Speaker 1: Whatever the reasons for cutoffs, I think they are among
Speaker 1: the most impactful measures that you can do to a
Speaker 1: family system. And the way I know it is because
Speaker 1: there is not a family that I've worked with that
Speaker 1: when this has happened, even in the generations before, doesn't
Speaker 1: tell it to me within the first three minutes. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Kateline brook and my guest today is Esther Perrell.
Speaker 2: Esther is one of the world's most influential relationship therapists.
Speaker 2: She spent decades helping people understand love, desire, marriage, infidelity, intimacy,
Speaker 2: and family. Her books have become international best sellers, Her
Speaker 2: TED talks have been watched by millions, and through her
Speaker 2: podcast Where Should We Begin, she's invited us into the
Speaker 2: private conversations most people only have behind closed doors. What
Speaker 2: makes Esther's work so compelling is that she doesn't just
Speaker 2: talk about relationships. She talks about relationships as a reflection
Speaker 2: of the culture we live in, the families we come from,
Speaker 2: and the people we're trying to become. And lately, there's
Speaker 2: one story that seems to be playing out everywhere. We've
Speaker 2: watched it happen publicly with Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Pelts
Speaker 2: with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. An adult child falls
Speaker 2: in love, chooses a partner, and suddenly finds themselves caught
Speaker 2: between the family they came from and the family they're
Speaker 2: trying to build. The details are different, but the tension
Speaker 2: is familiar. What happens when your parents don't approve of
Speaker 2: the person you've chosen, What happens when a partner enters
Speaker 2: a family and changes its dynamics forever? And why can
Speaker 2: choosing the person you love sometimes feel like betraying the
Speaker 2: people who raised you. Today, Esther and I are talking
Speaker 2: about loyalty, family love, estrangement, and what happens when our
Speaker 2: most important relationships collide. This is Esther Parrel, Esther Perel,
Speaker 2: Welcome to No Filter.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's a great thrill to have you here.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure for me to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, let us see at the end who's been pleasured.
Speaker 2: But I was thinking about you and really your contribution
Speaker 2: to I think a public analysis of relationships that is
Speaker 2: at once very personal for people. And I was thinking
Speaker 2: about your heritage. You come to us from New York
Speaker 2: but by Belgium, and my dad, who was Dutch, was
Speaker 2: married in Belgium. He married my mum and he would
Speaker 2: always say, oh, the Belgians are very unusual people.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: They have the practicality of the Dutch and the romance
Speaker 2: of the French. And I think that that is kind
Speaker 2: of attendant in your work.
Speaker 1: Do you think, But my origins are not Belgian. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: my origins are Polish.
Speaker 2: Ah, so I could probably like post holocausts.
Speaker 1: Yes. So my parents arrived as refugees to Belgium from
Speaker 1: Poland and where refugees for a good five years in
Speaker 1: Belgium until they became nationalized. But I think that the
Speaker 1: metaphor holds. I definitely had the practicality, and I am
Speaker 1: from the Flemish part of Belgium, but I did absorb
Speaker 1: a lot of the French culture as well as the
Speaker 1: Latin romance part. And now the big difference between Belgium
Speaker 1: and Holland is that one country is Catholic, the other
Speaker 1: is Protestant. Ah. Yes, and that also influences right, yes.
Speaker 2: And because the Catholic have the flambuoyance I guess in
Speaker 2: even in their worship that the Protestants do not have.
Speaker 2: Correct yeah, correct, yeah, quite austere I mean, but Dutch
Speaker 2: people like to go to Belgium when they want to
Speaker 2: go out, Yeah, when they want to have a good time,
Speaker 2: because part of it is about, you know, a certain
Speaker 2: vivre in abundance rather than the more freedom. Yes, so
Speaker 2: you brought I think that freedom to what previously I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people would have thought as as
Speaker 2: quite a dry science, the science of psychotherapy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never thought of psychotherapy as a Drey
Speaker 1: saying say I'm stepped in it. I still am a
Speaker 1: practitioner today. I keep myself close to the craft and
Speaker 1: my feet on the ground, and I think it's an
Speaker 1: endlessly fascinating occupation and preoccupation. So maybe what I have
Speaker 1: done that I was thirty five years in my office,
Speaker 1: and I was teaching and practicing, and I felt at
Speaker 1: a certain moment that I wanted to lower the worlds
Speaker 1: of the office, and I wanted to bring to the
Speaker 1: public the insights, the revelations, the conversations that take place
Speaker 1: in this closed room and that most people have no
Speaker 1: access to. I wanted to also democratize it and bring
Speaker 1: it into the public square. And I did that with
Speaker 1: the podcast Where Should We Begin, which is basically one
Speaker 1: time of anonymous therapy sessions, consultations with couples and individuals
Speaker 1: now as well, kind of you'll be a fly on
Speaker 1: the wall and listening on what other dilemmas of other people,
Speaker 1: because when you listen carefully to them, you will actually
Speaker 1: see yourself. And then I decided not just to lower
Speaker 1: the walls, but then I thought I wanted to get
Speaker 1: out of the office, and I began to speak in
Speaker 1: public and do lectures and tours. They're not lectures, they're
Speaker 1: really interactive experiences. That's how I came to Australia. The
Speaker 1: last time I was on tour here and I went
Speaker 1: to a bunch of different cities and right after the pandemic,
Speaker 1: right when people began to come out of lockdown, and
Speaker 1: it was a most moving experience because for many people
Speaker 1: it was the first time that they were back in
Speaker 1: public and with other papers, with other people. The intimacy
Speaker 1: of that. It was two things. One was for them
Speaker 1: to be back with close by sitting. For so many,
Speaker 1: many years, we had seen every person as a potential contaminant,
Speaker 1: and now we were back, you know, allowing the nervous
Speaker 1: system to let people come close to us and not
Speaker 1: instantly go into a fight or flight. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, I also noticed how much people in Australia
Speaker 1: had listened to where should We Begin during Lovetown to
Speaker 1: the podcast, and so they had a whole relationship with me,
Speaker 1: a parasocial relationship with me where they felt like I
Speaker 1: knew them in some way, and that gave a whole
Speaker 1: different tone to the to the evenings because people had
Speaker 1: questions that are way beyond what are the typical questions
Speaker 1: asked the public talk like what sort of questions. It's
Speaker 1: the question, it's a depth of question. You know if
Speaker 1: I trust you and I know you have a good
Speaker 1: sense of me because I've heard you do it with
Speaker 1: somebody else, and that you understand my dilemma that when
Speaker 1: I ask you should I stay or shall I go?
