146. Esther Perel: Love in War

Speaker 1 One thing I love about our listeners is how industrious all of you are. The stories we hear about you guys going off on your own and starting your own ventures like we did, it's truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

Speaker 1 NetSuite offers the number one AI-powered cloud ERP. Think of it as a central nervous system for your business.

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Speaker 1 That means you finally have one source of truth, real visibility, real control, and the power to make smarter decisions faster.

Speaker 1 With real-time data and forecasting, you're not just reacting to what already happened, you're planning for what's next.

Speaker 1 And whether your company is bringing in a few million or hundreds of millions, NetSuite scales with you.

Speaker 1 It helps you tackle today's challenges and chase down tomorrow's opportunities without missing a beat.

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Speaker 1 The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash hard things.

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Speaker 2 Hello, pod squad, and welcome to a very special episode of We Can Do Hard Things.

Speaker 2 The conversation that follows is deeply intimate, brutal, and absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 2 It's a couples therapy session led by the remarkable Esther Perel, a friend of the podcast who has been a beloved therapist for more than 30 years.

Speaker 2 If you haven't already, please go back and listen to We Can Do Hard Things episodes 42 and 43 with Esther.

Speaker 2 In this hour, Esther dives deep with a Ukrainian couple, torn apart by the terrors of war.

Speaker 2 The wife is compelled to leave the country for the sake of her youngest son, and the husband is compelled to stay in the war zone for the sake of their country.

Speaker 2 This conversation, Love and War, shows us that under every atrocity we can see on the news, there is an incomprehensible invisible loss.

Speaker 2 And, miraculously, even amid the unthinkable loss, and maybe especially amid unthinkable loss, love and connection are unrelenting. Love and life are forged in the rubble.

Speaker 2 Refugees make music, couples dance from afar, brothers plan life after war. Please listen to this conversation and find solace in the truth that love does impossible things.

Speaker 2 If, in honor of this courageous couple, in honor of love, you wish to extend your support to the people of Ukraine, you can give toward Together Rising's continuing urgent response for these families at togetherrising.org/slash Ukraine.

Speaker 2 Since Putin's attacks began, Together Rising has invested $2,593,046.12

Speaker 2 in 14 boots on the ground partner organizations.

Speaker 2 We've supported emergency evacuation of families of more than 1,500 children from Ukrainian orphanages and BIPOC students who are being denied passage across the Polish border.

Speaker 2 We've funded 322 pallets of life-saving medical aid to hospitals, trauma-informed mental health care, direct cash assistance to individuals, and critical wraparound support for queer Ukrainian refugees.

Speaker 2 coats, blankets, hot meals, shelter, and resettlement services. We will continue to support these these families and we invite you to join us.

Speaker 2 Every penny we receive at togetherrising.org slash Ukraine will go out the door in love, support, and solidarity with these families.

Speaker 2 Thank you to Esther for trusting our community and thank you to you, the pod squad, for honoring and standing with this brave family as they do impossible things.

Speaker 4 None of the voices in this episode are ongoing clients of Esther Perel's. Each episode is an edited version of a one-time three-hour counseling session.

Speaker 4 For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed, but their voices and their stories are real.

Speaker 5 When we tell the stories of war,

Speaker 5 we often leave out what happens to couples, to their dynamics, to their intimate life. In this session, I wanted to look at what happens to love in war.

Speaker 6 Our lifestyle has changed so drastically. He is going through air alerts five times per day.
He has to go to Bunker to save himself and our son.

Speaker 7 It was very hard to separate, separate our family.

Speaker 5 He is in Ukraine with their 18-year-old son, waiting to be drafted, or more accurately, dreading to be drafted, and she in Western Europe as a refugee with their 16 year old son.

Speaker 6 We have everyday meetings online one day with children one day just one-on-one.

Speaker 6 The first conversation was really tough because when I asked how are you and he said I don't even know.

Speaker 6 I'm afraid to ask myself this question because there is so much pain there that I don't even want to look there.

Speaker 7 My father officer and he liked discipline.

Speaker 7 He said every time to me, you need to be strong you need to be just defending your family and your feelings no matter your action matter and it's it's it's why I tried to be you know just Captain America

Speaker 7 for my wife

Speaker 5 They're trying to talk about their existential stress.

Speaker 5 But they're also trying to find a way to maintain their connection, which used to be such a powerful cohesive force for both of them.

Speaker 5 They were a very intimate couple, a very romantic couple, a very sensual couple.

Speaker 6 During 22 years of our marriage, we would have like weekly dates with each other. We were really close.
To me, this man is one and only, and we are one, like flesh.

Speaker 7 When we start our relationship, she free years said me no. For me, it's like treasure, this beautiful woman.

Speaker 5 And a question we often have in acute stress is how much are we allowed to still want the little jewels of life and how much do we have to put all of that aside because of the great havoc.

