Esther Perel's Blog, page 7

A dilemma we all grapple with to one degree or another is telling a potential partner about our past. Will you still accept me, love me and find me desirable if you know me? This can be something as serious as cancer, or it can be parents who went to jail. STDs, Gambling. A history of sexual or physical abuse. A parent who committed suicide. Even something that’s not necessarily negative, like a fetish. The list goes on. Let me focus on men for a change.. How men carry secrets is so rarely addressed. These secrets carry shame, fear and the worry of not feeling worthy: worthy of being fathers, worthy of being touched and loved. Men don’t get permission to talk about it. So we need to figure out how to establish trust and reveal information about ourselves. Everything will depend on how you feel about who you are and how comfortable you are with the secret. Remember, it’s different if you’re explaining something from a place of victimization or heroism. If you emphasize how you overcame a situation, how you grew from it, how it became a resource in your life, then you turn shame into strength. This type of revelation differs if the information directly affects the other person. It’s much different to tell a person you have an STD versus telling them your father was in prison. One will affect your partner more than the other. The first date probably isn’t when to have the conversation. If you disclose the information too soon, you’re likely to be judged and a potential partner may not want to deal with the complications that your history might bring. If you wait too long to disclose, you risk your partner feeling that you’re not being honest, that you’ve withheld important information. You need to use your gut to know when a potential partner has a sense of what you have to offer in relationship before it feels like you’ve been withholding. Consider the other person: How mature are they? How will they take news that takes away the easy ride of the romantic story? Start by asking your partner questions: How do you decide when and what you share? Have you ever said anything you regretted? Do you wish, at times, you had been more forthcoming? This will lead into the conversation, a way of entering into the arena. You’re touching the walls, seeing where they’re hollow, and finding entry points that are more inviting. You’ll sense very quickly if this secret frightens them, or if they remain curious and open. Be patient: they may pull away initially, but become less reticent later. Don’t immediately react or regret opening your mouth. Accept that some people will find this grounds for not wanting to continue. That’s a blessing in disguise. If they tell you that upfront, you don’t have to spend time wondering and living in ambiguity. And while you are wondering how you will be sharing, realize they probably have something to tell you, too. When we are invested in our own dark side, we don’t always realize that others have a dark side, too.

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My patient  Rachel,  29  tells me: ‘I’m single and I love sex. I love the skin-on-skin contact, and also the orgasms. But it’s not helping me find a boyfriend. I sleep with men on the first date, but then I find they don’t want to see me again.’

Rachel has been single for six years. ‘I’m a lusty woman in my twenties, and I want to have sex. What’s wrong with that? But I feel judged by men when they don’t contact me again.’

It doesn’t sound to me that the men necessarily judge Rachel, but perhaps the men were just interested in sex and not a relationship. That said, when we invite people for dinner, we enjoy receiving a thank-you note that acknowledges the pleasure of being together. So I certainly understand Rachel’s disappointment, and her feeling of being dismissed afterwards.

Unfortunately, in our culture we can easily feel disposed of, replaced and insignificant. Too often people lack the kindness and grace that should accompany a sexual encounter, even if it is a recreational one.  So many women (and men) wonder the next day if the pleasure of the encounter was even mutual.

I wish I could say, ‘What’s wrong with being a lustful woman?’ Feminism has brought women more equality, more dignity, and more power. But still, the playing field is not equal. Many women hope that if they offer themselves sexually, love will flourish. I wonder sometimes to what extent the scarcity of sex in the past forced men to be more patient; to romance, to put more emphasis on seduction and foreplay. And I don’t mean the five minutes before the “real thing”, i.e. penetration  – I mean the entire pleasure dance.

I tell Rachel that if she does not feel 100 percent OK after an encounter, then these sexual trysts may not be for her. If it’s truly pleasurable (and I’m all for enjoying sex and exploring your sexuality), then she should feel good about having these experiences.

I also hear she wants a relationship and she has noticed a pattern. When she has sex the first night, it doesn’t turn into a relationship. To me, if something isn’t working, it makes sense to try a new approach. So if she holds off, she will own the situation. I’m not saying Rachel needs to play hard to get; I’m saying that if a guy is interested in a relationship with her, he’d have the patience to wait for sex (how long depends on Rachel and that guy).

