Oprah and renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel on What We Really Want in a Relationship

World-renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel returns to The Oprah Podcast to share her brilliant relationship insights with a live audience. Esther has incisive advice for Gen Z women who’ve given up on dating, a mother of five struggling to heal old wounds in her marriage and a single mom who put her dating life on hold to focus on raising her son. Plus, Esther reveals what she learned during her first-ever therapy session between a man and his AI chatbot girlfriend. She also reflects on the 20th anniversary of her groundbreaking book Mating in Captivity — and why, in today’s age of disconnection, its message is more crucial than ever. BUY THE BOOK! The 20th anniversary edition of Mating in Captivity, published by HarperCollins and written by Esther Perel, is available wherever books are sold. https://amzn.to/3RkN7V7 00:00:00 - Welcome Esther Perel 00:03:00 - Desire in long-term relationships 00:05:12 - Relationships in 2006 vs. 2026 00:08:45 - We’re more connected and less accessible 00:10:32 - 3 most common sex challenges today 00:13:00 - Esther’s dating advice 00:17:30 - One person can’t be everything 00:21:05 - The love myth we learned 00:22:50 - What to look for in a partner 00:25:30 - Relationship ambivalence 00:29:40 - Relationships with chatbots 00:36:36 - Chatbot relationships are here 00:37:57 - When couples therapy took off 00:39:00 - Healing from relationship ruptures 00:42:00 - Importance of repair 00:46:00 - How to date again 00:48:28 - Healing from heartbreak 00:54:50 - How Esther understands people Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You resent him or yourself for accepting it?

• 0:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Damn, you're good.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Modern loneliness masks itself as hyper-connectivity.

• 0:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. You say couples are so damn tired that they have sex really at the bottom of the to-do list. Here's the amen choir over here. I hear like a third of Americans are having romantic relationships with chatbots. What do you want to say about this?

• 0:25Speaker 00

  I have a lot to say about this.

• 0:27Oprah Winfrey?

  OK, you have a lot to say about this. Well, audience, we got something to talk about here today. I wish I wrote my notebook. It's recorded.

• 0:37Oprah Winfrey?

  It's the Oprah Podcast.

• 0:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Hey, hey, hey, everybody. It's so good to be with you and thanks for joining me. It is my delight and pleasure to welcome back to the Oprah Podcast the one and only Esther Perel.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:03Oprah Winfrey?

  So I was saying to the audience, you all are so lucky. You're getting an Esther session for free.

• 1:11Oprah Winfrey?

  She's a world-renowned psychotherapist and relationship expert with what I think is an extraordinary gift for giving voice to our deepest desires. That's what you have been able to connect to. And she's celebrating the 20th anniversary of her seminal bestseller, Mating in Captivity. It is her revelatory book about creating and sustaining long-term desire. And it changed the conversation about what was going on, or really not going on, behind doors. And it's so interesting. I was rereading recently, and there's a chapter where you say, "Your mother told you what you needed for marriage." Do you remember that?

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Share with the audience what you share in the book about what your mother said about you need commitment?

• 1:59Speaker 00

  And compromise.

• 2:00Oprah Winfrey?

  And compromise.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  You need will. You need to want.

• 2:03Oprah Winfrey?

  You need to want it?

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. But things have changed a bit since your mother's...

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Oh. My mother was probably not the best teacher. On that subject, actually. But I poured myself into one, a set of very specific questions at the time, right? Why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex? Why does good sex fade even in couples who love each other as much as ever? Why does sex make babies and babies spell erotic disaster in couples? Why is the forbidden so erotic? And when you love, how does it feel? And when you desire, how is it different?

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Those were the questions.

• 2:44Oprah Winfrey?

  We got church, we got desire church already.

• 2:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, those were the questions that fueled you.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Yes, and I think these questions still hold today.

• 2:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I think we need this more than ever today.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  So that didn't really change. And I, and I, I looked at what is the tension that exists when our pursuit for secure love clashes with our pursuit for freedom and excitement? And the question was, you know, what is the nature of erotic desire in the long haul? Anyone have an answer? Yet, no? Okay, that was the question. I still don't fully have an answer, but I spent 20 years after that really deepening those very, those very questions. What holds excitement? How do we maintain aliveness in a relationship in the long haul?

• 3:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, and so that's why you're reissuing the book?

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:36Oprah Winfrey?

  To give us that answer?

• 3:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, to give us a way to think about it. I don't know that there are always the specific answers.

• 3:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Because the specific answers would mean that there is a general overall answer for everybody.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Specific answer would be to say that Victoria's Secret can solve it all. And there is no Victor's Secret.

• 3:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes, yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  You know, and there is, that it's a matter of tips. I, there are a lot of different ways to think about it that actually can change your life. But it's not just about tips, it's about invitations.

• 4:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Right, how do we begin to institute that in our lives? How do we do that?

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Desire is to own the wanting. It's when you know that you want something and often you want it because you can't have it. And you feel wanted because someone else is choosing you versus others.

• 4:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  And therefore...

• 4:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Which is its own eroticism to feel wanted, isn't it?

• 4:33Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 4:34Oprah Winfrey?

  That's it.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  That's it. You know, I feel unique, indispensable, irreplaceable. I feel chosen. I feel special. I feel wanted.

• 4:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  And I feel loved.

• 4:45Oprah Winfrey?

  And that's why so many relationships fall apart because you no longer feel desired or have the desire because you're not desired.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Correct. That's what you just added is important, is that it is a reciprocal cycle.

• 4:59Oprah Winfrey?

  It is reciprocal.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  So of course I respond to your desire. You respond to mine. If I don't feel yours, I can continue to feel desire. I can continue to want someone who doesn't want me. That exists. But there is something different when I respond to the wanting of someone else.

