Pod Insights Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel Love in War - Where Are They Now? About this episode Three years after Esther spoke with a Ukrainian couple separated by war, she calls them back to learn where they are now and whether their relationship has survived intact. They have made their way back to each other, but though they have reunited physically, they find themselves more emotionally distant than ever before. Knowing that she can’t change the circumstances of their lives, Esther offers suggestions for them to maintain their sense of playfulness, imagination, and connection, reminding them that people live and love even in the most dire of circumstances.
Producer’s Note: When our anonymous guests do a session with Esther for the podcast, it is an act of generosity for everyone who listens. These sessions are meant not only to support the people in the room with Esther, but all of us who learn from their stories. Our stories have many chapters, and what you hear is just one moment in someone’s journey. So even though the sessions are anonymous, please remember that real people are behind them and they may be reading your comments.
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Transcript 6,621 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin? is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real.
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1:30 Speaker 03 I left on the third day of war. It was difficult to leave. It was like an open wound. But anyway, the decision should have been made because there was no option. Also, thinking about our children.
1:44 Speaker 04 It was very hard to separate, separate our family. But I know it's better for Alana to be in the safe country. And I know I have responsibility in my country. Every day, you go to bed and think about, "Maybe in this night, I will die."
2:08 Esther Perel? When I met them the first time, she was in France with her 16-year-old son, where she had found refuge for the few months since the war had started. He was in Ukraine with their 18-year-old son. Men that could be drafted were prevented from leaving the country at that time.
2:28 Speaker 03 I was in France, somewhere, looking at the couples. I was feeling lonely. I was feeling not loved. My man of my life is not beside me. I knew that he is going through air alerts five times per day. He has to go to bunker to save himself and our son. And I need just to be loved. I want to be loved. I want to hear compliments. I want to be the same woman for him.
2:55 Speaker 04 My first reaction was, "What are you talking about? But compliment? We have war!"
3:02 Esther Perel? And I never forgot about them. And I suggested at one point that we reach out and find out what has happened, where are they now? And I found out that a year ago, they had reunited and were now living in Switzerland. And he had made the difficult choice of leaving his country to preserve his family.
3:23 Speaker 04 When I come, everything good. We can touch each other every day. Yeah, it was really like a dream. But now I don't have job. I don't know local language. And our roles in family change. And I need to start from zero. And for me, it was a big, big shift.
3:48 Speaker 03 It was a difficult decision. It wasn't a choice between good and bad. It was a choice between, let's say, bad and worse. Now that we are together, it is still very hard. We are in completely different stages of life. Because I already went through the process of adapting to this country and integrating, while he's only starting. And it feels like one life has ended and another life has just begun. And we are trying to meet each other somewhere in between.
4:16 Esther Perel? They were physically together, but they were emotionally more apart than anyone could have anticipated. So I decided to offer another session, "Love in War, Part 2."
4:35 Esther Perel? Hello.
4:37 Speaker 03 Hello.
4:37 Speaker 04 Hi Esther. You became younger. You look so beautiful.
4:42 Esther Perel? Thank you.
4:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, time doesn't work for you, you know, like.
4:50 Esther Perel? The power of one's imagination.
4:54 Esther Perel? Good to see you, good to see you both, wow. So catch me up a little bit. I mean, we met two and a half years ago. And we talked about what it was like to have a long-distance relationship and to preserve love in war. And to find a way to bring aliveness to the digital relationship that you were now having. And you were living very different realities at that time. And I think you had no idea how long this was going to last. None of us did. But the war is still going.
5:36 Esther Perel? And is that a good memory, what I'm bringing back?
5:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:43 Speaker 03 Yes. Yes, thank you so much Esther. It's a very special moment again to see you and have this conversation. The conversation that we had last time obviously brought a lot of pain. Enjoy at the same time and these weren't easy years, like two and a half years. We never imagined how long it would take us, how many months or years we have to wait. And every decision is just hard.
6:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, it was long, two and a half years before we united. And all this time we tried to figure out what's good for us both.