Speaker 1: Or how do I know that I am not repeating
Speaker 1: a pattern? Or how much can I learn to to
Speaker 1: build trust again when it has been broken? But it's
Speaker 1: the questions, there's the same, but it's the level with
Speaker 1: which a vulnerability with which you ask it because you
Speaker 1: feel that this person in me has come close to you,
Speaker 1: talking to you through another couple who was going through
Speaker 1: the same mejor dilemmas as you because it's almost like.
Speaker 2: Listening, for instance, to you know where should we begin,
Speaker 2: or generally to listening to you speak. The power that
Speaker 2: you have is almost like you're a mind reader. But
Speaker 2: I feel like you're speaking about me and my relationship.
Speaker 2: But hundreds of thousands of other people also feel like
Speaker 2: you're doing that. That's extraordinary, and I do think, beyond
Speaker 2: the science of it and your study of it, that
Speaker 2: it is some kind of gift. When did you realize
Speaker 2: that you had an understanding of humans beyond textbook?
Speaker 1: I would say around twelve oh ten twelve oh Quite early.
Speaker 1: I was fascinated with understanding people. I came from a
Speaker 1: community of people who had experienced massive trauma, collective trauma, displacement, destitution, annihilation, extermination, etc.
Speaker 1: And I just I was very interested in who are
Speaker 1: these people that are around me that have lived things,
Speaker 1: including my parents, that are no words for I saw them,
Speaker 1: and I saw those who be treated from life, and
Speaker 1: I saw those who kind of grabbed life at its fullest,
Speaker 1: and I wondered what makes one person go in this
Speaker 1: direction and what makes other people react differently. I saw
Speaker 1: their reactions to their children, to to how much they
Speaker 1: trusted the world, or were hyper vigilant. I felt all
Speaker 1: of these things, and then I and then I saw
Speaker 1: the kids us, you know, and and then I got
Speaker 1: interested in romantic relationships because I was tipped into the
Speaker 1: French world and poetry and the songs and the films
Speaker 1: and that whole thing. And so I would say, very
Speaker 1: early on, as a teenager, an early adolescent, I was
Speaker 1: interested in relationships, in studying relationships and looking at relationships
Speaker 1: across cultures, and looking at how people navigate different cultural
Speaker 1: codes in their relationships. And very early on I came
Speaker 1: up with this trede also to speak that I they
Speaker 1: would say, the quality of your relationships determines the quality
Speaker 1: of your life. Yes, and that has stayed. I probably
Speaker 1: didn't express it in those words back then, but it
Speaker 1: actually became my way of living and also my way
Speaker 1: of what I can offer two people. Because also your
Speaker 1: timing has been extraordinary, because I think people have never
Speaker 1: felt more isolated, even though we're supposedly more connected, and
Speaker 1: there's a real hunger for people to understand as things change,
Speaker 1: and as our cultural norms have changed, how to still
Speaker 1: connect with that part of your humanity, which is that
Speaker 1: you want to be loved and you want to love.
Speaker 1: So I would say that the actual turning point is
Speaker 1: before that. It's before modern loneliness. It starts with when
Speaker 1: I wrote Meeting in Captivity, right, which was this year
Speaker 1: is its twentiethniverse two thousand and six, yesh, and so
Speaker 1: we are celebrating the twentieth diniversity and of relation captivity
Speaker 1: Meeting in Captivity, and that was a book that really
Speaker 1: questions some of our fundamental assumptions about what are the
Speaker 1: expectations that we bring to modern love. How do we
Speaker 1: grapple with these contradictions, What is the relationship between love
Speaker 1: and desire? What does it mean to have a relationship
Speaker 1: in a world where sexuality is no longer because you
Speaker 1: want to have multiple children, nor because it's exclusively a
Speaker 1: woman's marital duty, but it is rooted in pleasure and connection?
Speaker 1: And how do you do that for the long haul?
Speaker 1: And what does the long haul mean when it gets
Speaker 1: twice as long as it used to be? So all
Speaker 1: these questions, what happens to a generation of people who
Speaker 1: have permission like they've never had before, but don't really
Speaker 1: feel like they want it. They would want to want,
Speaker 1: and they don't know why they don't erotically speaking, not
Speaker 1: just secually, in terms of the life as they bring
Speaker 1: to their relationships. So that was the first part of this.
Speaker 1: That's long for social media, that's long before smartphones, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Then I think things begin to shift. People begin to
Speaker 1: a gradual retreat from relationships. And I would for me
Speaker 1: this is really a tipping point during the pandemic. The
Speaker 1: pandemic imposed a level of isolation that slowly became an
Speaker 1: unmet level of loneliness.
Speaker 3: And then the extrapolation of that is wash is that
Speaker 3: more and more people began to lose their social skills,
Speaker 3: that there is a massive social atrophy.
Speaker 1: When you don't use a muscle, the muscle atrophies. It
Speaker 1: is no different in our social life when you don't
Speaker 1: talk to people, when you don't reach out. When you
Speaker 1: begin to live a contactless life where you don't need
Speaker 1: to leave your house, whether it's to work or to eat,
Speaker 1: or to shop or to exercise, but you live primarily
Speaker 1: in a state of domestic gravity and enforced presentism for
Speaker 1: a long time, you start to have a harder time
Speaker 1: going out and reaching out again. You don't remember it,
Speaker 1: you know, it's exactly actually what people used to experience
Speaker 1: when they began to come out of lockdown. At the
Speaker 1: same time as you are socially retreated, you are also
Speaker 1: digitally more connected. Yes, modern loneliness masks itself as hyper connectivity.
Speaker 1: It isn't that people don't have connections, but they lack debt.
Speaker 2: And is it also that, for instance, because of our
Speaker 2: digital connection, that we're getting those rapid dopamine heats that
Speaker 2: once we would get from contact with another person socially
Speaker 2: or romantically. So with that part of our brain is
Speaker 2: cited if we do what if we are digitally online,
Speaker 2: we feel like our brain feels like it's getting that
Speaker 2: reward that once upon a time you would have to
Speaker 2: get from another person.
Speaker 1: So everything changed. In two thousand and nine, two buttons
Speaker 1: were created, the like button and the algorithm that was
Speaker 1: going to feed you things according to what you had
Speaker 1: been hitting on before. Right, those two buttons pretty much
Speaker 1: have changed the social landscape, and that includes how the
Speaker 1: brain responds to the kind of interactions that we seek.
Speaker 1: We became even more comparative. We also became even more performative.
