Pod Insights Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel I Leave First So You Can't Abandon Me About this episode This week, Esther talks to a caller who often feels let down by her friends. She longs for deeper and more meaningful relationships and worries she is perhaps expecting too much from them. Together, they explore how the emotional responses tied to her past influence her current relationships with friends and her mom.
Topic - Relationships with Family & Friends
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Esther Perel? I know nothing about you nor of the question that you sent. So, shall we listen first and then if there's anything you wanna add?
0:09 Speaker 01 Sure, that sounds good.
0:11 Esther Perel? Let's do that.
0:14 Speaker 01 Throughout my life, I've met a great number of people, especially because I grew up in foster care. I moved to the United States when I was eight years old and ended up going into foster care when I was 14. And I've had to move a lot, so I've gotten pretty good at just making friends, or at least putting myself out there. But I have a really hard time keeping friends. Many times, I end up leaving the friendships because I feel unfulfilled in them, especially when I don't feel like the other person is reciprocating what I'm doing. And I go above and beyond. And the moment I start to feel that this person doesn't do the same thing,
0:58 Speaker 01 I just decide they're not worth being my friend. And it seems to me that people today don't put the same level of effort into friendships, maybe as before. And I really, really want deep friendships. I want close friends that I spend time with, that we deeply know each other. But I feel like I have this problem where I just can't keep friends.
1:21 Speaker 01 And perhaps it's my age, you know, I'm 37 years old. And many of my friends or former friends have children. And maybe it's the time in their life when they're looking for other parents. I don't have children. I have an amazing boyfriend who listens to me complain a lot about my lack of deep friendships. And he's really supportive, but honestly, I think I'm putting too much pressure on him to also be my friend, to be all the things that I want. And I think I need to at least spare him some of that. And because I feel pretty lonely and I wanna make friends. So, just wanted to know what you think.
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3:36 Esther Perel? Anything you would want to add?
3:40 Speaker 05 I think I want to add that the friendships I'm looking for are female friendships. I've always longed for close female bonds.
3:50 Esther Perel? What has your boyfriend said about, because he is a witness to your social life, right? To your bonds and connections with your girlfriends. What does he see, just as somebody who's present for you?
4:08 Speaker 05 Well, he actually says I know a lot of people, and I do. He encourages me to reach out after I've been let down, which I have a hard time with sometimes. And he's told me that I tend to see the negatives more frequently than I see the positive things that are happening between me and my friends.
4:35 Esther Perel? And what do you think of that?
4:38 Speaker 05 I think he's probably right. This whole concept of seeing the negative things more quickly, I've been reflecting on a lot more recently. Um, and trying to train myself to not automatically discount someone because they may have hurt me in the past and that's what keeps coming up for me. And it's as though I'm waiting for the next opportunity for them to let me down again. So I can say, well, there it goes, strike three, I'm over it, I'm done. Just this over and over feeling of just sadness sometimes
5:19 Speaker 05 because of the way that my friends may have reacted or said or done or whatever it is. And I'm, I think he's right, but I don't know how to fix that. I don't know how to lean more into the negative and to the positivity. It seems like I have to really stretch my mind and force myself to go into positives first.
5:40 Esther Perel? I'll tell you what just popped into my head. Tell me i- if any of this is recognizable for you.
5:48 Esther Perel? I have had friends who I saw at some point would cut off their relationships with other friends in the same logic as you. At some point, people were bound to disappoint them.
6:08 Esther Perel? And then they cut.
6:11 Esther Perel? And those of us who would still be in the pool, so to speak, would often feel like, maybe I can avoid it. It won't happen to me.
6:22 Esther Perel? I know what they need or I know how to be there.
6:26 Esther Perel? But inevitably, at some point, we too end up being cut off. Because we've done something that was hurtful or disappointing or didn't live up to the expectations.
6:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean, I've certainly been on the receiving end of that where friends have just disappeared and have not heard why. That's happened several times with really close friends and I don't know why.
6:58 Esther Perel? Uh huh. But you primarily have been on the receiving end? Or it is something that you see yourself doing as well?
7:08 Speaker 05 It's hard to tell whether it's me ending it or if it's them ending the friendship. Just because I choose not to communicate doesn't mean that they wanted to maintain the friendship anyway, so I don't know.
