The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast

This episode of The Oprah Podcast is presented by Ulta Beauty.

The possibilities are beautiful.

It is a joy to be with you here on The Oprah Podcast,

and I know your time means a lot to you,

so I think it's just so special for me

that you all are listening or watching on YouTube. Lots of people have Valentine's Day on their minds this week.
And I know that for some people that brings up thoughts of romance and lack of romance, but my guest is renowned, renowned as a relationship therapist and expert. She studies it.
She knows it in her spirit, in her heart, in her brain. Esther Perel says all of our relationships with our family, with our friends, even our neighbors have a real impact on our most intimate relationships.
So welcome to the tea house. Thank you.
Relationships are changing rapidly. Modern romance is undergoing an extreme makeover.

Esther Perel is a psychotherapist and best-selling author

who's been counseling couples for over three decades.

You know, it's a little bit like sex.

It used to be that you had to be ashamed if you had sex.

Now you are ashamed if you don't.

I think her greatest gift is her intuitive insight into the human heart and mind.

She really blows me away. Wow, I could cry over that.
That resonates really powerfully with me. I heard that.
Did you hear it, Jen? Absolutely. Her hit podcast, Where Should We Begin, is a must-listen for anybody looking to better understand the complexities of relationships.
One of the most challenging things about relationships and marriage in general has been communication.

I mean, sexual candor is really difficult.

Esther sees beyond the stories we tell ourselves.

How did you know that?

You don't even know her. And she's here to offer her unflinching truths.

Say that again.

More play starts.

At the end of the previous orgasm.

So everybody, thanks for joining us on this podcast.

I'm so happy.

You're one of the people who is speaking the truth to families and people in relationships

in a way, I think, that resonates profoundly and is actually changing the way people see

themselves in their lives and relationships. So power to you for doing that in the world.
Thank you. I try.
And may I tell you, I don't know how I discovered these cards. I actually don't even remember how, but I actually ordered these on Amazon for myself.
I got them for myself and then I love them so much. I send them out to friends because this is what happens when people come for dinner or come over for an evening and not everybody knows everybody.
What I found is that if you go through the cards and you pull out the cards and you make sure that the sexy cards are not there. Children are there.
And then I have a thing where everybody pulls a card. And then I have them do another card and then another card.
We do rounds of people pulling cards. So you have a whole stack of cards.
So you don't just get one card. You get to choose from that card the question that you want to answer.
And we go around and around. And it is so...

Storytelling night. It becomes storytelling and it becomes an opportunity for people to express things and say things.
I mean, I've learned things about my godchildren that I did not know. And so where should we begin? Which is, I know, based on your podcast, you've been doing that popular podcast for a few years now.

Yes.

Yes.

So, which is just a perfect title i i love it and so where it's how i start many sessions really you know it's like yeah you sit with new people you've never met and you just say okay where should we begin yes and i love this question i just pulled these for us today something I wish I had been told as a child. What would that be for you? Something I wish I'd been told as a child.
The first thing that just jumped into my head is this. My mother told me that I came from the stork.
And what I wish I had been told as a child was that this was, there was no such a thing.

As a stork.

As a stork.

I was nine years old when I understood that this is...

Not true.

No.

And that it says more about her discomfort with the subject...

Yes.

Than anything else.

And then I began to dig and try to find, you know, so then where exactly did I come from? And when I told her, you know, actually, I came from you, she said, we'll discuss this one day. And did she ever? Never.
Never? Never. Oh, that was the day where people were so uncomfortable.
When people think, and you are a sexologist and you must have had, no, no, no. I grew up in utter ignorance.
Wow. I wish I had been told a lot of things in that domain.
Yeah. Well, my answer to that, I would say, I wish I had been told that I was loved.
Yes. Because I never, ever heard I love you or had the feeling of you are loved as a child.
Yes, yes. I wish I had been told.
It's a very common answer. Is it? Yes.
I wish I had been told I was loved. I am capable.
I'm worthy of something. I miss you.
I mean, many things that people want to hear have to do with feeling, basically feeling seen, feeling acknowledged, feeling valued. I know so many people get so much out of your podcast.
Why did you decide to do the podcast? And what was your hope and greatest intention for it? So I spent 35 years in my office seeing patients. I still do.
And at one point, I started to wish that people would hear some of the powerful insights that occur in the conversations in my office and not that many people can actually enter the kind of healing that takes place. And I just thought I have to open the door to this office so that people can hear not everything takes place in a therapy office.
How do I bring those stories to the world at large? How do I create what has become a public health campaign for relationships worldwide? And that was my invitation is first I open the doors and I come to you, but then I want you to actually become a fly on the wall and listen in to the raw, intimate, anonymous conversations of others. And you will see yourself.
If you listen intensely to others, you see yourselves, even if it's not your exact story. That's right.
Even if it's not your story, you can see yourself in the other story. So I hear that you now think that modern romance is going through some kind of change or makeover? What's going on out there? What's changed? So one of the things that changes is that we are today looking for a soulmate on an app.
And the soulmate is the one and only, which basically has always meant God. Yes.
And now it's your partner. Yeah.
And with this partner, you want to experience transcendence and wholeness and ecstasy and meaning all the things that you actually used to look for in the realm of the divine. And now you want that with your partner.
So people say, well, are we asking for too much? And I say, no, we don't. We can have enormous expectations, but we are asking one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide.
I want with you what everything traditional relationships are about, companionship, economic support, family life, social status. But now I also want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidante and my intellectual equal equal, and my fitness buddy, and my professional

