Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - You Keep Planning A Future Without Me

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

They met as community organizers in their neighborhood. She had just gotten out of a multi-year marriage to her ex-wife and began to forge new friendships. After about a year, something shifted for her and she began to develop feelings for him, sending her seemingly solid identity into a tailspin. After 15 years of identifying as a lesbian, she was in her first straight relationship. Now, he is beginning to question what he wants out of life and their relationship and can’t seem to grow out of his youth-formed habits of yearning for greener pastures. They find themselves at an erotic stalemate and come to Esther for help. 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

It's just so different from lesbian sex, because lesbian sex is very slow, and there's no one definition of what lesbian sex is. And when he comes, the sex is over, and that's frustrating. But I really love having sex with him. We have a great sex life. I don't think that he's as comfortable with female sexuality as maybe he believes he is. 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.

Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. We met when both of us were in other relationships a few years ago. We just had an immediate, really special bond, and we had a really good friendship for about, I don't know, a year and a half or so.

She was so fun and funny, and it was a really nice friendship. And I just felt very lucky to have her as a friend. His relationship ended just a few months into us being friends and then my relationship, I was married to a woman, ended and we started dating soon after that. She revealed kind of that she had romantic feelings for me which just really took me by surprise. And that just sort of like shifted things.

I was like, oh, wow, was everything that we just did like last year, like, was that kind of like chasing after me? Was this a friendship? I'm very sexually attracted to him. Being drawn to him kind of shifted my identity a little bit because it was really strange. It was a difficult thing to come to terms with as somebody who had identified as a lesbian for so long, having feelings for a man. It was a difficult thing to kind of reckon with. The dynamic of our relationship, to me, just changed so drastically from when we were friends. It went from this period of ease into this serious, committed relationship.

I'm like, whoa, this is a lot. This is a lot all at once. It's really difficult because we have such a special relationship. But when we are communicating about difficult things, it just always goes poorly. My feelings get hurt. I get emotional. I start to cry. He feels like my response is unpredictable or he can't tell what's going to upset me. And then he gets defensive and then pulls away a little bit. I don't know. I'm like struggling with this need for like exploration. Do I want to go travel somewhere? Do I need some time for myself? And so I just, I just don't know where she fits into that. This is a couple that arrives at a moment of transition.

Will we commit and embark for the long haul? Or is this just another formative experience in our romantic histories? So let's listen together. How long are you together? A little over a year and a half. Yeah, we were friends before that. But that's also together. Yeah, so...

Yeah, that's true. That's what it feels to me. Yeah. Yeah, so like two and a half years or so. Okay. Yeah. Any specific themes, topics, concerns that you would like to address? What would be on the menu for you?

I think I'd like to leave today with both of us having a new understanding of each other and what the other is trying to communicate when we're communicating because when we have difficult conversations I often feel really hurt and not considered and I think discovering ways to have discussions about topics about the future, discussing the future, because he and I are at very different places of comfort with that. And I just end up getting very scared. And you get scared of what? It doesn't include me. And I love our relationship and I want us to be together and I want us to continue to grow together. But then when these conversations come up, it's a reminder that we're not on the same page.

It's just, you know, very scary to remember that my partner hasn't communicated seeing a future with me necessarily. So fear of loss. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, of course. It's also very difficult for me to talk about emotional things without crying, so I'm trying hard right now. And the tears mean? It's just very painful.

So when you get sad or despondent, what happens to him? Yeah, that's the problem. Right? Yes. clear pattern that's been repeated very many times where I will be sensitive and respond in a way that includes tears. And it seems to me like that causes you to feel anxiety and to pull away. And I feel like you get a distant look in your eye, like we're no longer connected, and like you're seeing me as like this crazy person.

