Esther Perel's Blog, page 4

Today, I am reflecting this idea of power through psychological and physical distance as a way to awaken intimacy and desire inspired by Judy Brown’s poem, “Fire”. This piece echoes the ideas in my book Mating in Captivity — so beautifully articulated.

 

Fire

by Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.

So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build

open spaces

in the same way

we have learned

to pile on the logs,

then we can come to see how

it is fuel, and absence of the fuel

together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log

lightly from time to time.

A fire

grows

simply because the space is there,

with openings

in which the flame

that knows just how it wants to burn

can find its way.

 

Image Source: Pexels

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When it comes to relationships, why is divorce more acceptable than infidelity?

That’s one of the questions that we will continue to ponder after the voting polls close Tuesday night.

Next week, I have the privilege of voting in my first American Presidential election. My work on couples and sexuality began 20 years ago in the midst of the Clinton scandal. I was curious as to why America was so tolerant of multiple divorces, and so intransigent of infidelity. In contrast, the rest of the world has generally opted the other way around. To preserve the family, compromises are made around the infidelity, primarily through the courtesy of women.

Many years later we’re back to the same conversation.

Secretary Clinton has been criticized on many fronts. But one attack crosses the political divide: her decision to remain with her husband through his infidelities.

Blessed with resources, the law, and economic independence, why would she stay rather than throw him to the curb?

I’ve worked as a therapist in several countries for 33 years and seen hundreds of couples in the trenches of divorce and infidelity and I believe some assumptions need addressing:

1. When sexual infidelity happens, there is no option but divorce. 

Why favor the dissolution of family bonds across generations rather than work through the crisis of an affair? That is not to say divorce is always wrong, but it is often an overreaction to a problem that evidence suggests can often be reconciled (and in some cases even lead to renewed trust, greater intimacy and appreciation).

Whatever happened to perseverance and grit; reconciliation and repair, not to mention love?

2. Women who choose to stay must surely be masochistic or Machiavellian. They’re seen as weak, calculating or “stupid.”

Why is it hard to believe that Hillary may have stayed with Bill because she loves him, or because she didn’t want to throw away a whole lifetime? The person you marry is not just a sexual partner: they are the person you’ve grown up with, with whom you’ve raised your children, buried your parents, and who cared for you when you were sick.

The truth is, we don’t really know what happens under couples’ sheets.

3. Sexual infidelity is the ultimate betrayal.

I’ve witnessed people who have been scornful or contemptuous to their spouses for 15 years, yet we do not consider that a betrayal. I’ve known couples who have avoided or denied sex to their partner for years, but we also hesitate to call that a betrayal. For people addicted to porn we have a diagnosis to help soften the blow. But, have intercourse outside the marriage? That’s the ultimate betrayal.

 

In the past, it was divorce that carried the stigma. Today, choosing to stay after an affair when you can leave is the new shame. In the 2016 elections, we have one candidate who opted for repeated divorce, and one who chose to stay in the wake of her husband’s transgressions.

It is old news that marriage requires work. Recovering from the crisis of an affair (which many couples do) is a sign of resilience, steadfastness, strength, respect and humility. Couples who turn a crisis into an opportunity, become resilient architects of a solid foundation. These are characteristics of an effective leader, and I for one respect the tedious accountability of a long-term commitment.

 

IMAGE SOURCE: ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY; SOURCE: DREW ANGERER / GETTY (CLINTON); SCOTT OLSON / GETTY (TRUMP) AND THE NEW YORKER ARTICLE

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Why do we cheat?

And why do happy people cheat?

What when we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean? Is it a hook up? A love story? Paid sex? A chat room? A massage with happy endings?

Is an affair always the end of a relationship?

In this talk from 2015, we unpack these questions and why affairs are so traumatic: because they threaten our emotional security. In infidelity, we see something unexpected — an expression of longing and loss. A must-watch for anyone who has ever cheated or been cheated on, or who simply wants a new framework for understanding relationships.

