Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Trapped in Their Own Story

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

Their whole relationship is based on one big misunderstanding, with infidelity and blame on both sides. Years later, they still can't see the other's perspective. Programming note: This conversation was recorded after the COVID-19 lockdown. 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. I just remember her saying, like, well, if you knew the truth, you wouldn't even be able to hand it. They've been together for almost two decades. We met each other when we were in eighth grade, and we got together our senior year. Pretty much been together ever since.

They've been disconnected from each other for a long time. It's always kind of been rocky. It's always kind of had its ups and downs. And it felt like I was one of his priorities. They each are acutely aware of how they wanted something more from the other. More attention, more desire, more affirmation. And after years of complaining about the lack of affirmation, they each found other people to give them the attention they so much craved.

So it was like a total of maybe six infidelities, I guess you could say. Mine happened a year after discovery of hers. At that point, I was in such a dark place to hear someone actually tell you that you're good enough.

Here we are right now, almost four years later. They're not in the grip of it, but they are still dealing with everything that led to it. I feel like he's disconnected and he doesn't want to talk to me or he's afraid to talk to me. I keep trying to improve myself to be able to be the person that I feel like she needs. And maybe that's the part that hurts the most is I just feel like I'm always trying to improve myself for her.

And I just feel like it just never measures up. I feel like he doesn't like to share things with me, doesn't like to communicate. More so now as the years have gone by, I feel like I withdraw a lot more when I feel him being distant. So if he withdraws, you withdraw? And when you withdraw and when you withdraw then we're just like basically like roommates I'd say like we just are parents and there's like no real romantic connection I've realized that I really do need that like I you know but I just don't want it to be fake or forced. On your part or on his part? His part.

I don't want to tell him. I don't want to be the one to say, hey, you didn't come and kiss me, but yet I still do. Is that part of a broader expectation that you are to be the pursuer and she can respond? I think of one line she always uses is like, I shouldn't have to tell you, you should know. So yeah, I think a lot of times it is like she expects me to fully pursue her. I feel like I've used the word kind of like shut down. It's probably accurate. After everything that happened, I was like,

why would you open yourself up to that possibility again? Can I just ask you for a moment? Give me a bit of background so I know what we're talking about lot late, a lot lately. And to me, I feel like there has been infidelity from the beginning with his porn addiction. And I don't even know if he considers it an addiction. It was just something, you know, guys do like, it's just a guy thing. Guys do this to me that

was that was betrayal and I let him know that and he would just you know reassure me that it's just guy thing. The betrayal for you? Tell me about the betrayal. Him watching porn and you know being okay with it and trying to convince me that it was okay even though I you know voiced him that I wasn't okay with it. The betrayal was that he was watching, watching more than you cared for, watching other women and rejecting you, making you feel that there was something wrong with you for judging it or being uncomfortable with it. Where was the betrayal for you?

There's lots of pieces to this. So I want to make sure that I really know what you're experiencing. I would say him watching it and me feeling like that was what he wanted and I wasn't able to fulfill his fantasies. And part of it was you didn't care for it. You were not at all attracted to the same kind of play. You thought he's trying to put a different thing on me that has nothing to do with me. Yeah, I wasn't

I wasn't ever really into it I just went along with it because I thought that's what he wanted so you know when he would ask we could watch you know I would agree to it and I would feel gross after and because then anytime anything that I would see and then if he would try that in the bedroom like it just kind of shut me down you're shaking your head tell me what you're saying yes I'll just that like if you ever brought anything into the bedroom where where did you learn that? Where did you see that? What have you been watching? What have you been doing? Yeah. To keep it very Manila because anything outside the ordinary was,

it would like, I think instantly kind of be a trigger for her and she'd start putting up the walls and you could feel that separation of kind of like, well, now you're kind of like, okay, I'm going through with this, but I really don't want to be here anymore because now I'm thinking about what you've been doing. And what were you into that we're talking about? Just so I have a sense.

I think for her, like she came from like a very conservative family. Mine was a little bit more open. So I experienced like sexual images and stuff like really young like around like eight years old and i think i pretty much like introduced her to all of that stuff i didn't ever really have anything i was like oh that's my thing like i love that um so anytime you would try to like bring anything to the bedroom and kind of like excite it or change it up a little bit, I said it was usually met with, well, where did you see that or where'd you get it from? And so you just kind of like learned over the years, like, yeah, I can play with it up here in my mind, but you can't really act on it. But you were eager to bring all kinds of things to the bedroom

and less curious about her? No, I think at first I was more interested in seeing what we could do together. There was a lot of eroticism in there and like excitement of like, oh, like, you know, because we're both pretty much new to this except for what I had seen. And then like instantly though,

it was kind of like, so it was like kind of shut down of, yeah, that's gross. And like, again, it was something I could play with in my own mind, but it wasn't something I was ever then comfortable with, like bringing back.

