Pod Insights Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel You Slept With My Best Friend About this episode The two couples had been inseparable—neighbors, chosen family, godparents to each other's children. She reaches out to Esther in despair after discovering that her husband had a ten-year-old affair with her best friend. For a decade, he kept the betrayal hidden while she believed they had built a loving marriage and family. Now she's left questioning whether any of it was real. They both want to stay together, but she's trapped in doubt and grief, while he's desperate to repair what he's broken. What does it take to rebuild a relationship after a betrayal of this magnitude?
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 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 My husband of over 15 years, about a year ago, I found out that nine, 10 years ago, he had a two-year-long affair with my best friend. I mean, she's the godmother to my daughter. They live one street over. They were both in our wedding. It was just a knife to the gut. Because everything I thought I knew is just not what I thought it was.
1:57 Esther Perel? Most couples who come in the aftermath of an affair, come in the immediate aftermath. In this case, the affair took place 10 years ago. But she has just found out. So what is the past for him is the imminent present for her. She's been living with this now, in this turmoil, for about a year, trying to figure out what was the marriage, living with a secret in their midst. And she wants to know. Is this the man I thought he was? Is this the marriage that I thought we had? Did I make a fundamental mistake? Why did this happen?
2:35 Speaker 05 I think about it every day. It sucks. You know, I struggle with it every day. I don't really talk to her about it because I know she needs more taken care of than I do. And I don't want to hurt her. With everything that's gone on, our marriage has definitely gotten stronger. But I really want to help her. I really want to figure out how to help her move forward.
2:58 Speaker 03 There's been 10 years in between, where he's been an amazing husband, an amazing father. We've had another child since then. He's a wonderful provider. But I'm pretty lost. I feel like I'm stuck in this purgatory. I'm hurting constantly. I don't have joy with my kids anymore. I've lost the person that I am. And I want so badly to get back to that person. And I just don't know how.
3:24 Esther Perel? And both of them are here to try to make sense of things and to find the permission to invest in their relationship and not just to be rooted in remorse. Let's listen.
3:44 Speaker 06 I found your book State of Affairs. It just gave me a different perspective. I was on your website one night and it was like, "Submit your story." And I never thought anything would come out of it.
3:54 Esther Perel? And do you know where she brought you? Or do you just kind of follow along?
3:59 Speaker 05 No, I know where she brought me.
4:00 Esther Perel? You know where you are?
4:01 Speaker 05 I know exactly where I am. I created this and I have to deal with it. And I support her in these things that she wants to do all day long.
4:10 Esther Perel? I heard your line. Your line is "whatever she needs." But whatever she needs is one line. What do you need? Where are you coming from and how do you enter this is another that needs to exist too.
4:25 Speaker 07 Yeah, I mean, I I'm here for her, I'm here for us to figure out what we can do to make things better. Things that um you know that she might want or that I might want. What we both want from each other. The day like she came up behind me and gave me a hug. Felt so good and amazing and it was something that I was like, wow, I've never done that and I love that. It felt so good. So I think there's things like that that I wanna figure out.
4:55 Esther Perel? Like what makes you happy?
4:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, what makes you happy and things that I can do better that would make you happier.
5:03 Esther Perel? Just when you were talking now. And because of what you said. I created the mess. I don't even know what we're talking about yet, but. I created the mess. I'm responsible. Anything she needs. Sometimes when people are in that position, they have a sense that they have used up their quota for the rest of their relationship. I feel so guilty. I'm so responsible for the mess we're in. That I have no right to ask for anything anymore. So if she hugs me. And it feels so nice. I can't just say I loved it. I would like more of it. I have to go and say I'm here to make her happy so that if she's happy, she can make some things.
5:45 Esther Perel? That make me feel good. It all kind of becomes a big detour. Laid out for me.
5:52 Speaker 07 I definitely don't do a lot for myself. It's always like, what can I do to make her happy? I I don't think I've said no to anything that she's requested since.
6:01 Esther Perel? And all of this is recent? Or that has been the structure of your relationship always?
6:12 Speaker 06 I think generally it's been the structure. You're always very like easygoing and just, yep, I think.
6:18 Esther Perel? But that's not easygoing. That is being powered by guilt and remorse.
6:25 Speaker 06 Mm-hmm.
6:26 Speaker 07 And I think that's part of my past too, and that's why I think I've just always done stuff myself and not asked for help. I'm not one to ask. I always try to just do things myself.
6:36 Speaker 06 You keep a lot inside.
6:38 Speaker 07 Yeah, mm-hmm, that too, mm-hmm.
6:40 Speaker 06 So if you wanted something, you're not good at asking.
6:43 Speaker 07 No, not at all.
6:45 Esther Perel? Because?
6:48 Speaker 07 Um, when I was younger, I never like had the parent to be able to tell and feel comfortable about it. So, I mean, I was on my own. I was, uh, eighteen.
7:02 Esther Perel? And I was on my own because?
7:05 Speaker 07 Uh, my father moved. Uh, my mother passed away at a very young age. Uh, well, not very young. She was young. She was.