Speaker 1: What we you know, people have performed forever. This is
Speaker 1: not a new behavior. People performed on the steps of
Speaker 1: a church. You know, people brought their best suit out
Speaker 1: on a Sunday morning. But the speed with it, the
Speaker 1: absolute scale, you know, for me, for so long, a
Speaker 1: scale was something you stand on and don't get good news.
Speaker 1: You know, this concept of scaling of massa of accumulation,
Speaker 1: that made a big difference. You can have a thousand
Speaker 1: virtual friends, but nobody to feed your cat. There is
Speaker 1: a line that I have used often because everyone gets it.
Speaker 1: It's like, what is the difference between friends and friendship?
Speaker 2: And as you're traveling the world now speaking to people,
Speaker 2: what is the overriding sense of what they are seeking
Speaker 2: from you?
Speaker 1: It has become okay, let me put it like this.
Speaker 1: If I have in the palm of my hand advice
Speaker 1: that gives me straightforward answers what to do, where to go,
Speaker 1: what to eat, how to get there, what to listen to,
Speaker 1: what to watch, and takes away all doubt, all experimentation,
Speaker 1: all mistakes, all serendipity, all uncertainty, all unexpected, all adventure,
Speaker 1: all adventure. Then I begin to expect a certain predictability
Speaker 1: in life and perfection for that matter. That makes it
Speaker 1: much harder for me to deal with the uncertainty that
Speaker 1: is at this point at a core of our existence.
Speaker 1: Not that we haven't had uncertainty before, but we used
Speaker 1: to live we used to know how to live with it,
Speaker 1: and we had a whole set of institutions that helped
Speaker 1: us deal with the unpredictable and the uncertain and the unknown.
Speaker 1: It was called primarily religion, and then social institutions, and
Speaker 1: then community and rituals. All these things helped us to
Speaker 1: deal with the fact that we didn't control many things.
Speaker 1: But now that we have a device that seems to
Speaker 1: be able to control everything, we have become even less
Speaker 1: capable of dealing with ambiguity, with complexity, with uncertainty. And
Speaker 1: they come to me and they ask me questions that
Speaker 1: they have sat with, sometimes for a long time, but
Speaker 1: they would like for me to be able to answer
Speaker 1: it in a way that would take away that ambiguity
Speaker 1: and uncertainty. That's one piece. I think people have questions
Speaker 1: about where is technology taking us. People have questions about
Speaker 1: how much do you have to remain loyal and dutiful
Speaker 1: to your family when your family doesn't treat you well. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think people come to me with questions about what
Speaker 1: do you do when inside a relationship there are different
Speaker 1: world views, political stances, approaches to nature, broach just to
Speaker 1: religion that seem to make it impossible. Can you still
Speaker 1: be with somebody who sees the world fundamentally different from you.
Speaker 1: People come to me wanting to know if they should
Speaker 1: leave or if they should stay. People come to me
Speaker 1: wanting to know if they met the right person. Wow.
Speaker 1: People come to me to know how should they relate
Speaker 1: to the person that betrayed them? And can trust be rebuilt?
Speaker 1: And how do they deal with the fact that they
Speaker 1: no longer trust their own perception. People come to me
Speaker 1: with all the questions that people ask themselves, because sometimes
Speaker 1: they want a language to basically articulate that which they
Speaker 1: sense but cannot put into words.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I imagine that they need someone who has
Speaker 2: replies the role of friend that they might not necessarily have.
Speaker 2: You're the person who can feed the cat.
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I'm not faking. I don't feed the cat.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a friend, not your friend. But I
Speaker 1: will help you know how to make friends. I will
Speaker 1: guide you to make contact. You know, a stranger is
Speaker 1: often the best friend you haven't yet met. How to
Speaker 1: talk to people again, how to stand in a queue.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yesterday when I landed, I was waiting for the uber
Speaker 1: and a young woman was standing in front of me
Speaker 1: and she heard me leave a message to someone and
Speaker 1: she turned around and she started talking and we had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a chatter. You here first time,
Speaker 1: Yes I am No, I'm not. And I just told myself, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is becoming an exception. This is not right. Disengagement,
Speaker 1: This engagement, you know, rather than everybody with their face down.
Speaker 1: And it was so nice because we had a long queue.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot of things. She learned a lot
Speaker 1: of things. But it is no longer a given. I
Speaker 1: went to the gym last week and somebody saw that
Speaker 1: I was struggling with the machine and he offered to help.
Speaker 1: And we started this whole conversation about the bright use
Speaker 1: of the machine and how often do we do it,
Speaker 1: And then he said, you know, everybody else is with
Speaker 1: their phone as they're sitting on the machine, and they're
Speaker 1: not even sharing the thing with you. And I said,
Speaker 1: this is so nice, And I said I don't have
Speaker 1: that often enough that somebody just you know, shows me
Speaker 1: how to do this better, correct me, you know, without
Speaker 1: having to flirshing. No no, I was talking about how
Speaker 1: his wife is doing this. It was it was No,
Speaker 1: that's the nice thing. It was just a bunch of
Speaker 1: people who are all training there. It's the fact that
Speaker 1: the spontaneity of it, the serendipity of it, is no
Speaker 1: longer just an obvious thing. It's it's you notice it
Speaker 1: and you have to go out of your why now
Speaker 1: to create it. That but also when you are the
Speaker 1: recipient of it, you realize, oh my god, I don't
Speaker 1: get this so often anymore. I used to. This used
Speaker 1: to be part of my daily life. I talked to
Speaker 1: people on the subway, I talk to people at the
Speaker 1: just as you went to the er a movie or
Speaker 1: came out of a movie. What did you think?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: You just that kind of what I would call a
Speaker 1: social social lubricant is not present. So then everything starts
Speaker 1: to feel like it's an unusual effort.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then you become suspicious of any encounter because
Speaker 2: you're so unused to it, and the foreign feels somehow
Speaker 2: too peculiar.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's the unknown, the mystery, the discovery, the exploration,
Speaker 1: the pull towards you know, what else is here? That's
Speaker 1: the risk taking. Everybody is very focused on the safety
Speaker 1: and the risk taking which is part of a lifeness
Speaker 1: and creativity and connection and playfulness, is really suffering after
Speaker 1: the break Esther Perel discusses the dynamics of bringing a
Speaker 1: new partner into the family.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have questions, yes, and I have a question
Speaker 2: about I think very often there'll be a moment, a
Speaker 2: cultural moment that resonates with people like broadly, and I
Speaker 2: think that it probably reflects questions that we have in
Speaker 2: ourselves about our lives, or there's it's some kind of touchstone,
Speaker 2: and one of those is to do with family, and
Speaker 2: it's to do I mean, there's quite a few examples,
Speaker 2: but top of mind at the moment is Brooklyn Beckham
Speaker 2: and his wife Nikola Peltz and for instance, Harry Prince,
Speaker 2: Harry and his wife Megan. And it's to do with
Speaker 2: when you have fallen in love with someone and your
Speaker 2: family doesn't approve, and conversely when you and the opposite, right, So.