And then I get even more anxious because I feel like now I'm very alone. I can't have a conversation about this because you're looking at me like I'm crazy. From the beginning, she lays down the floor plan of their relationship in very exact measures. That when she gets all upset, he not just withdraws, but he disconnects and he goes off. I visualized it in the moment and I wish that I had been able to tell her how perceptive she was. I hope actually that through the narration now I can tell her that I was touched by it

and impressed by it. That demands insight, that demands awareness and relational self-awareness. You're nodding. Yeah, that's true. The whole thing? Yeah, I think there's a lot of times where we've, or I've upset her. And then I didn't know that the reaction was going to be what I guess I perceived as very strong. And so, yeah, I guess I feel it as... Overreacting. Yeah, it seems like an overreaction or I don't understand it.

You don't understand it or you judge it? Maybe I judge it, yeah. Yeah, because overreacting is you own the measure of the right amount of tears. Yeah. Versus

Yeah. I don't want to hurt her. If I see her upset, then it makes me quiet. Then I feel like I can't really say what I want because I don't want

to upset her. And so she swallows her tears, I swallow my needs. Yes. That's, yeah, that's exactly what's happening. Yeah, you're nodding too. That's a form. It's like, that's the choreography, that's the dance. Then hopefully if we get a little bit of a handle on it then you can apply it to the various subjects

you want to touch upon yeah so then my question to both of you or a question is what's familiar to you about this i mean you're not 18 year old i don't know what you are, but you're somewhere in your thirties, somewhere there. So this is probably not your first relationship. What's familiar to me? What I recognize here? What I own? What I know is mine? What I've been in before?

Maybe it's not exactly the same, you know, but enough for each of you to, to bring some of your own story to this. I can say for me, there are some similarities, but most of them are quite different. I only was with women before I was with him. Okay. And so, I mean, I guess difficulty with communication certainly is a recurring thing. And feeling like I have a hard time communicating my needs is a recurring thing. But I would say that's about the extent of it the description of the fear that when he begins to think about his life I'm not included I don't

feature familiar yeah yes I have childhood issues with abandonment so it's a very deep issue that comes up a lot. And you talk about that with him? Oh, yeah. Separately from when you are in the midst of the crucible? Mm-hmm. Okay. Can you tell me something about it? I mean, not only what happened then, but how it's happening now. Yeah. It happened in a few different ways.

My parents got separated when I was like five. And my dad moved multiple states away. And we didn't have a close relationship for a few years after that. So I just didn't hear from him for multiple years. Eventually, we came back together. He still lived a few states away from me, but we had a very strong relationship. And then he died. So that was a big abandonment. And then, oh, and I would say before that, my mother changed drastically after my parents got divorced. And she just stopped being present. I mean, I just was completely raised by myself. I mean, she took care of me financially, made sure I always had a home.

But emotionally, she completely abandoned me when her and my father separated. She was out dating all of the time. She was never available. Anytime I had emotional needs, it was too much. It was just way too much. And so I felt abandoned by the parent that I'd had before that. So that's, I think, the historical roots. And I think how that comes up now is, you know, feeling like I'm a person who people abandon. What just happened? I'm trying to not cry.

And when I sense distance in my partner, I have a hard time. If the tears need to stream, let them stream. Just, you talk through it, we will… I'll talk about him, but I won't judge you for it. No, you won't take it. Or does he feel it? You know? I think, yeah, when you pull away from me, that triggers like a fear of abandonment. And then when I get the blank look from you and the distance, like the emotional and physical distance, I feel like you have fully abandoned me.

Is he present now? Yes. Okay. So what enabled you to stay present just now? I think part of it is just telling her story. And I just have a lot of compassion for what she went through as a kid. So I think I was just able to listen with curiosity and openness. I know. I saw it. She felt it.

What was different? May I venture a guess? No. Be my guest. You don't ask me permission, you ask him. You can venture a guess. Because it didn't implicate you in any way. So there was no defensiveness that was elicited from that. That's my guess.

Yeah. No, that's what I was going to also share. That I guess I wasn't being an implicator. I didn't bear any responsibility. So much happened in just this one moment. After the divorce, she lost her two parents. The one who was physically present, the one who was physically present and the one who was physically absent, but neither of them continued to parent her. And she found

herself all alone, a symbolic orphan. And she describes how when he stares into the vastness, she experiences the same aloneness as she felt when she lost both her parents. But in this moment, he was actually very present. And he was present because he wasn't feeling blamed. Which tells me it's not her sadness nor her vulnerability that he is reacting to. It's his level of responsibility for her feelings, which then made me wonder, where does that sense of responsibility in him come from? We have to take a brief break. Stay with us.