Like Rachel, many women need to start by getting to know the guy, see if they like him, if they enjoy his company. That is quite different from gauging if you are attracted to someone or making sure that he is attracted to you. Discovering your similarity of interests and values, the sense that he is interested in you, the person and not as a means to an end  – all of these are better predictors of qualities that lead to having a relationship.

If Rachel is sexually frustrated after one of these nights of meeting up with a man and getting to know him, I’m sure she knows how to pleasure herself! Maybe think of it as teasing herself until she can have him. Soon, but not now.

It’s just a matter of trying out a different approach – the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

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My patient  Rachel,  29  tells me: ‘I’m single and I love sex. I love the skin-on-skin contact, and also the orgasms. But it’s not helping me find a boyfriend. I sleep with men on the first date, but then I find they don’t want to see me again.’

Rachel has been single for six years. ‘I’m a lusty woman in my twenties, and I want to have sex. What’s wrong with that? But I feel judged by men when they don’t contact me again.’

It doesn’t sound to me that the men necessarily judge Rachel, but perhaps the men were just interested in sex and not a relationship. That said, when we invite people for dinner, we enjoy receiving a thank-you note that acknowledges the pleasure of being together. So I certainly understand Rachel’s disappointment, and her feeling of being dismissed afterwards.

Unfortunately, in our culture we can easily feel disposed of, replaced and insignificant. Too often people lack the kindness and grace that should accompany a sexual encounter, even if it is a recreational one.  So many women (and men) wonder the next day if the pleasure of the encounter was even mutual.

I wish I could say, ‘What’s wrong with being a lustful woman?’ Feminism has brought women more equality, more dignity, and more power. But still, the playing field is not equal. Many women hope that if they offer themselves sexually, love will flourish. I wonder sometimes to what extent the scarcity of sex in the past forced men to be more patient; to romance, to put more emphasis on seduction and foreplay. And I don’t mean the five minutes before the “real thing”, i.e. penetration  – I mean the entire pleasure dance.

I tell Rachel that if she does not feel 100 percent OK after an encounter, then these sexual trysts may not be for her. If it’s truly pleasurable (and I’m all for enjoying sex and exploring your sexuality), then she should feel good about having these experiences.

I also hear she wants a relationship and she has noticed a pattern. When she has sex the first night, it doesn’t turn into a relationship. To me, if something isn’t working, it makes sense to try a new approach. So if she holds off, she will own the situation. I’m not saying Rachel needs to play hard to get; I’m saying that if a guy is interested in a relationship with her, he’d have the patience to wait for sex (how long depends on Rachel and that guy).

Like Rachel, many women need to start by getting to know the guy, see if they like him, if they enjoy his company. That is quite different from gauging if you are attracted to someone or making sure that he is attracted to you. Discovering your similarity of interests and values, the sense that he is interested in you, the person and not as a means to an end  – all of these are better predictors of qualities that lead to having a relationship.

If Rachel is sexually frustrated after one of these nights of meeting up with a man and getting to know him, I’m sure she knows how to pleasure herself! Maybe think of it as teasing herself until she can have him. Soon, but not now.

It’s just a matter of trying out a different approach – the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

The post We Just Met: I Like You. How Do I Tell You About My Dark Secrets? appeared first on Esther Perel.

In February 2015, I spoke about a challenging topic on the TED Talks stage in Vancouver.

Infidelity is the ultimate betrayal. But does it have to be? In this talk, I examine why people cheat, and unpack 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 Rethinking Infidelity…A Talk For Anyone Who Has Ever Loved appeared first on Esther Perel.

America, in matters of sex as in much else, seems to be a goal-oriented society that prefers explicit meanings, candor, and “plain speech” to ambiguity and allusion. In America, this predilection for clarity and unvarnished directness, often associated with honesty and openness, is encouraged by many therapists in their clients: “If you want to make love to your wife/ husband, why don’t you say it clearly? And tell him/her exactly what you want.”

But I often suggest an alternative with my clients: “There’s so much direct talk already in the everyday conversations couples have with each other,” I tell them. “If you want to create more passion in your relationship, why don’t you play a little more with the natural ambiguity of gesture and words, and the rich nuances inherent in communication.”

