How Many Times Can You Betray Me?

A married couple arrives at Esther’s office hoping to recover from a devastating rupture with his mother after the birth of their first child. But immediately their session reveals a longer, more complex history of betrayal within their relationship and within his larger family system. Having a child, and experiencing an absolute break from his abusive mother, finally disrupted the toxic dynamics between the couple. Now, as they revisit the moments when she felt most abandoned by him, Esther helps them explore the differences between shame and accountability, the legacy of childhood family systems, and what it takes to truly repair the pain you've caused someone you love. Producer’s Note: When our anonymous guests do a session with Esther for the podcast, it is an act of generosity for everyone who listens. These sessions are meant not only to support the people in the room with Esther, but all of us who learn from their stories. Our stories have many chapters, and what you hear is just one moment in someone’s journey. So even though the sessions are anonymous, please remember that real people are behind them and they may be reading your comments. Also, please join me on Entre Nous, my new home on Substack for anyone who wants to live, love, and work with more connection and imagination. I invite you to sign up and become a free or paid member at estherperel.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real.

• 0:26Speaker 01

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• 1:00Esther Perel?

  I'm Ina Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by chef Paul Carmichael. We talk all about the incredible restaurants he's worked in, the best music to play in the restaurant bathrooms, and how he reacted when he found out his restaurant Kabawa had been ranked number one by the New York Times. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  We have a really brutal beginning because of me.

• 1:47Speaker 04

  There has been this big offense to my relationship with my son postpartum, and it involves his mother.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  My mother's a very difficult figure. When she came with the intention of helping us, I sat kind of by the wayside. Well, my mother was brutal. It was really traumatic.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  We're not actually in contact with her anymore. She denies that there was anything that went wrong there.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  It was me essentially following the rules of my own family. There's a lot of pain still in our relationship because there hasn't been full healing from all of this. I'm just doing my best to show that I love her and earn some kind of just back.

• 2:36Speaker 04

  Every couple goes through an interview before they come on the podcast, where we get to hear what is the issue, why now, and what they hope to achieve. And sometimes there is a direct line between what happens in the session and what they spoke about during the intake interview. But sometimes, an intake interview highlights a central issue. And then when I meet the couple, this is just one branch on a tree. There are all the other branches, each one, in this case, one rupture after another. So his opening line is the beginning of our relationship was brutal,

• 3:19Speaker 04

  and it was brutal because of me. That in itself sets me up for understanding that there is a suitcase that this man brings with him around attachment, around safety, around loyalty, around honesty. He has been dissociated for many, many years. And he found a partner that was going to feel, experience, and express all the emotions he could not access. When I meet them, they have been together 14 years, and they have a child who's four.

• 4:08Speaker 05

  When we met, she was much younger, and I was older. I had already a strong practice of keeping in sexual texting touch with a lot of exes, that because it was not physical, I did not give any weight to it being actual infidelity and thought that there was essentially a separate compartment that was my own, that I could do what I wanted. And she understood that something wasn't right and was asking me constantly. But I did not come forward with any of that. So I betrayed her trust, told her that she didn't know what she was talking about, hadn't had enough experience,

• 4:50Speaker 05

  didn't understand that this is how you do things.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  You belittled her?

• 4:56Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. And it took me a long time to acknowledge that there was a hunting for affection that was almost insatiable for me and that I was getting a sense of worth from outside, essentially. It took a lot of fighting and a lot of pain that I inflicted for me to finally see that and stop. So that was year probably one through two or three. So all of our relational foundation, through our marriage, through having our child, it's only been in the last few years that I feel actually able to see things better from her perspective and see truly what I was doing during those times.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  What's the ultimate rupture?

• 5:41Speaker 04

  What's the thing that you did that called the ultimate rupture? The most important one?

• 5:49Speaker 05

  So it was after our child was born. And my mother's very difficult.

• 6:00Speaker 05

  And we brought her in because we had a puppy. The idea would be she would take care of the puppy and we would be able to be with our child. And she took the baby. And there was no need for the baby to get care. But my mother kept imposing her want, and I allowed that. When my wife was saying, "I'm having a really tough time," I didn't stop it. I just kept asking, "Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do what you want." But she was looking for help. She was looking to be a unit altogether. And when she finally said no, then my mother left. And I think at that point, she realized she was on her own there and that despite asking for help,

• 6:43Speaker 05

  I was not able to see that or step up to that. I prioritized my mother over my wife.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Is it okay? I take you on a little bit more on the precision lane?

