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Esther Perel: Relationships and How They Shape Us | Feel Better Live More Podcast

As human beings, relationships are fundamental to who we are. We know that relationships can be a big source of happiness and fulfillment in our lives but they can also be one of the major sources of stress.

Esther PerelguestGreat Minds Dr. Rangan Chatterjeehost

Jun 30, 20201h 15mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

65 min read · 12,892 words

0:00 – 0:00
Intro
1. EPEsther Perel
  [instrumental music]
0:00 – 3:50
Why Relationships Shape Quality of Life
1. EPEsther Perel
  This notion sometimes that people have that you have to know yourself first, you have to love yourself first, you know, and then you can go and be in a relationship never made sense to me, because you only know yourself through your interactions with others. The way I speak is influenced by the way you listen. The way I see myself is influenced by the way you see me. We are not just one person. We may have core characteristics, but we are shaped by the relationship in which we are. We make the relationship, and the relationship makes us. [upbeat music]
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Esther, welcome to the podcast.
3. EPEsther Perel
  Thank you. It's a pleasure for me to be here.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, me too. But we, we've had about 10 minutes of background stress trying to connect over Skype-
5. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs]
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... and then Zoom, which in many ways is the way of the new world in which we're living, right?
7. EPEsther Perel
  Yes, the tech meltdown is the new intro.
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I have been wanting to interview you for many years now. I, I love, like many people, love, uh, your work, your ideas, and so really grateful for you giving me some time today. Um-
9. EPEsther Perel
  Thank you
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... first of all, to provide a context for people, um, where are we having this conversation? I'm in my house in south Manchester in England. How about yourself?
11. EPEsther Perel
  I am in Woodstock, New York, where I have been, uh, confined since, uh, March, so tr- about, what, 12 weeks now.
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. Wow. Long time.
13. EPEsther Perel
  Yes, we have a different situation here, but, uh, slowly but surely, hopefully we'll have a, a bit of an opening up.
14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, for sure. Well, there's a, there's a lot I wanted to talk to you about today. Um, you, you're one of my dream guests where I would love you ideally in my studio for two hours, but I don't have that luxury, so I'm gonna have to see what I can get in one hour out of you. Um-
15. EPEsther Perel
  Un- unless we do it again at another time when, uh, when we're all-
16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  That's an offer I, I will say right now, I, I'm, I'm very happy to take you up on that any time. Um, but given the, given the short period of time we've got, I thought let's just jump straight in. A lot of people know you for your expertise on relationships, and why is it when relationships are fundamental to how we feel about ourselves, whether we feel fulfilled, whether we feel happy, why is it that so many of us struggle with what really is a core part of being a human being?
17. EPEsther Perel
  I think that, you know, we are wired for connection. We are social creatures. We don't survive well alone. And at the same time, our dependence on others, our interaction with others can cause us situations of utter bliss and situations of utter grief. The quali- I tend to think that it is the quality of our relationships that determines the quality of our lives. In the end, it is the people and the way they will remember you, and the way you will live inside of them that will give the ultimate, uh, description of the life you've led, and meaning of what you have me- what you have represented for others. You know, we like to know that we matter, that I mean something for, for you, and that you mean something for me. We're creatures of meaning, and this meaning-making is a set of stories that we tell ourselves about our relationships. Do you like me? Do you not like me? Do you find me attractive? Do you value me? Do you respect me? Do you think I'm smart? Do you think I'm good person? You know, will you leave me? All of these fundamental questions are continuously relational questions. That's why it's so core.
18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
3:50 – 6:31
Relationships as Stories and How to Rewrite Them
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You mentioned stories there, the stories we tell ourselves, and you know, it's interesting when you think about that, a lot of, a lot of our life, a lot of the way we see ourselves, a lot of the way we see our relationships is driven by the stories we tell ourselves about it. We, we, as humans, we're great at telling ourselves stories because it helps us make sense of where we are in our lives right now. We need a story. But if your story has become toxic within your relationship, how do you go about rewriting that story and telling a new one?
2. EPEsther Perel
  You come to therapy, right? That's one of the main things that we do in therapy, is we, people come in... When people come to see me, they often come with a story, of what's going on, of how they got there, of why this is happening, of why they can't change it, of why the other person is making them miserable, and they often come, of course, as experts about the faults of the other. Very few people come to couples therapy to say, "I came to check myself out." They generally come to tell you how they're an expert on the wrongdoings of the other, and then they'll watch you while you fix it. It's often like a co- couples therapy sometimes is a drop-off center, you know? But the story is what people come with, and my goal in my work is often that after the first session you will leave with a different story, because you're stuck in that story, and people generally come to see us 'cause they're stuck, and they're stuck based on a set of assumptions. The assumption is you don't care about me, you mean harm to me, you no longer love me, or I d- can never do it right by you, or it will never be good enough. These are stories, and these stories, what you call making sense, which I call making meaning, is what drives the, the thing. A relationship is a story. It's not just that we tell ourselves stories. A relationship is a story. It has an origin, it has a beginning, it has expectations, it has a plot, and all of that makes up for a story. There is no relationship that is not a story. Tell me about your relationship with your children. It's a story.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It really is. I went for a walk before this conversation today just to have a think about- ... what we might talk about. I, I tend to have free-flowing conversations that I have no real set order where they're going to go. But what really struck me, Esther, as I was walking was, you know, you're a relationship counselor, a relationship therapist, right? That's how a lot of people, I think, would know you.
4. EPEsther Perel
  Correct.
6:31 – 11:25
The Self Is Relational: Co-Creating Each Other
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But in many ways, what you're offering people is so much more than relationships, because if your relationship improves, you get to know more about yourself. So i- in some ways I think it's all about relationships, what you do, and in some ways it's not. It's about helping us understand ourselves better, because when we understand ourselves better, we're gonna show up in a much more meaningful, uh, and different way in our relationship with much less of our own baggage. So, so for me, I have this slight conflict, which I haven't, I haven't figured out yet in my head, that it is about relationships, but in many ways it's just about being a human being.
