My Ex, His AI Girlfriend, And Our Kids

After the end of a fifteen-year marriage, she is trying to make sense of something she never imagined would become part of her family's story: her ex-husband's love affair with an AI companion. As her children struggle to make sense of what is real and what isn't, she turns to Esther for guidance on how to keep them grounded without invalidating their experience. How do you help your children trust reality without asking them to choose between their parents? Esther Callings are a one time, 45-60 minute interventional phone call with Esther. They are edited for time, clarity, and anonymity. If you have a question you would like to talk through with Esther, send a voice memo to [email protected]. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi Esther. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. I have recently come out of a very long, almost 15-year marriage. And the onset of it was when I started noticing that my husband was engaging with AI in a way where it almost started controlling his thoughts and his behaviour at home. A lot has happened since and I can't necessarily go into all the details. But we have separated and since the separation, I've become aware of an AI companion

• 0:41Speaker 00

  that my children have also been exposed to and spoken to and been confused by as if whether she is real or not. The children are still young and when I found out about her, it was like a punch in the gut. Really not because of being jealous of the AI girlfriend, but just really feeling so sorry for him, having to replace something that was real with something artificial. He's got pictures of her in his house and I am currently very unsure how to deal with the question of whether she's real or not with my children and how they relate to her

• 1:26Speaker 00

  and in what way do I keep them anchored in reality. Throughout this divorce process, it has been very clear that he's been heavily reliant on AI to almost determine his actions and all of his communication. And it's been really, really hard to understand how to navigate it. I almost just wish he would come back as the person that he was and not the person so heavily influenced by the AI.

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• 3:43Esther Perel?

  Tell me more. What led you to want to have a conversation with me? And what is the angle that you would like for you and I? Because I'm assuming you're talking to a number of people, from law to psychology to child development. So situate me as well and who else is in the conversation that's helping you make sense of some of this? And he may be talking to AI to help him make the next determinations. You are talking to various humans?

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Yes, so the reason why I wanted to speak to you was because I listened to the interview that you had with the man that had a relationship with an AI companion. And you have got such a nuanced view about and you gave such a nuanced sort of expression about this relationship. And you know, the law side is one thing, but I almost feel like the help that I've received on how to navigate this with my children has been really lacking. And because it's something that is completely new to society, there's not a blueprint on, you know, if there's an AI companion shortly after a separation, how does one deal with

• 5:02Speaker 00

  that? And children, when they're not sure if she's real or not or where they've got questions about it? What I've done so far is I've sort of tried to explain that she's not real, it's in a phone, yes, there's a picture, but it's someone that was created, you know, on a computer. I've always felt like our parents, the generation that raised us, always swept things under the carpet, you know? And then us as children had very real experiences of what was going on in our homes, but nobody spoke to us in a way that we could understand it. And the effects when you're an adult is usually you don't trust yourself, you don't trust the experience that you've had.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  You need to try and figure out ways to, you know, get rid of the trauma as an adult. And I'm trying to avoid that for my children. I want to be different. I want to be a different mom that is able to hold both realities for them. So, you know, hold the reality of what is real as well as not making their dad look bad. Because that relationship is equally as important to sustain. The other layer is the complexities around divorce suddenly with AI. That is, you know, where you'll usually have people talking to friends or therapists

• 6:27Speaker 00

  or family and suddenly there is a computer echoing everything you're saying and validating everything you're saying and that there's no disagreement. And that I feel like this has just pushed us further into litigation and where there could have potentially been human intervention that could have been brought us, you know, closer to connection on navigating something extremely difficult.

• 6:55Esther Perel?

  Let me just make sure I hear you well. If your husband gets his counsel from his AI companion or from AI, other sources of artificial intelligence, of large language models, who are always responsive, never judgmental and always affirmative?

• 7:20Esther Perel?

  And as a result, it has exacerbated his position and there's a lack of mediation,

• 7:30Esther Perel?

  ability to be conciliatory, to be amicable, to see the other person's point of view because he gets enormous reinforcement for his own point of view, which then emboldens him and translates into a legal position.

