Modern WisdomHow Love Dies: The Psychology of Cheating & Attraction - Esther Perel
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 27,225 words- 0:00 – 6:57
Red Flags Don’t Look Like Red Flags Through Rose Coloured Glasses
- CWChris Williamson
... oddly, our attachment systems lie to us. They lie to us, and, uh, this was put to me earlier this year is red flags don't look red if you're wearing rose-colored glasses. And I think that's what the early-
- EPEsther Perel
He's lying.
- CWChris Williamson
... stages of a relationship are, the early stages of a relationship are rose-colored glasses, and a lot of the time it means that you don't see red flags.
- EPEsther Perel
Yeah. I mean, definitely the early stage is a stage of idealization. Um, you project onto the person, you feel so good about yourself in their presence, they make you feel smart, beautiful, um, irreplaceable, unique, um, and, and you kind of get hooked to that feeling, you know? "I used to feel so good in your presence. Why now do I, don't, don't I? Why has it changed?" Um, some people partner with someone and all they think to themselves, consciously or not, is, "Please don't ever change." And some people partner with someone and in the back of their mind it is, "This is gonna change. This is gonna change. This is gonna change." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, they're in love with their potential.
- EPEsther Perel
Yes, that's one way of, of, of looking at this. It's like, um, yes, that's definitely one, o- one, one way. But I think it's an interesting thing who, you know, when you actually want this to remain set, and I think that after the idealization, we start to experience with the people that we are with experiences from other relationships, expectations, disappointments, breaches that we experienced elsewhere and that we now bring into this relationship. The way I typically u- used to say it is that there's only... Because people often say, "I don't have this issue with anybody else. I don't have this at work. I don't have this with my friends." And I always say, "I totally understand it, because there's only two relationships that mirror each other, the one of your romantic and intimate life now and the one... and the original one." They echo each other, the one that you had with the people who raised you, and these two have an echo chamber with each other in most unconscious and visceral ways.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it's strange to think about how much of our adult life is puppeted by things that happened before we could even remember it. You know, it's, it's kind of, it's strange with attachment theory, right, because attachment theory is, uh, your attachments-
- EPEsther Perel
But is it true? Is it true, Chris, is the question. We think this way, it's a common model, it's a, it's a framework of modern psychology, and it suits us. I mean, w- you know, it's very much a second nature for me to think this way because I was steeped into this kind of way of thinking about the human kind and human nature and relationships. But sometimes I ask myself, "Is that... What would happen if somebody came in with a completely different theory?"
- CWChris Williamson
You think that attachment theory might be due for a replication crisis at some point in future?
- EPEsther Perel
Here's (laughs) s- someone, you know, there used to be a very prevalent theory when psychoanalysis was really at the core of our psychological culture, and it believed in what, and still does, in the Oedipus complex. Now, you know, who still talks about the Oedipus complex in the general culture? Maybe in an as- in an analyst office, but in the general culture it's kind of passe. You know, the truth of today is often the joke of tomorrow.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- EPEsther Perel
So, um, this is a perfect example of something that was never considered a theory, it was considered true. Every five year old goes through the Oedipus complex, every three year old, every... Really? You know?
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. So the a- the current world of anxious attachment, and this happened before you could even speak, and this is-
- EPEsther Perel
It's
- NANarrator
It's crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
... ingrained in your nervous system might be in 20 years time the Oedipus complex of 2025.
- EPEsther Perel
Yeah. It's a theory. Let's, uh... You know, and a theory has, uh, definitely elements that, of truth that it tries to describe.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
It theoritizes over a certain set of observations, but that doesn't mean it's true. And, um, there have been other theories like that that have been debunked that we sincerely believed in, you know, including that children don't me- remember anything, you know, but they do. And that the b- you know... So there's a lot of... The... Attachment is a theory. It's a very powerful and a very useful theory. It's a vocabulary. It's a meaning making system. It's a theory.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. It would, uh, there's definitely a question around how much is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? How much is it that you've done this assessment or you've spent some time reflecting and you think that you are a person with dismissive avoidant attachment, or you've got anxious attachment, or you've got what... And then you start to show up in that way-
- EPEsther Perel
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... in your relationship, and it becomes unfalsifiable, because you know it, you can't unknow it.
- EPEsther Perel
You know, when I say to people, "You really found each other," it's a very interesting way we found each other and it allows you to both replicate your core models of relatedness or attachment. And the reason why that's useful is because it allows you f- in order to... Once you've replicated it, you can finally change it. It's a beautiful framework. It's useful. I have no idea if it's true.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
Do you understand? But it's useful.
- CWChris Williamson
It's true. Yeah.
- EPEsther Perel
It helps. It makes sense of things. You know, you and I, we're doing t- with each other, and I do with you and I interpret you, you know, in, in ways that have become kind of s- a second nature to me. I've really learned to expect that when people act the way you do, I'm interpreting it ABC.... and now that we have replayed my original drama, we can start to work on it and hopefully rewrite it and differentiate myself from it. It's great, but (laughs) I like the notion that it's useful and I say things in my work to people and it only is true if they bite, if it's relevant to them, if it resonates with them, then it's true. They say, "That's exactly it."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
Okay. I love it. Means I, I resonate with you. I understood what's going on here. But is it true? They say it. "That's true." (laughs)
- 6:57 – 12:12
Why We Should Avoid Polarising Attachment Discourse
- EPEsther Perel
- CWChris Williamson
What do you make of the man-keeping trend that women are worried about right now?
- EPEsther Perel
Another word we needed in the vocabulary, (laughs) in the pantheon of relationship vocabulary. I mean, honestly, um, I think that as a whole, I tend to stay away from polarizing discourses. "I carry the burden." "You carry the burden." "No, I carry the burden." You know? Um, have women often been the primary social outlet for men? Yes. Does that have to do with something that men want? Not necessarily. Yesterday, I spoke with a patient who, you know, was... has a newborn and young kids and was really kind of feeling like he's not doing it well neither at the company nor at home. Something very natural that we hear often from, from moms, but, but that's because we don't ask dad that question. (laughs) Doesn't mean dads don't experience it. And at one point, you know, he wanted to go and m- visit his friends abroad and, and, you know, the question was, is there a permission, and I use the word permission and acceptance, for him to not be home except when it's for work? You know, is it only okay to not be home when you're working? If you actually are going to see friends, then you bes- you may just as well be home with me.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
And then we talk about how men often don't have friends in the house, and then we talk about how they rely on the Ministry of Social Affairs, and it's a she. And when you look at queer couples, this whole dance is very differently, so, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be gendered. Often, it is a role arrangement in which one person is the one who orchestrates the social life-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
... and the other one follows. Although sometimes it's because they don't have people, sometimes it's 'cause they're conflict-avoidant and, and sometimes it's 'cause they're just placating and they wanna make it easy and, "I'll just go wherever you wanna go." So, I think... I like to look at dynamics. I think... I don't necessarily want to create dogmas and man-keeping. You know, it's social affairs and it's emotional life, right? Yes, a lot of men find themselves in relationships with women, in this context, where she is his primary emotional outlet. Now, some of this is because they may live in a context where male vulnerability is not tolerated. Some of this is because we accept much more that men can lose their friends. I mean, when you look at seven-year-old and six-year-old boys, they're no different. They have... They cry like the girls, they have friends like the girls. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a male code. It's a, it's a f- it's a cultural indoctrination that leads a lot of men often to give up on their friendships. They're not valued for having great friendships, they're valued for being competent and accomplished-
- CWChris Williamson
Useful.