Speaker 1: What was it meaning? Well, the opposite meaning that either
Speaker 1: your family doesn't.
Speaker 2: Like the other time.
Speaker 1: Yes, some questions about that.
Speaker 2: In particular, what is it that's so triggering in a
Speaker 2: family when as a foreign a foreigner comes in which
Speaker 2: anyone sort of is brought into the family. Faulty is
Speaker 2: I guess to a certain extent, but they pull against
Speaker 2: the moras of the family. Why do you think that's
Speaker 2: invoked such a strong reaction? Like worldwide and a curiosity?
Speaker 2: What is it that is that we find so fascinating
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 1: And we'd like to start from two places, and I
Speaker 1: know which one. Number one. There is nothing that is
Speaker 1: more impactful on a family or on a relational system
Speaker 1: in general than the addition and substraction of new members
Speaker 1: birds marriages. That's more people, less people is the stuff
Speaker 1: that has the most impact on a family, period. So
Speaker 1: that question that you're asking me needs to be put
Speaker 1: in that context. How the family absorbs the loss or
Speaker 1: absorbs the addition of the new person is the question
Speaker 1: that you're asking. So I spent the first twenty years
Speaker 1: of my career working with mixed families, interracial, intracultural, into
Speaker 1: religious couples and families. So I was steeped in the
Speaker 1: subject of families that we're having all kinds of reactions
Speaker 1: to the foreigner in our midst so to speak, not
Speaker 1: just because of immigration, but it could be religion, it
Speaker 1: could be culture, It could be class, it could be
Speaker 1: anything that wasn't part of the endogamous model of that group,
Speaker 1: and many groups have practiced various forms of endogamy in
Speaker 1: group marriage. So when does the person become a threat
Speaker 1: to our cohesiveness, to what we think is our way
Speaker 1: of doing things. How much will we need to change
Speaker 1: for this person that is not what we expected from you.
Speaker 1: It's a betrayal if you marry or if you go
Speaker 1: and live with someone who is outside of the boundaries
Speaker 1: of what we have decided is acceptable. So that's on
Speaker 1: the part of the family, and then on the part
Speaker 1: of the person. It is the battle, maybe not the battle,
Speaker 1: but the tension between loyalty and individual freedom. Individual freedom
Speaker 1: is I choose whoever I want. Love is a free
Speaker 1: choice enterprise. I decide who I choose to be with
Speaker 1: and to make my life with. And that value stands
Speaker 1: in conflict with the value that even in families where
Speaker 1: there is no arranged marriage, there has been an implicit
Speaker 1: sense of what would be the acceptable marriage for the tribe,
Speaker 1: for the family first, and then for the community and
Speaker 1: for the tribe, but certainly for the family. The fact
Speaker 1: that we you know, it is the battle of romanticism
Speaker 1: with tradition. Tradition meant relationships are not a free choice thing.
Speaker 1: You go and you stay within your class, within your group,
Speaker 1: within your you know whatever other values that have been
Speaker 1: deemed as chosen by your family. And what has changed
Speaker 1: today is that more and more the notion of individual
Speaker 1: freedom has taken precedence. Relationships used to be about duty
Speaker 1: and obligation and loyalty, yes, and today they are about
Speaker 1: free choice and options and personal authenticity. And personal authenticity
Speaker 1: means that I'm going to be true to myself and
Speaker 1: that that may be more important than my connection with
Speaker 1: my family. Now, what do people do. They want a
Speaker 1: family to accept the person they chose. They want the
Speaker 1: family to be gracious, to not be insulting or contemptuous
Speaker 1: or ignoring. They want recognition for their own identity and
Speaker 1: for their own authenticity.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the autonomy too, of yes, And the autonomy
Speaker 2: that comes with the free choice that I choose who
Speaker 2: I love, and who I love is who I choose
Speaker 2: to make a life with marriage or not.
Speaker 1: And you are to accept that. That is a reversal
Speaker 1: of what family life has been organized around across cultures
Speaker 1: for most of history. The family wasn't there to adapt
Speaker 1: to you. You were there to adapt and to adjust
Speaker 1: to the family's expectations. We are at a real crossroads
Speaker 1: in that level.
Speaker 2: On that level, and if someone has been brought into
Speaker 2: the family, which and I know many families in which
Speaker 2: this is the case, someone who is like trying a
Speaker 2: grenade into the family by maybe just by virtue of
Speaker 2: who they are, or maybe by intent, what can the
Speaker 2: family do to accommodate that and to not alienate the
Speaker 2: person that loves the person.
Speaker 1: But what I ask the family first and foremost is
Speaker 1: I mean, I do a lot of work around family estrangement,
Speaker 1: have done. But the first question is what is important
Speaker 1: to you to maintain your continuity, your identity, your cohesiveness,
Speaker 1: or to maintain contact with your child. Depending on what
Speaker 1: you answer me, I may have an idea of what
Speaker 1: you need to do. Those are two very different programs.
Speaker 1: You want to you want to see your kid again,
Speaker 1: You want to see your grandchildren again, if there ever
Speaker 1: are any, or you want to be at first because
Speaker 1: you said not over my dead body, or your grandmother
Speaker 1: would roll around in her grave, or you know, and
Speaker 1: that level of continuity is more important to you than
Speaker 1: harmony in the family, and it's not for me to
Speaker 1: make that decision. Now, that's provided that the various members
Speaker 1: of the family agree. Most of the time, when a
Speaker 1: grenade is thrown, there is a role distribution inside the
Speaker 1: family about the reactions to the grenade.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, so mu's impossible to not really, that's a normal,
Speaker 2: totally expected enormal. So one person is, you know, intent
Speaker 2: on going frontal with the grenade. One person is becoming
Speaker 2: the diplomat. One becomes the facilitator.
Speaker 1: One becomes the one who says, you can all have
Speaker 1: a party without me, you know, have your own drama.
Speaker 1: I'm out of this. One goes on the site and
Speaker 1: has secret conversations with the people who've been shunned. One
Speaker 1: gives money which the other one doesn't know. You know,
Speaker 1: this is actually really not new. It's just that the
Speaker 1: actual declaration is more official at this moment.
Speaker 2: And in a family, if you have very painful by
Speaker 2: the way, yes, it's I think it's important to say.
