, it would be different. I don't know how. It would depend on the other partner too. If there was someone who was willing to take on the the whole uh you know three kids special needs seriously chances are slim Esther so just saying no I they are but sometimes they always were and I hear you when you say I didn't just lose him I lost also who I was when I was with him that's really profound

yeah and I also know that there is loss in this world and there's loss for a lot of different parents who have kids and that people seek to connect especially when they have known love and they have known the beauty and the power of love and I don't deny that it's complicated and that it's logistical hell and that it's not like you find someone around the corner every day. I'm well aware. But I also am well aware that people rebuild lives, new lives, informed by what they experienced in the previous phases of their life.

Yeah, I mean, I feel I'm three and a half years later, I'm doing all right. I'm standing on my two feet. The kids are all right. I love my job. That's an important part of my life. I'm really grateful to my husband for leaving us financially okay. That was one of the biggest fears. A lot of times losing a partner creates upheaval and then you have to move. And so children have to experience losing their home on top of losing their parent. And we didn't have

to do that. And I'm really'm really grateful he really god he pulled all the stops he was a long-term planner so we were able to stay in our home and that stability is just so he knew he knew he sensed he was aware and he didn't share it with you because he wanted to protect you i think so well he knew at some you know astral level not i you know in his gut i don't right yeah yeah yeah probably i think so enough to know that he needed to do a certain kind of planning yeah Yeah. Do you have a good social circle around you? Yes. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.

Do you ever talk about any of that with your friends? The revelations of sexual inadequacies? With just a couple of friends and ideally had the need to say it in the very beginning i really wanted to talk about him and i wanted to i mean i guess to talk about the puzzle that clicked into place too late for me and maybe just share it with my girlfriends in case they're struggling with it in the bedroom because i think part of it is that it's such a private thing and it's such a vulnerable thing and so people don't talk about

it so i never talked about this problem with friends or family or anyone and maybe if i did well it's also talking about 10 years of a beautiful erotic connection with a partner that too well it's it's the yeah the loss of it and why is it happening but before you talk about the loss of it yeah i would invite you to also talk about the existence of it well that's why i was so sad that's why i was so sad because I lost something beautiful, right? As opposed to it being okay. You know, we came together to have a family, like some partners do that. Like we had 10 years of wonderful life together. Probably could have, you know, sometimes I do wonder, what if we never had kids? We were not the kind of couple who were like, we definitely need kids. It's just the time came when we were like, okay, if we wanted to have kids, now is the time. And it is this life-changing, beautiful human experience, so we went for it. But I do wonder sometimes, would he have lived?

Would he have lived? Or if we only stopped at one, would we have then more space in our lives to take care of each other and he would have lived and we would be okay a lot of what ifs these are beautiful questions that will remain unanswered or that to which you will provide multiple answers and on the other side you have three children that each remind you of him. Yeah. So if you only had one, you would have a very little memory of him. And now that you have three, he appears in multiple versions on different screens of

your life. So you don't know. What you know is that there's a part of you that wishes that you had reacted sooner and that other people had reacted sooner. It's not just you. You don't carry all of that responsibility. That's the only thing you know. You don't know if he would have lived but you do know that now that

he's not alive you have three kids who can carry his torch well and then there is a question can i raise them well enough without their father you know the, the father figure. You're doing your best. I am doing my best. You're doing your best. That is not something you could control. And often you think of him and you wonder what he would say or what he would do. And often you think, I hope he would be proud of me. And often you may think, I hope that he doesn't judge me too harsh.

All of the above. You live forever with a dose of mystery, with possibilities that are unconfirmed. And that is in the nature of that beast. But he did leave you with a very strong statement, which was, take care of yourself. Allow yourself to fall in love again. Take what we experienced and what we cherished and bring it back into your life.

However and whenever you're ready so I want to leave you with that sentence because you what you wish you had done differently is very present very understandably so but there's more to the story if you only focus on what was lost,

you're missing the memorialization of what was there. And I somehow imagine that he would have wanted you to also not just focus on what was lost, but on what you both created and what you developed together as a way of keeping his memory alive. Yeah. Well, I mean, making sure that our kids are all right is me honoring him. Absolutely.

And us. But you said something that was for you. Yeah. I hated said something that was for you. Yeah. I hated him for it. So I, in that moment, yes. But for now, it's a very important sentence to keep in front. If you want to remember me, cherish life for yourself as well as for the kids. Don't just deprive yourself.

That is not a way to remember me. And I want to leave you with that invitation. Thank you. It's an invitation that came from him. I'm just reiterating it. Yeah, well, it sounds like something he would say or want for me. He does. But I just wish I could do this life with him.

I know. Instead of looking for another. I know. I know. I know. You're doing it with him in the way that you are remembering him. He's not here physically. He's not here on an everyday basis.

He's not. But every day you think of him. Yeah. Okay, that's how he stays alive in you? Yes. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Esther.

You're welcome. This was an Esther Calling, a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world. If you have a question you'd like to explore with Esther, it could be answered in a 40- or 50-minute phone call. Send her a voice message, and Esther might just call you. Send your question to producer at estherperel.com. 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, Destry 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.