6:31 Speaker 04 And for me, it was hard decision to leave country. It was like I have two bad decision. Stay in Ukraine and my relationship with my wife will be struggle. And a lot of couples divorce, a lot of couples break their relationship. And I know we had good fundament, fundament, we just had good relationship. But foundation, yeah, foundation. But it's like bank account. If you not put some in this bank of love, you just only spend.
7:17 Speaker 04 Sometimes it will be zero. And it just scare me. And I understand that good way for me, it's like leave Ukraine. Yeah, it's what was happened.
7:31 Esther Perel? Eliana?
7:34 Esther Perel? How, what was happening on your side that?
7:39 Speaker 03 Um, on my side, yes, we received the residency and the work permit. So I found a job as an English teacher, teaching children. Which at first seemed to me like that's definitely not something that I want to do. But it turned out that that was a very healing thing. Because I could interact with kids, with their souls. And that was healing. And I found apartment. And we just stayed here with just me and my son. He's doing okay, I mean, the younger one, he studies in business school. He speaks French fluently, so things are going well for him.
8:22 Speaker 03 So, I mean, it seemed like our life is going more or less okay. I felt a part of the community, I was well integrated. But at the same time, I felt fatigue and I was exhausted to wait, to live in this uncertainty. The only thing I knew is that I want to be faithful to this man.
8:51 Esther Perel? And now, how many months has it been since you came to Switzerland?
8:57 Speaker 04 When I come?
8:58 Esther Perel? Yeah.
8:59 Speaker 04 One years ago.
9:00 Esther Perel? One year ago, okay.
9:01 Speaker 04 One year ago.
9:03 Esther Perel? So you make this difficult decision between bad and worse. And I can only assume that the couple that met in Switzerland finally, not just for a short visit, but with a new plan of life, is not the couple that said goodbye to each other two and a half years before. So, tell me about what's happening today between the two of you? And who met and changed?
9:35 Speaker 04 Good question. And first month, it was like paradise, because...
9:44 Esther Perel? Paradise.
9:45 Speaker 04 Paradise. It's like, after two and a half years, you reunited. It's like honeymoon with your wife. You can touch her, you can buy flower, you can take cup of coffee. And it's like, you have endless vacation. Because it's new place, new country, it's no bombing. And really, it's like I have nightmare two and a half year. And I wake up, a new life. And I'm really sorry, maybe it's like my action, but I forget about all these things, what was bad.
10:29 Speaker 04 And I just forget about all this struggle, what people have. I'm really blame, little blame myself. Because you live in this circumstances and then change 100%. And all things good. You have wife, you have peaceful place, you don't need to go to shelter all the night. Many times I wake up in the middle of the night, oh, no, it's not bombing. It's someone close very loud door. No, it's not bombing, it's just some motorcycle. Because my body erect and we were happy.
11:12 Speaker 04 But after a couple of months, when I encountered with some reality, it's new country, new language, very competitive markets, and I couldn't, I still can't find a job here, unemployment. And my wife, find apartment, find job, know French language, very quick for communication, but I realized that I'm so slow for change. And our role changed because all my life, I earned money for my family.
11:57 Speaker 04 I have zero expectation for money from my wife. I say, "Baby, if you want, work. If you don't, don't work. Do what you like." Because I'm a warrior. Money is in my shoulder. But now I just put in the position that I have no income. I still study French, I still find job. And I understand many people in Switzerland can find job and leave this country because it's a very competitive market. It's like, I come from Ukraine. Like, "Okay, where is Ukraine in Switzerland?" I was commercial officer leader. "Okay, it was in Ukraine.
12:41 Speaker 04 What's your international experience?" For me, it's like I'm really down and I was disappointed. But for one side, I have a lot of support from my wife. For another side, I understand maybe she had little expectation. When I come, I help her with job. I help her with money. I share your burden. But I couldn't. And now I continue in the process.
13:15 Esther Perel? And what has that done to the relationship?
