Esther Perel ON: Finding Love & the Real Reason Couples Break Up

Esther Perel 0:00 How do I make a request that doesn't turn into a protest? Instead of criticizing the other person, tell them what you want, and tell them what you want without implying that they're not doing it, because then they pay attention only to the fact that you told them, "You're not doing it. You're wrong. It's you again." And then they will basically do what every human being does, which is defend themselves, 'cause nobody likes to be attacked. [upbeat music]

Jay Shetty 0:28 Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, I'm really excited for this conversation, because I've been speaking to this guest for a while to get this to happen. Uh, and I'm really excited because I know that this is a theme and a topic and a subject that is something you have so many questions about. Psychotherapist and New York Times best-selling author Esther Perel is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. Fluent in nine languages, she helms a therapy practice in New York City, where she is today, and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her celebrated TED Talks have garnered more than 20 million views, and her international bestseller, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, became a global phenomenon, translated into 25 languages. Her newest book is the New York Times bestseller The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Esther is also an executive producer and host of the popular podcast Where Should We Begin? Please give a big, warm welcome to none other than Esther Perel. Esther, thank you so much for doing this.

Esther Perel 1:50 It's a pleasure to be here. It's been a long time coming. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:53 I have to say, it, it's been, it's been too long, and this is truly one of my favorite books. And I was just saying earlier to you offline that we have so many mutual friends, and your name pops up all the time, and I can't believe we haven't met yet. But I'm, I'm so looking forward to having dinner with you one day soon. Uh, but I wanna dive right in.

Esther Perel 2:14 We'll make it happen. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 2:15 [laughs] We will. We will.

Jay Shetty 2:17 Uh, I want to dive right in because, I mean, relationships is just the core of our being and the core of our lives, and as you know, they cause us so much joy, but they also create, can create so much pain in our lives. And, you know, you always say the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. I want to ask you, when did you start to first experience that? When did you first start to notice that?

Esther Perel 2:48 That I noticed it because there had been such tremendous loss of loved ones, of family members, of my parents' entire community. You know, because they came out of World War II and the Holocaust as the sole survivors, the absence of the connections was what highlighted the importance of the connections. We talked about people who I will never meet and have never met. We talked about what it means to experience the decimation of a community, to be immigrants, to create new community, to make new friendships. What does it feel like to love again when you've been so dehumanized? What does it mean to trust again, to play again, to fall in love, to make love? And I think that, I would say I was four years old when these conversations began for me, that I always thought people, people, people. You can have money. You can have education. If you don't have the loved ones, the people, the real relationships, the ones that make the eulogy and not the CV, as, uh, David Brooks often distinguishes, that that is where it, the heart of the matter lies.

Jay Shetty 4:04 Yes. I thi- I, I mean, it's such a beautiful answer, and you can see how, how these beautiful purpose that you have today comes from so much, uh, pain in one sense and challenge and, and these, these stresses and pressures. And if anyone who's stresses and pressures... Sorry. If anyone's listening or watching right now, I hope you're hearing how you may be going through a really tough relationship or a tough loss right now, but often that can be s- the birthplace of so much power and so much greatness. I wanted to ask you, Esther, from your perspective,

Jay Shetty 4:37 what do you think is the biggest challenges that we faced for our relationships during the quarantine and lockdown? Because I feel like this is just... The biggest part of our lives that has been affected has been our relationships. Uh, you know, what has been the biggest challenge for our relationships during the quarantine, or that you're hearing from clients, people you're working with, and the, uh, communities that you're serving? What are you hearing?

Esther Perel 5:05 It's a great question. I would divide it in three main, um, categories. The first thing is that lockdown, quarantine, pandemics, disasters are relationship accelerators. What it means is that when you deal with a massive global event like this, it puts you in touch with mortality.

Jay Shetty 5:29 Mm.

Esther Perel 5:30 We are... It, it is a, it is a pandemic, so life is short. Life is fragile. And so you begin to rearrange your priorities. What truly matters? Who's really important? Who are the few people I'm gonna make sure to stay in touch with? The accelerator says, "I've waited long enough. I'm out of here. I want something else." The accelerator also says, "What am I waiting for? I like you. Let's move in together." So you get the beginnings and the endings really heightened. The pandemic also highlighted all the cracks that existed in the relationships, but also highlighted all the lights that shines through the cracks in the relationship. So people got to really experience their strengths- But also their challenges with each other. The pandemic highlighted how much when you live with a partner, you have a rhythm. You know, you move away from each other, you leave for the day, one of the people travels, both people travel, you come back. It's like an accordion. You expand, you get some air, you get input from the world, and then you come back together. Here, people who live together were 24/7 on top of each other with no air. Now, you know, I've written Mating in Captivity to say that fire needs air. [laughs] This was Mating in Captivity, the quarantine edition. No air at all coming into the relationships, people needing to flatten the curve and ending up flatlining themselves. Then what lacked as... What was missing as well is that a relationship dances between the need for security and stability and the need for novelty and exploration and risk-taking and experiences, and we could not do any of that this year. We had to completely stifle the erotic. The erotic in the sense of what makes us feel alive: curiosity, adventures, novelty, change, risk-taking. That whole side of us had to be shut down so that we could feel stable, secure, and safe. And that made people really feel that the life l- the energy was being siphoned out of their experiences and out of their relationships. And for those of us who were alone, this prolonged isolation with the prolonged uncertainty about how long the isolation will even last really was crippling to people. The degree of loneliness, the degree of longing, the degree of touch hunger that people have experienced, I don't think we've even, even begun to understand the long-term effects of all of that. And this is just talking about adults. I haven't even begun to talk about what this has done to the little ones that live with us.

Jay Shetty 8:13 That is such a great analysis. That is without a doubt the best analysis I've heard of how the quarantine has affected our relationships. Thank you so much for that. I think I was listening, and I was just nodding [laughs] the whole time. I was like, "That is so true. That is so true," and I'm sure everyone who's listening is feeling the same way. Uh, you know, when we think about relationships during these times of extreme pressure, there are those of us that are trying to be the perfect partner, the perfect parent, the perfect person at this time, and there are those of us that are just so overwhelmed that we can't even feel like we're getting ourselves

Jay Shetty 8:55 together. Whichever side you're on from that perspective, how do you approach a relationship at times of pressure? What is an effective way to approach relationships at times that are completely unexpected, completely... Uh, you know, no one could have predicted this was going to happen. What do you, what are you meant to do at that time? What's the right thing to do, if there is one?

Esther Perel 9:18 Well, [laughs] I will start by saying that the right thing, if you wanna call it like that, is certainly not to try to be perfect and to think about optimization at all time. There is other things. You know, I did a whole season for the podcast Where Should We Begin? on couples under lockdown, couples in Nigeria, in Sicily, Germany, in New York that were in the middle of April and May, but this could still be today, ah? This is not, uh, passé at all. About what were the tensions that they were experiencing? What were the, the, the questions? So you had the couple that is on the verge of divorce and that suddenly has to be together just as one person is about to move out, and basically, they have to just be civil. They don't have to be perfect. They just have to be kind. Then you have the couple in Sicily where the woman goes to work in the hospital, and the husband suddenly became the frontline parent with three young children, and every time she comes back from the hospital, she's just afraid that she's gonna contaminate them, and she scrubs herself so that she can protect her family because she is, as we've come to call her, an essential worker. Then you have the couple who were separated for a year and a half, and suddenly in the pandemic, she says, "Come back." [laughs] You know? And they realize that they really didn't have a really good reason to separate, that in fact, they had so much more to, to, to stay together. So the stories are very varied, Jay. It's not one thing. But if I was to say what are some of the things that have helped people, because I think that's what you're asking, right?

