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Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Released Wednesday, 10th April 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows

Wednesday, 10th April 2024
 1 person rated this episode
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

In celebration of the Trinity Collection's

0:02

100th anniversary, this forecast is supported

0:05

by Cartier. From

0:13

the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This

0:15

is Modern Love. Today

0:18

I'm talking to the most famous

0:21

couples therapist in the world, Astaire

0:24

Perrell. Astaire's

0:26

books, Mating in Captivity and State

0:28

of Affairs, have forced so many

0:30

of us, myself included, to rethink

0:32

our assumptions about love. Like,

0:35

maybe it's unrealistic to expect the passion

0:37

and fire we feel at the beginning

0:39

of a relationship to last forever. And

0:42

when one partner cheats on the other, what if

0:44

it could actually bring the couple closer, instead

0:46

of tearing them apart? On

0:49

her podcast, Where Should We Begin, Astaire

0:51

lets us eavesdrop on sessions with real

0:53

couples. People come to her

0:55

with impossible problems, and she somehow guides

0:58

them to a breakthrough. She

1:00

gives them hope. When

1:02

I listen to Astaire's podcast, I

1:04

feel like I'm getting a free therapy session. So

1:07

I wasn't surprised in the slightest when

1:09

she told me that people come up

1:11

to her in public all the time

1:13

and ask her deeply personal questions. The

1:15

grocery store is one place, but airplanes

1:17

is even better. Oh, no, Astaire. If

1:20

I were you, I'd be really scared

1:22

to fall. They're

1:24

suspended in the air, and they tell you

1:26

lots of things. And

1:29

it is often about, can trust

1:31

be repaired when it's been broken? Can

1:35

you bring a spark back when it's gone?

1:38

Can you rekindle desire when it's been

1:40

dormant for so long? What

1:42

do you do when you're angry at yourself for

1:44

having stayed when you think you should have left?

1:47

Or what do you do when you're angry at

1:49

yourself when you've left and now you think you

1:51

should have stayed? You're like, I'm just at the

1:53

grocery store, man. Like, I need to check out.

1:56

Yes. Clearly,

1:59

people. are struggling so much

2:01

to be happy in long-term relationships that

2:04

they're cornering this woman basically everywhere she goes.

2:07

And these things people ask Esther about,

2:09

they're exactly the kinds of high-stakes, make-or-break

2:11

questions that come up in the essay

2:13

she chose for our show today. It's

2:16

called What Sleeping with Married

2:18

Men Taught Me About Infidelity by

2:20

Karen Jones. Karen's essay was

2:23

one of the most controversial pieces ever published

2:25

in the history of the Modern Love column.

2:28

But when it comes to talking about sex and

2:30

relationships, nothing is too taboo

2:32

for Esther. Esther

2:37

Perreault, welcome to Modern Love. It's

2:40

a pleasure to be here. So

2:42

you're gonna read Karen Jones's Modern Love

2:44

essay. We're gonna talk all about infidelity.

2:46

But before we get into that,

2:48

I learned something about you that I need to

2:50

know more about. You are

2:52

fluent in nine languages and

2:55

you conduct therapy in seven of them. Is

2:57

that true? Yes. So

3:00

I grew up in Belgium, in the

3:02

Flemish part of Belgium, and I was

3:04

educated in Flemish for 12 years. But

3:07

we also spoke French and German

3:10

and Polish and Yiddish at

3:12

home. Wow. So we had five

3:15

languages in the house and

3:17

then I studied Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew,

3:20

and English. That comes

3:22

to nine. Would you ever do

3:24

one more just to bring it to a

3:26

solid ten? I always wanted to study

3:28

Arabic. Okay, in your free time,

3:30

in your ample free time. One day. Are

3:33

there certain languages that have better vocabulary

3:35

for talking about the nuances of love

3:37

and relationships than others? That

3:41

is a very difficult question to

3:43

answer because my love language, the

3:45

language in which I learned poetry,

3:48

songs, novels, etc., was primarily

3:50

French. And so of course

3:52

I would say French. But

3:55

that may be because I was inducted in

3:57

it rather than the language itself. What

4:00

I can say is that certain cultures

4:03

are more fluent in

4:06

the language of feelings, love,

4:09

relationships, and desire and

4:11

sexuality than maybe

4:14

English or Anglo cultures that

4:16

are more pragmatic, more practical.