Speaker 1: It's that these things are not done lightly, and they
Speaker 1: are usually not instant. It's not like, you know, the
Speaker 1: moment you brought the person that was the grenade. Things
Speaker 1: it's been brewing. It's very slight. One ignoring, one indifference,
Speaker 1: one contempt. There's layers and layers of accumulation, and then
Speaker 1: at one point something is done and that becomes the
Speaker 1: breaking point on one side or the other. I think
Speaker 1: that's very important. It's not people usually what happened, and
Speaker 1: they give you the last thing. No, that last thing
Speaker 1: sits on the law, the camel's backs, the straw.
Speaker 2: Yes. But you know, I also i'd be curious to
Speaker 2: know how often the protagonists in this are women, because
Speaker 2: I have a theory.
Speaker 1: I'll be interested in women that are the partners of Yes,
Speaker 1: the women who are very.
Speaker 2: Acutely aware of the slides where sometimes I think two
Speaker 2: women can be going to war in a room and
Speaker 2: the men will be oblivious, Whereas I think women have
Speaker 2: a very nuanced way and a rating of things.
Speaker 1: And so they going to say to their partner, look,
Speaker 1: you're being mistreated, that are being unfair to you. You've
Speaker 1: never seen how they favored your brother. They give them
Speaker 1: an analysis of the relational map, the hidden map of
Speaker 1: the family, and how you've been taken advantage of and
Speaker 1: you didn't know, and I'm going to correct that for you.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. It is often the women, but
Speaker 1: I think the main issue you're highlighting here is different.
Speaker 1: Very often a partner will become triangulated explain the term
Speaker 1: in the relationship between their partner and their parents or parents.
Speaker 1: So you are having issues, I'm having issues with you
Speaker 1: male female, It doesn't really matter them. The person is
Speaker 1: having some issues with their parents, all sorts. But I
Speaker 1: don't fully confront you. So there's two options. A Version
Speaker 1: one is I don't fully confront you, but my partner
Speaker 1: becomes the person who confronts you. My partner is expressing
Speaker 1: my anger to you, and what it actually produces is
Speaker 1: that I then can become the loyal person that defends
Speaker 1: you to my partner. That's the triangulation. So you're doing
Speaker 1: what a partner should do it. That's right, you do
Speaker 1: the dirty job. You're taking on the feelings and the
Speaker 1: confrontations that your partner isn't that they should be having
Speaker 1: with their own parents, and you're doing it for them,
Speaker 1: and then you will be burnt for it too. Quite often.
Speaker 1: Version number two is I have been in an open
Speaker 1: confrontation with you, and therefore I picked the one partner
Speaker 1: that I knew for a fact, you were never going
Speaker 1: to accept as a as a statement of my autonomy,
Speaker 1: my sovereignty, and my freedom and the fact that you
Speaker 1: ain't going to be the best of me. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: call that a fuck you. Okay, you said it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So in your law, in your work as a therapist,
Speaker 2: how often are people coming to you because it's familiar
Speaker 2: all and how often because it's personal?
Speaker 1: Or can you not separate? That's a beautiful question. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm a family therapist by training. I'm a systems oriented
Speaker 1: family therapy. That's where I really was incubated. Then I
Speaker 1: moved to coppers. Why did I move to couples therapy?
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question to your because couple's therapy really
Speaker 1: became more prominent and popular when, for the first time
Speaker 1: in history, the survival of the family depended on the
Speaker 1: happiness of the couple. Throughout history, the couple could be miserable,
Speaker 1: it didn't really matter because the family stayed together no
Speaker 1: matter what. But once we could leave, our expectations about
Speaker 1: what would make us stay fundamentally changed by women, by
Speaker 1: the way, primarily, So this is why couple's therapy became
Speaker 1: no longer just to bring in the partner, because they
Speaker 1: have a child that's having challenges. But this is because
Speaker 1: the relationship between the couple is what's going to determine
Speaker 1: who the children are going to live with and if
Speaker 1: the family will stay together or not in its original composition.
Speaker 1: So are the issues familial or as the individual. I
Speaker 1: think that it's very hard to separate where you've learned
Speaker 1: how to connect or how to be more vigilant, where
Speaker 1: you've learned to trust, where you've learned how to express
Speaker 1: your emotions, how you've learned whether to cry is okay,
Speaker 1: whether to laugh out loud, whether to be ambitious, Where
Speaker 1: you've learned to be held and rocked and sowed versus
Speaker 1: being attacked and violated and harmed. All of those major
Speaker 1: foundational experiences about being in relationship. You have learned with
Speaker 1: the people who raised you, the parents of parental figures. However,
Speaker 1: where you've learned, it doesn't mean that that's where you stay.
Speaker 1: You are not just what happened to you. You are
Speaker 1: also what you become, and that's where you have control
Speaker 1: over what you become. Yes, but I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: would use the word control. I think it's a conversation.
Speaker 1: Some pieces will stay, but you can choose to do
Speaker 1: certain things with it. You can turn them around, you
Speaker 1: can become more creative about it. They are your raw material,
Speaker 1: but your raw material sometimes you can, you know, warm
Speaker 1: it up again and then give it a new shape. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Yes, exactly After this short break, Esther
Speaker 1: Parrel answers a question about her own marriage, which might
Speaker 1: even have surprised her. You've been married for a long time?
Speaker 2: Or is something when you have an argument with your husband?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Who wins the argument? Ester Parrel? Oh, it's going back
Speaker 1: and forth. I think, you know, it depends what you
Speaker 1: call winning the argument. Is it the person who says,
Speaker 1: I had enough of this, We're not going to talk
Speaker 1: about it? Is the person who wins? Or is it
Speaker 1: the person that for two days walks around in a
Speaker 1: funk drive because you know, you really annoyed me and
Speaker 1: I have nothing left to say to you. I think
Speaker 1: who wins the argument is actually humor and the notion
Speaker 1: that love can encompass at the same time, not in
Speaker 1: the same moment, but one after another. You're impossible. I
Speaker 1: can't bear the thought of staying with you another minute,
Speaker 1: and then, oh my god, I can't imagine my life
Speaker 1: without you, and that's the winner. The winner is the
Speaker 1: love that knows that when this is over, this comes back,
Speaker 1: that after the rain comes the sun and a good
Speaker 1: dose of humor will help that too. I think that
Speaker 1: the winner is less about him or me, but the
Speaker 1: force that we are able to bring in at that
Speaker 1: moment that says, really, is that what we're going to do?
Speaker 1: And I would say he's better at the humor, He's better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the better diffuser. But he's a psychologist.