• 6:55Speaker 05

  Yes. Yeah, we're here to work.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  There's so many ways to defend my mom and not protect my wife. But what exactly did I do?

• 7:07Speaker 04

  And by now, I think you probably have a sense

• 7:12Speaker 04

  of certain moments that stand out as...

• 7:17Speaker 04

  Here it is.

• 7:21Speaker 05

  I think part of the reason that the baby's birth was such a break was it showed that the patterns are still there.

• 7:33Speaker 04

  And the pattern was?

• 7:35Speaker 05

  That is something that I'm having a real tough time understanding.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  So he gives me a list of these betrayals, and it leads me to instantly ask him, "Can we go on the road of precision?" I, what's the big one? What's the one that stands out above all others? And interestingly, I start to feel instantly there's a certain kind of opaqueness around the different things that are described. And the more vague he goes, the more I start to see the agitation rise inside of her. It's as if he vacates the emotional space and she fills it up. His eyes start to wander. His body starts to pull back. He starts to look up.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  He starts to not finish a sentence. He doesn't really know where he goes. And she starts to remember everything with all the precision that matches his vagueness.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  What's it like to listen to him right now? Incredibly familiar. There is this ungraspable ambiguity and such a frustration, frankly, and anger, and a really deep sadness for me because the experiences that I've had are so visceral. And so to have it be missed and to be indescribable speaks to my experience of constantly missing.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  So we've been together for 14 years. I was 21 when we met. And there was a lot of this, "You don't know," or "You just don't have enough experience," or "You have it like..." And there's a wide class difference, obviously a gender difference.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  There's a massive education difference. And being immersed in his world, there was very little room for my perspective. And so when I shared it, it was pushed out of the way or demeaned in some way, like it was really devalued. And then there were times where we would be in these moments that I was so clear, like, "This isn't love, and this doesn't feel in any way good to me."

• 9:56Speaker 04

  When you say this, you think of particular instances immediately, right? Yeah. Tell me. Tell him too, for that matter. So when we started dating, I learned a couple months in that he had shared explicit photos of me with a friend, a woman. And when I saw it, I was really upset. And I said, "You may not do that. These are my pictures too." And I cried. He cried. And I thought we had an idea of what we were doing going forward now from this experience. And as it turned out, I found out a year later, when things weren't quite right and I kept bringing it up, I looked in his phone and I saw that

• 10:41Speaker 04

  not only had he been sexting for that whole year with other people, but he had been harvesting pictures from me and sending them out and then having these explicit conversations with other women. And the day that I learned this, it very much became about me looking in the phone and not about what I found. And this is really where my...

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Ability to make sense got wobbly. And I started to become like actually turned upside down. Because everybody reflected like he's so charismatic and is so available and like has so much to say to everybody and like enlivens people like. So what I was seeing out did not make sense with what I was experiencing.

• 11:32Esther Perel?

  Right.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  The people that we were living with, one of them was someone that he'd had a sexual relationship with before, and she was calling us sister wives. And I was very clear with her that I do not like that and not to do it. And things kept being weird there. And every time I raised like, hey, this is a problem, this is a problem. It was dissolved because it didn't fit with his position, or I think maybe how he thought of himself.

• 11:58Esther Perel?

  This losing of your perspective was the first time?

• 12:03Speaker 04

  Like in my life?

• 12:04Esther Perel?

  Yeah. This kind of being enraptured?

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:09Esther Perel?

  Made to question your every thought?

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Yes, so wholly and thoroughly, yes.

• 12:16Esther Perel?

  That's what made you stay?

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Yes, and I was quite isolated because on the one hand, I love him. And on the other hand, I didn't believe that anybody, any of my people would understand the complexity with people not just either reinforcing he's wonderful or siding with me.

• 12:34Esther Perel?

  As a victim?

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's also very fun. And I was able to do things like travel internationally and be exposed to all kinds of things that I had never done before. So I was very open. There was a lot that was happening and not all of it was bad. And so I was wanting to kind of hold all of these pieces, but didn't trust that friends or family would actually be able to do that with me also. So yes, it was the first time that I had become so upside down, but it was also the first time I was, well, I was 21 when we met and I was quite sheltered and from a very working class family. And I hadn't had these experiences. And it sort of feels like this is the cost of admission in some ways, but it has crossed a line.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  And so to your question, yes, postpartum was part of it. But we also moved our lives to be closer to his sister. We accepted a huge, huge, huge amount of money from his mother just before our child was born. And we moved our entire lives to live on the same street.

