How Does Esther Perel Do It?

Esther Perel is a psychotherapist, a best-selling author, and the host of the podcast Where Should We Begin? She’s also a leading expert on contemporary relationships. This column is adapted from the podcast — which is now part of the Vox Media Podcast Network — and you can listen and follow for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

The part that I like the most about touring is the interaction with the audience. There’s a moment where I have a conversation around the questions that people ask me — and often very interesting questions because people have listened to the podcast. You have my voice in your ears, and that establishes a relationship between us, so you come with questions that presuppose a certain experience of trust.

So on the last evening in our most recent New York City stop, I thought that we should give all the people who stood in line and didn’t have a chance to ask the questions out loud an opportunity to write your questions to me, so I could do an episode answering and riffing out loud about them.

The below is a peek at some of what we heard that night — Jesse Baker, Where Should We Begin? producer, and I recently sat down to talk through them together.

Jesse Baker: Esther, I think you should start by telling people how you actually take questions, because you don’t take questions where someone asks a question and then you answer it directly.

Esther Perel: There are probably two things that stand out that I actually observed while I was doing the shows. For one, when I listen to a question, I try to listen to the question that is beneath the question. I also invite the audience to really ask a question that is formulated as such — not a paragraph with a question mark at the end. A question that is very specific is actually a question in which a lot of people can also recognize themselves. That is the question here, right? How do you ask something that actually is at the same time very much related to you the individual, but also to all of us.

I take about six, seven questions all at once. I listen carefully for themes that transcend the specific question and I start to weave them together. It’s an experience of connecting the dots so that you really learn to listen. If I can model how I listen, hopefully you can take some of that into your relationships.

Jesse: Here are a few from your New York performance at the Beacon.

1. “My desire is for a lasting connection that deepens and matures over time. Does partnering too quickly undermine that goal?”

2. “My husband and I find ourselves in stalemates that I would like to avoid. The most recent one dragged out for over two years, about where to send our kid to school. How do we end the stalemate and stop dragging conflicts out and repair this damage?”

3. “Esther, are you afraid that one day you will run out of things to say? That you’ll have said it all and that you risk potentially repeating yourself?”

4. “I’m a couple’s therapist who wants to know, how do we bridge the gap between sexual desire and intimacy for a couple that is not engaging in sex as much as they would like to?”

Esther: All right, so question number one is about the onset of a relationship, the ramp that makes you go up and in. It’s an interesting question, right? You want something that’s long lasting. How do you know you’re not going too fast? But too fast means what? That you have sex on the first night? That you instantly feel like you fall in love when you barely are getting to know the person? That you very quickly develop a sense of dependency and need towards this other person, or a need to protect yourself and to be boundaried from that person? That you realize I’m having reactions that are very premature for the unfolding of a relationship?

That’s what I would ask this person first and foremost. “What do you mean by too fast? What is your too fast? And how do you associate your too fast — which what I’m understanding in your question, I’m doing something too fast that seems to not allow me to have the kind of longstanding relationship that I’m actually looking for. Are you chasing people away? Are you scaring yourself away? What’s going on?

That’s where we would go so that I can be more specific, because in and of itself, it’s not an issue of speed. What happens to you in “fast”? What do you think you may be triggering or evoking in the other person when you go fast? It doesn’t matter how fast. What does matter is: are you wide-eyed? Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Are you clear? Are you muddled? Are you listening to the voices inside of you and are you listening to what the other person is saying or showing or telling you without saying it? Those things will tell you where this is going, not speed in and of itself. You’re using a word that stands for other things — I need to know what those other things are. You should know what those other things are. You’ll understand your question. That is what will help you with the answer.

Jesse: What about the couple who constantly bickers over things like schooling?

Esther: Forget the subject. This is I’m sure what this couple would say: If they fall into an impasse or a stalemate about school — as in one person says “we should do this,” the other person says we should do the exact opposite — then one says to the other, “you don’t care about education.” And the other one says, “you don’t care about mental health,” or “you don’t care about her future enough.” It doesn’t matter. They could be fighting about Greenpeace in South Korea, and the argument will be exactly the same. It’ll be about how to furnish the house. It’ll be about where to deposit the money. It’ll be about whether to visit the in-laws. Every argument will land in a stalemate, in an all or nothing, either or, you or me. It’s polarized. And these kinds of arguments really tell you first and foremost one thing: Form precedes the content. How you are arguing and setting yourself up for the battle is far more important than the specific issue about which you’re arguing at this moment.

Number two: The polarization means that you have split the ambivalence. Because, by definition, you both care about school or the wellbeing of your child. So the idea that only one of you cares about it and the other one doesn’t is off. You both do. You may have different views for what you think is the right environment.