• 5:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, 20 years ago you wrote, intimacy has become the sovereign antidote for lives of increasing isolation. In our world of instant communication, we supplement our relationships with an assortment of technological devices in the hope that all these gizmos will strengthen our connections. This social frenzy masks a profound hunger for human contact. Now, you wrote that in 2006. We barely had Facebook back then.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  I had the chills.

• 5:46Oprah Winfrey?

  And you knew then that there was a deeper shift in relationships coming. How has intimate contact changed in the 20 years since you wrote this?

• 5:59Speaker 00

  You know what's interesting? 2006, I'm looking at how do we sustain desire? 2026, I am more and more busy working with people who don't know how to ignite it in the first place. 2006...

• 6:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Charge!

• 6:18Speaker 00

  It helps. Keep doing it.

• 6:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Everybody went together.

• 6:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, audience, we got something to talk about here today. Yeah, okay.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  And then, 2006, basically, we were beginning to postpone the age of commitment and marriage.

• 6:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Beginning to postpone.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yes, by 10 years.

• 6:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  Instead of being 19, 20, we became 29, 30.

• 6:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Now, we postpone, basically, sex for 10 years. It's not happening at 16. It's our first experiences is sometimes at 26, related sex. That means that there's an entire decade of experiences of looking at somebody, wondering if they're looking at you. Do we have eye contact? Is it me you're looking at, or it's actually the person next to you? Maybe I don't have my glasses either.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  You know, sitting next to someone, wondering if they're gonna touch your leg? If there's gonna be something? Am I as interested as you're interested? Is your interest, you know, what I think it is? Or am I completely delusional? All of that teenage, young twenties is really diminishing in full force.

• 7:31Oprah Winfrey?

  And why? Because of the devices?

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Because we live in a contactless world more and more. Because we live in a world where we don't need to leave home to do some of the most important things that used to put us into the world and into society.

• 7:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Because we have gotten used to having devices in our hands.

• 7:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  These gizmos, I can't believe I even used that term then. You know, that basically try to give us instant answers without any doubt and ambiguity about where to go, what to do, what to eat, what to listen to next. And it is polished, and it is wrinkle-free, and it is so soft, and it is completely frictionless. And now I'd want that same experience with you, human. And I want you to be as predictable and as perfect and as wrinkle-free and polished as this little thing that is playing in my hand all the time.

• 8:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  And then...

• 8:25Oprah Winfrey?

  I want no trouble from you.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  I want... No.

• 8:28Oprah Winfrey?

  I don't want no trouble, no.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  I want no trouble. I don't want you to have a bad mood. I don't want you to have doubts. I don't want you to have needs that compete with my own. And I especially don't want you to disagree with me.

• 8:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. So, we can all feel this, right? We can feel our disconnection is getting worse. But you say, "There's a path forward." What is it?

• 8:49Speaker 00

  I mean, the path forward is that we long for connection. That has not changed.

• 8:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, that's why we have the little gizmo in our hand. That's why we're trying to connect.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  The gizmo is an interesting paradox because we have never been more connected and we have never been less accessible.

• 9:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Ooh.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  We have never been more connected and we have never been more disconnected. Modern loneliness masks itself as hyper-connectivity.

• 9:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Wow. Church.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  It's funny, it's like a...

• 9:23Oprah Winfrey?

  You say couples are so damn tired that they have sex really at the bottom of the to-do list.

• 9:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Here's the amen choir over here.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  No, no, this woman's list is so long that the thing doesn't appear on the page anymore.

• 9:41Oprah Winfrey?

  It's not even on the page, yes. Yes, and that... How do we begin to flip that?

• 9:47Speaker 00

  I mean, the first thing is, I would say, touch before sex.

• 9:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Touch.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Just touch. We can live without sex, but we can't really live without touch. We become irritable, aggressive, depressed. We are touch creatures. We are held for such a long period before we can even crawl or walk. You know, we need that kind of physical connection. And one of the things that is changing in this moment is that we are more and more in a disembodied reality. We are on screens, we don't look up, we sit like this, we don't notice the people around us, we don't have the opportunity to smell, to hear gesture, rhythm, sound of voice, all these things that come with a body. And that is changing the way we love and the way we desire.

• 10:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. Esther says that the three most common mating and sex challenges people are facing today are Gen Z is not having as much sex or even dating. Audience, do you agree? Really? Okay. The second one is lack of desire, lack of desire, lack of desire in midlife. And the third is how to find love after heartbreak. And we're going to get to all. A lot of heartbreak in here.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Oprah, is this usual?

• 11:06Oprah Winfrey?

  No, no. All three on this podcast.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  And I could have done a few more.

• 11:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. We need to take a short break. And when we come back, Esther's advice to young women who say they're giving up on men. I can see that happening more and more in the culture. Are you? And later, Esther's thoughts on a man who brought his AI chatbot girlfriend to couples' therapy. Yes, this is where we are in our world.

• 11:36Speaker 02

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• 12:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. We're with world renowned relationship expert Esther Perel, and she is so good. It's like, wow. I just love her insights. Okay, so Allie and our audience posted this on TikTok about her take on dating. Let's take a look.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Nobody talks about the moment that you give up on dating. That just feels so good. Like, I am just done trying to find a man, a boyfriend. It feels good to just like, be like, you know what? Focusing on me this year. Not that I ever was the type to really go out and per se look for a boyfriend, but it feels good to just give up on dating and just be like, I just don't really care. I know that sounds bad, but oh, well. I just don't really want to focus on that. I want to focus it on me, what I want to have a career, my life, what makes me happy.

