548 Esther Perel: The Truth About Infidelity, Intimacy, and Love

"Criticism is a veiled wish." - Esther Perel If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/548 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 548 with Esther Perel.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Having your heart broken is the easy part. Knowing when to move on is the challenge. I am so pumped for this episode because the last time we had a stare on, it blew up. It blew up everywhere and this one is even bigger and more mind blowing. Get ready and start sharing this out with your friends right now. LewisHowes.com/548. I'm telling you, this is going to be a powerful one for you. For those that don't know who Esther Perel is, she is recognized as one of the most insightful and provocative voices on personal and professional relationships, and the complex science behind human interaction. She's also the bestselling author of Mating in Captivity, which is translated into 25 languages.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  She is a practicing psychotherapist, celebrated speaker, and her critically acclaimed viral TED Talks have collectively reached over 10 million views. I think it's almost 20 million views now. She is a podcast host of the show, Where Should We Begin?, where you can listen in on real client sessions actually going through the challenges in their life. It's powerful. Also, her clients and platform include companies such as Nike, Tony Robbins, Summit Series, Founder's Forum, and so much more, including the Summit of Greatness. And she is a frequent guest on shows like Oprah, The Today Show, Dr. Oz, The Colbert Report. And she's got a powerful new book out called The State of Affairs. You're going to want to make sure to get it.

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  And what we're covering today, guys, is so mind blowing. I'm telling you, you're going to be tweeting me and messaging me on Instagram DM. Throughout this, I can already tell. We covered the definition of infidelity. What is the definition of it? Is it just thinking about someone else? Is it actually acting on it? Is it flirting? What is it? We talk about it. We talk about why affairs are about desire and not about sex. Oh, we're getting deep, guys. We talk about the difference between how men and women talk about infidelity. We also talk about knowing when is the best time to talk about boundaries and infidelity when you enter a new relationship. Oh, it's getting hot, guys.

• 2:44Lewis Howes?

  Then we're talking about how to rekindle trust after someone's cheated. This is a big one. And also what to do as the friend of someone who has been cheated on. I actually think this might be one of the most powerful parts of the whole interview because Esther normally doesn't talk about that. So if your friend has been cheated on or maybe been treated poorly in a relationship, how do you have a relationship? And how do you have a conversation with your friend so that you don't alienate them from everything? There's a way to talk to your friends when they've been cheated on, and this is going to transform your life. Before we dive in, want to give a shout out to the fan of the week. And this is a review from iTunes.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  This is from Orange Lint, who says, "I look forward to listening to every new podcast on the School of Greatness. Honest, genuine, insightful, thought provoking, and necessary. Love this podcast." So thank you so much, Orange Lint, for being the review and fan of the week. It means a lot to us over here at the School of Greatness. And every time someone leaves a review, it helps us get the message out there more. The rankings go up on the podcast. So if you're a fan of the podcast, it's added value to. Head over to the podcast app on your iPhone or on any app and go there right now. If you just log in on the podcast app, you scroll down, you can see a place to leave a review. It's pretty simple.

• 4:09Lewis Howes?

  Click a button, type in your review, and get your chance to be shout out on the podcast for the review and fan of the week. Okay, guys, get ready. This is going to be powerful. I'm super pumped for you. Without further ado, the one, the only, Esther Perel.

• 4:30Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have the legendary Esther Perel in the house. Very excited that you're here.

• 4:38Esther Perel?

  Back again.

• 4:39Lewis Howes?

  Back again. The last time we had you on was about a year and a half ago and I think it's a few hundred thousand views on the video on YouTube, over a hundred something thousand on the audio and people can't get enough of you. We had you speak at the Summit of Greatness recently and people were booing me when I had to take you off the stage to get to the next speaker. So I'm excited to have you back on. You've got a new book out right now. It's called The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. We don't have the copy here, but you can see it right here on this card. Make sure you guys go pick it up. The State of Affairs, it's going to be a game changer. You had a book come out 10 years ago roughly and so you've been doing a lot of research, diving in and working with a lot of people. You work with people one-on-one in your practice.

• 5:24Lewis Howes?

  So you're seeing what's happening at the deepest levels of love, pain, suffering and everything in between, right?

• 5:31Esther Perel?

  Yes.

• 5:32Lewis Howes?

  You're constantly in this and you've been doing this work for a long time.

• 5:35Esther Perel?

  Thirty plus.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Thirty plus years. And Rethinking Infidelity, most of us never talk about this, right? We don't, it's like a subject we don't go into. It's like a scary thing to talk about, but you're saying we should be thinking about it and talking about it more, is that right?

• 5:52Esther Perel?

  See, the interesting thing is that it's not because you don't talk about something that it doesn't exist. And if I go and I ask audiences all over the world for the past, since 2009 now that I began the research on this book, how many of you have been affected by the experience of infidelity? About 80% of the people raised their hand. And that means that they were the children of parents who were unfaithful, or they were the children who were born in an affair, in a love story.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 6:21Esther Perel?

  Or they were the siblings, or they were the friend that was consoling a broken heart, or they were the friends that was listening to the confidences of someone who's in the trolls of an affair, or they are the third in the triangle. It is systemic. But the topic of infidelity, which has been historically condemned, is historically practiced.

• 6:44Esther Perel?

  Shrouded in secrecy and shame and hence kept very, very silent. And unfortunately, not helpful to the thousands of people who grapple with it. So I've spent the last years working with hundreds of couples who've been shattered by the experience of an affair and of infidelity in the US and abroad. And I thought, we can do better.

• 7:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so what's, what's the definition of infidelity then? Or how should we be defining it? Is it thinking about being with other people? Is it flirting? Is it, what's the line? What's the boundary? What's the definition?

• 7:19Esther Perel?

  So the definition keeps on expanding. That's the first thing. It is no longer just because you got pregnant from somebody else. With contraception today, the definition has become, is it watching porn? Is it chatting? Is it a massage with happy endings? Is it staying active on your dating apps when you're already seeing somebody more steadily? Is it reconnecting with your exes on Facebook? It is actually rather unclear and it is often left to the people to define it. But there are three major elements that I think make it very clearer, for me anyway, to define it.

• 8:03Esther Perel?

  The first thing is that it usually is organized around a secret. The constitutive element of infidelity is the secrecy. When it's not a secret, when it's consensual, it's a completely different story. So the secret is at the heart of infidelity.

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  So when your partner doesn't know or isn't aware.

• 8:21Esther Perel?

  That's right.

• 8:22Lewis Howes?

  Then it's.

• 8:22Esther Perel?

  Yes, and of course, that today requires you to ask what must be shared and what is private? What is the extent between privacy, secrecy and transparency? Then, the second element is a certain kind of emotional involvement to one degree or another, even if it's hit and run. There still is an emotional involvement. It takes effort to make something mean nothing.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:46Esther Perel?

  Right? So, the, the, the quality of that involvement, with the person, with the sex, with the feelings, that. And then the third one, which is really the most important one, is that it's a sexual alchemy. The element of sexual alchemy is not sex. We know that most affairs are way less about sex and a lot more about desire. Now, desire for what? Desire to be desired, desire to be seen, to feel important, to have someone's attention, someone who cares about you, desire to feel alive, desire to reconnect with lost parts of yourself. Way more important than the sex itself. The kiss that you only imagine giving can be just as powerful as hours of actual lovemaking. The mind is the most important sexual organ.