7:22 Esther Perel? But they live with the constant awareness that they could let you down. It's never safe that at any moment they can do something that will upset you, disappoint you, let you down.
7:38 Speaker 05 Yeah, I have never thought about that. But yeah, wow, yeah. And I'm sure that doesn't feel good for them to think that at any point someone could just get cut off like that.
7:54 Esther Perel? And there is a peace inside of me, and I'm gonna use myself here, that at some point I think I can avoid this. It's not gonna happen to me, which is of course a delusion because there's no reason that that would not happen to me because it's not about me. It's what you described. I anticipate that people will let me down.
8:25 Esther Perel? And it becomes the lens through which I look at my important friendships. And for some reason, it's bound to happen.
8:39 Esther Perel? And then I start to feel like I need to act on it. I mean, I may just as well end this whole thing. So strike three arrives very fast.
8:54 Esther Perel? It's not like necessarily I set it up, but somehow there is a strike three in most situations.
9:02 Esther Perel? And so my question to you is, what do you think fuels this? This fear, this negative wish fulfillment?
9:16 Speaker 05 Well, um, I guess wanting to avoid feeling hurt at a greater capacity. I tend to be more anxious in all my relationships. I'm really good at sensing any form of change or movement or anything like that.
9:36 Esther Perel? Did you get that training in your foster care?
9:38 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah, I had to really know whether or not this foster parent or this this group home or whatever it was I was living in was going to um
9:50 Speaker 05 get rid of me. And even in those foster parent relationships, sometimes it would be me calling my social worker, asking to leave because I felt like they were going to tell me to leave.
10:05 Esther Perel? Tell me more about, because that's, I can't imagine that your question and your fears and your awareness around your friends is not somewhat shaped by living so for quite a few years, right? In the foster system? Tell me, tell me a bit about that experience.
10:28 Speaker 05 So my mom and then my biological father and her were never together. They just had me, she was very, very young. And he immigrated to the United States and eight years later asked for me to come live with him. I'd never really met him. And I came to live with him and he was abusive. So that landed me in foster care, which was a life-saving experience for me, honestly.
10:54 Esther Perel? Who caught him?
10:56 Speaker 05 I told.
10:58 Esther Perel? Wonderful.
10:59 Speaker 05 Yeah.
10:59 Esther Perel? To whom?
11:00 Speaker 05 I it took a few tries, first with his wife, which she didn't believe me. And then eventually, uh, my school, a really good friend at school who encouraged me to go to the principal and we talked to the school principal and I I never had to go back to live with him since.
11:20 Speaker 05 So after that, uh, just different group homes, different foster homes, but still just feeling this sort of never belonging in a family, uh.
11:33 Esther Perel? Have you been in touch with your mom?
11:36 Speaker 05 Actually, yes, most recently, I actually, I'm going to see her, uh, in a month. I haven't seen her since I left Africa, yeah.
11:45 Esther Perel? So in thirty-one years, or twenty-nine years, oh, wow.
11:49 Speaker 05 I know.
11:50 Esther Perel? Hmm, that's a big moment for you.
11:54 Speaker 05 Yeah, I seem to have these big moments of reconciliation with people that are important to me, you know, at some capacity. And then, at the same time, I have these big moments of relationships ending. I feel like I'm often at the extreme of one or the other.
12:10 Esther Perel? Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever see him again?
12:16 Speaker 05 In court, other than that, no. So, yeah, so with with foster families, uh,
12:25 Speaker 05 didn't work out too great with with most of them. I gained a brother through my foster care experience, so he and I are close, I'm very close to his children, his wife's family. And I visit often, and that's who I call my family now.
12:40 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm.
12:40 Speaker 05 But it's not a technical, blood-related or adoptive family, it's just, we've just taken that each other, that role in each other's lives.
12:49 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
12:52 Esther Perel? And you've been there for each other.
12:54 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, which in my mind, and and here's me going into the negativity again.
13:03 Esther Perel? You wanna do it, or you wanna?
13:05 Speaker 05 I don't know, I'm scared. I don't know if I'm supposed to or not. I call people who are overly positive toxic positivity.
13:16 Speaker 05 So I don't know.
