WEBVTT - Esther Perel: When You Choose Your Partner and Lose Your Family 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.280 Whatever the reasons for cutoffs, I think they are among 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:09.760 the most impactful measures that you can do to a 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.720 family system. And the way I know it is because 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.760 there is not a family that I've worked with that 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.880 when this has happened, even in the generations before, doesn't 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.440 tell it to me within the first three minutes. Hi, 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:27.640 I'm Kateline brook and my guest today is Esther Perrell. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.160 Esther is one of the world's most influential relationship therapists. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:38.800 She spent decades helping people understand love, desire, marriage, infidelity, intimacy, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:43.760 and family. Her books have become international best sellers, Her 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.599 TED talks have been watched by millions, and through her 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.680 podcast Where Should We Begin, she's invited us into the 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:57.320 private conversations most people only have behind closed doors. What 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.800 makes Esther's work so compelling is that she doesn't just 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:05.000 talk about relationships. She talks about relationships as a reflection 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.560 of the culture we live in, the families we come from, 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.680 and the people we're trying to become. And lately, there's 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.400 one story that seems to be playing out everywhere. We've 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.960 watched it happen publicly with Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Pelts 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.880 with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. An adult child falls 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.160 in love, chooses a partner, and suddenly finds themselves caught 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.600 between the family they came from and the family they're 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.440 trying to build. The details are different, but the tension 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:39.520 is familiar. What happens when your parents don't approve of 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.559 the person you've chosen, What happens when a partner enters 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:48.080 a family and changes its dynamics forever? And why can 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.320 choosing the person you love sometimes feel like betraying the 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.320 people who raised you. Today, Esther and I are talking 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:02.160 about loyalty, family love, estrangement, and what happens when our 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:10.320 most important relationships collide. This is Esther Parrel, Esther Perel, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:12.960 Welcome to No Filter. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.720 Thank you. It's a great thrill to have you here. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:18.919 It's a pleasure for me to be here. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.480 Well, let us see at the end who's been pleasured. 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:30.240 But I was thinking about you and really your contribution 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:37.400 to I think a public analysis of relationships that is 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.000 at once very personal for people. And I was thinking 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.160 about your heritage. You come to us from New York 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.040 but by Belgium, and my dad, who was Dutch, was 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.280 married in Belgium. He married my mum and he would 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.000 always say, oh, the Belgians are very unusual people. 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:57.520 He said. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.040 They have the practicality of the Dutch and the romance 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:05.160 of the French. And I think that that is kind 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:06.720 of attendant in your work. 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:14.600 Do you think, But my origins are not Belgian. Oh oh, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.240 my origins are Polish. 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.760 Ah, so I could probably like post holocausts. 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.760 Yes. So my parents arrived as refugees to Belgium from 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:29.519 Poland and where refugees for a good five years in 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:35.600 Belgium until they became nationalized. But I think that the 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:42.640 metaphor holds. I definitely had the practicality, and I am 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.360 from the Flemish part of Belgium, but I did absorb 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.640 a lot of the French culture as well as the 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:54.120 Latin romance part. And now the big difference between Belgium 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.360 and Holland is that one country is Catholic, the other 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.200 is Protestant. Ah. Yes, and that also influences right, yes. 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:07.280 And because the Catholic have the flambuoyance I guess in 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.560 even in their worship that the Protestants do not have. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:16.120 Correct yeah, correct, yeah, quite austere I mean, but Dutch 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.080 people like to go to Belgium when they want to 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.520 go out, Yeah, when they want to have a good time, 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.960 because part of it is about, you know, a certain 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:32.080 vivre in abundance rather than the more freedom. Yes, so 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:40.159 you brought I think that freedom to what previously I 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.480 think a lot of people would have thought as as 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:47.640 quite a dry science, the science of psychotherapy. 