• 13:42Esther Perel?

  Now?

• 13:43Speaker 04

  No, now we're back. But that was the rupture when it got so incredibly bad there that. Hmm. That. Oh, this is so hard to say out loud.

• 14:07Esther Perel?

  Take your time.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  I sincerely thought, because he couldn't hear me and because there was so much that would have been extremely difficult to do on my own. And we were so deep in. It occurred to me that I couldn't do it.

• 14:37Esther Perel?

  That I couldn't do it?

• 14:38Speaker 04

  That I couldn't do it, that I couldn't go on.

• 14:43Esther Perel?

  With him?

• 14:43Speaker 04

  No, no, with life, with my own life. But not to a place of having a plan or like any of that, but just I was so fully worn down. I would said to him, we need to figure something else out. I need to feel safe. And he went back to sleep. And to me, that is the rupture of I am holding far too much on my own and you are oblivious to it. And you were, I think, like maybe wanting to see it, but it doesn't seem to impact you. And I have done everything that I can to communicate that to you.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  And I am ineffective that you're willing to go to sleep. Fuck you. That is the rupture. That is the rupture. Your indifference to whether I can go on is the rupture.

• 15:48Esther Perel?

  Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 15:50Esther Perel?

  Okay.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 15:59Esther Perel?

  When I asked him, what is the main rupture? He came up with a particular story of what happened between his wife and his mother. But there was no description of the emotionality of that moment. And as she starts talking, her memory of the rupture comes back, which is less about what was she specifically trying to convey to him? Or which of the things that they were arguing about was she talking about than the incredible experience of feeling that your partner on some fundamental level does not really care,

• 16:42Esther Perel?

  is indifferent, doesn't matter about what, it's the feeling itself, the relational position of someone who is supposedly loving you, committed to you, and who just goes to sleep when I am screaming to the heavens. And that's what she is reliving with a level of poignancy and acute pain bordering on the rage that lives right next to it about what it feels like to not exist in the eyes of the person who is lying right next to you. So then I turned to him and I just look at him and try to see how does he respond to

• 17:25Esther Perel?

  her? The same way that I think you're holding all of this just now, I think that you are incapable of putting a sentence together because your shame is standing there like a wall. If you are wrapped in shame, you can feel bad about yourself, but you won't be able to feel bad for what you did to her. And the shame is useful to you because it organizes you to at least accept and to acknowledge more that you did things that were deeply hurtful and sometimes wrong. But it also prevents us from actually really relating to the pain of that we inflict on

• 18:10Esther Perel?

  others. Because you go from an inflated sense of I'm right, I know you're stupid, you're young, you're dumb, you have no experience to I'm so bad, I'm so bad, I'm so bad. But it's all about you. I don't know if the way you talk to him here is the way you've talked, but you go back and forth between I have choice, how did I land here? What happened to me? This isn't what I imagined. This isn't who I am, but maybe it is. What does it say about me? And it is the ticket of admission. Because I think there's a class issue here involved too.

• 18:55Esther Perel?

  Because I think that there is the life I wanted and the relationship I wanted, and they're not always the same. He gives you maybe the life you wanted, but he's not giving you the relationship.

• 19:06Speaker 05

  We're not even doing that.

• 19:07Esther Perel?

  Not even that.

• 19:08Speaker 05

  No, we're not doing that. So no, there is a class issue, sure. I have not made good on very much despite being very well educated, having these sort of flares of success. I've sort of middled out. And so I was not able to provide enough during the move. And I was working a lot and I was the only one working at that time. And so we moved for support and we really didn't have it. The support that was being offered was conditional. And so when I went to sleep that night, and there were nights where we would fight and it would go and she can go and go. And it's all real and it's meaningful. I still have to get up and work.

• 19:53Speaker 05

  And so I would want to pause and go to sleep so that I was able to function on the only income and that that wasn't really getting us through. And so it wasn't meant as I don't value what you're saying. It's that I at some point in this, I have to be able to do this thing for us too. And there was a frustration at myself for an inability to make the decisions or get the position that would give the freedom and the safety she wanted. And I was doing everything I knew how to, I was doing everything I knew how to do.

• 20:31Esther Perel?

  So when I listened to her describe he's going to sleep, it was unequivocally a description of I can't be bothered, I need to go to sleep. When I listen to him, what he's describing is a set of circumstances that were probably part of the same night. We were broke, I needed to get up because I was the one working for us. And she could keep going the whole night. And at some point, I just knew I need to stop because I need to get up. And it wasn't because I'm indifferent, it was because I was dealing with other worries and concerns that I was responsible to.