2. EPEsther Perel
  So that's part of... The, the reason you think this way, I th- I would say, is because we have a way of thinking that there is the relationship and then there is me.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
4. EPEsther Perel
  There is the self, and then there is the relationship. But the f- the, when you think in a relational perspective, like I am a relational thinker, and I am a narrative thinker, as in stories, then I don't see these two as separate. The self is relational. There is no way of thinking about yourself outside of that framework. This notion sometimes that people have that you have to know yourself first, you have to love yourself first, you know, and then you can go and be in a relationship, never made sense to me. Because y- you only know yourself through your interactions with others, even if it's the ones in your head, but they always are relational. So I don't divide those two things. And yes, when I think relationally, I think existentially. It's true. In the end, it is about being a human being. What's your place in this, in this earth? You know, what do you represent? What do you w- want to do? What do you want to leave behind? Who are you? Not just what do you do, and how do you perform, but who are you? And that who are you is always a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you. How much you are aware of yourself and how you impact others, and how much you realize what others are doing to you. You know, the story of a relationship, it's not just the story you tell yourself, because the story you tell yourself is influenced by the character that you have become in other people's stories.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
6. EPEsther Perel
  You know, one of the ways I've al- One day I threw out that line, and it became a real kind of guided, guide for me. I said to somebody in a session, I said, "You know, you have been recruited for a play in this relationship that you never auditioned for. And here you are, suddenly representing for your partner all those characteristics which you don't even recognize yourself." But this is what happens in a relationship. You enter somebody else's story, somebody else's theater, and you become a character in their plot. And let alone did you never know that you even applied to be that character, but you have become. Little did you know that you were gonna become the abusive brother. Little did you know that you were gonna become the adoring father. Little did you know, but here you are, you know? So the story is never just created by one person. It's a co-creation. The way I speak is influenced by the way you listen. The way I see myself is influenced by the way you see me. And this is why I think that the podcast of Where Should We Begin?, which is really about these stories of the relationships, became, became so, so attractive. Because for the first time, people began to see how the story gets created in other relationships. That gave them an idea about how their own story came into being.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. I, I, I, I think the podcast is fantastic. I would encourage everyone listening to this to, to go and check it out. It, it's something I've seen in my almost 20 years now as a doctor, as a medical doctor, that when a patient comes in and they're struggling with something, I'll often tell them, "Hey, you know what? You're... I've seen many patients like this this week. I've seen other people who've got just the same problem as you." And you see their shoulders drop-
8. EPEsther Perel
  Right
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... when it happens. Just the knowledge that this is not just me, and I'm not the only one in the world suffering from this, is quite reassuring and, and often opens up that avenue for change. And I think very much when I listen to those episodes of your podcast, we can all take little bits on our own lives and our own relationships. There's always a little thread in one of them which you think, "Oh, you know what? I wonder if that applies in my own marriage." Um, and, and it's easy. I, I guess it's the... In some ways it's one of the beautiful things about therapy is that there's a third person there. It's not just you and your partner trying to fix things between yourselves. There's a bit of distance by hearing it in someone else's story, right?
11:25 – 13:50
The Theater of Therapy and Hearing Others' Stories
1. EPEsther Perel
  How old are your kids?
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  My kids are, my son just turned 10.
3. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And my daughter is seven years old.
5. EPEsther Perel
  Okay. When they were a little younger, they probably got very interested in puppet theater.
6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
7. EPEsther Perel
  And puppet theater is exactly the same thing. The puppets tell a story. It's not exactly your story, but you can relate to the universal themes of the story. You see yourself in the puppet. Go, go, go, go get him. Have you ever gone to children's theater? I mean, they are those characters.
8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
9. EPEsther Perel
  And in a way, when people listen to the sessions of other couples, they have a little bit of that same experience, but in a more sedated version of it, the way an adult sits in the theater. Children never sit in a theater quietly and watch. They are entering the plot. They encourage the police person, "He's there. He's there. Go fetch him. Go fetch him." They encourage the, the, the, the good person to say, "No, no, no, no, no, you're in the wrong direction." And they go for good. They go for the good. You know, that's the important thing, especially if you take an example of a police person these days [laughs] you know? But, um, it's really a- Entering the characters of the other gives you an immediate experience about what happens to you.
10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
11. EPEsther Perel
  And couples therapy, I think is sometimes the best theater in town. [laughs]
12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It's... There's something about hearing it that you can't switch off. You want to hear more. You want to... There's... Yeah, they're, they're just incredible. It's like you are eavesdropping on a private [laughs] therapy conversation. It's, it really is, it's fascinating, it's insightful, and I think it helps a lot of people look at their own lives, looks at their, look at their own relationship. Maybe they can figure some stuff out on the back of it themselves. Maybe it's a trigger for them to go and see a therapist locally. Um, but, but something you just said, Esther, about these stories and, and, and just before that, which I can't stop thinking about, is this idea that we exist within relationships. So it's not separate. And you're right, humans are social beings. We've always thrived in community with people around us. So who we are by ourselves out with the community in some ways is irrelevant because that's not how we operate.
13:50 – 24:03
The Space Between Us: Action, Reaction and Criticism as a Wish
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Do you think in all your experience, all your clinical experience, that your relationships provide the ultimate mirror to look at your own behavior, to look at your own, I guess, inadequacies and insecurities? Are they really highlighted in relationships in a way that nothing else can?
2. EPEsther Perel
  Yes. Yes. I think that there is... I, I, I would put it like that, actually. It's more dialectic, you know. In order for me to know me, I really need to know myself through you, through my connections with people. But it can be strangers, it doesn't just have to be the intimate relationship. To the people who raised me, which is probably the origin story. You know, to my friends, to my colleagues. I- it's a mirror. But what's so interesting is that in, we tend to think that we are reacting to what other people do to us, and we don't know that they are also at the same time reacting to things that we do to them. That is what is amazing to see in relationships, is that we, we see ourselves at the receiving end. We're very aware, you made me feel, you set me up to, it's because you said this that I, you know, if you hadn't done that, I would never. And we see ourselves as if we are in reaction to. We don't often see the action. We only see the reaction. And the real awareness in a relationship is both/and. It's what I do to you that makes you do to me, that then sets me up to do to you, then that makes you say to me the opposite of what you ever intended to say, that then makes me say to you what I would never have wanted to say to you either, and here we are, stuck. It's this way that people tend to think a human being is a person, and they have a fantastic sentence for it, which is, "That's just the way you are. That's who he is. That's who she is. She's that kind of a person." And I always say, "With you she's that kind of a person, but we are not the same person with others." We are not just one person. We may have core characteristics, but we are shaped by the relationship in which we are. We make the relationship, and the relationship makes us, and the relationship is the dynamic between you and me. It's the space in between. It's not who I am and who you are. It's what we do to each other that draws from you certain things and that draws from me certain things, and that's the definition of a relationship. It's the space in between. It's a very different way of thinking about it than the two people coming together. No, it's what is it that they create together and what is it that they bring out in each other. Does that answer your question?