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.400 I mean, I've never thought of psychotherapy as a Drey 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.279 saying say I'm stepped in it. I still am a 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:58.080 practitioner today. I keep myself close to the craft and 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.400 my feet on the ground, and I think it's an 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:09.160 endlessly fascinating occupation and preoccupation. So maybe what I have 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.080 done that I was thirty five years in my office, 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.920 and I was teaching and practicing, and I felt at 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.560 a certain moment that I wanted to lower the worlds 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.560 of the office, and I wanted to bring to the 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.320 public the insights, the revelations, the conversations that take place 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.560 in this closed room and that most people have no 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:36.160 access to. I wanted to also democratize it and bring 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.919 it into the public square. And I did that with 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.159 the podcast Where Should We Begin, which is basically one 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:48.800 time of anonymous therapy sessions, consultations with couples and individuals 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.000 now as well, kind of you'll be a fly on 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.719 the wall and listening on what other dilemmas of other people, 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.600 because when you listen carefully to them, you will actually 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.719 see yourself. And then I decided not just to lower 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.960 the walls, but then I thought I wanted to get 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:09.359 out of the office, and I began to speak in 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.680 public and do lectures and tours. They're not lectures, they're 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.640 really interactive experiences. That's how I came to Australia. The 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:21.560 last time I was on tour here and I went 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.839 to a bunch of different cities and right after the pandemic, 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.720 right when people began to come out of lockdown, and 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.120 it was a most moving experience because for many people 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.440 it was the first time that they were back in 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.320 public and with other papers, with other people. The intimacy 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.320 of that. It was two things. One was for them 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.279 to be back with close by sitting. For so many, 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.800 many years, we had seen every person as a potential contaminant, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.200 and now we were back, you know, allowing the nervous 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.919 system to let people come close to us and not 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.160 instantly go into a fight or flight. And at the 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.800 same time, I also noticed how much people in Australia 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.200 had listened to where should We Begin during Lovetown to 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.560 the podcast, and so they had a whole relationship with me, 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:15.120 a parasocial relationship with me where they felt like I 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.560 knew them in some way, and that gave a whole 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.440 different tone to the to the evenings because people had 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.960 questions that are way beyond what are the typical questions 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:31.720 asked the public talk like what sort of questions. It's 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.920 the question, it's a depth of question. You know if 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.760 I trust you and I know you have a good 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:41.920 sense of me because I've heard you do it with 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.800 somebody else, and that you understand my dilemma that when 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:47.720 I ask you should I stay or shall I go? 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.160 Or how do I know that I am not repeating 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.960 a pattern? Or how much can I learn to to 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:00.480 build trust again when it has been broken? But it's 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.400 the questions, there's the same, but it's the level with 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.080 which a vulnerability with which you ask it because you 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.800 feel that this person in me has come close to you, 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.880 talking to you through another couple who was going through 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:21.040 the same mejor dilemmas as you because it's almost like. 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.440 Listening, for instance, to you know where should we begin, 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:30.200 or generally to listening to you speak. The power that 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:36.440 you have is almost like you're a mind reader. But 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.559 I feel like you're speaking about me and my relationship. 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.160 But hundreds of thousands of other people also feel like 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:50.000 you're doing that. That's extraordinary, and I do think, beyond 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.360 the science of it and your study of it, that 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.840 it is some kind of gift. When did you realize 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:09.920 that you had an understanding of humans beyond textbook? 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:15.280 I would say around twelve oh ten twelve oh Quite early. 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:22.080 I was fascinated with understanding people. I came from a 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:32.280 community of people who had experienced massive trauma, collective trauma, displacement, destitution, annihilation, extermination, etc. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.959 And I just I was very interested in who are 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.800 these people that are around me that have lived things, 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:45.280 including my parents, that are no words for I saw them, 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.600 and I saw those who be treated from life, and 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:53.320 I saw those who kind of grabbed life at its fullest, 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.040 and I wondered what makes one person go in this 0:09:56.200 --> 0:10:01.040 direction and what makes other people react differently. I saw 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.160 their reactions to their children, to to how much they 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.880 trusted the world, or were hyper vigilant. I felt all 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:11.880 of these things, and then I and then I saw 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.600 the kids us, you know, and and then I got 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:20.800 interested in romantic relationships because I was tipped into the 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.640 French world and poetry and the songs and the films 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.000 and that whole thing. And so I would say, very 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.120 early on, as a teenager, an early adolescent, I was 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.079 interested in relationships, in studying relationships and looking at relationships 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:41.400 across cultures, and looking at how people navigate different cultural 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:46.160 codes in their relationships. And very early on I came 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:51.480 up with this trede also to speak that I they 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.840 would say, the quality of your relationships determines the quality 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:59.200 of your life. Yes, and that has stayed. I probably 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.960 didn't express it in those words back then, but it 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.360 actually became my way of living and also my way 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.160 of what I can offer two people. Because also your 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:15.760 timing has been extraordinary, because I think people have never 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:22.040 felt more isolated, even though we're supposedly more connected, and 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.600 there's a real hunger for people to understand as things change, 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.160 and as our cultural norms have changed, how to still 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.880 connect with that part of your humanity, which is that 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.120 you want to be loved and you want to love. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:42.080 So I would say that the actual turning point is 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:47.400 before that. It's before modern loneliness. It starts with when 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.360 I wrote Meeting in Captivity, right, which was this year 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.240 is its twentiethniverse two thousand and six, yesh, and so 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.400 we are celebrating the twentieth diniversity and of relation captivity 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:03.600 Meeting in Captivity, and that was a book that really 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.120 questions some of our fundamental assumptions about what are the 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.600 expectations that we bring to modern love. How do we 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.360 grapple with these contradictions, What is the relationship between love 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.760 and desire? What does it mean to have a relationship 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.280 in a world where sexuality is no longer because you 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.520 want to have multiple children, nor because it's exclusively a 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.280 woman's marital duty, but it is rooted in pleasure and connection? 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.040 And how do you do that for the long haul? 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:34.440 And what does the long haul mean when it gets 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.880 twice as long as it used to be? So all 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.080 these questions, what happens to a generation of people who 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.319 have permission like they've never had before, but don't really 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.000 feel like they want it. They would want to want, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.880 and they don't know why they don't erotically speaking, not 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.400 just secually, in terms of the life as they bring 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.880 to their relationships. So that was the first part of this. 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.280 That's long for social media, that's long before smartphones, et cetera. 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:10.000 Then I think things begin to shift. People begin to 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:15.280 a gradual retreat from relationships. And I would for me 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:20.840 this is really a tipping point during the pandemic. The 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:27.920 pandemic imposed a level of isolation that slowly became an 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.160 unmet level of loneliness. 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:36.680 And then the extrapolation of that is wash is that 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:42.640 more and more people began to lose their social skills, 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.239 that there is a massive social atrophy. 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.800 When you don't use a muscle, the muscle atrophies. It 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.240 is no different in our social life when you don't 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.280 talk to people, when you don't reach out. When you 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.480 begin to live a contactless life where you don't need 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.079 to leave your house, whether it's to work or to eat, 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.719 or to shop or to exercise, but you live primarily 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:12.720 in a state of domestic gravity and enforced presentism for 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:18.480 a long time, you start to have a harder time 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.640 going out and reaching out again. You don't remember it, 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.480 you know, it's exactly actually what people used to experience 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.840 when they began to come out of lockdown. At the 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:34.360 same time as you are socially retreated, you are also 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:41.280 digitally more connected. Yes, modern loneliness masks itself as hyper connectivity. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.640 It isn't that people don't have connections, but they lack debt. 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:51.000 And is it also that, for instance, because of our 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.520 digital connection, that we're getting those rapid dopamine heats that 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.960 once we would get from contact with another person socially 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:04.040 or romantically. So with that part of our brain is 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:09.239 cited if we do what if we are digitally online, 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.800 we feel like our brain feels like it's getting that 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.840 reward that once upon a time you would have to 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:18.760 get from another person. 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.520 So everything changed. In two thousand and nine, two buttons 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:29.320 were created, the like button and the algorithm that was 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.160 going to feed you things according to what you had 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.560 been hitting on before. Right, those two buttons pretty much 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.480 have changed the social landscape, and that includes how the 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.480 brain responds to the kind of interactions that we seek. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:52.320 We became even more comparative. We also became even more performative. 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.360 What we you know, people have performed forever. This is 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.880 not a new behavior. People performed on the steps of 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.280 a church. You know, people brought their best suit out 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.360 on a Sunday morning. But the speed with it, the 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:10.680 absolute scale, you know, for me, for so long, a 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.200 scale was something you stand on and don't get good news. 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:17.840 You know, this concept of scaling of massa of accumulation, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:24.600 that made a big difference. You can have a thousand 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.600 virtual friends, but nobody to feed your cat. There is 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.680 a line that I have used often because everyone gets it. 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.040 It's like, what is the difference between friends and friendship? 