• 9:32Esther Perel?

  Destraining secrecy, emotional involvement, sexual alchemy, intersecting with each other are the three central elements of what makes infidelity. But today, that we don't have religious institutions necessarily telling us what is the king of sins, it is left to us and our relationships to make sense of this, to define it, to know where our lines will be with our partners, to know when we cross those lines. And if it's about thinking, if it's about remembering, it's about fantasizing while you're with your partner, if it's, it is a subject that is deeply entrenched in our lives and often very difficult for us to, to open up.

• 10:18Esther Perel?

  And yet, we need to because, because we need to help people who suffer with it.

• 10:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Otherwise, there's always gonna be so much more conflict in the relationship if we don't talk about it, right?

• 10:28Esther Perel?

  Look, the majority of people don't talk about any of this.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:33Esther Perel?

  Their desires for others, the boundaries they want to establish with each other, what they share sexually, what is private, what is the space of their erotic freedom, even in their head, what feelings are they allowed to have, what kind of friendships do they have with others? Most people talk about none of this until the shit hits the fan. In most straight couples, the negotiation of monogamy is very simple. It's five words. I catch you, you're dead. That's it.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:59Esther Perel?

  End of conversation.

• 11:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Esther Perel?

  And then, when there is a crisis, when something breaks out, suddenly, people launch into conversations that they've never had, and they are finally grappling with a level of honesty about this, but in the midst of so much pain.

• 11:15Lewis Howes?

  And resentment and anger, yeah.

• 11:17Esther Perel?

  Confusion, pain, rage, disappointment, romantic frustration, you name it. Like, could we do better? Can we do it sooner? Can we have the courage to have some of the difficult conversations before we're in the midst of a crisis?

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I love that you talked about, I've heard you say this before at a few of your speeches, but at our event as well, you mentioned how we expect our partner to be sexy and on all the time, and be intellectually stimulating to us all the time, and to be playful, and fun, and adventurous, and hardworking in their jobs, and take care of the kids, and all these things. We expect so much of them, but it's so hard to get everything from one person.

• 11:57Esther Perel?

  It's a tall party for, a tall order for a party of two, isn't it?

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's really challenging, so.

• 12:02Esther Perel?

  It's one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide. That's what happens. You know, you used to have a community, and the community had all kinds of people in there that gave you a sense of identity, a sense of meaning, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, all of this, and then you had a church, you had a religious, you know, you had the realm of the divine, the one and only was called God, not your lover.

• 12:31Esther Perel?

  You know? And now, all of this has been siphoned into one relationship. So when you have an infidelity, it shatters the great ambition of love. Because what does it say? You're not the one and only. You're not the only one. You're actually replaceable. You're not nearly that unique. You're not indispensable. And it breaks you. It's a crisis of identity. It used to always be painful, but it wasn't a crisis of identity, where people say, who am I? What's, what am I? This is not me. This isn't my life. My whole life is a lie. This whole thing is a fraud. I can't recognize myself. Or, I can't trust, not only I can't trust you, but I can't even trust my own perception. I have lost my own sense of orientation.

• 13:16Esther Perel?

  It is a complete shattering of the self. And that has never been so acute. And it comes because we really thought, once I find the one and I am your one, this is never meant to happen. We've been looking long enough. We've stalled marriage or whatever commitment. Ten years later than we used to, by now, when I pick you, we should be clear of all of this. This should not happen.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  But it's still happening more and more, it seems like today, right?

• 13:45Esther Perel?

  Look, it happens more and more primarily because women are closing the infidelity gender gap.

• 13:53Esther Perel?

  Women, for the first time, have also the possibility to choose who they want to be with. They have no full divorce. They do not risk being excommunicated from church. And they have probably, in many quarters at least, some form of economic independence that allows them to take care of themselves.

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  So they're not as in fear of like making a mistake or whatever, yeah?

• 14:13Esther Perel?

  Of losing everything. They used to be the possession of men. And, look, infidelity has been practically a license for men throughout history, all over the world.

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  Because they're gonna have this power. They have the money, they have the this, yeah.

• 14:28Esther Perel?

  That's it. You know, male privilege allowed men to do this with, almost with impunity. And then we had all kinds of theories that came to explain while men are natural roamers and they are the conquistadors and they're not made for monogamy, whereas women are made for monogamy. You know, the theories suited the status quo of the power structure. But is that really the case? So, we don't know if it really goes up because it depends on the definition. What we do know is that when it comes to sex, men and women lie. Men lie by boasting, by exaggerating, by inflating, because the social pressure for men has always been to pump themselves up as it comes to sex.

• 15:12Esther Perel?

  And women lie by denying, by minimizing, and by underrepresenting because the pressure for women has always been to protect themselves. And they needed to, therefore.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  Minimize it.

• 15:24Esther Perel?

  Minimize it.

• 15:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:26Esther Perel?

  So, we don't have numbers. And the numbers go from thirty to seventy percent, depending on the definition.

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that?

• 15:35Esther Perel?

  The numbers of people who cheat.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  Thirty percent of women.

• 15:38Esther Perel?

  In the research. No, no, thirty percent of, oh, the gap between men and women today is three, four percent. It's not much.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 15:45Esther Perel?

  In this country, yes. But, maybe six, seven percent difference. It's really minor, but the interesting thing is depending on how you define it, you're going from thirty to seventy percent.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:58Esther Perel?

  Ninety percent of people would say that it's terribly wrong to lie about cheating. And the same amount of people say that that's exactly what they would do if they were on the other side.

• 16:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:09Esther Perel?

  You know, people are rather inconsistent about that stuff. What we know is, it hurts like crazy. It's a violation of trust. It's a betrayal. And people need tools, how to recover, how to heal, how to love again, and how to trust again. And we need to make better sense of why does this happen? Why do people do it? What does it mean, etc.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  If you were advising someone that just got into a relationship in the last month, or a recent relationship they just got into and they're watching or listening, would you advise them to have certain conversations early on, once they realize they're gonna be, you know, committed to each other, or give it a shot and be monogamous with each other? Would you tell them to start talking about these things? Even when it's the puppy love and it's the romance time? Is that the time to talk about it? When do you talk about it?

• 17:00Esther Perel?

  That's a fantastic question. Because in the beginning, you don't wanna talk about it because you don't wanna jinx it. And then you don't wanna talk about it because you didn't talk about it before. And then you're looking for the right moment to talk about it. And then when you bring it up later, the person says, "Have you been thinking about this the whole time and you haven't told me? Have you done anything? So now I'm already suspicious. Why are you to..." Look, I think the simplest thing for the difficult conversations is to have them be integrated as part of the whole thing. When you talk about previous relationships, you ask, "Have you been heartbroken?"

• 17:33Esther Perel?

  Have you ever left somebody in a shitty way? Have you ever lied to somebody? Have you cheated on someone? Have you been cheated on? Have you ever made up with someone who cheated on you? Have you ever been able to, you know? Do you have trust issues about, in general? You know, because of your mother, because of your father, not even because of your own experiences? You know? Infidelity is a conversation like you talk about intimacy, like you talk about other relationships. I mean, if you go in a business experience and you're with a new partner, you probably would say, "What have been your experiences with other co-founders?" You know, "What have been your other experiences with business partners?" Have you had good experiences?

• 18:16Esther Perel?