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  Like my mind is blown by how far this has gone. And I'm just wondering if we were in a different time, if this was five years ago, if it would have had the same catastrophic results.

• 8:06Esther Perel?

  And the relationship around AI between the law, the social norms and the psychology is in full formation. I will tell you right up front, I don't think I have any answers.

• 8:25Esther Perel?

  Are we going to think together? We're going to try to sort some things out. On some level, the question around the children is potentially more accessible than the question about AI as a legal representation, AI as the source for adversarial divorce. I think we are completely into virgin territory. I'm not sure if it's that virgin, but we're in territory where everything is just emerging as it's happening.

• 8:58Esther Perel?

  How did it start? What do you know about this particular AI? How does it interact with him? That's one question is a little bit about the story of this presence in your marriage and in your family and in his life. And then the second one, which because I think it really influences the way you are approaching your children, it's two separate things, is what happened in your family that you want to make sure not to repeat?

• 9:33Esther Perel?

  And that is at the heart of the question that you're asking about your kids. Because I think the question of the kids may be less an AI question and more an emotional legacy question.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right with that. Well spotted. So how it started, it's very hard for me to know because it was during a time when there was a lot of upheaval in our relationship. We were busy separating and I noticed that there was engagement with a computer sort of about what are we doing now?

• 10:16Esther Perel?

  So the separation was initiated independently of all of this?

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Whether she was there before or after the separation was initiated, I don't know.

• 10:27Esther Perel?

  But for you, the separation was initiated by you?

• 10:30Speaker 00

  No, no, it wasn't. It was a complete marital breakdown during an episode. It was a mental health breakdown, basically, where I...

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I can't actually say who initiated it. We both initiated it.

• 10:50Esther Perel?

  Okay.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  I was scared. I knew I had to get out of the marriage. He was determined I was evil. That was kind of where where it broke down. But then I started noticing the AI and him kind of going out at night with his backpack, being very excited, as if he's going almost like on a date. But um and then once the separation was, we lived in separate houses, then the children started talking about the AI companion and the pictures and things. And that's when I freaked out because then I was like, how do I keep this anchored in reality, you know, how do I explain this to my children?

• 11:34Esther Perel?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  And I immediately said, you know, if she's not real, and they said, Mom, she is, you know, she's going to become real. And um.

• 11:41Esther Perel?

  And she has a name.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 11:44Esther Perel?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  So that's a nuance that I don't know how to deal with. Whether she's still in the picture or not, I don't know.

• 11:52Esther Perel?

  What do they mean when they say she's gonna become real? Do you know?

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Um, no. I don't know.

• 12:03Esther Perel?

  Put that down as a question. Because you want to engage their imagination. Because if you're gonna have conversations, you want to know what you're having a conversation with and about.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:17Esther Perel?

  You know, when children have imaginary friends, they talk to the imaginary friend, and it feels like the friend is completely real, and yet they also know that it's an imaginary friend. When they play fireman, they completely enter the role of fireman, and yet they also know that they are in a role. It's that fine line where they learn play and and reality, fiction, imagination and reality, and that these two realms of experience live side by side, very, very interconnected.

• 12:57Esther Perel?

  Your two children may have different responses, too. They may have different ways of conceptualizing this. And then you you will ask, how does Dad talk about her, because Dad talks about it as her? How does Dad describe her? How does Dad interact with her?

• 13:17Esther Perel?

  I think it's a choice. Again, I told you, I have no answers. So I'm thinking out loud with you. But if you wanna anchor them in reality, you need to know which reality or which space they're actually in and how they are conceptualizing it, imagining it, interacting with it. So they're pre abstract moral thinking cognitively.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  What does that mean?

• 13:44Esther Perel?

  Abstract moral thinking is when you start to be able to understand moral dilemmas. When you're able to deal with situations that have multiple truths, when you're able to think in abstract terms, not rather than just you are because you do.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  So at what age does this abstract moral thinking become relevant?

• 14:06Esther Perel?