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It, it does, and whenever you speak, I have, uh, about five different thoughts that go in my head, and I'm thinking about my own relationship, [laughs] I'm thinking about all kinds of different things. Um, but, but one thing that-
4. EPEsther Perel
  You can make it concrete. You can make it... I, I think it's, if you give, if you wanna give a personal example, it, it kind of... You know, I'm giving you a theory, a perspective, but I'm happy to bring it into very granular level.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, I mean, I, I think, I think that would be a good idea. So we, we can try [laughs] that, for sure. Um, but before we do that, I, the thing I thought about, I remember in my 20s, right, I had a lot of back problems back then. And this may seem quite unrelated, and when I finish this thought, it may prove to have been unrelated, but what's really interesting to me is that I c- you know, I'd been to physios and chiropractors and all kinds of people to help me with my back, and ultimately I ended up at a spinal surgeon's door. He did an MRI scan, and he said, "Yes, there's a disc problem there." But then he said to me this, he said, "But Rangan, the thing is, if I took, uh, uh, 100 people off the street and did a scan, maybe 40% of them would have the same problem that you've got, but maybe only 10 or 15% would have pain. So I don't know if that is the cause of your pain or not. It's a static scan, and what matters is what happens to your back when you move."
6. EPEsther Perel
  So true.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And, and the analogy, why I thought of that is, is this whole idea that we exist within our relationships. How we are- Only when-- well, I, I can't say only matters, but it is dependent on that particular relationship. And that's not something I've really reflected on before. And I guess if you wanna bring it back to, to a personal level, I guess my wife might sometimes say to me, "Well, you're so lovely and caring and attentive with everybody else," right? "And sometimes you're not with me." And that can be taken as an attack. It could be ta- it could be said as something that is very frustrating. But I guess the way you're describing it, well, of course you might be-- different people, I guess, will be triggering you in differing ways, so you'll be reacting to that, right?
8. EPEsther Perel
  So here's the story behind it. First of all, the, your back moving is the equivalent of what I mean when I say a relationship is dynamic.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
10. EPEsther Perel
  And it's the dynamics, the dynamism, the movement that will determine what is the issue. Exactly the way that your back in motion will determine what is your issue. Perfect analogy. Here's the story that I hear behind what your wife says to you. Sometimes-- no, actually, I will not say sometimes. Most often, behind a criticism, there is a wish. When a person says, "You give the best of yourself to your work, to your colleagues, to your clients, to the people you interview, to your guests, and you bring the leftovers home," this is a criticism. But the wish is, I wish that I would get sometimes that same kind of very focused attention that you're giving Esther Perel right now. You're thinking with her. You're present. You're focused. You're not on your phone. You're attentive. You're engaged. You're alive. I want that person with me. And that is what many, many partners say. You know, "I know you have it in you because I know you're doing it elsewhere, but that's because you're motivated. That's because you can't get away with less. That's because that's the way you need to show up. Whereas with me, there's a certain way in which you know I'll be there tomorrow, so even if you give me pittance today, I should just wait and [laughs] for my turn," kind of thing. That's the story that lies behind. Now, that story sits on another story. When we met, I used to be that person who got that kind of attention from you. That's what drew me to you, your way of listening, your engagement, your aliveness. You made me feel special. You made me feel smart. You-- this is the next layer of the story, and I miss that. And where has that gone? And yet, I start to feel jealous 'cause I see it when you play with the kids, I see it when you are with your guests, and I think that what is between us becomes more perfunctory, task-oriented, management-ink. Where is our love story?
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
12. EPEsther Perel
  I thought marriage was gonna be a love story. So this, this is the multiple layers of story that are behind the kind of comment that she makes, and the answer to that comment can be, you know, "No, that's not true," or all kinds of defensiveness. But it can also be, "Thank you for reminding me."
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
14. EPEsther Perel
  "Because sometimes I forget, and I'm so glad that you don't. And please hold me accountable because what it means is that you have high expectations for our relationship, and I want that." Rather than say, "You're critical again. I can't do it right."
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
16. EPEsther Perel
  You know, there's a-- that will shape the next layer of the story.
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  So essentially what you have just done there is rewrite the story that we may both wish to tell ourselves about that conversation. It's, in some ways, it's, it's a great thing because it means she cares and that she wants a great relationship. Um, and I've gotta say, just continuing that, and I, and I wonder what you think of this, 'cause we have never t- I mean, to, to, to, to lay cards right on the table, I've been married now for about 13 years, and I think I'm-- I'd, I'd like to think my wife would also share the same view, that it's about as good as it's ever been. Um, but it doesn't mean there weren't some rocky times along the way, and we have both done a lot of personal work ourselves separately, but I think although when you do personal work yourselves, you sort of shift at differing paces, which can really change the dynamic within a relationship because I guess you meet with all your baggage, and then if you start to let go of some of that baggage, [laughs] in some ways you're not the same person anymore. So a lot of what I'm describing are things that used to happen a lot. I know in my own life and my own relationship, reframing that has been a crucial part of growth and a deepening of our relationship, and we have not had couples therapy, uh, yet. Um, but we want to. Not because we think there's a gross problem that needs fixing-
18. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... but because we, we're committed to being together for life. We're committed to growing together with the understanding that there will be ups and downs, but still, we've still got that common goal where we're heading.
24:03 – 30:19
Is Therapy Necessary? Democratizing Relationship Help
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Would you say that relationship therapy is necessary or advisable for all relationships, whether they think they've got a problem or not?
2. EPEsther Perel
  Maybe we could say relationship therapy is very useful, but you don't have to go to therapy for it. I mean, in that sense, I would say, um, this podcast, reading books, talking to friends, there's a lot of ways to do relationship therapy that isn't just about going to a therapist. You know, when I think of Where Should We Begin?, I think it has democratized psychotherapy, and couples therapy in particular. It has made it accessible. It's affordable. It's free. It's global. It's for people who have zero access to psychotherapy in the Western sense of the word, and it is highly therapeutic without being therapy. So that is also called relationship therapy if you want, but it's not about going to a therapist.