- EPEsther Perel
... and useful and performative. And so, you know, I think, for me, it's more interesting to look at cultural systems, look at what is universal, what appears in every culture even though it comes in a different color-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
... you know, pink, red (laughs) and, and others, than talking about it as something that is men versus women. I think these days, we're sliding into real polarizing men versus women. This one doesn't n- and TikTok is just like clamoring away about how he's an idiot and she's a bitch. And, um, seriously, is... I don't want my kids and anybody else's kids to be part of that kind of a culture. I think that friendship between boys and girls is phenomenal. Friendship in general is phenomenal. Let the boys and girls have a great friendship. You'll learn a ton about what not to do with your girlfriend and boyfriend and whatever else and them friends. You know, to me, it's about how do we add things, not how do we separate things.
- CWChris Williamson
I think it's a great point around the tribalism at the moment. I mean-
- EPEsther Perel
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... people, people can be tribal about anything, right? There's a, a great study where-
- EPEsther Perel
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... they brought, uh, a group of 100 people, brought them into a room, and at the front of the room, they tossed a coin, and if the coin was heads, you were blue team, and if the coin was tails, you were red team. So-
- EPEsther Perel
And everybody behaved according to the color they had b- oh, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
So you go over and you speak to the blue team and you say, "So, what do you think about the red team?" They go, "Well, I mean they're, they're not as smart as us, are they? They sort of look a bit stupid. Like they're obviously not..." And it's like you've just seen how arbitrary the selection criteria was. You know that it was a 50/50 complete chance for you to be on this side than that, and immediately people fall into the tribal thing. But I, I, I couldn't agree more. I-
- EPEsther Perel
It's like the prisoner experiment. I mean, it's e- it's phenomenal, you know, how you tell me I'm this and I will become that and I, I will act accordingly. It's really...
- 12:12 – 20:23
The Difficulties Behind Male Friendships
- CWChris Williamson
On the, on the cultural coding side, just to ask a, a question, you're evolutionarily educated.
- EPEsther Perel
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
At least as far as I can see, it would have been adaptive and it seems to be the case-... that men are able to deal with, uh, more transient and looser friendships because there was a higher likeli- a m- a higher male disposability, uh, ancestrally. We go out for a hunt, and unfortunately, uh, you're Ian now. "Ian, you, you fell down a ravine and you're gone, so Ian's gone now." Um, I need to be able to move on as a man. If you're alloparenting, uh, with your group of female aunties, friends, and, and grandmas and stuff, that social network would naturally be more tightly tied. So, at least as far as I can see, I don't, I wouldn't lay everything at the feet of culture. I'm aware that this may vary across the world-
- EPEsther Perel
Totally.
- CWChris Williamson
... but I cer- I certainly think that men have an uphill battle when it comes to, in adulthood, especially if they're working, especially if they're, you know, trying to provide and, and, and do all of the things for their family, and also trying to hold onto male friendships in a manner that maybe just isn't quite so natural to them. You know, 51% of men lack a single confidant for emotional support, uh, and obviously, we have your significant other, the person you spend the most time with, the one you're building this life with, you go to sleep with them every night, you've got this shared family, and you're br- bring- bringing these kids up. And, uh, I think, you know, to fly the flag for men, I think it's a difficult circle to square that men are, are told to sort of open up more and be emotionally vulnerable, but they have a limited bucket of people to be able to do that with, and the one that they can do it with is now feeling the pressure of, "I have to be his therapist, I have to be his, his muse, I have to be his diva, or I've got to be his housekeeper and his massage, you know, physical therapist. I've got to be all of these things." And both sides, again, as opposed to going, "That's really tough. We can't live on a single wage anymore, and you have to do the double shift when you get home from work, my darling, because not only have you worked today, but the kids need their packed lunches making for tomorrow, and I've had a rough day at work as well, and I've got to get home, and I, I had this, I had, I'm feeling some stuff and I really need to open up to you." And as opposed to that, it is this, it's very tight and it's very adversarial, and that's reflected in single world and in the married world. It's reflected in media and it's reflected in relating relationships. And, uh, I'm on board. I don't, I don't like the way that everything is becoming more and more tribal, even within the context of an intimate relationship or people talking about getting together and trying to be in love.
- EPEsther Perel
So, you, you bring up two, two points for me. Um, first of all, on, on the, on the, the evolutionary versus, uh, the cultural, I'm multilingual. I speak many languages and I speak that languages too. I can go back and forth between evolutionary language and cultural language. For me, the beauty is how they interact with each other, not which one has the supremacy over the other. Is it more cultural? Is it more evolutionary and biological? It's the, uh, uh, you know, y- you come in with a certain predisposition that is biological or innate, and then there is a culture that sits on top of it, and you, and responds to this versus that because this is the thing that stands out. So, um, I, I totally agree that, uh, that we are shaped by both, you know? Um, but the interesting thing about the, your allusion to the mankeeping or to the man having, relying primarily on their partner is that sometimes one of the paradoxes here is that he coming to her, confiding in her, opening himself up to her, letting him... You know, when a man op- opens up, it's, uh, often in my office too, you know, it's not just that he's saying something that he has not said to others. He's often never even said it to himself. It's really beautiful and very moving. And so she, in the beginning, looks at this and thinks, "This is wonderful. I am the chosen one with whom he feels that comfortable, that open, that vulnerable." You know, so back to your thing that the very thing that is originally attractive can become the very source of conflict and disagreement later. This one too. You know, "I liked how you talk to me and I like how, you know, I feel so chosen by your, by, by the fact that it's with me that you've decided to domesticate yourself, to open yourself, to finally settle," whatever the whole thing. So, it's an, it's an interesting thing that, you know, what becomes mankeeping later wasn't always experienced as mankeeping in the beginning.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh my God, he's so open with me. He's never said this to anybody before.
- EPEsther Perel
Of course.
- CWChris Williamson
I feel so special.