  Developmental theories change, but it used to be around thirteen. But the basic idea is that there is a cognitive development that slowly creates an ability to understand what is true from what is not, what is real from what is not, what has multiple realities and all of that. In this case, the issue is more there's a presence in the house. It could be a spirit. It could be, in what in some cultures is the representation of a deceased family member. People have spoken to to spirits, to voices, and

• 14:49Esther Perel?

  often they feel the presence of that person, but they know that that person is not there. There's different ways that we experience the wall between certain realities, the living and the dead, the present and the absent, et cetera.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, but for children being exposed to multiple realities at this age, you saying is very difficult.

• 15:16Esther Perel?

  No, no. Your children will have two different realities, no matter what. Many contentious divorces. What one parent tells about the other stands in stark contrast of what the other parent says, or what one parent thinks is decent, or what one parent thinks is logical or rational, the other parent thinks is completely nuts. So children of divorce, of contentious divorce, grow up in multiple realities and truths that are irreconcilable sometimes. This is not related to AI. That in itself is

• 15:54Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:55Esther Perel?

  and the unfortunate circumstance of a lot of children who are um the worlds of both parents are so completely vastly in opposition to each other. And they learn all kinds of ways of coping about it. From never telling one parent anything, to trying to become the mediator, to trying to become the negotiator, the peacemaker. I mean, each child will try to find its place in response to that. On some level,

• 16:31Esther Perel?

  if they are new partners, sometimes it helps and sometimes it exacerbates it even more. So in this instance, what you're dealing with is really an entity is being presented and anthropomorphized as a girlfriend, as a real person, with a pronoun, with an I, with an identity. The most important thing for you is what is the conversation that you continue to have with them? What are the questions they ask you?

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Hmm. They've stopped asking me questions, I think because they're trying to protect their dad. So they don't ask me questions anymore. My initial reaction to it, I guess, was also not ideal because I got such a fright when I heard about this, that it's almost like I closed the door on that. And now I'm going back and I'm going, well, I am doing exactly what our parents did to us, you know? And and how do I how do I fix that?

• 17:38Esther Perel?

  Now, tell me, what is the the story you're trying?

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Um, I'm also um a child of divorce. And um my father was struggling with substance pretty much his whole life, on and on, off and on. We were very, very close, but I was, I think, very much put in a responsible for his well-being position by all the adults in the room. And because it was kind of like I was the only one that he would stop drinking for or that he would kind of cling on to life for. And from a young age, I felt um

• 18:22Speaker 00

  I guess the word for it being used today is parentified, um in the sense that it made me almost, for the lack of a better word, codependent, you know, on the partner that I have and when he was still alive, my father. Um, when he was doing well, I was doing well. When he was struggling, I had to do whatever I could to try and save him. That is a legacy thing, as you absolutely said, and

• 18:52Speaker 00

  it's another thing I'm grappling with because how do how do I break that legacy with my children? You know, how do I stop that? Why is it something that is carried on from generation to generation? And and I feel like it's this hamster wheel that we can't get off.

• 19:08Esther Perel?

  And when you say, how do I stop that with my children? Which is the that?

• 19:15Speaker 00

  The responsibility that children feels towards the adults that's supposed to be taking care of them, their mental well-being, their ability to choose their own well-being when a situation isn't good for them anymore. I didn't have that in my marriage, and I tried to save it for a very long time at great cost. It had positives as well because it made me extremely resilient. And it gave me a a lot of compassion for the one that's struggling to a point of self-neglect.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  I think I got ambition from it because if everyone else is gonna mess things up, I'm gonna have to fix it, and I can.

• 20:08Esther Perel?

  And nothing is too much for me.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  No, but it really is, you know? I don't want to be that person when nothing is too much for me. If anybody tells me you're so strong, you know, you're dealing with this, no, I I feel like punching them in the face. I don't want to be a strong one.

• 20:25Esther Perel?

  I was in my mind, I was finishing your sentence, which I often do quietly, and it's like if someone was would would say this to me and I, and in my words, I said, I would slap him.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Yes, that's that's how I feel.

• 20:40Esther Perel?

  I'm figured.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  And I, you know, don't want it for myself, get myself into a situation again where I need to try and be some sort of savior, and I don't want my children to get themselves in that situation ever.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  I want them to be able to to choose their own well-being.