Jay Shetty 10:51 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 10:51 What has helped people be together in a, in the, in the better way possible? I would say three things have been extremely useful, actually four. One is boundaries. The loss of boundaries that we have experienced, especially when you sit at the same table and all your roles, mother, teacher, parent, lover, friend, sister of, daughter of, boss, you name it, are all in the same spot without any delineation where you don't know where one thing stops and the other thing starts. Boundaries. Boundaries between work and home. Boundaries between the table that is used as an office and the table that becomes the dinner table. Boundaries between weekdays and nights, you know? Just boundaries to recreate structure. And then routines. People really needed to stay connected to their routines. New ones that they created, you know, old ones that they really like. These routines became a marker of continuity, of stability, of consistency. And then rituals. Rituals that people created. You know, I always say if you cook every day, it's a routine. It means you have to eat. But if you actually suddenly make a very nice table and you pretend that your, your kitchen has become your favorite bistro, then you have m- turned a routine into a ritual. The routine says we need to eat. The ritual says there's something special between us. And these small... Three categories of events have been extremely helpful in people being able to be with each other, you know, and with the people that they stayed connected with in their pods. Added to that, kindness. Just civility, not perfection. When somebody brings you coffee, you can be very nice and just say, "Thanks for bringing the coffee." But you can do even better when you say, "Thanks for being such a thoughtful person." And especially at a time of isolation when you don't have 20 other people that can give you feedback, and the person that gives you feedback is the one that's all the time right there with you, with whom you have to suddenly do all those things at the same time, it's very important to feel that they get you, they see you, and you're not just a function. Because those are the validations that we get when we leave home as well, and here we suddenly ask one person to replace an entire community.

Jay Shetty 13:15 That's incredible. That, those are such great tips. Rituals, routines, and boundaries.

Esther Perel 13:22 Yes.

Jay Shetty 13:22 Uh, three really, really powerful steps. And I know that

Jay Shetty 13:26 when I was thinking about it at the beginning of the pandemic, me and my wife had to reset our new expectations and boundaries of each other-

Esther Perel 13:34 Yep

Jay Shetty 13:34 ... of our space, of our home.

Esther Perel 13:36 And what's one way you did this? What's one of the ways that you think you made a tweak that really was helpful?

Jay Shetty 13:45 So one of the things that me and my wife did was she said to me that now we're just living in the same spaces, I need to make sure-

Esther Perel 13:53 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 13:53 ... that I feel that you're helping this space remain what this space is. So she was like, you know-

Esther Perel 13:58 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 13:58 ... before we would leave our laptop out or we would leave our trainers or our, our sneakers in the living room because we were going to the gym or whatever. She was like, "Now that we're enclosed, we need to make-"

Esther Perel 14:09 Right

Jay Shetty 14:09 ... "each space feel like the space that it is because we no longer have the freedom that we're going out to the gym or that we're going out to see a friend. So we need to make sure that we're cleaner, that we're tidier, that we're making sure that we're putting everything away. Now we're not ordering food. We're not going out to restaurants. So we need to make sure that we've cleaned up everything straight afterwards." It's very basic things, but these things often get lost when you're all going through your own pressure and stress. And to me, those simple resetting of expectations and boundaries were so useful. We also made a rule that we wouldn't, we would only work in certain areas of our home. So she had her work area, and I had my work area. In the beginning, we were both on the same dining table taking both of our phone calls-

Esther Perel 14:55 Right, right, right

Jay Shetty 14:55 ... and trying to get the other person to be quiet, and it wasn't working.

Esther Perel 14:59 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 14:59 And so for me, it was integral that we had that conversation. But here's the interesting, Esther, that I wanted to ask you, is when couples are having those conversations, they think it's bad. We get worried. We think, "Oh no, my partner should just know this. They should, they should just understand this." And we almost get scared when we're having conversations like that because we think that we should just know. We should just be aware. How do we get beyond this false-

Esther Perel 15:29 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 15:29 ... idea we've created that difficult conversations show weakness, when actually difficult conversations help build strength?

Esther Perel 15:38 You just said it. You know, difficult conversations, when you get through them, um, you feel emboldened. You feel more trusting, and you feel more confident. You know, uh, the one time where the other person knows what you need, what you want, what you care about without having to say anything is when you're in utero, before you're born.

Jay Shetty 16:04 [laughs]

Esther Perel 16:05 And just as soon as you're, after you're born. You know? After that, the whole, [laughs] your whole life is a dialogue in which you begin to express your thoughts, your wishes, your needs, your hurts, and you begin to intuit what other people need from you. We are relational creatures.

Jay Shetty 16:23 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 16:23 The only time where somebody guesses for you is when you're a baby. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 16:26 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 16:26 And you can cry, and then there is five things which the p- caregiver can decide is probably what you need. Um, I think what you did was it looked small because if you think about this as the laptop, you know, and the shoes, it l- it... And you think that it's about the shoes, then it looks ven- you know, trivial, but you miss the point. Because what you're really doing is you are creating an awareness of the other. You say, "We are both people here. We each have things that we need to do. We have to show up. I respect your work. You respect mine. I am aware of your presence. I don't pretend you're not here. I think of you even when you're not there. I know what you care, what you ma- what matters to you and what you care about even when you're not telling it to me because you've told it to me before. I carry you inside of me, and vice versa." It's that, the conversation. If you think that it's about the shoes, you miss the point. [laughs] The shoes are a representation. The shoes, the st- you know, the table, all of these things. And in addition to why it is important is because it says where you stop and where the other person starts, and that sense of boundary is extremely important because every relationship is made up of my relationship to myself as I am with you and my relationship with you while I don't lose myself.

Jay Shetty 17:52 [laughs]

Esther Perel 17:53 It's both and. It's how I hold on to me and how I hold on to you. Vice versa. How I hold on to you without losing me, and how I hold on to myself without losing you. That's the dance. And this conversation that you were having with your wife is all about that. And when you put it this way, it's no small feat.

Jay Shetty 18:13 Yeah, absolutely. I love how you unpack that. It's so much more deeper, and it has so much more of a true impact on each other when it's performed in that

Jay Shetty 18:23 way. I'm sure there are a lot of people listening right now, Esther, going You know what? I'm doing all of that, but my partner is not responding, right? Like, they're not putting, they're not thinking about me. They're not aware of my presence. They are priorities, uh, prioritizing their work. They are not being aware and being conscious and being intentional.

Esther Perel 18:45 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 18:45 When someone is feeling that way, this is probably the number one question you get asked always, but when someone is feeling that way, that they're doing everything they can, they're trying to clean up and do this and do that-

Esther Perel 18:56 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 18:56 ... but the other person doesn't respond, what, what happens? What do, what do you do in that situation?

Esther Perel 19:02 Well, there's a few things you do. See, the beauty of couples is that you have another person to blame.

Jay Shetty 19:09 [laughs]

Esther Perel 19:11 And to think it is, it's, it's unavoidable. It's irresistible. I am doing my share. You're not. You know, it's like when people come to couples therapy, they come to my office, and they often come to tell me, "Here's my partner. Let me tell you what's wrong with them. Fix it," you know?

Jay Shetty 19:28 [laughs]

Esther Perel 19:28 And fundamentally, [laughs] I mean, it's a drop-off center, you know? The, the, there is a reality in which this is the, one of the, the, the hidden truths of relationships. If you want to change the other, change yourself.

Jay Shetty 19:45 Mm.