13:18 Esther Perel? No worries with me on that, but this is this is just a moment, right? We have one conversation, so you can do it both times. You can do it once.
13:29 Speaker 05 Okay.
13:29 Esther Perel? In the way that you tend to go, in the direction you tend to see things. And then we'll see what happens if you actually put on a different pair of glasses.
13:41 Speaker 05 Okay, that sounds great. I wanna try that.
13:43 Esther Perel? Alright.
13:45 Speaker 05 So naturally, I would think, yeah, he's taken that role as my brother in my life. He's awesome, his kids are amazing, his wife's family, she's amazing. But when I think about a brother sister relationship, I do wish he would communicate with me more. I wish he would visit, especially watching my boyfriend's family. They're very close, they visit often, they call, they do all the things. And I don't get that. So sometimes it's hard for me to accept that this is a real brother sister relationship, because I'm imagining something different in my head. But I don't have a good base of what's quote unquote normal.
14:29 Speaker 05 So I just try to hang in there. And this is the one relationship I'm trying really hard not to get into my emotions and.
14:37 Esther Perel? Mm hmm.
14:37 Speaker 05 And so that's the negative.
14:42 Esther Perel? And have have you ever tried to simply say, would love it if you came to see me?
14:50 Speaker 05 In some ways I have, just not in a very direct way.
14:56 Esther Perel? So what does that mean? What does that look like in some ways?
15:02 Speaker 05 I tend to put it in a, if it's beneficial for you, if you're in the city, if you need someplace to stay. I've never made it so direct as to say, "Hey, I wish you guys would come see me too and just spend time with me."
15:19 Esther Perel? And do you see him visiting other people? Or is it more, he has a family, he has the kids, and so whoever has an easier time flying to him is the one who does the trip?
15:32 Speaker 05 Exactly, that. It's, it's the three kids, it's very busy, all, all the sports. So it's a lot easier if other people visit him. And he did visit with the family a few months ago during their break. And I had hoped he would stay with me. I was a little hurt by that. I had really hoped that they would spend some time with me specifically, but I ended up meeting up with them in the city.
16:00 Esther Perel? What I'm hearing from you is that you say, "I have a very fine-tuned radar for rejection."
16:14 Speaker 05 Absolutely.
16:16 Esther Perel? I am immediately sensing loss,
16:25 Esther Perel? neglect, distance.
16:30 Esther Perel? And I experience the decisions my brother makes about if to travel or where to stay as a statement about how he feels toward me.
16:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, him and everybody else.
16:46 Esther Perel? Yeah, and that makes sense.
16:51 Esther Perel? First of all, it makes sense. It's, it's a lifelong training that you had on a daily basis, and that saved you. So before we just say that's not a good thing, I would be very cautious. It has been very good to you, to be vigilant, to be alert, and to speak out.
17:16 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's exhausting sometimes.
17:18 Esther Perel? Yes, yes, I get it.
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17:42 Speaker 03 I'm Josh Muccio, host of The Pitch, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. For our sweet season 16, we're giving you more of what you love and less of what you don't.
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19:49 Esther Perel? Now let me ask you. If we were to put different glasses, different tint,
19:58 Esther Perel? and you describe me the same situation.
20:02 Esther Perel? I met a brother.
20:06 Esther Perel? I don't even know how you met him. Meaning, he was another foster child in the same family at the same time as me. Right?
20:15 Speaker 05 He was the birth child.
20:17 Esther Perel? He was the birth-
20:17 Speaker 05 I was the foster, yeah. I'm the foster, he's the real, is what I say.
20:23 Esther Perel? And how old were we when we met?
20:25 Speaker 05 Oh, quite far apart. I was 16 and I think he was 24 or 5. He was really kind to me. And he was at the university at the time. But just whenever he visited and came home, you know, he treated me like his actual sister, even jokingly, you know, making fun, poking fun at me and things like that. It just wanted to incorporate me in the family. Yeah. So if I were to put on a positive pair-
20:59 Esther Perel? No, no. It's not just a negative, but just a different pair.
21:04 Speaker 05 Yeah.
21:05 Esther Perel? It's not like you're going to just flip, flop. You know? It's just a different lens in which you bring other sensitivities.
21:19 Speaker 05 Okay.