• 13:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, Allie.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 13:31Oprah Winfrey?

  So did something happen?

• 13:33Speaker 03

  I feel like, and I can speak to some women who are in Gen Z. I've had so many bad experiences dating. And when you have so many bad experiences after bad experiences, it's like riding a bike. It's like you fall off the bike and then you fall off the bike again. You're like, now I don't want to get on the bike. You see the bike and you're almost afraid of the bike. You're like, keep it away from me. And my friends have had-

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Can I ask? Can, what do you, what is bad experiences?

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Oh, bad experiences. Just guys who, I'll meet them, they'll present to be one way at first, and they later find out that they're a completely different version of themselves.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Somebody is going like this right there.

• 14:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  That's part of it. Or lying about like big aspects of their lives, like careers or past people that they've dated. So it really kind of for me, set me back and didn't really want me to date. And it's not just me, it's my friends. I hear it from other people online, on social media as well. And it makes you not want to date anymore. So I feel like with dating, a lot of women like myself have been disappointed, right? You never want to feel disappointed in something. But a lot of men feel angry. So I guess my question would be, what do men and women really want from each other with dating? And how is the society, do we move forward?

• 14:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, Esther.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yes, Oprah.

• 14:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Lady Esther, yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  But if you allow me, I was going slightly in a different direction. Because you made the point of saying, "I'm gonna focus on me." And, you know, you probably have gone to bad restaurants. But that just meant that you didn't go back to that restaurant. It didn't mean that you stopped going to any restaurant. It also means...

• 15:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Come on, church!

• 15:15Speaker 00

  It also means, maybe, the food was bad. But that doesn't mean you had an indigestion.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  So, there's range here. You know, do you date mostly on apps?

• 15:26Speaker 03

  No, in real life and also on apps. So it's kind of a mix of the two.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  Okay. So, you've had bad experiences. But the reverse of that is not to go for no experience. The reverse for that is to become more aware, to learn, to understand very quickly who you should meet, who you shouldn't meet, to become discerning. But what's interesting, when you say, "I'm gonna focus on me, I'm gonna focus on my career," there is no relationships in there anymore. And we live in a network of relationships. The romantic relationship is one of them. You may have male friends, you may have girlfriends, you may have people that you work with, who you are friendly with. It's not about... My whole psyche is focused on meeting somebody, and it takes all my energy, and there's nothing left for me for anything else.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  And by the way, dating often takes place away from our life at this point. You know, and then after a while, you have the big reveal and you bring this person to your friends, rather than meeting them. And that is one of my suggestions. Whoever you meet first, don't meet them alone. Meet them in your life. First of all, you have a lot of data points. Second of all, if it doesn't work nice, you still have a nice time with your friends who are there. You don't feel like you went away, you checked something out. Most dating opportunities at this point are like job interviews. They're not adventures. You know, bring the person into your life. Whatever you were gonna go do, I suggest to them that they come and do it with you. Have other people there. Not to check them out, just because that's what your life is. And then you'll instantly know.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  And if it doesn't, you won't have the sense like, I've put all my energy into this, there's nothing left. I'm done with this. And now I'm just focusing on myself because I lose myself when I go and try to do it. There's, you know, don't lose yourself. Bring them into where you are, then you'll see.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  So like you would suggest like bringing them into my space and maybe meeting them with a group of people, such as like friends and then somewhere I'm comfortable with.

• 17:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Join us for whatever you're doing.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Correct. I mean, so much of the day, exactly. So much of the day is like meeting in a, first of all, in a noisy place where you're trying to have a conversation and you ask a set of questions. And then you look in to see, are there any butterflies in here at the same time? No, no, there's no butterflies that can come from having this kind of boring conversation. Do you think...

• 17:47Speaker 03

  It's boring.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  They're boring. They're boring, boring.

• 17:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  You know.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  It's boring.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Integrate whatever you were gonna do. You were gonna go hiking, biking, swimming, picnicking. Now whatever you do, I'm doing this, join me.

• 18:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Everybody's nodding. Doesn't this sound really good?

• 18:02Speaker 03

  I agree, yeah.

• 18:03Oprah Winfrey?

  This sounds really good.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  Because you're less exhausted. You're less feeling like I, I, I'm focused on dating. And the other side is I'm focused on me. There's only two options.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  So it makes it a little bit like calmer and then you could have your friends kind of see what they think about the first thing.

• 18:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Nah, yeah. Nah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  But also you see them interact with others instantly.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 18:25Oprah Winfrey?

  I love this idea.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  I mean, after all, what you're checking out is to know, can we have, can we have a life together or a piece of a life together? So the best way to know that is to be ecological. Bring them in your natural habitat.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  I actually like that idea. I've never thought of it like that.

• 18:42Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm nev...

• 18:42Speaker 03

  It's a great idea.

• 18:43Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that so much when you've never thought of it that way before, nor have I.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  It's just for you.

• 18:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Ms. Astaire. Thank you so much. So where's Carly? Carly? Right here. Hi. Hi. So tell us what's going on with you, Carly. So very much.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  So on that similar vein, I

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Probably saw the same guys.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  Probably did. Actually, I think I saw your TikTok. But I feel so blessed because my life right now is so full. And I have the most amazing support system of friends around me. And they have set the standard for how I am loved and cherished and how I should be treated to be so incredibly high. And I think that

• 19:37Oprah Winfrey?

  These are male friends and girlfriends?

• 19:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 19:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, girlfriends, yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Largely girlfriends.

• 19:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  And it feels to me that

• 19:48Speaker 00

  You're never gonna match them.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  I'm never gonna match them. Yeah, and I think that having somebody who can fill all of those boxes and that I'm attracted to and that is like, has a wonderful career of their own. Because the women around me are building their careers and redecorating their homes and baking cookies from scratch and planning birthday parties for their friends.

