Why Is Love Harder Now? with Esther Perel

28:18You are assessing the life story while you are hoping at the same time to feel the butterflies in your stomach. And that I think is what makes us actually more reasonable and less willing to just kind of, you know, drop everything and move around the world to meet somebody else who we met 24 hours, etc., etc. On the other end, it makes us then often experience much less crushes. Yeah. Why are crushes so hard? Did you have a crush on your husband when you guys first met? Or did he have a crush on you? Actually, no. We didn't start with a crush. We were very, very close friends for two years, which was the first time that I went the other way around.

29:00I had had many boyfriends who became very good friends. and are still today, I never had a good friend who became a boyfriend. I remember one time I had a crush on a friend and you gave me a tip of what to say. What did I say? You said you should ask him, have you ever been curious about us exploring more than a friendship? That's right. That's right. And he wasn't. And he was. And we did. And it didn't work out. But curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity takes you in both directions. But this thing, a crush is a love story or not even love story, but it's a plot of a certain kind. You know, a crush is a fantasy.

29:38A crush doesn't ground you in reality. It doesn't demand any accountability. It just demands being lifted up in a great story. You will have less crushes because you're looking for something else. And the challenge of the crush is not just a challenge of your 30s. It's hard to have crushes in your 40s and your 50s. But then I think it becomes easier for people. I used to volunteer at a nursing home and I used to see people in their 60s and 70s have crushes on each other like teenagers. So this is also another part of our mystery to solve. Like, why is it harder to fall in love as you get older?

30:11I think there's almost a kind of inverted V shape. A crush is a mini plot. And so does that happen again in your 60s, 70s, 80s? When you're free again. Yeah, when you're free again. You're free again. You're not busy. that project of family making that with the intense years of in between, for those who want to that, it's not for everyone that wants it, takes you on a different track. Yes. And that's why you have less crushes. We talked about dating in the 80s. What do you think about dating in your 80s? Do you have any thoughts on that? I think it's a wonderful thing. I mean, for so long in history, the trajectory was fairly linear.

30:53And if at 25 or 22 or 18, whatever the culture you were in, you did not marry, you were in the category of spinster or bachelor. You know, maybe when there was a widow, you could be inserted into the trajectory that you hadn't been on. what we have today because of longevity because of divorce because many of us will have two or three marriages or adult committed relationships in our lives you can start for the first time at 60 you can start having maybe you didn't have your own children but you have grandchildren maybe you didn't i mean this has provided a level of um generativity right that i think is really new in the history and quite special yeah and there's viagra so what which is also an option that also continues your sexual sexual life yes yes that's if you define sexuality by whatever happens to your penis yes but there's more to sex than that especially in your 80s yes or 60s for that matter.

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32:36Your parents are Holocaust survivalists. Yeah. And you talk a lot about aliveness in your work, this idea of eroticism you don't just see as sex and what happens to a penis or whatever it is. You see it as aliveness, the opposite of death. And you talk about how people really fell into two groups around this time of the Holocaust. There are those who didn't die and those who came back to life. But I think it's true that I first observed that in the community that I grew up, which was a community of only survivors of the Holocaust. And my parents were the only two people of their entire family that survived.

33:17But I think that this applies to many communities. This applies to many different types of trauma. This being the distinction between not being dead and being alive. For whom does adversity become a source of a drive, of an erotic charge, of a quest for aliveness and vibrancy and vitality? And for whom does it actually shut them down? That's the mystery question. And that, I think, is also related to, I mean, I'm not drawing an analogy here, but I do think that the, I wondered if you think that the same is true of love, where some people stop risking falling in love, being in love, and some people are continuously willing to put themselves back, bring themselves back into that sense of aliveness.

34:07Because the older you get, the more relationship experience you have, the more hurt you have also, perhaps. Yes, but I think as a whole, love is vulnerable. Sex is vulnerable. We live in an era where we may have had more safety than many generations before, but we are obsessed with safety. And we are constantly calibrating our risk-taking. We also have a ton of predictive technologies that are helping us being less and less risky because they give us many answers. So we are less practiced in the risks of connection, of conflict, of disagreement. You know, that's different from the, so there's two parts.