coach, and last but not least, my passionate lover, and all of this for the long haul. And this long haul keeps on getting longer, right? And then we have taken love, commitment, intimacy away from our relationships with family, with friends, with neighbors.
All these other relationships are weakening and all of this is being brought into modern love. So modern intimacy today is me talking to you, you're validating me, you're reflecting on me, and I am momentarily going to transcend my existential aloneness and modern intimacy becomes into me see.
Oh, into me see. Yeah.
That's where we are. That's modern romance as I begin to see.
When you were saying that, I remember early on in my relationship with Stedman, Maya Angelou, my advisor and friend, a wise woman, was saying, your life is a whole pie. Your life is made up of a whole pie, much of what you're just saying about a village.
And so do not expect one person to represent everything that the pie is supposed to represent. Totally agree.
So based upon what you just said, everybody expects your partner now to really be what the realm of the divine used to be in people's lives. Isn't that too much? I think it is.
I think we cannot have one person give us what a whole community should represent. And I think that we are actually overburdening our relationships.

And then we get very disillusioned. Because you don't fulfill all of those things.
I'm going to eliminate you from my life because you are not perfect. And I'll find someone else who I think can actually meet all my needs.
And then that person is not going to be able to do it either. So what is your advice to someone who's listening who may be feeling alone right now, especially this week? People get so hung up on what the Valentine experience means or doesn't mean, and I don't have, and I didn't get, and I wasn't acknowledged.
I think to actually continue directly from what we just said, love, intimacy, being valued, being cherished. Don't just imagine that it takes place in your romantic relationship.
So valentine us all. Make it about love, and it's the love that you share with all the people of your life.
If you don't have a partner at this time, that doesn't mean you're excluded from the event. That's right.
And then how do you feel less lonely? In general, we feel less lonely when we connect with others and we feel that we are able to bring a smile to their face. And suddenly we realize that we matter and that something is happening.
Yesterday, I was literally thinking about these questions and I'm walking here in Santa Barbara by the beach. And as I'm thinking this, a woman stops me and she says, can you help me come down the steps? And so I help her walk down.
She said, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
I says, no, thank you for giving me this opportunity. I just feel like I was able to do something for someone.
And when I left, she had a smile. I had a smile.
And we momentarily felt less lonely. And that happens in small incremental things.
You know, what happens today is modern loneliness masks as hyperconnectivity. I mean, you can have a thousand virtual friends and no one to feed your cat.
Oh, I love that. You can have a thousand friends on social media and no one to feed your cat.
Let alone pick up a prescription at a pharmacy, let alone pick you up at the airport, let alone so many things. Yes, yeah.
You know, but they give you a parasocial relationship with a little like, and it leaves you, you know, not really feeling fed. You're undernourished.
You end up feeling emptier. Yeah.
Emptier. And you teach a course on turning conflict into connection.
Yeah. And I've always wanted to know, why does it seem that couples fight over and over about the same thing? Because they're actually fighting not about certain things, but they're fighting for certain things.
If you think you're fighting about, then you think that you're arguing about, you know, why did you put this straw in this glass? You know, and now we're going to have a whole argument about the straw. It's not about the straw.
No. What people typically fight for, I think, can be summarized in three basic things.
It's based on the work of Howard Markman, but people fight over power and control. Whose decisions matter more? Who has the priorities? You know, you hear it in sentences on the podcast all the time.
People say, you know, you don't value my contributions with the children. You constantly undermine me.
We are doing everything on your terms. We have sex when you want.
We live where you want. We travel where you want.
You're the boss. Yeah.
Power and control. People fight for closeness and care.
Trust. Do you have my back? Can I rely on you? Can I lean on you? And what we hear is, you know, I open myself, I share my anxiety, and instead of supporting me, you fly it back in my face.
You know? You're not my soft place to fall. No.
And when your mother says things about me, instead of protecting me, you ally with her. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. That kind of stuff.
And people fight for respect and recognition, meaning do you value me? You know? Is my contribution recognized? Do I matter? And that is, you know, sentences like, I do so much and I don't think you ever value me. When you want to go see people, you just go, you know, without even checking in with me, like you're unilaterally making your choices.
And ultimately, you know, I had a thing in a podcast episode where they come in and they start to argue because he left the closet door open. Wow.
And the cat could enter into the closet. Yeah.
And now follows a whole fight about the cat closet. Did the cat enter the closet or could? No, I couldn't care less.
I don't listen to the story. You know, all I hear is now we are talking, they're talking about the closet, the door, the cat litter, the cat.
And all I am thinking is what is it that they're really fighting about? What is he saying? He's saying, you're not the boss of me. And you know, the birth of me means, you know, he had a very dominant father who talks constantly.