Ironically, some of America’s best features—the belief in democracy, equality, consensus-building, compromise, fairness, and mutual tolerance—can, when carried too punctiliously into the bedroom, result in very boring sex. Sexual desire doesn’t play by the same rules of good citizenship that maintain peace and contentment in the social relations between partners. Sexual excitement is politically incorrect, often thriving on power plays, role reversals, unfair advantages, imperious demands, seductive manipulations, and subtle cruelties. American couples therapists, shaped by the legacy of egalitarian ideals, often find themselves challenged by these contradictions.

What I’d characterize as a European emphasis on complementarity—the appeal of difference—rather than strict gender equality has, it seems to me, made women on the other side of the Atlantic feel less conflict between being smart and being sexy. In Europe, to sexualize a woman doesn’t mean to denigrate her intelligence or competence or authority. Women, therefore, can enjoy expressing their sexuality and being objects of desire, and enjoy their sexual power, without feeling they’re forfeiting their right to be taken seriously as professionals and workers.

Of course, American feminists achieved momentous improvements in all aspects of women’s lives. Yet without denigrating those historically significant achievements, I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic desire, for men and women alike.

So many of the couples who come to therapy imagine that they know everything there is to know about their mate. In large part, I see my job as trying to highlight for them how little they’ve seen, urging them to recover their curiosity and catch a glimpse behind the walls that encircle the other. Eroticism is the fuel for that curiosity, the experience of desire transfigured by the imagination.

As Mexican essayist Octavio Paz has written, eroticism is “the poetry of the body, the testimony of the senses. Like a poem, it is not linear, it meanders and twists back on itself, shows us what we do not see with our eyes, but in the eyes of our spirit. Eroticism reveals to us another world, inside this world. The senses become servants of the imagination, and let us see the invisible and hear the inaudible.”

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Common assumptions about male sexuality posit that:

1. Men are creatures of biology and women are creatures of meaning.

2. Male  Sexuality is more frequent, more stable, and their preferences are fixed  more early in life.

3.  Men’s arousal templates are  more rigid,  more narrow,  biologically driven, concordant with their physical arousal

4. Male sexuality  is less affected by mood and  internal states

5. And finally ,  it’s less related.

It is not because women’s sexuality is more subjective rising on a lattice of emotions, and more contextual and interpersonal, that men’s sexuality is devoid of it at all. In other words, as my colleague Marta meana puts it:  It is not because women care more about something that men do not care at all.

This notions that sexual desire in men is uncomplicated,  a simple biological force that is either indiscriminately seeking an outlet or impaired by hormonal deficiency, and that men’s mood does not affect them, are oversimplifications, and not true. In fact, we know that depression and anxiety are also strong factors influencing male sexual desire; 42% of men respond to depression, 28% to anxiety. But what is different maybe is that men will turn to sex, to regulate their mood.  The same experience of anxiety in men will lead them to sex  and  masturbation whereas  women  more likely will  shut down.

How can we say that male sexuality is not relational, when we know that what turns men on more than anything is  to see their partner turned on. A partner’s desire- male or female,  the pleasure and their contribution to the pleasure of their partner is essential to them – so it’s extremely related.

Male sexuality if often affected by shame. Societies all along made sex look dirty, and men as predatory, dangerous, and aggressive – so there is a lot of shame, and  lot of guilt: “I don’t want to hurt anybody”, and  finally there is the fear of rejection and fear of inadequacy for men around their sexuality.  If these are not relational components I don’t know what other way to look at male sexuality. Who is rejecting them: a partner, who makes them feel inadequate? A partner. Who makes them feel guilty or with whom they feel guilt? A partner. It is extremely relational and so I think that men are often more lonely than selfish in their experience of sexuality and that we often emphasize the selfishness of male sexuality and not loneliness. And we often emphasize the aggressive and violent part of male sexuality and not vulnerability. I invite you  to look at the sides of men that are less acknowledged, even by men themselves, as  they get obscured in favor of the common views,  that have truth to them but they don’t nearly capture the whole picture. Let us not see women as complex and men as simple.