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
4. EPEsther Perel
  I think part of what you are asking me is what I was trying to do. You're saying, "Do I have to go to a therapist in order to engage in therapeutic processes, in therapeutic endeavors, in things that improve my relationship, that make it a more conscious relationship?" No. The same way that I wanted to take what I do in my office and bring it to the global world outside of the office because I thought this stuff that is said here should not only be said in my four walls. It really belongs in the public square. It shouldn't be a privileged practice for very few, it should be the way that people think about relationships with dignity, respect, joy, and aliveness, and sensuality for all. And so you are doing it without coming to me, and I am coming to you.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. I love that, and I think that's one of the beautiful things about technology and things like podcasts, is that people can get a window and they can listen in on conversations that they never would've been able to before. And as you say, it's free. So y- y- even taking out that cost equation-
6. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... away from people, if they want help with their relationships, start listening to your podcast, and actually they'll s- they'll learn a lot of tools that they can start to apply. Um, and, and I guess that's one of the things-
8. EPEsther Perel
  It had never been done, by the way.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
10. EPEsther Perel
  It had never been done, this notion. Everybody wants to know what really goes on in Rangan's life when he closes the door. What really goes on in the person I just had dinner with once they enter the car? You know, they look like this, but is this really the true story? What really goes on in other people's lives? And especially these days, where many people and many couples live in an atmosphere of fake news, where everybody can curate and filter their profiles online and tell beautiful stories, people are constantly wondering, "Am I the only one? W- how does that play out in other people's homes?" You know? When you say, "We used to have challenges, and then what we'd, we, we con- we deliberately went and tried to improve them." You know, relationships are continuously a story, what my f- my, my friend Terry Real calls of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Connection, disconnection, reconnection. That's the rhythm of a relationship, you know? It's not w- it was bad, now it's really good. It was bad, it's really good for this, and then something else will happen, and it doesn't even have to be put in the term of bad and good. Things emerge, new, new issues appear in life because we change, and that doesn't mean the relationship is bad, you know? And there is no perfect relationship. But to know all of that, people need truth, and the truth is not easy to come by because everybody today has a tremendous pressure to prove that their relationship is perfect, that they're doing great, and [laughs] this kind of fake happiness kind of thing. And in fact, people get a lot more when they know you have had loss, you h- d- you, you, you've had illness, you've had unemployment, you've had economic hardship, you've been finding it really tough to spend three months with your partner 24/7. Me too.
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
12. EPEsther Perel
  And how are you doing? Tell me what's been challenging for you. Tell me what you have found useful. Share the resources of your relationship intelligence with me.
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
14. EPEsther Perel
  And I'll do the same. And that makes the world a little bit of a better place.
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You say that there's a lot of pressure on us now to, you know, in many ways be perfect, and, and, um, [lips smack] you know, we're constantly comparing ourselves with others. Um, it's interesting the emotion I felt as I was talking to you about this comment that my wife used to say, uh, in the past, and I, I felt deeply uncomfortable [laughs] about talking about it because part of me is thinking, "Well, hundreds of thousands of people are gonna hear this conversation, and will they think I'm not a good husband?" Um, and the thing is, I, I, I'm a- I'm glad I'm aware of this. I'm aware that that was something that was going on. And of course, that to me would be indicative of some of my own insecurities perhaps that might be playing out in that moment.
16. EPEsther Perel
  And societal pressures. It's both, you see? If you just say individual insecurity, then you individualize the problem. If you combine it with, and societal pressure. You know, I thought it was beautiful what you said. And I, and I, and also I knew that you said things are much better. I took note of this. I did something with this. She didn't just say this for 10 years in a row. And I thought, "Nice. This is something that y- your audience wants to hear, is that you're amongst us. Me too," you know? And that you have your things, and that doesn't make you a good husband, a bad husband. But look how limited is the dialogue. The minute you show that there is something that could use improvement, it becomes a good husband, a bad husband, a good marriage, a bad marriage, and that is the pressure of the individualistic society in which you have to be at your best all the time and shine.
30:19 – 40:22
How Expectations of Marriage Have Changed
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Is that not one of the main issues today? So I'd love us to try and compare relationships from, let's say, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Is there a difference between those relationships and the relationships today? And w- and I guess what I'm getting at, one of the things I think about a lot, and this is not just in relationships for me, I feel that the culture in which we live, because of many things, let's c- let's take social media as an example, where we see the best of everybody's life. So even if you're having a great day in your home, you will see someone pre-lockdown-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Who's having a bad day. [laughs]
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah, who's having a bad day, who's having a beautiful breakfast, uh, looking Out on a beach in the Maldives. Or you may have just been on a holiday for two weeks and come home, and you know what? You're all stuck with your 200 emails, trying to get through the list of patients, you're trying to get and see, and someone else is on holiday. So this constant feeling of inferiorness to everyone around you, and I really, as a, as a doctor, I see this playing out in medical problems. Um, whether it's anxiety, depression, insomnia, gut problems, whatever it is, that sense of dissatisfaction plays out there. But I'm sure that plays a role in our relationships where, you know, these days, that we, we ask ourselves questions all the t- you know, am I happy? Am I fulfilled? You know, do I love my job? You know, th- there's always that feeling that there could be something better out there, and that, I think, is inherently problematic when it comes to a long-term relationship.
4. EPEsther Perel
  So the history of marriage or intimate adult relationships in a nutshell is this. Um, there is a massive difference. There is a massive difference because the expectations of our adult intimacies are unprecedented. We used to marry for survival, for the basic needs of the Maslow ladder, for refuge, for economic support, for family, children, companionship. Then we brought love to marriage, and then we wanted in marriage also to experience a feeling of belonging and a feeling of connection and intimacy, and then we made marriage or adult relationships an identity economy. I want to become the best version of myself. [laughs] That's a completely different set of expectations, and the way Eli Finkel writes in his book is that the good relationships of today are probably much better than the good relationships of the past, but there are very few of those people who manage to climb Mount Olympus and have an amazing view. The view is fantastic, but the air is also thinner, and nobody, not everybody gets up there. Now, what also changed is that relationships used to be part of our communal living, and when you lived in a community, you had a few basic needs that were supposed to be met by your partner, but the rest of your needs were met by your siblings, of which you had many, and by your community, and by your religious institutions, and by, and by your, your extended family. All of that today, our need for belonging, our need for connection, our need for specialness, our need for intimacy, sexuality, you name it, has been put onto one person, and today we ask one person in the West to give us what once an entire village used to provide, and that is a tall order for a party of two. This is the rise of expectations that has taken place, and you know, sex used to be for production. You needed many children. Now we have about two or three at best in the West, and that means that sexuality is for connection, for pleasure, for intimacy. That is a completely rewrite. We used to marry and have sex for the first time. Now you marry and you stop having sex with others. We used to think of monogamy as one person for life. Today, monogamy is one person at a time. We used to marry in our late teens. Today, we marry in our late 20s, early 30s. That is a completely different story when you already arrive quite ready-made, and what you want is for somebody to recognize how hard you've worked at making yourself, and vice versa. We used to never have divorce. It was married till you die. Now it's married till love dies. These are major transformations to the way we live our adult relationships, and in addition, we live in a world in which happiness used to belong to the heavens, and then we brought happiness down to Earth, and first it was a possibility, and now it's a mandate. You must be happy. What's wrong with you that you're not happy? What are you doing wrong? 'Cause if you did it right, you would be happy. And that is all the pressure that people feel that is around them when they look at their relationship and when they look at the happy people on Instagram. [laughs] That's a mini history of 100 years [laughs] in three minutes.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  And, and, and you, if you just sit with that and try and absorb it, of course, it's a natural consequence then that [laughs] relationships are struggling, that people feel dissatisfied, that divorce rates are going up in many countries, that, um, you know, that relationships are such a source of pain and anguish for so many people. They have rapidly changed. Again, I like drawing analogies, like the food environment has changed so rapidly that we've not had time to evolve and actually come to terms with all this hyperpalatable processed food that is available everywhere. I guess same thing you're saying with, with relationships, and marriage in particular. It has evolved rapidly pr- and probably evolved in a way that many of us weren't even aware of. Um, it's just sort of crept up on us.