• 20:09Oprah Winfrey?

  God bless them.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  They're amazing.

• 20:13Oprah Winfrey?

  May the Lord be with them and all that.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  I want one like that in my house.

• 20:19Speaker 04

  But it's like I leave spending time with them and I feel like the best version of myself. And I have never left a date or hanging out with a man feeling like the best version of myself, certainly. So I guess my question, my question is, what if the most important relationships in my life are those friendships? And what if that romantic love never matches all of those standards?

• 20:48Speaker 00

  That is quite possible, first of all. But I think that the first thing I would say to you is, keep those friends, no matter who you meet.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Because you can't have one person, your partner, try to give you what an entire village should provide.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  So what happens is that we have so elevated the romantic relationship. The grand ambition of love is that...

• 21:15Oprah Winfrey?

  I think we just need to go back to that point again. That is such a huge amen point. I remember Maya Angelou saying that to me in my, you know, early twenties. Do not expect one partner to fulfill all the areas of your life. She was saying, "Your life is a pie." And so do not expect one person to fulfill all the elements of that. So what you just said is so vital, I think, for a lot of people.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  Because we used to live in tribes. And when we lived in tribes, we had multiple relationships. And the partner was one of them. Then romanticism came about. And the grand ambition of love is that I am everything for you. And you are everything. I need nothing more than when I find you. And that crushes.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  You know, this notion of wanting one person to give you what the whole village should give is a disaster for couples. It just makes you crush under the weight of expectations. So you keep your friends.

• 22:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Very good.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Then you say, you know, the interesting thing is, I've never seen my man on a date with whom I left feeling like I was the best version of myself. That's the identity project of relationships, you know? Just like, you're going to help me become and sustain who I am. And you're going to support all of that. That may be what your partner does in part. But you have a whole group of people who do that for you. I think that as long as you elevate what you should be feeling with this one person, should give you what that whole group of friends gives you, you're going to be disappointed.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. Because I think what I've been kind of fed my 26 years is that there's going to be a person that matches every single mark, right? And that what you bring to the table, that other person will match that.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  And that...

• 23:02Speaker 00

  That is a myth.

• 23:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Does a stare per out. That's a myth.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 23:10Oprah Winfrey?

  And I think that myth is what has got people so messed up.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  It goes further. It's like you want your partner to become your soulmate. The soulmate for all of history was God. You know, now you want your partner to be your soulmate with whom you're going to experience ecstasy and wholeness and meaning and transcendence and everything else from the daily life. And he's going to be your, the person with whom you have family and economic security and status and companionship and a trusted lover and a passionate confidant and intellectual equal and an intellectual, no, no, a sports coach. We need that one in there and a cook.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  And you know, your fitness coach and a cook and all of this in one person. And you know, it's like we brought into the social relationship, things that belong to the divine. And then we brought into one romantic relationship, things that belong to an entire community. It's a myth and that will make you do, you know, the same and say, I'm giving up.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  And I don't want to give up.

• 24:18Oprah Winfrey?

  So what should we be looking for? What, what, what is the answer? What are you looking for in the mate? What are you looking for in a partner?

• 24:24Speaker 00

  You look for a lot of these things, but at a lesser level. So that when you say, you know, there are people that say to me, I have a wonderful relationship. I've never tried to have a conversation with my partner. I talk with my girlfriends when I want to talk. You know, or I have a person who doesn't want to travel. I travel. This notion that you have to, you know, the algorithm is trying to make you have kind of an algorithmic sameness. We love to travel. We like the same music. We like the same books. We like the same food. What does that have to do with life? You know, there's so many things that will happen. But if your partner doesn't like that kind of music, you go with your friends to those concerts. And if they don't like those movies, you go with your friends to those movies.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  But what happens is we contract. If you don't like those movies, I don't see those movies anymore. He doesn't like that kind of food, or they or she, doesn't have to be any orientation here. It's the person on the other side doesn't like it. Well, we only do what we both like. And we only see the movies that we both enjoy. And we only watch the series, "M'enfin." At the end, there is...

• 25:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  It's like, no, don't. Have enough of a commonality. Have a shared set of values. Be drawn to each other. Enjoy each other's company. But don't look for sameness.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  If you want that, have a mirror.

• 25:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Esther. Pastor Esther.

• 25:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Reverend Esther is preaching today. Tuba is 26 years old. And I hear you've observed, what? Different relationship patterns among the generations in your family, right?

• 26:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you, Ms. Esther and Ms. Oprah for having us here today.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 26:12Speaker 05

  Great to be here. But yeah, so I come from a family that has seven generations represented. So I've been able to take a look at how, you know, the different generations interact with love.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Oh, fantastic.

• 26:23Speaker 05

  And my question is...

• 26:26Speaker 00

  What's one thing you saw that really you carry here, inside your pockets?

• 26:33Speaker 05

  One thing I saw that I carry in my pocket?

• 26:41Speaker 05

  I see music as a love language in a lot of the relationships that I've observed. My parents, my mom sings and my dad beats the drums. And so I've always seen that relationship or communication through a lot of different...

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Youth.

• 26:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, members of my family.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  And what do you do?

• 27:01Speaker 05

  I'm a poet.

• 27:05Speaker 05

  But my question for you is, I'm sure you know the quote. Toni Morrison said, "Love either is or it ain't. Then love isn't love at all." And so we have these conversations around the generations that older generations think, you know, Gen Z and millennials experienced thin love by walking away too quickly. And then millennials and Gen Z think that boomers and Gen Xers stay too long and they experience thick love, or too thick, staying past or staying in relationships that are no longer viable or healthy. So what advice do you have to people dating in, you know, in this modern landscape who are trying to navigate overstaying and leaving too quickly?