- EPEsther Perel
And that makes me very special. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- EPEsther Perel
Let's, let's round the picture. I mean, this, this is the, the, the... That's why to make it mm, mm-mm, rather than this-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- EPEsther Perel
... is a whole different way of, uh, of looking at it. I do, you know, this notion of male loneliness and the, the phenomenon that we're talking about at this moment is fairly recent. 19th century America, men had plenty of friends. You go to your islands, in all over the world, men sit after they've finished fishing, they're talking to each other, they're schmoozing. They don't need to do personal, you know, expression of their deepest feelings to feel intimate and close. The mult- there are multiple languages, and, um, and to, to make this a kind of a, a, an innate or a gender division, I think is, is unfortunate, and it's being exploited big time. It's being exploited by people who really gain from creating divisions, from creating suspicions, from kind of cr- breaking the, the deep feeling of, um-...complimentarity-
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- EPEsther Perel
... actually that exists.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- EPEsther Perel
Now, you know, the thing that's very interesting for me is that for so many centuries, we saw masculinity as obvious. Luminous, simple, doesn't need explanation. What is a man? It's clear. It's not a woman. And, you know, women was this kind of mysterious continent that you had to go and elucidate, figure out what's- what's in there, you know? (laughs) It's, what's in there from the psychological point of view and the genital point of view, what's in there? What is this thing called woman?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- EPEsther Perel
You know? And then you begin to pay attention, that, you know, there's an entire apropos vocabulary, man up, show me you're a man, you know, be a man. I mean, masculinity is often accompanied with an e- with a mandate, with an imperative, with a thing that needs to prove itself...
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- EPEsther Perel
... constantly. So I began to think that if you always have to prove it, maybe it's not that obvious in the first place.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's interesting-
- EPEsther Perel
You know?
- CWChris Williamson
... that nobody, nobody would ever say that you need to woman up.
- EPEsther Perel
No.
- CWChris Williamson
That a woman, a woman's value is innate and imbued-
- EPEsther Perel
No.
- CWChris Williamson
... whereas a man's-
- EPEsther Perel
She has her periods, she knows who she is. She doesn't have to prove it.
- 20:23 – 37:53
What is Driving Male Loneliness?
- CWChris Williamson
What do you lay the male loneliness that we're seeing at the feet of? What's- what's driving this sort of beyond surface causes of people spending more time online?
- EPEsther Perel
I think that male loneliness is not just male. I think that there is women, girls, children. I don't think it's just gender. I think it's more so for men, for boys, let's start because it's younger, because there is less of an acquired socialization that is about if you feel distressed, you go and you reach out. The- the socialization of boys is often if you feel distressed, you toughen it up, you keep it in, you- you- you do something to get the st- the, to, you know, you go do some sports, some activity, to get the feeling out of your system. You don't go to find someone to talk about the feelings. That is a very different... You know, I- I am, I have two boys, a brother (laughs) , a husband, a father. I've been... I've not had women in my ina- int- intimate circle except for mom. I've kind of spent a tremendous amount of time... That doesn't mean I'm right, uh? But it just means I've looked at this. You know, what did I say when they would be in certain situations? And what would I have said if I had a girl? You know, we know that we touch boys as of the age of three, much less than we touch our girls. So it's- it's- it's coded in, on so many levels. So what makes the boys feel lonely is, yes, I do think it's a s- uh, it's a whole augment- increase of the contactless world that we're living in. You know, you could say they're not lonely when they're playing games and they're online with other kids who are also playing. I mean, they're, they are interacting. But it is absolutely not the same as going outside and playing with a ball. Um, I think that as a whole, kids are not playing on the street these days. The- they're playing freely on the street and having this huge ground for social negotiation that, where you hone your skills. You make war, you make peace, (laughs) you create alliances, you have groups, you- you fight, you resolve, you fight without adults, unsupervised, unscripted, unmonitored. You learn social skills. N- that whole thing is gone, more so for boys than for girls, because they played more in groups like that through the sports that used to be played on the streets. What makes boys more lonely is that they're, girls and women later, are overserved with advice about relationships, and typically men are underserved.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. What do you-
- EPEsther Perel
That is not what people, if you look at the magazines, it is not what people, (laughs) magazines and everything online that follow maga- it's not what men are served with. You know, you're not served with, you know, what you do when you hurt, what you do when you're mad, what you do when you're heartbroken.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- EPEsther Perel
What you do when you fall in love with someone who hasn't even noticed you. What you do when you're ghosted. What you, and they come to me, they come to you. They- they come, you know, I- I have more m- men almost than women alone on the podcast on Where Should We Begin?, doing sessions with them, and I'm just every time I think, ah, the courage it took for them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- EPEsther Perel
I mean, I think the courage for the girls too and the women, but there is something about, especially when I know which part of the world they're calling me from, and I'm thinking, wow, we're gonna talk about how you fell in love with your best friend. Wow, we're gonna talk about how, you know, you- you- you- you feel the violence inside of you because of what you experienced at- at, eh, eh, was done to you. Wow, um, you know, you've actually had massive acne all your life and you don't have any sense that somebody could ever find you attractive. Well, I mean, I can rattle you like 25 of those.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, these are all, as you, as you're saying them, I'm thinking, if that was said by a- a woman, what is my sort of natural response? It's a, a awe.... it's sad. It's sort of coddling. It's, she deserves sympathy. Uh, and to hear it from a guy, to hear a guy say something about my body, there's a part of my body or my appearance that I'm ashamed of. And, you know, the- even in me, as someone I th- I'm trying to be pretty empathetic. I think I'm pretty empathetic. I'm like, there's a... The initial response is that's something that we should all get over, and how much of that is my own insecurities about myself coming up and not wanting them to be seen, not wanting them to be thrown into harsh light by, by that guy. This is, I read this phenomenal article, uh, yesterday, and this is a pretty unpopular opinion, but it's so unpopular I've literally never heard anyone say it before.
- EPEsther Perel
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
So, um, a lot of the time we talk about how men don't get a lot of support publicly for falling behind. We've got high rates of depression, suicidality, incarceration, drug addiction, homelessness, death by their own hands, dangerous driving, you know, death by cop, death by overdose. All of these things happen.
- EPEsther Perel
You're right, you're right. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And at the same time, much of this is pushed primarily by men who want to stand up for guys and say, "Systemically we need to change this thing. We should have an initiative that helps." Look at what happens when girls and women fell behind. We had Title IX. We had, you know, a cultural movement. We had Me Too. We had Time's Up. We had all of these things that came along. And for guys, they feel like they're being left behind. So this is, um, outwardly, men will say, "We should support men." Inwardly, when it happens one-on-one, men see a man who's struggling a lot of the time as kind of a bit icky and a little bit of an unreliable ally. Women see women that are struggling and men see women that are struggling as, "This is something precious. This is something that we need to look after. We should uphold them, the women are wonderful" effect. When men see other men struggling, there is a little bit of a sense of, "Well, we're part of a coalition, but we're also part of a competition as well. And the fact that this guy's falling behind a little bit, maybe that moves me up a little bit in the status ranking. Perhaps that means that they're not as tough and they wouldn't be a part of my coalition. I wouldn't go on the hunt with that person." So it's a very strange... Th- this article was r- really brought it into light. I think it was-
- EPEsther Perel
Who wrote it? Do you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I can find it and send it to you.
- EPEsther Perel
Oh, just send it to... I would love it if you send it to me. It'd be fascinating.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it's fantastic and it... I'd never seen any, any guy talk about the fact that men are not prepared to show up for other men in the way that women are prepared to show up for women, and even men are prepared to show up for women. Guys do not have quite the same level. And even the ones that outwardly talk about, "We should change the system, and there needs to be more funding, and we should have all of the..." When the rubber meets the road interpersonally, guys just-
- EPEsther Perel
So-
- CWChris Williamson
They treat, they treat struggling men with suspicion.