  Is this experience sitting on the top of a bad divorce from before? You know, in general, whoever you choose next is always chosen by default in relation to the one that preceded.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:27Esther Perel?

  Anyway, so it is right there. And then you say, "Listen, this is not because I'm thinking about it or because I want to do it. It's because I actually want to get to know you and I want you to get to know me." Then is the conversation too. When you love, what is your experience about exclusivity? You know, many people find it is, the romantic ideal makes that question forbidden because once I have found the one and only, and that is the one for whom I'm willing to delete my apps, and that is the one for whom I'm stopped by looking. You are now the person that has so captivated me that I stopped searching. That's it, my phone is taken care of. Doesn't matter that there are another thousand people out there, you caught me.

• 19:12Esther Perel?

  You know, how am I going to then say to you, "You know what? On occasion, I still think about this one or that one or my ex or I have attractions." This is normal. We choose not to act on them. Monogamy is a practice. It's not a dogma, and it's not natural. It's a choice. It's a practice that we exercise because we choose a certain relationship that we want to be in. So I say from the start, in an integrated fact, not we need to discuss some

• 19:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:41Esther Perel?

  Just, you know, isn't it a normal question to ask to some, to you, to a new person? You know, have you been heartbroken? That's kind of a different way of saying, you know, have you? And why, you know? Um, have you ever dick somebody around? Have you ghosted somebody? Have you been ghosted? You know, have you had somebody who just kind of? Yesterday I had a woman come to me at the conference and she says to me, do you think people can change? I said, how many times? He did it once? He did it six times? What's the story? She says, it hasn't stopped. And I said, look, it's eating you up at this point. I, I see you. It's not like I have to ask you five questions. It's eating you up a lot.

• 20:26Esther Perel?

  How long? Two years. So, but she has a child from a previous relationship. And I, and then she said, but he must be suffering from something. I said, now you're gonna take care of him? On top of it, you're gonna be the nurse? How about you take care of yourself for a minute? Your entire, you're about to have your self-esteem crumble under you. At some point, you say, no. No, because it's eating, it, it just is like

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Esther Perel?

  sapping your confidence.

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Or you accept it and you're, that's your relationship, I guess, if that's what you choose to be in.

• 20:57Esther Perel?

  If that's what you choose, but she wouldn't be coming to me to say,

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:01Esther Perel?

  you know, the question said to, she's like, she couldn't talk.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Esther Perel?

  Uh, uh, when you see this, you know that you're not with somebody who says, I know my man, that's the kind of guy he is. It doesn't matter to me because I know I'm his queen. Okay, but no, no, we're in a completely different story here. She's like, you know, aching.

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone regain trust then? Cause we were talking about this earlier. How do you regain trust and regain open communication if someone's been unfaithful? Or just hurting them for a couple of years in a relationship? And you feel like it's not working?

• 21:34Esther Perel?

  You know, it's interesting, cause you're asking me this. And yet you, as an amazing role model, have spoken about some of your own experiences of abuse. So you know this question. How do you let someone touch you? Come near you? Not feel like they're gonna harm you? The understand the difference between caring touch and hurtful touch. Allowing yourself to experience pleasure again. Allowing yourself to surrender without thinking that while you're not on guard, nothing bad is gonna happen.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  Really challenging.

• 22:05Esther Perel?

  Right, okay. But it's that same trajectory, right? It's like,

• 22:12Esther Perel?

  you begin to, you, first of all, you're, you, well, in this case, you're a child versus adult, but you, you, you, you hope that it's not because one person hurt you that you lose your faith in humanity. You hope that you know that there are people who are not harmful, that they really are good people that care and love. You probably trust with your eyes more open. It doesn't have the same naivete. And it depends, if you're asking me, how do I trust you again? After you have cheated on me? Or how do I trust another people again? I think it's two different stories.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  What about the person you're in a relationship with?

• 22:52Esther Perel?

  Look, it depends as well.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Because it's hard to let go of stuff in the past, right?

• 22:58Esther Perel?

  So it depends how long is the past? If you and I have been together for two years, and this just happened. It's a different story than if you and I have been together for the past twenty years. And we have a family, and we have built a life, and we have buried parents, and we have birthed children, and we have built homes, and we have created jobs, and we have a whole life together. And in the midst of this, this experience happened. And you, my woman, or my partner, male or female partner, went out. And then, you kind of wanna know, how did this happen? What, what, what happened to us? Where were we at? You know, is this related to the relationship? I think the big distinction for me is to figure out

• 23:44Esther Perel?

  what betrayals take place because the relationship had disintegrated in some way or degraded, and which ones have nothing to do with the relationship. Yeah? People who have been sick, people who are unemployed, people who have lost their sense of confidence, or people who have made a lot of money suddenly, the other way around. People who suddenly feel like they deserve something. Because in a way, when you allow yourself this experience, it's because you feel you deserve it. You justify it to yourself. You come up with good explanations for why you, of all people, can do this.

• 24:21Esther Perel?

  I need to understand what you were thinking about me while this was going on. Did you even think about me? Did you think what this would do to me? Or to our kids, if we have kids? Did you feel guilty about it? Were you tortured in any way? Or did I disappear from your screen? And you were so grandiose that I didn't exist anymore? Did you want me to find out? Are you relieved that it's come out? Do you actually want to come back? And are you coming back just because it's convenient to you? Or are you choosing me again? I think the most important feature in the trust is not only that you won't do it again, but that you really are choosing to be with me again. And that you're not just here because it suits you or because I make the money

• 25:06Esther Perel?

  or because we have a family. It's comfortable or whatever, yeah. What I really want to trust is that you love me and you want to be with me. And not that you're here while you're thinking about the person there. Yeah. And that goes hand in hand with something else. I think that's probably the most important thing about hurt and the breach of trust. Is I come to you and I say to you, I'm really sorry. That we know from any trauma that it's the wrongdoer coming to acknowledge what they've done. If the perpetrator isn't able to acknowledge it, and I'm not calling these perpetrators, but we know in the experience that when you hurt someone,

• 25:49Esther Perel?

  nothing helps you more than the person who hurt you to say to you, I have remorse and I feel guilty for hurting you. Even if they don't feel guilt about the experience of the affair itself. Maybe you think that the affair was one of the greatest things that you have experienced in a long time. Tennessee or whatever, yeah. Or you've been a mother and a wife for the last seven years and you haven't had a minute to think about yourself and you felt like you had completely died inside. And for the first time, you reconnect with your own sensuality and your own liveness and you remember that you're more than just a mother and just a wife. For example. So you may think this was really important to me. But nevertheless, what it meant to you and what it does to your partner are two different things.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:34Esther Perel?

  So my acknowledging that remorse and that guilt is essential.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Is the first step.

• 26:39Esther Perel?

  First step.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:41Esther Perel?

  And that is very different from feeling shame, because when I feel shame, and I feel so bad about myself, I can't believe I did this, it's more self-involvement.

• 26:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:51Esther Perel?

  It's more about me.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  It's like, make, yeah.

• 26:53Esther Perel?

  You know.

• 26:54Lewis Howes?

  Make it about me so you can say it's okay or whatever.

• 26:56Esther Perel?