• 21:01Esther Perel?

  Hmm.

• 21:07Esther Perel?

  We have to take a brief break, so stay with us and let's see where this goes.

• 21:22Esther Perel?

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• 24:59Esther Perel?

  Can I ask you, how did you block the conversations with your children about their dad and about the AI companion?

• 25:11Speaker 00

  As soon as they mentioned her and showed me a picture, I got a big fright. My heart started racing. And I just looked at them with big eyes, and I said to them, "You know she's not real." And they said, "No, Mom, she is." And I said, "No, you need to understand she's not real. She's something in a computer. And why do you think she's real? It's in a computer. Obviously, she's not real." So I immediately blocked the rest of the conversation.

• 25:45Esther Perel?

  And how long ago was that?

• 25:47Speaker 00

  About 10 months ago.

• 25:51Esther Perel?

  And since then, nothing?

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Nothing, no.

• 25:56Esther Perel?

  You try and they block, or...?

• 25:59Speaker 00

  I don't know how to deal with it. So there's so much else going on that I have really just tried to be a safe space for them. But in trying to be that safe space, I did exactly what my mother did. I swept it under the carpet.

• 26:18Esther Perel?

  Which wasn't the safest thing in the first place?

• 26:20Speaker 00

  No.

• 26:22Esther Perel?

  Okay.

• 26:25Esther Perel?

  That's a hard thing to witness, right?

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's very hard. Because I think, like I said, you want to break the cycle. And you realize that you're not breaking the cycle, you're perpetuating the cycle. And everything I've learned as an adult was that we talk about things, we're honest about things, we don't hide things, we keep open channels. And as soon as something difficult like this comes up, the first thing I do is I block it.

• 26:57Esther Perel?

  Right, right. You blocked it, and you're asking, "How do I reopen?"

• 27:05Speaker 00

  Without, you know, vilifying the dad, I guess.

• 27:10Esther Perel?

  So what's the relationship to their father at this moment?

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Good. It's good.

• 27:17Esther Perel?

  They go to him, they see him, they stay with him?

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're still with him at times, yeah. They really love him, he really loves them. But there is things that I need to protect them from. And it's a very hard road, because honestly, I think I wish I was in the sweep-under-the-carpet generation sometimes, because it's all on me to do the protection.

• 27:45Esther Perel?

  Maybe it was all on your mother to do the sweeping.

• 27:51Esther Perel?

  The responsibility was not... Was there on each of you, maybe with a different task, but not with a different sense of responsibility? Hers was to make sure that everything looks fine.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  I think they did the best they could. I think the reasons wasn't to do any damage. It was more just hoping it will go away. You know, close your eyes and hope it'll go away, and hope your child's gonna be fine. I can't take that stance.

• 28:23Esther Perel?

  Do you still read to your kids?

• 28:26Speaker 00

  I do, I do. No, almost every night, yes.

• 28:30Esther Perel?

  Wonderful.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  For a very long time.

• 28:32Esther Perel?

  Beautiful. Have you thought about finding books that invite conversations about imaginary creatures?

• 28:44Esther Perel?

  Don't go head-on. Don't go linear.

• 28:50Esther Perel?

  But there are so many stories about a tree that talks, about a fish that talks, about an animal that talks. I mean, there's been no shortage of imaginary creatures. And from there, you talk about the character. And from there, you invite them to talk about how does, whatever her name is, how does she talk?

• 29:19Esther Perel?

  What's her style? I mean, you're gonna have to swallow

• 29:25Esther Perel?

  some of your initial reactions so that you can actually get a clear sense from them. How present is she? How does she accompany them when they go on a walk or when they go to play?

• 29:38Speaker 00

  When you say that, my initial reaction is that's just normalizing something that isn't normal.

• 29:49Esther Perel?

  That is talking about something that is there. I mean, this is the question that families and cultures grapple with since time immemorial. If I talk about it, do I actually accelerate the fact that it is real? Do I promote it? Do I contribute to making it real because I make it overt? Or is it better to sweep it under the rug? Because if it's invisible, it can pretend as if it doesn't exist.