Esther Perel 19:46 If you continuously go and say to the other person, "You're not doing. You're not listening. I keep asking you. Why don't you pay attention?" Et cetera, you're gonna get the same response. You're gonna get defensiveness. You're gonna get, "What about you?" You're gonna get tit for tat, et cetera, et cetera. If you want to call the attention of the other person, maybe there's a way in which you actually think to yourself, "What's a different way I can say this? How do I remind the person that when we pay attention to each other, things are much better?"

Jay Shetty 20:20 Mm.

Esther Perel 20:21 "How do I make a request that doesn't turn into a protest?" Meaning, instead of criticizing the other person, tell them what you want, and tell them what you don't without implying that they're not doing it.

Jay Shetty 20:34 Mm.

Esther Perel 20:35 Because then they pay attention only to the fact that you told them, "You're not doing it. You're wrong. It's you again," and then they will basically do what every human being does, which is defend themselves, 'cause nobody likes to be attacked. So the temptation is to say, "How do I make my partner different?" And I say start with the one thing you can control. Is, is there anything I can do different that is more likely to elicit a different response from my partner?

Jay Shetty 21:02 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 21:03 It's the one thing you can control is you. Start there.

Jay Shetty 21:07 Yeah, great advice, great advice, and, and you're so right about the blaming, you know? We're always looking for a scapegoat in any, in any scenario, and, and often, you know, I want to be empathetic and compassionate that it ca- it can be true sometimes that you could be doing everything you possibly could, and someone is not conscious or focused. But then again, it comes back to what you just said, which is you still need to go and do what's right for you and, and do what's best for you. If you need to feel connected and loved, you may spend more time with family or more time with your friends or spend more time on the phone to get that fuel you need. Now, moving forward, Esther, I know a lot of people are struggling with what you call re-entry anxiety, right? The idea that we're entering back into the workplace. We're entering back into dating. We're going back into being in person. Uh, you know, what are the symptoms of that re-entry anxiety that people are feeling that you so beautifully explained and have coined? Uh, and also, how can we start to... What are the sk- actually, this is the question

Jay Shetty 22:14 I wanna ask. What are the skills that we lost in the pandemic, and what are the skills we gained? Because I think people are unaware of-

Esther Perel 22:21 It's a beautiful question

Jay Shetty 22:22 ... right? It's like we, we gained some really good people skills during the pandemic, and we lost some, too. Tell me about the re-entry anxiety and what we lost and gained.

Esther Perel 22:32 I think that what many people have experienced... Well, there's a range. There's people who have experienced acute s- loneliness, and they have been talking way too much with themselves. They've heard their own echo. They're in an, you know, in an echo chamber, me and me. And for them, suddenly hearing the pr- the real voices of others can be quite, uh, shocking. Then you have people who have reduced their pod, and basically, the acquaintances have dissipated, and they have really stayed in touch with a few ma- important social ties. For them, the re-entry is, you know, "Oh, God, I'm meeting you. Shall we hug? Do we kiss? Vaccinated? Tested?" You know, "What's the protocol? Do I trust you? Do you tell, you know, are you just saying this because, you know, we're here at this gathering together, or is this really true?" You know, "What's the, what, what can I ask?" You know, so that's the s- first thing. Then there is are you huggable? That's a question many people are asking. Are you huggable? Because we arrive with this, you know, "I haven't held you. I haven't touched you in so long," you know? And the hugs that you see people do, it's just like usually you see them at airports when people come back from many years of not having seen their loved ones, you know, and they hold each other for dear life like that. Then there is, you know, um, how, the fact is basically many of us have only seen each other from the chest up for a year and a half. You know, what's it like to suddenly be embodied?

Jay Shetty 24:10 [laughs]

Esther Perel 24:11 Just fully embodied, you know? Um, we'd, can't hide in the same way.

Jay Shetty 24:16 Mm.

Esther Perel 24:16 And then, you know- What is the chat gonna sound like? Chat is a four-letter word. What's the chat gonna be when I see you? So I see you, and for the first time, we actually have a whole different range of conversations. Every gathering where I've gone so far where people are meeting, it's like, "Oh, this is my first time. I haven't seen that many people in a long time. I'm so... I hungered for this," or, "This is weird. I've not been so close to so many people in a long time. I don't know how close I can come to them." You know, there is all these experiences that people are talking about. Where were you? Were you with your family? Were you with your loved ones? How was it for you? W- and, you know, what were the important moments? Have you lost anyone? Is everybody okay? You know, uh, and when it's, when... Loss could be loss of your plans, your weddings, your birthdays, your anniversaries, loss of m- family members, loss of income, loss of your apartment, [laughs] loss in the multiple sense of the word, you know? And I think that's what people are experiencing in the re-entry, is what is okay to talk about? How do we inc- deepen the conversation? People are slightly less in the mood to be just on the surface completely. And you know, I had a very interesting experience about this because I... During this pandemic, at one point, I just began to feel like I miss my friends. I miss being, uh, in h- uh, you know, in my other homes and abroad, and, and I thought, "You know, I'm writing about playfulness, but I'm, uh, but I wanna create something playful." I, I, I, I want... I miss my dinner parties. How am I gonna do something of that sort? And I kept noticing, you know, there's very little surprise. There's very little c- you know, mystery, unknown. The unknown is basically something you worry about, and I thought, "I'm gonna create a game," you know? I, I want to actually create a game that reconnects us with our storytelling.

Jay Shetty 26:20 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 26:20 It was, it was... And what I ended up doing, because all of this I did on Zoom, I came up with a thousand questions on Zoom, but it was all Zoom, so you can't play. Playing is me looking at you, that smile, you know, that mischief, that... You... It's all this... And so I brought friends together in a pod m- that I've known for 25 years, and we basically started to play test every night after dinner, just what, what are the really important conversations we want to have? What are the stories we feel we need to tell? And, um, it was, it was very moving, actually.

Jay Shetty 26:59 Mm.

Esther Perel 26:59 It was like, um, you could see h- so- we... a social atrophy, you know?

Jay Shetty 27:06 Mm.

Esther Perel 27:06 When you s-

Jay Shetty 27:07 Okay

Esther Perel 27:07 ... a social muscle you haven't used for a long time.

Jay Shetty 27:10 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 27:11 And slowly it opens up. It loosens.

Jay Shetty 27:15 Yeah.

Esther Perel 27:15 It strengthens, and people are laughing and sharing and asking questions and building on the stories of others, and basically recreating social threads. That's, I think, what we are gonna do in this re-entry at this moment, and, um, basically, I, you know, it, it... The question was always the same. Where should we begin?

Jay Shetty 27:40 [laughs]

Esther Perel 27:40 You know? And, uh, and it was like, "I wanna know about this. Tell me about that," you know?

Jay Shetty 27:47 Yeah. What are some of your favorite questions from the game Where Should We Begin? Can we, can we play or try to play some part of it so that we can... And then you can let my audience know where they can find the game so that they can actually, uh, get it and play it too. I'd love, I'd love for them to have that.

Esther Perel 28:02 It's really a game, huh? It's not just questions and cards.

Jay Shetty 28:05 Yes.

Esther Perel 28:05 So the, in the, in the game, there are prompts, because I, I was thinking, "This is what happens at my dinner party. How do I..." I needed this. Like, I want to feel that thing. And generally, you have a tone at a dinner party, right? Like, you set an intention when we started. So you can have... There's a set of prompt cards. The prompt cards basically can say, "Share something that nobody knows," or, "that changed your worldview," or, "that is embarrassing," or, "that was heartbreaking," or, "that you would never tell your mother." That's the prompt.

Jay Shetty 28:36 Yes.

Esther Perel 28:36 That's the emotional lens with which I'm gonna then put a card in front of you. A rule that I secretly love to break. Now imagine that you get the thing, something embarrassing, and I put in front of you the card, a rule that you secretly love to break.