21:20 Esther Perel? So that you have a broader range of awareness and sensitivities and ways to experience people's responses to you.
21:32 Speaker 05 Okay. My brother, who was much older than me, who really helped me feel comfortable in his family and has maintained incredible, actually, communication with me, even when it was frowned upon because his mother and I don't speak at all.
21:58 Speaker 05 He's incorporated me fully into his own family now. And I'm the aunt to his children. They look forward to seeing me. He's helped me feel really accepted in that family for every holiday, every birthday, every vacation, everything I want to attend. He's left the door completely open for me to come and go as I please, even at times when I've pulled away pretty far. He's always left that door open for me to stay part of this family.
22:32 Speaker 05 That does feel better.
22:35 Speaker 05 Sounds better too.
22:36 Esther Perel? Tell me, how does it feel?
22:39 Speaker 05 It feels as if, weirdly enough, like I'm able to get myself like a better bird's eye view of what's happening. Also, for a moment there being able to see his perspective a little bit more, that this was this was his choice too, right? He's and and I'm not so in my internal feelings. I'm I'm seeing a bigger picture in that. That feels nicer.
23:11 Esther Perel? Right.
23:12 Speaker 05 Feels more open.
23:15 Esther Perel? And in an interesting way, it's also more connected to him.
23:21 Speaker 05 Yeah.
23:22 Esther Perel? Maybe he didn't stay with you because he didn't want him come with the family with three kids and a and the whole chaos that comes with that.
23:31 Speaker 05 Right.
23:32 Esther Perel? But it has nothing to do with how he feels for you.
23:37 Speaker 05 Yeah. I guess that that right there is just how I've been taking all my relationships. Ev- every single one of them.
23:51 Speaker 05 It's easier to let go of the friendships because I don't consider them necessarily family. But I have felt the same way all around.
24:03 Esther Perel? And when you say the same way?
24:07 Speaker 05 Just that immediate wanting to criticize the relationship, how they feel about me, connecting their behavior to what they might, I think they might feel about me, my importance in their lives. And then my immediate, oh, so immediate desire to just end it all. You know, not communicate anymore.
24:34 Esther Perel? Because I learned what?
24:38 Speaker 05 I learned that if you go and it's your choice, then it doesn't hurt as bad.
24:46 Esther Perel? And that made a lot of sense in the circumstances of your life then.
24:55 Esther Perel? It's a good survival strategy.
25:01 Esther Perel? And the thing about our survival strategies is that sometimes they saved us at one point. And then they become somewhat of an impediment at the later stage of our lives. Because we interpret all the situations through the same lens. Because we were wounded.
25:21 Esther Perel? Because we learned to survive in this way and it definitely helped us. It's not just a something we imagined.
25:31 Speaker 05 Yeah, I can't, where I am in life now, I can't imagine having
25:38 Speaker 05 having spent too much time feeling hurt. And I, I felt bad and my, my thought was I gotta, I gotta feel better. I gotta go to school. I gotta get my degrees. I have to. I just have to keep going. So I never really, I don't think I really fully addressed it.
25:58 Esther Perel? You didn't address it in this way. But you address it in
26:05 Esther Perel? I'm leaving.
26:08 Speaker 05 Yeah.
26:08 Esther Perel? I'm getting out of here.
26:12 Esther Perel? You don't want me, I want you less.
26:16 Esther Perel? And our survival strategy at one point in our life, sometimes later on, is so tenacious and so powerful and so automatic that it doesn't really invite us to put on another pair of glasses and see, as you say, the world broader. See it not just from the internal place, but actually ground myself in the reality of today,
26:48 Esther Perel? rather than assume it's the same reality. This is how we do it. This is not just you. We are so convinced of that reality that that's the only reality we see, and then we misinterpret.
27:02 Esther Perel? Like you may misinterpret your brother who has been with you
27:08 Esther Perel? regardless of, against his mom, against... I mean, just because he cares deeply about you.
27:16 Speaker 05 Yeah.
27:21 Esther Perel? And the hard thing is this.
27:24 Esther Perel? When we have a survival strategy that really helped us,
27:29 Esther Perel? it's why you were able to continue, go to school, get the degrees, build a whole life,
27:37 Esther Perel? make sure your father is where he needs to be. It's very, very scary to give it up.
27:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's almost as if if I do give it up, what do I hold on to?
27:52 Esther Perel? Right. Which is why I just said, all I'm inviting you to do is put on another pair of glasses. And it was very easy for you to do it. It's not like you struggle to describe your brother, his family, who he has been, what he has done, and they can coexist. You don't have to take anything away. You have to add a layer.
28:21 Esther Perel? You have to just allow yourself to ask yourself, if I wear these lenses, you know how when you go to do an eye check, they put you all these, that's the image I have, you know? If I put on a different frame and they block my one eye and they ask me to look and to see the letters, what do I see? And they always say, which one is better? This one or that one? And they go back and forth. It's not like I drop my entire way that I have constructed the world and how I've learned to navigate in this world. But what you say to me is, I have a feeling that I always land in the same place.
29:06 Esther Perel? And at some point, if everyone else is disappointing me, maybe I need to look at me.
29:15 Esther Perel? Cannot be that I'm so good at meeting so many people and sooner or later, I feel let down by them. The constant factor is me. What am I doing? Is there something I bring as well that ultimately backfires?
29:37 Speaker 05 Yeah.
29:45 Esther Perel? We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us.
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31:32 Speaker 05 How do I ensure or how do I help myself not feel so hurt by their occasional behaviour? Friends not showing up when they say they would or not inviting me or cancelling. Things like that really upset me. I'm just trying to figure out in the moment, how do I help myself?
31:58 Esther Perel? Beautiful question. What would happen if you actually did feel it?
32:06 Esther Perel? And you just acknowledged it first and foremost. There's something when somebody cancels on me that just goes above and beyond. Or when someone checks out or when... What are other situations?
32:22 Speaker 05 Well, I planned a brunch for six people last weekend and no one came. One person came, but she works with me.
32:33 Esther Perel? Yes, that's upsetting.
32:35 Speaker 05 Yeah, it was crazy. I thought it was nuts. Why accept an invitation that you won't attend?
32:42 Esther Perel? And did they even cancel?
32:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, an hour before.
32:47 Esther Perel? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is unfortunately a reality that is happening all too frequently, not just to you.
32:57 Esther Perel? Where we are losing a sense that there's someone on the other side who actually prepared, went to buy, cooked this, that and the other. And we just kind of, you know,
33:08 Esther Perel? we found a better thing to do.
33:11 Speaker 05 Yeah.
33:12 Esther Perel? And
33:14 Esther Perel? there's a difficult choice because on the one hand, your feeling that this is a shitty thing to do is totally valid.
33:24 Esther Perel? And five out of six, yes, that what the hell is going on? The next piece is the one that you ask is, and now what do I want to do with that?
33:35 Esther Perel? And maybe I just go to one or two of them that I think I can talk to. And I'd say, you know, that didn't feel very nice.
33:44 Speaker 05 Hmm.
33:46 Esther Perel? I don't know if you had, if you invited people and you went all out and you prepared and this and that. And they called you an hour before. I don't think you would like it either.
33:55 Speaker 05 Hmm.
33:56 Esther Perel? It's like, we can't just do this to each other. This is not the way friends act. And I say this to you because I love you and I respect you. And I think you're capable of more. So I just needed to tell you that because I know that we both value friendship and honesty.
34:17 Speaker 05 That sounds much better than what I did.
34:21 Esther Perel? Tell me what you did.
34:23 Speaker 05 Well, it was a group chat for brunch and I deleted the whole group. I just left it. I'm over it.
34:32 Speaker 05 Which goes back to that extreme.
34:37 Esther Perel? But then you spite yourself.
34:39 Speaker 05 Yeah.
34:40 Esther Perel? Right? But you can go back. These are people you've known for a long time, right? Some of them. So you go back and you say, I was really hurt.
34:49 Esther Perel? I was upset and I was hurt. I don't think anyone here in this group should ever be in this kind of a situation.
34:59 Esther Perel? We can't become casualties of the times we're living in. This has become a practice that is way too common. And we need to be better with each other. So we.
35:11 Speaker 05 Okay.
35:14 Esther Perel? So what I'm saying to you is your disappointment, your hurt, your being even pissed is completely understandable.
35:25 Esther Perel? And in this situation and in others, your feelings are valid. How you then choose to respond, that's the survival strategy. I responded by getting as fast and as far away as I can.