Keep going. What's familiar? What is known to you about this? As we understand, the places where you get stuck. I think for me the thing that feels familiar is I have the propensity to kind of look outside of the relationship for kind of like fantasy

or yeah, it's almost like dreaming of a different life. I think especially when there's dissatisfaction in the relationship in any way. So maybe that's fantasizing about leaving, going somewhere, fantasizing about other people. I feel like that feels very familiar to me. How does it work? How does the fantasy exercising work?

Yeah. What do you think about? How do you behave? Yeah, I think for me, it's really just sort of like about being alone in some ways. Just being able to do what I want or be with who I want. What's the soliloquy? How do you speak to yourself when you are in that fantasy? If I met that part of you.

Yeah. Right here. It sits in this chair. Actually, you can change chairs. Come sit here. I want to meet the fantasy. Yeah, I like this. Sometimes it's not just thinking about being in a different place.

One has a very clear idea of where one is, what one is doing, who one is with. And basically, if you have frequent flight fantasies and you're with someone who has frequent abandonment fears you have the perfect fit for creating you know a very unpleasant situation so may i meet the fantasy and could you introduce yourself to. Because you've been doing that for a long time. You're very familiar to this man. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Probably since I was, I don't know, like 13 or 14.

Do you see yourself there? Yeah, I do. Hi. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. What's your name? My name is, let's is... I'd say Carl. Okay.

I could have called this avoidant attachment, escape, dissociation, denial. So many words, clinical diagnostic words. But I thought there's something more poetic in talking about it as a fantasy because as a child, he experienced it as a fantasy. He imagined himself in a different character, in a different life, with a different plot.

And because he's already experiencing himself and she has already described him as the guy who checks out, then that checking out becomes a very frozen experience. But when I talk about fantasy and I ask him, what's the name of that part of you? He immediately knows how to call that part of him. He relates. Changing the language is an attempt to open up

that more avoidant flight state. And so from there we start. So you just one day appeared in the life of this young boy and helped him with what? Where did you want to take him and what did you want to take him out of? Well, yeah, I think when I first came online, it was because of his parents getting divorced and trying to protect him from not getting hurt. And so bringing him, you know, not spending a lot of time with the family, investing in friends and romantic relationships, really looking for romantic relationships. Yeah, and then I think over the years, it just became like when relationships would end,

I would take him to South America for a year or there was a lot of adventure and exploration. And finding comfort or finding stability as something to be a little bit wary of, to be a little bit almost fearful of. And so I think always kind of wanting to infuse his life with some novelty of like, what can we see next? Who can we meet?

And I think not, yeah, not wanting to get into like a stable life of just like things changing things need to change kind of constantly for him so if you can create stories with him where his life changes all the time he does not have to worry that someone else will change his life changes all the time, he does not have to worry that someone else will change his life. Yeah. That sounds, yeah, that's right. And how does that play out in his relationships? Yeah, I think in relationships,

it just plays out like a lack of commitment. It kind of gets to a point where maybe some boredom sets in. And then we kind of give him these like pathways out. What do you tell him? How do you speak to him? You could do better. This isn't the end point. We should think about things that you have wanted to do.

And what? This is boring. This is conventional. You're not really listening to yourself right now. There's other things out there. There's better things out there. How old are you if I may ask? 39. Okay. What happened to his family after his parents divorced? So his parents divorced and his dad moved out of the house. What were the circumstances? Of the divorce? It was very emotional and volatile. It just was a series of really like volatile encounters in the house between his parents.

When my dad was gone, then just kind of seeing, or you know, when his dad was gone, it was kind of seeing him become this ultra responsible person, right? Almost taking on a parental role for his younger sisters. I think he just, at the time, felt that what he could do was just try to protect his sisters, just try to do anything he could to make sure that they didn't experience pain or discomfort. And a lot of that was taking them out of the house, was taking them out of that place where there was a lot of strife. How many?