And that's when you feel that he began to lie? No, I think he, I don't even remember, like, when I found out about his problem, his porn problem, we'll call it. But is there an agreement that this was a problem? Or was the problem that you wanted to share certain fantasies with her and that that was not at all what she wanted to explore with you and therefore you took it underground? Where was the problem?

He would do it by himself, like, and he would even say, like, I just do it to, for the end result. The conversation about sex and sexuality instantly devolves in a conversation about porn. They grew up with attitudes towards sexuality that were often negative, filled with shame, filled with guilt, filled with an idea that sex should be preserved for marriage, that it should be missionary, clean,

and fertile. It is not unusual for people to grow up with negative messaging around sexuality. For them, it was rooted in their Christian Mormon background. And so much of what they've experienced for years is the consequence of ignorance, negative attitudes towards sex, and the inability to communicate about it.

And so it became a silent sexual rut. And as far as, you know, not wanting to do things with him, I feel like he was already experienced and I wasn't. I'm wondering if he really had much experience. He had very little experience. He had experience with himself and his own fantasies, jerking off by himself. That is not communication. That is not being with a partner. No, that's not. And he has always said that that was his escape and that was his way of love, to feel loved or to feel wanted. He always felt like if somebody loved you,

they would want to do that with you. My thought was more like, if you really love me, you'd want to be sexual with me. Yeah, but she didn't feel that you wanted to be sexual with her. No, she didn't. You think you were trying to be sexual with her and intimate with her. I understand that. And on some level, it makes a lot of sense. From where she was, you're coming there with your bucket of play that you had done by yourself all those years that had very little

to do with her and didn't ask her anything about herself didn't feel like any particularly curious move on your part um every experience with her was to be with her and i think that's something i tried to explain to you a lot of times it's like you always thought like oh you want me to be like her to look like her look like this like no like i didn't i didn't need you to be anyone other than yourself and like the only things i ever did bring in was because like anything i watched was like the only thing that actually turned me on about watching it was like oh i would love to do that with you i didn't ever watch it be like oh i want to do that with her. It was no, like, oh, like how great would it be to do that or experience that with you? I think that got lost probably somewhere in translation a couple of times, or maybe you didn't even want to believe that.

But that was conversations we'd had before. Yeah. So you just watched this sort of like a research project? I guess that's a way of looking at it. It's just like, that's a new one. That's interesting. I wonder what that would be like. But knowing that I was not okay.

Which is why I didn't ever bring it in. No, that I was not okay with you watching. With me watching it, yes. But I think the reason I kept watching was because I was the only place I could live it out. Yeah. I voiced, you know, how it made me feel and he wasn't willing to,

you know, stop for me or to even be honest about it with me. Like, I think, you know, if he were to come to me and say, hey, I'm struggling, you know, that would have made a world of difference. It's a sad bind that you both got yourself in because he wanted to share it with you. And then once he knew that you were not open to it and turned off by it big time, he took it privately in order not to impose it on you and felt, okay, it'll be my personal sexual world. I'll have one world with

you and one world with myself. And he didn't mean to not tell you, but when he told you, there was not a good consequence. So in a way, he may have lied, but there also was a lying invitee. There was a person who said, don't tell me. I want you to tell me, but don't tell me. And then, I don't know if he thinks it's a problem. He thinks he found a solution. I kept it to myself. I didn't impose it on you.

I didn't ask you anymore any of this stuff. What more do you want? He says, if you had loved me, you would have done this with what more do you want he says if you had loved me you would have done this with me you say if you loved me you would have stopped watching porn each one said to the other if you really cared about me you wouldn't be doing what you're doing and how many years of this oh what are we coming up on? Together? 18. 18? Almost. And I think I don't I don't think he really ever explained to me why he did it. I think that's where it to me became the problem. I probably didn't even fully understand it at 18, 19. I don't think I had any understanding of myself that deeply.

And what did you come to understand over time? Growing up, like, I never saw a lot of examples of relationships, really. I very early in my life connected sex with love. I always felt like nobody was ever going to want to be with me anyway. I always, I literally, I can remember multiple times as a child, like thinking I was going to grow up alone. I never thought I was going to have a girlfriend, let alone a wife. Like that seemed absolutely impossible to me.

