In short
Two college friends—who bonded through mutual support and a non-sexual “romantic” closeness—struggle to maintain the friendship after adulthood, especially once partners enter. The episode explores how resentment, mismatched expectations, and “triangulation” (friendship plus boyfriends) can erode closeness, and what concrete rituals or communication changes might rebuild it.
Guest backgrounds
Both women met in college in Canada while living on the same dorm floor and later sharing an apartment with a mutual friend. One moved to the U.S. from Buenos Aires at age six, grew up in suburban Connecticut, and speaks Spanish with family; the other grew up in suburban Philadelphia and studied in Montreal. They became each other’s “emergency contact” and caretakers.
Key claims
Crisis care and structure created their bond; later, silence, delayed conflict, and feeling “replaced” or “left out” emerged. Each interprets the other’s behavior through different needs: one wants frequent “small” check-ins before “big” asks; the other feels protective of the friendship and hurt when feelings are shared with others first.
Notable examples
One friend was attacked while walking home; the other woke up at 2 a.m. to help her calm down. Later, a major grievance centers on a 6 a.m. Springfield drive where the friend felt used and biked home after being dropped at a bus stop.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Story of a College Friendship
0:39 to 3:44
Exploration of a deep friendship between two girls during college and its evolution.
“In this following session, we discuss assault, and I want you to know this before you listen.”
Navigating Friendships Through Change
4:02 to 14:00
Discussion on the complexities and challenges of maintaining friendships post-college.
“How about I meet the people before I meet the problem?”
Reflections on Friendship and Caretaking
14:00 to 16:41
Explore the foundational aspects of friendship and support during crises.
“It triggered that like there's danger and I can't control it feeling for me.”
Reflections on Friendship and Caretaking
16:44 to 17:51
Explore the foundational aspects of friendship and support during crises.
“Quince specializes in effortless, high-quality essentials, like ultra-soft organic cotton and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters.”
Reflections on Friendship and Caretaking
17:55 to 18:11
Explore the foundational aspects of friendship and support during crises.
Navigating Post-College Friendship Dynamics
18:57 to 28:00
Discuss the evolution of friendship dynamics after college and the complexities involved.
“I think like part of what we would like joke about when we became friends, because we became like, after that night, Like we were up together every night, like talking, we were having dinner together.”
Navigating Friendship Expectations
28:00 to 33:09
Exploration of shifting expectations in a friendship amidst romantic relationships.
“Well, and I was like, Emily has, like, obligations and, you know, priorities.”
Navigating Friendship Expectations
33:39 to 35:07
Exploration of shifting expectations in a friendship amidst romantic relationships.
“New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy.”
Reflecting on Emotional Dynamics
35:52 to 42:00
Discussion on emotional dynamics and the complexities of friendship after romantic involvement.
“Well, there are two places that we could go.”
Understanding Feelings of Exclusion in Friendship
42:00 to 43:00
Exploring how discussions about personal experiences can lead to feelings of exclusion in friendships.
“You know, somebody once said, every person's autobiography is another person's betrayal.”
Show all 18 chapters
Navigating Expectations in Friendships
43:00 to 45:00
Discussing the expectations and responsibilities that come with maintaining friendships.
“And when you respond, if you allow me, you understand it, but then you were just about to justify it.”
The Impact of Unmet Needs
45:00 to 47:50
Examining how unmet needs and lack of communication can lead to resentment among friends.
“When I feel like I have like agency to say yes or no, which I don't often do, I often feel like I'm not good at saying no.”
A Grievance Revealed: The Springfield Trip
47:50 to 50:40
Sharing a specific example of a grievance that illustrates deeper issues in the friendship.
“I was like are you I was like is this a fucking joke?”
Addressing Emotional Distance and Accountability
50:40 to 55:40
Discussing the emotional distance in friendships and the importance of acknowledging feelings.
“but not to belabor wrongdoings and criticisms and all of this.”
Sustaining Friendships Beyond College
55:40 to 56:00
Reflecting on how friendships can evolve or dissolve over time, especially after college.
“Like, I don't want to reach out to you to borrow your car because I'm like, that's weird.”
Navigating College Friendships in Adulthood
56:00 to 57:56
Explore how college friendships can evolve or dissolve in adulthood.