How many sisters? Three. Three younger sisters. Can I ask you something? I just wondered if that's where he learned to check out, to kind of take his gaze and move it as far away. Three sisters and a 13-year-old is a lot. Meaning three sisters and a 13-year-old who feels responsible to protect the three sisters.

Yeah. That is a full-blown training in how to respond to other people's feelings. Yeah. And to kind of keep one's own tucked. Mm-hmm. Because he's telling me that it's very hard for him to actually just be there. Yeah. Rather than either checking out or feeling responsible.

Mm-hmm. rather than either checking out or feeling responsible. It's like either he feels like it should have nothing to do with him, either he feels that it has everything to do with him. So it's very hard for him to just let somebody else experience something. Not somebody else, women. Women with whom he's intimately connected. Both of them, she and him, experienced a divorce that left them feeling very alone, saddled with responsibility over herself and saddled with responsibility for him over his sisters. He felt a lot. It would be so easy to think of him as he can't handle her feelings, but it's because he feels them very much. And each of them responded to the changes in their life in a different direction.

His became, I get out of it. And Herb's became, who can be here with me? His was, I better be alone. Hers was, how can I not be alone? And so she becomes the pursuer, he becomes the withdrawer. One of the most universal dimensions of relatedness that we find in couples worldwide. And you, fantasy,

you have a very nice way of coming in and you just say, oh, you're being bored. You use the word of boredom and adventure. That's very nice, but it's kind of literature for a 13-year-old. That's interesting. And you still speak with him with the same language. What do you mean? Can you say more about that?

Let's go in the woods and have an adventure and be independent and be a hero and not be here burdened and saddled with all these women's emotions that I have to be responsible for. Come on, come with me. Yep. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that feels right. You know, this, I'm bored, you know, let's have an adventure. I'm thinking, I'm bored is not the same as I feel overwhelmed. It's not the same as I feel responsible this is one of those moments where when I listen to it I think oh shit I wish I had just stayed quiet and let him take this in

I didn't have to say anything it's very clear to me that he needed to hear me say this. He needed to hear an adult speak to him in ways that the adults were absent in his life. And at the same time, I wish I had left him a little longer with this so that he could absorb it and embody it and be with it.

Anything? I guess I would say one way that it's shown up regularly in our time together is very frequent musing about leaving New York City and not wanting to do it together and not being sure about where you're going. So it was multiple times weekly mentioning that. And that was obviously very triggering for me. Yeah, that's something I've noticed as well.

And Carl is very much like, it's an anxious energy. There's a lot of restlessness. Part of what I think she experiences with you is that you go back and forth. And half the time she has to figure out who she's in relationship with. Yeah. One of the things that I noticed, to me it feels like when we are experiencing a new high in intimacy, and things are especially intimate and close, a very large fight will end up happening.

And really leave me feeling very destabilized and confused. So when you have a new experience of intimacy, where you get closer, he creates a fight to create more distance and to push you away. Or maybe Carl comes in and makes sure that there is a fight so that he can be loyal and faithful to Carl and more distant from you. I totally don't discount that at all.

What brought you together? And what brought the transition from friendship to lovers what drew you to him um what drew me to him was he was just so funny and so curious and I liked the way that you thought and looked at the world and I felt really seen by you and understood by you and you were just an easy, comfortable presence to be around. And all of that is now set in the past tense? No, it's not. Okay. Not at all.