  Yes, I feel so bad about myself that I can't feel bad for what I did to you. Right? So I have no empathy. I still have not in the empathy. It's like, you need to be able to feel bad for making the other person feel bad. And that means that you can't feel so bad about you because then it's all about you. Big difference between shame and guilt. Okay? Guilt is a relational responsibility. Guilt is an accountability to the other. That's the first one. And the second thing is that I then become the vigilante of the relationship. Meaning that I, for a while, while you are asking me the same questions again and again because you're trying to figure this out, because your whole reality has just been shattered,

• 27:36Esther Perel?

  I am able to tell you, it's okay, I am here, just keep asking, I'll answer you. I'm not gonna say, come on, enough already, haven't we gone over this? Let's move on, let's move on, it's over, don't you see, it's over? No, I cannot rush you, I have to give you the space to make sense, to be in your pain, to hurt, to get angry, to push me, to pull me, until we slowly settle. And there is a period like that of that acute crisis that you just can't push. You have to go through it, because it is in the nature of the beast.

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  It's a process.

• 28:10Esther Perel?

  It's a process.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  No one's gonna rationalize it right away and move on. It might take some time.

• 28:15Esther Perel?

  You can't.

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  Some people, it takes years probably that you've been working with, where it takes years then to fully trust again, right?

• 28:21Esther Perel?

  But you know, even when you say fully trust, trust for what? Like, I, I saw this couple recent, last week, actually, and, you know, I said, you still leave your children with him. You have your money together, you share a home together. Uh, while your mother was in the hospital, in the last year, he continued to come see her every week. He still is paying for your alcoholic brother. You trust him for a lot of things.

• 28:50Esther Perel?

  It's not one big categorical. You don't trust that he really has finished his story with this woman, because you actually know that he fell in love with this woman. And you, you're right not to trust him. You are right, because he doesn't trust himself yet. He gonna, is gonna take some time to come back. And this is a very ambiguous period for the two of you, where it's very, very shaky. Because you want him back, but you know he's not fully back. And he wants to come back, but he knows he's not fully there. But you trust him for many other things. And you need to remember that too. And it'll take a few months. It'll take a few months, because he has made a decision. He wants to come back. He believes in what you've built together.

• 29:33Esther Perel?

  But yes, for a moment, he was ready to go.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:38Esther Perel?

  And I, and I, my work is I hold this. I offer structure, calmness, reassurance. And I basically try to not make anybody make rash decisions. Because when your limbic system is hijacked, you better not make a decision about your life.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Be emotional and it's-

• 29:57Esther Perel?

  No, you're just in reptile mode.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Esther Perel?

  You know.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  In your sessions, what, what do you find is the, uh, the root of most divorces or breakups or separations? Is it infidelity, or is it something else?

• 30:10Esther Perel?

  Infidelity is high up there, you know, um, it's high up there. It's not, it, but, but is it the consequence? Or, and, or is, is it the cause? That's the question you wanna ask. Is it, you know, in some relationships, affairs are the death knell for a relationship that was already dying on the vibe. But it was already dead. This was just the way out. And in other relationships, the affair actually is an alarm system that jolts people out of a state of complacency, where for the, for the first time in a long time, they realize, oh my god. I better pay attention, I have so much to lose here.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 30:50Esther Perel?

  So it can make it and it can break it. I think the biggest killer for relationships in general, doesn't matter if they're short term or long term, is contempt. Contempt. You can have volatile relationships, but people scream, fight, but they make up and they know that fundamentally they care deeply about each other. Contempt is a form of dehumanization. That's the research of, one of the big researchers on relationships, John Gottman. The four horses of apocalypse, he calls them. One is criticism.

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  Four horses of what?

• 31:22Esther Perel?

  Apocalypse.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  Apocalypse, got it.

• 31:24Esther Perel?

  Criticism? Defensiveness? Defensiveness, right? It's like every time I say something to you, you can't just say, "That makes sense," or "Tell me more," or "Let me try to understand this," or "Yes, I'm really sorry, yes, that is a bad habit of mine." No, I constantly defend and counter-attack and put it back on you and, you know. Criticism? Criticism is, I can't just say, "I want you to do this." It's like, you know, "You had to let this sit here again?" You know? It's like, "You're doing this on purpose, right? I've had to tell you five times, I don't want that iPad on the table here." You know, what kind of a thing is this? You know, this is just in spite? Can't you just ask for something, rather than make a judgment on the entire person?

• 32:08Esther Perel?

  Because criticism is a veiled wish. Behind the criticism, there's actually something I want from you, but I have a way of asking it in such a way that guarantees I'm never gonna get it.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, it's passive-aggressive energy, yeah, yeah.

• 32:20Esther Perel?

  You can leave the passive out of it, it's aggressive.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:23Esther Perel?

  It's aggressive, right? I'm like, at you, I'm picking, I'm going after you. So, because it's less vulnerable than to put myself out there with a request and say, "You know, it would mean a lot to me, when I ask you this, that you would do this." And sometimes I've already asked it to you like that, twice or three times, and I begin to get more and more upset. But at the time, people come to me, they've often asked very nicely, for years before. I don't get to see that, because usually people come to the therapist late in the game. So defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling. Stonewalling, silent treatment. I talk to you, you look up. You know, you're somewhere else. I can't get a response, you withdraw, you withhold, all of that.

• 33:07Esther Perel?

  And contempt is that gaze. That face that just says, really? You can with one facial expression, literally reduce somebody to nothing. And I think that one is probably the end of the rope.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  Those are the four killers of relationships.

• 33:27Esther Perel?

  Those are the four killers. But what people think they divorced for is that they couldn't communicate. But why they didn't communicate is because they were doing one of these four things. Or they had arguments about money, or they didn't agree around the children, or they had no sex, or they had terrible sex, or, you know, they think it's a... There's a reason, there's a topic. But in fact, the topic is less important than the way they were dealing with the topic. You know? You have two kinds of couples. Those who are at each other like this in the negative space. They are high conflict, or they are avoidant. Too much avoidance, that's it. That's like everybody's gone off somewhere.

• 34:12Esther Perel?

  And too much conflict is this, it's escalation upon escalation. On these two axes sits the death of a couple.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  So how, what's the perfect relationship? A little bit of each other, a little bit of avoiding?

• 34:26Esther Perel?

  Yes, this. I mean, this conflict, you resolve it, you move again, you get close again, you... You know, it's a dynamic thing. Estrangement is like, you know, I don't even know who's living here. When's the last time you had a conversation about something? When's the last time you touched each other? When's the last time you looked into each other's eyes? You know, when's the last time you talked about something else and what needs to be planned for tomorrow? It's not always negative, it's just the affection leaves. The warmth, the love, the aliveness, the vibrancy, it seeps out.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  How important is touch, sex, hugging, kissing? How important is that for a thriving relationship? Because you hear a lot about a lot of marriages, like, we have sex once a week, once a month, once every six months. Are those dying if they're not having that intimacy?

• 35:16Esther Perel?

  So intimacy and sex is not always the same. You can live without sex.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  You can live without sex.

• 35:23Esther Perel?

  But you can't live without touch. If you don't get touched, as a human being, you become irritable, aggressive, depressed. We know that children who are not touched have attachment disorders. I mean, we are people who feed on touch. Sex is a different thing, because people have had sex, women have done sex with men as a marital duty for centuries and felt nothing. That doesn't mean it's a good experience. So I don't care about numbers, I don't care about frequency, or numbers of orgasms, or any of that. What you want is the quality of the experience. That's the erotic. How fun is it? The pleasure. Pleasure is the measure, not the performance. Okay? That's a great line of a wonderful author named Emily Nagoski.