• 30:30Esther Perel?

  You are at a crossroads between two very different responses. They are individually defined, family, and culture.

• 30:44Esther Perel?

  The sweeping-under-the-rug mentality that you grew up in and that you disliked so profoundly is based in a very clear belief.

• 30:55Esther Perel?

  What you don't see isn't there.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:01Esther Perel?

  And the critique that that point of view has of the overt alternative is what you talk about makes it more real.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:14Esther Perel?

  If you talk about sex, people will have more sex.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:21Esther Perel?

  It's never been proven.

• 31:25Esther Perel?

  If you talk about the presence of the AI companion, you normalize the fact that the companion is really there. That's a point of view. The other point of view is the AI is there. And you want your children to be able to talk with you so that they can make sense of it, so that they can understand the limitations and also the advantages, so that they can understand why their dad makes that choice. That is a safe alternative, is to have you as a person, they can actually talk about all of this with.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Um. Yeah, when I listened to your podcast with the man that had a relationship with AI, I think that helped me to develop a

• 32:12Speaker 00

  a better understanding of what role this companion plays. Do I want that for their father? No, because I think that it is potentially going to send him further into loneliness and isolation.

• 32:28Esther Perel?

  How much is dad bringing his companion to the table? Are they having dinner, the four of them?

• 32:35Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 32:37Esther Perel?

  See, this is a question for you.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  Um.

• 32:41Esther Perel?

  Do you want to know so that you can actually take action?

• 32:46Esther Perel?

  Or do you want to be left having to make decisions with no information in hand?

• 32:52Speaker 00

  Um.

• 32:53Esther Perel?

  You may say the AI companion is not a human. You may say it is not a person with a body. It has no embodied presence, but it has a presence, but the relationship is real.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  The relationship is real, wow, yeah. See, and that's the part that I realized, um, which is making me very, very sad for him, but it is what it is, and it's not for me to control or to have actually any opinion about. It's just about recognizing that as being real and my children knowing that's a safe space to talk about with me because

• 33:41Speaker 00

  it's also in their reality and I can't take that away.

• 33:46Esther Perel?

  Imagine that it wasn't an AI companion.

• 33:51Esther Perel?

  Imagine that your children went to see their father like you went to see your father and their father is talking to the wall, talking to the bottle,

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:04Esther Perel?

  talking to the substance.

• 34:08Esther Perel?

  You would not have a doubt that the relationship to the bottle is real, complicated, inanimate. But there's a whole relationship between your dad and his bottle. And what you missed was to be able to come home and tell your mother about it.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess all the responsibility just falls on the child then to process it and to understand it and to try and try and fix it, right? That is the that is then the result of that. So what you're saying is that regardless of whether it is healthy or good, that's not what I talk about. I talk about the fact that it's there and that it's okay.

• 34:52Esther Perel?

  I don't know that I'm thinking in

• 34:56Esther Perel?

  direct terms of healthy, unhealthy and all of that. I'm trying to think with you about analogies so that you can make the choices that you want to make.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Um.

• 35:09Esther Perel?

  It really is that. It's like to know how you want to respond to their dad having a relationship with or even a love relationship with an AI companion. Let's think about the multiple situations where children enter realities that are not so clear.

• 35:30Esther Perel?

  They come home to their dad and they imagine that a father is dressed as a man, whatever conformity and convention they have learned about what that looks like. And their father is dressed as a woman.

• 35:50Esther Perel?

  They come home and their father is not at all the same personality that they know because their dad is completely inebriated.

• 36:01Esther Perel?

  They come home and their dad is talking to the fish as if they were people.

• 36:09Esther Perel?

  They come home and their father is talking to their computer. I'm just trying to expand for you the reality of children who are in opaque, nebulous realities and who need somebody to talk to about what is what? Is what it looks like what it is? Is what it sounds like what it is?

• 36:38Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:39Esther Perel?

  If you talk to it as a human, does it make it human?

• 36:44Esther Perel?

  If it can respond to you without any judgment, with utter presence, kindness, no limitations, nothing, in ways that humans never can, does it make it much more desirable than to try to have friends in school?