34:54There is not dead versus alive. There is what does it mean to create aliveness, to have an antidote to death or to deadness in relationships? and what do we learn through trauma from many, many communities that helps us and informs us in terms of how people, everybody knows how people cope. Everybody knows the difference between a relationship that isn't dead and a relationship that is alive. That's concrete. When I say that sentence, people instantly can catalog the relationships they grew up with or have around them. The second part is risk versus safety. Right. And are we more fearful today of relationships?

35:35Are we more fearful to take the risks of throwing ourselves into something, of making the changes? And there seems to be an answer that says yes. Even the question of the tried wife thing comes right back to this. There is so much change and so much movement around us that people are grasping for more certainty, more security, more predictability, more structure. Does that mean we're all anxiously attached? No, I don't think it has to do with anxious attachment. I think it has to do with how do people cope with the uncertainty of society, especially when the institutions that used to help us deal with uncertainty, of which religion and community were the primary places where we went to deal with that, have weakened so much.

36:32So the burdens of the self have never been heavier. It's all on me to figure this thing out. I don't go on a regular basis and hear someone, you know, impart to me, what shall I do with the ununderstandable and the unintelligible? What shall I do with why bad things happen to good people? And what shall I do with the question of evil? Right. I feel like, you know, I want to put a bit of a wrapper on this unsolvable question of why is it harder to fall in love as you get older? Because I think I'm learning it's partly biological, maybe. It's not biological, It's existential. It's existential. Yeah, it's partly.

37:09If you are looking for a partner, you are scanning for different things than when you are looking to be transported. Right. And a crush is a transport. Yes. And falling in love and passion. It's all it's to say. It's all a transport. And partly, so it's partly like, yeah, a search filter. That is a different reality. It's partly an openness, a carefreeness, a liberation that you're talking about. and I think there might be something uniquely terrible about being in your 30s in the 2020s compared to also the biological club is crucial I just did an episode on the podcast that just really went viral it was you know I waited for you to be ready now I'm 40 and childless she's got the embryos frozen she's got the eggs frozen but he doesn't want to use them anymore they separate and here she is.

37:59And what does she think? I gave my 30s to this man, whose name I may not even remember one day, but who will have left consequences on my life that I cannot begin to fathom. I know. And you have said to me that if you really want to be a mother, you should have a child by yourself. Or not by yourself. You've always said it's not by yourself because you have community. Correct. Either with community or with a person who wants to have a child but doesn't necessarily want to be platonic co-parenting. I think, I don't know which is the answer, but I do know that to just sit and say, this is my only track.

38:38This is the way that a woman can have a child. She needs to find a partner, these steps, that we need to be a little bit more creative. And I don't think they are perfect solutions, but the rest is imperfect too. Do you want to give that much power to someone who isn't even there for not having had children when children is what you want? It's that. It's like it's a giving, it's a surrender of a sense of agency that I think is so sad. For the women who want the children, I don't think it's a must. But I wouldn't give that over to anybody. that's the it comes from a place of it's a real emancipatory statement when i say this yes it is i mean the whole order of operations the linear way in which we think about things yeah keeps you hostage potentially if you don't want to take and that connects to part of your question about is it harder to fall in love i think one of the things that happens in your 30s if you look at you you know you developed your career you developed yourself financially you you've developed your community, you've built a whole life.

39:50You are looking for a capstone. Right. And this is not a bad word. You know, when I say capstone is for a recognition, for someone who appreciates who you are and all these things. I don't know if I'm actually looking for that. I think I've dated that. I think what I'm looking for is someone to be with in a dynamic life for an extended amount of time. But that would not require doing away with some of these very important things that are part of who you are today. Maybe. I kind of think, but sometimes I think like, oh. I'm ready to trash it all? Not trash it all, but I think that there's a million ways.

40:31Like, you know, I'm in my third career at this point. Like, I was a consultant. I did documentary filmmaking. I'm doing journalism, podcasting. I feel like there's a lot of self-reinvention that we can do as people, as women in particular. I feel like we're extremely capable, extremely flexible, and we're kind of put through the world in a way that makes us that. It doesn't mean that I want to give it all up, but I think that I have a... You're malleable. I'm malleable. Okay. And I think that what's really interesting is I think that I'm malleable, but because of how I appear, it's hard for people to read me as malleable.