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:45.480 And as you're traveling the world now speaking to people, 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:52.400 what is the overriding sense of what they are seeking 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:53.320 from you? 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.120 It has become okay, let me put it like this. 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.680 If I have in the palm of my hand advice 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.920 that gives me straightforward answers what to do, where to go, 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.280 what to eat, how to get there, what to listen to, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:13.160 what to watch, and takes away all doubt, all experimentation, 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:21.240 all mistakes, all serendipity, all uncertainty, all unexpected, all adventure, 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.800 all adventure. Then I begin to expect a certain predictability 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.240 in life and perfection for that matter. That makes it 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.399 much harder for me to deal with the uncertainty that 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.119 is at this point at a core of our existence. 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.240 Not that we haven't had uncertainty before, but we used 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.120 to live we used to know how to live with it, 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.000 and we had a whole set of institutions that helped 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:51.320 us deal with the unpredictable and the uncertain and the unknown. 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:56.080 It was called primarily religion, and then social institutions, and 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:00.760 then community and rituals. All these things helped us to 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.120 deal with the fact that we didn't control many things. 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.399 But now that we have a device that seems to 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.639 be able to control everything, we have become even less 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:14.879 capable of dealing with ambiguity, with complexity, with uncertainty. And 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.200 they come to me and they ask me questions that 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.960 they have sat with, sometimes for a long time, but 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.720 they would like for me to be able to answer 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.040 it in a way that would take away that ambiguity 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.200 and uncertainty. That's one piece. I think people have questions 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.080 about where is technology taking us. People have questions about 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.000 how much do you have to remain loyal and dutiful 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.760 to your family when your family doesn't treat you well. Yes, 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.960 I think people come to me with questions about what 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.719 do you do when inside a relationship there are different 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:53.000 world views, political stances, approaches to nature, broach just to 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.240 religion that seem to make it impossible. Can you still 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.800 be with somebody who sees the world fundamentally different from you. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.600 People come to me wanting to know if they should 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.199 leave or if they should stay. People come to me 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.639 wanting to know if they met the right person. Wow. 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:13.399 People come to me to know how should they relate 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.520 to the person that betrayed them? And can trust be rebuilt? 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.359 And how do they deal with the fact that they 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.919 no longer trust their own perception. People come to me 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.879 with all the questions that people ask themselves, because sometimes 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:32.600 they want a language to basically articulate that which they 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:34.840 sense but cannot put into words. 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.399 And sometimes I imagine that they need someone who has 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.439 replies the role of friend that they might not necessarily have. 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.240 You're the person who can feed the cat. 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.000 No, I don't. I'm not faking. I don't feed the cat. 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.359 And I'm not a friend, not your friend. But I 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:57.120 will help you know how to make friends. I will 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.439 guide you to make contact. You know, a stranger is 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.040 often the best friend you haven't yet met. How to 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.720 talk to people again, how to stand in a queue. 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:08.919 You know. 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.840 Yesterday when I landed, I was waiting for the uber 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.280 and a young woman was standing in front of me 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:17.159 and she heard me leave a message to someone and 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:19.600 she turned around and she started talking and we had 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.600 a little bit of a chatter. You here first time, 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.200 Yes I am No, I'm not. And I just told myself, Wow, 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:31.520 this is becoming an exception. This is not right. Disengagement, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.480 This engagement, you know, rather than everybody with their face down. 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.280 And it was so nice because we had a long queue. 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:40.040 I learned a lot of things. She learned a lot 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.879 of things. But it is no longer a given. I 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.560 went to the gym last week and somebody saw that 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.119 I was struggling with the machine and he offered to help. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.720 And we started this whole conversation about the bright use 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:53.560 of the machine and how often do we do it, 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.480 And then he said, you know, everybody else is with 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:58.640 their phone as they're sitting on the machine, and they're 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.440 not even sharing the thing with you. And I said, 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.520 this is so nice, And I said I don't have 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.399 that often enough that somebody just you know, shows me 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.680 how to do this better, correct me, you know, without 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.640 having to flirshing. No no, I was talking about how 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.960 his wife is doing this. It was it was No, 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.720 that's the nice thing. It was just a bunch of 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.200 people who are all training there. It's the fact that 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:28.560 the spontaneity of it, the serendipity of it, is no 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:33.040 longer just an obvious thing. It's it's you notice it 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.120 and you have to go out of your why now 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.679 to create it. That but also when you are the 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.560 recipient of it, you realize, oh my god, I don't 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:43.960 get this so often anymore. I used to. This used 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.280 to be part of my daily life. I talked to 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.800 people on the subway, I talk to people at the 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.359 just as you went to the er a movie or 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:52.880 came out of a movie. What did you think? 