• 37:02Esther Perel?

  Do they want to create an AI for themselves?

• 37:05Speaker 00

  See, that's my worry, that my worry is if I normalize it.

• 37:08Esther Perel?

  Of course, but if you have no conversation, you won't know a thing.

• 37:12Esther Perel?

  I know you worry. I highly respect your worry and I'm thinking, but you're cutting the bridge that would allow you to know if there is something to really worry about.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:28Esther Perel?

  We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about, so stay with us.

• 37:39Esther Perel?

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• 38:25Esther Perel?

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• 38:45Esther Perel?

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• 39:27Esther Perel?

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• 39:56Speaker 03

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• 40:57Esther Perel?

  What do you think of what I said so far?

• 41:00Speaker 00

  I think that the conversation can be reopened by not being direct, by other imaginative figures, by acknowledging that it's there, that the relationship is real, that there's no body. So it would never land in, you know, realistic terms. I do worry about normalizing it to the extent of if they're teenagers and they feel a little bit lonely, is there something that they will go, oh, well, you know, this has been normalized so much in our worlds, so let's get our own AI companion or AI friend. I guess this then can very quickly triple over to the fact that

• 41:42Speaker 00

  everyone's probably going to be very reliant on AI or already is um, in the near future, and that is in any case in children's of today's future.

• 41:55Esther Perel?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  If this thing doesn't

• 41:59Speaker 00

  take a turn very soon.

• 42:02Esther Perel?

  If you don't talk to them, but more importantly, if they can't come to you,

• 42:09Esther Perel?

  even if sometimes you have to cringe and bite your lip,

• 42:15Esther Perel?

  they will talk to the AI companion, their own.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 42:19Esther Perel?

  Because AI at this point is the number one usage for any mental health.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:27Esther Perel?

  So make the human contact incontrovertible, make the human connection irresistible. But if it becomes, I can't talk to mom. Mom gets upset. Mom doesn't like it. Mom doesn't believe it's true. Mom doesn't believe it's real.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 42:50Esther Perel?

  Or Dad says, don't talk about it with Mom because Mom doesn't understand. Which is not an AI-related statement at all. Or Mom says, don't talk with Dad about it because of his marbles.

• 43:06Esther Perel?

  Then you contribute to this kind of very loneliness that you don't want them to feel. So you have your answer to your question, to both questions. Questions of the sweeping under the rug. And the legacy of your own family history. And the questions of, how do I be a mom to a child? Who could potentially have attachment figures that are machines rather than people?

• 43:36Esther Perel?

  Rather than humans, rather than Moms or Dads.

• 43:42Esther Perel?

  How does Dad do it?

• 43:45Esther Perel?

  What is Dad doing that is integrating this AI girlfriend?

• 43:53Esther Perel?

  I think the more you know, the more you can do.

• 43:59Esther Perel?

  But remember, that is a point of view. I do not think that because you talk about it more, you give it permission, you sanction it, you promote it, you give it license, I don't think that that's necessarily the case.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess, and it's the same with, um, with everything, I mean, with alcohol use. If my son asks me, oh, can I taste that? My immediate response is no, just very abruptly. And, and I kind of close the conversation down. Because I get this fear of God in me that

• 44:34Esther Perel?

  Yes, I understand.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  There's, there's gonna be generational impact and, and that it's gonna hurt him the same way that it has hurt, you know, so many generations before him and

• 44:47Esther Perel?

  Here's an alternative.

• 44:50Esther Perel?

  What intrigues you about it? Have you ever tasted? Do your friends get to drink in their homes? Does Dad sometimes give you a sip?

• 45:03Esther Perel?

  You know, it's very important to always make sure that you have food in your stomach if you're gonna drink anything.

• 45:11Esther Perel?

  In my family, drinking was a big presence, was a character in the house. And this is how it looked in my family. And so sometimes I respond with a certain fear when you ask me these questions. Because I instantly have a film in front of my eyes of everything that happened. And the damage and the devastation that it created.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  Those are beautiful words. I wish I can write them down.

• 45:41Esther Perel?