Speaker 2: He's a psychologist, and in what why does he differ
Speaker 2: from you in his approach to so.
Speaker 1: My husband has actually worked for decades in global mental
Speaker 1: health and in collective trauma, disasters, terrorist attacks, wars, post conflict,
Speaker 1: and more injury of war. I re jokingly said that
Speaker 1: he does pain and I do pleasure. Well, you know
Speaker 1: that's the complete package. Yeah, you need both. You do
Speaker 1: need both. And that also is the story of life,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It's not that you need both, it's a
Speaker 1: fact that both are. Yes, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: My mother always says, if you live long enough, something
Speaker 2: terrible is going to happen to you.
Speaker 1: And it's true, or you can put it this way.
Speaker 1: Can you know joy. If you have a known sadness,
Speaker 1: can you know pleasure? If you have a known pain?
Speaker 1: Do you need to know one in order to be
Speaker 1: able to identify the other? Can you know? And I
Speaker 1: think that that juxtaposition that yin yang is actually effectively
Speaker 1: it's the.
Speaker 2: Parrella I love you, I love you, Go and listen
Speaker 2: to my mother, so good, like such a gift twelve
Speaker 2: years old. You were right what you thought? Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing us this moment on no filter.
Speaker 2: So it start for someone, say, who is listening, who
Speaker 2: is having this issue with their parents, who perhaps are
Speaker 2: not accepting of their partner. What strategies can they employ
Speaker 2: two lead to some sort of softening of relations, thawing
Speaker 2: of relations.
Speaker 1: So an image I often have when I work with
Speaker 1: families who are trapped in a rigid, repetitious impass like
Speaker 1: this accept me I want anything is when you play pool,
Speaker 1: if you want to kick this ball to go in
Speaker 1: the hole, that is not the ball you kick? Which
Speaker 1: is the ball I need to kick for this one
Speaker 1: to then be pushed and then to go right. It's
Speaker 1: the angle. Yes, So who else in the environment of
Speaker 1: your parents, brands, clergy, physicians, neighbors would you speak to
Speaker 1: who have leverage, grandparents, who could speak to the parents,
Speaker 1: and first and foremost understand what is this intransigence? And
Speaker 1: often you will notice that in transigence, the rigidity, the stock,
Speaker 1: the no I want is not just because your partner
Speaker 1: is this, this, this, but it's because if my mother
Speaker 1: saw what I let you do. Everyone has a loyalty
Speaker 1: or a debate or a conflict that it goes up
Speaker 1: to the next generation, an allegiance past, yes, an allegiance
Speaker 1: or an act to grind and be both. So you
Speaker 1: are at this level. You're meeting people at the ground level.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to go to the attic and sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to go to the basement. Otherwise you're just
Speaker 1: staying in the same place. What I can for the
Speaker 1: attic is God, my religion, my tradition, the larger forces,
Speaker 1: what my people did in order to get here, that
Speaker 1: you are doing in one thing. You know, on what
Speaker 1: where did you get the idea that you could just
Speaker 1: you know, we fought for this, you know, and you
Speaker 1: are just like so everybody is negotiating the loyalty and
Speaker 1: the freedom and individuals. And in the basement is the grandparents,
Speaker 1: is the generations it's the roots of the story, the
Speaker 1: invisible things that are pulling at this conflict that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what people are actually thinking they're
Speaker 1: talking about. So my strategy is to go up, down
Speaker 1: and sideways. Sideways is all who can we talk to?
Speaker 1: Is that really? What is it that you you know?
Speaker 1: So now we bring in the best friend of your parents,
Speaker 1: or your mother or your father. And are you doing
Speaker 1: this in a sense.
Speaker 2: Where you are going in with an open hand, I
Speaker 2: need your helpier or are you really just shoring up
Speaker 2: that relationship in terms.
Speaker 1: Me or the child. The child, my relationship with my
Speaker 1: mother or my father with my mother is very important.
Speaker 1: My relationship with my dad really matterss to me. My
Speaker 1: dad thinks that because of who I'm bringing home, I'm
Speaker 1: basically saying, fuck you, I don't care about you. If
Speaker 1: only they knew, this is the thing I also say
Speaker 1: to the parents, if only they knew how I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about his response day in and day out, and
Speaker 1: how much conflict with my own partner I'm having because
Speaker 1: my dad is saying no over my dad body, I'm
Speaker 1: not coming to your wedding, and that is interpreted as
Speaker 1: you don't care about what I think when in fact,
Speaker 1: the kid is obsessed with what a parent is thinking
Speaker 1: at the same time as they're doing what they want
Speaker 1: to do as well, but they're not really doing what
Speaker 1: they want because the whole thing is being poisoned. So
Speaker 1: there's a number of things happening at the same time.
Speaker 1: So what is it about my dad? Why do you
Speaker 1: think this is?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, would they would he be humiliated,
Speaker 1: would he feel like he failed? Would he feel like
Speaker 1: he conceded to something that he has? You know that
Speaker 1: that would make him feel less of a father, less
Speaker 1: of a man, less of what? You know? All of this?
Speaker 1: What's the subtext here that I'm that I am? What
Speaker 1: are the things that I'm fighting about that I don't
Speaker 1: even know I'm fighting I'm fighting with? So that's number one.
Speaker 1: The number two is at the same time as this
Speaker 1: is happening. I think what's also important in the strategy
Speaker 1: is to not just think that you have no other
Speaker 1: choice but to go back to your parents and go
Speaker 1: back to your parents, and that either it's something is
Speaker 1: going to soften. Sometimes people don't come to the wedding,
Speaker 1: but then when the grandchild arrives, they actually do have
Speaker 1: a rapprochement, and they are willing to reconnect through the
Speaker 1: grandchildren and they don't lose faith. Their honor is maintained
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: And then on the other side of that equation is
Speaker 2: that sometimes you have to extend grace.
Speaker 1: Yes, at that moment, you can say now you're coming
Speaker 1: too little, too late, or you say, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that have been much better
Speaker 1: grandparents than they were parents, you know. But on the
Speaker 1: other side, if that rapprochement doesn't happen, I think it's
Speaker 1: very important to also tell the young couple in this case,
Speaker 1: who else is in your life who could take on
Speaker 1: some of that role for you. If it was not
Speaker 1: your family of origin, it can be your family of choice.
Speaker 1: Are their friends, neighbors, mentors, teachers, intergenerational friends that you
Speaker 1: know you could develop that relationship with so that you're
Speaker 1: not just thinking, if it doesn't happen with my on
Speaker 1: biological parents, then I'm bereft and I have to deal
Speaker 1: with the grief. You will deal with the grief that
Speaker 1: the loss will be there, The grief will be there,
Speaker 1: the resentment will be there. The did I not matter
Speaker 1: more to you than that? That that's all you know,
Speaker 1: but go and create those things, build the world that
Speaker 1: you want. Yes, yes, have those relationships with other people.