35:41 Esther Perel? Now, that's where I begin to switch. I don't change how I feel. I may sometimes say, I take this very, very deeply. And I know where it comes from, and that's how it is. And I try to talk to myself, and I try to remind myself. And as I just did with my brother, I put on the other lenses. But I do know that that is a real sensitive spot for me. And I need to massage it, and I need to be kind to it.
36:15 Esther Perel? What changes is that I'm not the 80-year-old, or the 14-year-old, or even the 17-year-old. What changes is that I can go to people and just say, "Come on."
36:29 Speaker 05 Yeah, that part feels hard. I think I struggle with, "Does anyone love me enough to change their behavior?" That, that one is...
36:37 Esther Perel? Yeah.
36:38 Speaker 05 I feel like I could easily say, "Probably not." I think people have their own best interests mostly. But that's hard for me to just go talk to someone thinking that it may improve.
36:55 Esther Perel? Well, you will have given the value or the respect to the relationship that it deserves, and then you will know.
37:04 Speaker 05 Okay.
37:06 Esther Perel? And by the way, you're not supposed to know this instantly. This is a practice. It's a very hard thing to do. It's called difficult conversations.
37:17 Esther Perel? For a good reason.
37:20 Esther Perel? But I think sometimes the "we" version of it,
37:25 Esther Perel? you know, we can't do this to each other. "I don't want to do this to you, and you don't want to do this to me." I mean, we can't be friends and treat each other like that. We need to be more caring and more careful with each other. It's, it's, it's a shitty thing to do.
37:41 Esther Perel? And you wouldn't want it either. I mean, nobody likes this, you know, so. Everybody had a good reason supposedly?
37:51 Speaker 05 Not in my book.
37:55 Speaker 05 No, I mean, typical reasons, I'm tired, children, my friends with children are always children excuses. Um, yeah, there weren't any emergencies or anything like that.
38:12 Esther Perel? And you think that their answer would be, you don't understand what it's like? To be, basically, they would say, you should understand, you're asking for too much.
38:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, I had an experience with that, a very good friend of mine. Um, when she became a mom, I was very involved in visiting and doing all this stuff to support her. Knowing that we wouldn't get a ton of time together. Well, five years later, I happened to reach out and I said, hey, I've been inviting you to things and you've been turning every single one of my invites down. I miss spending time with you.
38:51 Esther Perel? Mm hmm.
38:53 Speaker 05 And the reaction I got was, you don't know what it's like. Um, just totally rejected what I was feeling. And since then, I've been too afraid to talk to friends about my need from them, as, you know, as a friend, adult time together and you know, I'll come and do the, the children things with you, but I, I would like to go to dinner, have a glass of wine, things like that. I, I didn't get the response that I felt like I needed. So I just, uh, I'll respond when she reaches out, but I, and I haven't totally cut it off, but I won't usually go out of my way to do anything with her.
39:35 Esther Perel? And when you look at her life, do you think it's about you? Or do you think that it says more about where she's at?
39:45 Speaker 05 Definitely where she's at. I could never understand until I become a parent. But it's, um, I'm sure she's going through a lot.
39:53 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm.
39:55 Esther Perel? I mean, a number of the things that you are introducing here are societal. They're not just you.
40:05 Speaker 05 Yeah.
40:07 Esther Perel? You know, it is many times that people who enter into the life stage with young children do not maintain their friendships with people who are not in the exact same life stage. And they meet new people circumstantially because they are in families with young kids.
40:28 Speaker 05 Yeah.
40:31 Esther Perel? That doesn't mean that the loss is unreal. So that's why I wanna, want you to separate between what I feel and how I choose to react to what I feel.
40:42 Esther Perel? I can't get to see my friends who have young kids because they're constantly busy with kids and stuff. And I don't, that's sad, frustrating, a loss, annoying. It's a range of things. And I also understand that it's not like they're going to see other people.
41:02 Esther Perel? It's where they're at. And so it's really upsetting because one loses friends in that transition, often.
41:11 Esther Perel? And I will stay connected with them and I will be the one to go. Because it's like in the workplace, the person who doesn't have kids is supposed to be able to be flexible for all the other people who have the constraints of family lives. I mean, this is a discussion that takes place very often. But at the same time, I also want people who still have space and bandwidth to go out for dinner and have a glass of wine.