- EPEsther Perel
Yeah. It's s- um, it's... I mean, it's very interesting. Um, I often think, you know, the word loser doesn't exist in the feminine. And the word emasculated doesn't exist in the feminine. And I don't know if they treat it with suspicion as I think sometimes they react to it with a certain fear. It's, it's, it's the man you don't want to be. It's the man you're fr- you're afraid of becoming.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
You know? And part of the same thing that I said, masculinity, hard to acquire, easy to lose. If I am with a loser, I actually begin to fear, consciously or not for that matter, what I could lose too or how I could get there, how I could be there at the bottom of the pail. And, um, when I go to men's groups, I have attended quite a few men's groups where I'm alone with 60 men for three days and watch how they work with each other. I s- I have to say, it is when they show up for each other. It's, it's moving beyond... And sometimes I think of myself, would I be as moved if I saw women show up for each other? And I... This is to concur with what you say. I think of it differently because I don't see it as often. But I know it exists in the military, but I know it exists in, in different s- societies that are, you know... M- (laughs) the girls can be perfectly cruel to each other at a level that is just unmatched as well. So, but it's true that we don't see it as often. Men reaching out for each other, holding each other, weeping on each other's shoulder. I have seen a lot of f- fascinating studies for the military about that, dealing with grief. I mean, risking one's life to save someone else who is wounded. I mean, I think fundamentally, we raise our men to be prepared to die. And, and that in itself doesn't make it so easy then to see men who struggle.
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder how much the, uh, coalition and support that you're talking about there is because those men are on the same team. If you're in an army, if you're in a sports team-
- EPEsther Perel
That's correct.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, uh, I wonder whether men don't have that s- shared sense of unity right now, which means, "Well, why am I gonna show up for the guy that even lives next door to me? I have nothing in common with him."
- EPEsther Perel
Right, right. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"We're not on the same team." There was a great, a great study. Tracy Vianco from, uh, from Canada, you would probably seen this one, um, female basketball players on the same team-
- EPEsther Perel
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... showed less physical affection to each other than male basketball players on opposing teams. And-
- EPEsther Perel
And how did they explain it?
- 37:53 – 44:39
What is Pushing Men and Women Apart?
- EPEsther Perel
.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you make of this adversarial and tribal dynamic between men and women? You know, we can talk about the call coming from inside of the house, the fact that guys aren't showing up for guys and that women won't touch their basketball, but players the same way. Wh- what's driving men and women apart in the modern culture, do you think?
- EPEsther Perel
Oh, la la. I- I- I can only add a few thoughts. I mean, I- I- I think it's- it's bewildering. I think, um, I would s- uh, but I will say a few things, uh, for me, because it- it hasn't been a part of my experience. You know, I'm a s- I'm a '70s person. That was not our story. You know, I'm the generation with the pill and before AIDS. That was not our story (laughs) . Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What a time to be alive. (laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
Very free, you know, to be in your 20s.
- CWChris Williamson
What a time to be alive. (laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
It's like, you know, that was a total eff- period of effervescence and exploration and all of that. And, um, I- I, that was not the way we thought of it, as camps, as... That doesn't mean th- that we didn't understand the reality of m- of men. We don't, we d- but there was, there was more kindness, more empathy, more sympathy, but m- all in all, there was simply a lot more contact with each other. You know, I came here to the United States and I began to notice that they had women's night and men's night. And I just thought, "Why? Why don't you go out tonight? When to do the thing with the people that you know enjoy this the most? Why does it have to be segregated like this?" I found this segregation really interesting. I found the segregation of the sports activities interesting. I found the segregations of the summer camps interesting. I- I noticed this segregation all along. Now, that doesn't mean that this is uniquely a US problem, but there is something here that, in Anglo societies, that is- that is more intense about that. Latin cultures have their own issue around all of this. It's not like there's... There's nobody has a price here (laughs) . We haven't yet found a society that we- we can all model after. But it- it became then exploited. It did more and more, it became, you know... A- young five-year-old boys or six-year-old boys that had to hide that they were inviting girls to their birthdays. What is that about? You know, and on and on like this. So I think it- it magnified, it magnified because of the changes in society, because of the challenges of boys in school, because- because there is 50 years of a women's movement in which women have had the opportunity to redefine their identity as women, knowing that the lives of women will not change until the men come along.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm.
- EPEsther Perel
And the men need to take on their own way of- of redefining what it means to be a man and what is masculinity, but not necessarily to do it based on the rejection and the hatred of women. What I will add though is that there is, throughout history, a major m- mm... coming together between tribalism, between the genders and rise of authoritarianism.
- CWChris Williamson
Between the coming together of the genders and authoritarianism.
- EPEsther Perel
Because, no, no. Genders split and polarize-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- EPEsther Perel
... when authoritarianism rises or more reversed, when authoritarianism rises, you know, does gender split. The first question that Yuval Harari once asked me when we had a conversation together is, "Why does authoritarianism or fascism start with sexual oppression and repression?" Could be homophobia, could be, it could be anything that smacks the feminine part of what lives in a man. So weakness is considered m- feminine. The reason weakness is so scary is not because it's weak, it's because it's considered feminine. And the rejection of the feminine that is at the core of how masculinity has often reinforced itself throughout history. This is, we go back, back, back, to bring order, to bring strength, to bring structure, to bring (laughs) , you know, that's the coming together that exists each time. Every time you see fascism rising, you see a complete split between men and women. You see m- men wanting women back into the house. You know, you see women, you know, v- playing a version of it as t- you know, we could have had a trad wife conversation as much as we have a man keeping conversation. And it's an amazing thing to observe, because each one has to go back into their kind of core box-... the men go back into the box, the women go back into the box. Everybody's in place. No messiness here of people coming together, creating non-binary things, creating things that are more loose, more messy, more, more, you know, shh, all of that. It's, it, the, uh, we can go back all the way. It's been happening over and over. That's what fascinates me.
- CWChris Williamson
Are there any examples from history, any obvious examples from history?
- EPEsther Perel
Uh, I mean, s- national socialism for, as a close one, for sure. You know, the Aryan code, it was, you know, every, every degenerate art that represented men and women dancing, no, no, no, no, no. Sh- the beautiful paintings is that everybody's sitting around the table and she's serving the home-cooked food like a good fraulein. (laughs) No, no, this complete, everybody takes back its place. Nobody challenges the received order. It's neat, it's clean, it's divided, and no, and, and it's controllable. It's controllable by the forces above. Nice. You know? It, and throughout, throughout. It's a, it's a fascinating thing, because what is considered degenerate is considered anything where masculinity softens itself and femininity gets a little bit too much power. When, you know, the, the men are dr- long hair, the men, (laughs) the men dressing in certain ways, the men piercing in the ears and wah, this is all, "Where's the man? Show me the dude." You know-
- CWChris Williamson
How would you-
- EPEsther Perel
... given the force. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
How would you-
- EPEsther Perel
And the women reversed, sorry.