The post TED Talk: Rethinking infidelity…a talk for anyone who has ever loved appeared first on Esther Perel.

Being in a business partnership is a lot like being in a marriage. 

The Stanford Business School now offers a Group Therapy Course and the required reading includes: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. 

Why? 

According to Noam Wasserman, a professor at Harvard Business School, 65% of businesses fail due to conflict and relationship breakdown between partners. Marriages are complicated, business partnerships even more so. The added pressures of courting investors, managing employees, speaking to the public, and meeting the bottom-line add further strain to these multilayered relationships. 

Peter Arvai, CEO of presentation software company Prezi said, “Long-term relationships and co-founding companies have the potential to be amazing or terrible experiences…A well-functioning relationship between [business partners] makes life (and business) more meaningful and fun.” 

When relationships are strong, businesses have a much better chance at surviving the inevitable challenging times. When business relationships falter, it can result in utter collapse. 

So how can you proactively develop thriving and effective business relationships? 

1. Set up a strong foundation 

Like the starry-eyed lovers, in the thralls of a new love relationship, co-founders prefer to avoid uncomfortable conversations and steer clear from potential conflict. Yet, we all know that we are best addressing kinks and difficult topics in a relationship when the tide is low and the waters are calm. 

Make sure to have a weekly meeting, not only to go over the list of items but also to check in on the partnership. 

Is there anything we need to address in the way we are working together?

What is working really well? 

Most address issues after the sh*t has hit the fan. Be proactive. 

 

2. Recognize the power of complementarity and mutual admiration 

In a company (like in a family), typically one person pushes for expanding, spending, hiring, diversifying, innovating, and the other leans towards a more cautious and conservative approach. One says, “Let’s buy this new equipment.” The other responds, ”Do we really need it?” One says, “We need to hire someone to do this project.” The other says, “I think we have what it takes to do it ourselves.” These two interdependent views complement one another. 

Each person can safely emphasize one side because the other person will emphasize the other. Every system needs both: Continuity and change. Growth and homeostasis. 

The flip side is Polarization. In distressed relationships, “I think we should consult with others to compare prices” is no longer countered with “I think we have what we need to make a decision.” Now it becomes, “You never want to make a decision and move on this.” 

 

3. Manage conflict like an adult 

Running a company is stressful. Disagreements are normal and conflicts are not always a problem. But, when thoughts and feelings are not addressed from the start, they become issues, resentments, crisis, and condemnations. 

Most important to sustain a thriving relationship is respect, listening, and taking responsibility for our own wrong doing and repair. 

 

4. Take responsibility 

If you want to change the other, the best thing you can do is to change yourself. 

As soon as a relationship becomes strained, people begin to apply negative attribution theory. “If we got there on time, it’s because there was no traffic.”But if we got there late, it’s because of you driving ” When it works well, it’s chance. When it doesn’t work well, it’s because of you. Negative attributions become self-fulfilling. You enter into a whole phase of distrust. 

Good relationships, good partnerships, good co-founderships and business partnerships deal with exactly the same relational challenges as the ones who crumble. They just know how to deal with them in better ways. 

 

UPCOMING EVENT: NOVEMBER 3 – 6, 2016

As a business owner I know you understand the importance of this, and you you will be very interested in the what I have been working on. Last winter I spoke at an event hosted by Baby Bathwater Institute and the response from this crowd of entrepreneurs was overwhelming. Subsequently, I am working with the BBW team to host an intimate event focused solely on business partnerships. 

If you value your business and your relationships with your partner and/or cofounder, this event could have an enormous impact to both your satisfaction and to your bottom line. 

This event is limited to 30 people, and we suggest business partners come together, however it’s not a requirement. 

In order to make this event even more rich, I’m partnering with Daniel Barcay who advised leadership teams at Google and now helps Peter Theil’s companies navigate relationships at the highest level. 

