Esther Perel - a legend. A knowledgeable, wise and eloquent lady with a spark that never bores, an advocate for honest conversations about intimacy and infidelity. The top couples and sex therapist in the world. And more could be said about her, but let's leave it here.
It's never an easy task for me to choose a few materials from the big pile I've heard over the years.
For this post, I've picked six, so you have enough material for quite some time. I hope you'll find it enriching or even eye-opening.
The quality of life is determined by the quality of our relationships.
In this famous TED talk, she speaks about how infidelity hurts differently (and more) today, compared to the past. Why? Nowadays, infidelity threatens our sense of self and is thus deeply traumatic. It is not only a violation of trust but also an identity crisis. Marriage is no longer an economic enterprise, but a romantic one. "We live in an era when we feel entitled to pursue our desires. Passion has a finite shelf life and even happy people cheat." And she goes on, saying that: "Affairs in a digital age are deaths by a thousand cuts."
"We used to leave because we were unhappy, now we leave because we could be happIER. Choosing to stay gets stigmatized. Staying is the new shame."
One of the most significant thoughts I have heard from Esther that has stayed with me ever since is:
"When we seek the gaze of another, it isn't always our partner that we're turning away from, but the person that we have become. It isn't as much as we are looking for another person as much as we are looking for another self."
The affairs are about desire. The very structure of affairs is a desire machine. Not always for someone else, sometimes we desire to reconnect with our lost self.
Yearning for lost emotional connection, novelty, freedom and autonomy, to recapture the lost part of ourselves... An affair is often an attempt to bring back vitality.
Esther provides a great deal of valuable advice no matter what our relationship status is - single, married, divorced,...
"It's in the presence of the other that we discover who we are."
I always cherish the moment when two people I admire and follow get together. A few weeks back I listened to Esther and a renowned scientist, professor and social worker Brené Brown, having a conversation in Esther's podcast. Since the new episode perished from YouTube shortly after it was published, here is a link to Spotify: Esther Perel on New AI - Artificial Intimacy. I confess I listened to it more than once the very first night and got goosebumps from how wise and insightful the words coming from Esther sounded. It is about artificial intimacy, screens as vulnerability blockers, counterfeit connection, and the fact people are becoming socially atrophied as they turn to phones instead of to others and small talk.
With words: "Where has spontaneity gone? Serendipity, flirting? All gone." Esther verbalized the thoughts I have when being in public. People stare into their phones. This is something I observed with dread in Madrid back in 2015. At that time not so many people had smartphones with internet connection here in the Czech Republic, but I knew that in a few years, this unfortunate trend would be our shared reality as well and we would meet plenty of addicted zombies avoiding eye contact, the discomfort of having nothing to do and having to simply look around or connect with others. So here we are! Most people hold their phones and public spaces are becoming boring places full of disconnected folks.
Modern loneliness masks as hyperconnectivity. The phone has become a vulnerability shield not only on a personal but also on a collective level. We are missing so much of collective joy as we start to lose the capacity to be together without the mediator of technology. (Esther and Brené)
Another full-length interview I have for you is with Steven Bartlett, in which they discuss relationships, couple dynamics, the impact of childhood on our relationship patterns, eroticism, reasons for cheating, the impact of pornography on relationships, transforming conflicts into connections, managing our expectations, and much more.
"We now expect from the partner what in the past an entire village used to give us."
As she says, relationships are full of contradictions: from a partner, we want safety, security and predictability, yet we also expect novelty and adventure.
Three more interviews worth hearing:
A short talk on infidelity from a podcast Modern Love in which she reads an essay by Karen Jones "What sleeping with married men taught me about infidelity". Can cheating bring people closer? Can trust be repaired when it has been broken?
Another TED talk (19min): "The secret to desire in a long-term relationship"
Also a wonderful interview, as long as you can rise above the interviewer's style, which I didn't enjoy.
Relationships are not binary. They cannot be reduced to either-or. They are not problems to solve but a paradox to manage.
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