• 21:13Esther Perel?

  And this is a classic moment of couples work, the same situation described by two people with very different experiences. And it's both ends, not one or the other.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  We'll be back with a session right after this. And while we love our sponsors, if you want to listen to this session ad free, click the try free button to subscribe to Astera's Office Hours on Apple Podcasts.

• 21:47Esther Perel?

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• 23:49Esther Perel?

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• 25:21Speaker 05

  My seeing our child reopened issues for me of how I was raised and with a mother who I do believe loved us the best she could. She still had some issues, and she was very physical with us.

• 25:36Esther Perel?

  Physical, meaning?

• 25:37Speaker 05

  It would hit us when she drank.

• 25:42Esther Perel?

  You know, it's fascinating the way you relay a story.

• 25:47Esther Perel?

  At every word, it's like another pan just opened.

• 25:54Speaker 05

  It reopened a lot for me, that I had always categorized under what I've always been told to do, which is, "She's your mother, she loves you, she did the best she could, just love her." And while all of that is true,

• 26:08Speaker 05

  seeing for the first time, to have my own baby in there, became very hurtful for me.

• 26:18Speaker 05

  There became power leverages everywhere, and we distanced ourselves from that.

• 26:25Esther Perel?

  Here are pieces you've told me.

• 26:29Esther Perel?

  The more mom behaved in ways that were hurtful, be it corporal punishment, or her drinking, or her control, or her intensely conditional love, the more I was told, "All of this is because she loves you."

• 26:51Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:52Esther Perel?

  That's tortured.

• 26:55Esther Perel?

  Then you tell me, "I've allowed important people in my life to deeply hurt my wife,

• 27:03Esther Perel?

  and I've never stood up for her."

• 27:06Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm, yes, correct.

• 27:09Esther Perel?

  And I've let her fend for herself and be increasingly isolated because she wouldn't go tell her family what she's living with, with you.

• 27:19Esther Perel?

  And what would be really powerful is if you can actually experience guilt instead of shame. Guilt says, "I have a conscience, and I've done something to someone." Shame just wallows into, "I'm so bad. I once was so great, now I'm so bad." But it's all me.

• 27:41Esther Perel?

  And then she will continue and say, "I've never been met." And then you will explain why going to sleep was not indifference, but it was because you needed to get up in the morning.

• 27:53Esther Perel?

  But the three hours that you talked, you could have said three things that would have allowed you to go to sleep much sooner.

• 28:01Esther Perel?

  The reason she keeps going is because she doesn't get what she's looking for. Otherwise, I promise you, she would go to sleep too.

• 28:12Esther Perel?

  I don't think you're doing this maliciously, I think you don't know. So you're here because a part of you says, "How does one hold a sense of responsibility and guilt that doesn't instantly make me feel so unworthy that I cannot be there for her?"

• 28:33Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 28:36Esther Perel?

  I said this to him, but in listening to it now, it's clear to me that I'm 10 steps away from where he is.

• 28:46Esther Perel?

  Yes, we can talk about the grandiosity and the shame, but what is much more palpable is the trauma that he experienced as a child with his mom and the dissociation that took place inside of him, that he carried for decades and that somehow got pierced when his son was born. By watching his son in the arms of his mother and seeing how she was treating him, he began to remember. Not necessarily explicit memory, but implicit memory, the memory that is lodged in the body, the memory that senses.

• 29:29Esther Perel?

  And unfortunately, everything he didn't allow himself to feel with his mother, his wife is feeling with him. It's as if he has outsourced the entire intensity that is blocked behind his frozenness, and it is all redirected through his wife, the mother of his child. And in a way, he has for the first time someone next to him who is feeling that which he did not have the permission to feel.

• 30:02Esther Perel?

  So what would be the place you would want to start?

• 30:08Speaker 05

  So, I don't know.

• 30:11Esther Perel?

  Okay. The sentence would be, "I want to go back to," or "I want us to talk about this moment, this rupture between us."

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Then I would talk about the major rupture that she spoke of, the postpartum.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  It was a moment where my mother-in-law was feeding the baby, and he was laying on his back, and she had the bottle at a 90-degree angle, and he gagged and coughed, and we looked at each other. And neither one of us said anything.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  Then she stopped.