So if you want a more effective business relationship, and want to work under an actual framework for navigating business partnership dynamics, apply to attend my live business partner workshop November 3 – 6, 2016. 

APPLY HERE

The post Why Business Partnerships are like a Marriage appeared first on Esther Perel.

Growing up, I didn’t have a chance to develop relationships with my grandparents (or uncles and aunts for that matter), and I longed for intergenerational mingling — to have older people who cared about me beyond my parents and my teachers.

At Humanitas, a residential care facility in the Netherlands, young students and artists live rent-free in exchange for spending at least 30 hours a month socializing with some of the 160 elderly residents.

They do the things professional staff cannot always do — such as spending time, just hanging out. Gea Sijpkes, the head of the Humanitas retirement home says it well:

“When you’re 96 years old with a knee problem, well, the knee isn’t going to get any better, the doctors can’t do much. But what we can do is create an environment where you forget about the painful knee.”

Watch this moving video about the program here:

Wanting to create a warm environment, the director thought outside of the box. By utilizing this design-style thinking, she was able to bypass budget concerns and tap into a connection that hired-staff cannot provide. The goal is, “to avoid creating care ghettos not to isolate the elderly from the outside world.”

A resident student described the relationship: “We bring today’s life to people who without us would still live in the past, and we learn from people who bring experience from their past, so I don’t make certain mistakes in the future.”

The Dutch government has made big cuts in healthcare funds. Helping each other, as a society, is one of the solutions to lack of funding resources.

When I had my own children, I hoped they would have a three-generational experience. They did, but only for few years. And once my parents passed, I kept thinking that there are so many elderly in NYC who would enjoy buying an ice cream cone and spending an hour with a boy. Similarly, there are so many children who could learn volumes from walking an older person across the street.

I imagine that patience, tolerance and communication skills would all be part of the first lesson. The older one would share stories from the past. The young one would relate stories from school today, and both would sharpen each other’s mind and broaden their hearts.

The bond across the lifespan is one of the most unique exchanges we can have. And when it happens between people WHO are not of kin, it can be even more fulfilling to engage in a creative community of choice. A win, win.

Instead, we tuck our most wise generation away in safe, but stale, places. We isolate and neglect them, while knowing that having purpose and social value is a key antidote to death. While on the other end of the spectrum, too many people live far from family and suffer from of isolation.

Bringing back intergenerational mixing on a daily basis would be good for everyone — young and old(er).

In countries like Mexico, China, and Senegal generations intermingle daily and that is the norm, not the exception. Ohio already has already established similar intergenerational housing.

When do we get such a facility in New York City?

How can we make innovations to challenge the way American culture segregates its elderly?

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“What do you do when the necessary is impossible and the impossible is necessary?”   —  Tom Friedman

Five weeks ago, I left for a six-country speaking tour. Since then, I’ve traveled to lecture in Bucharest, Copenhagen, Antwerp, Kinnernet in Burgundy, Cannes Lions, Ted Summit at Banff, and the Aspen Festival of Ideas.

As I prepare to fly back to New York, I’m reflecting on the people I’ve met and the new perspectives I’ve gained this past month. My favorite thing about lecturing in multiple countries is that I am reminded once again how relationships and sexuality is a unique lens into societies. In each place I land, I ask myself, “What do family life, adult intimacy, and children-rearing practices tell us about the world we live in?” 

I want to share a couple of the highlights from my trip with you.

1. Every society has a deeply rooted story: Romania vs. Denmark

I was particularly intrigued with the contrast between my experience lecturing in Bucharest, Romania, directly followed by four days in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Romania is in the middle of a fascinating transition. It’s a post-communist society, where for so long people had no sense of individual rights. I first traveled there in the height of the Ceausescu years in 1979. On this recent trip, I could literally see the evidence of the rise of capitalism, urbanization and people moving to cities, and a new realization of individualism. In a mere 25 years since the fall of communism, major social and economic forces have shifted societal norms.