41:09And that has been a classic challenge in my dating life where I would not, you know, because you appear as a peer as someone who is a lot going on. Yeah. I set exactly. And, and therefore are you flexible? And the reality is I might tell myself I'm more flexible than I am. That's what the Canadian ex-boyfriend who you met had said to me. I think you think you're more flexible than you are. So that's part of why one falls less in love as well, or not finds less love. is that less frequently less frequently because I do think when you're young you're more malleable we are more malleable we are much more willing to be shaped by the people that we are meeting we're much more impressionable we're not yet that formed at your at your end of the 30s you are quite formed yeah and it's also about this caretaking it's about vulnerability I think the question you said love is vulnerable sex is vulnerable and you are vulnerable as a young person and you are vulnerable as an old person.

42:09But in your middle ages, you're not actually that vulnerable, even though you feel deadly vulnerable inside. You're constantly in self-doubt, right? I think that there's no more time that you're like, you're coming across this professional existentialism. You have to achieve something in your relationship life. Your parents maybe are aging and getting sick or you have a biological imperative to have a kid. You feel so vulnerable. but as a society we don't treat that as a vulnerable class that is correct there's something true in that is correct yeah and and part of being in love is letting someone take care especially if you are financially independent as well yeah because that was one of the most reliable ways that women knew why to turn to men for yeah yeah well maybe there's a bit more of that coming back hang tight for a second we'll be right back i want to switch gears a bit to this whole idea of therapy.

43:04So I asked this question to Ellen Vore and I'll ask it to you. If I'm paying my therapist for 10 years, is the therapy not working? No, not necessarily. But it's not the same therapy as you had when it was one year or five years. We use one word to describe a lot of different things. What if it's couples therapy? If we're paying a couples therapist for 10 years, is the therapy not working? I would put it like this if you're paying the couples therapist if you're paying the same couples therapist for 10 years then maybe you should consider another one or the therapist should consider recommending you someone else I think that what happens with long-term therapy it becomes a very different therapy just to be really clear you may arrive because you're in crisis because there's a you're stuck there's a and then you continue and it becomes a little bit more coaching, a little bit more, you know, accompanying you to the life and to the life stages.

44:03And it becomes a place where you go to think, to reflect, you know, to make decisions and things like that. I do think that when you work with a therapist, especially a couple therapist for a long time, that they have a certain view of you. And I often will recommend And to the couples I see long before 10 years for that matter, to go and talk to someone else. It's kind of like what we're saying about love. You have a set view. You're not malleable. You don't have the malleability to treat them. I need you to get the perspective of someone else. And I need you to get someone else who enters your story differently from me.

44:40Because I'm only one person doing certain things. And I find that very, very energizing. I love it. Like liberating the couple to go pursue that other thing. And liberating yourself from that narrative of their marriage. And you're always probably curious to find out what they learn. I'm sure you're like, come back and tell me or no? Yes. Yes. I mean, I have had couples on the podcast who ask for the transcript and bring the transcript of their session to their therapist. I love that. I have many times therapists who accompany the couple to come to me for a consultation. And sometimes I accompany them for a consultation.

45:18I bring in colleagues. I think Zoom has facilitated that tremendously that you can say, you've worked with this issue more than me. Would you be willing to do a session or two with me with this couple? Remarkable. It's great. So you recently did an episode of your podcast where you said, Esther says run. You gave this woman advice. It was a pretty terrible relationship. Everyone was listening to it kind of new. The guy was married. There was a lot going on. But I just want to get a kind of quicker answer from you on, should therapists do more of that? Should therapists give their opinion more often?

45:55This is a question people ask. But therapists give their opinions all the time, whether directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly. Let's be clear. I don't think neutrality is, I think neutrality is sometimes overrated. Let's put it like that. We do have opinions. We do have our own lenses. the question that is more typical is that is it the role of a therapist to tell you when the relationship should end and I think it's a very careful calibration okay I think that you can't be glib about this because you never live with the consequences of the decision only the patient does on the other end sometimes you say things and then the patient reacts against what you said and then they, you know, where they're going.