Jay Shetty 28:53 [laughs]

Esther Perel 28:54 Because we all, all, all the players put a card in front of the storyteller.

Jay Shetty 28:58 Yes.

Esther Perel 28:58 It's a r- it's a game where there is one storyteller at a time. A phone number that I would like to delete.

Jay Shetty 29:03 [laughs]

Esther Perel 29:05 Yeah, everybody has some phone numbers that kind of linger with them in their life, you know? If I wasn't working as... I would be a...

Jay Shetty 29:14 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 29:15 If you caught me at my fridge with the door open in the middle of the night, you would catch me...

Jay Shetty 29:22 Yes.

Esther Perel 29:22 My most irrational fear is... And it is a combination between the prompt cards and the story cards. And then we have coins so that if you want to evade my question, I can impose on you.

Jay Shetty 29:35 [laughs]

Esther Perel 29:35 You know, push you to answer the question that I want, you know? And then you have deeper question, you know. I've never told you the story, I've never told you the whole story about... Everybody has stories that they have fudged.

Jay Shetty 29:48 Mm.

Esther Perel 29:48 You know? And what is it like? My guilty pleasure is... If I could change something about the way that I was raised, you know? Or I'm most judgmental when it comes to...

Jay Shetty 29:58 Mm.

Esther Perel 29:58 And then we go a level deeper. A dream that I've never shared out loud.

Jay Shetty 30:02 Mm.

Esther Perel 30:02 A blind spot that I have. A mistake that I will never make again, or I haven't told anyone about the time when...

Jay Shetty 30:12 Mm.

Esther Perel 30:12 And then we have a whole set of questions around sexuality and intimacy. You know, a text message that I fantasize sending "I wish that somebody had told me X about sex." "My sex life was never the same after..." And, "A sexual situation that I have always wanted to try." So you can play the sex cards, or you can take them out if you play with colleagues.

Jay Shetty 30:33 [laughs]

Esther Perel 30:34 But basically, what I tried to do, I thought, "What are the many dimensions of my life?"

Jay Shetty 30:39 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 30:39 "What do I want people to ask me about, and what am I curious about?" And we all have a storyteller inside of us, and anybody who has ever been a child knows that one of our greatest pleasure was someone telling us a story before we go to bed.

Jay Shetty 30:54 Yes. I love that. I'm so glad. Where can people find the game if they wanna go and get it? I know I'm gonna order it straight after this, so...

Esther Perel 31:01 The game will come out t- in June. It will be called Where Should We Begin? Like the podcast, A Game of Stories.

Jay Shetty 31:09 Okay.

Esther Perel 31:09 And when it is out, Jay, I promise I tell you, and then you can tell your entire community. But it will be available directly through my website, Where Should We Begin?

Jay Shetty 31:19 Okay, perfect. We'll, we'll make sure that we put the link in the comments when the episode goes out, and then when it's available, because that sounds like so much fun.

Esther Perel 31:26 And I thought of it as a re-entry game.

Jay Shetty 31:29 Yeah, absolutely.

Esther Perel 31:29 It's a game for connecting and reconnecting that... Because I, I... Everybody's asking me, "What do we talk about? What are the conversations we can..."

Jay Shetty 31:36 [laughs]

Esther Perel 31:36 And I just said, "Let me create it," because I, I see it in my office. I see it on The Housework Podcast as people are going back to work, and all the work-related questions and-

Jay Shetty 31:46 Yes

Esther Perel 31:46 ... one thing is love, one thing is work. What happens when people start to go back to work right now, and, and, and, you know, and all what that evokes in, in us.

Jay Shetty 31:57 Yeah.

Esther Perel 31:58 And I just thought, "Okay, let me, let me select..." Um, but the thing that was so important was the shift between the time when I did it on Zoom, and then doing it in person, and then doing it with strangers, and doing it with people who I thought I knew or who we thought we knew each other, and to realize how much we still had to discover.

Jay Shetty 32:22 Yes.

Esther Perel 32:22 I think that that's one of the things about friendships, love relationships, is how do we remain really curious?

Jay Shetty 32:30 Yeah, I love that. I'm, I'm so glad that you designed a game around it. I always think, I always think people approach these conversations feeling it's very heavy, and they feel-

Esther Perel 32:39 Yeah

Jay Shetty 32:39 ... like it's gonna be quite stressful, and they think it's gonna be, like, really weird. And then when you have a game, it's like all of a sudden, you know, we drop our guard. We, we start laughing.

Esther Perel 32:49 That's right.

Jay Shetty 32:49 We get playful. I love that. I, I, I, I can't wait to play it myself, and I've been saying the same. I was, I was doing a corporate keynote recently, and I was speaking to an executive, uh, who was briefing me on, you know, what I would be talking about-

Esther Perel 33:05 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 33:05 ... and what the audience was like. I know you do lots of corporate speaking as well, so it was one of those briefing calls. And he asked me a question. He said, he said to me, "Jay, what's the coolest thing that you've done in the last seven days?" And all of a sudden, I was so alert and fresh because no one had asked me a question like that for... I don't- can't remember the last time I answered a question like that. Most questions are like, "How are you? How's your day going?" You know, it's the usual stuff and the small talk. And as soon as he asked me that, all of a sudden, like, I felt alive. And so I can only imagine that your game will do the same thing. And the other thing was I was encouraging a lot of people, uh, to ask more interesting questions because otherwise, of course, the people in your life are boring, right? We ask them boring questions, so how can people be interesting? And I was also encouraging people to look, to-

Esther Perel 33:55 I want to repeat this.

Jay Shetty 33:57 Okay.

Esther Perel 33:57 I want to repeat

Esther Perel 33:58 this. If you ask boring questions, you will feel that people are boring.

Jay Shetty 34:03 Yeah.

Esther Perel 34:03 If you ask, you know, interesting questions, questions that breed energy in you, like you just described with this guy, you ex- you re- you receive a completely different person right in front of you.

Jay Shetty 34:15 Totally.

Esther Perel 34:16 It's really crucial. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 34:18 I actually came alive and, and even the idea of... And I was gonna say with your beautiful painting or artwork you have behind you, I was encouraging people to be more curious about what they see in the Zoom call with people. So I was sitting with another client, and he had a paintbrush hanging on his wall behind him, like you're speaking to me now.

Esther Perel 34:38 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 34:39 And, and he, he was a, he was a corporate client, and he had a paintbrush. I dont know him that well, and I said, "Hey, look, I don't want to be creepy or weird. I'm just intrigued. I've- I'm curious. I've never seen a paintbrush on someone's wall. Can you tell me where it's from?" And, and he started laughing, and, and he said to me, he said, "Oh, you know what? No one ever asks me that." And, and I was like, "All right. Well, do you mind telling me?" And he said, "I have it there because my first ever job..." He's probably in his 50s now. He said, "My first ever job when I was around 14 years old is I used to paint fences and paint walls and paint homes, and so this paintbrush reminds me of where I started." And, and, you know, it just opened up, and then I told him what I did as my first job. I used to be a paperboy and deliver newspapers in my area, and it just was such a refreshing conversation, uh, that I'm still talking about it right now. And so I can't, I can't wait for people to play, you know, Where Should We Begin? It's, it sounds wonderful. I just wanted to share those with you because I, I can't, I couldn't agree with you more.

Esther Perel 35:41 Objects are super important. Objects tell stories.

Jay Shetty 35:45 Yes.

Esther Perel 35:45 You know, I ask in many sessions, "Bring an object that represents the part of your relationship that you would like to h- to harness, to develop further, to maintain, and bring an object that represents a part of your relationship that you would like to let go." Now, it can be your relationship with your partner. It can be your relationship to money. It can be your relationship to sex.