7:11 Speaker 06 She was.
7:11 Speaker 07 She was fifty. She was fifty. So my mother died. But before that, uh, my father decided to go to Virginia. So I had to figure out what to do and just kind of.
7:23 Speaker 06 Basically, he gave him an ultimatum and said, you can come with me.
7:27 Speaker 07 Yeah.
7:27 Esther Perel? Don't help me.
7:30 Esther Perel? No, sir. If he keeps everything in and he's in the middle of telling, we're gonna take that opportunity.
7:38 Speaker 06 Okay, sorry. I do that.
7:40 Esther Perel? Absolutely. Not to apologize for, I'm just meeting you.
7:45 Speaker 07 Yeah, so it's got to a point where just was on my own, doing my own stuff. And that's something that I think
7:54 Speaker 07 I've tried to do with our kids way better than what I had is to pass on something better in structure and, you know, pay it forward in a better way than what we had or I had.
8:06 Esther Perel? So your dad decides to move and he says, come with me or do whatever you want or?
8:11 Speaker 07 Yeah, pretty much. That's what it was is you can come down here or you can stay here and figure out, you know, what you wanna do. So I stayed and worked, I worked a ton.
8:21 Esther Perel? And then what happened? Why are we here?
8:24 Speaker 07 Why are we here? So we're here because I made a mistake. Eleven years ago?
8:34 Esther Perel? And you are together how many?
8:36 Speaker 07 We are together twenty one, twenty three years. Yeah.
8:42 Speaker 06 Been married sixteen years.
8:44 Speaker 07 And I had an affair with her friend. Well, it was our friend, mutual friends. Her husband was my friend. They lived in like the next street over. And I had an affair with her for over a year.
9:05 Esther Perel? And that came out now?
9:06 Speaker 07 Yeah, that came out.
9:07 Esther Perel? A little bit of the.
9:08 Speaker 07 A year and a half ago.
9:10 Speaker 06 Almost, a little over a year.
9:12 Speaker 07 Yeah.
9:13 Speaker 06 Basically, one of his friends knew about this all along, never said anything to anybody. And then decided to tell his best friend, who was the husband of her um last year. And that's how it all came out. I just thought it was absurd, like there's no way that that's true. And I kinda sat with it for about five months. And then I finally asked him and he told me a little. And then I found out more and then he told me a little bit more, but. It was so long ago that he is a little fuzzy in his memory about specifics, like when did it start? When did it end? He's had a hard time answering my questions.
9:57 Speaker 06 So I'm in my mind rewriting all the memories that I had. Of those, I think it was probably closer to two years. Because she was my best friend and her husband was his best friend. And like he said, they lived one street over. We were together as like a group almost every single day. They had a daughter, we just had a daughter. And we just were like one big happy family. That's all I knew us to be. And then, you know, fast forward nine years, she divorced her husband. But we were still friends with the husband. He was still best friends with him. Up until this all came out last year.
10:38 Esther Perel? And you did not stay friends with her?
10:40 Speaker 06 No, I ended the friendship around that same time that he ended his relationship with her. She was changing and becoming a person that I didn't agree with. She was doing things with other men at that time, and I didn't agree with it. And I didn't want that kind of energy around our daughter. Basically, just stopped talking, and that was about eight years ago.
11:06 Esther Perel? I'm listening to this sentence again now, and I remember listening to it in the session too. "I didn't like this energy, and I didn't like it for my daughter, who is a newborn at the time, or a one-year-old." And it's an interesting comment where the reaction is from one woman to another, but the justification invokes the mother. There's something about saying it's the energy that my child would absorb, feels more acceptable than to speak about what this is triggering in me, to be next to this woman who is talking to me about her attractions or alliances with other men.
11:49 Esther Perel? And I know, I sense somewhere, that this could potentially be a threat to me, that this is not what I bring, that this is not how I enter my relationship. To the point that my husband has just, in the first two minutes of the session, talked about how amazing it was that I came to hug him from behind, because it was so unusual. And so, she describes a tension between two behaviors of women, but she justifies it by putting it in the context of her responsibility as a mother.
12:34 Esther Perel? Who knows about it?
12:35 Speaker 06 For a good few months, nobody knew. And then I've told my best friend. And then I told another friend.
12:42 Esther Perel? And what do they know?
12:44 Speaker 06 They know everything that I know.
12:47 Esther Perel? So they know facts?
12:50 Speaker 06 Yeah.
12:50 Esther Perel? But they don't know meaning?
12:52 Speaker 06 Right. I don't really know the meaning.
12:54 Esther Perel? Right. And that's part of what you've been wanting to know?
12:59 Speaker 06 Yeah, I've had a hard time getting past this because I just don't understand. Because I can see her doing this. It doesn't surprise me. But with him, I mean, you can ask anybody who knows him and they would never think in a million years it's something he would do. That's just so out of character for him. So the not understanding the why has just made it impossible for me to fully move on and stop thinking about it every day and stop looking back at pictures of us and rewriting the memories and questioning like, when were you with her? Did it happen in our house? It's hard to get
13:44 Speaker 06 past all of those thoughts because I just am still having a hard time understanding why and how.