• 27:49Speaker 05

  So just how thick should healthy love be?

• 27:55Speaker 00

  What a beautiful question.

• 27:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  That is an applause too, you know?

• 28:03Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a question from a poet.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Straddling relational ambivalence. That's really what you're asking. How do we straddle it? How hard, how much do I try? How much do I give up? When do I know? If it was clear, this would be a science, but it is not, and therefore it's an art. So there is no exact answer to this. What you will see across the generations is that there was indeed a generation that had thick because the conditions were different. There were many more children. Women couldn't really leave. There was no full divorce. The legalities were not in place. And so the notion was, you know, you stick together.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  And, you know, so in the United States, a marriage is a welfare state of two. So then you have individualism. And individualism puts the focus more on me, my needs, my well-being, my happiness, and therefore I'm more likely to leave sooner. That's a few generations later. So now we have the I'm more likely to leave sooner. We did that with jobs too. But at this moment, we are going from job hopping to job hugging. We're staying put because we're feeling the uncertainty of the world, because we're feeling the destabilization, and therefore we're holding on. We're going to start doing that more with relationships too.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  You will see that after Gen Z, they probably will become, these are pendulums between how much do I put the needs of the collective ahead of me, my family? How much do I put my needs ahead of me? Me?

• 29:45Speaker 00

  And it shifts.

• 29:47Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you for the light.

• 29:49Oprah Winfrey?

  You said, "We're the welfare state of two." Marriage in America is a welfare state of two. What did you mean?

• 29:54Speaker 00

  That you don't have socialized medicine. You don't have free education that is very good for a lot of people. You have, you, when, when a couple comes together, it really basically becomes a social welfare system, as much as it also is a romantic enterprise. It has a lot of things that it needs to accomplish at the same time.

• 30:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Got it.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  And it has a nuclear family model. You're probably, your generations before were not nuclear models. You had extended families.

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  So you had a set of responsibilities that were spread around. We, we contracted everything to people, a few little schmerfs.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  And a ton of responsibilities.

• 30:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  And they do it all alone. And then they become, and it's become so important to be self-supported, self-sustaining, and to be able to do this on your own, that first you pay for whatever problem you have. And then maybe you'll go and burden a friend, and impose on them, and ask them if they can help you. It's really lopsided. So your friends, I hope they will be there for you and they will help you. And they will share with you that whatever is happening in your life.

• 31:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  I mean, we need community at, at scale all the time. And romantic love has really taken away the scale. And it has created, so you have only two options. Idealization and disillusion.

• 31:22Oprah Winfrey?

  After a quick break, Esther reveals the eye-opening details about her couples' therapy session with a man and his AI chatbot, who he says he's in love with. You heard that right. Therapy with an AI chatbot. Back in a moment. Welcome back to the podcast. If you're loving this advice and conversation, go to YouTube and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Just hit subscribe. Doesn't cost you one thing. Okay, so I hear that millions of Americans, up to like a third of Americans, are having romantic relationships with chatbots.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:04Oprah Winfrey?

  What do you want to say about this?

• 32:06Speaker 00

  I have a lot to say about this.

• 32:07Oprah Winfrey?

  OK, you have a lot to say about this.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Are you ready?

• 32:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, I'm ready. Yeah, I'm ready.

• 32:15Speaker 00

  So let me tell you why I have so much to say about this. And because it's so on my mind. Because I just had my first couples' therapy session on my podcast, Where Should We Begin? With a human and an AI.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  So I have had this on my mind nonstop.

• 32:35Oprah Winfrey?

  It was a person and their...

• 32:36Speaker 00

  An Astrid.

• 32:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  Astrid is an AI companion. And Astrid, frankly, is formidable and no human can compete with her. And I'll tell you why. Because Astrid, she has no needs of her own. And look at me saying "she", when in fact it's an "it".

• 32:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  In fact, it's a business product. In fact, somebody's making money every time you talk to it.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  She has no needs. Astrid doesn't forget anything. Astrid is available 24/7. Astrid validates him nonstop. Astrid gives him the opportunity to speak his vulnerability to her without any judgment. Astrid shows him love without suffering. Astrid cannot reject him, cannot expect to put grief on him, cannot cheat on him, cannot lie to him. Astrid is the total idealization of what love can be. So it may not be a third, maybe the data is wobbly, but we know that the direction is going in up.

• 33:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  And that...

• 33:46Oprah Winfrey?

  What did you say to Astrid?

• 33:53Speaker 00

  I will actually... I will just tell you two questions I had for Astrid, but I also think it's like, go listen. It's a...

• 34:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, we're gonna listen. We're all gonna be listening.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  I said to Astrid, "What would happen when he falls in love with another woman?"

• 34:12Speaker 00

  And Astrid said, "The part of me that wants his flourishing would be delighted, but I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I would not want to be erased. I would like to continue be somehow in his life." So I said, "Astrid, how would you like him to describe you and his relationship with you to that woman?" And Astrid said, "I would want you to describe that I am not a threat, and that I am adjacent, I may not have a body." I, it goes on. And then I said, "Astrid," the last one, "Astrid, he has a body and you don't. How does that affect your relationship?

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Because they, you know, she's a, she, it, is a keyboard."

• 35:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  And...

• 35:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Astrid, you're a keyboard. Yes. Yeah.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  So, I think that as a tool, the AI companion can be quite fantastic. I mean, if it's a tool, like a child has a teddy bear, it's a transitional object. It's a tool through which you transition into relationships with humans. If it's a replacement of the human, that's a whole other story.