Jay Shetty 36:10 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 36:10 But objects are wonderful catalysts. You know, you start to talk. People bring things. I did a, a conference this year on, on sex, death, and money, and for each one, people brought objects that represented the relationship, the taboo to death, to sex, and to money. The s- the stories that people wrote with a caption, the objects that they chose, it is... It was a book. It really [laughs] was a book. So this brush is very telling. Everybody has a brush. Everybody has a version of that brush.

Jay Shetty 36:44 I love that. Thank you so much. I, I... How can, uh... Yeah, how can,

Jay Shetty 36:48 can people be encouraged to try out that activity at home, to think about what object represents their thought around sex, death, or money, and, and what does that indicate for them?

Esther Perel 36:59 Oh, you know, when people did their relationship, the biggest one was the relationship to money, actually, interestingly. Surprising to me. I thought death or sex would be way bigger.

Jay Shetty 37:08 [laughs]

Esther Perel 37:08 People had... It went from, you know, a checkbook, because my father lost all his money and could never pay his bills, to a pair of shoes that represented either the shoes I would never allow myself to buy, the shoes I finally felt I deserved to buy because I've worked so hard, the shoes that I've never dared wearing 'cause they were so expensive-

Jay Shetty 37:29 [laughs]

Esther Perel 37:30 ... I've kept them in the box, and the shoes I continue to wear while there are holes in it because I don't feel like I deserve to get new ones. Shoes were very important, [laughs] you know?

Jay Shetty 37:38 Wow. [laughs]

Esther Perel 37:39 For, you know, about money, you know, uh, the ring, the ring that I received, you know, for a wedding that l- a, a marriage that lasted for a year or two. So people told stories of homelessness, of destitution, of hard work, of, of, of s- i- intergenerational legacies inside the family around what was lost and what was gained.

Jay Shetty 38:01 Mm.

Esther Perel 38:01 I mean, that's it, a little object told stories of generations.

Jay Shetty 38:07 Mm.

Esther Perel 38:07 So you can do this at a table with a small pod with your friends. There's a, a, a few of them actually in the card game as well, but basically, bring an object that represents what you discovered most, uh, about this year, for example. What was most important to you this year? Bring an object, you know. And what you will notice, p- I've done that one, people have brought things that involve baking because they've been baking. Why? What was that sourdough thing? It's not the bread. It's the fact that people needed to create something. People needed something from nothing that became something. It's an antidote to death when you bring something into the world, creativity, uh, things like that. People brought things related to nature. People brought things related to painting, writing, cr- you know, art, and the importance of art, to pets, and to children, because children were the ones who could remain imaginative, you know?

Jay Shetty 38:58 Mm.

Esther Perel 38:58 They put three books on a floor, and it becomes a rock.

Jay Shetty 39:01 That's beautiful. I love those examples, especially the shoes. I, I'm gonna go and, uh, try that out with my wife later on and see what we would pick, uh, for each. I love that. Tell me, Esther, one of the things that I see a lot of my closest friends go through and experience is that they're all... You know, they're, they're doing well for themselves. They're, they're successful. They're... In their own way. Uh, but they have this desire to be in love, and often they fall in love too fast, or they fall for someone very quickly, only for that to end very quickly as well. Uh, they have this rush to want to find that right person, and when they think they've found someone, they're all in, and then within a month, things are kind of going backwards again.

Jay Shetty 39:48 What is the intention or the mindset with which one should approach love and relationships when seeking out a partner? Today, we have guides on how to have the perfect, uh, online dating profile and how to put the perfect caption to describe how you look and how you... What you like and what you're looking for and what you're interested in. What really should be going on in that preparing for a relationship and love phase?

Esther Perel 40:16 Hmm. I have bad news for your friends.

Jay Shetty 40:19 I'd rather you tell them than me, so, uh... [laughs]

Esther Perel 40:22 [laughs] I get it. You know, I've, I've been working for, ugh, almost 40 years now, helping people with, you know, the challenges of their relationships. The first thing I would say is love is a verb.

Jay Shetty 40:38 Mm.

Esther Perel 40:39 It's not a permanent state of enthusiasm. It's not about finding the right person. It's about being the right person. You know, if you just wanna be dazzled, you will have an adventure. You will be infatuated. You will fall in love. You will have a love story maybe, but you won't have a life story, and a life story is different from a love story. There are many love stories that are never becoming life stories, you know? People have had beautiful things, uh, uh, uh, experiences with others f- of, of, of few days or of a few years for that matter, but they don't really integrate to become a life, and a life has more than just a feeling of love. It's to build something. It's sometimes to raise children together. It's sometimes to bury parents together. It's sometimes to deal with illnesses together. It's sometimes to move countries and migrate together. It's a lot of other experiences that make a life. It's building a business, losing a business, or building a second one after the first one d- did very well. All of that. If you just think of it as, "I see you, and I have butterflies inside of me," and then after a few months, "I see you, and I don't feel the same intensity anymore," I'm sorry to say, but your conception of what is love is not one that will give you that what you are looking for.

Jay Shetty 42:05 Yeah. So, so well said, and I love that idea of... I think so much we're always about, like, does this feel right, and does this feel good? And I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I've been thinking how I'm not... I'm, and I'm still trying to investigate this thought. I'm not, this is not something I'm sure about. I'm, I'm sharing it as a-

Esther Perel 42:27 Mm-hmm. Go ahead

Jay Shetty 42:28 ... expe- as an experiment, and it's the idea of just I'm not sure if asking myself how I feel ... is always the right question because sometimes you feel like doing something and sometimes you don't feel like doing something, but it's often the times when you show up even when you don't feel like doing something, that something builds, something is created. There's, there's something, there's more of a possibility and opportunity.

Jay Shetty 42:57 So I'm just investigating that thought recently around how people go from feeling madly in love to then feeling out of love, when actually they were never in love in the first place. Like you rightly said, they may have had a life story but not-

Esther Perel 43:11 Or, or-

Jay Shetty 43:12 Yeah

Esther Perel 43:12 ... love is, uh, love is something that you actively cultivate.

Jay Shetty 43:16 Yes.

Esther Perel 43:16 You nourish it. You do things that express it, that show the other person that you're thinking of them, that they're important to you, that you carry them inside of you even when they're not there. I mean, to just think, you know, uh, it's an in or out-

Jay Shetty 43:32 Yeah

Esther Perel 43:32 ... is very, very narrow. Now, the other thing is when you say, you know, "How do I feel?" I think it's a very important question to ask, but it is one of many questions.

Jay Shetty 43:43 Mm.

Esther Perel 43:43 Our emotional life is one narrative.

Jay Shetty 43:46 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 43:46 Then we also have a values life. Have I acted right? Have I done according to my principles? Have that, have I done right by virtue of this person to whom I owed something, you know? You don't always feel like going to the gym, but you rarely regret afterwards-

Jay Shetty 44:03 Yeah

Esther Perel 44:03 ... because it feels good. So sometimes the feeling comes after the act.

Jay Shetty 44:07 That's it, yes.

Esther Perel 44:07 Not always as a preceding of the act. And then sometimes it's not, how do I feel, but, uh, what am I thinking that is coloring the way that I feel? So you have behaviors, actions, thoughts, feelings, and then you have a spiritual dimension to what you do as well. And to just sit with the f- emotional truth as the only truth, I think we miss a few other parts of life. We miss the values, we miss the morality, and we miss the spiritual, and all four are part of our life.

Jay Shetty 44:41 This is why I love doing this podcast. I don't have to investigate that thought anymore. You just answered the question for me.