• 36:09Esther Perel?

  I think touch is essential. Humor, touch, playfulness, an ongoing curiosity, an interest in who this other person is, what they're about, what they're thinking about, what they feel, what they look at, what interests them, what ticks them. Just that, that you remain not just a function of a person who has a few jobs that you have to accomplish. Cuddling, skin-to-skin contact, looking into each other's eyes, a smile, you know, a moment where you stop and you just kind of take each other in. This is the lubricant of a relationship. The rest can be a good partnership. You can have good partnerships, you can have affectionate couple them.

• 36:52Esther Perel?

  And you can have relationships that are minimal on the sex, because they lost the interest in that, because they have it somewhere else, because they are sick, because they have... There are all kinds of reasons.

• 37:05Esther Perel?

  But it depends if one person really misses it. If one person is longing for that kind of a connection, and while the other one says, "If I never had it ever again, it would be fine", then you will pay attention. Because the loss of the erotic is a real loss. It's a loss not about sex. It's about what sex gives you access to. For example, I know a lot of guys that I work with.

• 37:33Esther Perel?

  You know, and if she says, you know, all he wants is sex. And I'm, not all of them, but in the, you will understand. And I know that's not the point. I know that for this guy, sex is when he actually allows himself to be touched. Because he's not necessarily a touchy guy outside. Sex is when he can be tender. And she says, the only time he's really intimate is in sex. And she says it often from a place of, you know, I wish he was intimate with me at other times too. And it makes perfect sense.

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:04Esther Perel?

  But I also know that this is a guy who probably was given the masculine code.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:08Esther Perel?

  Your masculine code. In which, you know, tenderness, vulnerability, surrender, being taken care of. All of that has only one place where you can experience it, and that's in sex. Sex becomes the language, the gateway to all those other feelings that are not acknowledged in the male code unless they've been sexualized. So of course he wants sex. But it's not sex he wants. It's all the other things that sex gives him access to. If he just wants to get laid, he can go and find that, you know. What he wants is the connection with his partner, male or female.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Cause he hasn't been able. Yeah, because he hasn't been able to express that in other ways, or he doesn't know how to.

• 38:49Esther Perel?

  He doesn't know how to.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  Or it's not manly enough, or whatever.

• 38:52Esther Perel?

  That's right. Sex is the way to experience all these things without feeling like a little boy.

• 38:56Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 38:58Esther Perel?

  So in those situations, I would say, you know, do you need sex to be in a good? No, you don't. But when you've, when, when it is part of your vocabulary.

• 39:11Esther Perel?

  It's like, you know, do you need, do you need to eat certain things in order to, to? No, you can live on a lot of things.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:17Esther Perel?

  Depends which is the life you wanna lead, you know? I am less interested in sex, the performance, that's for sure. I am interested in the erotic connection, in the intimacy, in the pleasure that people can experience with each other. Getting it done is really not an important thing. You know, you can have junk food and you can have junk sex. And it leaves you with a bad aftertaste.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  Very bad, yeah, wow. In your sessions with couples, and mostly with couples, or is it one of the pair? Is it mostly individuals?

• 39:50Esther Perel?

  Both.

• 39:51Lewis Howes?

  Both. Um, what is the percentage of male and female infidelity? You're saying it's pretty much fifty fifty right now, or both sides are doing it equally as much? Or is it depend?

• 40:03Esther Perel?

  I think the gap is closing. Everywhere you look, the gap are closing.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Esther Perel?

  And that means that it's it's not men who are doing more of it necessarily. But we know that women are, I mean, women for the first time are leaving their home. They're going to conferences too. They have jobs away from home. I mean, you need to have a certain space away from, that's what he had.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:24Esther Perel?

  You know, um, I think it's the thing that maybe we need to add is like, because it's it's it's it needs to be said. When you have a conversation about infidelity, it sometimes looks as if you're justifying it. You could be justifying it. And I think that understanding isn't justifying.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  Understanding isn't justifying?

• 40:45Esther Perel?

  Yes, to try to understand something isn't a way to make it right. And to not condemn something isn't a way to condone it.

• 40:56Esther Perel?

  Because I think some of the people that are listening here need to be very clear on that. That uh, we are talking about it, you know, as if it's a subject. Same as when you talk about abuse, you know, it you talk about it like it becomes a subject of conversation while other people are aching in their belly.

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Well.

• 41:15Esther Perel?

  I see couples, I see partners in the couple, one of them. Um, and I see other partners, business partners who deal with betrayal too. I mean, this is not the only betrayal, you know, and people whose vi- whose trust has been violated. And so the the themes, like, why did I want to write a book about infidelity? Because I think that you learn about resilience and strength from looking at the worst experiences people can have.

• 41:48Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:49Esther Perel?

  You learn about trust from studying betrayal. You learn about fidelity and loyalty from studying infidelity.

• 41:59Esther Perel?

  You learn about how people recover by looking at what happens when they are in the worst of the crises, and this is one of the main crises that couples can experience.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest lesson you've learned from researching and doing this work on this topic over the last few years? Biggest thing you've learned about yourself or about humanity in general?

• 42:20Esther Perel?

  Yeah, there are two themes, I think, that stand out. Actually, three themes probably that stand out. One, I too, for a long time, thought affairs only happen in troubled relationships. If you have everything you want, there should be no reason to go looking elsewhere. Then I began to hear more and more people come into my office and say, "I love my partner. I'm having an affair." You know, in the same way that when I wrote "Mating in Captivity," people would say, "I love my partner, we have no sex." And I was like, you know, I thought if you love, you desire. And now I thought if you love, you're faithful.

• 43:05Esther Perel?

  So this idea that not all affairs are symptoms of relationships can arise, that people in happy relationships also stray, and it isn't because of their partner or because of something in the relationship. That there's another theme here, that affairs, and this led me to the second thing, which is that you always have to look at infidelity from a dual perspective. At the heart of affairs is betrayal and hurt, but there is also longing. Longing for an emotional connection, longing for intensity, longing for a different sexuality, longing to reconnect with lost parts of ourselves, longing to suddenly feel alive because people have allowed themselves to feel dead on the inside.

• 43:49Esther Perel?

  That, what it did to you and what it meant to me, that you have to be able to figure out both, is a much more useful way to help people.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  How do we, you know, all those things you're talking about, longing for, desire of someone else, or a different experience, or something from the past, or all those things you're talking about, how do we get those things in our partner if we're feeling those things that they're missing?

• 44:13Esther Perel?

  Say that again.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  Even if we love our partner,

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  you know, someone comes to you and is like, "I love my partner, but I feel like I'm missing these other things."

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  How do we not miss those things or create those in our relationships?

• 44:26Esther Perel?

  Do you know how many times I say to people, "Tell me something, the person that is here in this other relationship, is that the one who comes home? I mean, the one that your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, is dealing with is not nearly as charming and as attentive. You know, when you prepare your suitcase and you fly and you choose your carefully chosen clothes and you prepare yourself and, you know, you don't bring work with you when you go to, you know, but when you go home, you're on your phone the whole time, you bring the leftovers, you're not nearly that attentive, you're way less charming, your humor is gone, you know, and then you tell me that your wife is boring or your husband is boring, and you?

• 45:12Esther Perel?

  Who are you here versus who are you there? Not who are they?