So each of you, by having the other person hold on to the exact opposite extreme, is basically allowing you not to have to think about it. A complex issue has multiple aspects. If each of you highlights one aspect or another, you basically are helping each other not to have to hold both. If you were alone making this decision, you would be having the conversation inside of you with different parts talking to each other. But we outsource the part of the conversation, the dilemma, that is uncomfortable for us, and that becomes what the other one stands for. So now one stands for rigor and one stands for wellbeing, as if the wellbeing person doesn’t care about any rigor and as if the person who thinks about rigor doesn’t care at all about the inner life of their child.

When you look at it like that, people get it. It’s polarized. The first thing is to actually say, “I appreciate the piece that you are highlighting, because I haven’t paid enough attention to that. I didn’t have to because the other one is taking care of it.” Recognize that the two parts actually are part of the dilemma. People have stalemates over things where they split the ambivalence is the best way of saying it.

When you find yourself constantly in these either-or fights, don’t ask what it is you’re fighting about, but ask yourself what you’re fighting for. And the majority of the time, people fight over three main things: power and control (who makes the decisions? Whose priorities matter more?); care and closeness (do you have my back? Can I trust you? Do we have each other?); and respect and recognition (do you value me? Do you recognize me and my contributions?). Look at your fights and ask yourself, What am I actually fighting for? When I’m talking about this type of school versus that type of school, what am I really arguing about? And then you go into the What is it that I need from you in this moment? I need you to think that I’m not an idiot. I need you to think that I care. I need you not to make me be the irresponsible one. I need to feel that you value my opinion. I need to feel that you trust me. I need to feel that if we go my way, you’re not gonna hold it against me. I need you to feel that you’re not trying to squish me with your convictions when, in fact, neither of us know. All of that is this dynamic of stalemate.

So if you stood in the audience now, I will have said some of this to you, and you will begin to tie the knots between these different situations where you find yourself in.

The goal is really to understand what happens to each of you. The minute he or she says X, I instantly feel invalidated. I feel that you’re gonna step over me. I feel that what I say doesn’t matter. Then you are into value and recognition, not schools. What happens in many couples or families is that the argument between the two parents or the disagreement between the two parents within becomes a fight between two partners. It presents as if it’s a disagreement between two parents over the kids, but in fact, it is a fight in the couple.

Jesse: Do you wanna weave the last two questions together, which was from the one from the therapist, and then the one about waking up one morning and being worried you have nothing left to say?

Esther: There is one question that is asking me how do we help couples have more of a erotic life together, be more intimate and sexual with each other. But then there is another question that’s like, “are you afraid to have nothing left to say?” My first thought was, I must have chosen an unending topic. The subject of the fate of desire in long-term relationships is an endless topic for which I will never not have not enough to say because it’s a riddle and a mystery that none of us have been able to solve so far.

So some questions have very specific answers and some questions are just endless reflections on the topic. I’m not necessarily going to give specifics about how you help a couple reignite desire, because Mating in Captivity is a whole book about that. Rekindling Desire is an entire course about that. And the podcast has loads of sessions where I really go for three hour sessions with a couple to ignite the flame, if possible.

But the question about “do I ever worry that one day I will have nothing to say?” No. Often, when I find myself repeating something, I say, “oh, I already said that. I should not keep that in my next article or talk because I hate to repeat myself.” But in fact, it’s not because I’ve said it twice that you even heard it once. So I have to constantly differentiate between what I have to say and what people are prepared to hear. Sometimes you need to say it more than once. That’s something I have had to learn because, for a long time, I never gave the same talk twice because I thought I had to continuously continue the inquiry, push the innovation, go further in my thinking. And that means reading other people’s work, talking to people, practicing and continuously layering various thoughts that belong to the big questions that I address, which is the nature of relationships. All relationships. How we actually make them be more thriving? How we address issues of conflict and division? How do we deal with pain, with hurt, with trauma, with repair? Is it possible? What can be repaired, what cannot? With these questions, you never reach a moment where you’ve said everything there was to say.

But it’s not just me. The question is related to, “do I ever worry that other people will have nothing left to say?” Because as long as other people have ideas, then I will have ideas about their ideas. Whether I remain relevant is a different question. At some point, will it feel like there’s another voice or there are many other voices that are more current? I think a philosopher, someone who really knows to ponder and sit with the complicated questions, is not a fashion thing. If you think of me as an influencer, maybe you’ll think of me as having a shelf life. But if you think of me as a thinker and a practitioner, then there is no shelf life. There’s no end to this. Except when my brain stops working.

As long as you are curious and you pay attention to what others are saying, what is happening in the culture at large, what the field is offering or grappling with, then you have things to say. I think you stop having things to say when you have thought way too early that you were right. Because then you’ve arrived to the conclusion and all you do is repeat the same thing over and over again, which I hope I don’t.