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There’s a common stereotype in American culture that young men are promiscuous and only want casual sex, but a researcher of the topic suggests otherwise. Author and psychologist Andrew P. Smiler coined the term, “Casanova stereotype” in reference to this cultural belief perpetuated in Hollywood and homes across the country. Smiler’s research has actually shown that only a small fraction of the guys surveyed fit the characteristics of this “Casanova stereotype.” More often than not, men want a stable, satisfying, monogamous long-term relationship. Read more on the topic in this article on inquisitr.com.

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The following is an excerpt from the teleclass I did with Ellyn Bader:

What do we do when we know that one person told us something that the other person doesn’t know? What happens in our field primarily at this point is that infidelity is pretty much framed around the concept of betrayal with an experience of trauma, in which one person inflicts acute pain on their partner which has led a lot of people in our field with a sympathy for an injured party and often a lot of advice for what is mistakenly called: perpetrator, about how to show rearms, repaints and repairs. What it leaves out is the dilemmas about love and desire, to look at affairs not only as trauma experience but also as translating multiple dilemmas about modern love and modern coupledom, and maybe bringing a little bit more of existential perspective and also one that is more neutral, maybe more morally relative not just judgmental and also more cross-cultural. Rather than only on devastative wails that fire that follows the revelation of the affair but also to take into account, if we talk about infidelity, what does it mean to explore fidelity and how do we question the simple equation of faithfulness and sexual exclusiveness.

What I will say is that: if I don’t condemn it doesn’t mean I condone, and if I don’t condone it doesn’t mean I condemn. But as a general axis for me looking at infidelity, is at the same time looking at the experience of betrayal, and loss and hurt as well looking at it as an experience of growth and expansion. I think also it is important to say that what I present applies as much to heterosexual couples as it does to gay couple, same sex couples.

We tend to think in our field that affairs are always a symptom of a marriage that is going awry and is always pointing problems in a relationship: that if the relationship was all right there would be no need to go elsewhere. What it says to take into account is maybe that instead of looking at marriage as a perfect arrangement that people fail to succeed at, that maybe our expectations we bring today to modern coupledom, creates a situation where infidelity may become more rampant, partly because of opportunities, greater egalitarianism in the West and so forth but wanting to at the same time experience all the security a committed relationship can afford us as well as sense of aliveness and vibrancy, and adventure that we all seek in life may not be so easy to everybody to reconcile. Most adults are often quite content in their relationship, they don’t really want to lose their couple or their family, they want to experience something that may be missing but more internally even before there is a problem in the couple. It’s not always that we seek another person, we often seek to find another self and it is not always our partner that we want to leave but who we have become. That’s where the experience of growth and expansion takes place.

That’s where people will often end in this place and will feel tremendously guilty and remorseful for the pain that they caused their partner without necessarily feeling guilty for the unique experience that they may have had. Some affairs have noting to do with the partner, in fact many times I think that I see people transgress and that would never thought possible for themselves at the follow up of experience of loss, loss of a friend, loss of a parent, bad news at the doctor, loss that basically says: life is short and people the say: is this it? Will I ever experience level of intensity, of connection, of immediacy, of aliveness again? That makes them do act of exuberant defiance. Sometimes an affair is a way out of an oppressive relationship but sometimes an affair is not just an exit but also an opportunity to recommit and to realize that what one really values what one has. Sometimes an affair is a venue for autonomy in which people who have harder time staying connected to themselves, maintaining a sense of freedom in their relationship, feel that it is only when they go outside that they can re-experience that, when they have an affair and it is secret you know you are not doing it to please anybody else.

There are differences in male and female infidelity, which we may not be able to get into some of these nuances. Some affairs are a real quest for emotional connection, and expression of loss of intimacy and some of them are expression of lifelong sexual frustrations at the end of the partner who have been neglectful or complacent but basically betrayals may have occur long before of the particular transgression of the affair, many people left the other long before a partner who is having affair is seen as the one who left their partner. So an affair takes place in a context of a longer relationship and in order for it to be understood and dealt with, first revelation, which I think is going to be much of the focus today, it needs to tell the story of the whole relationship, so it is understood maybe why it happened, why it happened now, what the person went looking for or is it the event that it just happened and were not expecting it, in the situation where they wanted to reconnect with lost parts of themselves or they discovered parts of themselves that they didn’t even know existed.