• 30:51Speaker 04

  But I was also like, "He's at a 90-degree angle." Like, that's how you waterboard somebody. He's brand new. And a little while later, I hear the baby burst into tears. Then I go in, and she's covered in curdled milk. And I go to take the baby, and she says, "I'm good, I've got him." And I said, "I'll take him." And he's screaming, and I hadn't ever heard this kind of scream. And I go to take him, and she keeps saying, "I'm good, I've got him." And I, frankly, I don't give a fuck how you are. I'm not good, and he's not good, so give him to me. But I couldn't say that. And we went through the cycle one more time.

• 31:34Speaker 04

  And it was that moment for me that was very clear, like, "Oh, this can't continue, I know exactly how I feel." But I needed help, and I said, "Hey, your mom won't give me the baby, and I need him." And he said, "Just go get your baby." And it couldn't land anywhere in you. That's how I would define that rupture, that you were gone, and not only is she a barrier, but now you are too.

• 32:06Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, I wasn't there. I'm sorry that I was there and not with you and helping you.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  Because if it would have been, then what?

• 32:19Speaker 05

  My belief then, at least you and the baby would have been able to be together.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  But why does that... Matter to you?

• 32:30Speaker 05

  I mean, I also wish I was there with you guys.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  I would love to be present and able to be a great partner for you from day one of meeting you.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  But why? Why does that matter to you? Like, not just because all of these hurts have happened.

• 32:45Speaker 05

  No, because I love you and I would like to be in a, I would like to be in a relationship that is rich with great memories. That if there are bad things, it's things that come from outside, not all caused from inside the house.

• 32:58Esther Perel?

  This is a very important moment because he says, "I'm sorry I wasn't there." And her first question is, "There in what sense? What is it that you are sorry for? What do you wish you had done differently?" And he keeps repeating, "I had been there for you." But she wants to know, "Why does that matter to you? You're responding to my hurt, but you're not responding to any of your own needs." And gradually, it becomes very clear that he doesn't have them. It's not that he didn't want to, but he may not know how to. Because, as she describes so beautifully, he is the life of the party in the outside world.

• 33:40Esther Perel?

  He vanishes when he comes home because that's what he had to do to survive. And it is really challenging when we want something from our partner and we believe that they have it and they just don't want to do it, to actually understand that they don't know what to do, that they fundamentally don't really know what we're talking about, which is actually often why someone chose the very person that they chose to be with, because this is what she can teach him, a life of interiority.

• 34:19Esther Perel?

  Imagine you have someone who really understands layers and contradictory feelings and the complexity of all of that. "I love you, and yet I have done one thing after another to basically let you down, to lie, to cheat, to deceive, to side, to collude." Let me talk about that. How does that work inside of me? And what do I think that did to you? It's switching from shame to accountability.

• 34:57Esther Perel?

  People say "I love you" in all kinds of versions.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 35:00Esther Perel?

  And then they do all kinds of shitty things.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  Sure, sure. I've been saying "I love you" for 14 years.

• 35:06Esther Perel?

  Right.

• 35:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 35:08Esther Perel?

  So she needs to understand how these two are sewn together.

• 35:15Esther Perel?

  When you work it out there in your head,

• 35:20Esther Perel?

  "I do what I want, I decide what is hurtful, I decide what she should be upset about and what she shouldn't, I decide what is considered mature."

• 35:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 35:33Esther Perel?

  And "I love you."

• 35:34Speaker 05

  Right.

• 35:34Esther Perel?

  How does that work?

• 35:36Speaker 05

  Not well.

• 35:39Esther Perel?

  We know that.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 35:40Esther Perel?

  And next, how do you do it in your head, in your body, in your heart?

• 35:47Esther Perel?

  "I know you don't, I'd have it right, you don't."

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 35:51Esther Perel?

  "I'm inflated, you're deflated." And we will dance a little bit in a type of abusive dynamic here.

• 36:01Esther Perel?

  And "I love you."

• 36:03Esther Perel?

  It's kind of the chorus in the song.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  Well, and all those things are true. And we can try it, but go where?

• 36:17Esther Perel?

  When you say, "I cheated because I needed affirmation."

• 36:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 36:23Esther Perel?

  It's very interesting, but it does nothing for her.

• 36:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 36:30Esther Perel?

  It's me and me in a reflexive loop.

• 36:35Esther Perel?

  When you say, "I needed affirmation and therefore I made yours feel like mashed potatoes."

• 36:45Esther Perel?

  And sending her pictures.

• 36:50Esther Perel?