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:53.080 You know? 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:57.719 You just that kind of what I would call a 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:02.960 social social lubricant is not present. So then everything starts 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.280 to feel like it's an unusual effort. 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:10.520 Yes, and then you become suspicious of any encounter because 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:15.400 you're so unused to it, and the foreign feels somehow 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:17.280 too peculiar. 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:25.520 Yes, it's the unknown, the mystery, the discovery, the exploration, 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.120 the pull towards you know, what else is here? That's 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:35.160 the risk taking. Everybody is very focused on the safety 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.760 and the risk taking which is part of a lifeness 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:46.879 and creativity and connection and playfulness, is really suffering after 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:50.479 the break Esther Perel discusses the dynamics of bringing a 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:52.320 new partner into the family. 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:57.439 Okay, I have questions, yes, and I have a question 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:02.040 about I think very often there'll be a moment, a 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:08.040 cultural moment that resonates with people like broadly, and I 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:12.320 think that it probably reflects questions that we have in 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:16.720 ourselves about our lives, or there's it's some kind of touchstone, 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:22.239 and one of those is to do with family, and 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.639 it's to do I mean, there's quite a few examples, 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.320 but top of mind at the moment is Brooklyn Beckham 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:34.280 and his wife Nikola Peltz and for instance, Harry Prince, 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.879 Harry and his wife Megan. And it's to do with 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:44.000 when you have fallen in love with someone and your 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:53.240 family doesn't approve, and conversely when you and the opposite, right, So. 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.760 What was it meaning? Well, the opposite meaning that either 0:23:57.840 --> 0:23:59.120 your family doesn't. 0:23:58.880 --> 0:23:59.840 Like the other time. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.000 Yes, some questions about that. 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:08.399 In particular, what is it that's so triggering in a 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:13.960 family when as a foreign a foreigner comes in which 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.600 anyone sort of is brought into the family. Faulty is 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:19.240 I guess to a certain extent, but they pull against 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:23.200 the moras of the family. Why do you think that's 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:27.920 invoked such a strong reaction? Like worldwide and a curiosity? 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:31.600 What is it that is that we find so fascinating 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:32.120 about that? 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.560 And we'd like to start from two places, and I 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:39.760 know which one. Number one. There is nothing that is 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:45.240 more impactful on a family or on a relational system 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:50.520 in general than the addition and substraction of new members 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:57.760 birds marriages. That's more people, less people is the stuff 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:02.439 that has the most impact on a family, period. So 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:06.160 that question that you're asking me needs to be put 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:11.639 in that context. How the family absorbs the loss or 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:15.600 absorbs the addition of the new person is the question 0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:18.880 that you're asking. So I spent the first twenty years 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:24.560 of my career working with mixed families, interracial, intracultural, into 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.560 religious couples and families. So I was steeped in the 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:32.919 subject of families that we're having all kinds of reactions 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:36.800 to the foreigner in our midst so to speak, not 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:40.679 just because of immigration, but it could be religion, it 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:43.720 could be culture, It could be class, it could be 0:25:44.200 --> 0:25:47.399 anything that wasn't part of the endogamous model of that group, 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:51.639 and many groups have practiced various forms of endogamy in 0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:56.280 group marriage. So when does the person become a threat 0:25:57.080 --> 0:26:01.040 to our cohesiveness, to what we think is our way 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:04.280 of doing things. How much will we need to change 0:26:04.320 --> 0:26:08.280 for this person that is not what we expected from you. 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:13.840 It's a betrayal if you marry or if you go 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:17.399 and live with someone who is outside of the boundaries 0:26:17.400 --> 0:26:22.600 of what we have decided is acceptable. So that's on 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:24.720 the part of the family, and then on the part 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:29.040 of the person. It is the battle, maybe not the battle, 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:36.520 but the tension between loyalty and individual freedom. Individual freedom 0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:40.520 is I choose whoever I want. Love is a free 0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:46.000 choice enterprise. I decide who I choose to be with 0:26:46.119 --> 0:26:52.200 and to make my life with. And that value stands 0:26:52.240 --> 0:26:56.240 in conflict with the value that even in families where 0:26:56.240 --> 0:26:59.920 there is no arranged marriage, there has been an implicit 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:03.640 sense of what would be the acceptable marriage for the tribe, 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:06.439 for the family first, and then for the community and 0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:08.840