46:45So if they are in a chronic state of ambivalence to tell them and to take one stance, then they will have to respond to you. In this case, I didn't say in effect run, but I did tell her, did you see what's going on here? Do you get it? I just named the pieces. It took me 20 minutes. Yeah, there wasn't too much neutrality in that. I don't know if she liked it or not. I don't know if she found it helpful or not, you know. So what measures it? Is it the therapist's own sense of integrity? Or is it the effect that it actually has on the person or on the couple? By what do you measure the validity of this intervention?

47:28Right. So I want to do a lightning round with you about all things. So we'll do a bunch of quick questions. You've said couples fight about three things. They are. I think that I often say it's not what you fight about. it's what you're fighting for. And what most couples will fight for is power and control. Whose priorities matter most? Who makes the decision? Who follows who? Then they fight over care and closeness. This is based on the work of Howard Markman. It's not my original thinking. And care and closeness is, do you have my back? Can I trust you? Will you stand by me? Can I rely on you?

48:08And the third one is respect and recognition. Do you value me? Do I matter? And underneath many of the arguments, when you ask yourself, what are they really fighting for? You will, there are six of them, but these are the three main ones. If there was a fourth one? Do you want me? Desire. And that's where sex comes in. And that's where sex, yes. And erotic intimacy and all of that. Yeah, I would, because I think that people, because people can be deeply loved and sexually famished. Do you think there is a fight that you have more often in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s? No, I think most couples have a favorite fight and it pretty much gets determined on their second date.

48:55Okay, that's great. It's an old story. It's very quick. If you had an Amazon Echo Esther button, I think this would be your absolute nightmare. but you could listen for three words that come up in people's homes or relationships and then press a buzzer to force them out of it. What would the three words be that you listen for? What the hell's wrong with you? Okay. That's a sentence. You suck. That's kind of the contempt, right? You're worthless. You're worthless. That's a better, that's a good one. What do people actually say in their homes? They say you're worthless. They say that? They say you're worthless.

49:37They say you suck. They say all kinds of very mean things. You would be surprised. I feel very grateful for my former relationships now because I would be surprised. You're asking me about negative things. I'm giving you not just run-of-the-mill, you know, lukewarm. I'm giving you really hot things that they say you're worthless. They say you're, you know, you're ugly. They say you're a fat slob. They say you're a disgrace. They say you should be embarrassed of yourself. Contempt is the final killer of them all. It kind of everything gets subsumed. You can be angry without contempt, but contempt is really an attempt to just pierce through the other person.

50:23Do you think that talking about relationships makes relationships better? That's a very cultural question, first of all. There are plenty of cultures that don't advocate wearing your feelings on your sleeves. And don't think that talking about stuff necessarily helps. We live in a society that believes in that. You know, do I think everything must be said in a relationship? No, not necessarily. What about talking about the idea of a relationship? Like not even talking about the relationship, but just talking about the idea of relationships all over our society right now. There's never been more work and conversation.

50:55We talk about relationships as much as we do at this moment. And we do it in a very, you know, we live in a psychologized world. We've got therapy speak up the wazoo. But partly it's because we don't have, you know, we talk about relationships because we don't talk about God. We talk about relationships because we don't talk about our community. So our relationships, be it at work or at home, have become the bastion where we go for our deepest emotional and existential needs. So, of course, we're obsessed with relationships and we don't have enough of them. We don't have enough of them. You know, we don't have enough friendship.

51:33We don't have enough people we meet at work on a daily basis. Yeah, we're lonely. We're lonely. We're isolated, not just lonely. We're also isolated. Okay. Does talking about sex make the sex better? Yes. Okay. Depends how you talk about it. When should you do it? If you talk about this is terrible, then no, I don't want to talk. But if you say this would feel so wonderful, then maybe I do want to talk. Is it better to talk post-coital, pre-coital, or nowhere near the act of sex? All of the above. Oh. It's good depending on how you talk. If you're going to give instructions and be critical, don't do it in the middle.