Speaker 5 That internal tension exists also between the two of them and all of that is frayed at this moment.

Speaker 6 My man of my life is not besides me and I was feeling lonely 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.

Speaker 7 My first reaction was, what are you talking about? But compliment? We have war.

Speaker 5 I have a feeling that whatever you're going to say, you are not the only one. By far.
You will be speaking for millions of of people who are experiencing what it means to live separated by war

Speaker 5 separated with you in ukraine with one son and you in western europe with the other son just that image in front of me brings tears to my eyes yeah thank you so much thank you sir how many months have you been separated

Speaker 6 for five months since the end of february i left on on the third day of war. It was difficult to say, I was difficult to leave.
It was right like an open wound.

Speaker 6 But anyway, the decision should have been made because there was no option.

Speaker 6 Also, thinking about our children, just because the older son could not leave the country as well as Andrew could not leave the country, we had to make this decision.

Speaker 6 And I had a hope in my heart that, okay, a few weeks, a month, okay, maybe two months, we can handle it somehow and the war will be over.

Speaker 6 Now it's been five months, almost it's getting to the sixth month now

Speaker 6 and I literally cannot imagine another month coming.

Speaker 6 It's just yeah like a deep wound and it's getting worse and deeper.

Speaker 6 One flesh that was divided into parts. A surgery is being made and no one it's not done with the surgery, just an open wound bleeding.

Speaker 5 I had this visceral um

Speaker 5 strange thought but i you know this kind of

Speaker 5 when you have questions about life and death and you suddenly wonder who for who is it more difficult for the one who leaves or for the one who stays

Speaker 5 it's a both it's a foster bargain right but what

Speaker 5 what what do you think is are the specific

Speaker 5 pieces for the person who for the parent who stayed and the child who stayed, and what do you think is unique to the experience to the parent who leaves?

Speaker 7 After the war started, I was looking for protect my family.

Speaker 7 It was my priority,

Speaker 7 and it was very hard to

Speaker 7 separate our family. But I know it's better for

Speaker 7 Leona and

Speaker 7 lying

Speaker 7 be in the safe country.

Speaker 7 And I know i

Speaker 7 i have responsibility in my country every day

Speaker 7 you go to bed and think about

Speaker 7 maybe in the next this night

Speaker 7 i will die

Speaker 7 because you don't know

Speaker 7 what's going on in this night because every week we hear

Speaker 7 a special signal like when Russian rocket come to Ukrainian we have signal and we need to be in the safe place

Speaker 7 and sometimes you you can hear it

Speaker 7 this I try to be helpful for for my

Speaker 7 elder son Mark try to connect with him because I see here inside now here not open

Speaker 7 he's so

Speaker 7 focused in

Speaker 7 himself not talk more just say okay I'm okay I'm okay but

Speaker 7 it hurt because I understand he has struggle inside and you want to help him but you don't know how you can help him

Speaker 7 you just try to spend time with him and just

Speaker 7 do something

Speaker 7 be good the

Speaker 7 dad and

Speaker 7 he is kids for me he's kids 18 years old but he is kids for me it's so young to handle this situation because sometimes I can handle this situation.

Speaker 7 I know I'm chief my family and I need to be strong.

Speaker 7 I can't like, okay,

Speaker 7 guys, sorry, I have problem, and just

Speaker 7 I need to be

Speaker 7 I need to protect

Speaker 7 him, protect my wife, protect my

Speaker 7 son, and

Speaker 7 every evening we talk in the Skype, and it's better time for me

Speaker 7 because it's a little place of peace in our life.

Speaker 5 I mean, I listen to him and I get the chills because it's so common to hear men or conversations about modern masculinity be about power and control and abuses of power.

Speaker 5 And what I'm hearing him talk is: I have to be strong because that is how I protect my family.

Speaker 5 And he brings back a certain essential view of his role as a man as he sees it, which is, I must choke my tears, I cannot be too weak, I cannot be soft, I cannot let myself feel fear because I have to protect the others of the fear that they feel.

Speaker 7 I try to live one day.

Speaker 3 It's it's for me.

Speaker 7 Yes, day by the day by the day, because you think about one day, you have schedule on this day, you know what you need to do, you do it, and like

Speaker 7 when the evening time you speak with your family, you see each other, you can

Speaker 7 like

Speaker 7 have little funny time, just share about what's going on this day, up and down. It just we just try to joke, try to support each other

Speaker 7 and it's yes, it's like we're together.

Speaker 5 Does your son know some of what you are experiencing? Because if you don't tell him anything,

Speaker 5 and he may not have the language like you do,

Speaker 5 he may think that he's the only one, or he may think that he has to be okay because you keep telling him I'm okay,

Speaker 5 and so that becomes the code of the house.

Speaker 5 Everything's fine with you, so everything must be fine with him.

Speaker 5 But if you were able to say, Maybe, you know, today was a very hard day,

Speaker 5 and whatever the reason, then he can say it was a hard day for me, too.

Speaker 7 Maybe some, maybe not big, my fears I share about it, like something upset today, like like big question about life, about

Speaker 7 death,

Speaker 7 about

Speaker 7 killing, about bombing, because I have fears.

Speaker 7 I can die and I can join to military because I'm

Speaker 7 officer, a reserve officer in Ukrainian army. I can take I could take invitation and go to war like my brothers.

Speaker 5 All your brothers I think

Speaker 7 yes my

Speaker 7 own brothers was football coach for kids. He never was in military

Speaker 7 but some days military department called to him and asked him come

Speaker 7 and say

Speaker 7 you need your country protect

Speaker 7 and he said yes i'm ready when he joined the military his officer said, Now it's your job. We don't know when it stops.

Speaker 7 Only when war stops,

Speaker 7 you

Speaker 3 will go back home.

Speaker 7 You know, in these fears about

Speaker 7 your life, about you can share about maybe your close friends, because I I try to protect.

Speaker 7 I'm no, I'm not Superman, but not like Captain America.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 I know

Speaker 7 God has planned for my life and I just want to be

Speaker 7 right

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 7 do good decision

Speaker 7 when I need to do.

Speaker 7 Because I know my wife has another opinion about

Speaker 7 what I need to do when the military department calls me.

Speaker 7 I don't have just fine

Speaker 7 meaning about join or not join because I don't.

Speaker 5 I can say I should join if I'm called.

Speaker 5 I have no choice.

Speaker 7 In Ukraine, you can say no, but if you have, if you in charge, if you have your belief

Speaker 7 mean you can take the gun, you can say, sorry, I can kill people. I can

Speaker 5 be a conscientious objector.

Speaker 7 But now my specialize, like not like

Speaker 7 troops, like soldiers, I'm officer to protect Sky, like for missile. I need to strike missile.

Speaker 7 My specialized like officer is in reserve. But if

Speaker 7 Ukrainian army call to me, I need to go to this department to protect Sky. Protect our sky, protect our

Speaker 7 city from Russian bombing. I think it's okay.
It's a good idea.

Speaker 3 If they call me. My wife says

Speaker 7 she's afraid, she just tried to be, no, no,

Speaker 7 just save yourself.

Speaker 7 Say you can't.

Speaker 7 I know

Speaker 6 it's hard.

Speaker 7 What do you think, baby?

Speaker 6 I just think that everyone has his mission in life.

Speaker 6 And if we are talking about professional military, I understand that that's your choice that you make when you are young or not really, but this is not a regular situation, that's a war.

Speaker 6 Surely, to me, I

Speaker 6 understand that there are ways how to

Speaker 6 serve when you are in the army, how to help people.

Speaker 6 But to me, this man is one and only, and surely, from my side as a woman,

Speaker 6 I want to respect his decisions, and I'm trying to,

Speaker 6 even though I don't agree.

Speaker 6 When we had the conflict in 2014, the revolution in Ukraine,

Speaker 6 and all the people went out to the streets to protest, it was in Kiev, in the capital, and I did not want Andrew to go.

Speaker 6 He wanted to go to the capital to just show a peaceful protest that he does not agree with what the government thinks.

Speaker 6 But those were really terrifying times because many people were killed. So I did not want him to go.

Speaker 6 But he went.

Speaker 6 I had to

Speaker 6 find peace in our relationship where it's him as an individual and that's his own choice. When it's about your conscience,

Speaker 6 I want him to be in peace with himself because he will be accountable to God in the end of his life. And I don't want him to

Speaker 6 sell his conscience for my ideas,

Speaker 6 even though it's really difficult to me. Yeah.

Speaker 7 I think everyone

Speaker 7 needs to do what he believe.

Speaker 5 In his worldview, he sees her leaving with their youngest son as the right thing to do. He doesn't question it.

Speaker 5 Whereas she questions,

Speaker 5 even though she respects it, she also questions his decision to stay, his decision to serve, and his decision to put his conscience

Speaker 5 before

Speaker 5 his love for her. That's how she frames it.
But she understands the structure, but she also finds it's very challenging because she's afraid to lose him.

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Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

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Speaker 7 Every day I ask God what you know, what you want.

Speaker 7 Open for me. And I don't know.
In every situation,

Speaker 7 I will find

Speaker 7 good solution.

Speaker 5 If you make a decision, do you feel that it would be your decision or God's decision for you?

Speaker 7 I think every of

Speaker 7 us have maybe destiny,

Speaker 7 maybe, and need to find

Speaker 7 what he'll leave in this planet, what he born.

Speaker 7 And if I leave, I I need to do

Speaker 7 and find my decision.

Speaker 7 Now I work in a legislative company and

Speaker 7 our mission to deliver product to grocery store.

Speaker 7 Our work is very necessary for people because if people

Speaker 7 see the product in the grocery store, it's okay. But if no product in the grocery store, it's like start panic in the people.
And I know now it's my place.

Speaker 7 I work in this company.

Speaker 7 We do good job. It's very important for society.
And I do what I can do.

Speaker 7 If another day someone calls to me and says, This work for you, you need,

Speaker 7 I will pray, I will look in my heart. What I think,

Speaker 7 where is the best place for me when I can be helpful for people?

Speaker 7 Because now, if you live in Ukraine, every people now try to find how we can

Speaker 7 help,

Speaker 7 what we need to do to be closer. Every people in Ukraine like one big family.
This I can do it is help people and you in the right place because you are here. You're like little hero.

Speaker 7 But I know people who not Ukraine now,

Speaker 7 they hero too because he tried to save life, to try to support families. He tried to protect children.
They tried to protect children. And it's very important too, because

Speaker 7 maybe we are distanced, but we are

Speaker 7 united. We just together.
Every mission, outside, inside.

Speaker 5 I think,

Speaker 5 let me tell you what I heard, and tell me if I heard it well.

Speaker 5 I am in the Ukraine, you say, and I'm in the front line, and I am here feeling the everyday of what is going on and my mission is to do for the good of everybody.

Speaker 5 My purpose is to make sure that there is food in the supermarket so that people have some sense of normalcy and eating.

Speaker 5 And I bring my logistics skills to the store and my sense of family is that I can get through the day if I feel like I've done something helpful for others and for my country.

Speaker 5 And when I look at my wife and the other people who who are outside the country, sometimes it seems to me, I'm adding this part, that they may not understand as much that feeling

Speaker 5 of doing for everybody else because they went away, they also are doing for others, but they're not seeing the effect every day of the war, the way that those of us who stayed behind are doing.

Speaker 5 So yes, they are helping us, they're sending money, they're taking care of the children, they're protecting the family that isn't home.

Speaker 5 But they are more into: I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to protect yourself.
I want.

Speaker 5 And you are saying, I can't protect myself if it doesn't protect the people around me.

Speaker 5 And so

Speaker 5 the circumstances and the vantage point that each of you has, you being in the country and you being out of the country, is complementary and meets in this unity, but is also different.

Speaker 5 Because one of you is focusing on the comfort and the security and the safety, and the other one is focusing on the duty and the collective and the conscience and defines security through that lens.

Speaker 5 Something like that?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 7 absolutely.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 5 You've been listening a lot.

Speaker 5 I'm going to invite you to say something.

Speaker 6 Yeah, we share a lot.

Speaker 6 We have

Speaker 6 everyday meetings online, one day with children, one day just one-on-one.

Speaker 6 Because at some point we realized that after having just everyday meetings, just four of us, like a family, I realized that I have this big gap.

Speaker 6 I don't know, intimacy, on emotional level, that I need one-on-one talks more often.

Speaker 6 The first conversation was really tough because when I asked, like, so Andrew,

Speaker 6 how are you? And he said, I don't even know

Speaker 6 because I'm afraid to ask myself this question because I'm afraid there is so much pain there that I don't even want to look there.

Speaker 6 On the other hand, from what you have just shared, which is absolutely true, I was kind of feeling being, you know, in France, somewhere, looking at the couples I was feeling lonely I was feeling not loved there is like my my man of my life is not besides me I don't hear anymore so many compliments that is my need in relationships I don't hear this I don't hear that and understand from my perspective so our needs were different so when and then we decided no we need to

Speaker 6 talk even more because we had this habit in our family

Speaker 6 like during 22 years of our marriage we would have like weekly dates with each other. We were really close, but just because of the war and because our

Speaker 6 lifestyle has changed so drastically,

Speaker 6 we were kind of

Speaker 6 afraid to approach each other. I was afraid to hurt him because 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.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 7 My first reaction was: what are you talking about? But compliment. We have war.
We have difficult situations. I tried to do something helpful for my country, for my family, for

Speaker 7 compliment. But then I just thinking about it because I think

Speaker 7 she just goes through

Speaker 7 difficult time now. She

Speaker 7 has needs. It's like, like the Bible said, it's my part, it's my body.
My wife, it's like if my hand have painful, I want to protect, I want to just heal my hand. It's if my wife need

Speaker 7 good words like compliments, say, you're so beautiful today, I love you so much, and

Speaker 5 it's very important for her, Andrew, it's not just important for her,

Speaker 5 it's not just important for her because you too feel this.

Speaker 5 But if you allow yourself to connect with those feelings, it's even more scary.

Speaker 5 If you remember how much you love her, and how much you miss her, and how much you would love to touch her, and how much you would like her to hold you,

Speaker 5 you will connect with a different set of feelings. At this point, you respond from the heroic position of I'm fighting for my country and it's crucial.

Speaker 5 But there is also I'm deeply connected to you and I don't want to lose you.

Speaker 5 And so if you make it that she wants to be loved while you are expressing the love of the nation, you're missing the point for yourself, not for her, for yourself.

Speaker 5 But your fear,

Speaker 5 if I know something, Andrew, if I understood you well, is that if you allow yourself to connect with that part of you,

Speaker 5 it will increase the fears and it will make you less strong?

Speaker 7 Yes, it's like you just save

Speaker 7 yourself from pain, just and be like, maybe

Speaker 7 be focused and the real action because something

Speaker 7 I can stop this situation. I can like make say my wife come to me and be with me because it's like it's

Speaker 7 because it's not safe.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 maybe

Speaker 7 I don't know.

Speaker 5 Say it in Ukrainian. Say it to her,

Speaker 5 Andrew, say it to her in Ukrainian. This is too deep to say it in English, and she will translate for me.

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 think we will have to

Speaker 7 raise

Speaker 7 it up,

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 you can't do that.

Speaker 6 Andrew said that this pain is so deep and so hurtful, painful that he doesn't even want to give it a thought.

Speaker 6 And all he can do is just act and do something

Speaker 6 to not go to that place because the pain is just overwhelming.

Speaker 5 I'm going to let you respond to him.

Speaker 6 I feel like it's really difficult to

Speaker 6 to unblock this because

Speaker 6 at this time

Speaker 6 he's always vulnerable and he can easily cry but at this time it seems like he's frozen

Speaker 6 there are some days when when andrew can share a bit deeper

Speaker 6 yeah he's always ready to hear my crying my pain

Speaker 6 because he's still the cl he is he was and he is the closest person to me in life i have many friends that's fine but it's different

Speaker 6 But I sometimes feel I don't know how to approach

Speaker 6 what questions to ask because I am afraid that if I

Speaker 6 start unfolding this pain,

Speaker 6 then I will not know how to help him

Speaker 6 because he's far.

Speaker 6 I can't

Speaker 6 hug, embrace, you know.

Speaker 6 In the moment, I'm mostly numb

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 can't can't handle things.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Numbness

Speaker 5 is not always that you can't handle things. Numbness is sometimes an adaptive response in the moment.

Speaker 5 Him saying to you,

Speaker 5 it's too painful if I allow myself to feel how much I miss you.

Speaker 5 That is not numbness.

Speaker 5 That's actually being in it. Even if he doesn't cry like you do, though he did before.

Speaker 5 Why feel? Because I can't do anything about my feelings.

Speaker 5 I can't bring my wife back,

Speaker 5 but I can get food on the shelf in the supermarket. So logistics is doable.

Speaker 5 Love

Speaker 5 is painful.

Speaker 5 They both are in survival mode. They both are into fight, flight and freeze.
And when she describes how she goes numb,

Speaker 5 of course the question is, is this numbness a problem or is this numbness in the moment actually adaptive?

Speaker 5 Because in hindsight, we often wonder why we reacted certain ways and we leave out the fact that in the moment those were adaptive responses.

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Speaker 5 If I understood something, where you are in France, there are other refugees that are couples and there's a part of you. Yeah? Is that what you said, Elonia?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I see some couples who are together, Ukrainians,

Speaker 5 and you get jealous.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'm jealous. I can't,

Speaker 5 I don't know, even why do they get to be together?

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 and then I try to find answers, mostly logical, because my heart does not want to accept this.

Speaker 5 And then you go,

Speaker 5 why is this country more important than me or us? Absolutely. And then you get into a triangle where it's you, him, and the country.

Speaker 6 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Do you talk to him about the jealousy?

Speaker 6 I did not probably call it jealousy, but I talked to him

Speaker 6 sometimes when I heard some men saying, but I'm here to protect my family, that's why I left.

Speaker 6 And I feel,

Speaker 6 but doesn't he protect our family? I mean, I don't believe he does not.

Speaker 6 So, but yeah, you were absolutely right from what you were saying

Speaker 6 that those are heavy feelings.

Speaker 6 I sure just know that there is no easy way out. We don't, I mean, I respect his decision.

Speaker 6 I mean, men cannot legally leave the country. So, only if you have three children, you can leave the country.

Speaker 7 I said about my wife: if you come to Ukraine one day and after nine months you will be pregnant, it's just two babies. Yes, I have chance

Speaker 7 legal leave country.

Speaker 5 Come to Ukraine, spend the weekend with me, let's make love, get pregnant, and then you can get out.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 6 Seems like a plat.

Speaker 7 My dream was two boys, two girls. Yes, we have two boys.

Speaker 7 We need two girls.

Speaker 5 When you say I respect his decision, do you think he feels that?

Speaker 6 Does he feel that I respect?

Speaker 3 Oof, how deep.

Speaker 6 Esther, your questions. Your questions.
Each question is like, whoa.

Speaker 5 I can even be more honest with you.

Speaker 6 Please.

Speaker 5 I think you would like to respect his decision

Speaker 5 but i'm not sure you really do because there's a part of you that thinks differently and these are not questions that can so nicely be aligned you have had your disagreements i'm sure in the history of your marriage but these are deep existential religious convictions that take you in different directions.

Speaker 5 And so you would like to say he needs to be able to be at peace with his conscience.

Speaker 5 He needs to be able to be between him and God and at the end of his life know that he did what, you know, you have the right words. You think well.

Speaker 5 But I'm not sure that your feelings are aligned with your thoughts. It doesn't come true.

Speaker 6 Not really.

Speaker 5 You agree?

Speaker 6 I do.

Speaker 6 I agree. And when you asked this question,

Speaker 6 the first thought that came to my mind, I'm not sure

Speaker 6 I want to align my feelings to this

Speaker 6 respectful

Speaker 6 attitude, but sometimes

Speaker 6 it does not happen this way.

Speaker 7 It for me is like two ways. One way I need to be with my family and another way I need to help my country.

Speaker 7 And it's like how I can connect this

Speaker 7 good both goal in my life and

Speaker 7 I need to be honest with myself

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 7 hear my heart.

Speaker 7 But every time when we have this

Speaker 7 situation, it's not easy for us to find peace and find because we have different opinion.

Speaker 5 But if I may,

Speaker 5 I think it's not just that you have different opinions from each other.

Speaker 5 So you're in 2014, there's a revolution, you decide to go to the demonstrations, and there's a part of Elena that says, I wished that you didn't go and that you stood by us.

Speaker 5 But at the same time, when I know what attracted her to you,

Speaker 5 your character, your strength, your integrity,

Speaker 5 your deep sense of commitment and devotion. to the family and beyond.

Speaker 5 So I can only imagine, it's not just that she says, Don't go, it's that she is not just in a conflict with you, she's also having an internal conflict between the fear of losing you and the wish for you to stay, and at the same time, also the respect and the admiration for you that you go and that you do what you're doing.

Speaker 5 It's both ends,

Speaker 5 but that's inside of her. Do you understand?

Speaker 5 Does it feel right what I said,

Speaker 5 Elena?

Speaker 6 To me, yes.

Speaker 5 I think that sometimes if you could speak from both places like that,

Speaker 5 he also would feel like you get him.

Speaker 5 And if you were able sometimes more to talk even about the pain about not being with her,

Speaker 5 she would feel less alone that she's the only one.

Speaker 5 who misses the compliments and the sensuality and the connection because you are busy with the country.

Speaker 5 There is a bridge, and you're not walking across it enough.

Speaker 5 How do you say in Ukrainian? Do you understand me?

Speaker 5 Like in Polish.

Speaker 5 Okay, like

Speaker 5 Polish I get a little bit.

Speaker 7 But I think mainly for Alona

Speaker 7 she lost her dad, her mom, and her brothers now in

Speaker 7 not good condition, like healthy.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 me,

Speaker 7 maybe, our family for her is like all, and

Speaker 7 she tried to save it. It's why for her it's painful.

Speaker 5 You are her family in every sense of the word. She no longer has her mother or her father.
Her brother is in ill health and you are it.

Speaker 5 And the thought of you going to the army leaves her with the dreadful feeling that she could be all alone with the two boys.

Speaker 6 Yeah, exactly. Last year when my mom passed away,

Speaker 6 I felt so uprooted. in every sense of this word because I lost parents who gave me life.

Speaker 6 And I remember when Andrew came back home and he hugged me and said, mom is not with us anymore because her neighbor called Andrew, not me, because she was afraid to call me.

Speaker 6 And I said, you are the only person in this world.

Speaker 6 There's no more, no one who can be closer. And sure, I'm a super communicative girl, have lots of friends and stuff, but it's very different.

Speaker 6 The closest person is Andrew.

Speaker 6 Unlike maybe for Andrew, it's different because his parents are alive. His brother is okay.
I mean, he's okay. I mean, in good health.
And he's alive.

Speaker 6 I have a drug addict brother.

Speaker 6 And plus my children who are turning almost 17 and 19, kind of losing everything and feeling super lonely in the country where I am now.

Speaker 6 Because I understand that he's going through his struggle. I'm going through my struggle.
We are trying to be there for each other, for sure, as much as we can.

Speaker 5 You're always clear that your place is with your younger son in Western Europe? Or do you think sometimes we could reunite,

Speaker 5 but we'd have to be in the village together?

Speaker 6 This is the question I'm asking myself now, these days.

Speaker 6 Can I handle another five months being in the situation like that maybe it's better just go back home and die together and not struggle so painfully because it's huge I can't bear it

Speaker 6 and then

Speaker 6 all the traumatic experiences appear at the moment when I'm thinking of coming back home

Speaker 6 because I've had many panic attacks and lots of things that I was going through anxiety and depression and

Speaker 6 and then I can't picture myself sitting in bunker. I can't picture myself

Speaker 6 having severe anxiety while going to bed because it took me about five years to recover. And I'm okay now.
I mean, before the war,

Speaker 6 a year before the war, I felt like thanks to a lot of different things, breathing techniques, and lots of stuff, I could bring myself back to a normal state where I can handle myself mentally.

Speaker 6 I'm okay.

Speaker 6 I'm just thinking now about coming

Speaker 6 like for a date, for a week or two, just to see each other and see how it feels.

Speaker 5 Do you work there? Do you have a life there? Or are you in temporary mode every day wondering maybe I'll go back tomorrow? And so you never really settle because you keep thinking I'm going home soon.

Speaker 6 Yeah, thank you so much for asking this question

Speaker 6 because this is the biggest challenge for me nowadays because I see at this time like five man months since the war has started I see many families or even individuals they start to settle they start to live a new life at the place where they are

Speaker 6 and I'm jealous like you said thanks for just giving it a name I'm jealous because I can't see myself settling somewhere without Andrew Because to me, being a creative one, I am a creator.

Speaker 6 I create big projects.

Speaker 6 i i i love vision and i can't give myself a permission to have this vision because once i have it i need to start creating something by myself but i cannot picture myself settling somewhere so it was a temporary place for me to just wait when the thunderstorm and the rain will is over but the rain is not over it's a pouring rain and i'm there standing in the middle of this pouring rain thinking where i can go now.

Speaker 6 If I go back to Ukraine, I can't work.

Speaker 6 I can do my business there now because it's just closed.

Speaker 6 Something that I do, I can't do it now.

Speaker 6 I know what I want to do. I clearly know what I want to do.
I clearly know who I am and how to be self-realized. But

Speaker 6 I can't give myself permission to settle. And so now what I see, I see many families and individuals trying to

Speaker 6 find jobs, finding some ways of how they can you know, give education to their children.

Speaker 5 Your son goes to school?

Speaker 6 My son goes to school here. He's okay.
He's younger, one, it's much easier for him to adapt.

Speaker 6 So he's okay with he found his community, let's say he goes to school here and he sees himself somehow staying here.

Speaker 6 So I kind of potentially can feel that I can settle somewhere, but I can't see myself settling without Andrew.

Speaker 7 It's so interesting. interesting.

Speaker 7 When this year started, I thought we need to have

Speaker 7 vacation, whole family. This dream, this picture that we someday we be together, whole family,

Speaker 7 we will spend vacation.

Speaker 7 And because I don't know when it will, when it will, but I know it will.

Speaker 7 I know someday we will together and we will have vacation,

Speaker 7 new vacation. It's beautiful.
And you know, in my kitchen, yes, in our kitchen, we have a calendar, paper calendar, everyday new page, everyday new page.

Speaker 7 And this page stopped in February 23, it's last peaceful day. And I said, when my family will together in the kitchen, in our apartment, we change this date.

Speaker 5 it's a beautiful picture to hold

Speaker 5 as hope as hope

Speaker 5 you know that when we will meet again we will travel again and it gives you i'm sure a lot of strength to wake up in the morning and to go to bed at night

Speaker 5 do you want her to come home or do you want her to stay

Speaker 7 i don't know it's it's difficult question yeah because I know her feeling, I know her

Speaker 7 her fears,

Speaker 7 but what's inside her is very important.

Speaker 7 I know it's for her be in Ukraine now, it's big suffering

Speaker 7 and maybe it's not good for her health.

Speaker 7 I don't judge you and blame you.

Speaker 7 I want to

Speaker 7 just help you to find your your decision

Speaker 7 because

Speaker 7 it's your decision and yes inside I want to be she with me in Ukraine but I know

Speaker 7 she feels not safely in this but we've we try to find good decision

Speaker 5 it may be pieces of a decision she may come home for a week or two

Speaker 5 and hope that it gives her more clarity.

Speaker 5 There is also a part of you, Eliona, that if you start something where you are, that doesn't mean that you never go back.

Speaker 5 It just means that

Speaker 5 this takes much longer than you ever imagined and you have no idea when the war will end.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 in a way, you may be more helpful to the family by creating something where you are.

Speaker 5 And then you have a younger son who, if he stays another year,

Speaker 5 may decide that by then he's almost finished high school, that that's where he wants to stay. So

Speaker 5 the whole destiny of the family

Speaker 5 is no longer clear

Speaker 5 the way you thought it was going to be.

Speaker 5 And that means being open to very different

Speaker 5 trajectories.

Speaker 5 Maybe one option is you do go home for a couple of weeks

Speaker 5 and you may may find clarity and you may not. And then the question will be, do I stay here or do I leave?

Speaker 5 And then it will be my health versus my relationship.

Speaker 5 And all these impossible binaries, these are impossible binaries.

Speaker 5 You are a resourceful person that starts with visions. Usually you start with a big vision.

Speaker 5 Maybe this is an invitation to start with a smaller vision and a temporary vision a vision for the moment not a vision for life

Speaker 5 war makes everything become in the immediate

Speaker 5 because you're if he lives day by day you're gonna be living day by day too in some way your vision has to be a vision for the moment I think I mean, I am not saying this because I have certainty and I know.

Speaker 5 I'm trying to think out loud with you and

Speaker 5 see if there's a way to take you out of your victim stuckness.

Speaker 5 Everybody else seems to know where they're going but me. Everybody else has their partners but me.

Speaker 5 Everybody, you know, you're in that thing and you spend your day there and that's separately from him.

Speaker 6 That's true.

Speaker 5 When you say I'm that kind of person, and I start this way, and this is how I work,

Speaker 5 I would add at the end of the sentence, in peaceful times.

Speaker 5 But in war times,

Speaker 5 all your definitions of yourself and all the ways that you have constructed the world and reality

Speaker 5 around you

Speaker 5 changes.

Speaker 5 In a way, it's about how you each help the other

Speaker 5 in the world that the other is in.

Speaker 5 And then once a week, you have a date on a fantasy island or a fantasy place where you do not touch any of these subjects because they're so big

Speaker 5 and difficult and painful and they're filled with uncertainty.

Speaker 5 Maybe you don't talk.

Speaker 5 Maybe you listen to music together. Maybe you watch a movie.
maybe you each dance in your own places, but with each other.

Speaker 5 Crazy stuff that people do when they are in forced separation.

Speaker 5 You like to dance? You both smiled when I said that.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 6 we dance together actually.

Speaker 7 When I met Alona,

Speaker 7 I just saw

Speaker 7 she dance

Speaker 7 and she was beautiful dancing. I like dance, she liked dancing.

Speaker 5 Beautiful.

Speaker 7 So imagine. We are crazy when dancing.

Speaker 5 So imagine you even, you know, you each make a playlist and you just put the music on and just dance for an hour instead of talking about these impossible,

Speaker 5 huge existential quandaries.

Speaker 5 Just to give yourself hope and energy and poetry.

Speaker 5 It doesn't answer the big questions, but it keeps you connected at a different level that is also very important.

Speaker 5 Freedom comes through our imagination,

Speaker 5 especially when you can't feel free in reality. Your mind and your body are the two you know, means, vehicles through which you can stay connected with the world of possibility.

Speaker 5 In a reality in which it feels that every possibility could be life and death.

Speaker 5 You also need places for joy and for celebration and for connection in the midst of the tragedy.

Speaker 5 I sensed that there was a need for permission.

Speaker 5 It's the permission that allows us to stay connected to hope, to joy, to celebration,

Speaker 5 because that's actually part of what allows us to face the war. And

Speaker 5 at one moment I thought like on what basis do I know anything about this? I'm not from there, I'm not living in a war, I never have.

Speaker 5 But my parents did. And my parents each spent about four to five years in concentration camps.
And so did their entire group of friends and community that I grew up in.

Speaker 5 So, I spend many years asking people, How did you do it? How did you wake up in the morning? How did you maintain hope? What kept you going?

Speaker 2 Did you ever laugh?

Speaker 5 Did you ever have fun?

Speaker 5 Those things that are irreverent, that seem to be taboo to talk about when people are in the midst of suffering.

Speaker 5 And yet, it is humor, and playfulness, and curiosity, and joy and all the strategies that intensify joy.

Speaker 5 From the sense of awe when you look at the sky to the gratitude for what you still have in front of you to the people that you think about, that you hope to reunite with.

Speaker 5 Those are very precise strategies. that are beyond mindfulness and beyond breathing.

Speaker 5 People have experienced existential stress forever and have developed long-standing practices and traditions to counter that.

Speaker 5 Music, prayer, singing, poetry, composing, in the midst of all of that, creation, creativity, art. All of those things are the hardware

Speaker 5 for facing hardships.

Speaker 4 Esther Perel is the author of Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs. She's also the host of the podcasts Where Should We Begin and House Work.

Speaker 4 Love and War with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise in partnership with the International Trauma Studies Program.

Speaker 4 This episode would not have been possible without the generous support of Elizabeth Wertwangler and Johann Berg.

Speaker 4 And a very special thanks to One Ukraine. One Ukraine is helping Ukrainian couples and families affected by war by organizing community support groups.

Speaker 4 Learn more at oneukraine.com or to contribute to their initiative, you can donate through PayPal at donate atoneukraine.com.