13:54 Esther Perel? Sometimes when you ask facts questions, where, when, how, how many, it makes it worse to go to sleep.
14:04 Speaker 06 Yeah.
14:05 Esther Perel? But it doesn't really help you make sense of it.
14:07 Speaker 06 Yeah.
14:09 Esther Perel? At this moment, I know what we are here to do. What is important for her in order to be able to have the images subside is for her to have clarification and understanding about how could this man do such a thing? And that means that we need to shift to a different set of questions. I've always thought that it was useful to distinguish between investigative questions and detective questions. Detective questions are questions that mind the facts. Where were you? Did you do it at home? Did you bring her here? Did you take her to that restaurant? Did our friends meet her? Did she do it better?
14:53 Esther Perel? All of these things that really just keep us awake at night. Meaning questions bypass the facts and go for what happened to you there? Who were you in that relationship? What did that relationship invite in you that does not get expressed with me? Did you think about us? Did you think about the children? How was it when you would come home? How did you experience the duplicity? Did you want me to find out? I have about 150 of those questions that are about the meaning. What would make someone risk losing everything that they have built?
15:35 Esther Perel? There must be something that is powerful enough, especially for those for whom this is really not in character. And he doesn't understand that either about himself. So in effect, I meet them and they share the same question.
16:02 Esther Perel? You were saying something before when you said, "I've always decided things on my own." So this is even before your mom. This is before your dad leaves. You have an experience of yourself as in my family.
16:25 Esther Perel? A, I don't get to have needs.
16:29 Esther Perel? And if I do,
16:32 Esther Perel? I'm only myself to respond to them.
16:37 Esther Perel? Did I get that right?
16:38 Speaker 07 Hmm.
16:39 Esther Perel? Tell me more.
16:42 Speaker 07 Growing up, it was all like not being able to talk to your parents and bring up stuff and talk to them and feel comfortable with them. I think really just kind of made me feel more closed in and just keep everything to myself. And just manage it myself and try to figure out how to deal with it and do it. Even to this day, it's hard for me to ask for help.
17:02 Esther Perel? So you just said something before about how much you were moved when she came and hugged you from behind and spontaneously showed affection. Would you ever ask for that?
17:17 Speaker 07 Before, no, no.
17:19 Esther Perel? Would you ask for it now or just say, I really appreciate it when you?
17:24 Speaker 07 I don't think I've asked for it since. I think when she did it, I just told her, I was like, that's the first time you've ever done that and it felt so good.
17:32 Esther Perel? That's a lot.
17:33 Speaker 07 And I just said, thank you.
17:35 Esther Perel? Do you think that your affair was a way to ask for things that you don't usually ask?
17:42 Speaker 07 Possibly, yeah, I think so, but I don't think it's her fault at all. I think it's my fault because I didn't ask for it.
17:50 Esther Perel? We're gonna set a few ground rules. We're not gonna go into whose fault it is because it's not gonna help us to put blame.
17:59 Esther Perel? And we're not gonna justify it, but we are gonna try to make sense of it. Because she needs it and you need it too. And it has probably not much to do with her. And hence, it actually is really interesting to find out what happened there. Because affairs are often out of character.
18:22 Speaker 06 Yes.
18:23 Esther Perel? They are parallel stories that suddenly enable people to do stuff they don't know how to do in their life. And so they do it in the shadow of their life.
18:34 Speaker 06 Yeah.
18:36 Esther Perel? I know it has nothing to do with her. Except that it has to do with the fact that maybe she's not the person who spontaneously comes and hugs you and you crave it.
18:47 Esther Perel? So, that's one thing you know you want more of.
18:50 Speaker 07 And I should be asking for it.
18:52 Esther Perel? Yes, not should.
18:54 Speaker 07 Hmm.
18:55 Esther Perel? Feel free. You don't have to, but you can. So, what I asked you was, did you have a sense that there was something that freed up when you were in the affair, where you could ask for things that you don't usually ask?
19:15 Speaker 07 I think it was more of I didn't have to ask because she would just do that.
19:20 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm. You know, for people who don't ask, to be given to and bypass the asking is huge.
19:31 Speaker 07 Yeah, I guess you could say it felt easy, like there wasn't work involved.
19:35 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm.
19:36 Speaker 07 It was just simple.
19:38 Esther Perel? When he says it was easy, I translate it as I could have my needs met and never have to feel needy. Since I had learned to be self-sufficient, since I lost mom and I lost dad and I knew I only had myself, I cured my needs.
20:00 Esther Perel? In this relationship, in the shadow of my life, I rediscovered them without having to face the consequences of the neediness and the longing that goes with it.
20:18 Esther Perel? Did you ever think that part of why you did it was because the siren call was irresistible?
20:27 Speaker 07 Yeah. I guess you could say that.
20:31 Esther Perel? He woke up
20:34 Esther Perel? the most forbidden needs, wishes, longings that this boy, who then became man, had yearned for and never felt.