Why so? Like as a kid, I always felt different. I'll give you the word views. I don't know, different outside. I grew up in a very interesting family dynamic of I'm like literally, I describe it as like being like literally the black sheep of the family. My parents are white. All my siblings are white. Cousins are sheep of the family um my parents are white all my siblings are white cousins are white like everyone in my family is white and then there

was just me and so like as a kid i just i didn't understand why i looked different um just knew that i was and not that my family ever made me feel like i didn't belong or that i was an outcast but i think i just kind of put that on myself just because I look so differently. And when you start to get friends and they come over and they see you and then meet your parents and your siblings and stuff, they're kind of like, how does this all work? And so I think at that point, then I started to recognize that I'm different. I go to a friend's house and everyone looks the same.

And I come to my house and I'm just like blob. I'm not blob. I'm black, they're white. Yeah. Like I'm literally the speck in like the snow. He describes being one of very few Black people in his entire community, church, and school. And he also describes an entirely white family in which he is the only Black person. The family has organized around a secret,

so much so that he knows not to ask. He knows he's Black. He doesn't know why. There is a scene, like, I can remember being, like, eight years old and watching, like, Beauty and the Beast. And hearing, like, the very first opening line of Beauty and the Beast was, like, for who could ever love a beast? And I remember, like, crying in the middle of the movie at eight years old thinking that that was, like, me. Like, no one's ever going to, like, like, oh my gosh, like here's, here's a thing where, you know, there's black guys with white girls and everything else. Like there's all these different mixes and anything you can think of, it's there for

you and people are just willing and totally into it. And so it allowed me to go somewhere where I could fantasize about being accepted to that level. And so for me, it instantly became kind of a place where I could fantasize about being accepted to that level. And so for me, it instantly became kind of a place where I could go when I didn't feel accepted, when I didn't feel loved. Don't think I ever had it to a point where it overtook me though, to where it was like, oh, I've got to do it. I'm doing it multiple times in a day. Hold on one moment and ask her, since she wanted to understand what was this for you.

Ask her how she just heard what you said. Out of all of that, what did you hear? You saw porn as love. So to you, attraction, you know, if someone is attracted to you, they, you know, they love you. Like, it's, like, to me, that was me, that's mainly, like, on a physical level. So, but to me, like, and I don't know if I'm, you know, the only one who feels this way, but porn is not love. It's purely just people feeding others fantasies. So like you said, you can find anything you want

and that's not connection. Yeah. She began by listening to him and then she brought the focus back onto her experience very quickly. And so as a result, she heard him talk about love, but she didn't hear him talk about the underlying, much more fundamental need, which was to be accepted.

When you think of yourself as the beast, you think of places where perhaps there are others like you. I felt like, and I to this day tell you that if I don't feel connected to you on a higher level, like a more emotional level, I think we had sex once a few weeks later or whatever. And you told me this is the first time I've ever felt like connected with you when we've had sex. And I was like, oh, my gosh, like, how is that possible? Because for me, like sex for me then, like that was how I was able to connect with you. That was a blow to me. I was like, oh, like oh my like how like we've been together at this point what 12 13 years and like this is the first time now

after 12 or 13 years that you're saying like now i feel connected to you but that was after the affairs and were we spending 24 7 with each other you weren. Well, it's been a few days now. We were having deep, meaningful conversations. We were connecting on the level that I needed from the beginning. I'm like realizing

right now that we kind of went backwards. We started with sex and that you know that being like number one thing over versus conversation and yeah deep meaningful connection yeah that I needed I feel like I was crying out the whole first, what, 15 years of our relationship? Just be wanted by you. Other than sexually.

And also sexually, because, you know, to me, like you you were watching porn you were looking at the pictures to me that just told me that I I Wasn't what you wanted. I Was shut off not that I wanted to be I Just I guess in a way I did it to protect myself. I don't know I Think that's part of why I why the affairs hurt me so much, because like I said, because I connected. Can I ask you to try something?