  For, it's not even just "I went to flirt and play with other people elsewhere, I involved you in this whole sexual machination."

• 37:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 37:04Esther Perel?

  All right. That all needs to be addressed.

• 37:08Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:10Esther Perel?

  Because if you don't, she will repeat it till the day she drops.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:16Esther Perel?

  So the story has to go back to where it belongs.

• 37:20Speaker 05

  I'm, um, just trying to process.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  It's one of those things where it sounds so easy when you say it, when you literally say it.

• 37:32Speaker 05

  And of course, you're right on. But when I think about it and try to organize it in my head, or like what I'm trying to acknowledge, just feels like I'm moving through mud.

• 37:47Esther Perel?

  Try it. I will be here and if it needs redirection.

• 37:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, like...

• 37:55Speaker 05

  So I know saying that I wanted you to love me and to adore me and be with me, but then I didn't, nothing to honor that love's... But it still seems like I'm flipping it to me.

• 38:12Esther Perel?

  Keep going.

• 38:13Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 38:17Esther Perel?

  When I did this.

• 38:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:19Esther Perel?

  I can imagine that you, when I did this, I did this to you.

• 38:30Esther Perel?

  I'm talking to him. I'm not sure much will come, but I'm looking at her and I'm watching. Her response to my initiative to help him, in effect, articulate that which she has longed to hear, but which she knows without wanting to admit it, has not come because there isn't much to come, yet anyway. And I see the brewing.

• 39:13Esther Perel?

  We have to take a brief break. Stay with us.

• 39:25Esther Perel?

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• 40:10Esther Perel?

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• 40:30Esther Perel?

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• 41:12Esther Perel?

  Find the fall pieces you reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was "Where Should We Begin." It's the best way to support the show.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Are you tired of hearing about business, tech, and finance from the bros? We are the Tiger Sisters, a top business podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tiger Sisters releases every Monday, and we decode money, power, and love. And who doesn't love all those things? We are the internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. Tune in every Monday for late-night sister talk meets boardroom strategy.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  Check out Tiger Sisters on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Welcome to the Tiger fam.

• 42:14Speaker 05

  When I tried to make you looking through my phone somehow a breach of trust, I see how hypocritical that was. I see how disorienting it must have felt when you found all those messages. It must have felt awful, like such a betrayal.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  That would have been way more simple.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  Because, okay, thank you much. Goodbye.

• 42:52Esther Perel?

  And then there was the time dance.

• 42:55Speaker 05

  And then there was the time that I said, "Go get your baby." And I can imagine that felt so lonely and not understood.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  May I say something?

• 43:13Speaker 04

  I feel so angry right now to say, "Just go do this," when you couldn't even do it.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  You go get attacked by wolves. You go do this thing. No, you go do this thing. If it's so easy, you go do that thing.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  I feel angry that this isn't in you. I feel angry that you're not angry about it. This is what I mean about why it means something to you. Like, it didn't mean anything to you that that happened.

• 43:45Speaker 04

  Like, to you.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  I don't mean to make this impossible, and I, but it...

• 43:51Esther Perel?

  You're not making it impossible at all. You have been the emotional barometer here from the first day you met him.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:05Esther Perel?

  If he could, he would.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:09Esther Perel?

  Which is why, from entitlement to shame, there was already a big step. Because shame at least creates a structure.

• 44:21Esther Perel?

  But the feeling, this is right, this is wrong, this is true, this is false. This feels close, this feels distant. He doesn't have it.

• 44:36Esther Perel?

  But you need to know, whenever you're angry that he's not feeling something, part of it is you've been enlisted to feel for him.

• 44:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:45Esther Perel?

  And since you do it so strongly, intensely, well, precisely, and with a whole range, he defers. And when he says to you, "I didn't see anything,"

• 45:01Esther Perel?

  it's hard to understand, but he may not.

• 45:06Esther Perel?

  And what she wants to know is not just that you can be empathic toward her, but that you have your own feelings toward what happened so that she doesn't have to be the one holding it all.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  I really would like to illustrate with a couple of moments that I... I'm like, truly, how are you not enraged by these moments? Like, we moved to live close to his sister. There was the promise of our child going to an excellent school because his sister runs the school. So we were there for several months, and at the turn of the year, when we're expecting, okay, the baby's this old, it'll be time to enroll in preschool, we ask, hey, when do we register? When do we sign up? And even though we'd seen her a few days before that, she says, "Oh, you missed the deadline."