“The only times I end up seeing you is when we need something from each other.”
Revitalizing Connections Through Storytelling
57:56 to 1:00:49
Learn how sharing stories can energize and renew friendships.
“really small, like regular things about you.”
Integrating Partners into Friendships
1:00:49 to 1:02:26
Discuss the importance of including partners in friendship dynamics.
“It's important to do, but it's not what keeps the friendship alive.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00You know, in college we'd show up somewhere and be like, this is my wife, like here's how we met, we're in love. And people would just assume we actually meant we were in love. And I think we kind of were at the time. But just not in a romantic, I mean, yes in a romantic way, not in a sexual way. No. None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed, but their voices and their stories are real.
0:39In this following session, we discuss assault, and I want you to know this before you listen.
0:52The Story of a Friendship Two girls from very different backgrounds become confidants. They experience a love story together, a platonic love story, but a love story nevertheless. And they become each other's besties for four years, the entire college duration. Being able to ask for help and receive help, I think, is really foundational to our relationship. And our friendship and the caretaking that happens between the two of us. They're there for each other. They're like the foundation for each of them to then go into the world and do their own explorations. And so then the question becomes, how does a friendship like that evolve after college?
1:43When their life changes, when partners enter into this story, or when they start to make choices that take them away from each other. And it becomes a friendship where the expectations doesn't match the reality anymore. It's true that we have been experiencing different realities of our friendship in the last year and maybe a little more. But I don't want to just fill in the empty space that you have. I want you to text me and say, hey, I haven't seen you. My boyfriend's out tonight. I would love to watch a movie. Do you want to come over? But I haven't wanted to do that. We used to be everything for each other.
2:25And now we barely talk. Is it that other people have replaced us? That we've basically completely grown apart? Was I really that important? I didn't always feel valued or fully respected. And because I don't say things in the moment, I will start to weave, you know, start to crochet a little narrative. and so are we here to mourn our relationship to say goodbye to each other to realize that we will have accompanied each other in a most important phase of our life one that we will never forget or do we have a chance to continue to be part of each other's lives and that is a question that many of us have had to confront
3:44We'll be right back. So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte or ready to mix it up with an iced pumpkin cream chai, the new iced pumpkin cream matcha, or the new iced pumpkin cream shaken espresso, you can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. Can I suggest something? Yeah. It'll be okay. How about I meet the people before I meet the problem? because often people come here because there's a situation, problem or not, but there's a situation they want to work through. And there's something about a problem that is constricting. You kind of narrow around the problem when in fact you're much broader and bigger than that as people and so is probably your relationship.
4:35And I would love to just meet you. meet you, hear about your origin story. I understood. Some things happened. It's not generally that complicated in friendship to think what are the things that can go wrong. Tell me about if I met you separately, as is likely sometimes to happen, and I sat on the plane next to you, and then I sit on the plane next to you. Who am I meeting? who, you know, tell me a bit. I moved to the United States when I was six. I was born in Buenos Aires. No accent? No accent, no. I was very young. I would say my brother, who is nine, has slightly more of an accent, but only if you know.
5:23My dad was a pilot for his whole career, so he was away a lot. And my mom was an architect before she had us and then stayed home with us, especially after we moved because my dad would be away and like we didn't have the whole sort of community that we had back in Buenos Aires yeah I think even though it was such a like small portion of my life that I lived there my parents are very much from there and all my family is from there like we don't have American family like we're all Argentine so I think it has played a significant like sort of cultural role say one more line about that um I was raised by like Argentine people, you know, like, but I am an American girl or like, that's how I see myself.
6:07And when you say that I'm raised by Argentine people and that means, or that looks like? Very sort of emotional, openly, at least in my experience of my Argentine people. Not much beating around the bush, like kind of just saying things directly. I think that they had a different level of sensitivity to certain issues than perhaps some American parents would have. Like my brother and I were diagnosed with anxiety much, much later in life, even though I think it was pretty prominent when we were kids. Not because my parents don't like believe in it. I think they just are like, I don't know. I think for a while they thought it was maybe a construction or like part of life.