13:19 Speaker 04 It was pressure. It was pressure. We asked counselor for this problem because this year, my dad passed away and I couldn't come back in Ukraine and be in his funeral.
13:36 Speaker 04 And...
13:40 Esther Perel? It's okay, just stay there for a second.
13:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, just...
13:45 Speaker 04 I just...
13:46 Esther Perel? You can't go back at this moment?
13:49 Speaker 04 I couldn't because it was a big chance that I couldn't come back again.
13:59 Speaker 04 And I'm now in a position like I just feel this pressure for me. It doesn't mean that my wife gave me this pressure, but sometimes I hear how she tired after work
14:18 Speaker 04 and we really struggle, we communicate when I come. In Ukraine, before war, we have regular conversation. Every week, we have dates. We have a lot of time to have conversation, but now...
14:35 Esther Perel? But in Ukraine, you also had clear roles.
14:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:41 Esther Perel? You had very clear roles and you were a warrior who knew what you were fighting for.
14:48 Esther Perel? And you had status and you had a clear identity. And now, your roles are upside down.
14:57 Speaker 04 Upside down.
14:58 Esther Perel? Your roles are in flux. They're changing. Part of you feels like you lost your purpose, you lost your identity, you lost your power to communicate outside in the world. And you are dependent on her. You are dependent on her, you don't like it, and she doesn't like it necessarily either. You had a kind of an interdependence before that had unfolded over twenty-something years and that functioned very nicely. And now, the new dependence structure is very destabilizing, I assume to you, but I'm looking at Leona and I'm thinking it seems to be destabilizing to both of you.
15:40 Esther Perel? So now you are together, but you are no longer the people that you once knew.
15:47 Esther Perel? Your relationship is what happens when people reunite after they've been apart for two and a half years, torn by war, living completely different realities. You don't wake up at night. He wakes up a year later, wondering, you know, what's the banging? And your nervous systems are completely different. It's not just your heart, your mind, your bodies, but it's visceral. And that brings up a different sense of loss, particularly for you, Aljuna, I would imagine.
16:19 Speaker 06 Yeah, totally.
16:22 Speaker 06 It's not that I imagined something a certain way when he would come, because the only thing I dreamt of was just being together back again. Just going to the same bed, kissing goodnight. And yeah, falling asleep in his arms. That was just the dream.
16:43 Esther Perel? Of course.
16:44 Speaker 06 And I felt like the moment he comes, it's not only the romance that will be revived in a way, but also the masculinity that he will bring back. Because I'm tired of carrying feminine masculine part of being within me, which makes feelings of gratitude, on the one hand, for where you are right now, because you're in a beautiful city, one of the most expensive cities in the world. You have a job contract, you earn some money. I mean, enough for providing for life, but not too much to really afford yourself something more. But I was working on that.
17:28 Speaker 06 I still had a plan, how and what I can develop here as a business and so on, so forth. And I felt like when Andrew will come, this will finally be the moment when we will be reunited. That we'll be empowered even more, because he's by my side. He will help me with this, with this, with this. And it didn't happen.
17:49 Speaker 06 I think the hardest moment for me was seeing him first time in my life, since the moment we started dating, just losing his masculinity, his power, his strength.
18:05 Speaker 06 And on the one hand, I wanted to help. But I wanted to be helped. And the moment when we had our conversation with the counselors. Everyone was saying, poor Andrew, we understand you. But I wanted someone to say, poor Aliona, because she has a lot to handle, too. And this time was not easy for me. And I felt like that I need his, his encouragement, I need his shoulder. But this is not something he can give now. Like, I am a dreamer. I dream big. I mean, I want to do so much in this life. And I felt that
18:48 Speaker 06 energy flowing and I felt like we are totally like on a different sides of this spectrum, like from the man who was always saving because he is very wise with money. So I knew him as a man who has this responsibility for me, our family, our children. And it's not about earning a lot, it's just managing well, what is given to him, dreaming, planning for our family. And now he's like, I don't want anything, I'm not dreaming of anything. At the moment when I'm dreaming of everything. And we couldn't really match, we couldn't talk. We went one day next to a riverbank and we went and had a conversation on the just sitting on the bench, watching the ducks.