- 44:39 – 50:47
The Growing Separation of Societal Groups
- EPEsther Perel
- CWChris Williamson
How would you square that circle in the modern world? Uh, I know a lot of people say that we've got rising authoritarianism across the world, especially in the West. Uh, I don't know if that's accurate by the definition, but I certainly see lots of people talking about it. Um, and I also see, there is a, a, a pushback, there is a tw- trad wife movement. There are people just l- uh, increasing rates of church attendance, which I think is kind of a hearken back to that. It's more traditional, it's more rigid. But at the same time, we also have more acceptance of gay rights than we've ever had before. We've got more LGBT people than we've ever had before. We've got more trans youths and adults than we've ever had before. Uh, it seems like both things are moving in opposite directions at the same time. I wouldn't say that we're seeing a rollback in terms of acceptance, especially around, um, like some of the more progressive stuff.
- EPEsther Perel
I mean, I don't know if you look at, uh, at Russia as an example that is current, um, the homophobia and the rolling back of the LGBT presence and recognition. No, I think, I think that whatever has been acquired is actually what some people find is what has made society lose its compass. Is, this is like messy, dirty. These, men should be men, women should be at home. Everybody should do what's expected and be, and not... It's, it's, wh- what you describe is part of what is being seen as the problem. Now, why does it happen? Because I do think that whenever there is massive technological shifts, read from agriculture to industrial, from industrial to technological, from technological to AI, the man experience it as tremendously threatening.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- EPEsther Perel
Because the shifts are so fast, and if you're just one generation above, it's really, really scary, because you, you, you don't know how to handle it, how to continue to provide, how to take care of your loved ones, et cetera, et cetera.
- CWChris Williamson
And this plays into the usefulness conversation, because men need to be useful. They're going to be displaced by this new-
- EPEsther Perel
That's correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... more useful technology more quickly-
- EPEsther Perel
That's correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... than women.
- EPEsther Perel
When men are threatened in their ability to provide and to protect, this whole system starts to go in place. That's one way of understanding it. And the tri- and the tribalism is, is the mechanism for that. You know? It's not just trad wife. It's a whole kind of a dress with a pastoral thing and she has z- like zero ambition. It's wonderful. Like the only ambition is to, you know, pluck the avocado, and, and, (laughs) it's, it's very pastoral. It's incredibly old standing stories that when, you know how many boys are raised by hardworking single mothers these days? I mean, and, and the ma- the, some of the biggest entrepreneurs we find, that's their story. B- and they said, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make, and I'm gonna take care of her, and I'm gonna make sure that she doesn't have to hold two jobs." And it, the drive comes from the very witnessing of what it's been like to ra- to, and I think that s- if there, if there's almost a 50% divorce rate, that means that there's almost a 50% rate of me- boys growing up with moms alone-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
... seeing their dads and everything. And-
- CWChris Williamson
Let me give you, let me-
- EPEsther Perel
Now-
- CWChris Williamson
... let me give you this. You mentioned, you mentioned about some, uh, ugly, uh, examples from history. Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong all shared at least one thing in common. They hated their fathers. Remarkably, all three seem to have loved their mothers, and Hitler and Mao saw themselves in alliance with their mother against their father. So, good fathers may be able to stop world wars in that regard.
- EPEsther Perel
(laughs) I mean, basically what we're saying is that there is a real challenge for many men when they say, "I don't wanna be like this guy, either this brute, either this loser, either this drunk, either this absent. I wanna be different. I wanna be better." And d- why not?They should. They should be given this opportunity. Many women that living lives, I mean, look at me. My grandmother, sh- w- where was she? You know, I'm living a, I'm, I'm two generations away and I ha- I have a completely different reality. I want the man to have that opportunity too. You know? I want... And that, by the way, has to take place in community. This is not something that men deal with alone, you know, at their computer. It really demands solidarity, it demands reinforcement, it demands seeing people do this without thinking, you know, that's embarrassing. You know? It demands carrying your baby. It, lots of things that, that have, a lot of things have changed, you know. I mean, I remember the first times that men were brought in to watch the birth of their child.
- CWChris Williamson
That didn't always happen?
- EPEsther Perel
Men? No, no, no. No. My parents' generation, no. Didn't happen. (laughs) I don't think every man should be in the birthing room, mind you, or at least should stand exactly where she stands. Like most European countries, you know, make sure that you have the same view. But this was a r- this was a beautiful revolution. Whoever wants it should do it. But what it said to finally invite the ma- because it was, it came along with the beginning of the thinking about modern fatherhood. The birth of fatherhood, which came, of course, at the same time as women became more independent economically, is that he didn't have to just define himself by his material contributions, and he could also be an emotional unit.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah.
- EPEsther Perel
And it's great. I mean, according to me, (laughs) for whatever that's worth.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- 50:47 – 55:28
Why Do We Cheat?
- CWChris Williamson
Talking about, you mentioned divorce there. I read, uh, a piece from you recently where you said, "The real reason people cheat isn't always about what we assume. It's not just about lust or boredom or one too many margaritas. It's about something far more unsettling and sad, a sense of deadness in the relationship." What's deadness?
- EPEsther Perel
What is deadness? Complacency. Neglect. Estrangement. Lack of laughter. Lack of play. Lack of curiosity. Um, management inc 99% of the time. Um, criticism. Indifference. Um, if I'm here or if I'm not here, does it make a difference? Does it matter? Except you may not wanna be alone, but that doesn't mean you really wanna be with me. Um, all of these are expressions of deadness. Lifelessness. Loss, loss of vitality, loss of vibrancy, loss of imagination. It's a lot of things-
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- EPEsther Perel
... that deadens. I mean, interestingly, and, and, you know, I wrote an, a whole book on, on infidelity after 10 years of studying this state of affairs, and the one word that I heard all over the world when people would talk about their affairs, and I'm, there's a ton of different kinds of affairs, and I'm in no way romanticizing nor approving nor condoning nor encouraging. Just wanna put that out there before I even say a word. But people just said, "I felt alive." And the truth of a, a therapist's office is that we don't work with... The majority of the people we meet are not chronic philanderers, nor sexual addicts, nor narcissistic pricks. We see people who have been, or narcissistic prickettes, if you want, on the other side, it doesn't matter. But what we see is people who've often lived, you know, rather committed monogamous lives for decades, 10, 25 years. And then one day they cross a line that they never thought that they would cross themselves. And so for a glimmer of what? Why would people try to risk losing everything they worked for so long and so hard? For what? And that's when I began to think there's more here. You know? What is this deadness that people are referring to that would make people act out acts of exuberant defiance, to the point of really losing their pants, and skirts, whatever. This, and I'm, this is not a gender story at all. And so, um, I got very, very interested in what are relational betrayals and, um, uh, and how do we address them, and how do we create an approach that is more human and more helpful than the polarizing? And you're gonna hear that theme from me all the time. It's like I, um, it's not difficult to yell at each other.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a great point. It's very difficult to be patient with each other, though. To be understanding, to take a little bit of time, to take a breath before you respond. That's much more difficult.