4:18

I think in therapy

4:20

sometimes I find that there is a

4:23

certain culture that allow me to speak

4:25

differently about death, differently

4:27

about the relationship of the

4:29

individual to the collective. What

4:32

I will say is this, in a therapy

4:34

session, if a person tells me

4:36

something and it

4:38

needs to be said in his own language, I

4:40

will ask them to translate it and to

4:43

say it in their mother

4:45

tongue because

4:47

you hear instantly the

4:50

difference, the tone, the timbre, the tremble,

4:52

and I know it. It's like I

4:54

don't even have to understand what they're

4:56

saying. I know that

4:58

there is an authenticity and a

5:01

truth to it that is very different. Sometimes

5:03

afterwards I said, what did you say? But

5:05

sometimes I don't even need to. I

5:08

know when they say, I feel alone,

5:10

I ache for you, I miss you,

5:13

where have you gone, I can't forget you. You

5:15

don't really need to understand

5:18

the words, to understand the

5:20

effect. Esther, the

5:22

Modern Love Essay you're going to read for

5:25

us today tackles a topic that I bet

5:27

is very hard to talk about in almost

5:29

any language. It's called

5:31

What Sleeping with Married Men

5:33

Taught Me About Infidelity by

5:35

Karen Jones. The author

5:38

Karen is recently divorced and she

5:40

becomes the other woman to several

5:42

men. When I

5:44

read that title, I kind

5:46

of expect this story is going to be about

5:48

all the sex she's having or the secrets or

5:50

how they're hiding it, but you've

5:52

worked with so many couples who are in

5:55

the throes of dealing with cheating. So what is the

5:58

word in the book? It's called What Sleeping with Married Men Taught Me About infidelity

6:00

signal to you. You know, I wrote

6:03

a book about infidelity. So I

6:06

would say that one of my attempts in

6:08

writing this book was to

6:11

translate in writing the

6:14

complexity of this experience

6:16

that can be so shattering,

6:19

that can fracture family and

6:21

an entire legacy.

6:25

It needs more than

6:27

just good, bad, victim,

6:29

perpetrator, villain, saint, that

6:31

there's too much happening and for too

6:33

many people that are

6:35

involved to try to reduce it. Infidelity

6:39

is often about a lot of things,

6:41

but sex. It's

6:43

about betrayal. It's about violation of

6:46

trust. It's about lying. It's about

6:48

duplicity. It's about deception. And

6:50

sex is a piece of this, but

6:52

that is not necessarily the only thing.

6:54

Oof, Esther, I am so excited

6:57

to hear you read this. Whenever you're ready.

7:01

Okay. What Sleeping with Married Men Taught

7:03

Me About Infidelity by Karen

7:05

Jones. I'm

7:14

not sure it's possible to justify my

7:16

liaison with married men, but

7:19

what I learned from having them warrants

7:21

discussion. Not

7:23

between the wife and me, though I would

7:25

be interested to hear their side. No,

7:28

this discussion should happen between wives

7:30

and husbands annually, the way we

7:33

inspect the tire tread on the

7:35

family car to avoid accidents. A

7:40

few years ago, while living in London,

7:42

I dated married men for companionship while

7:44

I processed the grief of being newly

7:47

divorced. And

7:50

I created a profile on Tinder and

7:52

on OKCupid saying I was looking for

7:55

no strings attached and counters. Plenty

7:57

of single men messaged me and I got

7:59

together. with several of them. But

8:03

many married men messaged me too. After being

8:06

married for 23 years,

8:08

I wanted sex but not a

8:11

relationship. This is dicey

8:13

because you can't always control emotional

8:15

attachments when body chemicals mix. But

8:19

with the married men, I guess that

8:21

the fact that they had wives, children

8:23

and mortgages would keep them from going

8:25

overboard with their affections. And

8:28

I was right. They didn't

8:30

get overly attached and neither did I. We were safe

8:33

bets for each other. I was careful about the men

8:35

I met. I wanted to make

8:44

sure they had no interest in leaving

8:46

their wives or otherwise threatening all they

8:49

had built together. In

8:51

a couple of cases, the men I

8:53

met were married to women who had

8:55

become disabled and could no longer be

8:57

sexual, but the husbands remained devoted to

8:59

them. All

9:02

told, I communicated with maybe a dozen

9:04

men during that time in my life.

9:07

I had sex with fewer than half. Others

9:10

I texted or talked with, which

9:12

sometimes felt nearly as intimate. Before

9:16

I met each man, I would ask, why

9:18

are you doing this? I

9:20

wanted assurance that all he desired

9:22

was sex. What

9:25

surprised me was that these husbands

9:27

weren't looking to have more sex.