20:47 Esther Perel? And it was so powerful that it made him do stuff that in his life, in his rational mind, he would never do.
20:55 Esther Perel? And so he lives with this contradiction.
20:58 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm.
20:59 Esther Perel? Between...
21:02 Esther Perel? This deep need for connection and closeness and touch. And the fact that it came with a betrayal. And so you're stuck with, this isn't me. That's not what I would ever do. And this is the most me I've ever been.
21:27 Esther Perel? Sometimes when we layer the psychology of the person who has the affair, it may seem like they're getting a free pass. They're not being held accountable. It's as if to humanize them, to make them more complex, is to be protective of the wrong person. I would like to suggest differently. When she listens to him from that place, it helps her, one, to really not personalize it as much. Two, it gives her something to connect with, with the person, to actually activate empathy for this person,
22:11 Esther Perel? which is not just as a way of letting them get away with something, but it is actually as a way of allowing them to connect with them again. It is at the core of what will provide a new type of intimacy between them. And it is often a misunderstood step.
22:32 Esther Perel? We have to take a brief break. So stay with us and let's see where this goes.
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24:45 Speaker 07 Did any of your parents have affairs? My mother and father divorced. Yes. Which one had the affair? Um, I don't know. I don't know anything about it. Your mom. I actually really don't. All I know is, they used to fight a lot. I don't know the exact reason of why they split. I thought that they just got divorced because they didn't like each other. You do know? Because we've talked about it. And it was your mom. She had an affair. I didn't know she had an affair.
25:18 Speaker 07 We never talked about that.
25:23 Speaker 07 Sorry. I didn't know that.
25:27 Speaker 07 We never spoke about that. I do remember having a conversation with you.
25:32 Speaker 06 I remember you saying, "I'm just like my mom."
25:36 Speaker 07 No.
25:40 Speaker 07 I'm sorry, but I don't remember that. I'm sorry that I don't.
25:44 Speaker 06 No, I'm sorry that you don't, and I just said that to you.
25:50 Speaker 06 I swear you knew.
25:52 Speaker 07 Mm-mm.
25:53 Speaker 06 I feel awful.
25:54 Speaker 07 You didn't feel awful. It's not your fault.
26:00 Esther Perel? A lot of "I don't know" often makes me wonder the degree to which the exposure was traumatic.
26:10 Esther Perel? Some things were too much to take in for how young the person was or for the place that they were in within the family. So, "I don't know" is a way that people sometimes use to protect, not because they don't want to be honest, but because when people don't remember their childhoods, it often speaks trauma.
26:38 Speaker 06 Your mom was a good person, and that doesn't define who she was,
26:44 Speaker 06 just like it doesn't define who you are.
26:47 Speaker 06 Then I need you to understand that you're a good person.
26:52 Speaker 07 I think I'm probably the best person I've ever been in a long time.
26:57 Speaker 06 Well, that's what has been the hardest part for me is because the marriage I knew that I thought that I had was perfect. You're a great husband. You've been an amazing father, an amazing provider. You have drive. You're everything that I want in a partner. And
27:21 Speaker 06 that's why when I found out, it wasn't a question of, "Do I stay or do I go?" You know, if it came to light then, I would have questioned whether or not I would have stayed with you and probably wouldn't have. But we've had so much good since that ended. This last year has been very challenging, but you've still been the same husband that you've always been, the person that I want to be with.
27:52 Speaker 07 Yeah, I'm sorry for all of this. I wish I could turn it all around.
27:58 Speaker 06 And what's hard for me also is that you wanted more affection. And I'm not the most affectionate person. But if you just came to me before you allowed something like that to happen.
28:13 Speaker 07 You could have worked on it.
28:14 Speaker 06 We could have worked on it. Like, it's not something that needed to happen.
28:19 Speaker 07 No, I totally agree.
28:21 Speaker 06 And you still have a hard time asking for things. And I still have a hard time being as affectionate as I would like to be. Our lives are very busy and just always going through the motions with family and put you last, which I shouldn't.
28:35 Esther Perel? Put that sentence first.
28:38 Speaker 06 I shouldn't put him last.
28:39 Esther Perel? Because your life is not as busy and you have plenty of affection for your kids.
28:44 Speaker 06 Yes.
28:44 Esther Perel? There is no problem of time.
28:47 Speaker 06 Right, I give them my time.
28:49 Speaker 07 I think we give our kids too much time and not you and I enough time.
28:53 Speaker 06 Yeah.
28:55 Speaker 07 I think we do everything for everybody. And you and I always come last. Literally, we come last.
29:02 Speaker 06 Yep.
29:03 Speaker 07 We do a lot for a lot of people with helping them, giving our kids everything that they want, they need. And then the day comes to an end and
29:16 Speaker 07 you and I don't even have enough time to enjoy ourselves. I mean, we meal prep for our dog.
29:23 Speaker 06 We do.
29:25 Speaker 07 But we don't take care of us.
29:28 Esther Perel? If you could talk to how you want it to be different, what would it look like? Where would it be?