Esther Perel 44:46 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 44:46 You just, you gave me exactly what I was looking for. That is such a brilliant answer, and I, I love how you explained the idea that, and that's kind of what I was trying to think about and I was playing with, was the idea that sometimes you have to do something and you get the feeling afterwards, and working out is def- you spoke my language. That's for me, uh, I, I say to my wife every time I get back from tennis, which is what I do to exercise, I say to my wife, I say, "Never let me miss a tennis lesson." Every time I get back, I always tell her, "Never let me miss a tennis lesson," because I always feel phenomenal when I get back. But in the morning, if I'm not feeling up to it, you know-

Esther Perel 45:23 That's right

Jay Shetty 45:23 ... my mind can trick me, and so we have to remind ourselves, so that's such a brilliant answer. Esther, what, you've, you know, you've advised couples for so long, you've worked on relationships, you've seen every different type of relationship.

Jay Shetty 45:36 When you've really looked at the heart and the core of it, what are the deepest, truest, most root reasons that relationships fail? What, what is it at the heart of it? Like you said, you've unpacked everything so deeply today. What is that deep root of why relationships fail?

Esther Perel 45:55 I have a thought about that, but I'm gonna say that in ver- in light of what you just said. I, what I did when I answered you is share a thought. I, I never think I'm right. I sound very confident, but that doesn't mean that I know. [laughs] This is how I think of it today, and if you come back and we have another conversation-

Jay Shetty 46:14 [laughs]

Esther Perel 46:14 ... I may answer the very same question-

Jay Shetty 46:16 Totally

Esther Perel 46:16 ... differently. And I think that that's very important for all our listeners here to, these are not questions that have a black-and-white answer.

Jay Shetty 46:24 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 46:24 And it's so important to be able to hold nuance and ambiguity when we think about these things. So when you ask me what are the killers of a relationship, I do turn to the work of John Gottman very much. Uh, I would add a few, but, you know, uh, he talks about the four horses of apocalypse, and one thing is criticism, this constant negative sentiment override, criticism, and that's why I said before, remember, behind many criticisms is a wish. Ask for the wish. Don't give the criticism, or you will never get the wish.

Jay Shetty 47:04 Love that.

Esther Perel 47:05 Two, stonewalling. Stonewalling. Shh, you know, and that lets the other person just feel like they don't exist. They can talk, they can weep, they can scream, they can even hit you, and there is no answer. There is no answer. The third one is defensiveness. I can't say anything that you don't answer defensively. You never own anything. You don't take responsibility for your actions. It's all about blaming the other or externalizing, and it's always everybody else's fault and everybody, every other circumstance that made me do, and I'm just a victim, and I've never done anything. And then the big one, the fourth one, is contempt, and I, that's considered the killer of them all. Contempt. Because when I am contemptuous, I look down upon you, I despise you, I belittle you, I diminish you, I devalue you, and I basically do one of the most important things, is I take away your meaning. And we are creatures of meaning. We want to know that if I'm here or if I'm not here, there's a difference. I matter. And if you manage to make me feel like I matter none, that one is the, you know, [laughs] the real, uh, zinger. So I think these four basically sum up, uh, the, the death of a relationship. I can give you smaller ones, smaller ones, you know, uh, that, that, um, that, because not everybody's at that end. So the smaller ones for me are complacency, freaking complacency. People would never... You know, you have a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people who do their best at work when, that listen to you- And most of these people would never treat their clients the way they treat their partners.

Jay Shetty 48:43 Mm.

Esther Perel 48:43 They give the best to their clients, and they give a, a, a smidger of that attention to their partners or to the people at home with them. That laziness, complacency, lack of curiosity, just r- routine management inc., I do this, you do that, and when is the last time we actually looked at each other and checked in with each other and said, "And how are you today?"

Jay Shetty 49:07 Mm.

Esther Perel 49:08 Not, "How was your day?" "How are you today? 'Cause I think of you," you know? That. And that is the many, many couples that come to couples therapy, feeling like the life has been siphoned out of the relationship. So then when they say, "I d- I'm in... I still love you, but I'm not in love with you," or, "I feel like, you know, we have nothing to tell each other," or, "It's kind of a dead end between us," I say, "What are you doing to enliven yourself? What do you do that brings energy, and, and, and aliveness, and vi- vitality, and curiosity?" If you do none of this, it's like leaving something in the fridge for months on end. It dries up.

Jay Shetty 49:47 Mm. Well said. So well said. I, I, I love all of those examples, and I think the interesting thing about the first four that you mentioned also is that, like you said, behind the criticism is a wish, and often behind the stonewalling is just a genuine desire for space. But when you don't express that and you don't communicate that, of course the other person thinks you're just ghosting them and that it's about them.

Esther Perel 50:15 That's right.

Jay Shetty 50:15 And, and as you can see there, behind each of our behaviors, there is a deeper desire that may be genuine and may be necessary, and even behind your contempt, there's some sort of internal contempt that's, that's bringing that out. There's some sort of internal criticism that's going on. And, and you know-

Esther Perel 50:35 Absolutely

Jay Shetty 50:35 ... it's so, it's so crazy because when you hear it, it sounds so simple and it sounds so obvious, but one of the things that's really helped me and my wife is I, I do this thing where I t- I c- and I really liked what you said about how we treat our clients. I try and do this check-in thing with her all the time, and I'll be like, "How do you think our relationship's going?" You know? And w- I, I always ask her that question. "How do you think our relationship's going?" Like, what, you know, what do I need to improve? What do you think you need to improve? What are you working on? What am I working on? And it's funny because you never do that update or status update with your partner because you, like you-

Esther Perel 51:09 Not enough

Jay Shetty 51:10 ... you just assume that you've already made the decision and now it's stayed.

Esther Perel 51:13 That's right. We married, and now the thing is just gonna go on like that for 30 years on rolls, on wheels. As, I mean, it is a very strange, the, the type of exceptionalism that people think about when they think about marriage or committed relationship, this notion that, you know, that m- you made the decision at 25-

Jay Shetty 51:32 [laughs]

Esther Perel 51:32 ... or 20, th- 35, and this thing is just gonna go on with you intact. I mean, it is really strange.

Jay Shetty 51:39 [laughs] It is-

Esther Perel 51:40 You know?

Jay Shetty 51:40 ... such a strange thing, but it's something we all, we all live with. I, I know so many people who have unfortunately experienced infidelity or been, been cheated on, and, you know, you write about this.

Esther Perel 51:51 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 51:51 As I said, this is one of my favorite books, uh, that you've written. I highly recommend it to anyone. I mean, I recommend any of Esther's books. Uh, we'll put the link in the comments.

Jay Shetty 52:00 Um, when you're working with people who've been through that, a lot of people take it so personally that it demolishes them and destabilizes them for the future. What parts of it do you take personally, and what parts of it do you distance from?

Esther Perel 52:17 Mm.

Jay Shetty 52:17 How do you respond to that experience? And I know that it's case by case, but how do you know which parts of it you should use to improve versus how do you know which parts of it you shouldn't?

Esther Perel 52:30 I think that my first entry with you into this topic would be this.

Jay Shetty 52:36 Mm. Mm.

Esther Perel 52:36 If I ask... You have a huge, vast audience that is currently listening to us.

Jay Shetty 52:42 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 52:43 Have you been affected by the experience of infidelity in your life?

Jay Shetty 52:47 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 52:49 Either because you were the child whose parent was unfaithful or who left for another partner, either because you are yourself the child of an illicit love story, either because you have been unfaithful or you have been cheated on, or you are the third person in the triangle, the secret lover, or because you're the friend on whose shoulder somebody's been weeping for days, or the one to whom somebody's confiding. If I'll ask your entire audience now, about 85% of the people will tell you that they have been affected by the experience of infidelity.