And so that's what he's fighting for.

He's fighting about the closet, but he's fighting for power and control. Time for a break, y'all.
Up next, Esther's critical advice for busy couples looking to get that spark back in the bedroom. I know that's so common, so you don't want to miss what she says.
We'll be back. Thank you for taking the time to be with me here.
We're back with Esther Perel, host of the hugely popular Where Should We Begin podcast. We're talking about love and relationships of all kinds.
Let's get back to it. We have guests who are joining us on Zoom that I think a lot of you are going to relate to.
So let's jump in. Christina and Stefan are in Atlanta.

And I hear that you two are very much in love and you're raising three beautiful boys, four, six and nearly eight.

Okay.

Where should we begin?

What's going on?

Hi, guys.

Hey, how are you?

How are you?

Yeah, so things are incredible with us.

I love my wife. We've been married nearly 10 years.
It'll be 10 years in April. She's my best friend.
As you mentioned, we're raising three amazing boys. We're in ministry together.
So we're in the process of planting a church. So we do a lot of stuff together.
And in our first year of marriage, we're talking about intimacy. So first year of marriage, when it comes to the frequency of it, it was very high.
Going into year 10 is still very good. But when you look at all the things that we're doing, the energy that we're exerting, all of the things that we're doing.
And one of our kids has autism. So that that's a lot on her as well.

I'm trying to figure out how to make sure she has a lot more in the tank

when it comes down to time with,

with me because the boys take a lot, right?

At the end of the day, she's ready to park.

I'm ready to go full speed fast.

Yeah.

So that's, that's where we are. Well, you got the best expert here to help you.
And your question is, how do I get her to want more? Yeah. So, you know, I'm able to compartmentalize the work that we have to do during the day.
And I can have some left in the reserve when we get to the end of the day for her, she's a lot more exhausted.

And I get it.

There's more of an emotional toll on her being a mom.

And the boys are pulling on her more so than me.

But I want her to be able to compartmentalize like I can.

Are you prepared to change tracks?

Am I prepared to change tracks?

Yes.

I'm prepared to do whatever I need to do.

Wonderful.

Beautiful.

Can I hear from you just a bit?

Christian?

Yeah.

So, like you said, I am tired.

Come on. I'm prepared to do whatever I need to do.
Wonderful. Beautiful.
Can I hear from you just a bit? Christian? Yeah. So like he said, I am tired.
Come eight o'clock, I'm ready to tap out and retire. But I try to explain to him, there's a biological connection I have with the children.
I'm a light sleeper. So any little breath, it feels like I wake up.
So I feel like I'm not getting adequate sleep,

although, you know, I fall asleep early.

But it's like I'm trying to explain to him the different ways that men and women approach sex.

Like, he can go, and I need, like,

I need time to build it.

And I love him, and I'm attracted to him.

That's not the thing, but I'm very much aware

our marriage is a movement.