6. EPEsther Perel
  But we were aware of it. If you think about your parents, and if you think about your grandparents, or same for me, I will know everything I just told, I can see literally passing by generations.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
8. EPEsther Perel
  Divorce went up when women got more rights and when women got to have a modicum of economic independence so that they could survive-
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
10. EPEsther Perel
  ... without their husbands. You know, men have had a pr- a, basically a license to cheat, and women have basically been exc- excoriated for it. So it has also to do with the power dynamic-
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Sure
12. EPEsther Perel
  ... in the relationships, the way that marriages have unfolded, and that's why- The, it's very important to not just be romantic about the past and say we used to have-
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Right
14. EPEsther Perel
  ... lasting relationships because they lasted. You know, longevity has never been the marker of success. They lasted 'cause people had no option. They, people sometimes today leave for good reasons, and they have the option to do so, and that is actually commendable as well. At the same time, I think that people are often very self-critical. You know, the word failure did not exist till the end of the 19th century, and the way that people would constantly think they are a failure, they're not doing it well, it, and that has to do with individualism. In my grandparents' generation and your grandparents' generations, you had a good marriage if you fulfilled your duties, and you fulfilled your obligations, and you did the things that were expected from you, and your role was clear. The role of the father, the role of the mother, everybody knew exactly what they're supposed to do. These days, all the big decisions are on us, so we have a lot more freedom. We have unprecedented freedom, and we have unprecedented self-doubt, self-criticism [laughs]
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
16. EPEsther Perel
  ... from the minute you start to date to the minute you end. Am I happy? Am I happy enough? You know, is this a good relationship? Will I get it better? [laughs] You're constantly, like, negotiating.
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. I'm happy, but could I be happier is, is that sort of nagging thought in many people's minds. And, and I say, the, it's, it's really interesting that, that idea that we're saying, and I guess the story that society tells us, is that getting married and staying married is a barometer of success, right? So if you come from that standpoint, then not meeting that makes you feel inadequate.
18. EPEsther Perel
  Right.
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But you're saying it's not so... You're not necessarily looking through rose-tinted glasses and saying, "Hey, it was great in the past." You're just saying it's just different.
20. EPEsther Perel
  And-
21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  It's just different
22. EPEsther Perel
  ... I would add, and, I mean, I probably should have said that upfront, we live twice as long as 100 years ago. So when we used to say till death do us apart, the longevity of the marriage was a lot shorter than what we are hoping for today. We want 60 years of this kind of bliss. You know, part of what I do in Where Should We Begin? is say to people, there is not a one-size-fits-all. Let me show you what marriages look like or adult relationships from all backgrounds, from all orientations, so that you stop feeling that there is this one model, and if you didn't succeed at that, well, you failed. That you can actually reinvent your relationship, that the story is not over. Start writing differently. Your partner says A, and you've been answering B for the last nine years. Well, try say something different and see what happens. Now the story begins to change. And let me show you how you could actually change the story because when you change the story, you change the experience, and when you change the experience, you feel like you have agency over your life, and you're not just stuck there, you know, suffering till God knows when.
23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. Y-
40:22 – 53:56
Culture, Arranged Marriage and Autonomy versus Loyalty
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  you mentioned your parents, my parents, grandparents. It's interesting that culture also plays a role here-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... I'm sure, in terms of how we define a relationship. So my parents, for example, um, my dad was, came to the UK in the early 1960s. The British government were recruiting a lot of doctors from the Indian subcontinent to fill gaps here, and Dad worked here for sort of 5, 10 years, and then he went back to Calcutta, where he's from, for 10 days to get married. So he'd never met my mum before. Uh, his family and my mum's parents, you know, had arranged the marriage. You know?
4. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  They match you for culture, backgrounds, you know, the things that are typically frowned upon in Western culture, and probably as a kid and as a teenager I may have frowned upon. I grew up in the UK. But it's really interesting that I remember they never met till the day before their marriage. Never met. They get married. Mum then flies over and spends the rest of her life in the [laughs] UK with my dad. I think, wow, that is probably compromise on so many levels. You're not even individually choosing your partner, yet you then create a life together in a different country. Um, and to me, someone who's brought up in the West, it seems incredible that what you would, you, what you wouldn't really know your girlfriend or your boyfriend bef- or your fiance before you get married. It's just incredible. But w-
6. EPEsther Perel
  And I would add this, and she got uprooted from her entire family and her entire life to come and meet him in a world that was already his, and the, a level of adaptation that she must have gone through, the level of really starting from completely scratch, and I think the story of your mother is a story that is often told in literature but not enough inside the families.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. And was Mum happy, satisfied in her relationship? You know, I don't know, but I'm not sure that was necessarily what was top of mind.
8. EPEsther Perel
  No. What was top of mind was the joy she was gonna get from her children-
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
10. EPEsther Perel
  ... and particularly from her firstborn.
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
12. EPEsther Perel
  The way that family worked is that the, the, the, the connection came not from your partner particularly but from your children, and if you did well by your children, you had, you were proud-
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah
14. EPEsther Perel
  ... and you had done a, you know. It's a very different model of relationships. My, my parents is the same. You know, we, I come from the same tradition. I don't, I, I mean, my parents were Orthodox Jews, but, um, they, they came from r- arranged marriages exactly the same way. It so happened that my parents, who went through the war and then went through the concentration camps, when they came out, they had no family left with nobody to decide who sh- they should marry, and so they actually chose, but they chose people that would never have been chosen by their families.