Were they thinking about their partner when all of it was going on? Were they torn by what they were doing? Were they wishing that it could stop? Did they want their partner to find out? Did they want to tell but they couldn’t tell? Did they want the partner not to know? Was the relationship enhanced during the period of the affair, much more sexually vibrant with a person that was much happier? Or was the relationship at an old time stand still and depleted, with much more irritability and impatience and absences and so forth. It is very contradictory to say sometimes or counterintuitive that some people have an affair not because they want to destroy their relationship but because they are actually trying to balance it, sustain it or to complement it. That is it meant for the good of the relationship not even for their personal good. It is difficult sometimes to think that during an affair the couple was doing much much better than once the affair was revealed. It did the betrayal about the connection that the person had with another or it did because of lying, which is often focus in the US not the one in Europe. And that you lied to me, and you had a secret from me, and part of the problem is the secret because if we were doing well it would be no need for you to keep a secret, particularly in a culture of love that really highlights and glorifies transparency, total truth, massive sharing, and very little privacy in fact. All these pieces are in one’s head and when we work with affairs do we work with affairs where we are ourselves drawn to what we are listening, do we sympathized with one partner more then with the other? Are we envious? Are we disgusted? Are we condemning them? Do we find it morally comprehensive? We have multiple reactions ourselves to what is happening in front of us and those also need to be continually monitored. Are we identifying because we self were betrayed? Are we selves that once had an affair? Are we from a family where a parent had life long affair and were we identified with the unfaithful or with a parent who felt hurt and rejected? All these histories are right there and our challenge is to find out what is the first thing we are going to hone into and how do we give hope to a couple that chooses to work it through, not to end it.

Does it have to necessarily end, is it a final blow to a relationship that was already dying or could it be a powerful alert system that will help a couple revitalize, redefine each other and my sentence that many couples will really connect to it is when I say: you know today many people will have two or three committed relationships or marriages in their lifetime, some of us will do it with the same person, maybe your first marriage is over, it was a good marriage it doesn’t mean it failed but one of you said there is a need fro more. Affairs are always a statement of rebellion that says someway I want more, with one person haven’t acted on it , with the other one not but this doesn’t mean both didn’t want more. And a part of it is to help person who was hurt or injured to also actually claim their desire for something else and not just their position of the person that was done to.

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Is fantasy always a specific set script? How can fantasy heal?

An Example of Fantasy as a Tool to Heal

Our fantasies allow us to negate and undo the limits put upon us by our conscience, by our culture, and by our self-image. If we feel insecure and unattractive, in our fantasies we are irresistible. If we anticipate a withholding woman, in fantasy she’s insatiable; if we fear our own aggression, in our internal reveries we can feel powerful without worrying we might hurt another.

If we don’t dare ask, in our erotic imaginings the other knows our needs even before we do; if we feel we shouldn’t have sex, in our private theater we can surrender to a lustful other without having to bear the responsibility—we did what he wanted, it wasn’t us.

Fantasy expresses the problem and provides the solution. It is a fervid space, where our inhibiting fear is transformed into brazenness. What a relief to find our shame now curiosity, our timidity now assertiveness, our helplessness now sovereignty. Fantasy does not, however, always take the form of elaborate, scripted scenarios.

Many people think that if they don’t fantasize with carefully orchestrated plots and well-drawn characters, then they’re not fantasizing at all. This is particularly true for women, who seem to have a harder time owning their sexual thoughts in general.

My patient Claudia once described to me in fulsome detail, how she would like her husband to approach her. She envisioned a slow, gradually unfolding dance of seduction throughout the day, with tantalizing conversations, light kisses on the nape, gentle touches, warm smiles and sidelong glances. “I want him to touch my arm without touching my breast. I want him to tease me, to move in a bit sexually and then pull back, to make me want. I want to ask him to touch my breast,” she explains. “And if he did these things?” I ask. “We would have an entirely different sexual relationship,” she answers. When I asked her about her fantasy life, she assures me, “I don’t fantasize. Jim does, but I don’t. He is all into threesomes.” I was stunned. I said, “Your entire description of foreplay and anticipation is fantasy. It’s certainly not reality, is it?”