9:30

They were looking to have any sex. I

9:32

met one man whose wife had implicitly consented

9:39

to her husband having a lover because

9:41

she was no longer interested in sex

9:43

at all. They both to some degree

9:45

got what they needed without having to

9:47

give up what they wanted. But the

9:50

other husbands I met would have preferred

9:53

to be having sex with their wives

9:55

and for whatever reason that wasn't happening.

10:00

I know what it feels like to go off sex,

10:02

and I know what it's like to want more than

10:04

my partner. It's also a tall

10:06

order to have sex with the same

10:08

person for more years than our ancestors

10:10

ever hoped to live. Then,

10:13

at menopause, a woman's hormones suddenly

10:15

drop and her desire can wane.

10:19

At 49, I was just about there

10:21

myself and terrified of losing my desire

10:23

for sex. Men

10:26

don't have this drastic change, so we

10:28

have an imbalance, an

10:30

elephant-sized problem so burdensome and

10:32

shameful we can scarcely muster

10:35

the strength to talk about it. If

10:41

you read the work of Esther Pirel, the

10:43

author of the book State of Affairs, you'll

10:46

learn that for many wives, sex outside of

10:48

marriage is their way of breaking free from

10:50

being the responsible spouses and mothers they have

10:52

to be at home. Married

10:55

sex for them often feels

10:57

obligatory. An affair

10:59

is adventure. Meanwhile,

11:03

the husbands I spent time with would

11:05

have been fine with obligatory sex. For

11:07

them, adventure was not the main reason

11:10

for their adultery. The

11:13

first time I saw my favorite married

11:16

man pick up his pint of beer,

11:18

the sleeve of his well-tailored suit pulled

11:20

back from his wrist to reveal a

11:22

geometric kaleidoscope of tattoos. He

11:26

was clean-shaven and well-mannered with a

11:28

little rebel yell underneath. The

11:31

night I saw the full canvas of

11:33

his tattoo masterpiece, we

11:36

drank Prosecco, listened to 80s music,

11:38

and yes, hit sex. We

11:42

also talked. I

11:45

asked him, what if you said

11:47

to your wife, look, I love you and

11:49

the kids, but I need sex in my

11:51

life. Can I just have

11:53

the occasional fling or a casual affair?

11:57

He sighed. If I asked her that

11:59

case, she would say, kind of question, it would kill her,

12:01

he said. So

12:04

you don't want to hurt her, but you

12:06

lie to her instead? Personally, I'd rather know,

12:09

I said. It's

12:12

not necessarily a lie if you don't

12:14

confess the truth. It's kinder to stay

12:16

silent, he said. I'm

12:18

just saying I couldn't do that. I

12:21

don't want to be afraid of talking honestly about

12:23

my sex life with the man I'm married to.

12:25

And that includes being able to at

12:27

least raise the subject of sex outside

12:30

of marriage, I said. Good

12:33

luck with that, he said. I

12:39

never convinced any husband that he could be

12:41

honest about what he was doing. But

12:44

they were mostly good natured about it,

12:46

like a patient father responding to a

12:48

child who keeps asking, why? Why?

12:52

Why? Maybe

12:54

I was being too pragmatic about the

12:56

issues that are loaded with guilt, resentment,

12:59

and fear. After all, it's

13:01

far easier to talk theoretically about marriage

13:03

than to navigate it. But

13:06

my attitude is that if my spouse were

13:08

to need something I couldn't give him, I

13:10

wouldn't keep him from getting it elsewhere, as

13:13

long as he did so in a way

13:15

that didn't endanger our family. I

13:18

suppose I would hope his needs would

13:20

involve fishing trips or beers with friends,

13:22

but sex is basic. Physical

13:25

intimacy with other human beings is

13:27

essential to our health and well-being.

13:30

So how do we deny such a need to the

13:32

one that we care about most? If

13:35

our primary relationship nourishes and

13:37

stabilizes us but lacks intimacy,

13:39

we shouldn't have to destroy

13:41

our marriage to get that

13:43

intimacy somewhere else. Should

13:46

we? I

13:49

didn't have a full-on affair with a tattooed

13:51

husband. We slept together maybe

13:53

four times over a few years. More

13:56

often, we talked on the phone. After

13:59

our second time, I was in the hospital. night together though, I could

14:01

tell this was about more than sex for

14:03

him. He was desperate for

14:05

affection. He

14:08

said he wanted to be close to his

14:10

wife but couldn't because they were unable to

14:12

get past their fundamental disconnect. Lack

14:15

of sex. That led

14:17

to a lack of closeness, which made

14:20

sex even less likely and then turned

14:22

into resentment and blame. I'm

14:26

not saying the answer is non-monogamy.