52:08And don't do it where you just had bad sex. Wait. But if you're wanting to communicate something that pleases you, that you have a partner who is eager to know, then don't wait till tomorrow when you're in the middle of it. These don't have absolute answers. No, I know. That's why lightning rounds are so terrible. That's why I left it for the end, Esther, because I knew it would piss you off. I want to give you nuance and you're giving me do it depends what you say yes it depends what you say it's like if I do an exercise with somebody and and I say take the hand of the partner and just and not like this okay then don't talk ever neither before during or after but if you talk and you just say that feels really nice yeah you can tell it anytime you know what I would love what you're saying yeah exactly and there is a way to say that there's a way to say that it would be lovely if I fantasized about whatever it is.

53:01Now, there are plenty of people who will tell you, I've tried to speak this way and my partner can't hear it. My partner thinks that they know what they're doing. My partner instantly feels criticized. So it's not just how you say and what you say. It's also, is there someone who can actually hear it? And it takes all these pieces for something to work. Sex takes more than one piece or two, or what the case may be. Okay, fuck, marry, kill. Dating apps, dating in the workplace, or arranged marriages. You know the game, fuck, marry, kill. No, I don't. You don't? No. You know the game, fuck, marry, kill?

53:39No. So marry means you'd like to keep it around forever. Fuck means you'd like to flirt with it sometimes. And kill means you wish it doesn't happen anymore. So dating apps, dating in the workplace, arranged marriages. Arranged marriages depends on where I am in the world, but I certainly would want to make sure that they don't involve child brides. So that's a very conditional one. Dating apps, they need to change. They really need to help people get off the app. If they switch themselves off, we have a chance. and dating at work, yes, that is normally a place where you're likely to meet somebody as well.

54:23So it's not that you're marrying dating at work. Yes. Give me the answer. Marrying dating at work, you're fucking with dating apps and you're killing a race. If I have to put them in those categories, yes. Can you give it to me or you don't want to? Yes. No, I won't. Because I think that arranged marriages, you know, what do you think the dating app does? What do you think the algorithm does? It's arranging you. It's your grandmother on an app. going to be even more. What do you think AI is going to do to dating apps? So this idea that this is an arranged marriage and this is not, no, I don't want to do that.

54:55Okay. What surprises you more? How many people cheat or how many people don't? What surprises me more is who ends up cheating who was convinced that they never would. Do you think it surprises them? Yes. Yeah. Definitely surprises their partner. Yes, for sure. But it also surprises them. And cheat is not necessarily the word I would put in there. But I think that the vast majority of people that we see in affairs have often been exclusive and faithful for decades. And they one day cross a line that they themselves never thought they would cross. We think of the repeat offenders and the chronic philanderers, but that's not the majority.

55:32Do you think all breakups are mutual? No. Really? Oh, no. Because? Because people get rejected. People get dumped. I think sometimes all breakups are mutual because you feel like, I often feel even when I break up with someone, it's because I maybe voiced, communicated, didn't communicate, but had a desire that wasn't fulfilled. And then that person's not fulfilling that and that not working. They kind of told me what they thought too. I don't think all breakups are mutual. I think that in many breakups, you find a collusion of two people who kind of colluded together in making something impossible to continue.

56:13But the end itself, I don't think is mutual. I've seen people truly left and bereft and in the gutter and it wasn't what they wanted. If you had one tip, I know you always get asked, it's like one thing, orientation, a question, or one question you could ask your partner. That would change or reframe a conversation. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more. If people could not instantly react and just ask to continue, tell me more. Let me hear this thing. Let me actually enter your universe. I think that you never know fully where the other person is going to go. You think you do, but you don't.

57:02Tell me more. Tell me more. I'm asking you to tell me more. last one. Who's a couple that you really admire? I really admire you and Jack, by the way, I have to say, knowing a little bit and not just for the longevity of your marriage, but for the evolution maybe that you've described of it and the way that you host together, the way that you bring people together, the values you share and how that's reflected in your family and children. Thank you. Is that something that is, is there a couple that you look at that you really admire? I have a number of couples that I think just have a good thing going.

57:33Give me one. You don't have to name them even. You can just describe. It's people who actually have a lot of compersion for each other. They really appreciate the good thing that's happening to the other person. They rejoice for them, even when it has nothing to do with them. That's what compersion means. Yes. Celebration of the other. Yes. I think they have tremendous respect for the individuality and the freedom of the other person. Yeah. that's thing that i noticed they had the word you used is actually really good they admire their partner they're not just respect because admiration involves an idealization you look up to people you admire and when people admires their partner after 10 15 30 years they have a good thing going you don't want to give me one like michelle and barack or something no no i would be one couple of friends You know, I tried to write a paper about this because we talk about solid couples, lasting couples, but we rarely talk about creative couples like the couple that have that thing, that spark.

58:35And I wanted to understand what is that spark? And the interesting part of your question, and we can end with that, is that the majority of people that I interviewed, I interviewed about 80 people for this, could sometimes think of one couple, maybe two, mostly none. Everybody could give me authors, artists, politicians, philosophers, sports people that they admired and inspired them. But they couldn't come up with a couple, a romantic couple that inspired them. And I thought that was quite an answer. I have so many and yet I'm still single. The last question, and this is where we'll end. I end every episode asking my guests, what are they curious about?

59:16What's a question that you've had that you haven't asked out loud that you have in the back of your head that we might be able to answer for you? On a simple level, a question that I often have is why is it that when I come out of my building, I don't know where is the north and where is the south? And what is the brain of people who never get lost? Yes. I'm also terrible. We're always lost and I have no sense of navigation. What makes someone always know where they are? It's something, it's interesting because I have a theory that people are better in bed, men are better in bed when they have a good sense of navigation.

59:49Oh, that's an interesting thing. And they're good drivers, especially, you know, I really can judge by a man's parallel parking ability. You know, that's what I'm looking for. On a deeper level. Yes. The one that baffles me, that leaves me constantly intrigued is the one we discussed before, which is why is it that the same circumstances become the bolstering and the drive and the strength of one person and become the thing that breaks the next one? And sometimes in the same family, I find that an endlessly unanswerable question. even everybody has aunts but like what why is it that the same circumstances make one yeah and undermine the other we're the variable i guess yes what's the thing that made you know i love that all right esther i would ask you to tell me more but you got to go out of here thank you so much more off camera we'll talk off camera then maybe you'll tell me which one you would fuck mara kill i don't know that game i have to kind of figure this one out the very fun game esther thank you so much for doing this.

1:00:58For people watching or listening, you can find Esther, Esther Perel, official on Instagram. You can find her all over social media. You can listen to her great podcast, Where Should We Begin? You can play her card game, Where Should We Begin? And you can also read her books. Mating in Captivity is my personal favorite. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this. And also thank you for being such a good friend. You really, really encouraged me to do this. And I'm so happy that you're here. It's a full circle moment for me. I like the fact that you're saying it because often we don't know what is the relationship between hosts and their guests and because I think sometimes we don't necessarily hear enough how people support each other in their work and especially how women support each other in their work yeah so I like it very much

1:01:47you know I know Esther Perel would not play fuck marry kill but I would marry marry marry Mary, Esther Perel. I just love speaking to her. I learn something every time. And this conversation, it's funny. Esther is someone who doesn't want to be pinned down. So I knew I couldn't ask her my like kind of signature lightning round dumb questions. But I thought we had a really thoughtful conversation about that inverted V shape of like the difficulty of falling in love, or I guess the V shape of the ease of falling in love and how that changes over time. I loved what she said about being carefree and also the kind of historic context of post-pill pre-AIDS, which I had never thought about as a moment in time.

1:02:27And I think the other thing I left thinking is like, it's okay if it's hard to date after your 20s because like it's going to be great again in your 80s. So like I just can't wait till the year 2060 something so I can experience that. That's it for this episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions. By the way, I want to hear your questions, so email me at naeemaraza101 at gmail.com or leave us a comment or review below. And be sure to share this show with your dad, your next door neighbor, your 10 closest friends, that kid from middle school who really likes podcasts. They can find Smart Girl Dumb Questions on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you and they hang out.

1:03:02Today's show was produced with Greg Ott and Annalisa Cochran alongside an awesome team at Rapid Grin Productions and Wonder Studios. Our theme music is by David Kahn, and I'm your host, Naeemaraza. See you next week on smart girl, dumb questions.

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