From Lust to Lasting Commitment | Esther Perel EP 561

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11Today, when you say open relationships or non-monogamous relationships or periodically non-monogamous or monogamous, shall I dance, savage, or, you know, or polyamorous, people will say, can't work, impossible. The fact is monogamy is the new frontier. But you can have it as negotiated through divorce or through what most people have always done, which is proclaimed monogamy and clandestine adultery, or you can do it through a model of transparency in which people have consensual non-monogamy. This is it. This is the options. What do you think is going to be working the most for people? It's going to be a little bit of everything.

0:49There are some people who really need stable, committed, monogamous relationships. They don't want open doors. And there are other people for which open doors probably should be the model from the start. That's kind of who they are. That's their curiosity. That's the way they live their life. And it's not because they're less committed or less loving. It's because their sexuality is organized in a certain way and it lives together with a certain arrangement. And all of that is going to be redefined as we go along. You have to look at it from the place of before marriage. A Swedish philosopher said, today, monogamy only exists in reality.

1:31It doesn't exist in your memories and it doesn't exist in your fantasies. It's very simple that by definition we have multiple sex partners before marriage. We are not monogamous anymore in the traditional sense of the word. The word has been in flux and we don't really know where it's going. We don't. What we know is that people still seek to connect. People want to love. People want somebody who loves them. And how that will play itself out is the mysteries of life. But the fundamental human need for love, for connection, for passion, for transcendence will never change. The expressions, the forms, the institutions in which we will seek those fundamental human aspirations will continuously transform.

2:25That's really how I see the evolution taking place. What do you think of what I'm saying? Oh man, you know, it's confusing because you hear so many different options that work, that don't work. You see people that love each other that go through breakup and divorce. You see, and then you see the pain and the struggle and the emotional toll that it takes on some people. Then you see people who are in, you know, committed monogamous relationships who feel guilty because they want to be able to explore, but they can't because they've made this choice and they've committed to it? Monogamy is a practice.

2:59We are not, by nature, biologically evolutionary monogamous. It's a practice. It's a choice. It's not our makeup. No, and monogamy is a continuum. You have mind, you have fantasy, you have memory, you have a lot of things. At what point do we become non-monogamous? Where does non-monogamy start? And all of these concepts are fluid concepts today. There is just no way to define it like that. So we make our choices and we make compromises and we sometimes don't just do what we want. And we often need to think about the consequences of our actions. And we need to think about the larger picture and something that may be perfectly desirable for tonight may not be worth it for the next weeks.

3:50the next years exactly I think that in the era of self-fulfillment and the right to happiness we don't have more desires today than the previous generations we just feel more entitled to fulfill our desires and we feel that we have a right to be happy my personal happiness the switch the greatest switch is from a social organization in which I think about the well-being of others collectivist thinking thinks about the well-being of others and I sacrifice my own individual needs for the well-being of others to the other side of the continuum is I have a right to pursue my individual needs and the others will have to adapt to it and I think that we are a little bit on the extreme end of the other side at this point we really take ourselves a little very seriously and sometimes at the detriment of other people to whom we do have an obligation and a commitment too not just our partners of the world the world so where should we be somewhere in the middle you think or in an examined state i don't know that it's always in the middle but in an examined state in a state that doesn't just say what i like what i feel the fact that i have options doesn't mean i have to exercise all these options the problem of consumer life is that we don't know anymore to make choices same with the cereals in the supermarket why would it be better with love I could get better.

5:17I'm like, you know, I'm a victim of FOMO. You know, how do I know this is the best? No, you don't. Yeah. When do I find the best? No, you don't. You don't find your partner. You choose your partner. It's very different. You know, if you think you're going to find somebody who is the person who's going to make you stop looking, it doesn't work this way. Because at some point, your inner rumblings will start up again. And then you will say, oh, probably it's not. Start looking. you know it's like you just say this is it this is where i decide to put my my roots in this moment you know and i'm gonna and i'm gonna try to deepen them i think we are all living with paradoxes of choice yes you know from from which phone i get but we cannot commodify a partner and just kind of beta test the partner and beta test the relationship and check out to see is it good enough or can I find better help?

6:06The fact is you could find other. I'm not sure it would be better, but you definitely can find other. And there are lots of people you can love and there's only a few you can make a life with. And they're not always the same. How do you know when it's the person you can make a life with? I think values enter into there a lot more. I mean, you can have magnificent love stories with people you would never live with. Right. they're just too different from you they have not the same values as you one wants child one does not one wants to travel the other does not one wants career the other the very major different classes different different visions of the world but you can love them you can have a beautiful love story with that person and be transported in your experience with them but you know that that's not the person with whom you're going to build a home, a future, a trajectory, maybe a family if you want that.

7:07And for that, you need more of shared vision, shared mission, shared values, stuff that is not just in the domain of feelings, but also in the domain of beliefs, views about money, views about independence and separateness versus connection, views about emotional expressiveness, views about power. Wouldn't you say that those differences that we have also attract us to other people? That we have some of those differences, maybe we don't share the same values or beliefs, but it's also different, unique, interesting, and so it also brings us together, or do you think it's not enough? I think that what attracts you originally is often what becomes the source of conflict later.

7:51The very thing that is so attractive because it's different is also the very thing that becomes difficult because it's different of course it's a mix and match what makes thriving relationships is not only feelings it's a mix of feelings actions beliefs physicality it's a it's a more all-encompassing thing a beautiful love story can be just about feelings and you can love more people than those that you can make a life with. That doesn't mean you make a life with people you don't love, but it means that there is a whole other set of ingredients that enter into the making of a life, which is the creation of a world.

8:36It's a little different.

8:53Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

9:43Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.