Speaker 1: You're not deprived of these relationships. You're deprived of these
Speaker 1: people to have those types of relationships with.
Speaker 2: And then if you joint have and you can't build
Speaker 2: those sort of relationships, might be the problem isn't with
Speaker 2: your parents, The problem is with you.
Speaker 1: You know, then it's you know, other community organizations are
Speaker 1: the horses of worship. But you need to go to
Speaker 1: places that value these kinds of that have the same
Speaker 1: values and for whom these bonds matter. And I think that,
Speaker 1: I mean, those are the first two that that come
Speaker 1: to mind right away. Once you have kids there and
Speaker 1: they go to school, you meet other parents too. I
Speaker 1: mean it is communal. It is not a one, one
Speaker 1: on one thing. But that's the first two strategies. Is
Speaker 1: this what I've just described, all right?
Speaker 2: Esther, the story of Romeo and Juliet, the opposition from
Speaker 2: the parents intensifies the desire for two star cross lovers
Speaker 2: to be together. How often do you think that is
Speaker 2: the case?
Speaker 1: How About if we look at it developmentally, it is
Speaker 1: sometimes the case when there is no sense of we
Speaker 1: have a common enemy. We are both strengthened by this
Speaker 1: rejection or this refusal, and it only emboldens us. But
Speaker 1: it is a defensive state. It doesn't just mean that
Speaker 1: you know. At first, that defensive state is introduced, but
Speaker 1: they don't understand the specialness of our love. Our connection
Speaker 1: is a divine intervention what we have. The world cannot understand.
Speaker 1: That's nice, a nice way of telling the story, but
Speaker 1: that is just one of the narratives. Then comes the
Speaker 1: next narrative, which is, you know, I have to stand
Speaker 1: we stand with each other. I have to stand by you.
Speaker 1: That wicked step mother that you know it's a and
Speaker 1: so you. Then comes the next narrative, which is I
Speaker 1: saw you being nice to my wicked step mother. You
Speaker 1: know I don't want to trial. Yes, now you are
Speaker 1: leaving the defense lines where we agreed on what kind
Speaker 1: of strategy we'll be going to protect ourselves with. And
Speaker 1: you we have to be united. We have to be
Speaker 1: united means we have to be the same. We have
Speaker 1: to be the same, means you are risking to become
Speaker 1: enmeshed in order to preserve ourselves against the forces on
Speaker 1: the other side. So the story shifts, It reinforces the
Speaker 1: couples at certain points. It also it becomes a defensive
Speaker 1: posture at other times, and then it becomes a fusional
Speaker 1: force where you are not allowed to actually experience it
Speaker 1: differently because we have to be a united front. And
Speaker 1: then what happens. Can of relationship continue when it's lumbering
Speaker 1: around and it has to be a two backed base.
Speaker 1: I've seen every version. I've seen people who let their
Speaker 1: children go and meet the grand parents secretly. I've seen
Speaker 1: the people go and talk to their brothers without the
Speaker 1: partner knowing because the partner had said, you know, your
Speaker 1: brother spoke to me not nicely, and I'm never talking
Speaker 1: to them again. And it's look, here's the one thing
Speaker 1: you need to know. And I think that that is
Speaker 1: so important. Cutoffs, be it from the parents to the children,
Speaker 1: children to the parents, or interest sibling. Cut offs in
Speaker 1: families are anything but distance. Even if I don't see
Speaker 1: you for years, a cut off has a tremendous psychic energy.
Speaker 1: To talk to somebody is sometimes way less burdensome than
Speaker 1: not to talk to somebody. So I may not have
Speaker 1: spoken to you for twenty years. I never saw my
Speaker 1: parents again. I never talked to my brother again, and
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing. But I have yet
Speaker 1: to meet a family who when this is happening, this
Speaker 1: isn't part of what they tell me within the first
Speaker 1: three minutes. If you're telling me this within the first
Speaker 1: three minutes, it means it had an identifier, a defining
Speaker 1: element to the entire relational history of this family. When
Speaker 1: you do genograms intergenerational trees, every time there will be
Speaker 1: a description about these people. Never talk to these people.
Speaker 1: This person took all the money, this person took the
Speaker 1: partner of the other, this person refused the person that
Speaker 1: they are. Whatever the reasons for cutoffs, I think they
Speaker 1: are among the most impactful measures that you can do
Speaker 1: to a family system. And the way I know it
Speaker 1: is because there is not a family that has that
Speaker 1: I've worked with that when this has happened, even in
Speaker 1: the generations before, doesn't tell it to me within the
Speaker 1: first three minutes. Silence is violence. Silence is loaded.
Speaker 2: As well, And hence the expression you know someone's living
Speaker 2: rein free in your head because the absence.
Speaker 1: That is a powerful say that I see the image, Yes,
Speaker 1: the real estate of absence.
Speaker 2: The realest side of apps, like the empty lot, Yes,
Speaker 2: the empty lot with squirrels.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know this is a very vast topic. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it has always been a part of working with
Speaker 1: families and couples and mixed marriages, and but at this
Speaker 1: moment there is a real resurgence of family estrangements, low contact,
Speaker 1: low contact. Yes, why do you think I think the best?
Speaker 1: There's many ways probably to understand it. But the way
Speaker 1: that I get it is that because the underlying assumptions
Speaker 1: of what drives relationships has fundamentally shifted. I used to
Speaker 1: be able. I used to have to continue to see
Speaker 1: my parents and the rest of the family no matter
Speaker 1: what I thought, no matter how I felt, it was duty,
Speaker 1: it was obligation. That is what drove relationships to their
Speaker 1: relationships and our free choice enterprise, And they are determined
Speaker 1: by how I feel. And if I don't feel close
Speaker 1: to you, and if I don't love you, and if
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think you loved me properly, I
Speaker 1: don't really feel like I should have to. That is
Speaker 1: a different set of assumptions about the basis with which
Speaker 1: I decide how to behave in my relationships. What I'm
Speaker 1: to accept and what I am not to accept, what
Speaker 1: I'm to keep silent. Where's the truth to myself versus
Speaker 1: my obligation to you?
Speaker 2: And where once you were in Gigi bound to be
Speaker 2: at church on Sunday whatever, so you would have to cross.
Speaker 2: That's not really a thing anymore because what does.