- EPEsther Perel
Yes. To tolerate the other person's pain. That lot of, lot of things. To, to really m- You asked me, you opened the conversation by saying, "Why do some couples succeed and why don't they, and what is the fundamental incompatibility?" I think the most profound incompatibility is the ability to live with an other. Difference. Much of relationships is managing difference. An other person who stands there, sees the same thing as you, and has a very different experience of it. How can that be? You know? And I, the ability to re- to a- to really s- be, and then be curious about this person who is other, different, not you, not an extension of you, not there to make you feel good about you-... just is, whoever they are. And how do you come to accept that? It's called differentiation, you know, in a relationship. That, you know, that they perceive, experience, respond to the same situation differently, and that, that will not be threatening to you.
- 55:28 – 1:01:32
What are the Early Signs of Deadness?
- EPEsther Perel
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What are the early signs of deadness, or what are the ones that maybe people... I mean, y- you know-
- EPEsther Perel
Recognize? You know, there's one that I often think is an interesting one, right? You go, you have dinner with a bunch of friends. You talk, your partner starts talking about the movie they saw, the music they listen to, the book they read, and you have no idea who's talking. You know none of it. And especially these days, it's in the computer, it's in the phone. You don't even see a book on the table, (laughs) so, you know, uh, or not even a, a, a Netflix, you know, when you used to get a cassette. Something. Culture was visible. Now, it's like fshh. So... But they talk, and they have interesting things to say and people listen to them and they... Then you go into the car, and it's like, "Who's going to the supermarket tomorrow morning?" Or, "Who's picking up Joey?" Or, "Did you call your mom?" Or, like, nothing. And you just say, "Why don't you continue the conversation that made this person actually interesting to you?" Curiosity-
- CWChris Williamson
You were alive there, but you're dead here.
- EPEsther Perel
Yes. Curiosity is erotic. When I talk about erotic, I'm not talking about sex and turn-ons and excitement. I'm talking about a fundamental sense of aliveness. You can have sex and feel absolutely nothing. Women have done that for centuries. It's not... The act itself is not, uh, he- doesn't tell you anything about the experience. So, it's really, how do people feel alive? And, and that means you can do very little and feel a lot-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
... just 'cause you're imagining, 'cause you're, you know... The kiss that you imagine giving, as Proust says, is as powerful as the actual kiss. Just use your imagination. So, what ma- what is deadness is when people have kind of nothing to say to each other, don't engage with each other. It doesn't have to be conversation, but some- something that says, "I wanna reach out to you on the other side of the bridge." Like, "Knock knock." "Who's there?"
- CWChris Williamson
I've seen that in relationships, my friends' relationships, where they've turned up to dinner and, you know, they are one person when their partner's around and they're another person when their partner's not there, uh, you know, even the presence of their partner at dinner. And maybe part of it is that sense that, "God, if I let myself loose and become my true self with my friends in the presence of this other person, they're going to feel like, they're gonna know that there's something up. They're going to know that I don't feel that excited to speak to them, that I'm not that curious about them, that I have these thoughts and this level of energy that I just struggle to bring to this relationship." So, I guess, given that those are the, those are the early warning signs-
- EPEsther Perel
So I sometimes say to people, "If peop- if you brought 10% of the creative imagination, or if people brought 10% of the creative imagination that they bring to their affairs into their primary relationships, their life would be very different." It's an, it's, it's very interesting how people s- become lazy, become-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that a conscious choice? Is that, is that something that people can consciously step in to do, or is passion something which is bottom-up and it's emergent and you're, it, it, it sort of comes out of you?
- EPEsther Perel
Uh, no. Because love is a verb that you ha- j- you know, it's not a permanent state of enthusiasm. (laughs) You, you practice it. This is an Erich Fromm idea. You know? It's n- it didn't, it wasn't the original thing or that. It's like, you, you... It's a verb. You conjugate it in multiple tenses, and all the time. You do things that express this. If I, uh, if I play a sport, if you play a sport, w- you, it comes with a whole ritual. You get your, to your... What, what sport do you do? What do, what's your thing?
- CWChris Williamson
Cricket.
- EPEsther Perel
Cricket.
- CWChris Williamson
Cricket, like a good British guy.
- EPEsther Perel
Yes, yes. So you, you get your stick, you get your, you know, you have your clothes, you have your... There's a whole ritual that says, "I'm going to play." You know? And nobody says it should be spontaneous, it should be passionate and just kind of sweep you. It's, it's a very interesting kind of way that we have about thinking that there is a surge, there is a force. It feels like you're fearless in those moments, and you're, you're ready to, you know, to em- to embrace life with a vengeance kind of thing. But truth is that I often have said to people, "The person who comes home to your partner, to your spouse, is absolutely not the person who is, the other one is meeting. And now you wanna tell me that your wife is boring or your husband is boring?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EPEsther Perel
I mean, seriously? Um, you are boring too.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, they were interesting enough to be able to get this person to sleep with them.
- EPEsther Perel
You know, so it's, uh... (sighs) You know, I think, I think we could have two hours only on the subject of infidelity, because it's, it's a very powerful and dis- and painful and destructive and, and, and also repairing, you know, experience in people's, in people's lives. Um, I, interestingly, after having spent four decades pretty much, you know, researching couples and families, I began to think about other pairs. I got interested in other forms of partnerships, you know, friendship. I'm deeply interested in friendship these days. I'm interested in creative partners, I'm interested in co-founders, I'm interested in parents and adult children. I-... I, I'm interested in, in the concept itself of pairs, because pairs are rarely just two. There's often a third one lurking somewhere. The lurk- the third one can be the previous manager, it can be the parent, it can be, you know, it's not the- not just in the concept of infidelity do you have thirds.
- 1:01:32 – 1:09:37
Do Women Get Bored of Monogamy More Quickly Than Men?
- EPEsther Perel
- CWChris Williamson
I've heard you talk about this. I looked at the research as well and I couldn't work out what was going on. Women get bored with monogamy more quickly than men. Can you try and explain?
- EPEsther Perel
No. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Is that, is that borne out? Is that borne out in your experience? And, and what's the mechanism? Why, why is that-
- EPEsther Perel
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the case, if it's the case?
- EPEsther Perel
I know I've said that sentence here and there just to catch people's attention and because it's so counter-cultural. Um, but it actually is, um, quite true in the sense that... Here's how I- to, to understand it. Um, it comes from the research of Dr. Marta Meana, uh, who's one of- who, who, who was one of the main researchers on female sexuality. Um, and the idea was that we tend to look at male sexuality as unprompted, always ready to go, in search of an outlet, in perpetual motion, hard as steel, you know, enduring forever, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And as if, and this is, now I'm gonna say it for men and for women, as if m- the interior state of the man doesn't influence their sex life. If they're depressed, if they feel incompetent, if they're, if they're lonely, if, you know, if, if they're anxious. I mean, of course the inner life of men influences their sexuality. And so I debunked that, and then I said, but let's look at women. What do women do? They actually don't want things sexually that, that different from men, but we don't know what women really want, because throughout history women haven't done what they wanted, they have done what kept them safe. And therefore, what kept them safe was to not ask for much, to just kind of take it what, take whatever it was. When in fact, we- female sexuality is often seen as more subjective, as more contextual. Not necessarily rooted in desire per se, but often in willingness, in the story, in the romance, in the plot.