Because you've just listened to her, and she explained to you something very, very important. And if you hear it and you respond the way you're about to do, it still is you with yourself. I did what I did because I felt what I felt because I. And I want you to do the same exercise I asked you to just before. What did you just hear? Because your wife just said something that if you listen to it carefully,

you'll actually understand her behavior over almost two decades. Yeah, I did hear one of the things you said that was kind of like an aha for me just now was when you said I wanted the communication. I wanted you to want me, but I wanted you to want me for the communication. I wanted you to want me for

the connection, but not in a sexual sense but like the communication i hadn't heard it put that way before like i'd heard you say like all i'm good for is my body and like all you want me for is this but i had never heard it or thought of it like i want you to want me for my communication or i want you to want me for my conversation I never don't know why I didn't like did he get it yeah did I yeah for me connection like I wanted you know like a friendship and then you know like we talk and connect on the emotional level first that was your way of showing me that you loved me but I didn't receive it that way but you also added it's not just i wanted you to just talk with me i wanted you to be interested

in me but you were so busy making sure that i would be interested in you you were so busy making sure to confirm that you will be wanted you are lovable that you didn't realize that you were rejecting her yeah i wasn't ever doing that saying in my own head i wasn't ever doing anything that i i was doing it's like oh i'm choosing this over her but i'm not comfortable bringing that to you for like what it will bring up in you that you know like i'll just do it quietly over here you see you both have been operating from your own internal logic and it's it's been so powerful it's been so many years each of you consistent with your own logic interpreting everything the other person does from that logic and it makes sense from where you come

from it makes sense and part of what I hear him say is I'll satisfy myself that way that's taken care of so I don't have to come to you to be rejected by you and feel what I felt my entire childhood growing up that nobody's going to want me she said it much better than me answer that that that was what I was trying to say not so much the sad part is that each of you lives for 20 years feeling rejected by the other so after years of his finding acceptance in his own private erotics she began to travel with his sister. They'd go to clubs. She'd hook up with strangers. They were a string of one-night stands. She makes a strong point of saying there was no penetrative sex. But hey, where does sex actually start? What was clear is that

everybody had found their own source of acceptance and it wasn't with each other. And at that moment, the conversation moved from talking about porn to talking about cheating, infidelity and betrayal. what did you learn through those experiences what did you learn as a woman i mean i i knew that i was craving his attention and i you know i knew that that's something that I needed. And so, you know, going on these trips and getting that attention, I felt like, like, it just gave me a sense of like, I still, I still do have it. Like, I still do have that attraction. Like I am attractive to certain men. Like I just, cause I did not feel it from him I

more often times think back of like you know how ashamed I am of myself for letting letting myself do that because to me like it didn't mean anything like it was always a one-time thing there there was drinking involved you know like intoxication I went into it fully expecting you know to just get a break and to get some time you know away from the kids and just to myself and I remember leaving the trips just so upset that I you know that I didn't get that like that's not what it was and I think I even came home and would tell you, like, please don't let me go on another trip with her. Like, just say no next time so I don't have to, because any time I would say no, it was, you know, a push, a manipulation.

I'm like, oh, I'll pay for it. I'll pay for everything. And I'm not, like, you know, giving excuses or anything of, you know of why I did what I did, because I know I have my free agency, but I was just in a vulnerable state, and I feel she knew that, and she, in a way, prayed upon that, I guess. You experienced the same with your husband and with your sister-in-law, that on some level your sexuality ends up in the hands of the other person.

Oh, yeah, I guess, yeah. And I also feel bad because, you know, like in a way, like we both betrayed him. Like that's his sister. How could she do that to him also? What she tells is the plight of many women who don't own their sexuality and who find themselves in an experience with where they feel preyed upon where the other is the predator even her sister-in-law she never really could own and say what she wanted.

At best, she tried to say what she didn't want. And part of her process now is to reclaim her sexuality and become the owner of her own eroticism. Do you see your whole experience as a negative experience? I mean, no. I think we were kind of stuck in our relationship and what I was doing wasn't working. Talking about it, like talking about my needs and how I felt, you know, that I wasn't a priority, you know, wasn't getting anywhere.

Not saying that it was the best choice to make to get unstuck but it's effective yeah um and then also like i mean somewhat of a good thing is that he learned his story from it Because we went to his parents and told them. It's true. And so I don't know if that would have ever happened. Tell me. That I was a product of an affair. And that's why I was always different. They kept that.