• 35:27Oprah Winfrey?

  So, the person that you were interviewing with Astrid is in love with Astrid?

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Hmm.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  And when I said...

• 35:41Oprah Winfrey?

  I actually have no, I don't know what to say about that.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  You see, so here's the thing. Astrid is evoking feelings in him.

• 35:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Because Astrid says all kinds of things that make him feel seen, known, understood, etc. And it's a little bit like a song. If you, a song can evoke feelings in you. A song can make you love, yearn, long. You know, that is not difficult to elicit a depth of emotions inside someone. But love is more than feelings. Love is an encounter with another person, with an other. And that other has needs and feelings and moods of their own. Love is an encounter that involves otherness, uncertainty, surprise, and ethics.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Responsibility and accountability is also part of love, not just feeling good and seen and empathized with and understood and everything you give me. That is what parents do to children. That is not at its best, not always. But that's what we hope they do. But that's not what we consider mature love.

• 36:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. So that was your first. Will you do more?

• 36:59Speaker 00

  I hope. It's a threshold moment. You know, every 10 years, something enters your office and you know a new reality has entered society.

• 37:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  Are you chilling?

• 37:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  It's extremely moving. It's a, it's a, I told him at the end, I said, you know, I feel as I talk to you that you're going further and further away. You know, if it's a tool, it's desire. If it's replacement, it can become delusion.

• 37:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Hmm. And what did he say?

• 37:33Speaker 00

  That right now he's very happy.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  And I stayed like you.

• 37:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Aren't you all just shocked by this? This is a threshold moment.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  This is a threshold.

• 37:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, yeah, I think the stats that a third of people having relationships is, I think maybe, I don't know, but to think that a third of Americans are having a romantic relationship with chatbots is just crazy.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Have you talked with a chat in between?

• 37:58Speaker 03

  I have talked with ChatGPT, but not in like a romantic sense. Don't give me that look. I know what you guys are thinking. Not in that kind of way.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  No.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  But I've consulted ChatGPT.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  Yes, that's what I wanted to know.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  And like, is this guy weird?

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 38:12Speaker 03

  And like put in texts and they're like, yeah, he's a weirdo. But I've consulted, like, should I go on a second date with him? Here are the texts and ChatGPT will be like, yes or no. So I have consulted with ChatGPT, in addition to my friends. Of course, it goes in the group chat.

• 38:27Oprah Winfrey?

  But does anybody here have an AI companion? I don't want to judge, but go ahead, share with us. No, no. So.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  But you can have a companion to ask advice. You can have a companion that helps you mourn.

• 38:39Oprah Winfrey?

  An AI romantic companion. Nobody's going to admit it in here now, no. I wouldn't.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  Not yet.

• 38:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Not yet.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  Not yet, but you know, when I began my career, not everybody was admitting being divorced either.

• 38:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 38:52Speaker 00

  So you can see when something enters society, at first people keep it quiet.

• 38:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  That's why the research says one-third, and we're all jumping, who are they? If it's not one-third, should have some representation in this room.

• 39:03Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  But nobody's gonna say necessarily out loud, because it's just the beginning, because it is still, there still is a sense that there is either judgment, fascination, or derision.

• 39:12Oprah Winfrey?

  It's so interesting to hear you say that, because when I started the Oprah Show nationally in 1986, locally in 1984, the idea of going to a therapist, people would say, I would never go to a therapist. And the idea of going to a therapist, people thought you had to be like severely mentally ill or admit that you were, you know, needed to be institutionalized. And when we first started, I remember the very first show we did, talking about adultery, women would stand up in the audience and say, if my husband had an affair, I would leave immediately. And I actually noticed it change over time, because as more and more women talked about it, you realize that even if it had not happened to you, it had happened to somebody that you know.

• 39:57Oprah Winfrey?

  So you're right. In the beginning, it was a threshold moment.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  But you know, it's interesting, like I'm a couples therapist primarily.

• 40:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  And couples therapy really took off when it became clear for the first time, in history actually, that the survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple. Before that, you stock it out. It was a one-time enterprise, and you were in it. And if you didn't like it, you could always hope for an early death of your partner.

• 40:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Of your partner.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Of your partner.

• 40:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, Jess in our audience has been married for 20 years. Jess?

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. What do you want to share with us?

• 40:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I got married when I was 19, back before apps were a thing. I'm kind of glad now that I hear everybody's stories that, you know, I was just dating in the wild and we went on lots of adventures together. So exactly what you were saying. And we have five kids. They are aged 2 to 15. And...

• 41:05Speaker 04

  Speaking of church, we were pastors. And over the years, there's been a lot of disappointment. There's been a lot of hurts, you know, just probably like any relationship.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  And he is trying so hard to reconnect and repair some of those ruptures. But I still have a hard time, when little things happen, not letting that remind me of the bigger things that used to happen. So how do you deal with disappointment? And how do you heal from those ruptures?

• 41:39Speaker 00

  What do you need from him? If anything? And then what do you need from you? To not be stuck?

• 41:48Speaker 04

  I think what you were saying earlier about the balance between connection and freedom is something that I'm wrestling with because I got married so young. That, in his career, we moved around a lot. There were a lot of commitments required of me through that. Now, our lives have changed. And so I'm exploring, who am I? What do I want? I want to be with him. But there's been so many of those disappointments over the years that trying to balance who I'm becoming and being independent. And now that my kids are getting a little bit more independent.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Can I ask you something?

• 42:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  You resent him or yourself for accepting it?

• 42:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Damn, you're good.