• 45:19Esther Perel?

  Who are you? So that's the first thing. It's like, what happened to you that you let these things seep out of you? And what makes it difficult for you to bring this back into your own relationship?

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 45:35Esther Perel?

  Multiple reasons why people neglect themselves in some way, right? Why is it that there you can be such a free woman? And here is this boyfriend of yours who think you hate sex, you have no interest, you are utterly, you know, frozen, and this one is like, it's the same woman. What happened? You know, and on top of, that's the bigger lie. The bigger lie is not only that you're having a lover. The bigger lie is that your husband, your boyfriend, has no idea what's the truth about you. Why? And then, different stories.

• 46:10Esther Perel?

  Sometimes it's stories from childhood, you know, I have no idea how to bring that part of me in the context of family, because family was the place where sexuality was the most dangerous. So, I have never known how to experience pleasure at home. Home was a place where I made sure to be safe. Pleasure I took somewhere else. Then you start to see the way that people have carved out and compartmentalized themselves, and the reasons behind it. Now is real therapy work. That's a difference, you know, that's when you start to really try to understand, why, why, why can't you integrate the different parts of you?

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Is it kind of like the idea of always dating in your relationship? It's like always trying to be your charming self and not forgetting it? How you got into the relationship, don't like forget that, is that kind of the, the concept?

• 46:57Esther Perel?

  I, I, I don't know if it's always dating, but, but for sure, the couples that are erotic couples, are couples who maintain a level of attention on each other. They, they, they don't take each other for granted. They, they flirt, they are physical, they, they continue to play with each other.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Create desire.

• 47:19Esther Perel?

  They, they create desire, I mean, you, you, it doesn't just stay. I mean, it is an amazing thing to see how attentive people are to their creative projects, to their artwork, to their businesses, to, and how often, rather neglectful, even a date night, it's nice, but what do you bring to the date night?

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  She's going through the motions, or is it creative?

• 47:43Esther Perel?

  Do you do something, you know, look, we know that if you do familiar activities with your partner, it's very nice, and it creates a real sense of comfort, to go back and to repeat things that you enjoy. But we know that if you want to bring excitement into a relationship, you need new experiences. You need to have this relationship be one in which you take yourself out of your comfort zone, in which you discover something, in which you explore traveling. But it doesn't have to be just traveling by going abroad. It's traveling. It's taking yourself to new places, to new experiences with each other, to new thresholds. All the research backs that up. It also breeds testosterone, for that matter. Novelty breeds testosterone.

• 48:28Esther Perel?

  That's the work of Helen Fisher. And if you think, if you look at it metaphorically or biologically, it makes all sense in the world. Growth involves exploration, involves curiosity, involves discovery. We know it, and it involves risk-taking. We know it in business, and it is no different in the relationship, in the business of intimacy, if you want to call it like that.

• 48:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:54Esther Perel?

  Do you do any of these things?

• 48:56Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah. We do it, yeah, for sure. And if we're not, my girlfriend always remind me, like, let's go try something new. You know, if it's been like a week or two where we've kind of been doing the same thing, just like going to the movie or to the same place to eat, she's like, let's go try something new. And I'm like, yeah, we need to. So, she's actually good at that, because sometimes I can just be focused on my vision and my work and just like not stop. And it's comfortable to just do the same thing and not have to think about creating something new. So, but I could see a difference in that creativity and that uniqueness when we go do something different as opposed to the same thing. I can feel the desire and the curiosity.

• 49:35Esther Perel?

  And then you say, thank you. I mean, the difference, one person says, it's so nice. I mean, I wouldn't have thought about it. I love it when you take me. You remind me. And then, I don't mind doing it if I feel appreciated for it. Because then, okay, it became my role. For some reason, I have more availability in my headspace to think about those things. And as long as I know that you really appreciate it, that you value this, that you're coming along not just to do me a favor, then I'll come up with more and more ideas. And I will keep this going for years, for years, you know? And we study erotic couples. I mean, there is, it's not an unknown. We know that there are people who maintain a certain spark.

• 50:20Esther Perel?

  And it has nothing to do with how often they make love. But they are engaged with each other. They enjoy each other's company after decades. They still find each other interesting. They're not bored.

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, hmm. Oh, what else should we know about this? What else should we know about this?

• 50:39Esther Perel?

  I wanted to say one other thing that I had discovered that to me was really important. Because it is not getting enough.

• 50:46Lewis Howes?

  Attention.

• 50:47Esther Perel?

  Attention these days. Everything these days is about you make it or you break it. You end. It's not good, you leave. You can do better, you leave. You're not happy, or you could be happier, you leave.

• 51:02Esther Perel?

  And I think that the people who actually wanna stay after an infidelity in their relationship are often judged and looked down upon. What's wrong with you? You let him walk all over you. You let her boss you around, you know.

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's scary too. It's kind of like your friends are constantly pressuring you to do better.

• 51:22Esther Perel?

  You don't even tell them.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, yeah.

• 51:24Esther Perel?

  The majority of people I meet won't tell their friends.

• 51:27Lewis Howes?

  So feel guilty or they feel like weak or whatever, yeah.

• 51:30Esther Perel?

  Yes, yes, you dumped the dog on the curb.

• 51:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:34Esther Perel?

  You know.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  Forget everything that happened.

• 51:36Esther Perel?

  That's right.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  The five years of the relationship just.

• 51:38Esther Perel?

  That's right. Three, five, or twenty-five.

• 51:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:41Esther Perel?

  Out. And I think sometimes out is what needs to happen. But sometimes this happens in a good relationship. And it happened. And it, and, and we need to know what to do when it happens. But just to judge people and shame them for staying isn't fair.

• 52:01Lewis Howes?

  That's not good.

• 52:02Esther Perel?

  It's not right. I don't, and I think it really is not giving relationships the credit they deserve.

• 52:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, because they're not perfect, yeah.

• 52:09Esther Perel?

  Because they're not perfect, and you know what? Sometimes what comes afterwards. Is gonna be even better than what was before.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, the wake up call.

• 52:18Esther Perel?

  It's the wake up call, like when you have an illness, it gives you a new perspective on life. Do I recommend you to get sick? No. But do I accept that sometimes out of that crisis, you will actually reprioritize your life and live with a different level of honesty and authenticity? The same happens in a relationship.

• 52:35Lewis Howes?

  You've seen this with couples you've worked with and?

• 52:38Esther Perel?

  Again and again.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 52:39Esther Perel?

  Again and again, but you have to believe in the strength of people to actually take this, learn from it, resuscitate and revitalize.

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so if you are the friend of someone who went through infidelity, whereas a girlfriend or boyfriend cheated on them and you're hearing this as the friend, how do you create a space for your friend who went through this to make sure that you're, I don't know, either giving tough love of like, okay, let's make sure this doesn't happen over and over, or what's the structure they can give? If they can't hire you or a therapist?

• 53:15Esther Perel?