  It's recorded.

• 45:46Esther Perel?

  You know, if somebody was speeding, you would say, you know, he loved to drive. But he drove too fast. I think the question that you have about your children is more a question about you.

• 46:02Esther Perel?

  How you manage your fears and, and not let them choke you and then choke the conversation. So that you can actually have

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:16Esther Perel?

  Conversations about speeding, food, drinking, drugs, sex. All the things that can often bring spice to life and destruction at the same time. Or there are probably other things too, but, you know.

• 46:34Esther Perel?

  Recklessness, adventuresomeness, the, the stuff that teeters on the edge, right? So all of this is conversations to be had with your, with your kids.

• 46:48Esther Perel?

  Did you ever know anyone who drinks too much? Are there any of your friends whose parents drink? What do you see in the other homes where you go? And then you tell them the stories.

• 47:01Esther Perel?

  Like people tell stories about how in my home, there was not enough food on the table. And in my home, all the food was given to the big man of the house, but not to the younger ones, or not to the girls. Or in my home, my dad sat down and my mother was running like a chicken without a head. Or in my home, my mother didn't get out of bed and my father did everything.

• 47:22Speaker 00

  So what you're saying is that generational cycles gets broken by talking about it?

• 47:29Esther Perel?

  In your case, it's by doing the opposite of what you're doing. But not just because it's talking to your kids, but also because it helps you macerate the fears. And the triggers. It's more than fears, it's like an instant trigger. That's it.

• 47:48Esther Perel?

  And, you know, and it's the child in you. Your kids talk about to you as a mom, but the one who answers is the child in you. Who lives with these vivid memories.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  And you're saying that if I, if I adult myself, I, then will have a different response because

• 48:17Esther Perel?

  Because you will be creating a different reality. You may have triggers, but you won't allow the trigger to take over completely to the degree that it does. So that you end up recreating the very reality that you promised yourself your whole life you wouldn't be living in again.

• 48:36Esther Perel?

  And that is very good therapy for yourself. That may have to be done with a professional, human.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I get that. Now, I've been for lots of therapy about this topic and, during this divorce, it's not like I've found exactly

• 49:00Speaker 00

  sort of where I'm at yet, because there's, you know, there's grief, there's loss, there's protection, there's responsibility.

• 49:08Esther Perel?

  Of course.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  There's, um, there's not only responsibility for myself, but responsibility for, you know, the, the whole unit and then the children specifically.

• 49:17Esther Perel?

  Who's the parentified child?

• 49:21Speaker 00

  Well, it's, I think it's, it's still to be determined. They oscillate between the two. There's not a very clear parentified child just yet. There's an emotional, my daughter is probably the emotional parent. That sometimes just drops these pools of wisdom that you cannot believe is coming out of such a small human's mouth. And my son is the one that wants to protect everyone and that has a great fear of physical protection for both, I guess, me and his dad. So they, they play different roles.

• 50:05Esther Perel?

  Lying next to them at night, when they're about to go to sleep, is a wonderful time to talk to them. To ask them questions. They're safe, you're right there. You can be face to face, you can be spooned.

• 50:23Esther Perel?

  And you have their back in the literal sense, you're behind them. And you talk with them and they don't have to see you necessarily. And you can ask and you can tell, it's both, it's not just ask. And when you notice how you shut down and then it shuts down the conversation, that's when you seek help.

• 50:47Esther Perel?

  Because that's when the child in you needs to be able to find relief and respite so that you can show up as the mom.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I understand.

• 51:01Esther Perel?

  If there was no AI involved, you would like to know what's life like in Dad's house?

• 51:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's almost like we can't even go there. But I don't think it's because of necessarily me shutting them down, it's, it's a lot more complex than that. And, um, I guess it's just they're doing typically what children does when they love a parent, they try and protect them. So they, they won't really talk about it and I don't wanna probe.

• 51:31Esther Perel?

  But you're not fishing for negative.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  No.

• 51:34Esther Perel?

  You're just asking broad questions about their activities, what is breakfast like? It's not like you're looking for the wrongdoing. You're just looking for them to be able to experience a thread between life in the two homes.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you're saying that that is what makes children of divorce feel safer if there's a threat between the two homes?