29:35 Speaker 07 It would be giving ourselves time when we want it. Whatever it is, just you and I go for a walk with the dog. We say we're gonna do it, but then we're like, oh, well, you know, kids or this or that. We have a hard time, I think, just putting our foot down for ourselves.
29:53 Esther Perel? Both of you?
29:54 Speaker 06 Yeah.
29:55 Speaker 07 Oh, yeah.
29:56 Esther Perel? And so what stands in the way? What makes it so hard?
30:01 Speaker 07 Um. Because we love our damn kids so much. I think it's also because we're tired. We're exhausted from long days of work and I think you just take the defeat and you're toast.
30:15 Esther Perel? What were you gonna say?
30:16 Speaker 06 Um, as far as when it comes to like the kids and putting them first, I feel guilty if I don't because I never had that as a kid growing up. My parents didn't put me first in the way we do with our kids. But I don't wanna take that away from them, so I just always put them first, but I always put everybody else first. That's just my personality.
30:42 Esther Perel? You know, on the long list of what children need,
30:47 Esther Perel? parents who pay attention to each other should feature high up.
30:53 Speaker 06 Yeah.
30:55 Esther Perel? Because these days, the survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple.
31:01 Speaker 06 Yes, I believe that.
31:03 Esther Perel? So if you want your kids to have all what you want them to have, you actually need to give more to you.
31:10 Speaker 06 Uh huh.
31:11 Esther Perel? But if you feel that for every time you turn to him, you're abandoning them, then it will be problematic.
31:21 Speaker 06 Uh huh.
31:21 Esther Perel? It won't matter if it's a hug to him,
31:27 Esther Perel? eyes to him.
31:30 Esther Perel? We're not even talking about a vacation or a night away. We're talking about attention from the woman to the man that is different than from the mother to the family.
31:42 Speaker 06 Right.
31:45 Esther Perel? So, he said, "I didn't get any of this and I made a mission for myself."
31:53 Esther Perel? And that mission is gonna make me super mom and shocked when he says I love this.
32:01 Speaker 07 And I don't even think it's really the time away. I think it's even just the small little things for you and I to do together.
32:10 Speaker 06 Yeah.
32:10 Speaker 07 Would be great.
32:12 Speaker 06 We don't prioritize our relationship.
32:15 Esther Perel? I don't prioritize.
32:17 Speaker 06 But he doesn't either, like re-
32:20 Esther Perel? I know that, but he just asked. This was actually a big one. This is an ask. This is how we look at each other while we are in the kitchen together.
32:31 Speaker 06 Yeah.
32:32 Esther Perel? And i- if you say, "Help me understand what happened there", this is a piece of it. Just is.
32:41 Speaker 06 Yeah, no, I agree.
32:42 Esther Perel? No, that doesn't make it right, by no means, but it is at the core of what this, I think, was.
32:51 Speaker 06 Yeah.
32:53 Esther Perel? And sometimes affairs happen just because people are not paying attention to each other.
33:02 Speaker 06 Yes.
33:03 Esther Perel? For everything that doesn't involve your children, you basically say, "I don't want them to miss anything", as if they're missing something.
33:14 Speaker 06 Yeah, we say that a lot.
33:16 Esther Perel? You know, as if they're missing something, but the two of you are kind of underfed.
33:22 Speaker 06 Yeah.
33:24 Esther Perel? Overstructured and underfed. And part of what will help you deal with the past is to change what's happening now.
33:34 Speaker 06 Yeah, and I've never actually thought of it that way, that it's true, like, our marriage is stronger because we're stronger, but we are still repeating the same things that basically got us there in the first place.
33:51 Esther Perel? What is amazing about affairs is the energy.
33:56 Esther Perel? Nothing stops anybody. People are never too busy, nor too tired, nor too stressed.
34:05 Speaker 06 Right.
34:07 Esther Perel? Suddenly, they have energy galore. Before they get to work, they stop somewhere. If people could put some of that very energy that is living totally in parallel with the rest of their life and bring some of that into their marriages, marriages would be doing really well.
34:26 Speaker 06 Yeah.
34:27 Esther Perel? The zest, the fervor, the imagination, the playfulness, the curiosity, the intensity, you name it. So when I hear people tell me that they're too busy after hundreds of these, it's like...
34:44 Speaker 07 Bullshit.
34:45 Esther Perel? Thank you.
34:47 Speaker 07 It is.
34:48 Speaker 06 Yeah.
34:49 Esther Perel? I just like, seriously.
34:53 Esther Perel? So, the stakes are high. For every time you think, "I need to figure out what happened back then", it's, "I need to figure out what's not happening now."
35:05 Speaker 06 Yeah, and I don't do that.
35:07 Esther Perel? No.
35:08 Speaker 07 So I think we do something tonight where we put in our calendar when we get back home, and we make that happen.
35:14 Esther Perel? And you can do a thing that's one minute a day.
35:17 Speaker 07 Hmm.
35:19 Esther Perel? And five minutes and this and... But it's about deliberate attention. If you enjoy touch, you go hug her from the back.