6:53Yeah. Cause I look at them and my dad is one of the most anxious people I've ever met. How old are you? I'm 27. Both of you? Same age? Yeah. What of this Argentinian culture lives in you? Because you say they're the Argentinians and I'm the American girl. Yeah. Is that such a flat statement? No. No. I think that looking the way I look, which is white, brunette, blue eyes, you know, and my name doesn't really ring Hispanic in any way. I think sometimes it's important for me to know that I'm not just from Connecticut because then I feel very like reduced to whatever someone thinks about Connecticut.
7:38I speak Spanish with my family. That's my first language. And there's definitely a version of me that is Argentine, but I don't get to access her very much because I mostly spend my time here. Right. But you are also saying different parts of me come to the front in each language and in each country. Yeah. Okay. Definitely. Yeah. So grew up in suburban Connecticut, went to college in Canada and met Emily there. So you both were actually kind of what they call foreign students. Yes. Yeah. I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and both of my parents also grew up in that area. My dad and his brother and all my cousins all went to the same high school that I went to and it was a pretty competitive and highly ranked public school and I really poured myself into academics in part because I liked the ideas and the knowledge and the conversations and also because school is a comforting structure of progress and achievement and feedback.
9:04And because you were bored. And because I was bored. You didn't like living there. I didn't like living there. I didn't like living in the suburbs. Had friends, but certainly wasn't thriving socially. I knew that high school wasn't going to be my favorite part of life and really wanted to flee, to go elsewhere. You knew you were going to leave. Yeah. Wanted to go for college and study abroad. But my parents were like, please stay on this continent. So I went to Montreal, which was only an eight-hour drive from home. But it really satisfied my craving for being an international student, being around other international students, being in a city, living independently.
9:53Are you the first one of the generations to leave? Yeah, both of my parents went to college, but both stayed local. I think my leaving my hometown was feeding that urge and that desire for distance and change and diversity in a way that I did not have growing up in very wealthy white suburbs. And then in our freshman year dorm, on our floor, there were people from maybe seven or eight different countries. Yeah. British, French. Yeah. Canadian, American. Exactly. And I loved it. I felt...
10:45Stimulated. I felt stimulated. I felt challenged and stretched without being competitive. Is it because in high school you somewhat walked around with the idea of I'm not like you? I have other aspirations. I want more. I want to expand. I'm curious. Whereas when you arrive to college, you watch and see all these people from all these different parts of the world. And you say, my people. I am like you. You too are the seekers. You too are the travelers. You too wanted more. And therefore, there's less of a need to say I'm better, I'm different. I want something else than all of you. I want something else.
11:29Well, strangely, I wouldn't put myself in that bucket. I got to school and all that freedom that like you loved and craved, I was like so terrified and overwhelmed by. And I think that's like why we became. We had very different experiences in our first year. And so knew each other, technically lived on the same floor, but. Never really spoke. We became close because we both decided to live with our mutual friend. And the three of us then were going to look for an apartment. and the first time you and I ever hung out one-on-one was to tour apartments together. So it really wasn't until living together that we became friends and developed art.
12:07And like a little into living together. Yeah. I remember that first month being like, who is this girl? I was like, who is this girl? She doesn't like me and our third roommate is a nightmare and I have to move out. And like, what did I do? Yeah. And then? The night. Oh, the night. Yeah. Yeah. Emily had something happen while I was back home. I was sleeping and she was out with her friends and came home and woke me up and she was like weeping. She'd gotten really triggered by something that a friend had said and I got up out of bed. It was like probably two in the morning. And you had your first friendship interaction.
12:49Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting retelling this story. So the thing that happened is the summer after my first year, we had moved into our apartment and I was walking home one night after going out with friends. It was warm and about a block and a half from our apartment, a man had been following me and jumped me and started beating me. And I hadn't known he was following me and I didn't know who he was and I didn't really know what was happening. And some stranger happened to be walking by and sort of shooed him off and grabbed my hand. And we ran to my apartment and called the police.
13:31And, you know, part of the story is that this man happened to call the police on himself after it happened. He is on the spectrum and had been at a strip club or something and was upset that he never got women and so went out looking and I just happened to walk by. And so referring to this night, I had been out at a party and something about someone leaving felt like they shouldn't be walking home alone. It triggered that like there's danger and I can't control it feeling for me. and I came home and was really tearful and couldn't stop crying and knew I needed help and so woke you up and you were like, here's what we're going to do.