Jay Shetty 53:27 Absolutely.

Esther Perel 53:28 So the story of infidelity is not just a story of two people, of one cheater and one betrayed. The story of infidelity is the story that accompanies marriage from the day marriage was invented, and it travels in families, and it travels all over the world. And my exploration of infidelity was using this betrayal, this violation of trust, as a way to understand modern love, because infidelity hasn't always meant the same and doesn't mean the same depending on the various cultures and the various models of marriage that we have. But if I live today in the West, and I wait till I'm in my 30s to choose you, and I've had loads of people before you and I ever met, which means monogamy is not one person for life, but monogamy for me is one person at a time, and I have been on apps, and I have had to deal with all my FOMOs and the thousand people I could choose from, and you're the one I've honed in on. Now, my develop- my sense of trust for you, what you represent for me, is all those people I didn't choose. And with you, when you ex- and I experience infidelity, it's like the shattering of the grand ambition of love. I thought we, this is it. You're the one, and you're my soulmate. You know, we today have brought the divine into the social [laughs] and I call you soulmate. I, so I don't turn to God, I turn to you.

Jay Shetty 55:06 [laughs]

Esther Perel 55:07 And you did this to me, and I feel like I've lost my entire sense of self. Some affairs really are expressions of relationships that are in trouble. We never talk, we never touch. When's the last time we made love to each other? You despise me, you control me, I contr- you know, the breadth of reasons for why people wanna run away. And then some affairs have very little to do with the partner, unfortunately, or just as a matter of fact. They often have to do with the fact that people will breach and betray in search of something that they have lost. Lost parts of themselves, lost, you know... They have, the sentence that always stayed to me is when somebody would say, "I didn't just wanna find another person, I wanted to find another self."

Jay Shetty 56:03 Mm.

Esther Perel 56:03 "I didn't wanna leave my partner, I wanted to leave what I had become, and I didn't know how to change with my partner." That's not a justification at all, but it explains to the partner, this is not about you're not smart enough, rich enough, tall enough, thin enough. This has nothing to do with you. To the extent that this can help you understand why this happened, my work with you is going to be not on the facts and if they did it standing or lying flat, my work with you is going to be on, on understanding the meaning. An infidelity tells a story. What is the story that this affair, what does it mean? Not what did you do, and therefore, how is this relationship going to be able to either learn from it, grow from it, or make a decision to leave because of it?

Jay Shetty 56:51 Mm-hmm.

Esther Perel 56:51 All options are open right now. Your first marriage is over, your first relationship, but we can decide together, you will decide if you wanna have another relationship with each other-

Jay Shetty 57:03 Mm

Esther Perel 57:04 ... in light of what has happened. And we will need to heal, like many other crisises, there are ways that you can heal from this and trust each other again and love each other again, and maybe even better than what you were before. I can hold that space for you.

Jay Shetty 57:20 So

Jay Shetty 57:21 powerful. When, when does someone know that it's time to break up and move on versus it's time to still try and build? I think a lot of people that I meet, and it, and this is in any breakup, it could be leaving a job, it could be breaking up with a person, it could be, uh, leaving a long-term commitment, whatever it may be, we alwa- you always find people say, "I stayed in it for six months too long. I stayed in it for two years that I shouldn't have. I was in it for six years that I shouldn't have." We spend so much time making that decision.

Esther Perel 57:54 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 57:54 How do, what are the signs that you know that it's now time to move on and call it quits, or it's time to actually build and try our best?

Esther Perel 58:01 But that presupposes that once you know the signs, you're ready to act.

Jay Shetty 58:06 Mm.

Esther Perel 58:07 And what you've just told me is that people often knew the signs for a long time, but they needed to prepare internally and sometimes externally to do the act.

Jay Shetty 58:16 Yeah.

Esther Perel 58:17 To do the leaving. So we sometimes know for two years that this is probably not gonna last, but then there is a process of preparing. And, um, when people say, I, you know, "Why did I stay so long?" I say, "You left when you were ready to go."

Jay Shetty 58:33 Mm.

Esther Perel 58:34 You can, you know, because a- after the fact, it's easy to say, "I should have left sooner," but why, sometimes I was there two years before. So I can tell you, two years ago when you thought about, you know, what will happen the day that you walk into the house and there is nobody there, you couldn't bear the thought. So we needed to prepare you for that. We needed to prepare you to know that you won't be seeing your children every day. We needed to prepare you to realize that you were going to be working again after not working for a long time. We needed to prepare you to accept that there is another partner here that is going to be loving your children as well. And these things are all, or if you wanna do about work, we needed to prepare you that you had done the thing that you loved all your life, and you were gonna let go of this. Or you needed to prepare to accept that you had done the thing that was right, and you were finally going to do the thing that you really wanted, and they were not both the same. And once you lay down like this, people actually close the gap between the, "I knew it," and, "It took me so long."

Jay Shetty 59:39 Yeah. Esther, I love that. It's, uh, it's such a joy talking to you. I, I, I'm just loving just, uh, the back and forth and being able to find so many of the answers I've been thinking about in speaking with you and reflecting together. I, I could do this with you for hours, but,

Jay Shetty 59:55 uh, we have two last segments that we do on On Purpose that I wanna do with you. One is called Fill in the Blanks. So I'm gonna read out-

Esther Perel 1:00:02 Oof. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:00:02 ... some sentences, and you have to fill in the blanks-

Esther Perel 1:00:05 Ah

Jay Shetty 1:00:05 ... to start off with. So are you ready?

Esther Perel 1:00:07 Okay, I'll try. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:00:08 Okay.

Esther Perel 1:00:08 I'm very bad at those, but let's try. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:00:10 No, no, you're gonna be great. You're, you're gonna be great. Okay. True love is...

Esther Perel 1:00:15 True love is living with those differences that you think you can never tolerate.

Jay Shetty 1:00:23 [laughs] I love it. Uh, great answer. Okay. Great partners are...

Esther Perel 1:00:29 Funny.

Jay Shetty 1:00:29 [laughs]

Esther Perel 1:00:31 They know how to bring in humor just when you're about to bite.

Jay Shetty 1:00:35 That is my wife. My wife is a genius at that. She's so, and it comes naturally to her. Uh, so that's, that's good.

Esther Perel 1:00:41 Ah, I have one like that, too. I bless him for being able-

Jay Shetty 1:00:44 [laughs]

Esther Perel 1:00:44 ... to make me laugh at the moment that we could go down that path that is just like, ugh.

Jay Shetty 1:00:49 [laughs] Absolutely. Uh, conflicts in relationships are...

Esther Perel 1:00:54 Defeating

Jay Shetty 1:00:56 Mm

Esther Perel 1:00:57 But, but part of relationships. Conflicts are part of relationships, and yet they can be so defeating

Jay Shetty 1:01:05 Couples therapy is...

Esther Perel 1:01:07 Couples therapy is the place where you create a safe and provocative environment to check yourself as you walk in, and stop focusing on checking your partner and leaving yourself out of the game

Jay Shetty 1:01:25 Amazing. Great answer. See, that was, that was great. You did-

Esther Perel 1:01:28 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:01:28 That was phenomenal. So

Jay Shetty 1:01:30 I'm now gonna ask you the final five. These have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum, so, uh, same as, same as last time. You did a great job. So these are your final five. Uh, what is the best relationship advice you've ever received?

Esther Perel 1:01:45 It's perfectly fine to go to sleep angry

Jay Shetty 1:01:49 Ah, okay, great answer. Okay, what is the worst relationship advice you've ever received?

Esther Perel 1:01:55 You have to tell your partner everything

Jay Shetty 1:01:58 So what do you not have to tell your partner? Let's, let's just dive into that. That's an interesting answer. W- tell us, tell us a bit more about that

Esther Perel 1:02:06 Certain truths are cruel and overrated. Ask yourself, is it wise? Is it kind? Not just is it true. What you want me to say, "Jay, you really are awful, you know, you look awful. It's like I'd never wanna touch you. Your smell bothers me. Uh, I can't believe I'm b- I'm sitting here with you every day"? Then leave

Jay Shetty 1:02:32 Got it. Makes sense

Esther Perel 1:02:32 That's more than a sentence, Jay [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:02:34 No, no, no, no, no. I was encourage- I wanted to learn more. I was encouraging you to. That was great. All right, question number three

Esther Perel 1:02:40 You know, "You're the dumbest person you've, I've ever heard, I- I've ever been with. I can't believe that you, that this is the way..." It's, it's the stuff that is insulting.

Jay Shetty 1:02:49 Yeah

Esther Perel 1:02:49 You know, "I never wanna make love to you again. If I never had sex with you for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be bothered." Is there a value in saying these things? Does anybody see anything positive? But this, sometimes people think that in the name of truth, in the name of your question before, I should tell you how I feel. Well, some of your feelings, you should go tell them to somebody else

Jay Shetty 1:03:11 [laughs] I love it, Esther. It's so great. All right, question number three

Esther Perel 1:03:15 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:03:16 Uh, what's something that you know is true about relationships but people are still disagree with, they're still trying to get there? What are you so sure is true about relationships but most people in society, they haven't quite got there yet or they may disagree with it?

Esther Perel 1:03:33 That at times when it feels like it's a mission impossible, repair is possible

Jay Shetty 1:03:41 Beautiful. Question number four: What's the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 months?

Esther Perel 1:03:47 I've relearned it, it's not that I never thought of it, but that helping others is one of the most powerful ways for me not to feel scared or helpless myself

Jay Shetty 1:03:59 I can so relate to you. I love that. I can so relate to you. Okay, question number five, the final question

Esther Perel 1:04:06 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:04:06 I- if you could-

Esther Perel 1:04:07 Bom bom [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:04:08 [laughs] If you c- we don't need the sound effects, guys. That was the sound effect. That was the one. Use Esther's sound effect

Esther Perel 1:04:13 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:04:14 Uh, if you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Esther Perel 1:04:19 It would be the law of decency and respect for the humanity of others. Don't use them. Don't abuse them. They're people. They're like you. If you lose your sense of morality by being violent or enslaving people or humiliating them, you lose your own humanity

Jay Shetty 1:04:45 Everyone, Esther Perel, the author of The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity and the author of Mating in Captivity, a New York Times bestselling author. Please, please, please go and grab a copy of this book if you loved our conversation today. Hopefully, you can also get the game by this time as well. I'm excited. And you can, of course, listen to Esther's podcast, uh, that I highly recommend, that we'll be putting a link in the comments to as well. Esther, thank you so much for giving so much of your love and heart and energy to the On Purpose community today. I hope we get to do this in person again very soon. I'd love to sit with you and just talk for hours. Uh, is there anything that I didn't ask you or didn't let you share that's on your heart and you really wanna tell people, that you really wanna share with everyone?

Esther Perel 1:05:30 You know, what I often enjoy is to ask you, like, you know, I so often think, like, where do, where shall we begin, right? That's the podcast, how's work, where should we begin the game, and I think here is how we began, and you asked me, you know, a question that brought me to a place that was very surprising to me. Where did I first think about the importance of relationship in my life? Where did you first think about purpose?

Jay Shetty 1:05:59 It was, uh, you know, I, I grew up just completely... Didn't even know purpose existed. Like, I didn't even know it was a real thing, right? You d- you just kind of, uh, you just kind of assume that life is what it is. You go to col- school, you go to college, you go to university, you get a degree, you get a job, you get married, you play golf. Like, you know, that, that's what life looks like, at least from where I was brought up, and you're just working hard fulfilling

Jay Shetty 1:06:30 that. And I think the first time I thought about purpose was when I met the monk for the first time. So when I was 18 years old, I heard a monk speak, and I write about that in my book, and he was living with purpose. So not only did I start thinking about purpose, I got to experience purpose, and I think that's what's so hard about relationships, is that we don't always get to experience fulfilling relationships in our life ... through other people, and so we don't even know what it looks like. And I have to be honest and say that that was the first time I thought about purpose, because this monk was super educated. He could've been making hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, but he'd given it all up to serve humanity. And I thought-

Esther Perel 1:07:17 And what made you receptive to him?

Jay Shetty 1:07:21 I think it was just the idea that, at least at that time, I'd met many people who were... I'd met a few people that were rich, I'd met people who were famous, I'd met people who were strong, and beautiful, and attractive, but I don't think I'd met anyone who I felt was happy and purposeful. And what made me receptive was that I felt that he was happy and purposeful, truly, in his heart.

Esther Perel 1:07:44 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:07:44 And it was something you had to feel and experience. It... I mean, I'm still friends with him today. He still has it today. Uh, but I always feel that when I'm with him, that he always feels happy and purposeful. And, and that experience is so rare, I feel, when you're around someone. So I think that's, you know, that for me is probably the first time I started thinking about purpose. And, uh, today I just, I also believe that a relationship needs a purpose, so I love these worlds colliding. And a lot of my personal work and purpose has been massive for helping me in my relationship. So, uh, yeah, hopefully that answers your question.

Esther Perel 1:08:21 Yes. Yes, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's really beautiful. Because one thing is, you know, where were you in your life, but the other thing is how come he could speak to you? W- he, there was a space that was waiting for him. There was a need, a longing, a wish, and I think that's exactly what happens in people's relationships, too.

Jay Shetty 1:08:41 Yeah.

Esther Perel 1:08:41 It's just that they often come very bruised and very wounded from all kinds of relationship experiences in their childhood, and they, and they first need to, um, basically re- you know, take the parts of the childhood that still lives inside of them and put it aside so that they can create a different script. Your purpose is a story, and relationships are stories, too.

Jay Shetty 1:09:09 I love that. That's such a, such a wonderful reflection and such a, such a, such a beautiful way of looking at it. And, uh, yeah, I just always feel that we all have the opportunity, today even more so because of podcasts like these, and interviews, and conversations, where we have more opportunities for our autopilot to be disrupted in a good way. I, I think, you know, for me, I had to go to an event, and the speaker was speaking at an event. But today, you can just hear something on YouTube or-

Esther Perel 1:09:40 Yep

Jay Shetty 1:09:40 ... a podcast, and all of a sudden your mind is just moved in a different direction. I think we have such a benefit today that we can connect, and I'm so grateful that I got to connect with you today, because I'm sure you've done that for a lot of people today, where you've shifted their mindset or their paradigm. So I thank you, Esther, and I, I deeply look forward to meeting you.

Esther Perel 1:09:59 Thank you very much.

Jay Shetty 1:09:59 I, I, I want dinner-

Esther Perel 1:10:00 Me too

Jay Shetty 1:10:00 ... with you when I'm in New York next. Uh-

Esther Perel 1:10:03 Okay

Jay Shetty 1:10:03 ... and, and I'm just, I'm excited to play the game. I can't wait for the game. I, I wanna do it.

Esther Perel 1:10:09 I promise you get one. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:10:10 Okay. Amazing. I love it.

Esther Perel 1:10:12 We will... And maybe we will actually play together.

Jay Shetty 1:10:15 If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from thinklikeamonkbook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today.