  No, I think it's a great question because so many of us have been that friend. And, you know, the first thing I say to the friend is try as best as you can not to insert yourself in the story. It's not about you and what happened to you and what your mother did to your father or your father did to your mother and therefore what your girlfriend needs to do. Try to create a space. It's exactly that. Now, if you have a girlfriend and every time, this is now three times in a row, she finds herself with a guy who treats her like shit, you really do wanna tell her, this is not okay. And you want to help her pull out. But if you are with a girlfriend or a friend, male friend, and they have been together for 12 years and you know that these people have really been good together

• 54:00Esther Perel?

  and they've built a lot of things together, tell her, figure it out. I'm here for you. I have no idea what's the right thing for you. You know, I'm here to hold you when you doubt yourself. I'm here to remind you that you are more than just the person that just has been shafted and betrayed. I'm here to give you back your sense of value when you think that you have been completely devalued and pushed aside. I'm here to tell you that you're beautiful when you think that you probably are not beautiful enough anymore. I'm here, you know, I'm gonna hold the other view of you that you don't have in this moment because you're so low. That's my role as a friend. Not to tell you do this or do that and judge you.

• 54:43Esther Perel?

  I mean, the amount of people I've seen who say my best friend doesn't talk to me anymore.

• 54:47Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 54:47Esther Perel?

  Because I've decided to stay with, you know, and why? Not because I think he's such a great man or such a great woman. We have four children. My mother is dying. I, you know, I haven't worked in twenty years. I need, you know, or I have.

• 55:00Lewis Howes?

  We have a business together.

• 55:01Esther Perel?

  We have a business together. I mean, there are other considerations here and I am not ready to walk out on all of this. Even if it's not for the quality of my relationship. But it's because my relationship is the nexus on which so many other parts of my life depend upon. And I'm not willing to let all of that go at this point. Who are we to say? Who are we to say? So it's a very delicate thing. When to leave? When to stay? When to try again? When to give up? When to accept finally that this is never gonna change? When to know, you know? And I think it's different when you're with a chronic philanderer. Or, and when you're with a person who you know for years before, none of this happened. And this happened. You know, what was going on?

• 55:45Esther Perel?

  And what is the shared responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship as well? What, is there things that we colluded on together? But as a friend, you really want to be there to give people back their sense of self-worth at a moment when they feel like it's been sapped out of them. More than to tell them.

• 56:07Lewis Howes?

  Leave.

• 56:08Esther Perel?

  You know, put the clothes on the street.

• 56:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Esther Perel?

  You know?

• 56:12Lewis Howes?

  Kick him out, yeah.

• 56:12Esther Perel?

  Kick him out, kick her out, you know, how the... Because the fear of staying, the shame of staying is even worse on men.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh. Oh, really?

• 56:20Esther Perel?

  Oh, yes.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  So would men get?

• 56:21Esther Perel?

  Because we understand that women are used to, women historically are used to be cheated on. So, you know. Therefore, they need to go now because they finally have the choice to do and the possibility to go. But the guy who stays? What kind of a man are you?

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  Weak.

• 56:35Esther Perel?

  He instantly gets emasculated. He's weak. He lets her walk all over him. You know, he has no balls. I mean, his entire masculinity is instantly put on the line. And even more so when you go to Latin cultures and more traditional cultures. There, it's like, you, you, you know, horns don't exist on a woman, huh?

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Right. So how would, how would a guy friend support the guy who got cheated on?

• 57:01Lewis Howes?

  Who, you know.

• 57:01Esther Perel?

  You don't start trashing the partner right away. That's the first thing on either side. It's so, because if I start trashing your girlfriend, look at her, what the, you know, that. What are you gonna do? You're gonna defend her. You're gonna end up defending her because, and you know.

• 57:19Lewis Howes?

  She's not that bad.

• 57:21Esther Perel?

  Instead of you being angry at her, I am now so like as if it happened to me. You know, I'm even more angry than you. So now you're caught in a triangle. You know, I just need to say, look, man, this is horrible. This is, this sucks. You know, um, what happened there, you know, and do you think you've been good to her? Do you think that she had reasons to? Before you start cursing her, maybe we check a little bit on here for the moment too, you know. You know what? It looks like she's not really into you. I mean, she, or, or she has issues or, or maybe she doesn't love you anymore, but you know, she, you've made it impossible for her to go because you have this business together and you basically told her that she won't get a penny when she goes.

• 58:05Esther Perel?

  You know, if you love someone, set them free. If they love you, they'll come back.

• 58:11Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. I've got chills like the last five minutes because I think this is actually the most powerful part of this is having that conversation of what to talk to when your friend goes through this. Cause I think we, we experience that a lot in relationships where someone gets broken up with. You know, I hear about it with my friends and I will quit to be like, leave that person, you know, like quickly. So that was important for me to hear and I think for a lot of people to hear. So if you have someone in your life who's gone through this, send them this or send their friends this so they can hear how to approach that and create the space. Cause I think that's, that's gonna be huge, I think for a lot of people. Especially with women, I think they're constantly hearing these things of the guys cheating on them or whatever. And it's like quick to leave the guy. So I thought that was powerful. Thank you.

• 58:58Esther Perel?

  Is there anything else we should? I could speak for two hours about what friends can say. I mean, because every friend is in that situation. What I know is I can't tell you how many people come to say, I can't talk to my friends about it. Can't talk to anyone. My family is already against them. And so you're in a double secret. Oh, my gosh. You're in a double secret. Because now I have the secret of what you did to me. And now I'm in the secret of not being able... Share with anyone. Such a suffering incident. He is not allowed, she can't come to this house anymore. You know, and I'm like, and I see the people, it's like now they're caught between, you know. My parents didn't want me to marry him. My parents didn't want me to marry her. You know, now I have to go and say, you were right?

• 59:43Esther Perel?

  As if this means that they were right? You know, fifteen years later, huh, sometimes? Oh, my gosh. And people are caught like this. And friendship is really not about... I mean, on occasion, you really say, come to my couch. You can't think at this point. You're destroyed. You should not be in the house. Come stay here for a few days. Stay on the couch. Stay on a few days. Just open your house. Cook. Take them out. Distract them. Remind them that they are more than just what has happened to them. Yeah. You know, you do that, people will come to tap into their own resources and their own resilience. They have the strength to go through it. Hmm. You know? And then you just say, you know.

• 1:00:24Esther Perel?

  Sometimes it takes a few weeks till you find out if you wanna leave, if you wanna stay, what you're gonna do. Let them land. Don't just, you know, instantly... Don't make the decision for them. Don't make the decision for them. Because you don't have to live with the consequences. Yeah. You don't. You know, and people have financial issues, and money issues are really complicated, and children things are complicated, and extended families are complicated. A marriage is not just two people. It's a whole network. When you dissolve the relationship, you dissolve a whole life.

• 1:01:00Esther Perel?

  And none of the friends have to go through this.

• 1:01:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:03Esther Perel?

  You know, but I don't wanna see a victim. I don't wanna be a friend of a victim, you know. And maybe the person is not necessarily just a victim. The person, you know, has gone through a real rough experience. And it depends, it depends if there is STDs involved. It depends if there are other children involved. I mean, this is a lot of stuff. Stop a second, give people the space. And be there for them and ask them, what do you need? Do you need me to help you stay? Do you need me to help you leave? Do you need me to just be here for you and shut up? Do you need me to go and just walk in nature in silence? And just remind you that you're not alone.

• 1:01:47Esther Perel?

  You're not alone, I'm here for you. That is the most important thing a friend offers.

• 1:01:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Make sure you guys get the book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. It's out right now, go check it out. There's gonna be a lot more about how to address infidelity in your life, how to think about it, how to talk to your friends about it who have gone through this. Plus, you have a lot of exercises throughout the book, questions you should be asking your partners. Some of the things we talked about.