41:37 Speaker 05 So you're saying it's possible to maintain a connection with my friends that are changing lifestyles or...
41:50 Speaker 05 Growing in some other way while also expanding myself to meeting other people without necessarily cutting them off. Okay, I understand.
41:59 Esther Perel? Yes. And I'm also saying that it is often the case that you will be the one having to be more flexible and coming to meet there where they are at and what they're doing. And every once in a while, you will meet one who has children but who loves to have a friend who still doesn't have kids so she can go out with you and go do whatever you enjoy doing together.
42:19 Speaker 05 I do, she lives in Switzerland.
42:25 Speaker 05 Oh.
42:27 Esther Perel? So that person exists too, you see?
42:29 Speaker 05 Yes.
42:30 Esther Perel? There is the one who says, ah, at least I have one friend who I can go and I don't have to talk about the kids with. I can talk about it, you know, so you have, you have both and you also expand your circle. You say, this, this is a moment when often people become more distant and more wrapped into their family realities and enveloped there and therefore I go and I meet new people. That's something I know to do very well.
43:00 Speaker 05 Yeah, for sure.
43:02 Esther Perel? But the peace of the disappointment, that is not because they have kids. You have had that peace for a while, right?
43:11 Speaker 05 Mm hmm.
43:12 Esther Perel? That has existed regardless of the particular circumstances and life stage that people are in.
43:18 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to find some reason so that it decreases the hurt a little bit. Um, and then, and then that I'm, I'm sure I'm finding some truths of their circumstances.
43:31 Esther Perel? And they probably existed all along.
43:34 Speaker 05 Mm hmm.
43:37 Esther Perel? And if that frame helps you to say, I need to put on my other glasses, see what I see.
43:45 Esther Perel? If I put on my vision glasses, my prescription glasses.
43:48 Speaker 05 Yeah.
43:49 Esther Perel? What do I see with my prescription glasses? What do I see when I don't have them on? And the two realities interact with each other. So that I don't only live in one groove and I always sniff the rejection. Sniff the, I'm not loved enough, I'm not lovable enough. Why would I even go say something? If I bring it up, I'll give them the opportunity to tell me.
44:20 Speaker 05 Hmm.
44:23 Speaker 05 Yeah.
44:24 Esther Perel? Yes to what?
44:25 Speaker 05 Yes, giving, giving someone a. Giving someone an opportunity to reject me is not something I'm into.
44:36 Speaker 05 Oh.
44:40 Speaker 05 But there doesn't, there doesn't always have to be rejection. I know, I know there are a lot of people that really care about me.
44:50 Esther Perel? Tell me more about them.
44:53 Speaker 05 Um, the exact same people that are disappointing me.
45:00 Speaker 05 Uh, yeah, yeah. Friends, family, even, even with my mom, that, that.
45:12 Speaker 05 I, I harbored a lot of resentment at some point of, why would you let your little girl go live in a place you've never been? You don't know about. But I've, I've learned to let that go.
45:26 Esther Perel? How did she answer that?
45:29 Speaker 05 Um, I, I haven't asked her. That's something that maybe we'll do when I visit. But I do know, you know, in the African culture, where I'm from, you put a lot of hopes and dreams in your children. And you send them far away sometimes, hoping that their lives could be better and hoping that maybe you'll mean your life could be better too. I'm not angry at her for that anymore.
45:59 Esther Perel? So this is a beautiful example of a different pair of lenses.
46:06 Esther Perel? Right? As a kid, when you were in the midst of pain and suffering, you thought, "How could my mom send me to live like this? What was she thinking? Why did she abandon me? Does she even care what I'm going through?" And more. And then over time, what has allowed you to not be angry anymore is you began to say, "From where she comes, she probably thought, "I'm gonna give her the opportunity of living in America. She's gonna get a better education. She's gonna get more opportunities than me." And these two realities began to blend with each other.
46:51 Esther Perel? Your experience and her experience.
46:56 Speaker 05 Yeah.
46:57 Esther Perel? Tell me more.
46:58 Speaker 05 Took thirty years.