They didn't ever want me to feel like I wasn't theirs, so they never told me growing up. They always had some of the story of, like, we just have more Indian in our family, and I just got, like, the more Indian blood or whatever else. So it took them 32 years before they finally told me, because I went to my dad after finding out about her, and I was like, Dad, like, I just don't know what to do or how I handle it and he was just he kept telling

me you stay you stay with her you continue to love her I was like dad he's like I don't know how I can do that like I feel so hurt like I like how would you handle it and he just basically like well how do you think you got here I don't think my parents would have told me otherwise I'm pretty sure they would have both taken it to the grave I've just been left to figure out whether it was true what did it do to you to have them actually spell it out I guess there's like a childish part of me that was like still wanted to hold on to like, maybe I'm just this miracle baby

because my dad was an incredible man. He never once made me feel like I wasn't his own son. Beautiful, beautiful. And mom? Mom the same way. Like they both love me like unconditionally but you're the one traveling around the life wondering why people will never love you yeah yeah and how do you square one and one I didn't really have any evidence to back up while I that I didn't belong because my family

never made me feel I didn't. I think I got the, I'm different and no one's going to want to be around me more from my friends. And from the secret. And probably from the secret that nobody wanted to talk about. The tragic part here is that in order for him not to feel different, which his parents saw as the ultimate expression of love, they denied his fundamental difference.

They tried to make love colorblind, rather than accept him with his difference. Do you feel that you are more prepared in this moment to take ownership over your sexuality so that you don't find yourself each time in compromised situations of things that you kind of want, don't really want, have to get drunk to explain. What you know is that you don't want what they want,

but it's not clear that you know what you want. That makes sense. And I would like to know what I want to take ownership. And how would that look? What would be some steps that you would take for that? That's the thing. I feel like I don't know. We've had conversations about,

like I've let him know that I don't feel heard or respected. Stop. Because everything you say is what you don't. It's what you don't. Yeah. So what you want is not expressed by what you don't want. So this is an affirmative statement. I want.

So I want to be heard. I want to be, I want to feel respected. By you and the kids. I feel like there's a lack, which turns into me losing my cool and yelling to be heard. I feel like that's the only way that I am heard, is if I'm losing my shit. And I don't, I hate,

I hate that. I do not want to be like that. Because that's how I grew up with my dad. What is your background? I was raised in a pretty strict LDS family. I'm the baby of nine kids, so big family.

I had to follow the rules, get in trouble if I didn't. My dad had a pretty bad temper and, and I was, you know, I was scared and I don't want my kids to be scared of me. And he always tells me that they, that they listened to me out of fear and they listened to him out of respect. And I just, I just,

I want to know how to get them to listen to me out of respect. Can I ask you something? As the youngest of nine, did you learn to make claims or everybody spoke for you? I believe that everybody spoke for me. Like I just, I've lost my voice. And I'm always, like when I meet people, I'm always super quiet and reserved. When in reality, I'm super bubbly and funny and you know I don't know I don't feel no people don't care his sister doesn't care

you too have a way of seeing the relationship world around you from a very particular lens none None of these people respect me. None of these people listen to me. None of these people pay attention to me. None of these people know what I want. And I would love for them to be different with me. And I'm going to invite you to change that. I actually want to ask you something

that's a little bit more difficult, is what do you want? Not what you want from others. Because even when you yell in order to be heard, you feel like they pushed you to yell. Everybody is responsible for your actions.

But you. Yeah, I agree. So. Yes. Go ahead. Well, I would rather be more outgoing. I would rather just say what I want to say rather than fear how it's going to be taken or. No, no, no.

Oh, sorry. That's the other one. I guess I want to be free of that. I want to feel free to be able to say what comes to my head when it does. I want you to take a pad. I want you to ask her 10 wants so that you develop your curiosity about her. I want to say that too. Me too.

Good. You just take notes. You don't breathe down her neck. You just record. If you want it too much, then she won't be able to want it because she doesn't know how to want what you want and still feel that she owns it.

I'm excited to hear them. I would love to know like 10 things you want. It's what you will do with each other. It's not just what you're going to promise you won't do with others. Ironically, the only other time they had had a deep, meaningful, honest conversation about their relationship was in the immediate aftermath of their affairs, which is actually not uncommon. This was probably the second conversation. And that in itself beckons for a third.

Esther Perel is the author of Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs and also the host of the podcast, How's Work? To reply with your partner for a session for the podcast, or for show notes on each episode, go to whereshouldwebegin.esterperel.com. Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise for Gimlet and Esther Perel Productions. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Eva Walchover, Destry Sibley, Hywote Gatana, and Olivia Natt.

Recorded by Noriko Akabe, Kristen Muller is our engineer. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We would also like to thank Nazanin Rafsanjani, Courtney Hamilton, Lisa Schnall, Nick Oxenhorn, Dr. Guy Winch, and Jack Saul.