35:29 Speaker 07 Hmm, I do.
35:30 Esther Perel? And if she pushes a little bit, because she's in the middle of something...
35:35 Speaker 07 Push back.
35:36 Esther Perel? Yes.
35:37 Speaker 06 Yeah, I do do that.
35:39 Esther Perel? You say, "Of course you do that."
35:41 Speaker 06 Yeah.
35:41 Esther Perel? Of course you do that. Because the mother that you want to be will not let the woman breed.
35:49 Speaker 06 Yeah, that's very accurate.
35:53 Esther Perel? There is that thing, that slight lifting of the shoulder, stiffening of the neck, that just says, "Not a good time, not a good time. I'm busy, I'm, I'm, I'm somewhere else." And this is where you say, "Come in, come in.
36:08 Esther Perel? We have something important to do."
36:12 Esther Perel? I have yet to meet a couple that will regret having hugged.
36:18 Esther Perel? I only meet couples who regret never hugging.
36:21 Speaker 06 Yeah.
36:23 Esther Perel? Or holding, or looking at each other for a second, or smiling to each other. And we're not talking sex yet, we're just talking physicality.
36:31 Speaker 06 Yeah.
36:33 Esther Perel? Playfulness, surprise, stuff that makes people alive. You can be not dead, but that's not the same as alive.
36:45 Speaker 07 So we need to demand more out of each other.
36:48 Esther Perel? Beautiful.
36:49 Speaker 06 Yeah.
36:50 Esther Perel? Yes.
36:51 Speaker 07 Even if it's two seconds, even if it's just a hug.
36:56 Speaker 07 Just to say how our day was, not our kids, like, let's just leave them to the side and just give each other a conversation, I guess.
37:04 Esther Perel? You actually wouldn't be leaving them to the side, you would be teaching them something so important.
37:12 Speaker 06 Yeah.
37:13 Esther Perel? Because, as you just described, we learn love in part from what we see at home.
37:20 Speaker 06 Yeah.
37:20 Esther Perel? You would not be any less busy with them, you just won't be catering to them. You actually will be showing them a cycle of reciprocity between two people.
37:32 Speaker 06 Yeah.
37:33 Esther Perel? But it's gonna come from you.
37:38 Esther Perel? Meaning, it's the opposite of what you've done for the last 10 years. How much can I occupy the least space possible? This is gonna be the opposite, but it's gonna be in the service of the relationship and in the service of your feeling valued, which is for sure one of the things that gets broken when you find out that your partner had an affair 10 years ago.
38:03 Speaker 06 Yeah.
38:05 Esther Perel? Do I matter? Show her you she matters.
38:09 Speaker 06 Part of my problem, though, is that I still have a lot of anger for what he did. So that's sometimes why I just kind of retract, because it's just changed things for me so much.
38:19 Esther Perel? But you always did.
38:23 Speaker 06 Did I?
38:24 Speaker 07 A little bit, yeah.
38:27 Speaker 06 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not always, but a lot of the times I think about it just. I don't want to because.
38:35 Esther Perel? Yeah, and then you can tell him.
38:36 Speaker 06 Yeah.
38:37 Esther Perel? Right now, you're on the shit list.
38:40 Speaker 06 Yeah, sometimes.
38:41 Esther Perel? I want nothing to do, but it's okay, but make it obvious.
38:45 Speaker 06 Yeah.
38:46 Esther Perel? Your angry has its place. Tell him.
38:50 Speaker 06 Yeah. And I usually don't.
38:53 Esther Perel? And if she gets pissed, you can also say, I'm doing everything I can to repair this. And I have. And I need you to do it with me because fundamentally, we've decided to be together and stay together. Let's bring this back to life.
39:10 Speaker 07 And we love each other.
39:11 Esther Perel? Okay.
39:13 Speaker 06 Yeah, I keep a lot of that in. I feel like we don't really talk about what happened. Certainly, he doesn't bring it up, especially now that some time has gone by and I hold a lot of resentment because I feel like I'm just on a boat in the middle of the ocean by myself, holding all these feelings of betrayal and anger and confusion and. I I struggle every day with what you did and how you did it and how you live with yourself. Because there was a good period of time, a good chunk of time, when it was exposed that I still didn't know. And it's so hard for me to understand like how you lived with yourself for those five, six months, knowing that it was
40:00 Speaker 06 out there and that I probably would at that point find out. And you were just waiting for me to be the one to ask.
40:08 Speaker 07 Yeah, I felt horrible. I mean, it was miserable to hold in. It's terrible to hold in. It's not knowing what that is gonna be when it comes out and how you're gonna feel and what you're gonna do and your reaction and what other people are gonna think and everything and how I'm gonna get judged and all of it.
40:26 Esther Perel? You feel bad for her? Or bad for you?
40:31 Speaker 07 I feel terrible for her that she's had to make this part of her life. I think it's not what anybody should have to go through.
40:41 Esther Perel? But what she wants to know is how come you never thought of being the one to break the silence with her?