I really value that, so. Okay.
Maybe we we first switch a little bit the way we think here, right? And that is very often when we think about sex, we think about an act and an outcome, something that we do. And instead of thinking of it like that, I would probably want to switch you to think more about an experience.
Not what do you do in sex, but where do you go in sex? What parts of yourselves do you connect with? What do you want to experience there? What do you want to express there? And then you will notice that for some people, desire is autonomous. As you say, I come, I'm ready, spontaneous erection, autonomous.
I don't need any prep. I'm go.
The majority of other people are responsive with what we call responsive desire, meaning they don't come ready. They are maybe sometimes open or willing.
That willingness, you know, I'm not always hungry. I see you're eating.
I'm sitting next to you. It looks like it's quite good.
I taste. I'm open.
I'm curious. I want to see where this takes me.
Slowly, I find myself, I take out a plate. I'm actually eating a whole meal.
I wasn't really hungry to begin with, and I could have done without, but I'm happy I did it. You know, that switch for you, instead of thinking,

how do I get her to also be able to compartmentalize and be ready?

I'm sorry to say, it may not work.

And she's going to get frustrated.

Rather than your understanding that foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm.

It's not a five minute before the real thing.

And you give and... Say that again? Foreplay starts? At the end of the previous orgasm.
It's not a five minute before the real thing. And you give and say that again, workplace starts at the end of the previous orgasm.
Not just, you know, five minutes before you get going. So instead of thinking you are the norm and she's the problem, how do I get her to change? You understand that for a lot of people, it's willingness that gets us going.
And that is a wonderful thing. I'm open.
I'm willing to see. And then here's the piece.
A lot of relationships, male-female relationships, you're going to tell me probably, nothing turns me on more than to see her turned on. Yeah? Yeah.
Love it. Yes.
Now, it is most likely that she will say, whatever happens to him is kind of irrelevant to me. Because what gets me going is what happens to her, not what happens to you.
And that means that she needs to be able to enter into her own erotic self. And that means that she needs to be able to let go of the role of mother, caretaking, responsible, making sure that everybody's fine, worrying about the well-being of others.
That is the essential liberation that any woman needs to feel, especially when I hear what Christina just said about that biological instant response that she has to the kids. It's how do I allow that to recede,

and I trust that everybody's fine

so that I can finally enter into myself

and give myself the permission to think about me

and experience my own pleasure.

Give her the permission to be slightly more selfish in the moment

because desire is that attention onto me that says, I deserve, I can be, I can enjoy and everything else is fine. And that's how I can let go.
I love what you said about where do you want to go? And I saw something in your eyes, where do you want to go? And what do you want to experience in this sexual encounter that it's not just about the act? Did that resonate with you, Christina? Tremendously, because my first orgasm was with my husband. Hey.
And I have to get there mentally. I'm being honest.
Everything before him was performative, you know? And I like that Esther said to make it an experience again. Like, remember, it's something that we share that nothing, no one else, you know, something supernatural happens.
And I feel it when we're there. But initially, it's, I feel like it's a, it's a chore to get there.
But if I can train my mind to think, where do I want to go with him right now? This is our secret place and train myself there. I feel like I can, like anything, work a muscle again, you know, and tap into the erotic side.
But you need to be willing to ask for things. What starts to happen when you're in that kind of a dance is that he says, yeah, you say nay, and your emphasis is on all the nays and his emphasis is on all the yays.
So it's about you're asking, do I want to just relax? Do I want something more sensual? Do I want us to be naughty? Do I want to just have fun? Do I want to connect? Do I want to just be taken care of? All of these are places that we go in the erotic that have, you know, you can, as you just said, you can do a lot in sex and feel absolutely nothing. Women have done that for centuries.

You know, in the erotic, you can do very little and feel a lot.

But for that, you need to ask for certain things and know that you have someone who really appreciates it and welcomes it.

Because then, you know, he likes to give, he likes to make you feel good.

And even if it's just, you know, small little things, it's about pleasure, not about performance or outcome. This makes sense? It does.
And what's interesting is one of the most challenging things about relationships and marriage in general has been communication. I mean, sexual candor is really difficult, you know, and here's the thing.
The majority of people often fall in a trap where they think that they will want more sex from talking about all the sex they don't want okay you got it yeah you know it's like we talk about the problem we talk about that's why women are reluctant like if we have a conversation about it we're going to talk about it it's going to make you want more of it and i'm just just trying to have a conversation about it. That's what you're saying, Christina.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. I just want to cuddle and it's going to spark.
So let me go to sleep. Cuddle leads to other things.
Fall asleep. I'm just tired, but it's hard to just, it's hard to just cuddle.
I try to explain that to her because I want her morning, noon, night from dusk till dawn. And if she's like, let's just cuddle, there are things that happen to me biologically as a man that just don't allow me to sit there and cuddle.
So, you know, you know, maybe if I communicate that better, like what actually happens in those moments when you want to cuddle and things are happening that can lead to pain. I, to pain.
We could, again, communicate better in those ways.

That way she doesn't feel rejected when she says, can we cuddle?

And I say, no, I actually need to go watch TV.

It's not to distance her.

It's to protect my well-being from that moment.

Because you know cuddling is going to lead you to something else.

But a lot of women feel this.

A lot of women say this all the time. I just wanted to cuddle.
And you're reluctant to even initiate cuddling because you know it's going to lead to another whole thing. Yes, but you can turn that whole thing.
You see what happens is that then you start to say, I don't even want to cuddle because then he's going to get turned on. He's going to get turned on.
He's going to want more. He's going to want more.
I'm going to frustrate him. He's going to get up.
He's going to be all upset. He's going to pout, etc.
Yeah, but so turn it around. You know, it's nice that you want her, but it's also a burden sometimes for her to feel that she constantly is your one outlet with whom you need that.
Basically, in the end, she's doing it for you to take care of you. That's not what sex is supposed to be.
So on occasion, that is, but not when it becomes, I just want to make sure he doesn't get upset. And you know, then the next day he's in a bad mood because he's, that whole thing.
It's nice for you to say to him, I like the reaction that you have. Maybe sometimes you take care of him.
Maybe sometimes you take care of yourself and you do it not in hiding. You do it next to her because it's okay.

And then sometimes as she watches you, she may join you. There's a lot of possibilities if you don't fall into the trap of on or off and afraid to do the slightest move because my God, if he then reacts, then I'm going to have to service.
That's the under the subtext from this dynamic that you describe.

You know, and then on occasion

when you just call him

and... that's the under the subtext from this dynamic that you that you describe you know and then on

occasion when you just call him and you whatever it is you take a bath together a shower together you know something where he experiences your invitation but the pressure is what you want to watch because you're a high energy guy and you release a lot sexually and there's nothing wrong with it. But you also have three other boys in this house.
And so, yes, it's very different from 10 years ago. And it may come back after the boys are older as well.
This is, you know, so how do you give yourself the permission to say, mom, time is off. I take off my apron.
I take some time. I transition.
I retrieve the woman from behind the mother. But it doesn't have to be the full operation each time.
It doesn't have to be the whole production because otherwise you are going to get her shutting down just because she's afraid that you're going to want the whole thing. And that is where the women start to really deprive themselves as well.
That's the other thing. It deprives her because she enjoys being with you.
That is not the point. You enjoy being together.
You desire her and she desires you. Yes.
I hope this has been helpful.

Some things to talk about.

Think about.

Thank you.

Best microphones yet.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Next up is Jen, a married mom from Philadelphia.

Jen wrote to us about what she called her past baggage.

How is that impacting you?

What did you want to say?

Hello, Jen. My story is a little bit different than the last brave couple, although it certainly resonates, I think, as moms and married people.
And I had written about past baggage, which I'm not sure really is relevant to where I am, but I had been through some sexual trauma as a child and through my teenage years. And I'd say in my 20s, probably spiraled a bit and had some commitment issues in my 20s and 30s.
And so my story is I got married a little bit later in life and I was a single mom. And recently I made a decision to leave a corporate job.
And so I'm feeling very unsettled and unbalanced in my relationship, I guess is kind of a long way to get there. And your question? Is the question really, Esther, is how to feel empowered in your relationship or feel when you're feeling unbalanced.
You know, I was fiercely independent and I was a single mom taking care of things. And now I have made a decision that I'm going to take a year of a pause.
And it's changed the dynamic in my relationship. And you feel the vulnerability of the change of the balance.
You feel that you are more reliant or dependent on your partner, and that is not the way that you've usually liked it, because you've always made sure that you can stand on your own two feet. Right.
And is that fear reinforced by him, or it's really something that you bring with you? No, I think it's something that I bring. I think actually what you said in the beginning about feeling valued, and I do feel that.
And I'm lucky that I think, you know, I waited so long to get married because I finally found the right person who I think really, truly doesn't keep score. So it's purely in my head as somebody who's been very independent and trying to figure out how to.
So this already is a big, it's a big starting point is your ability to say, look, I, from whatever happened to me in my life, I decided that nobody would ever have any power over me, that I was going to be in control. Nobody could take advantage.
I can take care of myself. I don't depend on anybody beyond a certain level.
And I have done this well. And then what happens when you leave work as that position, which was one of the symbols of your independence and all of that, is that you are in transition.
And transition is by definition no longer here and not yet there. That's what transition means.
So in transition, you are of balance. It is the nature of that change to be of balance.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's just unknown to you, unfamiliar.
And here is your opportunity. You have a great guy that you know is valuing you, that is not going to take advantage of what you call

feeling a little bit more precarious, more unbalanced,

more unsure of myself and all of that.

This is your opportunity to really do some repair

from the dowry of your childhood

and to actually allow yourself to lean on someone and to know that you can and to have someone show up for you. So instead of how do I empower myself, I would actually invite you to say, how do I allow myself for the first time ever to take advantage of this big transition and lean on someone and learn and experience the depth of trust, something I've yearned for my whole life and have never allowed myself.
Wow. I could cry over that.
That resonates really powerfully with me. I heard that.
Did you hear it, Jen? Absolutely. I heard that.
I received it for sure. Oh my God, that was so good.

Where does it land for you? Just because I don't know you, so I just took a leap.

It's very, it's truthful for sure. And it has been hard for me to lean on someone because I haven't ever done that before.
and so and I'm I feel like this is a gift of this transition that I'm able to take and

I'm trying to be open to the universe and all possibilities that come in front of me, like getting the opportunity to speak to both of you. And so I do need to receive it.
I thought that was really powerful. How did you know that? You don't even know her.
no I don't because you said

I left a big job I have always been independent and you kind of said and implied was how do I continue to feel as strong as I always did yeah and I thought but this is not about being strong and then she said I have a good guy. I waited and I have a good guy.
And I thought, but this is not about being strong. And then she said, I have a good guy.
I waited and I have a good guy. And I thought, you haven't even given him the opportunity to show you how good he can be.
Wow. And what would it be like for you instead of holding yourself up to actually leaning on him and experiencing, I mean, you're going to sob maybe.
It's going to bring back this little girl who fought, you know, to make sure that she's in charge and nobody takes advantage. So you're holding on to that, still protecting yourself, yes.
I think probably my whole life, even though I've done therapy in my 20s and 30s and I think I've gotten it, which is why I can talk about it so openly. But I'm sure it's still there's still that little girl in there who wants to take charge, I'm sure.
Yes. And it goes actually with what we talked before when you said, what is it that people fight for when they are in conflict? Yes.
The people who fight for power and control are often people who did experience various forms of emotional, psychological or sexual abuse. Because then it is your adaptive style.
You respond with a strategy. That's how you stay in control.
That's right. That's how you stay in control.
Oh, that resonated with me. I think the comfort now of feeling safe is getting the strength to be vulnerable.
It's a gift for your life. It's the gift you've been waiting for that therapy could only offer partially and that it looks like your partner may be able to offer you.
And now you're the one who brought up the universe. And so the universe has put you in this position so you can do exactly what Esther was just saying.
You can lean back into it. You can lean into him and you can allow.
I love those two terms that you used for her. Lean and allow.
They're very expensive, by the way. Yes, yeah.
Scary at first, but very expensive. Jen, thank you so much for sharing your story.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
And for matching the walls in the house. for wearing the blouse that matches the chair that matches the wall.
I mean, really, the decor is perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Erica from Texas has been married for 32 years. She has three adult children, and now she's starting to have some doubts.
Are you about your marriage? Tell us why. Hello, Erica.
Oh, my goodness. Hello, Esther.
Hello, Oprah. Hi.
Thank you all so much for this opportunity. It truly is an honor of mine.
Well, like I said, I've been married 32 years. I have three adult grown children.
My husband was retired military. He retired about 10 years ago.
We have spent a lot of time together. We do a lot of things together.
And then about eight years ago, my mom suddenly took you. And it was just when our husband retired.
And we're looking forward to moving away and joining our lives. And it's just been a lot.
And I look forward to these days.

I look forward to being an empty nester.

We have two adult girls who are now back in the home.

I still have to check on my mom and see about her.

I just got a call from the caregivers a few minutes ago.

What would you like?

What would you like?

I almost, instead of saying, what is your question?

I would like to ask, what is your wish? What is my wish for myself? Yeah. Yeah.
Because you carry a lot. You've been dutiful, loyal, responsible.
And I, as you speak, I experienced your ache for play, for fun, for aliveness, for exploration, for creativity, for things that are the opposite of I'm taking care of my mom, my three children, my husband, our business. I've been doing it.
I'm the only daughter. I'm the child.
It's, you know, my responsibility, my duty. And you know what's so interesting? When you watch this, makes me want to tear up.

When she asked you what was your wish, what happened to your face? And what makes me want to tear up is I know nobody's asked you that. Nobody's asked you that.
What do you really want? Yeah. I don't know how you knew that, but that's exactly what I said to my husband.
I saw it in your eyes. And I know Sarah saw it in your eyes.
Yeah, you were like, because you said me? What? For myself? For myself? Because nobody's asked you that and you haven't asked you that. You haven't asked you that.
Right. Right? Yes.
You're so organized around what do they need from you, and you so just hope that they would stop asking, but you need to ask yourself a different question, and that is really you've done it all. If you worry about being the good daughter and the good mother and the good spouse, you got your A+.
Because otherwise, you know, sometimes we don't have another way that when we feel trapped like that, sometimes we get sick just as a way of saying I'm off duty. Don't ask me anything.
I can't get up. And sometimes we just think, okay,

I'll leave the marriage. And then

sometimes it's really

what would be even the smallest

thing today that would connect

you with your

aliveness, with your

joy, with your freedom

small?

What would it be?

Do you have a thought about what that would be?

Have you even thought about that?

I'd love to

Thank you. small, where would it be? Do you have a thought about what that would be? Have you even thought about that? I love to travel.
I want to travel the world. I love walking on the beach.
We took a vacation to Mexico, and I just loved walking on the beach, just being with nature, just getting out. And we don't get to do that that often.
Okay, forget the we. Forget the we.
Yeah. Forget the we.
You know, you start, you have to go with a girlfriend, go with somebody else, go with one of your children, if you know. But it's not, don't make it contingent.
You see, you kind of, when people carry as much as you do, the fantasy is that one day everybody will be set, everybody will be taken care of, and then I can go do my walk on the beach.

No.

Not going to happen.

You're going to go do your walk on the beach because that's what's going to help you to continue to make sure that everybody is set.

Otherwise, you're going to collapse.

So what do I wish for myself? What's one thing I could do that I would enjoy? How do I give myself pleasure? I could see you get that, Erica. I could see you get that.
So let's start there. You know what happens? Once you start this thing, it's irresistible.
Yes. Once you really claim and you don't feel that guilty and you don't want to constantly look back to make sure everybody's okay and you begin to ask yourself, am I okay? Not in a selfish way because it's amazing how the biggest givers are the ones who worry about being selfish.
Yes. I can see that landed.
Yes. Yes, it did.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you, Erica.
Thank you so much. After this break, Astaire shares the one thing you can do today to feel more alive in all of your relationships.
Don't you want to know what that is? Stay with us. I so appreciate you taking the time to join us on the Oprah podcast.
We're back with more profound truths about love and relationships from Esther Perel. Barbara was married for 20 years to a man she describes as emotionally abusive.
Can you tell us briefly what happened? Hi, Barbara. Hello.
Hello, Esther and Oprah. It is an honor to listen to you and be part of this.
So yes, I married for 20 years, two beautiful boys. We met actually in law school.
And I don't think I realized that I was in a relationship that was about power and control, I didn't fully appreciate that until things started going not well, probably the second half of our marriage.

And then in therapy learned that I was very accustomed to power and control dynamics. You are no longer with your husband.
Right. And if I understand what you may be grappling with is it took me a while to see a lot of things.
Yes. The relationship ended, whatever the reasons, that precipitated it.
And so what often follows from a relationship like this is questions of trust. Yeah, there are betrayals, and then one wonders, how will I trust again? Is that part of what? Yes.
Okay. Yes, it's, I'm scared about my ability to know what I can trust.
Right. Because I've always trusted my instincts and my instincts have always served me well.
But when this happens in such a long relationship, you do question, what did I know? What didn't I know? Was there an affair involved? Was there an affair? Yes. Yeah.
Okay. I think that you're highlighting something that is so, so important because betrayal creates a question of trust.
Can I trust people? But it also puts into question, can I trust myself? Yes. How do I trust that my perception of reality is accurate when all these things took place that I had no idea about that happened behind my back and I thought I know what the hell is going on.

And then I found out I was clueless.

And I think that what happens when we start to meet new people, sometimes we would like to know that we can trust them before we start. But trust is by definition a leap of faith.
I mean, trust is an active engagement with the unknown. So it's iterative.
It's small, little steps. You learn to trust by taking a risk and watching the response, taking a risk and watching the response.

But if it involves new dating, then I think one of the things that help a lot with trust is that there's something very weird that's happening around dating these days, that we are dating totally away from our lives, secluded from our lives, you know, on an app, in a dark bar. And then when all of this trust has been established, so to speak, then we do the big reveal and we bring this person to our friends and our family, which is strange because the way you get to know a person is by watching them in interaction with other people.
So that kind of dating that is happening away from your life may not be the best model for you. You bring that person into your life, into your interactions, your friendships, and then you watch.
And then you let other people give you data points. And look, if your instincts have served you well for a long time and you made a mistake with this person, then the ratio is quite good.
Quite good.

That's heartening to hear.

And what you say, Esther, is the dating apps have just,

it's not a fit for my personality because I'm wired to be live and in person.

Right, yes.

Do things with people.

You're going to go, whatever, bike, hike, to a movie,

listen to live music, invite that person to join you, just hang. And then you'll feel and then you'll have a better sense.
And you'll know even if you want to see them another time and you'll hear what other people say. And it's much more integrated into your life than in this kind of sterile thing called, you know, the dating space.
Thank you, Barbara. Thank you.
Thank you so much to both of you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
One of your most well-known quotes I like so much is this one, that the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Yes.
When did you know this to be true? I think I completely grew up with that perspective because my parents, both of them, had lost their entire families in the Holocaust and they were both the sole survivors of their entire family. And really, they had nothing.
I have nothing, nothing, nothing, nobody, nothing. And they created families of choice before the world existed.
They understood the rebuilding of community. They understood that you get your memory from meeting people who have experienced something like you.
When your entire community is decimated, there's not a trace left of the life that existed. You need to share it through stories with other people.
And so in multiple fashions, they created rituals, gatherings, people. People was the way that you rebuild life more than anything else.
And that wasn't spoken, but there were people in my house all the time and I would hear the conversations and I understood that you do not survive alone. They didn't survive alone and they didn't revive and rebuild alone.
You need people. We need intimacy and connection to survive from the moment we are born.
And that's part of why your question about modern loneliness is so powerful, because at this point, we're not only lonely, we are also experiencing self-imposed solitude. You don't have to leave your house to eat, to work, to shop, to exercise, to meet people.
So you're not just having remote work, you have a complete form of remote living.

And that disconnect affects how we feel about life,

why we wake up in the morning and our level of happiness

and our level of joy and contentment.

And all of these things are interconnected.

So people and the quality of your relationships,

it's not just relationships. They have to be nurturing, good, thriving relationships, determines the quality of your life.
You know, you've counseled so many thousands of people throughout the world and heard their stories and challenges and relationships. And I'm wondering what you have concluded is the basis for a well-lived life.
A well-lived life is a life where you are able to experience the two most important sets of human needs. Our need for safety and security and our need for adventure.
Our need for togetherness and our need for autonomy. The good life is the ability to reconcile these two fundamental sets of human needs inside of you and hopefully inside of your relationships.
A good lived life is a life that is erotic. That means it's not only useful and meaningful, but it is also alive.
You know, everybody knows the difference between a relationship that is not dead and a relationship that is alive. That difference is the erotic.
And the erotic means curiosity, imagination, playfulness, creativity, exploration, the embracing of serendipity and the unknown. And you can be in your 90s when you meet these people and they're still curious.
That's why I thought the advice that you were giving to Christina and Stefan and to her particularly about her own arousal and eroticism was so poignant. Because I think for so many people, they think eroticism is only about sex.
No, no, no, no, no, so not. So not.
So not. So not.
You know, that is a life well lived is a life where you feel alive. That is why the importance of the erotic is so essential.
I love that. I love that you're able to do that for people.
I so appreciate that you were able to come here to be a part of the Oprah podcast. Esther's podcast is called Where Should We Begin? And Where Should We Begin? A Game of Stories is available on her website, estherperel.com.
So thank you to my guests, all of you, for asking your thoughtful questions to Erica and Jen and Christina and Stefan and Barbara.

Thank you all.

A very special thanks to our friends at Ulta Beauty for sponsoring today's episode.

Go well, everybody.

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