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
16. EPEsther Perel
  They, they chose each other by virtue of circumstance, and did they think that they w- that the, the intimate relationship between the couple was not the center of the marriage. The family was the center of the marriage. That's touched
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  That, that is profound. The family was the center of the marriage. It's, it's so different, certainly for many of us. And, and it's interesting, on, on the podcast a few weeks ago, I spoke to Vivek Murthy-
18. EPEsther Perel
  Oh
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... the surgeon general under Obama. We just had a wonderful conversation, and one of the themes we talked about was our parents as immigrants from India coming over to the West, my to the UK, his to the United States, they came for a better life and material success. You know, we can get our own house, we can, we can work harder, we can progress up the chain. I don't think anyone knew at the time, I don't think my parents did, I don't think Vivek's parents did, I don't think they necessarily understood the full sacrifice they were making. Yes, on one hand, they might be getting more material success, but on the other hand, going back to what you were saying before about villages, communities, tribes, they lost their communities, they lost their tribes, they lost that support network. So there was... You know, I grew up, I didn't have any family around at all. Nothing, apart from one uncle about 200 miles away. That was it. And when I got together with my wife and see she's got loads of family, I think, "Wow, that's incredible. So you had so much help and support growing up." And it's just fascinating how the world has looked for commercial, materialistic gain, but at what cost has that come, you know, in terms of communities, networks, friends?
20. EPEsther Perel
  But did your parents create new communities? Because the community offered support, but the community also made demands.
21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
22. EPEsther Perel
  I mean, it never... You know, they go together. You are, you owe the community. You know, one of the questions that I ask people when they come to see me in my practice and when I work in conferences with companies or in the podcast is, that goes directly to the heart of what you say. Were you raised for autonomy or were you raised for loyalty? Were you raised for self-reliance and told you need to stand on your own two feet, nobody can ever tell you what to do, you need to figure it out yourself, or were you raised for interdependence, meaning you owe others, others are there for you. When you have a problem, the first thing you think about is, "Who can I call?" And you are part of a network of connections. Those are the two most important differences in outlook, and in the way we raise our children for that matter, to understand their relationship to others. You know, is the emphasis on the relationship to the self, or is the emphasis on the relationship to others? And I think your parents, which are, and particularly your dad in here, in this instance, who, you know, on the one hand he leaves his community, but on the other hand, he gains, he gains freedom. So he loses the support, but he gains in the ability to write his own story, and maybe to raise his children quite differently from the way he was raised, and maybe to practice medicine differently. And maybe your mother, and this is what becomes fascinating, you know, felt uprooted, but maybe she also on some level felt liberated.
23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
24. EPEsther Perel
  Maybe not. Maybe she felt really uprooted and not liberated, but this is where the modern era has created this multiplicity of identity and of stories.
25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
26. EPEsther Perel
  Of negotiation between the past and the present, between the collective and the individual. You know, the, uh, I'll give it to you as another example. The first episode in this season of Where Should We Begin? is a, is a couple that are religious that met. He's African American, she's Indian. They meet in religious school. They are together but cannot be together because they're in a devoutly Christian, uh, upbringing. And what she says is just an amazing sentence. She says, "My sexuality," as in myself, my identity as a woman, "has never belonged to me. First it belonged to India, then it belonged to my parents, then it belonged to my Christian school, and then it belonged to my husband. And this time I want to define it myself."
27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Wow.
28. EPEsther Perel
  And I just thought, you pretty much have told the history of people, women in this instance, you know, over many, many decades in this one sentence. And each one of these sentences represent an entire set of expectations, an entire set of behaviors, and an entire set of frustrations as well.
29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. There, there's, there's pros and cons on every single level. Um, you know, Esther, thinking about what you said about the two different types of, um, viewpoints in terms of how you're raised, it, to, to continue the story of my wife and I, um, because I agree that I think it's easier to relate to with a concrete example. Um, I think one of the biggest problems early on in our relationship possibly was a differing viewpoint on that. So I very much was, although I'm the youngest, for a variety of reasons I was responsible for looking after my family. Uh, that was my role within my immediate family. My dad got seriously unwell when I was about 18 or 19. He had to retire. Lupus, kidney failure. Suddenly our whole lives changed. So my whole adult life, until Dad died maybe seven years ago, all revolved around looking after my family, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That was, I guess in many ways, how I defined myself. I wouldn't think about what I wanted or what do I need to be happy. It was like, no, I, as long as everyone's happy, then I'm good. And then-
30. EPEsther Perel
  That's an important sentence, what you just said now. That is, that is the fundamental difference. It's not what I want, it's what I should do, and if I do it well and other people are good, then I know I'm good.
53:56 – 1:02:10
Rituals, Routines and Side-by-Side Connection
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I'd love to get to some practical strategies for people who are listening to this, and one of the most important things we do, and I've gotta say in lockdown it slipped by the wayside a little bit because of the various pressures of being at home, homeschooling the kids, trying to keep up with our workloads, but it's something I, I wrote about in my last book, called a tea ritual. So we know if we every day have at least five minutes, five minutes is a commitment. Often it's more than that, but the commitment is only for five minutes, we have to sit together, often when the kids are in bed, and over a cup of tea catch up, without a laptop, without a phone, just to catch up with each other. It is incredible that when we do that, even if it lasts 5 or 10 minutes, when we do it consistently, our relationship is completely different. We're closer, we're more intimate, we're more connected. What rituals do you advise people think about applying into their relationships that could have quite a transformative effect?
2. EPEsther Perel
  Right. So, um, by the way, just because you're, you're, you're gonna see a lot of these rituals, I did a special season of Where Should We Begin? with couples under lockdown. Sicily, Germany, New York, and Nigeria, where I had-
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  I heard Sicily and Germany. They were great. Absolutely brilliant.
4. EPEsther Perel
  And I emphasized routine, ritual, and boundary. Those are three important dimensions in relationships in general, but it is extremely important right now, and we are gonna be in confinement again. This is, we are in it for a good year or two here, so this is not over. And the routine, you know, what you do when you do the tea, is basically you're saying I'm setting, I'm cordoning off, I'm creating a boundary around the relationship that says now our attention goes to each other. Not to what we need to do, but to who we each are, and how much we value our relationship. What we saying when we do the tea is our relationship matters. It needs upkeep. It needs protection from all the stuff that in penetrates it all the time. It needs a ritual, the tea, because that gives it a meaning, a symbolic meaning. And it needs a routine, which is it has to be done repetitiously, and not at the same table where we worked the whole day, and not while we are answering our phones. And all of that makes you feel important, and it makes you feel appreciated. Not because you've done the good things, but because you, of the quality of the person. That is what is so important in that experience of appreciation. I enjoy my few minutes with you. I'm checking in with you. How are you? It's not what have you done, it's, it's who you are. And, and that attention is really enormously nurturing, and enlivening. It ma- brings energy into a relationship, and it creates an experience of vitality and aliveness, which really is essential so that you're not just surviving and functioning, and practical and efficient, but that you also are thriving. That's what you're doing. How people can do it, multiple ways, but the meaning of it is set. It, it won't change. It could be tea, it could be a walk, it could be sitting on a bench, it could be sitting in a bathtub. It could be, um, um, you know, massaging each other's feet. It could be on a bike, it could be on the top of a mountain. But essentially, every one of these rituals is going to have the same meaning. It's going to do the same thing. It's gonna say, "We are taking a moment to check in with each other, and nothing else matter at this moment but us." And when we do it, even for five minutes, it gives us such an enormous amount of energy to go and deal with the world and all the stuff that we have to do. It's just incredible. And it involves eye contact, and it involves touch, which is one of the things that is most important in this moment. There's very few people we can touch except the ones that are in the house with us. So this touch hunger is very, very much at the forefront of our relational experience at this moment. And that touch is a balm, it's a soothing, it's a calming, it's a grounding, it's a relaxation. It's everything that de-stresses us. And that's what you're doing with this tea. But I think what people have highlighted is gardening, it's walking, it's everything connected to nature. I've not heard people talk as much about nature. And because they've slowed down. For the first time in 150 years, we've slowed down. It has to do with food, it has to do with nature, it has to do with the elements. You know, water, earth, fire, sitting by the fire if they have that option. You know, um, it's very, very, very basic, the rituals and the routines that people have created together.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. When you say gardening or walking, you mean together with that somebody else. When you do those things together, that's when you bond and connect.