14:28

That can be rife with risks

14:30

and unintended entanglements. I believe

14:33

the answer is honesty and dialogue,

14:35

no matter how frightening. Lack

14:39

of sex in marriage is common and it

14:41

shouldn't lead to shame and silence. By

14:44

the same token, an affair doesn't have to lead to

14:46

the end of a marriage. What

14:49

if an affair or ideally simply the

14:51

urge to have one can be the

14:53

beginning of a necessary conversation about sex

14:56

and intimacy? What

14:59

these husbands couldn't do was have

15:01

the difficult discussion with their wives

15:03

that would force them to tackle

15:05

the issues at the root of

15:07

their cheating. They tried to convince

15:10

me that they were being kind by

15:12

keeping their affairs secret. They seemed to

15:14

have convinced themselves. But

15:17

deception and lying are ultimately

15:19

corrosive, not kind. In

15:25

the end, I had to wonder if

15:27

what these men couldn't face was something

15:29

else altogether. Hearing

15:31

why their wives no longer wanted to have sex

15:33

with them, it's much

15:35

easier after all to set

15:38

up an accountant in there. Thanks

15:57

so much for that reading Esther. You

16:00

know, it's so funny because Karen

16:02

Jones directly quotes you in

16:04

her piece. And I feel like

16:06

that is the first time ever we've

16:09

had someone read an essay where they're

16:11

directly quoted. Huh, nice. Did

16:13

anything jump out at you as you were reading? What

16:17

jumps out is she

16:19

tackles a lot of different things. The

16:22

subject of what is sexual aliveness,

16:25

what is it that people actually lose when

16:28

they stop being sexual with their

16:30

partner and how that loss of

16:32

intimacy makes the sex even more

16:34

complicated. She talked

16:36

about the loss, the longing that

16:39

this man has. I've often said

16:41

that at the heart of affairs

16:43

you find duplicity and cheating and

16:45

betrayal, but you also fight longing

16:47

and loss for the life

16:49

that one had, for the parts of

16:51

oneself that have been denied. When

16:57

we come back, I talk to Ester about

16:59

the harsh criticism this essay got and

17:02

why Ester thinks Karen Jones deserves

17:04

more credit. Stay with

17:07

us. In

17:12

celebration of the Trinity Collection's

17:14

100th anniversary, this forecast is

17:16

supported by Cartier. This

17:20

is Sarah Koenig, host of Serial. Our

17:22

newest season, season four, is about Guantanamo

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Bay. Remember Guantanamo? Still

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and it is unlike any criminal justice

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Dana Chivas and I, Dana is my co-host

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this season, we have been trying to do

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a story about Guantanamo for almost a decade.

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The problem was, for years, all

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the best stories Dana and I heard about what was

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justice system. From Serial Productions

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in the New York Times, Serial Season 4,

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Guantanamo. Listen wherever you

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get your podcasts. So

18:30

is there this essay by Karen

18:32

Jones was kind of a

18:34

lightning rod when it was published. A ton of

18:36

people were very critical of the author saying

18:38

she was sleeping with these men but then

18:40

also having conversations with them where she was like

18:43

it's very wrong of you not to tell

18:45

your wife what you're up to. Why do you

18:48

think this essay got so much backlash?

18:51

I think that the reaction to stories

18:54

of infidelity are often

18:58

intense. It's

19:01

a subject for which people are

19:03

very quickly dogmatic because

19:06

they have experienced the effects of

19:08

it. You know when I

19:10

am in an audience like if I was to

19:12

ask have you been affected by the experience of

19:15

infidelity in your life? Either

19:17

because one of your

19:19

parents was unfaithful or because you yourself

19:21

had a child of an illicit affair

19:24

or because you had a friend on

19:26

whose shoulder somebody is weeping or you

19:28

had a confidant of someone who is

19:30

in the complete bliss of

19:33

an affair or because you

19:35

are the third person in

19:37

the triangle and about 80% of

19:40

the people will raise their hands. Wow I

19:42

mean 80% sounds like

19:44

a surprisingly large number but when you

19:47

explain it like that with different tendrils of

19:49

an affair that affect everyone

19:51

around the affair not just the people in it it

19:53

makes total sense. And

19:56

it raises intense feelings in

19:58

people. she

20:00

may have gotten the range of it, but you

20:02

will hear more loudly the ones

20:04

who say, you are a homewrecker,

20:06

which by the way, does not exist in

20:08

the masculine. The

20:11

homewrecker is always a woman, because

20:14

the woman is the one who says yes,

20:16

and therefore, if the woman hadn't said yes,

20:18

then he wouldn't be able to do it,

20:21

and then he would not be wrecking his

20:23

family. Yeah, there's no

20:25

other man either, by the way, so

20:27

is the other woman. Huh, there's no

20:29

other man. No. Not in any of

20:31

the, you know, nine languages you speak.