19:33 Speaker 06 And it feels like we forgot what it is to talk to each other on a deep level, on the level of feelings. Because I'm afraid to hurt him with all my dreams, because it brings a lot of pressure.
19:48 Speaker 06 And he couldn't share because he said, I'm okay with the minimum now. I don't need anything other than just a piece of bread and a bottle of water.
20:02 Speaker 06 So I, I have to accept what is.
20:07 Speaker 06 Right now, but it's just hard for me, I believe, just to see him struggling.
20:15 Esther Perel? To see him disempowered, to see him without confidence that you've always known.
20:22 Speaker 06 Yeah.
20:23 Esther Perel? To see him in a refugee status.
20:28 Esther Perel? To see him in a major transition and to see him somewhat depressed. Dealing with the loss of his country, to see him with the loss of the sense of predictable future. He has no sense of what the future is. I mean, I'm watching your head shake when I say things, Andrew, just to know if I'm speaking truth or if I'm off.
20:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's like I go through difficult time for me because I lost confidence. I only, why I leave it, because my wife believe in me. And every day I say for myself, and because she said me, you matter, you can do it. Because for me, when I come, when I don't know language, when I had response for my C V every day. No, thank you. You're not much for our position. I lose confidence, I put in depression, and I say, okay, why I'm here?
21:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, I with my wife, it's why I'm here, but I lost everything.
21:46 Esther Perel? Hmm hmm.
21:48 Speaker 04 It's like, okay, now I'm like baby in new world. And I think, okay, I need support, but I know she needs support too.
21:59 Esther Perel? Hmm.
21:59 Speaker 04 It's it's hard for me. I I really have some.
22:03 Esther Perel? You are more likely to be able to start with a job that comes from inside the church through the Ukrainian community that doesn't really demand for a C V. But that knows who you are and can translate your experience in Ukraine and knows the qualities and the talents and the skills that you have. My sense, I don't know if it's a truth, but it's certainly an observation for me that most of the time refugees find their first jobs within their own community.
22:37 Speaker 04 Yeah, we hope.
22:44 Esther Perel? The obvious thing would be to say that he is depressed. But that doesn't begin to capture it. It is an existential condition, not just a psychological condition that he is grappling with. He's a man who lost his identity and became a refugee. And it's landing on him very hard. And he is losing his, not just joie de vivre, but raison d'être, his reason to wake up. And I'm thinking about the work of Viktor Frankl in this moment, who wrote Man's Search for Meaning, where he constantly was saying, if people have a reason to live, they can cope
23:29 Esther Perel? with all the circumstances of their life. And I have a sense that he's losing that sense of purpose. And so I am beginning to think about, how do I bring in an erotic perspective? I don't know yet what I'm going to do, but I know I need to find some way to change the energy.
23:54 Esther Perel? We are in the midst of our session, and there is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break, so stay with us.
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25:09 Esther Perel? This conversation, you agree. It's not like you have a different sense of reality. You both see the same things. You both see the disempowerment. You both see the loss of purpose that you're experiencing. And I think what I hear very loudly from you, Aliona, is, "And I want you to see that I was waiting for my confident, strong man to arrive so that I could finally put my head on someone's shoulder after carrying everything for these two and a half years." And in fact, that's not what happens.
25:50 Esther Perel? And a year later, I'm the one trying to lift you every day, which I want to do, but I'm also missing the shoulder that lifted me. Exactly.
26:09 Esther Perel? At one moment, he dropped off the Zoom call because he had some technical issues, and he needed to reboot. So I had a few moments to talk with her alone. And I knew that the intimate, physical connection had been a central part of their life, that they had very much valued it and invested in it for decades. So I wanted to find out where was she at with him on that? And to get a sense of what was really happening for her that she may not necessarily want to say so directly in front of him.
26:47 Esther Perel? Are you mad at him, Iliana?
26:52 Speaker 06 Yeah, I, yeah, I had a lot of anger that I had.
26:56 Esther Perel? At it or at him?
27:00 Speaker 06 At both.
27:02 Esther Perel? Tell me more.
27:06 Speaker 06 Um, just seeing what's happening and he was always, uh, I, I was sharing a little bit about the masculine side because he was wearing suits all the time, he was very attractive and I need a man to be attractive for me. What he wears is very important, like the smell, the perfume, the look, everything. And he is amazing in that. He always looked neat and he would come just afterward, pick me up, bringing flowers in his beautiful navy blue suit. You know, I just used to living like that for twenty-five years.
27:46 Speaker 06 And now he's at home in one shirt, just because it's comfy. It's a very, very long, not planned vacation. Let's say it's on vacation, obviously he's very busy with things, but it's just being most of the time with his computer. And that's very different from what I wanted, the way I expected. If he's seventy or if we are eighty, I'm fine with that, but not now. At his fifties, beautiful age, we still have, let's say, hopefully twenty years for a very active lifestyle. But there are just a lot of layers that I have to battle with and there are a lot of losses.
28:29 Speaker 06 I miss him, that Andrew, and so all of this.
28:34 Esther Perel? But he does too.
28:37 Speaker 06 And he does too.
28:38 Esther Perel? He does too. He misses him too.
28:42 Esther Perel? And you're afraid that it's not just a transition, but that it really is kind of indicative of some of his limitations?
28:54 Speaker 06 Yeah, maybe so. I think I'm just discovering a new, totally new man.
29:02 Speaker 06 I think that sometimes if a person is in a certain, I don't know, setting, maybe at his job, because, I mean, people love him. He was managing like thousand people. He was top, top, top, top manager. And when he's uprooted from that setting, what he told me is that maybe it was just by luck. That I happened to be in this place and that's the way things unfolded for me. But it's not like who I am.
29:33 Esther Perel? In his crisis of confidence, he begins to reinterpret his life story. Whatever worked happened to be the result of circumstances and chance. And whatever is not working now is a result of who I really am. This kind of fundamental attribution error. The positive is attributed to chance, the negative is attributed to myself. That is such an expression of the loss of identity and the loss of confidence. And it's a very distorted perception of reality. And it's very, very important for him that he not slide into this.
30:24 Speaker 06 Here I am again, like, so what's next? Because I am already a bit tired, I need someone's help. I still believe in him and I see how many things he can do. And it's just helping him in this journey is not easy. Because I neglect mine as a woman and my desires.
30:45 Esther Perel? What has happened to the intimacy between the two of you as a result of this?
30:52 Speaker 06 I think it's.
30:55 Esther Perel? Like when he hugs you, or we can start with touch, doesn't have to go straight to sex, but when he holds you, does it still have the effect that you?
31:05 Speaker 06 I don't think so, to be honest. I want to revive it back, I just don't know. Like back in Ukraine before the war, we invested in our relationship one way or other, we would rent hotels like every two months, even if it's just next street.
31:27 Esther Perel? Hmm.
31:28 Speaker 06 Just to change places, we would leave the kids with our mother, we would just change something constantly, just to bring the freshness in our relationships and we felt like we are building very romantic relationships. But now, just because you cannot afford
31:48 Speaker 06 this and that, maybe there are new ways we have to be creative.
31:52 Esther Perel? Yep.
31:52 Speaker 06 With what we can do, I don't know. I just have to see him differently, I don't know, I have to to resee him, just, I need that man in suits. I need him, his power, and I don't know how I can help him considering the situation we are in right now.
32:15 Esther Perel? Andrew, are you around?
32:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
32:18 Esther Perel? Okay, close the door, it's fine. I would like you, Ilya, just go take two minutes. This may sound like a totally crazy idea, but go put your hair up and make it nice the way you like. And I would like you, Andrew, to just take a few minutes and go and get changed and come back in the self that you often have known.
32:43 Speaker 06 Ah, I'm scared.