• 46:07Speaker 04

  And immediately, I was like, I have no real support right now. We've moved away from my family. We've moved away from my friends. I am doing like everything I can right now. What do you mean? We missed the deadline. She was like, "Well, you can register next semester." Okay.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  Because of the financial impact of considering sending him elsewhere, it would mean that we would now have to reconsider having more kids. Like, it was a big deal. And a few days later, she texted him and she said, "I would love a bottle of wine from your basement. All the stores are closed." And of course, it took me like a year to develop the comeback of like, "Oh, I guess you missed the deadline." But at the same time, he went right down with a bottle of wine and dropped it at the door. And when I asked him, like, "How are you not furious? Like, how are you not pissed? Like, yep, I'm your bitch. No problem. You can stab me, and I'm gonna turn around and give you the knife again. How?"

• 47:09Speaker 04

  And his response was, "I would do that for any neighbor." And still, to this day, it's not like my sister was willing to harm me. Wow.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  I acknowledged that part.

• 47:19Speaker 04

  I think you repeat it back to me, but...

• 47:21Speaker 05

  No, I acknowledged that part.

• 47:24Esther Perel?

  But she doesn't want you only to acknowledge what she says. She actually is puzzled by the fact...

• 47:32Speaker 05

  So I have said that how we were raised, I was angry for a lot, a long, long time.

• 47:40Esther Perel?

  At and about?

• 47:42Speaker 05

  About my mother, for how we were raised, for how we were treated.

• 47:45Esther Perel?

  Do you have a dad?

• 47:46Speaker 05

  I do, and for his lack of willingness to stop it.

• 47:51Esther Perel?

  What about mom?

• 47:54Speaker 05

  I hated the back and forth. I hated the "I love you," the erratic nature of the drinking that would start so bubbly and goofy and then end with hitting us and huge rage, and then cuddle us and apologize, but there being no actual change. And so, for a long time, I hated being held because I felt like a little bitch for just wanting. I wanted that moment, once the cycle started, because then at least it was calm and it was okay. So I was angry for a long fucking time, and I didn't do anything. It didn't change anything for me. It didn't change her. It didn't do whatever. Like, what I'd never was very rarely in touch with was any kind of sadness.

• 48:35Speaker 05

  And that hit very hard when we moved down there, and this was how it went. The distance from my family makes me very sad. Rage is not the emotion that comes up for me over her doing that. I'm heartbroken that that's even possible from her. It's not how it would go if it went the other way. And this is the sibling that used to make me laugh the hardest. Someone I was really close to. Makes me very sad. I don't have rage about it.

• 49:11Esther Perel?

  That's okay.

• 49:13Speaker 05

  It just feels like the feelings aren't enough. It doesn't seem they satisfy something else you're looking for from me in this example.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  So, yeah, that is true. There is part of it that is dissatisfying for me, but not because sadness or heartbreak isn't enough.

• 49:35Speaker 05

  You continually said, "Where's my rage about it?" It seems like you want me to be angry.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  No, what I really want is for that to matter enough for you to do something or for that to touch you or move you because it's like this thing happens, and it either doesn't register at all. It doesn't actually result in something different. It's like a rolling over about it and not saying more about it, like, not having a direct expression of that to her. Like, "I miss you, and I want to have a relationship with you, and I'd like for there to be room in it for me." Meaning, I don't mean to give you a script. I just, I mean, like, it wasn't like that thing happened and it touched you, and then you moved apart.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  And I realize, like, I sound like a hypocrite because I don't, I'm not even telling my people what my experience is of you. I don't mean to be, like, superior. I just, it leaves it then to me to have the experience that moves us to do something.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:37Speaker 04

  And it is, in that way, dissatisfying. Yes. But it's not like being heartbroken or sad isn't enough. It's like, then you roll over.

• 50:51Esther Perel?

  Is this different or more of the same?

• 50:55Speaker 04

  This is more of the same.

• 50:57Esther Perel?

  Okay.

• 50:59Speaker 05

  The only difference in it is I would not usually explain where I was.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  In that aspect, that's slightly different.

• 51:09Esther Perel?

  No, but you did something else. You said, "The feelings that you have are not mine."

• 51:17Esther Perel?

  I experienced this situation. My emotional experience differently from you. And she's told you three times, that is not the issue for me. I completely understand that while I may feel anger, you feel sadness.

• 51:35Esther Perel?

  What she then said is, but once you have that sadness, what do you do with it?

• 51:42Esther Perel?

  If you miss your sister, do you do something?

• 51:46Esther Perel?