With these changing tides have come massive changes in the expectations for marriage. To name a few: 

The number of kids families are having: The average family today has 1.4 children. Two generations ago, the average was 6+ children. Less kids means more space to focus on the couple, and sex shifts from procreation focus, to pleasure and connection. Forever, sexuality has been associated with sin, shame, secrecy. But with more focus on the couple, this narrative is starting to crack.

Concept of marital happiness and individualism: If you live in an authoritarian system where your individual initiative is squashed, you may lose any sense of agency. Under communism, the party gave whatever it wanted to give. so people developed a kind of passivity, a blaming of the system. These ideas are often imported into the couple today as well. For the first time, the concept of happiness within the context of partnerhip is entering into their lives.

I hosted a one-day event with 600 men and women of all ages. Some people traveled 800km to get there — emphasizing the thirst to topple this narrative and start a different conversation about intimacy and sexual rights. It was clear to me that this conversation had never taken place here in such a public way.

In stark comparison, Denmark is one of the most egalitarian societies in the world. All of the stressors the besiege American marriage are taken care of by the state: maternity leave, paternity, affordable child care, free education, and free healthcare. Yet, the rate of divorce and infidelity is still high. Male and female roles are very androgynous and interchangeable, resulting in relationships un-eroticized partnerships. This, coupled with a high-investment parenting culture is squashing the space for desire and eroticism in relationships there. 

A completely different cultural story than the Romanian one. 

2. This year’s Aspen Ideas Festival included a track on Sex in America 

Including a conversation about sexuality at an important ideas conference is a major win for our ability as a society to have a deeper, more transparent conversation about relational forces that affect us all.

The series of talks explored, how “pop culture is saturated with in-your face sexual images, lyrics, and story lines. The art of innuendo is eclipsed by coarse language and oversharing. We have hook-up apps, and it only takes a few taps on our always connected devices to get to an endless array of porn. Yet as mainstream attitudes about sex and relationships are seemingly more casual than ever, precise communication between individuals is increasingly paramount—especially on college campuses. How did we get here? What has fueled this latest revolution in sexual mores? What are the consequences? And, have we gone too far?” 

Here is a video of a deep-dive conversation about the topic that I participated in with an incredible group of journalists, activists, and sociologists (moderated by Invisibilia’s Hanna Rosin).

In the short time span of my trip, the world has experienced tragedies in Orlando, Istanbul, Dhakka, Baghdad, Medina, and the face of Europe is forever changed by the Brexit referendum.

No sooner do we try to absorb the news and implications of one of these events, than we are jolted by another. 

These events have directly and indirectly affected thousands and thousands of people. And not just in the generation of now. No. Tragedy enters the legacy of every family, and every community. Being the child of two only survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, I speak from experience. I learned early on of the long lasting scars, shattered memories, broken connections and the loss of youth and many lives not yet lived. 

My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.

We are all members of a global community, and happenings in one part of the world have implications on people everywhere. May we continue to learn about one another and develop increasing empathy and understanding.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts. I welcome you to leave comments below.

Safe travels on your Summer Journeys.

The post Summer Travelogue 2016 appeared first on Esther Perel.

I recommend parents begin talking to their children about sexuality and pleasure starting as young as 4 years old. Here are a list of books and web resources to hep you navigate “The Talk,” years before you actually have “The Talk.”

It’s NOT the Stork! by Robie Harris and Michael Emberly (4 yrs and up)
It’s So Amazing! by Robie Harris and Michael Emberly (7 yrs and up)
Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg (7 – 12)
Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child by Michael LaSala (for parents)
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health by Robie Harris and Michael Emberly (10 yrs and up)
I am Jazz by Jessica Hershel (4-8 yrs)
From Diapers to Dating: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy Children – From Infancy to Middle School by Debra Haffner
Your Daughter’s Bedroom: Insights for Raising Confident Women by Joyce McFadden (for mothers)
www.greatconversations.com

The post Recommended Resources: Talking to Your Young Children About Sex appeared first on Esther Perel.