32:46 Esther Perel? Go, I'll stay and I'll wait. Go.
32:51 Speaker 06 Okay.
32:58 Esther Perel? There's something very powerful in what she describes about, "I used to see him a certain way." She had a perception of him that was very eroticizing. And she has lost it. And I can sense that she's afraid that she won't recover it. So I thought, okay, new eyes. New eyes to the self and new eyes to the other. And here we are doing a Zoom session, which is often discussed, you know, what are the limitations? What do you lose from not seeing people in person? But this is one of those moments when I thought, wow, they're in their home. Their closet is only a few meters away. Let them go and find something in the closet.
33:40 Esther Perel? And I just sat at the laptop and waited for them to reappear. I had no idea what they were going to do.
33:53 Esther Perel? So I waited probably four minutes. And then she appears, hair made up, jewelry, makeup, dress, ready to go out for the night. And he shows up in that suit.
34:07 Speaker 04 It's only one suit what I have.
34:10 Esther Perel? White shirt, dapper, wow. And it wasn't just I said, wow. They looked at each other. And I had a sense that it had been a long time since they had seen each other. So they arrived, all decked up. And it was like a whole new session was starting.
34:37 Esther Perel? We have to take a brief break. Stay with us.
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35:14 Esther Perel? All right. Here we go.
35:19 Esther Perel? Hello.
35:21 Speaker 04 Hello.
35:23 Esther Perel? We're gonna try to change energy for a bit. Right? Because you are together, physically together. But for the first time, you are more apart emotionally than you've been in your whole long relationship. And everybody agrees that this is a rough transition for you, Andrew, that you have a real crisis of confidence.
35:53 Esther Perel? And you're beginning to doubt yourself, to the point where you even rewrite the story from back in Ukraine. And you start to have thoughts of imposter syndrome. What I had was luck and what I don't have is me.
36:10 Esther Perel? Yeah? That's a real reinterpretation of one's identity. And it's very corrosive. It's completely understandable. And at the same time, it's inaccurate. It's a distortion. And the more you are in this stuck place that is making you more and more depressed, and the more the distortion grows. And the more the distortion grows, and the more the gap between the two of you will grow too.
36:41 Esther Perel? And this is not your first crisis.
36:46 Esther Perel? I mean, I don't know much about...
36:47 Speaker 04 But it's a bigger...
36:50 Esther Perel? But I can't imagine that this is the first time you're dealing with...
36:56 Esther Perel? I mean, no, you haven't dealt with being uprooted. You haven't dealt with suddenly having to support the whole family. But interestingly, both of you share a narrow, if I may say so, image of masculinity.
37:13 Esther Perel? If I don't work, I have no purpose. If I don't make decisions, if I don't manage a thousand people, I have no idea what my value is. And there, I would like for us to expand a tiny bit, just so that you can get through this phase.
37:32 Esther Perel? And maybe you have to put the suit on more often and not wait till you have the right opportunity, but actually create these opportunities just for the sake of it.
37:43 Esther Perel? It's a tough thing to do, eh? Because the daily life can so easily
37:51 Esther Perel? rid you of your imagination. And at the same time, it's your imagination that is the ultimate freedom. And maybe on occasion, you can put your suit on and go do a walk at the river. It doesn't cost a penny. And maybe you find another couple that's very cool and you exchange apartments for a night. That's a hotel too.
38:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:23 Esther Perel? So it's how do we recapture that which, hopefully, migration, being a refugee, or having the war in your nervous system and all of that, that it becomes a kind of an antidote to it. It's the same theme as what we discussed last time. It's how you cultivate the aliveness in the face of what you feel is so much loss. This won't solve the problems, but this may help you manage the problems better.
39:00 Speaker 06 Yeah.
39:02 Esther Perel? Because what you can't really sink into is a daily conversation about, "I'm not the man I used to be", to which you say, "No, you're not the man you used to be."
39:17 Esther Perel? We agree that the man that we all expected hasn't shown up.