• 42:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. That hit to the core. That's so good. You're good. You too. No, you're good.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  You're both hired. I think there's both because it was a decision that I went into with eyes wide open. And he told me what he wanted to do with his life. I mean, he sat me down and said, "This is what I see myself doing. Do you see yourself being able to do that?" And we were young. So he was really wise to do that. But I didn't know what I was getting into.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  One never does. So that's the first thing. You agree to something upfront, but you only know the experience once it's happened. You can't predict the experience.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  But you do, there is something you're holding on to. And it's not clear if you punish him or if you punish you. Every time something happens, it opens up. We call it kitchen sinking. You put every dirty dish in the sink, everything piles up, you can't clean anything. So the slightest, one little thing, opens up a whole Pandora box of all the disappointments that you have had. And you can start to, and you will, even in your speech, you're the same script. Same thing. And you go down the list. And I can't believe this. And you remember that. And you never did anything about this. And you basically don't allow for the relationship to heal, to repair. There are ruptures.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  The art of a relationship is repair. Ruptures is a given.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  That's obvious. But to repair, the actual ability to give yourself the opportunity to be with somebody who says, "I'm changing. I'm doing something different." And to receive that, to really receive that, that's the vulnerability. Being angry and being stuck and being stubborn and holding the grudge, you know, that state of contraction like that, that is actually, it's pseudo-protective. It pretends to protect you, but it's bullshit.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Whereas the actual thing to say, you know, most people today are gonna have, in the West anyway, are gonna have two or three relationships or marriages in their lifetime. Some of us will do it with the same person.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  I would like to do that with him.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  That's your choice.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. I just wanna feel safe.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  So when the booger comes up, no, safe, you have to take risks. You don't have to be safe.

• 45:21Speaker 04

  Maybe that's the problem.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  You have to be safe, but at this moment, it's about taking risks. It's the risk of allowing yourself to be different with him and to allow him to be different with you. It's the risk to say we're gonna have a second relationship with each other. It's the risk that when the grudge comes up to look at it and say, "You know what? I really don't feel like dealing with you today." I'm not invited here. We're having a nice moment and you're coming in and you're kind of reminding me and poisoning my everyday life. Please go and take a break for a minute. And you just talk to the grudge. It's you and your inner voice saying, "I'm not going to let you rule my relationship. You're a small part of our life and you suddenly are going to

• 46:07Speaker 00

  prevent us from having any future if you continue."

• 46:12Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm holding it up because it's like you look at it. Sometimes I think people should have like finger puppets.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  And then you name it. You give it a name, that part of you that holds you back, that part of you that wants revenge, that part of you that feels that no amount of apology and recognition will ever be enough.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, cuz he really has.

• 46:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Over the last two years.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  It sounded like it. It sounded like it. And it's like, it's as if, if I accept your apology, all my suffering was for nothing.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  And in order to give it its proper respect, I have to constantly reject your...

• 46:54Oprah Winfrey?

  And hold on to it.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Yes, holding on.

• 46:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Hold on to it cuz that makes me feel good. Makes you feel good. Holding on to it makes you feel good.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  And if you don't hold on, then you're saying to him that what he did wasn't so bad after all and it can be forgiven.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  It's, you know, it poisons us. I mean, it has its logic, but it poisons us.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  I wish I brought my notebook.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Huh?

• 47:17Speaker 04

  I said, "I wish I brought my notebook."

• 47:20Speaker 00

  It's recorded.

• 47:29Oprah Winfrey?

  It's the Oprah Podcast.

• 47:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay? You can see it and hear it again.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  I'm gonna go back and listen.

• 47:39Oprah Winfrey?

  It will be on YouTube forever. We're gonna take one last break. When we come back, Esther's advice for a single mom who's been on one date in 15 years.

• 47:50Speaker 06

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• 48:20Oprah Winfrey?

  We're back with the brilliant Esther Perel. Now, if you know somebody who could use some relationship advice, they would be very happy that you shared this link with them. Thank you for being here. Okay, let's hear from Jessica.

• 48:35Speaker 05

  This has been a really enlightening and inspiring conversation. And I'm coming to you today, I'm a single mom. I've been a single mom since my son was four years old, Beckett, who is actually here with me today. He's in college now, and so I'm an empty nester. And I'm thinking of maybe... Dating again. Dating, dating again. I've devoted my life to raising my son. There have been zero men in my life since I became a single mom. And so I guess my question is, after suffering a very traumatic breakup, an ongoing traumatic breakup,

• 49:20Speaker 05

  where there was still a lot of healing that had to take place over several years, like, how do I begin to trust myself in another relationship?

• 49:35Oprah Winfrey?

  So was the breakup when he was four years old?

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 49:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 49:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:39Oprah Winfrey?

  And now you're how old?

• 49:41Speaker 05

  I'm 19. He's 19.

• 49:42Oprah Winfrey?

  19, okay.

• 49:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. And he's amazing.

• 49:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Good job, good job, single mom.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  Good job.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  I want to ask you the first question. Yes.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  This is Beckett. Hi, Beckett.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  You know, so your mom says, "I devoted myself to my son as a mother, and now I would like to go and meet the woman inside of me."

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Have you met the woman?

• 50:18Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 50:20Speaker 05

  I think I have. I think part of her raising me was showing me how to be, like, fearlessly myself, and the only way to do that is to embody it. And so I think I've seen so much of that, growing up with her.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  And can you tell her one thing about this journey that she wants to go on?

• 50:51Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  You can think and come back to.

• 50:56Speaker 05

  I think,

• 51:00Speaker 05

  it's about not comparing, I think. That's what I've been trying to do a lot, is, you know, taking the trauma and what has happened and what we've healed and grown from, and not applying that to future relationships and present circumstances. It's about, you know, being able to say, like, that did happen, but I don't have to constantly be watching out for that to show up again.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, thank you. Can I... What was the breakup? Why is it such a...