Speaker 1: The church mean to me? If it is meaningful to
Speaker 1: me to be there? So the individual is in the center.
Speaker 1: Before that, the family was in the center, and the
Speaker 1: individual adjusted to the family. I'm traditional, but you know
Speaker 1: I used to go. People were going home for the
Speaker 1: holidays and they had to endure the same banter, bad jokes, questions,
Speaker 1: And now it's like, why shall I go? We never
Speaker 1: get to talk about anything. They start to bother me,
Speaker 1: they start to humiliate me, the embarrass me, they make
Speaker 1: me I should I don't think I should go. And
Speaker 1: if I live by the how does it affect me?
Speaker 1: I will make some kind of decisions. And if I
Speaker 1: live by it doesn't matter how it affects me, because
Speaker 1: that's what's expected of me. I will react differently. And
Speaker 1: the complicated thing today is that many of us don't
Speaker 1: just live within one value system. We will integrate multiple
Speaker 1: value systems inside of us.
Speaker 2: And do you think baral question it is better to
Speaker 2: put the individual above the social structures, or vice versa.
Speaker 1: When people lived in the bosom of community and communal
Speaker 1: life and tribes and villages, they longed for freedom and
Speaker 1: for free choice. And when people live within the individualistic,
Speaker 1: hyperindividualistic structures of modern urban living, they are obsessed to
Speaker 1: talk about community and rebuilding the village. Are people never happy?
Speaker 1: People will often long for the part of life that
Speaker 1: is not attended to enough in the model that they're
Speaker 1: living in. Beautiful, beautiful. I really think that that's the
Speaker 1: It's not that people are that you need both. You
Speaker 1: need freedom and you need security.
Speaker 2: But I also think that there's a maybe because of
Speaker 2: the departure from the church, et cetera, in those community structures,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people who give out advice like
Speaker 2: just cut them off. Just do they make it feel bad,
Speaker 2: that's the end of story. So I think there's encouragement
Speaker 2: to people to there's a conflating exercising your power with
Speaker 2: cutting people for extriciding yourself from a situation and then
Speaker 2: never returning to it, And I don't think they necessarily beneficial.
Speaker 1: My answer to this is that I always invite caution
Speaker 1: in giving people that type of advice do this or
Speaker 1: do that, or don't do this, because the only person
Speaker 1: who has to live with the consequences of the decision
Speaker 1: is that person, not you. It's very easy to say
Speaker 1: to people to cut things off or to leave or
Speaker 1: to stay or I don't have to live with the decision. You,
Speaker 1: the person, the protagonist, will have to live with the
Speaker 1: consequences of your decision for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: And therefore, if you are going to accompany others, accompany
Speaker 1: them in their deliberations, accompany them in their ambivalence, accompany
Speaker 1: them in their self doubt, and stay with them in that.
Speaker 1: Create a holding container that lets them think out loud,
Speaker 1: the pros, the CONTs, the ifs, the yes, the no,
Speaker 1: and you create that space for them and be quiet.
Speaker 1: I'll be quiet. It's like, you know this is to me.
Speaker 1: I say, it's because because especially when you see how
Speaker 1: much pain and doubt and resentment and grief, especially grief
Speaker 1: it brings up in people. Let them first work all
Speaker 1: of this out. How do you not how do you
Speaker 1: not misuse your power? Because I think all the time
Speaker 1: I probably may have at times. You know it's not,
Speaker 1: but I often just think I am not the one
Speaker 1: who's going to have to live with that decision that
Speaker 1: is fundamentally going to be the property of the other person.
Speaker 1: So it's so easy to tell people it's three words
Speaker 1: to say, but it's a whole life to live and
Speaker 1: you have to really respect that. Look, I think that
Speaker 1: the best way I can put it aview is this,
Speaker 1: it's a real sentence that I hold by a lot
Speaker 1: of the relationship dilemmas that people are grappling with are
Speaker 1: not problems that you solve. They are paradoxes that you manage.
Speaker 1: If you stay in touch with these people, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to endure this and this and this. You may
Speaker 1: receive some of that. You're gonna lose here, You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to stay quiet there, you're gonna it's a whole map.
Speaker 1: It's not the doer. It's not either or black and white.
Speaker 1: If you don't stay in touch with these people, this
Speaker 1: is what may happen. You may feel this, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna come with that. And then you present all of
Speaker 1: this it's Morgos board of the lemmas, and then you
Speaker 1: let people slowly find their way to it. And that
Speaker 1: takes time. In our speed up sped up world where
Speaker 1: everything has to go without, you know, without much friction
Speaker 1: with you know, we want to bypass these stages. Look,
Speaker 1: many people will say I wish I had done this sooner,
Speaker 1: and some people will say why did I never do that?
Speaker 1: Or I wish I hadn't done it. But that said,
Speaker 1: they need to get there on their own terms. That
Speaker 1: is the role of me as a therapist. If you
Speaker 1: can't do that, then you need more training. I have
Speaker 1: a feeling you're a pretty good therapist.
Speaker 2: For some.
Speaker 1: You haven't been good. For Yes, I think that the
Speaker 1: better you become as a clinician, the better you are.
Speaker 1: For some people you are the perfect fit, and for
Speaker 1: others you need to know that you may not be
Speaker 1: the right person that you recognize. Yes, you know that
Speaker 1: there are other people who will be better at this
Speaker 1: than you. They know the subject more, they have more patience.
Speaker 1: This needs this kind of intervention. That is not what
Speaker 1: you are. Where your strength, Liz, And actually, the better
Speaker 1: you become, the more discerning you are. Esther Parrell, thank you,
Speaker 1: You're welcome.
Speaker 2: One of the things I loved about talking with Esther
Speaker 2: is that she never gives quick, simple answers. There's nothing
Speaker 2: right in a world that increasingly encourages us to cut
Speaker 2: people off, or draw a line in the sand, or
Speaker 2: choose a side Esther reminds us that relationships are rarely
Speaker 2: that simple. Families are messy, love is messy, loyalty is messy,
Speaker 2: and often the most important questions in our lives aren't
Speaker 2: problems to solve, but tensions to live with. I think
Speaker 2: what I'll take away from this conversation is the idea
Speaker 2: that growing up isn't necessary verily about choosing your family
Speaker 2: or choosing your partner. It's about learning how to build
Speaker 2: a life that makes room for both where possible, and
Speaker 2: having the wisdom to know what matters most when it isn't.
Speaker 2: If you enjoy this conversation, we'd love you to follow
Speaker 2: no Filter wherever you're listening now and leave us a review.
Speaker 2: I'm kateline Brock, and I can't wait to see you
Speaker 2: next Monday.