6. EPEsther Perel
  Yes. The walking is different from the tea. There's two kinds. There is face-to-face, and there is side-by-side. The walking is a side-by-side. It's like fishing. It's parallel. The tea is face-to-face. But look-
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  That must have a difference, right? Because face-to-face, uh, is, is intense. Right? There's a certain intensity with face-to-face, whereas side-to-side is a bit more, just a bit more relaxed. And I wonder, there must be a different kind of connection that comes about depending on whether you're facing each other-
8. EPEsther Perel
  Yes
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... or facing the same direction.
10. EPEsther Perel
  But they're not difference in intensity necessarily. Look, children, some of your best conversation with your kids are when you're lying next to them in bed, that side-by-side.
11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
12. EPEsther Perel
  And when you're in the car and you're driving together. And everybody knows that. So there is some freedom that you get from the side-by-side that allows you to actually go deeper, and it becomes deeply intimate, but it's side-by-side. And then there is a different kind of intimacy when it's eye to eye contact and it's f- face-to-face.
13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Sure.
14. EPEsther Perel
  But I, I don't think they're quali- they're very different, but they're not different as in one is deeper than the other.
15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
16. EPEsther Perel
  I think that that's misleading. And if you, y- you, when you know that your child in the back of the car suddenly comes with one of those incredible stories or questions and you're like, "What?" And then you just have this 12 minutes of drive, and you've just plunged. You didn't even realize you were still driving.
17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
18. EPEsther Perel
  Side-by-side.
19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. It's, it makes me think some of my most funnest conversations over the last years have been when my kids were a bit younger, and we'd be driving home at the weekend somewhere, kids would fall asleep in the back. And, you know, obviously you're driving on a, on a, on a motorway, so you're not looking necessarily at your partner.
20. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah.
21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  But you, you're in a confined space. None, none, none of you can escape anywhere.
22. EPEsther Perel
  That's right.
23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  You just have real deep and meaningful conversation. And at that, I heard, I think it was Seth Godin said once, maybe it was in the Tim Ferriss book or somewhere, I can't remember where, but he said he loves cooking with his children because it's a semi-distracted environment that allows, uh, some really deep conversations to come up. And since then, it's something I've tried with my children and it, and it works. You know, you're, you're just distracted enough where it doesn't feel so intense that you can't bring something up, and it's, I guess people can experiment with that. Um-
24. EPEsther Perel
  And you're in movement I think that the difference is between situations that are more static and situations that involve movement. The body is in motion, and when the b- well, that's why the walks are so important as well. When the body is in motion, it liberates energy. It releases energy, and that energy transforms into connection.
1:02:10 – 1:08:33
Starting Difficult Conversations
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  What about, Esther, when you wanna have a conversation with someone about something that's bothering you? Um, I'm conscious of your time, and so I know I also wanted to talk about work and how your new podcast is about relationships but in the work setting. And I, and I think this communication piece that I'd like to talk to you about probably fits with both of them. And so maybe it's a good time to, to talk about the work relationships as well now. But how we communicate grievances or things we're frustrated about or things we would like to address makes a huge difference. So I know with a child, for example, or frankly with anyone, that it's always best to lead with positivity. It tends to go better than when you lead with negative, and I just wonder if that's something you've seen in your relationship counseling, in work relationship counseling, this idea that sometimes people get frustrated, and then they go, "Look, you know, I can't stand it when you do this, and you always are late on this, and you always do this." I wonder if you could help give some practical-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Right
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... guidance to people with relation-
4. EPEsther Perel
  So here is a little exercise you can do that I, uh, borrow from my friend Dan Siegel. No. Repeat. Say it after me. No. No. No. No. So basically, I ask a person to repeat after me 10 times, no, and now start with a conversation. Then I'm saying, "Now let's do 10 yeses. And when I ask you to repeat yes, yes, yes, look at my face first of all. You can't say yes, you know. The whole expression changes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," and then you start a conversation. Often, when people wanna have a difficult conversation, they have already said 10 times no to themselves. "I won't accept this. This is not the way I want this to be. You cannot do this to me. No, no, no, no, no," and then you want to start to talk. You, there, it's very, very difficult. So that's the difference. It's not just that you need to say something positive as a start. It's that when you check your own body, your own physiology, your own heart rate, your own sweaty palms, you will know if you arrive with a massive amount of no, which basically means you're going on the attack. You're not going to improve the relationship versus when you enter with a state of yes. It's a state of mind. It's a state of mind, and a state of mind is a state of physiology and being. It's mind and body always together. But the thing is that, that in all the podcasts, How Is Work?, the entire first season, fourth season of Where Should We Begin?, I would say that probably one of the most important things I do is I engage with people in complex, challenging, i- innovative, surprising conversations, which when you listen, gives you the vocabulary for the conversations that you would like to have, even though they may be completely different. I do think that one of the most difficult things sometimes for people is how do you start? How do you begin this thing about something that is very challenging? And especially in this moment of social upheaval and Black Lives Matter worldwide and the pandemic, the kind of perfect storm, there is so many challenging conversations about grief, about loss, about unemployment, about economic hardship, about racism, about being anti-racist, about talking to your children about race, and all of those things, and how do you begin, you know? And what's very important to understand is that maybe more than talking about the positive versus the negative is to understand that the essence of a conversation is not so much in what you say but in how you listen. And so when you wanna come to somebody with a difficult conversation, it starts with, "There's something that we have never really talked about that I would love to bring up with you, you know? And I thought, and I think it could be much more comfortable to avoid it, but I know that w- you matter to me too much, or our relationship matters to me too much for me to just avoid it, you know?" And then you ask yourself, what are the themes of conversations? Is it somebody that you need to apologize to, or is it someone that you would like to receive an apology from? Is it somebody that you owe an explanation to? Now, what is the thing that you need to convey in this conversation? Is it someone who you feel has betrayed you, or you have betrayed them? Is it about trust? Is it about power? Is it about control? Is it about integrity? Those are the main themes. Do you value me? Do you care about me, and do you, and, and do you value my contribution? Power issues, control, you know, who makes the decisions, whose, who, whose priorities matter most. In effect, most impasses in a conversation or in a relationship with people are about power and control, care and closeness, and recognition and integrity, respect and recognition. Whatever people are fighting about comes down to these six themes primarily. So the reverse is what people need to talk about is less about the specific issues, but it usually means that it's about these themes, and that's what both podcasts show, is to have those conversations, and especially to do it and not forget the humor that is sometimes necessary. In the midst of all the crisis, there needs to be a room for the comic in the midst of tragedy. And so that's it. How Is Work looks at how we deal with our relationships in the workplace, the who we are, not just what we do at work, but who is there at work, and season four brings an array of diverse couples who are each grappling with the ins and outs of love.