An hour-long conversation with NPR’s Invisibilia Podcast host Hannah Rosin, recorded July 2016 at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

We talk about:

– Why do happy couples cheat?

– The language of infidelity

– How modern marriage is evolving

– My definition of an affair

The post Aspen Ideas Festival: Infidelity and the Future of Relationships appeared first on Esther Perel.

New podcast interview with French fashion photographer, illustrator and writer, Garance Dore. We met at my home to discuss relationships and commitment – as two European women living and working in New York City.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Below is a taste of what we discuss (from garancedore.com):

On love in the 70’s…

I am the generation of the 70s. I am the first generation with the pill, and pre-AIDS! So we had 10 years of freedom that no other generation knew. So I understood contraception very well at a young age and for the first time there was a freedom that no one else experienced. One thing we did have was boyfriends, or what I like to call, sex with a plot! You know, there was a story! A story!! And you were enthralled by the story, not by the act. The story, the seduction, the flirtation, the poetry that we would write for each other, the serenades, the hours on the phone. That whole real intimate story was what we were involved in.

On the most common questions women have…

In relation to work, I would say that women’s major concerns have to do with asking for what they deserve. Period. Primarily around money, status, recognition, responsibility. If women still make 70% to the dollar, it is because they are afraid to ask: they don’t want to seem aggressive, or greedy, they want to be liked. That is still so entrenched. Number two, love. “Am I lovable, am I desirable? Would you cheat on me? Am I beautiful enough? Do you like another one more than me?”

On how insecurities change over time…

I relate to it, I’m not describing a different species. I’m very much a part of the whole thing. And you have the insecurities when you’re young, and you have the insecurities when you’re less young. As a conclusion I say, if I had the confidence of today with the looks of then! When I had the looks I felt very bad inside, and when I have lesser looks I actually feel quite good! Cause I have experience, maturity and I care a little bit less about – does everybody love me?

Listen to the full episode. 

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A heart-breaking day.

My thoughts are with the loved ones of the victims of the Orlando tragedy.

When 50 people die, thousands of people are affected. And not just in the generation of now. No. These events enter the legacy of every family, and every community affected. Being the child of two only survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, I speak from experience. I learned early on of the long lasting scars, shattered memories, broken connections, and in the case of the young people dancing in the club, such loss of youth and many lives not yet lived.

I am a mother of two young men, I know how much my husband and I have invested in time, sweat, heartache, money etc. in raising them. I fear sometimes just knowing they are driving or biking in NYC. I just finished preparing them for adult life, they are just coming out of childhood, now is their chance to build themselves and their lives.

The untimely death or devastation of the young men and women in Orlando is a grotesque robbery.

The past few weeks, I’ve been traveling around Europe, and hearing about Orlando from here has given me a different perspective on the attack. For one, no one here in Europe understands the lack of gun control in the US. It is probably one of the greatest differences between our European allies and us. Not that there have not been shootings and attacks here. Only a few days ago, I was lecturing in a security filled building of the newspaper Politiken who has been under permanent threat since the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten published the Muhammad cartoons.

As Andrew Solomon so eloquently put it, that the many victories of the LGBTQ community should not give the illusion that they are safe now.

Who is safe today? Is anyone? 

First I thought, not in Paris, not in Brussels — where the arrival hall where I used to witness crowds cheering the eagerly awaited return of one of their own, now chillingly empty. Now Orlando has been added to the blacklist. There is no guaranteed security anywhere for any of us. What a frightening realization.

More eloquent people will know how to respond better than me, but I had to say something, even if it feels trite and trite is all I can say when faced with the unspeakable.



So, I light my candle.  

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