• 1:02:14Esther Perel?

  It's based on hundreds and hundreds of stories.

• 1:02:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Esther Perel?

  So of people that I've seen. It has every permutation of the experience. It's a, there is not a person who won't recognize something about themselves in there, even if you haven't gone through the experience. It's a book about relationships in the end.

• 1:02:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Esther Perel?

  And it, you know, it's actually a book that will tell you. Today I was talking to someone, they're married ten years, she says to me, I have never gone through this, but I really felt like it's telling me everything I should pay attention to, to have a thriving relationship, to actually make that not happen to me.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  To avoid it.

• 1:02:49Esther Perel?

  To avoid it.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Esther Perel?

  You know.

• 1:02:51Lewis Howes?

  Not once it's happened, not what to do, but how to avoid, yeah.

• 1:02:54Esther Perel?

  Right, so I use this experience to dive into all kinds of things. We talk about jealousy, we talk about vengeance, we talk about sex, we talk about monogamy, we talk about heartbreak, we talk about shitty things people do to each other. We talk about guilt, we talk about being accountable and not.

• 1:03:14Esther Perel?

  Ghosting each other in many ways and it really covers actually, you know, love is messy and infidelity even more so.

• 1:03:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow, make sure you guys get it. You can go to estherperrell.com as well to learn more about all your programs. The book is on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, everywhere else, The State of Affairs.

• 1:03:33Esther Perel?

  And the podcast, I think.

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yes, and the podcast.

• 1:03:36Esther Perel?

  Because it actually.

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

  On Audible, right?

• 1:03:37Esther Perel?

  Well, it goes out on iTunes the same day.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  Same day. So the podcast is fascinating because, and what's it called?

• 1:03:44Esther Perel?

  Where Should We Begin?

• 1:03:45Lewis Howes?

  Where Should We Begin? Download the podcast. I think it's had over six million downloads on Audible already, and it's coming out on iTunes right now. Download it because it's sessions where you do two or three hour sessions with anonymous couples.

• 1:03:57Esther Perel?

  Edited, edited in half hours.

• 1:03:59Lewis Howes?

  Edited in a half hour, yeah. So they're half hour podcast sessions where you did three hour sessions with couples who are anonymous. Their names are anonymous.

• 1:04:07Esther Perel?

  But real life, unscripted sessions, you just enter in the midst.

• 1:04:12Lewis Howes?

  That's gonna be crazy.

• 1:04:13Esther Perel?

  And you get to watch and listen and actually realize that you're in front of your own mirror.

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I'm excited. I haven't listened to it yet, so I'm excited to check that out. I'm very excited.

• 1:04:23Esther Perel?

  To listen with your girlfriend.

• 1:04:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure, of course.

• 1:04:25Esther Perel?

  You drive, you listen with her.

• 1:04:27Lewis Howes?

  Be powerful.

• 1:04:27Esther Perel?

  It's very powerful because it gives you the conversations that you want to have.

• 1:04:31Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. So make sure you guys get that. Also, at the end of this, there's gonna be information afterwards about how you can get a free copy of Esther's book because I bought a bunch of them, so we're gonna be doing a little special package. So stay tuned on that information at the very end. I want to ask you a couple of final questions. I think I asked you last time, but I'm gonna ask you again. This is called the Three Truths. So if this was the last day for you many years from now, and you have achieved everything you've ever wanted to achieve, you've written all the books, podcasts, videos, speeches, and yet for whatever reason it was all erased, so all your content was gone, and you had a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things you knew to be true about all the experiences in your life,

• 1:05:16Lewis Howes?

  and these lessons would be all the people have to remember of you. What would you say are your three truths?

• 1:05:25Esther Perel?

  Oh, I would love one of them to include all the people who think their lives have been changed by working with me, reading me, interacting with me. I mean, for whom I really... I mean, when people come to tell me that today, I just think, if one day I die and a lot of people walk around this planet and just say, "You know, she changed my life because, you know, I was stuck," or "She saved my marriage." I went dancing recently and these people just literally showed up on the pier and just like, "You don't know us, but you've changed our marriage. You changed our life." And I'm like...

• 1:06:04Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:06:05Esther Perel?

  That, that would be one.

• 1:06:07Lewis Howes?

  What about lessons you would share with the world? Like, three lessons?

• 1:06:12Esther Perel?

  Oh, lessons I would share?

• 1:06:15Lewis Howes?

  Like, from your life experience?

• 1:06:16Esther Perel?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:06:20Esther Perel?

  You judge people by their actions.

• 1:06:24Esther Perel?

  More than, and that's one clear one. You know, how decent are they? And that has very little to do with how much money they have, how much education, or which political party they belong to.

• 1:06:38Esther Perel?

  Don't, you know, the... It's really the kindness of strangers. You have no idea who can one day be the one who shows up for you.

• 1:06:50Esther Perel?

  It's just their humanity. It's not what they stand for and represent. That, to me, is probably one of the most important... It changes every time you look at people. It keeps you open and curious because you have no idea. They may look like whatever. And I... That's one. Know where you come from. Always remember where you come from. Doesn't mean that you stay stuck there, but it is the source. And we only have one source, each of us and every one of us.

• 1:07:31Esther Perel?

  And never forget that identity.

• 1:07:35Esther Perel?

  And have loved ones, at least.

• 1:07:39Lewis Howes?

  Loved ones, at least?

• 1:07:40Esther Perel?

  Yes, you need to at least have loved ones. I think everybody should know that experience.

• 1:07:47Esther Perel?

  Everybody shouldn't have had children. Not everybody needs to have children, but everybody should have loved one.

• 1:07:53Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Those are great. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Astaire, for being an incredible gift to humanity in helping so many people through hurt, pain, confusion, heartache, create healing within themselves and in their hearts, and mend certain relationships, especially the relationship with themselves. So I want to acknowledge you for the consistent work you've been doing for decades in helping humanity, yeah.

• 1:08:20Esther Perel?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:08:25Esther Perel?

  Ooh.

• 1:08:28Esther Perel?

  God.

• 1:08:32Esther Perel?

  To have a full life.

• 1:08:35Esther Perel?

  A full life. And that means, whatever it means, for me, it means fun and interesting things and creativity, and enough money to do what I want, and a robust group of friends, and great relationships with my son and with my husband. I mean, full. Just to feel like you're satiated. If you have a life in which you feel satiated, to me, anyway, then I feel like I have greatness. But I could answer this 10 different ways.

• 1:09:09Esther Perel?

  It's a great word, because you can apply greatness to everything. Today, at this particular minute, that's what came out.

• 1:09:19Lewis Howes?

  Astaire, thank you so much. Appreciate you. This is awesome. Thank you.

• 1:09:25Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, share this with your friends. Take a screenshot right now. Post it on Instagram story, post it on your page, on Twitter, Facebook. The link is lewishouse.com/548. The full video is over there, the interview. It's powerful. Go watch it. Check out the resources. You were born to experience incredible love. You're born to experience incredible dreams and desire.

• 1:09:54Lewis Howes?

  Continue each day, listening to that thing in your heart that beats, that gets excited about something. Keep leaning into that thing. You're here for a reason. It's your duty to figure out what that reason is every single day. Continue to live with gratitude, continue to grow, and continue to give back. I love you so very much. Thank you so much for being here and be a part of this mission of inspiring greatness in the world. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.