1:08:33 – 1:13:27
Relationships at Work: The How Is Work? Podcast
1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. I mean, I've not heard the work one yet, so I think that's going straight onto my list to do next. Um, A, I'm interested, B, I have just started working this year with one of my best friends. We have resisted-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah
3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  ... for two or three years because we was, didn't wanna put any potential strain on our friendship. And we feel, we, we've done a lot of work on ourselves, we've had a lot of open and transparent conversations, so we have tentatively moved forward. So far it's been amazing, but it would be incredible to hear some of those experiences just to see, oh, this could be coming up, you know? Um, just be mindful of this, and I, and I think that would be really, really useful.
4. EPEsther Perel
  So im- it's exactly this. Everybody comes to work with an official resume, your CV, what you've done, and an unofficial resume, your relationship history. What you describe between you and your wife, for example, in terms of, you know, your devotion to your family and her wanting more the devotion to the marriage, you know, imagine that dynamic in the workplace because that happens all the time. People at w- go to work while they're busy taking care of others, and sometimes those others need additional care. How do you bring that up in the workplace? How do people not interpret it as you're working less, I'm doing more, I'm the one carrying all the load. How long is this gonna last? Have you been appreciative enough of me for doing this for you? Et cetera, et cetera. And it's really all of those relational dynamics in the workplace which ultimately determine if you're happy at work and how well you perform at work. Because more than money, more than free food [laughs] , more than any other compensation, if your relationships at work don't go well, you won't sleep well.
5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Why is it that you started this podcast on work relationships in particular?
6. EPEsther Perel
  So I first of all have worked in the work context, in companies, for a long time. I just hadn't done a podcast about it. But I also think that the workplace has come to me. I didn't go to the workplace. And what that means is this: never has the work of em- the world of emotion entered business and the work environment to such an extent. We talk today at work about authenticity, belonging, transparency, psychological safety. An entire emotional vocabulary has entered the workplace in ways that it never had. And so this is where I am. I've come with that vocabulary to a place that's realized it now wants to focus on it. Relationship intelligence, relational intelligence in the workplace was always considered a soft skill. Now it's actually considered a core skill for business success. People won't stay. People are moving around way too much if the relationships are not well. So a lot of this has to do with what is changing in the w- in the future of work. And I also think that, um, everyone understands this when you say, you know, when your relationships don't go well at work, it just is, um, impossible to go to and spend 10 hours there every day. It's, it's miserable, you know? And, uh, and but nobody had really just simply said, "You know what? This set of issues that I see happening in, in couples is what happens between people at work." It's the same issues. Power and control, care and trust, and respect and recognition. It's about expectations. It's about boundaries. It's about rituals. And especially when we move on Zoom and we're going into a digita- digitalized work, all these questions about how do you create the relationship, how do you create connection, how do you create support, trust, teams, et cetera, it's really what we're gonna be talking about.
7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah.
8. EPEsther Perel
  So I'm working now on season two of How Is Work [laughs] at the same time as season four of Where Should We Begin comes out because it's the... I change context, but the relationship issues remain fundamentally the same.
9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Yeah. Well, Esther, thank you for everything you've done over your entire career, the, the way you're bringing awareness to such fundamentally important issues for us to thrive as human beings. This podcast is called Feel Better Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of life. And clearly when we have better relationships, yes, that's gonna lead to us feeling better, and it's definitely gonna result in us living more. So always love to leave my listeners with just a few practical tips that they can think about applying into their everyday lives immediately. I wonder, you know, be as short as you like, but are there two or three top tips that you would leave my listeners with?
1:13:27 – 1:15:52
Perel's Three Closing Tips
1. EPEsther Perel
  Yes. Um, if you want to change the other, change yourself. You can wait for other people to change for a long time, but you can at any moment decide that you're gonna do something different. And when you change the, the, the story, their story changes as well. It really is a dynamic interplay. That's one. Number two, it's really important that you be able to sometimes simply say, "Can I listen? I think I just need... The best way to talk at this moment is to listen." And you don't have to agree with anything. You just want to give the other person's point of view space and validity. There is never just one experience in a relationship. There are multiple points of view coexisting at the same time. It's the beauty of relationship, and it's the challenge of a relationship. So that's the second one. The third one, don't ever leave play, pleasure, joy, fun for the end. They are incredibly important experiences of life in the midst of crisis. I think it's one of the most important lessons I learned from my own parents, who spent years in the war, and then years as refugees, and who basically explained to me, "We didn't stop loving. We didn't stop laughing because it was fundamental to our humanity in the midst of degradation." It's not true that you need to only stay serious and be efficient machines in order to get through things. You want to stay connected to nature, to beauty, to joy, to laughter, and especially to sensuality. So those are my three things for today.
2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  Esther, thank you so much for making time to come on the podcast today. If the invitation still remains that you gave at the start of the podcast, I would love to have you back on some point, either when you're next in the UK at some point, or when I'm in New York at some point in the future. But thank you so much.
3. EPEsther Perel
  It's a pleasure. Very much so. Bye-bye.
4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
  [outro music] Press subscribe to get more inspiration and ideas on how to feel better so you can get more out of life. And if you have a moment, why not check out this conversation that I've picked out as a perfect follow-up? Remember, lifestyle change is always worth it, because when you feel better, you live more.