14:26You're going to smoke some weed. We're going to watch TV. We're going to hang out and then you're going to go to bed. And having someone take care of the situation, being able to ask for help and receive that kind of help, I think is really foundational to our relationship and our friendship and the caretaking that happens between the two of us. Very beautiful. And I'm thinking also about how, just before you talked about how much you value structure. And she basically offered you structure, clarity, and calmness. Yeah. Which is probably one of the most important things to do in a moment of crisis.
15:19Yeah.
15:24I understood immediately that this was a friendship on standby and that it wasn't clear if it was going to have a second wind or if it was going to continue to wither. But I also wanted to learn about the friendship first before I would listen about the friendship crisis. and I meet two women and they could have just been roommates but then there is, as they say, together in unison that night, the night that kind of sealed the friendship those of us who have met that person and who have had that experience, it's unique and it is a kind of a coup de foudre of falling in love instantly and they have a complementarity It's not just one taking care of the other.
16:17In fact, they each have their strengths. They each lift the other. They're the safe haven that you come home to in the evening and you go back out into the world.
16:38We'll be back with a session right after this. And while we love our sponsors, If you want to listen to this session ad-free, click the Try Free button to subscribe to Astaire's Office Hours on Apple Podcasts.
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18:56I wouldn't say that the caregiving is like all in one direction. I think like part of what we would like joke about when we became friends, because we became like, after that night, Like we were up together every night, like talking, we were having dinner together. We were watching shows together. We basically started dating, but not in a romantic, I mean, yes, in a romantic way, not in a sexual way. Like we never like slept together and that wasn't an element of our relationship. But very quickly we were like, all right, so you're like, and I think being in a different country was part of that, right?
19:30Like you are my person, like you're my emergency contact. You are my roommate. You are my built-in plus one date to whatever. You are my sounding board. But like both ways. And I think like I struggled with like some depression and feeling really lonely and isolated. And that manifested in like not going to school a lot, which I don't know if my parents know about that. But I often didn't go to school in my first year and really, really. Interesting. You just got closer to the mic as you started. Well, I'm addressing them. Oh, that one's for them. I learned a lot at school and it wasn't all in school.
20:07And that's what I'll say. Emily was someone who was structured, did her readings. Always went to class. Always went to class. Like knew how to get things done. And I was like, hey, come and learn how to smoke out of this bong. And I'm going to make you some cookies and we're going to watch TV. And I think that at the time that's like what we both needed. We needed someone else to help us with the thing we weren't so good at. Yeah. And then when you ended college, you stayed in touch? Well, this is sort of where the trouble begins because I begin to have a lot of feelings and can't figure out how to share them.
20:50And so then I like hold on to them. And I would say the end of college, we experienced very differently. And I was very angry with her. And I did not know. I had made other friends. Meaning that she continues to make you cookies and to roll the bung and to... Kind of. I mean, I was also busier. I mean, it's that invisible? Well, to the same extent that we had always had different interests and different friend groups and different hobbies and activities, we both became more involved in our separate worlds. And so I didn't necessarily notice your distance as being about me so much as you were busy with your own things and I was busy with my own things.
21:34Okay. And so we graduated. We moved out. You know, we left Montreal, which was heartbreaking for me at least. I was happy to leave. I also think I should mention, and I don't actually think that this was so crucial, but Emily did have a boyfriend that final year, which we had not had before, either of us. That hadn't been part of the dynamic. Yeah. Yeah. So I think a lot of the, like, quiet, like, chilling of, like, smoking or watching TV or whatever, you were now doing somewhere else. With other people, yeah. Yeah. So I ended up moving to Chicago and I moved at the same time as a gaggle of Olivia's best friends from high school also moved.
22:19And so I'd met some of these people through you and they quickly became my community in Chicago. and you look from afar in New York where it's really expensive and you don't have a lot of friends or community and you're saying, wait, all my friends are hanging out without me, so you come and move to Chicago and move in with me. So that's my, I guess, two-year arc. And you move in together in Chicago and you... With a third roommate. With a third roommate. But the main idea is you reestablish your domestic life. Yes. And at this point, I have a new boyfriend. And you arrive. Like my boyfriend and I broke up in the car an hour outside of Chicago.