- CWChris Williamson
Less mechanical?
- EPEsther Perel
No, more contextual, I think, is the story. It's more driven by the plot. This is why women can be 10 years with a man, and then 10 years with a woman, and back to another 20 years with a man. Because the story, the relationship is what often will drive the attraction and the sexuality rather than something that is more fixed in that sense. So it's more flexible in that sense. It's more fluid. And therefore, it responds to the context, to the story. Is it interesting? Is it gonna be different? Is it about me? You know, in my work with straight couples, I hear a lot of men who tell me, "Nothing turns me on more than to see her turned on." It's great. I have rarely heard a woman say that to me about her husband.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's interesting.
- EPEsther Perel
"Nothing turns me on more than to see him turned on." On occasion that's her thing. No, what turns her on is what's happening to her, not what's happening to him.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- EPEsther Perel
If she's not into it, he can stand there with the biggest turn-on under the sun. It doesn't matter to her. She's not into it.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't that interesting that sexually both the man and the woman are pointing toward the woman?
- EPEsther Perel
Yes. And that's true in watching porn too. The man watch the woman and the woman watch the woman. So, what Marta said was she needs more risque, more imagination. It's not that she doesn't have an interest in sex. It's that she doesn't have an interest in the sex she can have after 10 years or whatever with the same person. Because what she... The same person who is extinguished in one place wakes up perfectly fine somewhere else. What she needs is the active engagement. She doesn't want to just do it. She doe- she wants him to not just want it. She wants him to want her. What turns her on is what happens to her. So, what, what's, what is the main obstacle for her is the fact that she finds herself often in a res- in a care-taking mode. She takes care of kids if she has kids. She takes care of him. She takes, she thinks about the wellbeing of others. And what really unleashes the desire is when she actually can stop thinking and worrying about others and focus entirely on herself and her own mounting sensations. Why does he say, "Nothing turns me on more than to see her turned on"? Because if she's turned on, he doesn't have to worry about the predatory fear. If she's into it, he's not hurting her.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, the, it's like, uh, an identify that everything else is okay.
- EPEsther Perel
Yeah, if she's into it, he doesn't have to... He's not forcing her. He's not hurting her. She's into it. That takes care of the predatory fear. Most guys don't wanna be predators. They want somebody who is totally into it with them.
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose the reason that that doesn't work in reverse is that guys are much more mechanical, that it's not as much of a reliable signal that everything is okay just because I'm aroused as a guy. Because lots of things can be really not okay, and I can still be pretty aroused. The same thing isn't true at the same level for women. So, um, it's a reliable signal. It's a reliable signal from her that-... yeah, I feel pretty safe. I think I've- this relationship is good. You, by virtue of that, are also good. You are useful. You make me feel safe. So on and so forth.
- EPEsther Perel
Yes, it's more, it's more than I feel safe. It's I know I am not hurting her. I am pr- you know, we are playing together. It's extremely important. The predatory fear to me is one of the primary obstacles that men have to free themself from in order to be able to let go and to be open and present, and the bur- releasing the burden of caretaking is the primary obstacle for women. So when I say women get bored with monogamy, it means that for women to remain interested in sex, they need to feel that it's interesting, fun, different, surprising, (laughs) and not the usual. Now, that doesn't mean she doesn't, she's not partly responsible for doing some of that. But it, it really says when women stop being interested in sex, it's not just because their sexual desire is lesser for women. It's because they respond to the context, and the context is not nearly interesting enough to remain interested in sex. That's the thorough, the thorough explanation of this one-liner. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It, it is. No, it is thorough, and it's very interesting. I saw a study that said, um, women typically believe their marriages have around the right frequency of sex, whereas men wished for more, around about twice as much sex as they were having. This suggests that many couples adjust their sexual frequency to the lower rate of desire by the wife. I thought that was really, really interesting.
- EPEsther Perel
That is true.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- EPEsther Perel
That is, that is accurate. When I say true, mean it's accurate. But I also think that we, remember what we said before, men often thinks that sex is the only way to experience certain types of intimacy, closeness, tenderness, affection, that therefore, they want sex twice as often. I think if they could experience it in other ways, and broader-
- CWChris Williamson
They would need sex less.
- EPEsther Perel
Not, not need. It, it, they would just have a more, a broader vocabulary. They would have a broader repertoire. It wouldn't be s- you know, it wouldn't have to be sex in order for it to, to... That, it's that. It's, they could be pleased in many other ways, is what I'm saying, and, and felt good.
- 1:09:37 – 1:21:12
How Do Men and Women Relate in the Workplace?
- EPEsther Perel
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned before about some of the changing dynamics, modern world stuff, women being, uh, uh, no longer financial prisoners of their husband, being able to have a little bit more agency or a lot more agency inside a relationship, before a relationship. Um, we talked before about Title IX, um, women in education, boys maybe struggling more. You've got to sit down and be quiet and do your homework and highlight like a good little boy.
- EPEsther Perel
And sit.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
Sit the whole day. I mean, come on, you have testosterone. You need to move. I mean, it is a challenging time for everybody, but I think that what is demanded from, for the, the transformation for what men have done in terms of how they use their hands, how they use their physical prowess, how they use their bodies, how they move, and now they have to just sit there in class. It...
- CWChris Williamson
It's a challe- it's a chall- you know, I mean, this is the whole ADHD diagnosis is not, uh, is not an accurate way to pathologize normal boy behavior, right? Like, this, this is exactly where this is laid at the feet of. But my point is, another change that we've seen has been the introduction of women into the workplace.
- EPEsther Perel
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, the women into the workplace that men are in. Um, what have you come to sort of learn about how... your perspective on understanding how men and women relate intimately, what is the perspective that you now have about how men and women relate in the workplace? What are the, the similarities that you're seeing between those two things?