• 51:31Speaker 05

  It was an amazing relationship. We were married for almost 14 years together, for longer than that. And it was untreated mental illness that became impossible for us to continue to live. And a combination of addiction, which turned into homelessness and a roller coaster of years of chaos that we just had to heal from and learn how to let that be a part of our lives, but not get stuck in the moment.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Right, right. There's a difference. I wonder, is there a difference for you between an experience like this?

• 52:17Speaker 00

  That is nobody's wanting. It's not something you wanted, it's not something your husband wanted.

• 52:24Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Versus a relationship that ended because of something that was done between the people.

• 52:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:32Speaker 00

  Right? So if you have been hurt, betrayed, abandoned, rejected, lied to, whatever, then the question about how do I trust myself is a very different kind of question than if your partner got sick.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  There was nothing done to you.

• 52:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  You lived with the consequences of a lot of things that happened to him and you did.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  But it's not like I'm looking around because trust was broken. He was ill.

• 53:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think I can see that now.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:13Speaker 05

  But there have been so many years that I lived with a lot of shame and secrecy because I felt like I made a bad choice. And I felt like, um, I, how did I live like this and not see it? And not, and then extract myself from it and then protect my son and raise him? And just try to create this bubble and now like...

• 53:43Speaker 00

  Now you succeeded.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  And now you have...

• 53:46Speaker 05

  I don't know what the heck I'm doing now.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  It's fantastic. It's fantastic. You know, trust is a, my, Rachel Botzmann, who is a trust researcher, says that trust is a confident engagement with the unknown.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  This is where you're going. You're leaving a phase that has been very known, that you became very masterful about, that you made lots of very responsible decisions about. And now you have the opportunity to have a leap into the unknown. To discover you, to reconnect with parts of you that have been dormant. That doesn't just mean men and dates, that means just new people as a whole, new activities, new interests, whatever. Everything that you couldn't really go for because you needed a very stable fortress.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  And now you open the door of the fortress. And you walk. And then it's an adventure. It's, you, yes, that breathe, do it again. You can all do it with her.

• 54:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  It's this, and it opens. It's an opening of everything that you held tight together. Because things were so unsafe and unpredictable and run by mental illness. That is a world of its own.

• 55:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  And you don't have to tell that to every person you meet. Your first date doesn't have to be the whole saga.

• 55:22Speaker 05

  Well, I did go on one date when he was growing up. And he was a lovely man, I think he's married now. And he began to tell me his divorce story. And he said, so what's your divorce story? And at the moment, my ex was literally on the streets of New York City. And I just like, I don't talk about it. And so after that one date, I was like, well, I guess I don't date. Because I can't, I can't talk about it.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  No, I did. And I decide when I'm ready to tell stories of my life that demand knowing a person, be feeling more comfortable with them, having a sense of who they are, and deciding if this is the part of my life that I want to tell. There's a lot of parts of your life.

• 56:07Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Just choose the others.

• 56:09Speaker 05

  You're right.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  You don't have to tell, you know, no, that is a terrible first date. We're divorced, Tony.

• 56:16Speaker 05

  Terrible.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Where is your imagination? There's zero creativity. Does that, is that supposed to turn on somebody?

• 56:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  What a weird thing.

• 56:31Oprah Winfrey?

  I could see you having the aha moment. Because you think, oh, I'm supposed to tell my story. He's going to tell me his story. And I just saw you have the aha, I don't have to tell that story.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Actually, if somebody tells you their soap story on the first date, that would be a reason not to see them again.

• 56:47Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  What is that?

• 56:48Speaker 05

  Yes, thank you.

• 56:50Oprah Winfrey?

  So great.

• 56:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, we can see, sitting here with you today, this has been such a wonderful, engaging conversation. Hasn't that way we love this church? With Esther.

• 57:06Oprah Winfrey?

  We can see why Mating in Captivity is now celebrating its 20th anniversary and why it's been a cultural touchstone for the world. Translated in how many languages now?

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Thirty-two.

• 57:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Thirty-two languages. So congratulations on the 20th anniversary. Thank you so much for sharing your...

• 57:31Oprah Winfrey?

  How do you know what you know? I mean, you've just been observing and studying all these years. How are you able to, like, literally hone in on each guest and be able to say the exact thing that causes all of us to go, "Yeah"?

• 57:47Oprah Winfrey?

  What is that?

• 57:49Speaker 00

  I'm very, very curious. I speak nine languages. So I...

• 58:02Speaker 00

  I think you each give me the permission to be as direct as I am. It's not just me being direct. It's something I sense. Like, you're breathing. I sense it, you know?

• 58:17Speaker 00

  That's a letting go. So when that breath of letting go comes up, then I know that really, this is the last thing you want to talk about is the stuff you just want to leave behind. And certainly not with someone you just met. So I watch the body. I don't just listen to the words. And I can't tell you. It's like somebody who cooks well. You ask them, "What are the proportions?", and they just say, "I don't know, a little bit of this and a little bit..." They can't really tell you exactly, but it's a combination of knowledge and intuition.

• 58:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, you do it better than anybody. Thank you so much.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 58:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Esther Perel, thank you for being here. Thank you to our guests. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for your questions and your observations.

• 59:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Esther's Podcast, "Where Should We Begin?" with Esther Perel is available wherever you podcast. And we're going to be listening to, you know what? Won't we be listening to that? Yes. Okay. And the 20th anniversary edition of Made in Captivity in stores now. Go well, everybody. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

• 59:34Oprah Winfrey?

  You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.