23:07So I was like fresh. Fresh, fresh. Off a breakup. Yeah. It's interesting, right? This friendship. I mean, this is probably true for many, right? It's the two of us, the three of us, the four of us, us with the gang, me with your gang, me looking at you with my gang yeah yeah i mean the number of different constellations here and every time it changes the dynamic oh and it keeps that keeps happening you're gonna tell me okay well so those two years i sort of saw a little bit differently i graduated college and i was really mad at you. The most like salient of which. For what? I started to feel the inklings of something that I think I still feel to this day and is probably the main thing I want to talk to you about because it's the thing I've never been able to talk to you about.
24:04I didn't always feel like valued or like fully respected. And, and again, because I don't say things in the moment, I will start to take like little pieces and I like start to weave, you know, I'll start to crochet a little narrative for myself with all these different like small events, little thing you said, other tiny thing you didn't do or, you know, whatever. Beading. Yeah. Taking all the beads. Right. So at the end of college, you graduate the day before me and leave with your family. And that night I had a big party at our apartment with a bunch of our friends. We stayed up super late, got super drunk.
24:42And the next day I was like very hungover and had to move out of this apartment. And she was already gone. And when my parents got there and I was like throwing up, they were like, okay, I guess we have to do all of this. And as they like started doing it, I was like, oh, there's actually so much to be done. Like, it was two years of an apartment that then, like, my hungover ass and, like, my parents had to, like, clean up. And that felt very frustrating. That felt like I was not valued, right? Like, we didn't do that together. We didn't, like, plan ahead of time. But it was graduation, so whatever.
25:15We then go on a trip to Argentina. Together. Together. And at the time, I was feeling mad and frustrated that the first time I was, like, bringing someone to this place that is so personal to me, I was, like, not excited to do so at the time. We ended up going on, like, honestly a really cool trip that we both remember fondly. And then from my recollection, we didn't really talk after that trip for a while. You had your New York era. I had my Chicago era. You were dating this guy who… Sucked. Well, it sums it up. Existed in this completely separate world for me. But I just want to go back to something.
25:56Because there is tracking the events and then there is tracking the relationship. And they don't seem to necessarily always coincide for both of you. What happened to their feelings? They're just acute. They may have just, you know, numbed themselves because of the distance. I mean, I can tell you what happened to the feelings. Yeah. I had worked myself up so much and I basically decided that I could either confront her and tell her about all these feelings or I could let it go. Those were the only options. I couldn't stay as upset as I was and also not say anything. In my head, I was like, so many of these problems came from us living together and sort of taking each other for granted.
26:44It's like, I don't foresee that happening again, so I'm just going to let them go. And I really thought that I had let them go until I started feeling similar things when we started living together again. And I would say it was good for like a little while. I can't stop noticing the attention to details, layer upon layer, shift upon shift. Every detail matters. It's a very careful tending to the relationship, to the closeness, the distance, the coming toward the moving away from the sharing the keeping to oneself the expressing the feelings the trying to distance oneself from one's own feelings because how to be close to you if I feel all of this so I either stay with my feelings and I separate from you or I stay close to you and I separate from my feelings
27:50I think there was a little bit of contextual distance in that you were fresh off of a breakup and I was fresh into a new relationship. And so we were both aware that, like, that's different than it had been in the past. Well, and I was like, Emily has, like, obligations and, you know, priorities. If she has another partner. Right. Exactly. But at the time I was like, it's fine. Like Emily's got another partner. I'm single. Like I can kind of do whatever. I started like dating everyone with a pulse. And it felt fine. And I think the rub started to come when like I pulled away from my expectations of you because you had obligations with someone else.