39:23 Esther Perel? You won't survive this.
39:26 Esther Perel? At some point, you'll start fighting. And this is your true test.
39:33 Speaker 04 Exactly, Sarah.
39:35 Esther Perel? Exactly what?
39:37 Speaker 04 Exactly, just every night when we lay in one bed, cover one blanket, my wife said to me, I dreamed about this. And this little piece come in our hearts. And we just understand how long way we went through.
40:04 Esther Perel? Uh huh.
40:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, but when, uh, when we start our stuff doing, yeah, sometimes we just lost this connection. And what we have, our relationship is biggest what we have.
40:19 Esther Perel? So when you fall in the trap,
40:23 Esther Perel? I will just ask you to go put on your suit.
40:27 Esther Perel? You know, it's, I don't wanna be that version of myself. There are different versions of you, different parts in you.
40:38 Speaker 09 Yeah.
40:40 Speaker 09 I just love how you frame it, Esther. Because like, it's a new dance. It's dancing a new life, let's say. It's not the way we used to, not the same.
40:58 Esther Perel? Do you get scared when you see him fragile?
41:04 Esther Perel? Do you feel like if he gets weak, that fragility or vulnerability means weak? And weak means that you can't lean on him?
41:15 Speaker 09 I think when it's just an expression of being fragile, it's fine. But I'm afraid that it can take too long and he can get stuck somewhere. And I don't think it's a good, 'cause I had times in my life when I was stuck and it brought me to a bad place.
41:35 Speaker 04 I think like Alona has some fears.
41:42 Speaker 04 And maybe what I show now is reflect some fears in your heart.
41:49 Speaker 04 Maybe that that man what was before never refresh again. But for me,
42:01 Speaker 04 when I think that I'm not accepted in this condition and I have some conclusion, you need to change, you need to be powerful, you need to come back and do something, take responsibility for family. It's not help me move on. It's give me like pressure.
42:25 Esther Perel? Of course it gives you pressure, but it will give you pressure as long as you think that what she says is about you.
42:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
42:35 Esther Perel? If you begin to think what she says is actually because it scares her, then you can tell her, I'm going through a very rough time, I'll get there.
42:49 Esther Perel? She's afraid you may not get out of it.
42:53 Esther Perel? But that's because she sees herself. And the times when she thought, I won't get out of it. So I'm gonna go back to her and get a bit of info about that. Because I think this is a major piece here. How do we react when we see the fragility, the vulnerability of the other?
43:16 Esther Perel? And what does it evoke in us? About our own fragility and our own fears?
43:25 Speaker 09 Yeah, I think I'm just afraid. I have fear to.
43:33 Speaker 09 Just be by myself in my own dreamy world. I want to use each day and do something. I love to act. And the time when I had depression in my life, it was when I lost my mom and then I had a burnout, a severe burnout. And I was in a very, very bad and very difficult place, myself mentally, emotionally. It took, I think, about five years for me to get out of that very challenging place.
44:09 Speaker 09 Because the moment when I felt powerless, not able to do anything, I was just laying in bed and felt like I can't do anything in this world.
44:24 Speaker 09 I was in such a bad place, just inside myself. It was a prison, mental prison, that brought me to a downward spiral. And Andrew was there for me.
44:39 Esther Perel? You're afraid he would go to bed and not come out? Or you're afraid that you don't have someone to fall on if you collapse? You can go in both directions.
44:58 Esther Perel? Because his strength, as you described, became extremely important to you.
45:04 Speaker 09 Yeah.
45:05 Esther Perel? In a way that made me think there is a fear behind it. It's not just it's important because you like it. There's a need behind it. You need him to be a certain way.
45:20 Esther Perel? And you get scared when he isn't.
45:24 Esther Perel? More than angry, you get scared, or you get angry because you get scared.
45:29 Speaker 09 Yeah, maybe so. I do understand that we are not always strong and we are not always in our power.
45:36 Esther Perel? But it's been a year, so you think how long?