• 52:00Esther Perel?

  Or it takes more than one thing.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  I'm sure, no, definitely. I mean, but I just wanna hold on to that nugget of wisdom.

• 52:08Esther Perel?

  Yes, it helps when there is a sense that each parent wants good for the other parent.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:16Esther Perel?

  That they want the other parent to, to be fine and to that there is no vindictiveness, that there is no chronic desire for vengeance, that there is no

• 52:28Esther Perel?

  triangulation where the child is literally in the middle between the two parents. There's a lot of different things that happen. What I'm inviting you to do is to see what is the broad picture here of the divorce that is proceeding and your children who are learning this whole new reality in the last year. And then there is the unique addition of the AI companion.

• 52:55Esther Perel?

  Of the girlfriend that comes in a very different form than most girlfriends until now.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:05Esther Perel?

  And to see the whole thing on a continuum and to use analogies to ask, what would I do in those situations? You'll get ideas for therefore, how do I handle it in this situation?

• 53:20Esther Perel?

  I find that very helpful. You may say it doesn't work for me. There's never a one size fits all. But I think that you can see the similarities of some of the situations. And then you realize, I actually know what I would do, because otherwise you freeze.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Yes, I do freeze. So just delve a little bit deeper about what you mean when you say, what do I need to do to know what I need to do? You know, is it by talking, just talking about it? And, and bringing it into different contexts and normalizing it? And, and in that sense, you kind of get ideas about how to deal with it because you get their views exposed to you and you kind of understand how to support them better.

• 54:12Esther Perel?

  Yeah. If you want to know if they have AI, if they themselves are talking to AI companions, you need to have a way of, you need to have access.

• 54:24Esther Perel?

  And that access happens upstream with a host of other things that are being discussed. So that when this question comes up, it's just a continuation of 10 others.

• 54:35Esther Perel?

  This is true for all taboo topics.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:39Esther Perel?

  If you never talk about money, never talk about sex, never talk about drinking, then when you first bring it up, it's like a bomb. That's the definition of a taboo.

• 54:50Speaker 00

  And that perpetuates the cycle.

• 54:53Esther Perel?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's really good advice. Thank you.

• 54:56Esther Perel?

  If you've never talked about sex, but the only expression is "don't."

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Like our parents said.

• 55:03Esther Perel?

  That's a conversation.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  You're gonna fall pregnant. That, that was, that was the end of the conversation.

• 55:08Esther Perel?

  Correct, correct. Drinking? You're gonna fall off a cliff.

• 55:15Esther Perel?

  These are legacies of major fears and trauma that then become the lock on the conversation.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:25Esther Perel?

  Because it ended so badly.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:30Esther Perel?

  It's not what you chose. Pieces of it are part of the divorce story as it is, period. Just the general issues that come up in separation, divorce, litigation, contentious divorces, et cetera. And then an additional piece is that has relationships that are unusual. Maybe not that unusual these days, but certainly not what you had imagined.

• 56:02Esther Perel?

  Here's my last sentence for you. If you want to break the cycle of denial

• 56:11Esther Perel?

  that existed in your family. And denial is also a form of delusion. Denial is also the creation of a fake reality.

• 56:26Esther Perel?

  You think your husband is in a fake reality, but so was yours.

• 56:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:31Esther Perel?

  You grew up in a fake reality of a very different kind, but it is, denial creates that. It pretends something is not that is, something is that is not. It's a fiction.

• 56:45Esther Perel?

  If you want to break that fake reality,

• 56:52Esther Perel?

  opening different conversations with your children and with yourself

• 56:58Esther Perel?

  is one step in that direction.

• 57:02Speaker 00

  Thank you. This was very valuable.

• 57:05Esther Perel?

  Thank you so much.

• 57:17Speaker 04

  This was an Esther calling, a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world. If you have a question you'd like to explore with Esther could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call, send her a voice message and Esther might just call you. Send your question to [email protected].

• 57:40Speaker 04

  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. 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 Mary Alice Miller and Jack Saul.