40:50 Speaker 07 I don't know, I don't, I think it was just more of a not wanting to hurt her and obviously I had already done that.
40:57 Speaker 06 I think you didn't wanna deal with the repercussions.
41:01 Speaker 07 Oh, that too, obviously, yeah.
41:03 Speaker 06 Which makes me circle my mind back of how could you do what you did, knowing what the repercussions could be?
41:11 Speaker 07 No idea.
41:13 Esther Perel? You still would say I don't know?
41:17 Speaker 07 To why I did it?
41:19 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm.
41:20 Speaker 07 Well, part of that affection thing, that she was just there all the time and I didn't have to ask for it and she would give it.
41:26 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm, and it's like drinking from a fire hose.
41:29 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm.
41:31 Esther Perel? Your mom dies, your dad quits.
41:35 Esther Perel? And you find someone who's always there?
41:37 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm.
41:38 Esther Perel? That means a lot. If you can let it sink in.
41:42 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm.
41:44 Esther Perel? So you have to stop saying I don't know why. That's one of these lines that is becoming very encrusted.
41:55 Esther Perel? How did it end? Do you know?
42:00 Speaker 07 I don't a hundred percent recall how it ended. I don't know, she was going through stuff, she was also, I believe, seeing like other people. On top of all this, and then I think at that point was planning on leaving him and moving on.
42:16 Esther Perel? And how was that for you?
42:19 Speaker 07 Okay. Done. I had no emotional connection with her. We ended it and that was it.
42:27 Esther Perel? And while it was happening, did you sometimes think this should stop? Or this is
42:33 Speaker 07 Yeah, but she was a very persistent person.
42:37 Esther Perel? Mm-hmm.
42:38 Speaker 07 Very, very persistent.
42:41 Esther Perel? The word she's persistent. What does it mean?
42:46 Speaker 07 The persistence?
42:47 Esther Perel? Yeah.
42:48 Speaker 07 That she was just always there?
42:52 Speaker 07 In pushing, in pushing, in pushing for it.
42:54 Esther Perel? In what sense? That she had her hands on you? And you didn't have to
43:01 Speaker 07 Yeah.
43:01 Esther Perel? Come over to, like, you know, it's a useful word, but it doesn't really say anything. Did she threaten you? Did she insist? Did she make it so that you didn't feel that you had options? Did she smother you? Did she fuck you ten different ways that made it so irresistible? What is persistence?
43:21 Speaker 07 She just was persistent. I don't know, like, I'm trying to answer your.
43:25 Esther Perel? You were in it.
43:25 Speaker 07 Huh?
43:26 Esther Perel? I wasn't there.
43:27 Speaker 07 I didn't say you were there.
43:28 Esther Perel? I'm saying.
43:29 Speaker 07 I'm saying, that's what I know, and if I knew how I felt, I'd have that answer.
43:33 Esther Perel? But you know what happens.
43:34 Speaker 07 But I don't know, I do, but I don't know why, in my mind, I kept letting her do that.
43:42 Speaker 07 Like, I wasn't going to her, she was coming to me, so I don't know why I kept letting that happen.
43:49 Speaker 07 I'm not sure I have a hundred percent reason, so I don't want to say something that maybe isn't correct, but.
43:53 Esther Perel? It's not like you're putting your feet on the fire here, I'm exploring it with you.
43:57 Speaker 07 Mm-hmm. I'm sure there was a lot of things going through my head, and I don't recollect all of that. I don't.
44:09 Esther Perel? What does it mean that he doesn't know? Is it that he forgot? Is it that it remained vague? Is it that he was so in the swing of things that he didn't have to really ask himself much? Or is it also that people who grow up very alone? And who learn not to have needs? Also learn not to have a vocabulary that allows them to know what they feel? What they know is that there was something very powerful happening to them. What it represented? Why it was so irresistible? Where it layered itself onto early childhood needs? They don't make all of these connections. And when he talks about what he needs and what he feels, it is in the physical language.
44:52 Esther Perel? It is in a very early language. A language that is before we speak with words. That is where his emotional truth takes place.
45:03 Esther Perel? So I can push, I can challenge, I can question, but it doesn't get translated into a vocabulary of emotions.
45:18 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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47:03 Speaker 06 And I've mostly accepted that I'm just never gonna get those answers. But it definitely makes it harder to try to close that chapter and focus on now, because I just keep going back to then.
47:15 Esther Perel? That is possibly true, but maybe not. The idea that if I have the answers to these questions, it will help me put you to sleep, it could be the opposite.
47:28 Speaker 06 Yeah.
47:29 Esther Perel? What you know is that you've lived 10 more years.
47:35 Esther Perel? That were very real as well. Question we often have is, is the 10 years defined by the secret or by what happened?
47:44 Speaker 06 That's what I question.
47:47 Esther Perel? There is nobody who can give you a definitive on this one.
47:51 Speaker 06 Yeah.
47:52 Esther Perel? The little bit I gather, I think that what you lived together is real.
47:59 Esther Perel? And he had a secret.