  Meaning, this is my additions. You're very active in the destructive path. You're quite passive in the reconstructive path.

• 51:59Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 52:01Esther Perel?

  That's what I'm hearing is what's bugging you.

• 52:06Esther Perel?

  I can imagine usually you just go silent. And then she goes into monologue. And then it goes from very low tone to higher voice. Because in effect, you're talking alone. That has to stop.

• 52:21Esther Perel?

  It will just erode at you.

• 52:25Esther Perel?

  So in distinguishing, I know your experience is X. My experience was actually something else. I don't have those feelings. That was really important. You are entitled to have very different experiences that live side by side of the same situation. It will do you a lot of good to actually make these statements.

• 52:50Esther Perel?

  Because the less involved you are, the more her view of the relationship is that everything only moves when she's at wit's end.

• 53:01Esther Perel?

  You know, she's also able to insert in a little aside, who am I talking to? I myself have not spoken a single word to my own family. I mean, there's a double standard here.

• 53:13Speaker 04

  I think I do ask, like, where is your anger about this? Like, where is your rage about this? And I do wish sometimes that there was anger because then it would make something happen. But I know that's not necessarily true.

• 53:30Esther Perel?

  It's a false assumption.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Right. But even where there's sadness or even where there's heartbreak, we don't sit in that together. We don't share, like, wow, you feel so sad about it.

• 53:46Esther Perel?

  But when he tells you

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:48Esther Perel?

  that he feels really sad about it, you don't join him either. You tell him, what do you do with it?

• 53:55Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm, yes.

• 53:56Esther Perel?

  But you don't join him. And even when he says she's the one who makes me laugh, tell me more. Or do you think of particular instances when she would make you laugh? Or what's it been like to not have that laughter in your life anymore? Or something that makes you actually cross over to the other side?

• 54:12Speaker 04

  Yes. And I do actually want to know more. And I realize I don't yield to it enough to make more space in there.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  I'm gonna get selfish for a minute. I don't have enough room for me to be sad about all of these things, just all of these moments of loss.

• 54:39Speaker 04

  And instead, I have to be angry. And so it's like, what a luxury, frankly, for you to have grief, for you to feel sad. I feel sad. And so now I also, it also gets to be about your sadness.

• 54:59Esther Perel?

  There is no room for sadness because I'm too angry at myself or at them?

• 55:08Speaker 04

  Both, both.

• 55:11Esther Perel?

  Usually, when we don't have room for sadness, it's because we're angry at ourselves.

• 55:18Esther Perel?

  Doesn't mean the other's on another part of it. But there is a particular anger that is the anger at ourselves.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  My immediate pull when you said that was, I'm angry at allowing myself to be humiliated time and time again. Like, I know that these moments are humiliating and I'll like, fight for the dignity. But like, also, okay,

• 55:42Speaker 04

  why not just walk away and actually preserve and tend to my dignity myself? So yes, I feel angry for that.

• 55:49Esther Perel?

  The bind that I see you in is the fact that you live in secret. The fundamental thing is that the people close to you do not know what you experience. They may know some pieces, but they don't know the places where it feels compromising.

• 56:08Esther Perel?

  And a little bit like various situations of abuse.

• 56:15Esther Perel?

  So then it becomes your shame. Small amount, big amount, but it becomes your shame.

• 56:23Esther Perel?

  And I can only fully accept my staying if he joins me in the anger. Because then we are warriors together.

• 56:33Esther Perel?

  So you want him to claim something, but you need to claim something too.

• 56:40Esther Perel?

  That doesn't justify anything that you've done because there's a stack of pink slips.

• 56:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 56:48Esther Perel?

  But you don't address the stack of pink slips. You give a little thing here and a little thing there.

• 56:56Esther Perel?

  So if you don't talk, it's complicated. But if you do talk, it's even more complicated.

• 57:03Esther Perel?

  That's a bind. If you say nothing, she says, how can he say nothing? If you say what the little bit you say, it says, how can he reduce it to this?

• 57:12Esther Perel?

  And you meet in that very place. That's the bizarre thing of it. It's like, in the end, you each have your secrets.

• 57:20Esther Perel?

  And then when the opportunities occur to actually cross, look, if we met again, we will get there. And I hope you have somebody that you work with that you can do this, literally crossing the bridge and entering the neighborhood of each other,

• 57:37Esther Perel?

  rather than just identifying the miss. And your effort is to actually take from there whatever you can salvage.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destri Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristin Muller, and Julianne Hat. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.