- EPEsther Perel
I think I'm gonna actually answer it in a less gendered way. I think there are four primary pillars of relationships in the workplace, and they apply to all. And this is true in the romantic sphere as well as in the workplace. I think that what makes relationships possible is a sense of trust. So four pillars. One is trust. Do you have my back? Can I rely on you? Will you not betray me? Will you not lie? Will you not push yourself ahead of me at my expense? I can't think of this in a gendered way. I think this is true for anyone who works, and I like that. I like the fact that it is, it's bigger. It's a, it's a, it's a dimension that is just, you know... Trust suffers from a lot of definitional vagueness. It's very hard to theoritize about trust and to define it. Is it a condition? Is it a feeling? Is it an outcome? Who knows? But everybody knows when they feel it. And, um, the next dimension that is also is the feeling of belonging. You know, am I a part of this? Am I thought of when I'm not here? Do I have a place? Trust is also, can I disagree with you without having to fear negative consequences? So it also makes the... The trust is one of those salves against conflict and, and, and, uh, disagreement. Um, not disagreement, just conflict. And then the third thing is recognition. Do you value me? Is my work valued? Are my contributions valued? Can't think of it in gender terms either. I think women have certain issues around that that are different from men, but I think that the need in and of itself is a universal need. If you're gonna work, you, if you're gonna con- do something, contribute, show up, you, you wanna feel that nobo- somebody's noticing this. Am I visible? You know, some women think men get, get more of that. They get it easier. They have to prove it less.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- EPEsther Perel
You know, that...... you know, a mediocre guy can often pass when, uh, all of these lines which we've, we've heard left and right. I, I think to me what matters is not who wins, who has the title of greater victim, who suffers more. The thing is that these are human dimensions that are essential for relationships in the workplace. And the last one is collective resilience. And I love the fact that it's seen as collective resilience because I think mistakenly, we often talk about resilience as if it's an individual person's qualities, traits that live inside of them and that they're able to draw upon in order to resist and to face adversity. Collective resilience is how does a group come together in the face of challenge, crisis, adversity, change, and know how to tap into the social resources together rather than fracture and start blaming each other? And I think what is interesting in the workplace at this point is not so much what is different for men and women, I mean, that is interesting plenty, but it's really how much relationships in the workplace have become no longer soft skills, but hardcore, bottom line. And this is related to AI and to the fact that this is the last frontier of what humans have that is sep- that is different. So suddenly, there's a surge of thinking about what makes relationships in the workplace. Of course, what makes good relationships is connected to what makes a good culture, and what makes a good culture is related to what makes higher performance. So there's a straight line. And my, the way I developed this was in a partnership between my experience as a therapist in, in, in my work with relationships, but together with Culture Amp, which is an HR platform, and we had like 1.5 billion data points. Like I've never had evidence (laughs) like this. Like I'm a therapist, you know, I, I can count the people in my office. I don't, I don't do evidence-based, I do clinical evidence. This gave me a whole different entry into give it to me on a global scale, what are the important pieces that everyone needs? And I love the fact that these were gender-neutral dimensions that are experienced in gender-specific ways.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. That's interesting. I mean, we're certainly seeing a change in workplace dynamic. The working from home world that everybody thought was awesome because I only need to put pajama pants on and a shirt and I can... with my kitchens next door and no one really knows if I'm not on Slack and I can just do Zoom calls, I think people are sick of that. I think people are so sick. So you're right. These soft skills are now going to be the, uh, hard lines that people rely on when it comes to growing a business because workplace culture's back. You don't have a culture on Slack-
- EPEsther Perel
It's not just growing a business. It's also, I mean, how do you start? How do you start when you've, you, you start with doing online onboarding, with online interviewing, with online, you know... Where are you gonna learn? I mean, I'm thinking any one of us who went from in-person to online, we went retrofit. We had internalized all the skills, but the, every generation that comes and that has never known in-person-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, the remote native worker.
- EPEsther Perel
My God.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
(laughs) Because it's not just, if you work like that, you also don't go out of your house to shop for food, neither to exercise, neither even to meet friends, you know, you become contactless. And when you become contactless, you become atrophied. And then you can do as much longevity exercises as you want in your basement. But why would you want to live longer if you're miserable and lonely?
- CWChris Williamson
Well, this is the support that people used to get from a job, right-
- EPEsther Perel
It is.
- CWChris Williamson
... when they went into the office. This also is why office romances exist, that you're collaborating, that you already have some of these pillars, right? You've got some trust. "Well, this person being trustworthy, that's something that almost everybody wants in a partner. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, they make me feel like I belong. Oh, wow, that's, that's pretty cool. I feel like I'm part of their tri- Oh, they recognize me. Oh, that makes me feel like I..." You know, and-
- EPEsther Perel
Yes, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... between a world where workplace romances were disincentivized and discouraged a lot, and then another world that came on top of it, not only had they been disincentivized and discouraged, but then you weren't even in the workplace anymore. So that was a real sort of one-two punch, I think, of your new world of work, looking at the workplace, and your existing world of work kind of coming into conflict with each other.
- EPEsther Perel
I mean, I think one of the words that is often not used, but that is an important dimension of human existence is the power of transgression.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
Breaking the rules. You know, kids do it when they go into places they're not supposed to go, and adults do it when they have romances in the office, and people have, people have breached rules, people have transgressed people, that I think that we can study office romance or we can study the power of transgression. To do what you're not supposed to do gives people a sense of freedom. And when it's done playfully, it's one thing, when it's done hurtfully, it's a very different thing. But the power of transgression has existed since humankind was invented or came in, came into, (laughs) you know, orbit. It's not, it's not a new... You can disincentivize anything you want. You know, the church disincentivized masturbation for a long time, too. I've never seen that necessarily stop.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- EPEsther Perel
You know? They did it with, they did it with, with more guilt. But, you know. So when you go back and you ask me about these pillars, so then I thought, "Okay, if these are the things that-"... really are in, in important dimensions of relationships in the workplace. How can I f- help that? How can I bos- bolster that, boost it? Like what would be a tool? And that's when, you know, the thing we were talking about, what is the, what is one of the ways that we have helped not polarize has been through play. By playing with people who are (clears throat) different from you, as kids and then later on, play has often been a place where taking risk is safe and fun. And fun. It's safe because it's contained, (clears throat) sorry, within the rules of the game, and it's fun. So I decided I'm going to create tools that are playful, that are going to boost people's skills relationally. And-
- CWChris Williamson
You made a card game, right?
- EPEsther Perel
Yes, I did the card game. I also did the podcast, Where Should We Begin? I mean, everything I've done has been in that direction. I've had one thought, the quality of your relationships ultimately is what determines the quality of your life. You can have a very interesting job. If you're dealing with people who make it miserable for you and you can't sleep at night, it doesn't matter. I mean, the, the quality of your relationships, you want meaningful, thriving relationships at every level and in every sphere. So what can I do to improve that, to support, to support that, and to do it in a way that is not didactic, not scolding, not tribal, not even universal, but playful?
- 1:21:12 – 1:22:02
Find Out More About Esther
- CWChris Williamson
I love it. Esther Perel, ladies and gentlemen. Esther, you're, you're fantastic. I really, really appreciate you. It's been a lot of fun. Where should people go to keep up to date with all of this stuff that you've got going on, to play your card game, to do everything else?
- EPEsther Perel
EstherPerel.com. Card game is Where Should We Begin: A Game of Stories. One for your life, for your friends, your family, et cetera, and one for work. So it's called Where Should We Begin: At Work. Podcast, Where Should We Begin?, on every platform where you listen, and if y- they follow you and you tell them to come to me, then we will meet.
- CWChris Williamson
Heck yeah. Esther, I appreciate you. Thank you.
- EPEsther Perel
It's a pleasure. Thank you so much.
- CWChris Williamson
(music) Congratulations. You made it to the end of the episode, and if you want more, well, why don't you press right here? Come on.
Episode duration: 1:22:02
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