47:02 Speaker 05 I've had multiple opportunities to buy plane tickets to go visit. And I would always find a way to back out of it. And until I finally got to this point where I could potentially see what she experienced. I can't imagine that it's easy to let your firstborn leave.
47:24 Speaker 05 And if you're wanting something better for them, you might put them on a plane, on a boat. Many people have done that.
47:33 Esther Perel? Yes. What made you change your mind this time?
47:42 Speaker 05 I think just getting older and thinking about children myself.
47:47 Speaker 05 Also, just understanding more the concept of sacrifice. And knowing that it would be a huge regret if I couldn't get myself to go see her. And she were to pass away or something. So just really trying to understand.
48:07 Speaker 05 Understand her more. And it's crazy because I haven't talked to her about it at all. It's just just trying to understand if I were a mom and I were in that situation, what would I do?
48:19 Esther Perel? How old was she when she had you?
48:21 Speaker 05 I think fifteen.
48:24 Esther Perel? And so she was all in all twenty-three when she gave up her precious daughter.
48:33 Speaker 05 Yeah. And also, just I've reached out, we we chat a little bit here and there. And she has never said anything that would make me wanna reject her. She's always just said, I wanna see you, I would do anything to see you. And hearing that over and over and over again, um, gave me the reassurance that, okay, she does love me.
49:01 Esther Perel? And she sent me away because she loved me.
49:05 Speaker 05 Yeah.
49:06 Esther Perel? Which is a real mind fuck.
49:11 Speaker 05 Yeah. Yeah, I can't even imagine what she went through.
49:18 Speaker 05 Being left with a newborn and then having to send your eight-year-old away.
49:26 Speaker 05 Yeah.
49:29 Esther Perel? And what happens to you when you begin to see your story through her lens?
49:39 Speaker 05 I feel less abandoned.
49:42 Speaker 05 I feel a little sad that so much time has passed.
49:47 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm. Do you dare to say I feel loved?
49:51 Speaker 05 Yeah.
49:54 Speaker 05 Absolutely.
49:55 Esther Perel? Good.
49:59 Esther Perel? Can you say it?
50:01 Speaker 05 Yeah, I feel I feel like my mom loves me.
50:07 Speaker 05 So I've been able to make those sacrifices. She really loved me.
50:16 Esther Perel? You're gonna go next month, right?
50:18 Speaker 05 Yeah.
50:19 Esther Perel? If you remember, I would love to know how this trip is going for you. How transformative it will be for you.
50:27 Speaker 05 Oh, gosh.
50:29 Esther Perel? How it's going to put so many pieces in place. How proud she will be of you.
50:37 Speaker 05 Yeah.
50:39 Esther Perel? Because you're a real fighter.
50:42 Speaker 05 Thank you.
50:43 Esther Perel? The fact that at eight years old you could go and stand up for yourself when you were all alone in this country is remarkable. While you sometimes are very sensitive to being abandoned by others, you have been there for yourself
51:03 Esther Perel? in remarkable ways. And I'm humbled
51:08 Esther Perel? in this conversation with you.
51:12 Speaker 05 Thank you, Esther.
51:31 Speaker 06 This was an Astaire 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 Astaire and could be answered in a 40 or 50-minute phone call, send her a voice message and Astaire might just call you. Send your question to [email protected] . Where Should We Begin with Astaire 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?
52:15 Speaker 06 Are Astaire Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.
52:28 Speaker 03 I'm Josh Mucchio, host of The Pitch, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. For our sweet season 16, we're giving you more of what you love and less of what you don't. I definitely start to blank out when we're talking about like middleware AI wrappers. Software is out. Actual cool stuff is in. We've got consumer brands. We're building Eight Sleep for daytime. Hardware that helps blind people see. They kept asking for middle finger. Next thing we knew, we had like 10 students running around flipping each other off. We've got deep tech to change the weather.
53:02 Speaker 04 Our big vision is to make it rain and snow on demand. What if you wanted to not make it rain somewhere else? Like one day, we're just like, screw Arizona.
53:13 Speaker 03 And dairy? I never imagined my life journey would be milk. Season 16 of The Pitch is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This season is presented by Engine.
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Previous Stuck Between My Daughter and My Husband Next I Waited for You to be Ready but Now I’m 40 and Childless Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated