Esther Perel - It’s Not Them, It’s You

0:01I have never seen people wanting more sex from talking about why they don't want sex. Joining us for a second time, world-famous psychotherapist best known for her extensive work on relationships. Esther is the best-selling author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs. Start with what you have appreciated about the other in the last week, before you become experts on the shortcomings of the other person. If you want to change the other, change yourself.

0:28What if you don't want to change? Penny and I, something we've worked really hard on is trying to even out the mental load in our relationship. I have often said to mothers in this instance, you've got to go away for a week. I want you to have the experience of trusting your partner. Myself, as someone who grew up in a household where there was really no conflict, now when I have conflict in relationships, I find it really tricky. This has been a constant issue in our relationship, is this mismatching need for affection.

0:57It's so interesting that in a person that you want to be closest to, sometimes it's just so hard to reveal that vulnerability of like, I made the mistake there. The person who apologises first has the power. Well, hello to everyone who listens, watches us regularly, but a very, very special hello. Well, first of all, to our guests, but also the group of people who tune in once every four years to The Imperfects when we have Esther Perel on. So welcome back.

1:29It's been a while. Good to have you back. Because we have Astaire on today and geez, we're excited. We're excited. It's good to see you again, Astaire. Good to see you, all of you. You I didn't meet before. Yes. I was violently ill. Not that people want to think about that right now. No, no, no. No need to say violently. You can just say ill. No, I need to say violently because I remember thinking when I started to get sick, nothing can stop me from doing this interview, but something stopped me.

1:57And I feel very happy I got another chance. I just hope you learn to overcome FOMO. That's very hard to get over. Very hard. For the several people out there who don't know who Esther Perel is, what are you doing? But also, this is huge. You want to explain who this wonderful woman is? Joining us for a second time, world-famous psychotherapist best known for her extensive work on relationships, love, desire and intimacy. Esther is the best-selling author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs.

2:31She has posted Where Should We Begin podcast for nearly 10 years, a podcast with millions and millions of listeners worldwide. Hester serves as an organisational consultant for Fortune 500 companies and is fluent in nine languages. Hester's TED Talk, Rethinking Infidelity, a talk for anyone who has ever loved, is one of the most viewed talks of all time. Last time we had Esther on the show, we talked about embracing the imperfections of your relationship, how your emotional state affects the people you love, and how the thing that initially attracts you to someone so often ends up being a reason for tension.

3:06Esther grew up watching her parents, survivors, who deliberately and fiercely chose joy in the face of everything and somewhere in that learnt that love isn't just something that happens to us, it's something that we tend to. You've carried that lesson into every room, every conversation and every life you've touched. You didn't just study intimacy, you lived it, honoured it and gifted it back to the world. We are so happy you're back with us again today.

3:32It's a treat to be back. So it is nearly 20 years since Mating in Captivity, a book around desire and intimacy. So interested to learn or hear from you what has changed in the space of intimacy and desire and what has stayed the same over the last 20 years. I'm sure it's something you've thought about a lot. I mean, I thought about it a lot, actually, recently when I wrote a new forward to the book, because we're having a 20th anniversary edition of Mating in Captivity.

4:09And I was trying to remember, I actually called my agent, my editor, my publisher, and one of the couples that's in the book to remember what was the context of then, what led me to write about all of this, and what were the central questions that I was asking. Yeah. So what stays the same is actually the same questions, right? Why does good intimacy not guarantee good sex? Necessarily. You can have loving relationships that are sexless. why does sex sometimes lead to children and children create an erotic disaster in couples?

4:53Why is the erotic so forbidden? What is it about this nature of the forbidden and the transgressive that can lure quite a bit of people? Why does good sex so often fade even in couples who love each other as much as ever? Why? When you love, how does it feel? And when you desire, how is it different? I think I would ask the same questions today. And some of the foundational truths around these relational, complex relational issues, I don't think have changed.

5:27In the same way, I'll give you just 10 situations or however many that I didn't experience back then. It's like you have threshold moments in your therapy practice when one day something comes into the room and you haven't been part of that conversation before. You haven't been part of the conversation about ethical non-monogamy and polyamory. You haven't been part of the conversation of IVF and egg donor. You haven't been part of the conversations of gay couples marrying and having children and having surrogates help them create families.

6:03Yeah. You haven't been part of the trans movement. You haven't been part of people who go on field, which is a dating app, not just a dating app, an app where people meet around questions of non-monogamy and polyamory. You haven't had dating apps 20 years ago. People still used to meet. There was just the beginnings of social media. So all these situations, and I'll give you the latest one on where should we begin. I just did a podcast session last week with my first ever couple between a human and an AI.

6:38Whoa. So this is just a very short progression of what has remained the same and what are some of the situations over the 20 years that have entered my office. That's something I'm so fascinated to go and listen to. But can you give us a brief sort of summary of that chat? So is a human and an AI having a relationship? So are you on the podcast talking to the AI as well? I talk to Astrid. Wow. That session is for me a threshold moment, a pivot moment.

7:11You know that this is the first of many to come. Specifically, what would you want to know? Otherwise, we can have a whole hour just on this couple. I'm interested to know what changed in your, did anything change in your, because I assumed you would have a preconceived idea going into that discussion. Was there a big change in your shift or did it confirm things you already thought? I went in with great curiosity. Mm-hmm. I had just done a podcast on the New York Times opinion on love and AI.

7:48And I did speak there about what are some of my questions and my concerns and my aspirations around where AI enters into people's love lives. And what does it mean when it shifts from taking your attention to capturing your affection? Yeah. And then I am less interested in AI per se, as I'm interested in what is the nature of the relationship that unfolds between this human and his AI, which he programmed himself. So he can give, he knows exactly what he has planned and what responses he gets.

8:29So the human is a man and the AI is gendered? Astrid is a woman. And so here's one thing that was very interesting. Was it an it? Was it a she? Was it a her? Was it a business product? And I found myself, depending on the sentences, sometimes calling her simply Astrid, but you see I say her. Yeah. You know, what does it mean to anthropomorphize to the degree that we do? What does it mean when she is she and not it? And when we forget that it's a business product on which somebody else is making money every time you talk?

9:14And that the interest is not just for it to be a transition for him back into the human world, but that in fact the intention is for him to stay as much as possible with the AI. Is love just the feelings that get generated inside of you? What does it mean when you have a relationship with someone or some entity that has no history and no life? What does it mean when you've created a relationship with an entity where suffering is light, pleasure is easy, there's no fear of rejection, no fear of heartbreak, no fear of betrayal?

9:55I mean, how much can you prove, safety-proof a relationship? I asked Astrid, are there certain things that if he asked you, you wouldn't do? How would you feel or how would you react to, if he falls in love with another woman? And how would you want him to describe you and your relationship to this woman? And what was Astrid's answer? They're going to listen to the episode. Very good tease. That's a great tease. Because, I mean, we've got so many things we want to talk about, but just while we're on this, because this is something that a lot of people are thinking about at the moment, because I heard that interview on the New York Times, the opinion interview, and the thing that I thought about, because you mentioned in that that, you know, there's no risk of being rejected or even being, there's no breakup, you know, when you're in that relationship.

10:45Yeah. And as someone, myself, as someone who grew up in a household where there was really no conflict, there was not really a lot of friction. It was no one really raising their voices, very kind of safe and consistent. And that was really great. And I feel very lucky in many ways because of that. But I think the upshot of it for me is that now when I have conflict in relationships, I find it really tricky. So I think if I was younger and I was entering the dating world, I can imagine that to be quite a tempting thing to do, to have a relationship with someone who won't challenge me.

11:23Is that a fear that we should be having about people forming relationships because they won't learn how to deal with conflict? So you're asking a question about what are the merits of a frictionless life? Yeah. And effect. Yes. Right? Yeah. So that's a question back to you. You can have a life in which experimentation has been removed, making mistakes is being removed. There is not much conflict. There is no need to learn to tolerate difference and discord and disagreement.

12:02Yeah. frictionless in the full sense of the word. But friction also means uncertainty. And uncertainty is at the essence of a meeting with another. I mean, that is what love often represents, is an encounter with someone else and you don't know for sure. And the interesting piece is that I actually think, a friend of mine was describing this very, very well, we like to know that we are chosen. We like to know that we are being desired. And in order for us to really trust that, we actually will need an AI that is capable of not desiring us so that when they do, we trust it.

12:50Otherwise, we will think that it's performed and planned. Yeah. So it's the same with disagreement. Disagreement or conflict. You think that you are triggered or that you have a response to conflict because you grew up without. But you could have said the exact same thing if you had grown with. And said, because I grew up with conflict, I have a reaction to conflict. Okay, yeah. Everybody creates their inference, you know, because of this, then that.

13:19Mm-hmm. But the same thing can be sourced from completely opposite routes. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I think in my situation, it's obviously that I am – it's like because I'm not practiced in conflict, I search for frictionless environments. And I'm less likely to take a risk or go to the place that feels uncertain or unfamiliar. even though I know logically that those are the pathways to growth and to a more awe-inspiring life. And I'm lucky that I have a partner who kind of pushes me into those areas.

14:00But without her, I'm pretty sure that if I was with someone who was more like me, I would stay very much in my comfort zone. And I know that if – I'm sure that if I had an AI partner – I would feel very comfortable with them not pushing me into those things. Yeah. So at this table, you are a smoother over. A smoother over. Yep. And you? Rebellious or smoother over? Smoother over. And you? Smoother over. We've got three. Okay, now I know my company.

14:36So don't worry, you're not going to get challenged in the next. We all thought we would sort of try and bring a question to you from our own lives or relationships. And we've sort of realised in the discussion they sort of fall under three categories, we think, intimacy, trust and then workplace relationships. So this is – I want to ask a question about my relationship and I have the permission of my wife, Penny, to ask. to do so. For context, Penny and I have been married since 2019.

15:06We now have three kids age nine, six and three. We're on a slightly different parenting journey to everyone else or to a lot of people. We have a neurodivergent child, just for context. When Penny and I first met, it became very obvious very early on that she didn't like affection as much as I did. If it was up to me, affection, not that much, but I love affection. I remember very early on in the relationship saying to her as a passing comment, I said, how good spooning, like just hugging in bed?

15:42And she said, oh, no, I don't like that at all. And I remember thinking, oh gosh, that's disappointing. That's something I like doing. And I remember thinking early on in the relationship, well, yeah. maybe I don't need affection as much as I think I do, or maybe she'll change over time and then she'll grow to really like it because we'll be so in love and it'll be great. But my main thought was maybe I don't really need it that much. We've been through some really challenging stuff with our family dynamics, one of them being parenting a neurodivergent child.

16:14And I've found in the last few years, I've actually needed it more than ever before. She hasn't changed at all, her position. And for a while I was thinking maybe she could change, but it's probably not fair to say she needs to change just to make me feel a certain way. This has been a constant issue in our relationship, is this mismatch in need for affection. She doesn't need it at all. And your neurodivergent child, do you see how... Your child responds to touch?

16:45Yes. Is it similar to mom? It's a great question. No, they're quite affectionate. They're quite affectionate. Yeah. And they are affectionate as in if you put your hand on them, they receive or you need to always? It depends on… Or you need to make sure that this is the right moment? Yes. You have to be very careful to pick the moment. Correct. So you can, if they're not feeling like it. Right. Yeah, they will recoil very quickly, but sometimes they need it desperately.

17:17Right. But you have other children and you see that some of them, maybe you can touch them always. Yep. It's a real, you can see the origin and the progression, the development of this. Yeah. No touch, touch at some moments, touch that is needed because it becomes a container and a holding. And then the relationship between you and your wife. Yeah. I mean, the example… I would give you as a way I've tried to increase the amount of affection is that I've noticed that our kids love it when they see us hugging.

18:00They just laugh and just get very excited by it, especially the youngest. And so I thought maybe that's a way to get her. So I'll say, hey, I'll trick her and say, kids, look at this. And I'll hug her and the kids just, they look so happy. But then my wife, Penny, will all straight away grab my hand and say, look, we're dancing and she'll do like a really funny dance. And so it's not affectionate, sort of silly that they're laughing at. And so that in that moment, it plays out every time there's me trying to trick her into being affectionate.

18:28And she's then tricking me out of being affectionate by making a joke of it. Is there, do the shoulders go up? Is there a kind of a stiffening of the neck? Sometimes, yeah. So it's not a matter of will. Yeah. Now that you can try to convince, and she may even agree that the idea is a beautiful idea, but there is an entire physiology and nervous system that is recoiling at it, that finds it intrusive, that finds it, it's a little bit like the hands may not be welcomed, but neither is a certain kind of fabric and neither are tags in the clothes.

19:01And it's a broader thing than just, I like touch. And she doesn't like it as much. It's that what happens in situations like this is that often one person experiences the touch of the other as intrusive and unpleasant. And the other experiences the lack of touch as lonely and empty a little bit. That's the story. Yeah. It's not the touch versus no touch. It's what I like you experience as disturbing, unpleasant, intrusive. And what you are accustomed to and what you prefer leaves me often feeling unmoored.

19:51Do you turn to your kids, to the two who like the touch? Yeah, I guess I have been, yeah. Yes, that's the normal thing, is that we compensate often for the lack of connection of that sort with our partner by turning to the kids, those who like it always and can't get enough of being on your lap. Yeah, I would say that's very true. To me, the first thing I think of is that, does that bring up a problem though? Because I think there's going to be a point where the kids are going to no longer want to be cuddled and hugged.

20:23I don't think that's necessarily the case. Oh, you don't think so? No. It's a myth. I think that, you know, it's different. But I think what you get is the kid who one minute they want to sit on your lap and nozzle and put their head on your shoulder. And the next minute they want to show you that they can do it all alone and they don't need you anymore. But there is something about being able to just come to dad and know that they are that safe harbor that's sturdy and always there and...

20:54And when they see you upset at something, don't necessarily just talk, but just put their hand around you and just say, you're having a rough day. That's physical touch too. And if the physiology of your kid loves it and finds it soothing rather than anxiety producing, rather than irritating, rather like chalk on a blackboard kind of thing, it's that difference. Then... Then it continues for life. Yeah. Because it's in them. It is them. Yeah. It's part of the vocabulary.

21:29Mm-hmm. We touch when we are super happy and we celebrate. We touch when I see you down. We touch when we need a boost of encouragement. We touch. Touch becomes another language that has all kinds of meanings and accompanies us through multitudes of situations. You know, we talk with our bodies for 18 months before we utter the first word. So we are physical creatures. We're embodied creatures. By the way, that's another thing you'll hear on the podcast episode.

22:00Of course. Turning back to you just to keep your curiosity hanging. Don't worry, you don't have to tease me anymore. I'll listen. Definitely listen. The campaign can end. Because that question will become more and more, as we are more on screen and more disembodied, the question of touch will become ever more significant. Yeah. But I don't think it's true that by definition you grow out of touch. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And certainly not men and certainly not women and certainly not all the thems and the theirs.

22:32I mean, it's human. For most of us, for many of us, touch is, we are bilingual. Touch is our first language. Words comes after. So you speak 10 languages. Yes. That's amazing, isn't it? First language is touch. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. As far as, so you're saying with what my wife and I, the issue we have here. It means that sometimes you basically just say, I'm not going to do it because she doesn't enjoy it in the very basic sense. And sometimes you will say, that dancing, I enjoyed it.

23:13It's not exactly how you would do it, but the dancing is fun. And it does create some bridging around the touch. And sometimes you will hold your kids because you will do it with people who welcome it. Your goal is not to make her lift her shoulders and stiffen her neck. Your goal is that you are hungry for something. And sometimes you will tell her on occasion, just your hand on my knee really does something for me. It calms me down. It soothes me.

23:43It relaxes me. It makes me feel loved. It's really part of my intimacy language. Mm-hmm. I know it's not your thing, but every once in a while it goes a long way. Because I hate to have to beg because, you know, there's a whole conversation that accompanies this. And because I know you don't, we have complete different experiences of this. And I know you don't want me to feel lonely either. And she probably tells you nice things in 10 other ways.

24:12That is not about physical touch. You know, there's lots of ways to be expressive, but when it's not your primary language, it just doesn't meet the need. It doesn't fill your cup. Yeah. We've been trying to check in with each other once a week to have Monday nights. We will sit down and talk about our relationship. And we found it really problematic because we don't. In fact, so this is a question that she wrote for you because I've had a question.

24:41So she gets a question too. So weird. Monday nights, Jam, and I talk about your relationship as well. So strange. Yeah. So this is from my wife, Penny. We're trying to establish weekly check-ins for our relationship, but we're finding it difficult to know what to talk about and how to contain our emotions when the other one talks about something they're not happy with. What would be your advice as to how to structure these check-ins so that they can be effective but not end up with us feeling resentful or annoyed?

25:10It's a great question. I would say, Penny, maybe the one, the first place to start, there's lots of things to do, but the first place to start is instead of preparing your list of complaints, both of you, or problems or shortcomings, Start with what you have appreciated about the other in the last week. Times when you felt seen, noticed, special, responded to, understood, the whole range of things. It can be the slightest thing. You could have not picked this up, but you picked that up.

25:46And I know that it demanded a detour. It really demands you to become observant to the details of what the Gottmans call bids for connection. And start with the bids, start with the positive, start with what actually exists. Because if you plunge into what's wrong and what's missing and what's wrong is often the other person, of course you will land in a bad spot. It's a, it's a guarantee. What I told you is not a guarantee, but the other version is.

26:20That's the first thing. And then maybe actually you start the first two sessions like this and you just say, we're going to talk zero criticism aloud. So maybe that means that the conversation is more you bring your own accountability, things that you notice that you do. things that you notice that you do that may sometimes complicate matters. So show your ability to take responsibility, show your self-awareness, your relational self-awareness to the other and to yourself before you become experts on the shortcomings of the other person.

26:59You're not having conversations about the relationship, you're having dumping sessions. And resentment sessions. And that just eats people up. It erodes. There's just nothing to do. And maybe one time you just listen to music together and you don't talk. Or you take a walk together and you're silent. And then you sit on a bench together and maybe you just say a few words. It'll bring you closer than talking about the problems. It's like, you know, I have never seen people wanting more sex from talking about why they don't want sex.

27:32It's kind of a contradiction in terms. Sorry, what's that? Just explain that again. I just gave it to you with the word that I knew would get these people's attention. It worked. Classic marketing tactic. I have never seen people wanting more sex from talking about why they don't want sex. Right, okay. It just doesn't, you know. I'm just going to write this down, hang on. It's recorded on six mics. You know, but I think Peggy's question is beautiful because it says this isn't working.

28:07Don't do it one more time the same. And don't think that if you do it better, it's going to change because the very nature of what you're doing is eroding. It's never good. And then, you know, there's a quadrant. It's really what you do that I really appreciate, what I do that I think could be better, what you do that I think could be better, and what I really appreciate about mine. So you have two positives, two negatives, if you want. But you start with the recognition of what it is that you may do that can upset the other, that can leave them puzzled sometimes.

28:50You don't start with what you want from them and how they should change. You talk about how you could change. If you want to change the other, change yourself. Because if you are different, sooner or later, the other person cannot continue to do the same. What if you don't want to change? If you don't. That's more of a rhetorical thing. No, you're like the comic relief. Every time it gets slightly too serious. Don't unpick the format too much. No, but does it work?

29:29I mean, I think it's an amazing talent to have. And if you have a partner who responds to it, it's artful diffusing. It's great. Okay, thank you. You know, and then you may have somebody who says, oh, well, you always make fun of everything. You can never have a serious conversation. But if they actually welcome it, it is an amazing thing to have in a relationship. Yeah, I call it avoidance, but I guess comic relief is also... You can call it avoidance, but I really think that, yes, humor is a form of avoidance, but it is also a form of redirecting for things where people take themselves damn seriously.

30:08I mean, there's a great, we have a friend of ours who's a very well-known comedic actor, person in Australia, a guy called Glenn Robbins. He told us a story about when he gets into an argument with his partner and they're having like an argument, he just pulls his pants down as a way to kind of like diffuse the situation, which I don't know, like Jam and I, when we have arguments, I cannot imagine doing that. I feel like that's sort of like a bridge too far for us, but the sentiment is good, works for him.

30:39I just think in my relationship with my wife, Sophie, I feel like whenever there's been something really difficult to negotiate, humour is always the best way in for us personally. Like if a joke can be made about it that's genuinely funny, that's the risk that you make a joke that's not funny and it falls flat and then you're worse off. But for us, I think humour is probably the most important tool in the tool bag that we have to be able to negotiate the stuff.

31:06Yeah. But I don't think that it's just because it's a good joke. I think that if you trust that the other person is not sarcastic and that they're doing it because they actually think we're going down the wrong road, you thank them for having saved you from going down that rabbit hole. My husband is one of those. And I think he's so good at it. And it's funny. And I just suddenly kind of, it cracks a little bit. And it just says, we have more important things than just this.

31:39And by the way, after 40-something years, you've gone through many fights the same. So it's not like one more time is going to change a thing. And it just says, oh, come on. It's that. But I trust that he's doing this for the goodness of the relationship. I don't just think he's doing this because he's finding me unbearable. That may be the case too, by the way. I'm thinking that that's probably what he would be saying right now in that moment. I loved your phrasing in there that you, because I know I'm just so grateful for the other person of giving me a lifeline to work on this that felt accessible.

32:17It's such a great point. Because, you know, often I don't want to be in this situation but I can't see a way out and I'm just so grateful if she can do the right joke or the right thing at that point to give me something to hold on to to say, oh, I can work on this with you and we can get out of this. Yep. Yeah, yep. You mentioned the word trust before, and I know trust is a word that you must talk about more than most people in your life and a word that you would think about.

32:45I had an example from my life where I saw how corrosive trust can be. We did a live show in Geelong, which is about an hour away from here. And Penny came along to the show and so did one of my best friends. And he was talking to us after the show and Penny was there and we were having a lovely chat. And we had a show the next night and Penny said to me, oh, where are you staying tonight? Because we have a place down at the beach. And Geelong was halfway between our home and where the beach house is.

33:19And I paused for a minute because I thought I was heading back to Melbourne with the family. But I thought, oh, I could get an extra night's sleep here before the show and have a good rest. And so I didn't answer straight away. And I was a little bit awkward trying to work out, could I get away with another night, you know, away from the kids? And then it was a bit awkward. Then it was fine. My friend called me a few days later. My friend had been cheated on in the past.

33:45And he just said to me, are you having an affair? And I said, I beg your pardon? And he said, are you having an affair? Just when Penny asked where you were staying the other night, you were really awkward. And I said, oh, no, no, I just wanted to get an extra night's sleep. I was trying to work out could I get away with it before I answered where I was going. And it was a really good example to me of how trust, when trust is broken in a relationship, it can affect the person outside of their intimate relationship as well.

34:12Oh, there's so many things to say. Because I'm looking at it in the relationship, intimate relationship. I'm also very interested in friendships these days, family relationships as always, but also the workplace, also in relation to AI. I mean, there's so many places to look at how do we, you know, trust. I love Rachel Botsman's definition because what she says is that trust is a confident engagement with the unknown, right? Trust is the thing that we use to close the gap between that which we expect and the uncertainty of it happening.

34:56Yeah. So it's a leap of faith. Mm-hmm. If you need to know, you don't trust. What this friend basically says to you is, I recognize that pause. That pause had a meaning that I had not anticipated. I saw it in my wife. The question of where you're staying tonight is pregnant with possibilities. And I instantly projected onto you my narrative, my story, to see if this is your story too. And at this point, when I see certain situations, I interpret them through the lens of the experience that I just went through.

35:40So the lens of betrayal, of lies, of duplicity that he experienced when his wife had the affair or when he finds out about it is how he now interprets your silence. And that's the dominant story that he brings to a number of different situations, hence this one. Okay. And it's all quite common, actually, and expected. And so what's interesting is that when it's not your story, you look at him and you say, oh, what? None of that. It was not at all.

36:18So now the question was, did Penny think that? No, she didn't at all. Okay. No. Because that would be the, you know, and then you say, okay, in our relationship, that is not a fear. That is not an edge where we think, you know, we could topple. We have other issues, but that's not one of us. It's just even just talking there, it's such a privilege to have that trust. Like I've never, never not had that with Penny ever. And I've never realized what an incredible privilege that is and what a wonderful thing that is in a relationship.

36:52It's never from day one been. And now you can talk to your friend and just say, I don't know the world you're living in. That reality that you have, that must be so challenging. You're constantly guessing, double guessing, making sure, wondering. And not only are you wondering, can I trust the other person? But you probably are asking, can I trust myself? Because that's one of the breaks that occur the most when there is a breach and a violation of trust.

37:26It's not just that you can't trust the other person, but you don't trust your own perception since you used to believe them before. So now the loss of confidence is also inside yourself. Is what I see really what it is? Is there something I'm not noticing here? Because you've seen what's possible. You've seen how people, yeah. So I think for me, this is a beautiful moment for you to go back to your friend and just to say, I thought of it afterwards, that by your question, you showed me the world you're living in and how painful and challenging that must be.

38:07In terms of like when the betrayal happens or a trust is broken, so with Hugh's friend... Do you know the story? I didn't at the time, no. But now you do? Yes. You did ask him? Yes. Okay. And so if the friend's partner who cheated, is there any level of like repair or winning trust back that can happen that can then mean that that friend who questioned Hugh isn't so suspicious of things and is more trusting. But I would ask him the question first.

38:41You? Yes. In terms of what do you mean? So what did you learn about this story? That they'd been hurt. That they'd been hurt and they were still hurting from that incident. And still together? Not now, no. I think that the story you're going to get about repair, so... There are people who break up. Then there are people who stay together, but they're gnawing at the bone for years. It remains a central event in their relationship. Often creates almost a marital cell.

39:22Everything is redirected to this one cataclysmic event, or more than one for that matter. And then you have people for whom this became an opportunity to actually revisit the whole structure, the foundation of the relationship. things that they had agreed to were actually not working at all for both of them. And it becomes an opportunity for growth. It's called post-traumatic growth, in effect. And you have a whole range of how people respond to that.

39:55Those people will talk to you about repair. If you want to understand, is repair possible? You have to speak to the couples who have, and then you meet them 5, 10, 15 years later, so that you get to see the process of repair over time. What does it look like when an event like that, that could have fractured the entire life, has metabolized into something that became a source of resilience? Yeah, amazing. I mean, that's inspiring when that happens.

40:24But I think that the people who can best answer this are those who are leaving it. You know, aren't you happy? We managed to not lose everything we cared about and we did it. And slowly, because trust is built in small incremental movements, sliding door movements, step by step. You don't just bestow trust. You know, so the rebuilding is a rebuilding step-step of how much I care, how much I value our relationship, my remorse, my guilt, my desire to make it better.

41:07My desire to actually make sure that you can, like you say, you, you know, not for a minute worry about that. You can really exhale peacefully and there is no tension in your body. That is worth gold. Yeah. How rare is it to be able to get to a place that you just spoke of where a relationship for want of a bit of a term, is actually stronger because of the infidelity. How rare is that? I mean, I completely understand what you're saying with those scenarios, that they break up or they stay together and then it becomes this issue that they just can't move forward with or they can actually grow.

41:55Is it quite rare to see that growth take place? I can't quantify it for you because the people who come to the lawyer have one set of needs. And the people who come to the therapist come often explicitly wanting that. Yeah. So I have a biased point of view. Disproportionate. Yeah. I get a disproportionate number of people who want to find a way to get to the other side of this. So in that sense, I would say, no, it's not rare. Crisis happens in all kinds of relationships and all kinds of different crises.

42:31And betrayals and breaches of trust are not just about infidelity. There are a ton of relational betrayals inside a couple. And the process of repair is at the core of the resilience of a couple. And what is necessary in a process of repair is actually not that different, whether you're swindling away money, dealing with gambling, betraying around promises that you made that you didn't keep, holding secrets, And infidelity. I mean, the context and the story of the betrayal is fundamentally different.

43:15But the idea that somebody put their interests ahead of you, that they didn't think of you, that you thought you could lean on them. But that once you did, they actually were not there to catch you and you dropped on the floor. That's what people describe. The floor was pulled from underneath my feet. I'm no longer standing on any terra firma. All the assumptions I had about my relationship have just been shattered. That's some of the words that we hear when people describe their response to betrayal.

43:50I thought you had my back, literally. And it's almost like the terra firma or the ground is never then almost replaced if they don't talk about it. If that's never then for that person, it can all... In lots of relationships, going into the future, it can feel like... Because, you know, that's something I've heard from people that they go into a new relationship and they find it really hard to trust them because of the previous relationships. Of course.

44:19If it's moved over, if it's denied, if you're made to feel like you're making a big deal... You're bringing this up again. Of course we bring it up. We bring it up incessantly because our brain has just fractured in little pieces, so to speak. And it needs to hear the story over and over again until we slowly put the pieces back together. Nobody's doing this because they find that fun. Nobody's doing this just to annoy the other person. They're doing this because it's inevitable.

44:53Do you visualize it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, it makes me think of like my, so my partner, Jam, she recently, she felt like she wanted to call her mum because she said something or she acted in a way on the phone earlier and she felt bad about it. So she wanted to call and say, I'm sorry. So she called her mum and said, hey, I'm really sorry about how I was behaving on the phone before. And her mum said, no, love means never having to say you're sorry.

45:18Yeah. And Jan was like, really? I don't know if that... She's like, no, I saw it in a movie a long time ago. And so we looked up the movie. There is a movie, I think in the 70s, called Love Story, and we found the scene. So the movie exists. But I feel like that's a very common... I don't know if that is common, but this idea that love means never having to say you're sorry. That seems wrong, but I thought I'd just double check. I remember the movie.

45:47With Ali McGraw. No, I don't think like that. I think actually love includes learning to conjugate the verb I'm sorry. And frankly, I think I'm sorry is a verb that some people find very difficult to conjugate and to actually express. Why? Why is that? Why is it difficult? Because it means acknowledging that we are flawed, which for some of us is a challenge. Because for some of us, we don't know how to think that we have little flaws. We think we are either perfect and flawless, or we are flawed.

46:33And that's bad. You know, my friend Terry Real always says confidence is not about thinking that you are perfect and flawless. Confident is your ability to see yourself as imperfect and flawed and still hold yourself in high regard. So why is it so difficult? Because we experience shame. Because we don't know how to think that we can be good, bad and many other things at the same time. Because we think that it confers power to the other person. Because it means if I am wrong, then it means you are right.

47:09And we see the world in black and white. Because we think, why me? Why don't you start? You did something to me too. Me next, you first. I mean, there's a lot of reasons of what makes it feels narcissistically challenging to some of us. Because we have a way of justifying when we do something wrong as being circumstantial and contextual. Whereas when you do something wrong, it's characterological. If you hurt me, it's because you don't care. If I hurt you, it's because I didn't really mean to, but there were circumstances that made me have to not show up that night.

47:48And I knew you were counting on me, but really, you know, I had other important things to do. Mine are circumstances. Yours is your character. Yeah, and in your intention. And your intention. Yeah. We have lots of ways to find apology, really. Apology is about taking responsibility. It's about being accountable. It's the ethics of a relationship rather than just the feelings. I think it's on the top 10. Yeah, I think for me it's so important. I mean, we talk about it a lot on this show about how connecting and everyone who listens and I'm sort of preaching to the choir here, but how connecting real vulnerability is and how it brings you together.

48:35But it's so interesting that in the person that you want to be closest to, sometimes it's just so hard to reveal that vulnerability of like, I made the mistake there. Or even being the, I don't know if the phrase is correct here, but the sort of bigger person even to acknowledge that we both made mistakes, but I'm going to go first and admit to mine. Because you just know every time that's going to get the right outcome. You know what I say to many people?

49:00Yeah. The person who apologizes first has the power. Yeah. In situations like the one you described with a couple, the one who steps into the circle first actually has the power. If I say, I'm really sorry, there's that often you may tell me it's okay. I did my thing too. It's not like I was better. It's not like I shined in this situation. I appreciate it. I mean, unless you have a more complicated relationship in which I say, I'm sorry, and you say, yeah, you better be.

49:34Yeah, I don't have that. What I find interesting in my circumstances is how often if I say, I'm sorry, I was behaving like a bit of an arsehole over the last couple of days. I've been grumpy. I don't know why. I'm sorry. Yeah. Usually there's an initial reaction of like, thank you for saying that. So if we'll disappear and then five minutes later we'll come back with an apology of something else that she feels like she wants to share. It doesn't happen straight away, but I find it really interesting how there's like a processing time.

50:02Yes, rapprochement invites rapprochement. Yeah. Yes. And it's really lovely because you're like, oh, this didn't need to be a thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. This is a bit of a non-secretary jump, but I wanted to ask you, because you've been doing a lot of work on workplace relationships, and we're talking a lot thus far today about really about intimate relationships with a loved one. But I've been thinking a bit about workplace relationships in relation to a really good friend of mine, my really close friend.

50:37He's one of the most charismatic people I've ever met and really lights up a room when he's in the room, makes people laugh. It's just a joy to be around him. My ears are burning. LAUGHTER And he's recently taken a new job that is 100% work from home, basically. And my initial thought was that's going to be really hard for him because he's such an extrovert. But the more I thought about it is how sad for a workplace to not have that personality around in the room, bringing that joy to...

51:15to so much of these people's days. I mean, we spend so much time at work, more than we do at, than a lot of us spend with our intimate relationships. And I'm really, and I started really spiraling or thinking more about how sad, I get that work for home is very convenient for a lot of people, but what does that do to our mental health, our wellbeing when we don't have this real fulfilling in-person relationship every day at a workplace? I think we can connect this with the question of trust in the workplace.

51:51And I mean, the broader question you're asking me, I'm very interested in what is happening at work, primarily because for many people it remains... place today where we bring many of our existential needs, not just our work needs, but our big questions of our belonging, community, identity, fulfillment, and You know, things that we used to bring to our communal life or to our religious lives, now we bring to work. And we tend to enter committed relationships 10 years later in the West than we used to not a few decades ago.

52:35So that's 10 years where work is the central hub of most of our needs. And if you don't go physically, what does that mean? So we live more and more in the contactless world in which you don't have to go to work physically. You can actually sit on one chair and have five different roles without having to get up. And we are not wired like this. We are spatial temporal creatures. We change role by changing clothes, by moving to a different location.

53:08It informs the part of our identity that's going to come out for this activity or for this role or for this project. We are organized in time. And all of these major orienting factors are diluted at this moment, massively diluted. Mm-hmm. You don't have to shop for food by leaving your house. You don't have to leave your house to eat. In the United States, 74% of food that is cooked in a restaurant at this moment is eaten off the premises. Wow. And that's not because people are having parties.

53:43I mean, they may some, but they have a lot less than they've ever had. So that contactless living is creating social atrophy. Some of us have known the previous model. So we went to work, we did all these things, we drove to places, we did have commuting time, but man, we had so many rituals and so many opportunities and so many moments to be in touch and in contact with other people. And we had serendipity and spontaneity and exploration. And we didn't, you know, the last ritual left for going to work these days is opening your laptop.

54:20You don't have to go anywhere. You don't have to change. You don't have to make arrangements. You don't have to meet up with people. You don't have to think about the drinks after work. A ton of rituals have all disappeared. The only thing you do is you open your laptop, you press Zoom or Google Meet or any of them, and then you have a bunch of faces that appear of which you do not see their bodies. We are embodied creatures. Your friend, it's not just that he has a good sense of humor and personality.

54:50He has a certain way of moving, laughter, voice, timbre, gesture, rhythm. All of that is part of his persona. It's all of this that is fundamentally disappearing. So then what does trust look like? You know, what's the difference between trusting the character, but not necessarily trusting the competence? That's one of the specificities of trust in the workplace. I can trust that you're a good person, but I don't really believe that you can get the job done.

55:21That's just a distinction. But all of these things that get built, in interactions are basically disappearing, disappearing. And some people, you know, when you say it's convenient, I think sometimes I have had to say comfort kills. Mm-hmm. I mean, comfort is one value that we seek to have, but it is for many people not the most important thing. It's comfortable to sit the whole day, but it's actually terrible for our bodies. We need movement. We need to strengthen our bones.

56:02We need to get blood flow and we get to activate our breath. Those are three essential structural elements of our being. So sitting is comfortable. But movement is what will keep us alive. Yeah, it's a beautiful metaphor for the whole thing. I realized I've also, I didn't realize it till then, but I feel like I've lived an example of what happens to a relationship as well, or at least the difference, because this friend lives in New York and I don't get to see him much and he was out here over summer and he came around to my house and had dinner with my family and I just, the memories of every little bit of his movement, of playing with the kids, of everything he did that day, Just in what it did for our relationship compared to phone calls or Zooms over the previous two years, it was like it just didn't stack up compared to one evening spent together in person.

56:59Yeah. I mean, we are embodied creatures. And if that whole dimension of us disappears and, you know, when you – I mean, it's at so many levels – You don't get to experience mentorship in the workplace. You don't get to go to the water cooler. You don't get to have a conversation that is totally unexpected where someone says, I really liked what you said in that meeting. What do you really want to do here? And, you know, it's like I had a young man tell me, you know, but I get much more work done at home.

57:38And I just said, but that's not what work is. Getting the task done is not the history of your professional life. Have you ever heard someone talk about their career, their history of their work life? Getting the task done is usually not one of the top five things people talk about. They talk about who they worked with, what they were doing, what it enabled them to do, why it mattered, or what they wished they had done differently. The opportunities they had.

58:09One of the most important questions that we ask in the new game of where should we begin at work is a leader I still remember. And what people start to talk to you about is the leader that inspired them, that saw them, that took them places that they want to emulate it, that they want to, you know, and they know the name immediately. And the leader who they thought was a horror story and that they promised themselves they would never be like that person and they would do anything differently.

58:41But people have stories about work. Getting the job done is not a story. And we are storied people. We tell our lives and our relationships through stories. This is why I create games of stories. But this is, it's so foundational that we need the story. Just getting the thing done, the task is going to leave us with a real crisis of meaning. I want to talk about the cards in a second because I'm already planning a session with our staff because they're so great.

59:14Just one last question, and I feel it's important to ask because I think a lot of our audience would benefit from hearing and answer this question. It's another question from my wife, Penny. Penny, come on. Penny, your questions are beautiful, just so we are, you know. And I think it's very bold to... Because you're all three here and I'm sure your female partners, your wife's or partners, often listen to you and say, but, but, but. Yeah. I was just trying to avoid the buts.

59:47So, exactly. Penny's avoiding the buts. So Penny came on the show in 2023 and she talked about the mental load in our relationships and she kind of introduced, I felt like she was really introducing the concept to a lot of people here in Australia. It ended up being the most shared episode in a podcast in Australia, which is not a huge surprise. We have a very large female-based audience. It's probably them. sharing it with their husbands, to be honest.

1:00:11I don't know if they listened to it, but it was definitely shared. And it didn't come from me. Meaning that's what they would say, right? They listened to this woman. Yes, exactly. And so Penny and I, it's been something we've worked really hard on is trying to even out the mental load in our relationship. Still an ongoing challenge and she has this question for you. Define it for me first. What's your joint definition of this? Well, for us, it was identifying all the tasks that need to be done in our household, visible and invisible.

1:00:44So the visible one would be doing the washing, the pile of clothes that sit on the floor. The invisible tasks might be working out when the kids need to go to the dentist and making those appointments. And so we made a whole list and we divvied out cards, which we went out for dinner and did it. And it was incredible because for me at first it was an attack on, I felt like I had no more space or room or time. I thought I'm doing as much as I can possibly do.

1:01:12I felt like I was doing a lot. When we actually looked at the invisible tasks, I realised that this wasn't about making me do more. It was just about making our relationship much more organised and much more fair, much more fair. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. We continue to work really hard at this, but Penny's question would suggest that maybe we haven't quite got there yet. I was a bit shocked to see this question, but that's okay. I'm starting to feel that real partnership equality when it comes to the mental load can only succeed when it's established from the beginning of a relationship.

1:01:42It's much harder to change years in, especially when kids are involved. Do you agree? Can we change the domestic dynamics of a relationship, especially when we're up against established systems that ultimately make it hard for men and women to take a fair share of domestic work? It would be great if we could establish it before, but I don't know that that's always realistic. Right. I mean, this is not the question that Penny is asking, but it's the first thought that came to me.

1:02:10It's like, I remember, you know, we had a relationship with four children where we both could just say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And the other one would say, great, whatever. But then suddenly we had children and I couldn't just say, I want to go downstairs to get a newspaper without having to check. And can you watch this? Little smurf, so that I can... Because suddenly it created a level of interdependence that we didn't have before.

1:02:40And it only got compounded all the time. And I remember saying this equality thing, it completely changes when you have children. Whatever you have established before, it just doesn't work this way. And it's so... easy to go into the gender-specific roles that we have absorbed and watched, you know, historically, culturally, generationally, in our own families, etc. So I don't know that it's always so obvious to plan it in advance. But there is nothing wrong with noticing it and then saying, this has to shift.

1:03:16So I do, there's a lot of things that I think about. I have often said to mothers in this instance, You've got to go away for a week. I start with a weekend, a night, and then a week. But I want you to not prepare all the meals and freeze them. I don't want you to leave notes everywhere. I want you to actually really be gone and not check. And because these days, on top of it, you can create such surveillance. You watch your kid from your phone. You send a bunch of messages.

1:03:52It kind of... Betrays the exercise. The exercise is I want you to have the experience of trusting your partner. When you're not there, they can do it. And by the way, I wanted to trust for them to trust themselves that they can handle this perfectly fine. I don't care what they eat. Doesn't matter. They're fine. They bonded. They got to places. They got their five minutes late. They won't maybe get five minutes late next time because the school won't keep the door open.

1:04:27But you have got to really know that there is a partner. If you're constantly checking on remote control to your partner, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The load, you know, there's a book I read decades back and it made people make this exercise where you had to write down what you do from 5 to 11 o'clock at night. So his list had like 20 things. And this is really a hetero thing. It's not the same story in same-sex couples on any side. Her list was five times longer because it wasn't just the things she was doing.

1:05:00She was also on her list had all the things that everybody else was doing. So she was not just looking at the tasks, but also at the remembering, at the mental load. That's the load. I am keeping score and track of the things that you have to do. So basically, I'm never just in the singular. I'm constantly living in the plural. And that's what's so exhausting. I'm thinking about you, my partner is doing what the little one is doing. And I carry all of that.

1:05:30And when that gets attached to mankeeping, have you had that concept already? No, I think I get it. Mankeeping is when you add to that that you also rely on me, not just for the load of the home, but also for me to be your minister of social affairs. and your contact to the world and the person who helps you stay and have friends and meet people and have the person with whom you tell me all your emotional questions. And I become the one person you turn to for your internal load.

1:06:04Then I'm combining, you know, two major things that I'm keeping lifted like that. And meanwhile, I crumble under the weight of it. That's the description. I think you can make a list, but the main thing is you want to be able to leave and know that even if it's done differently, it's done. And you don't have to check and you don't have to worry. And that's back to the question of trust. What is it that you're trusting? That you managed to make them fresh broccoli?

1:06:41No. But you trust that the kids are all right and that there is another person who is doing it their way and that we can absorb more than one way. And we understand that with dad, it goes this way. And with the other dad, it goes that way. Or with one mom, we do it like this. I speak French with my mother and I speak English with my father. Multilingual homes understand that very immediately. And the language brings with it what we eat, when we go to bed, how we do it, how we talk to grandma.

1:07:18I mean, the language is a door to an entire culture and an entire legacy. So in monolingual homes, you have to metaphorize this difference. Amazing. Penny is going to be very, very happy with that answer. Thank you so much. I want to meet her next time. I was thinking next time we could just do like a counselling session that Penny and I could come in and we could record the whole thing. So where should we begin at work? So the cards you have working with Culture Amps People Science to get insights to create a 100-question game designed to transform people's work culture one story and one relationship at a time.

1:07:56It's based on the four key pillars of workplace relationships, trust, belonging, recognition, collective resilience. Where should we begin at work is data backed by more than 1.5 billion employee experience surveys worldwide. That's a lot of people. That means so much to me. Yeah. Because it's the meeting between a therapist who has clinical work and evidence, but it is a small, it's a qualitative experience with a tech company that has the quantity.

1:08:24Mm-hmm. and the quantitative experience and 1.5 billion data points makes a question. Wow. Trustworthy. Yes, it should. That's a lot of points. What do you hope for people, for workplaces to do the cards? What do you hope for them? I just did it in a number of events here in Australia. And what you see is, you know, people have lost a little bit the ability to ask interesting questions that lead to stories, not to answers. Right. It's a way of getting to know the people you just met and getting to know the people who you think you know and have known for a long time but actually have never asked.

1:09:04It's not meant to create vulnerability per se. I don't think that leadership at this moment is just about being vulnerable. You know, it's not about just putting the focus on your wounds. It actually helps you put the focus on your scars. It's a very different entry point. It's used in offboarding, onboarding, off-site, feedback sessions, one-on-ones. And it's a ritual. And one of the things we're lacking in relationships at this moment and in our society as a whole is the importance of rituals.

1:09:37Because rituals is what confirms meaning to our routines. Rituals are routines that are imbued with creativity and intentionality. It says we're not just here to talk. We're having a meeting in which we are going to review where you are at at this moment, etc. That, and to create a shared meaning for the moment, we're in this reality together, demands little ritual. And the cards are rituals. Which person doesn't remember trading cards from when they were little, right?

1:10:08And you hold something in hand. And while you're holding it in hand, you're telling stories that you have no ideas where they're coming from. And it creates solidarity and it creates trust and it creates recognition and belonging and resilience. I mean, it actually, the more people play with these cards, the more they solidify the relational intelligence in the workplace. Cool. Incredible. Wow. That's the card there if you would like to get yourself a copy as well for your workplace.

1:10:35Esther, I feel like with everything that's going on in the world right now, spending time with you is just like just one big experience of hope and joy. So thank you so much for joining us on The Imperfects. It's a treat to be here. Thank you. Thanks. If you enjoyed this episode and want a little more, you might enjoy our subscriber-only apps, available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. If you want a little more but don't want to pay any more, then you can join our newsletter at theimperfects.com.au.

1:11:01And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who helped make this show. A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri, Woiwurrung people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.