20:34

No, because there's never been another

20:36

man who necessarily was willing to

20:38

live in the shadow

20:40

of a woman for his entire life.

20:43

That is so fascinating. Her lover, Saint-Aman,

20:45

you know, her lover, but the other

20:47

woman usually means that she lives in

20:50

the shadow. She doesn't just have a

20:52

secret, she is the secret. That

20:54

is the hardest thing about it. When

20:57

people are writing to her,

20:59

you can ask yourself, are they

21:01

looking from the perspective of what it meant for

21:03

her, or are they looking from the perspective of

21:05

what it did to me, or to

21:08

us? Yeah, I mean, a

21:10

lot of the criticism directed

21:12

at Karen Jones, it seems, is coming from

21:14

that perspective of saying, look what she did,

21:16

look at the harm she caused, look at

21:19

the pain she caused. Which it is, which

21:21

it is. Right. Not discounting

21:23

that, but it is interesting because her

21:25

piece is so much about meaning making,

21:27

right? That's the whole conceit of her

21:29

essay is mining these experiences for meaning,

21:32

and yet people came with criticism. You

21:35

know, I wonder if this is like a

21:37

kind of unfair question, but I wonder if

21:39

there is like an ethical way to be

21:42

the other person. Is there a responsible way

21:44

to do it without participating in hurt? That

21:50

depends. That depends if you

21:52

think the whole thing is unethical and

21:55

is an egregious betrayal of trust

21:58

and violation. then

22:00

you will say no. I

22:02

think the responsibility lies on the person who

22:04

goes out, not on the lover. Here's

22:08

what many people often say, it's like

22:10

if you had asked me, or

22:12

if you had told me, but you made a

22:15

decision without me, you made a decision about our

22:17

marriage that did not involve me at all. And

22:21

fair point. Of course, they know

22:23

for fact too, that if they had been asked, they would have

22:25

said no. But

22:28

there is this, you know, the things that

22:30

you say after and there is the things that you say

22:32

before. So ultimately,

22:35

I feel like I hear

22:37

you agreeing with Karen Jones

22:39

here, that there are really important

22:41

conversations that need to be happening

22:43

between these husbands and their wives,

22:46

that actually don't even have that much to do

22:48

with Karen. Can you tell me

22:50

more about that? The conversation

22:52

that Karen Jones would like these men

22:55

to have with their wives, is

22:58

the conversations that take place in my book, Mating

23:00

in Captivity. Because mating

23:03

in captivity explore the dilemmas

23:05

of desire inside relationships.

23:07

And why do people seize

23:10

wanting? And could they

23:12

want what they already have? And why

23:14

does good sex fade even in couples

23:16

who still love each other as much

23:18

as ever? And why do

23:20

kids often deliver a fatal erotic

23:22

blow? What happens

23:24

when they don't have this conversation? And

23:28

they go elsewhere. And it's not just a

23:30

conversation about monogamy. It's really a conversation, what

23:32

does sex mean to you? What

23:35

do you want to experience in sex? Is

23:38

it a place for connection? Is it a

23:40

place for transcendence, for spiritual union, to be

23:42

naughty, to finally not be a good citizen,

23:45

to be playful, to be taken care of,

23:47

to surrender, to be safely dominant? What parts

23:50

of you do you connect with through

23:52

sexuality, rather than how often do

23:54

we have sex and we

23:56

never have sex and why don't we do it more?

24:00

So that is a very different

24:02

conversation. But as Karen

24:04

points to in her essay and as you

24:07

certainly point to in your book, those

24:10

conversations are so difficult to have,

24:12

even though, you know, this is

24:14

the person we're supposed to be

24:16

the closest to. Why is

24:18

that? Because

24:21

we grow up learning to be silent

24:23

about sex and never talk about it.