45:39 Speaker 09 It's just, yeah, yeah, it's just this maybe. And I think the most discouraging for me was just the fear of losing his even desire to want something from this life, just that scares me, not the outcome.
45:56 Speaker 09 But just losing dreams, I mean, that might be a bit of a depressive mode as well, but I'm proud the way Andrew deals with all of that, I mean. I love the sparkling in him because he's very passionate to life. He loves life. He breathes life, it's just the way he was. But now he he is like a bit.
46:19 Speaker 04 Reload.
46:20 Speaker 09 Reloading.
46:20 Speaker 04 Reloading.
46:21 Speaker 09 And you said that, like, how long, like, how much time? I need time. But we can be like that for five years, you learn French for five years.
46:30 Esther Perel? No, that's because you are stuck on how long it took you.
46:35 Speaker 09 Yes.
46:36 Esther Perel? That's partly because you think, wow, it took me five years and is that what is gonna happen to him? We have no idea what will happen to him, but I understand your fear.
46:47 Esther Perel? You know, I listen to both of you and I'm very humble by the circumstances of your life. But I also think that at first it seemed a little bit like all things were great before. And this is the first challenging moment. But then when you talk about five years and in bed and unable to get up, and when I said you've had other crises, you've had other adversity. And then you said, yeah, but not as big as this. I'm not so sure.
47:27 Esther Perel? But your hindsight, you're looking back and you say, "We did it." And it is a real challenge when you are in circumstances that demand strength, but you experience them with deep vulnerability and fear,
47:45 Esther Perel? which you know intellectually is normal and which at the same time frightens you.
47:52 Esther Perel? It's like the very feelings that are part of this become also scary. If they don't get expressed, however, your bodies will do it for them.
48:04 Speaker 09 No, please.
48:07 Esther Perel? So you have to have room for that.
48:12 Esther Perel? They'll come, they'll pass, they'll make room for a different feeling to follow.
48:19 Speaker 09 Yeah.
48:23 Esther Perel? So I can't change the circumstances at all,
48:29 Esther Perel? but I can help you maintain little islands of freedom, of playfulness, of imagination, of intimacy,
48:41 Esther Perel? of deep connection, of sensuality, of aliveness in the midst of it.
48:52 Esther Perel? People live in the most dire of circumstances and love in the most dire of circumstances.
49:00 Speaker 09 This is beautiful. You just really brought us to the place where, I mean, we know how to do it different ways. I mean, you reminded us that we know how to date when we have nothing, how to date when we don't have enough, or how to build love in different circumstances. Because it's not about the circumstance, it's about the attitude, the feeling, the respect, love and respect in relationships. And I feel like I'm regaining this.
49:41 Speaker 09 Not the power, but the sparkle of never stop to find ways to play with life, because that, I know, is healing itself too.
49:59 Esther Perel? Thank you so much.
50:01 Speaker 09 Thank you so much.
50:02 Speaker 04 Thank you, Esther.
50:03 Esther Perel? We'll be in touch.
50:09 Esther Perel? Much of the focus on working with people who are experiencing traumatic events is often looking at presence, joy, pleasure, curiosity, exploration, those erotic ingredients as the reward that comes after getting through those hardships. What I think they fully understood was that pleasure is actually part of the medicine.
50:47 Speaker 00 In the session that you just heard, there is a very obvious visual moment. Esther sends the couple away, tells them they have four minutes to come back in their going-out clothes, like they're going on a date. And she does this to shift the feeling or to see if she can kind of shift the mood. And it's so stunning to see the before and the after. So with permission from the couple, which is something we've never done before and may never do again, but with their permission, we edited a small section of the podcast where you can actually see that moment. You can see them go away and come back. So if that is of interest to you, go to Esther's Substack,
51:31 Speaker 00 which you can just search for Esther Perel on Substack, or go to esterparel.substack.com. And there will be a bonus later on this week that includes the video of Esther in action.
51:48 Speaker 00 Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. In partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut, our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destri Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristin Muller, and Julianne Hat. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.
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