I'm trying to be plain. I can veer into fawning frequently. So I'm trying to be very like… Fawn away. I mean, you're talking about nascent love you may fall yeah they go together sometimes you know I think the fawning thing tends to be a bit of a trigger no yeah that's what I was gonna bring up that i understand why i think when like when you're very effusive with your praise i can i can get a little like okay it's too much too much what yeah like maybe

it's like i experience it as like i can't like disproportionate to how i feel or i'm like oh i can't be this important to you kind of thing. Or you can't feel this strongly about something. This happened when I first met his mom. And so I was talking and she had mentioned, you know, feeling a disconnect from him. And so I was like telling her all these wonderful things about her son are the things that I think are so wonderful about him. And later you had mentioned that you felt like I was um trying to get something by

doing that that I was kind of doing there is a demand in the compliment yeah they're like oh I should reciprocate um yeah I don't experience those kinds of compliments as I'm getting better at trying to just accept them and be and just experience them and appreciate them. But yeah, there's some nervousness when. Because you experience them as pressure? Yeah. Pressure that you're not being given to, but you're being asked or taken from? I think I experience it as I do. I experience it, it almost feels like, yeah, manipulation.

I don't know, it almost like snaps me out of like the moment in some way, like breaks this kind of spell of like, oh, we're together and this feels nice. 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. And how does that translate in sex? I don't know. I guess I don't know how that plays out in sex. But I do know that when I try to be intimate with you, it's not generally accepted.

And you recognized it one time. Like I went over and I started to unbutton your shirt because I wanted to touch your chest. And you're like, what are you doing? This feels really invasive. And I was like, I just wanted to touch your chest. Like you unbutton my shirt constantly. Like I could be in the middle of your chest. Like you unbutton my shirt constantly. Like I could be in the middle of cooking and you'll just unbutton my shirt. But that felt like an invasion of some sort or a demand of some sort.

It just feels like genuine adoration of you and wanting to connect with you or seen suspiciously or like seen through wary eyes and it's my natural predisposition I mean anything that I like I talk about so over-the-top just you don't have to justify this. This is absolutely nothing to justify. It's quite beautiful. It's very generously given and said. And he told you, I am suspicious of it because I experience it as manipulation, because I experience what is supposed to be given as something that is actually taking and I don't trust it and it tenses me up. And therefore, you can't initiate sex either because if you initiate sex,

it feels like I have to respond. Exactly the same as he said, if you say nice things to me, I feel like I'm being set up to respond in kind. And then I feel like I am just following your lead rather than following Carl's lead, who wants me to only do things when I feel like it, as I want to, whenever I want to, and in full autonomy. I just feel like for the sex thing, I experience it as like there's the expectation that we should always be having sex or that sex should happen nightly or something like that. And I think that's where I get distant because I think I get the there's the expectation.

I'm like, oh, you want to have sex. I don't feel like having it. And I kind of experience it as like a tension. And then probably try to kind of like withdraw from that tension. Yeah, it's very frustrating for my sexuality to always be viewed as needy. If that was how I always interpreted you wanting to have sex with me, we would have no relationship. And so it's just

it's like I get really resentful of it. Very resentful. So when you want to have sex with him, you're needy and when he wants to have sex with you he's desirous? Yes. That's interesting.

When you just make a direct ask when we're in bed. Yeah, and I don't know. I guess I don't know I guess I don't yeah I don't respond well to that do I no I do feel like I've gotten better though just saying I don't feel like it do you feel that or do you always experience it as where I've just been able to communicate that I don't feel like? I feel like you've always communicated that very clearly. Yeah. How do you experience it though? When I communicate that?

It depends on the context. Like, if I'm like, do you want to fool around? Like, do you want to be physical? And you're like, I'm not really in the mood tonight. I understand. That's one thing. But if I'm trying to express my sexuality and excitement to be sexual with you by like talking about a new book I bought or a new toy that I bought or a new toy I'm interested in or like desires that I have about you when you're not around and those are shut down, that feels really, this is like a very inflammatory thing to say. And I'm sorry, I don't know how else to say it. It just feels very misogynistic.

And I know you're not a misogynist. And I know you're such a love. But it feels so misogynistic to me. My desire to physically express my love for you is distasteful. Like you've said before, it's distasteful, like it's tacky. Yeah, it's interesting because I don't know if I experience it as like when you're saying like tacky or I don't necessarily feel that way. You've said that though. Yeah, no, I mean, I can't counter that.

And, yeah, I'm really sorry. Yeah, I shouldn't say that. But what happens to you? In those moments? Yeah. Yeah, I think it sort of feels like the pattern that we were talking about. I feel like it's just so overt. That's how I experience it.

It's, like, very overt that I get, like, almost just, like, want to avoid it altogether. But, yeah, but also, I think she's also the first person I've really dated that has been, I think, so open about their sexuality and open about their desire. It's kind of just dawning on me that, like, I don't really have much experience of women talking this openly about sex and their desire. But I do experience it as that like, kind of being put upon or all these like expectations. Too bad. Yeah, which isn't- Imagine how flattered you could be and desirous you could feel and desired you could feel.

Yeah. In an adult world, you would welcome this. Yeah. Why don't I? Right? She's into me. She likes it. She wants more.

She's enjoying it. That's a very nice, but it doesn't reach you there. Yeah, no, it doesn't. It reaches you in a place that is not adult, that is way too reminiscent of family. Yeah. And you translate it all as emotional neediness. And you find yourself withholding. Yeah. Rather than responding to someone who says, come play with me. Yeah, yeah.

And you say, be right there. Me too. Want to play. Right. It gets distorted. The whole thing from the moment it leaves her to the time it reaches you takes on a whole other meaning. Yeah. Do you mind? Oh, yes. you yeah takes on a whole other meaning yeah do you do my oh you're absolutely right that i can't receive that that i can't

be open and excited about that yeah i do experience it as yeah neediness even though that's not like even the language that I think about it. But yeah, that is, I think it's like a judgment. And the neediness overpowers? Yeah, or it's a compulsion where it's just something that needs to happen every time we're together. When you use the word compulsion, it often can mean she wants to be with me because she needs something, but it's not really about me. Yes. That's the way I feel. How does that land on you? I don't really know how to counteract that belief.

I don't know how to prove that belief wrong. That's not true. There have been very long periods of my life where I've not felt sexual at all. And it's because of a lack of sexual chemistry in the relationship. My desire is to be close and have fun with you. It's not just about me getting off.

And I feel like that's obvious in the dynamics of our sex. A question that just popped into my head is, do you experience his refusal differently from how you experience the refusal of your other partners, your female partners? The circumstances are different, so it feels different. But there is, like, a rejection. But similarly? Or you assign a different meaning to it?

I assign a different meaning to it. Say more. Um, she... She wouldn't have sex with me because I don't really masturbate and she said that she felt like I was using her and that I had this sexual dysfunction that I needed to figure out before she would um she was comfortable engaging with me because she wanted to engage with me because it was fun and enjoyable but I wanted to engage with her because I had no other way to express my sexuality. And so until I was able to get in touch with myself that way, we couldn't be intimate.

Okay. And with him? Well, I mean, like I said, it just feels like it has a tinge of sexism to it. So I assigned that to it. Like, you're uncomfortable with women's sexuality is the meaning that I've assigned to it. I shouldn't be so overtly sexual. What I sense is that this is about how you interpret.

I mean, basically you are responding to a number of things that she once asked, says from the place of expectations, pressure,

demand, invasion. Lots of associations to the women you grew up with. If she says nice things, she puts pressure. If she initiates sex, she's needy. If she has tears, she is manipulative. You can interchange them. Yeah. You know, if she is wanting to have a conversation, she's choking me.

And you have a set of very strong reactions that are all they're taking you away constantly but they're taking you away in response to how you interpret what she's doing yeah everyone and that's just a thought you know but i have a sense that everyone has relationship issues that they're going to need to address at some point in their life we all do and the main question is with whom is she the person with whom you're going to re-negotiate your relationship to Carl and your exit strategies? Is he the person with whom you're going to negotiate? What would you say?

You're asking if I see that he is the one? That he's the one that you want to address the relational questions that travel with you. Absolutely, yeah. So instead of, is this the person I want to be with? Is this the person that I want to address the relational issues that I carry with me? Once I address those, I will know if it's a person I want to be with. But at some point, we stop somewhere and we begin to put the pieces together. 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 Juliann Hatton. 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.