24:25

And then suddenly we are expected to

24:27

talk about it with the person we

24:29

love. Or in other words, sex

24:31

is dirty, but save it for the one you love.

24:34

It's like we have very little practice talking

24:36

about it. You know,

24:38

we don't get any of it in schools. Certainly

24:41

most families don't talk about it either.

24:44

You know, and when we talk about

24:46

sexuality, we talk about the dangers and

24:48

the diseases and the dysfunctions. We don't

24:50

talk about intimacy. We

24:52

don't actually mix the word

24:54

sexuality and relationships as one

24:56

whole. Yeah. And

24:59

I mean, if we don't talk about

25:01

intimacy or the lack of it with

25:03

a partner that can in some cases

25:05

lead to people going outside the marriage

25:07

to find that intimacy they're lacking in

25:09

it. You know, I'm thinking about

25:11

Karen's favorite married man, the one with

25:14

all the tattoos. He says

25:16

it's not necessarily a

25:18

lie. If you don't confess the truth,

25:20

it's kinder to stay silent. In

25:23

your experience working with couples, is he

25:25

right? Is that true? This

25:28

is a very cultural question. Because

25:32

you live in a society here

25:35

that believes in the moral

25:37

cure of truth. But

25:40

there are many societies for

25:42

whom truth and honesty are not

25:44

measured by the confession, but

25:46

they are measured by what it will be like for the

25:49

other person to walk with this on the street. Meaning

25:52

that, you know, they

25:54

will consider the confession often as

25:56

cruelty. So

25:59

what? got it off your chest. So

26:01

now you're less guilty and now I have to

26:03

live with this? Why don't you

26:05

just keep this to yourself kind of thing?

26:07

This is very cultural because in the United

26:09

States that is not the common

26:11

view. The common view is that the confession

26:14

is the best state even if you're going

26:16

to wreck the other person's life for the

26:18

next five years to come. And

26:21

I am left with a question

26:23

mark but when I answer this

26:25

question I ask people about their

26:27

own cultural codes as well. I

26:29

do not impose mine and mine

26:31

fluctuates depending on the context. I

26:33

think these questions are highly contextual

26:36

more than dogmatic. You

26:39

know we've talked about how there's so

26:41

many unsaid things between a couple that

26:43

can lead to distance and

26:45

infidelity. If a couple

26:47

is feeling themselves drifting apart from

26:50

each other emotionally, sexually, both,

26:53

what are some things you could encourage them to do that

26:55

might help? You

26:59

know I like to coach

27:01

people to do letter writing. Sometimes

27:05

I make one person turn their back

27:08

and I make the other person write

27:10

a letter on the back of the other

27:13

person. Oh physically on the back. Yes but

27:15

it's a fake. You're pretending to write but

27:17

you're writing on the back but that way

27:19

you don't see the person. Interesting.

27:22

Hi Anna. This

27:24

is something that I've been wanting to talk to

27:26

you for a long time and I give them

27:28

the prompt. You know we

27:30

never talk much about sexuality between us.

27:32

For some reason I decided a long

27:35

time ago that you wouldn't want to

27:37

but maybe it was I who didn't

27:40

know how to. And

27:42

basically they write these whole letters in

27:44

which they end up telling each other

27:47

much of what they have never spoken.

27:50

I love that. What a kind

27:53

and beautiful and compassionate

27:55

way of easing

27:57

into a conversation you've been afraid of having.

28:00

Esther Perel, thank you so much for

28:03

that idea and thank you for talking with me

28:05

today. Thank

28:07

you for having me. Esther

28:17

Perel is on tour in the US

28:19

right now. Her show is

28:21

called An Evening with Esther Perel, The

28:24

Future of Relationships, Love and Desire.

28:26

If you want to visit for more details and to

28:28

buy tickets, she told me she's going to create an

28:31

erotic experience in these theaters so you do not want

28:33

to miss that. Modern

28:36

Love is produced by Julia Botero, Christina

28:38

Joseph, Reva Goldberg, Davis Land and

28:40

Emily Lang. It's edited by our

28:43

executive producer Jen Poiant and Davis

28:45

Land. The Modern Love theme

28:47

music is by Dan Powell. Original

28:49

music by Dan Powell, Marion

28:52

Lozano, Pat McCusker, Rowan Nemestow,

28:54

Carol Saburo and Diane Wong.

28:57

This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our

29:00

show is recorded by Maddie Maciello.

29:02

Digital production by Mijima Chablani and

29:04

Nell Gologli. The

29:06

Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia

29:09

Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. I'm

29:12

Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.

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