To my thinking, sexual fantasy includes any mental activity that generates desire and intensifies enthusiasm. These thoughts need not be graphic, or even well-defined. They’re often inarticulate, more feeling than image, more sensuous than sexual. Virtually anything can work its way into one’s erotic imagination — memories, smells, sounds, words, specific times of the day, textures —all can be considered fantasy as long as they set in motion the arc of desire.

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Adultery has been legislated, debated, and politicized throughout history. Despite wide scale denunciation, people continue to brave enormous risks for that glimmer of passion. While statistics vary, surveys worldwide indicate that infidelity is on the rise for men and women alike. So how does one reconcile what is universally forbidden yet universally practiced? Without understating the destructive capabilities of affairs, I want to offer another view in the conversation on infidelity.

A first step towards understanding why affairs happen with such frequency and across cultures, and towards understanding those involved in affairs, is a move away from demonizing the act itself, both in our personal lives and, for those of us in the mental health professions, in our work. In addition, rather than treat every affair as indicative of a deeply flawed relationship, we can consider the possibility that in some couples, this may not be the case.

In America, infidelity is described in terms of perpetrators and victims, damages and cost. We are far more tolerant of divorce with all the dissolutions of the family structure than of transgression. Although our society has become more sexually open in many ways, when it comes to monogamy, even the most liberal minds can remain intransigent. When discussing infidelity, we use the language of moral condemnation. And it isn’t only the act that’s reprehensible; the actor, too, is judged by the strictest standards. Adultery becomes a moral failing as we move to a description of character flaws: liar, cheater, philanderer, womanizer, slut. In this view, understanding an act of infidelity as a simple transgression or meaningless fling, or a quest for aliveness is an impossibility.

An affair sometimes captures an existential conflict within us: We seek safety and predictability, qualities that propel us toward committed relationships, but we also thrive on novelty and diversity. Modern romance promises, among other things, that it’s possible to meet these two opposing sets of needs in one place. If the relationship is successful, in theory, there is no need to look for anything elsewhere. Therefore, if one strays, there must be something missing. I’m not convinced.

Religious prohibitions aside, the meanings and motives of infidelity transcend monolithic interpretations, yet we therapists overwhelmingly respond to affairs with an entrenched set of beliefs and practices. The majority view is that affairs can never help a marriage or be accommodated; they are always harmful. Whether disclosed or hidden, lasting a night or a lifetime, they are bound to shake the very foundation of a relationship. They are potentially irreversible and can demand an immediate call to the lawyer.

The current view is that infidelity depletes intimacy and is a breach of trust and commitment, both emotional and sexual, that can never be fully recouped. Even the psychological literature focuses almost exclusively on the ravages of infidelity. I’d like to offer a view that challenges this premise and encompasses both growth and betrayal at the nexus of affairs.

Though affairs often result in deep emotional crisis, deception and betrayal are not the prime motivation. I suggest we look at infidelity in terms of growth, autonomy, and the desire to reconnect with lost parts of ourselves. Perhaps affairs are also an expression of yearning and loss.

I believe that not all affairs point directly at flaws in the marriage. Affairs are motivated by a myriad of forces— tainted love, revenge, unfulfilled longings, and plain old lust. Yet, as it happens, plenty of adulterers are reasonably content in their relationships. While sometimes the result delivers a devaluation of a couple’s emotional stock, at other times individual growth brings about a new energy to the marriage. In other words, infidelity can be an economy of addition.

The lamentations I hear most include feelings of loneliness and emotional deprivation. There comes a point when one no longer can tolerate feeling devalued and taken for granted. Lack of attention and the sense of having become a function rather than a person can instigate a wish for escape. Sexual boredom and frustration, or plain sexlessness, can lead to what Steven Mitchell dubs “acts of exuberant defiance.”

Sometimes, we seek the gaze of another not because we reject our partner, but because we are tired of ourselves. It isn’t our partner we aim to leave, rather the person we’ve become. Even more than the quest for a new lover we want a new self.

The men and women I work with invest more in love and happiness than ever before, yet in a cruel twist of fate it is this very model of love and sex that’s behind the exponential rise of infidelity and divorce. We ask one person to give us what an entire community once provided —and we live twice as long. It’s a tall order for a party of two.

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