48:03 Esther Perel? Sometimes I think the conversation is less about the affair than about the secret around the affair.
48:09 Speaker 06 Yeah.
48:09 Esther Perel? Secret is a lot longer.
48:12 Esther Perel? And how much did that secret have an effect on you?
48:18 Esther Perel? What it's like for him to spend 10 years organized around a secret? That kind of lives in the middle of this relationship. Maybe not all the time, maybe not at all. But it's a useful question. It's like you, me, and your secret have had a relationship here as well.
48:39 Speaker 06 Yes, and I've asked him that because that makes me question like, he's always been wonderful for these 10 years. Was that because he just grew into that person? Or was some of that driven by guilt? And he was trying to make up for it? It makes me question those 10 years.
49:00 Speaker 06 Were they true?
49:01 Speaker 07 And?
49:02 Speaker 06 I haven't gotten an answer about it that.
49:05 Speaker 07 What's the question?
49:08 Speaker 06 Did you think about it for the last ten years? Did it?
49:13 Speaker 07 Did it affect me? Yes. A hundred percent every day. Keeping something like that is miserable. It's horrible. It's not what I would want anybody to go through. On top of you going through what you're going through. But to hold something like that is shit. It sucks. It's taxing on your life because you don't know how you
49:39 Speaker 07 how you can deal with yourself. And then you just think all your life like,
49:45 Speaker 07 who else will find out? Who else will judge you? How they're gonna perceive you for what you did?
49:52 Speaker 07 And it's all the time. I still have that. I still have that every single day. That never leaves.
49:59 Speaker 06 Honestly, I didn't think you thought about it unless I brought it up.
50:02 Speaker 07 No, it's never gonna go away. It'll never go away. You wish you could rewrite the storybook.
50:13 Speaker 06 Yeah.
50:15 Speaker 07 You can't.
50:18 Speaker 07 The only thing you can do is just move forward and be who you really wanna be with the person you wanna be with.
50:27 Speaker 06 Which you have.
50:30 Speaker 07 I just wish you had a better book to write.
50:34 Speaker 07 You really do. You really do.
50:39 Speaker 06 I mean, what you did doesn't define your whole life. It's just a part of our story that I never wanted either.
50:46 Speaker 07 I know.
50:48 Speaker 06 But it's not the whole story. And I've accepted that very early on. But I just didn't know where you were.
50:57 Speaker 06 Or even if you thought about it.
50:59 Speaker 07 I'm here.
51:00 Speaker 06 I know you're here. But that's because, like you said in the beginning, you were here because me.
51:09 Speaker 06 And I wouldn't be here if you weren't the person now that I love so much.
51:17 Speaker 07 I love you too.
51:19 Speaker 06 I hate that version of you.
51:21 Speaker 07 Me too.
51:22 Speaker 06 But you've been a wonderful person a lot longer than when you were a bad person.
51:30 Esther Perel? Did you get some answers?
51:33 Speaker 06 I did, yeah. I actually feel a lot better. Something as simple as just knowing that he
51:41 Speaker 06 thinks about it and I'm not alone with the
51:46 Speaker 06 awful emotions and thoughts every day. That means a lot. So that's not something he's ever said to me.
51:54 Esther Perel? I don't tell her that I think about this because I don't think that my thinking matters.
52:04 Esther Perel? Because only hers is important. But then she's left thinking that she's the only one who cares.
52:12 Esther Perel? Every time you think that by doing less, asking less, saying less.
52:19 Speaker 07 Is worse.
52:20 Esther Perel? Yes.
52:23 Speaker 07 Yeah, absolutely. I judge myself all the time about this.
52:26 Esther Perel? Right.
52:27 Speaker 07 Every day.
52:29 Esther Perel? It would help her a lot. And you, by the way. But if you really think, what can I do to help her? This will.
52:40 Esther Perel? Can I ask you something? Do you feel like you deserve the life, the marriage, the family, the wife?
52:50 Speaker 07 I think some days, they deserve better. My kids deserve better.
52:59 Esther Perel? So when she says you're not defined by this one action, you say, no, I am?
53:05 Speaker 07 I think I have a long way to go still.
53:09 Speaker 07 But it's also the future as your kids get older. I think about
53:14 Speaker 07 what if they do find out? What's gonna happen?
53:16 Esther Perel? What's gonna happen is you're gonna tell them your dad fucked up. And he was blessed to have the opportunity to repair. He had an amazing partner, wife, who said, there is more to you than this. It was a big mistake. But it probably motivated you to
53:39 Esther Perel? become a lot more conscientious.
53:43 Esther Perel? And that life is filled of broken pieces that we put back together.
53:51 Esther Perel? And that it made you value what you had even more.
53:55 Esther Perel? So you talk about what is rupture and what is repair? And what is remorse? And what is guilt? And what is acknowledgement? And what is betrayal? And what is love?
54:08 Esther Perel? And how the two of you were able to take this wound? And it became a scar.
54:17 Esther Perel? And that'll be an amazing lesson.
54:31 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 Hahn. 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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