28:35But I think sometimes I felt like you still had those expectations of me and that didn't feel fair. because just because I didn't have my own partner to prioritize, I was like, I'm not going to prioritize you if you are prioritizing someone else. Like, that doesn't feel fair. And so I was like pouring all my time and energy. So now we enter into the triangle dynamic. Yeah. Yeah. So we need to define friendship is one of the things. What is friendship that isn't we live together, we are partners, we each have our own lives but we anchor each other you know in the way that you described so beautifully before and so now you are four now we are four now we are two partners right and I would say like you don't really know my partner and I don't like super know your partner like I know him more because he's been around longer but yeah I don't know maybe it was a fantasy and you never meet alone again who us yes do you I mean never it's a form of speech But you tend to not meet the two of you.
Read the full transcript
29:39I would say. You meet primarily with others. I would say that's the case. You're part of the same circle, but you don't have that little loop around the two of you anymore. I would say so. Well, I think it wasn't until we moved to Chicago that you were like, so I've secretly been very angry at you for the last two years. And I said, news to me. Right. Right. Right. That's fair to say. Um, yes, I felt, I felt mad and I felt like in the time that we had lived together, there had been a time where we were each other's partners and everything was shared, good or bad. And then suddenly there was this other person that you would share all the good stuff with.
30:21And because you hadn't been dating that long, you weren't sharing all the bad stuff. And so you would bring that to me. and I felt taken advantage of because I was like, I don't get her in a good mood. I don't get her excited to go out. I don't get her like wanting to do something. I get her like after work, whenever you're in a bad mood and like don't want to see your boyfriend. Like that's what I would get. Meaning the leftovers. Right, right. I think my memory of the feelings that you brought up were you saying, I've been harboring so much anger and resentment towards you, and now I have to talk about it.
31:07And feeling a little like, thanks for telling me now. But also, I can't really do anything about those last few years. and it has planted this seed of worry that you are secretly harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards me and not naming it, which has persisted. Well, but then I would ask you something, which is that you know that I need, hey, are you okay? You seem weird. What's up? Things aren't, you know, just as an opening, right? Like I struggled to just like, hey, I have something that I wanted to, you know, like, and so then I start to get frustrated when I'm like, clearly you know that I might be harboring resentments.
32:01And so why wouldn't you just ask me? For that very reason. Well, yeah. But if you ask like, hey, are you mad at me? I would have just been like, yeah, actually this thing made me mad. versus then like a year and a half goes by and I'm like, Emily must know that I'm upset and the things just keep stacking and she doesn't say anything to me. So they talk about resentment. They talk about anger. There's a lot of feelings here mixed in. Jealousy. And there is the, you broke up with me. And there is the, I'm upset with you and it's hard for me to tell you. You should notice that. and you should be the one to help me say what I have to say by reaching out to me.
32:46And now it becomes, if you would help me, if you were different, then I could do what I want to do. And so slowly, we identified our stalemate.
33:02We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break, so stay with us.
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35:52Well, there are two places that we could go. One, I think, is we deal with conflict and emotions very differently, in part due to each of our families. Definitely. Where if you were acting some type of way, your dad would bust into your room and yell at you to tell him what's going on. Yes. Whereas my family gives space, backup, no intrusion. If she needs something, she'll let us know. Exactly. But we're also still sort of hovering around the 2022 conflict. And part of the prompt of us being here is the distance that's persisted over the last year or so. And I'll add that it's not that I knew you were mad about something and wasn't coming to ask you what's wrong.
36:47It's more that I was experiencing when we would hang out. You would mostly talk about yourself. That's so funny because I felt exactly the same about you. No. Yes. I'm just watching and thinking, you've just entered into an inner circle. We're getting closer. Yeah. You took your time. You told the story. And now we're in the present. Yeah. And I just watched you and I just thought to myself, okay, now it's starting. We've arrived. Sorry it took so long. No. No. You needed to meet the people. Yeah. And now we've arrived at the conflict. And I think you needed it too. Yeah. Because an hour is shorter than two years.
37:33Yeah. You know, when a romantic relationship doesn't serve you anymore, you get rid of it. Because for most people, you can only have one. but a friendship like you don't need first of all you don't need any and second of all you can have as many as you want and so you know I think some some friendship sort of skeptics might be like well so why are you guys still friends or like why are you trying to be friends and it's like in telling you the story like I'm getting emotional like thinking about like everything we've been through and like I've just never had um friendship the way I did with Emily and it makes me so sad that my boyfriend and like probably the love of my life like doesn't know that and doesn't know you and doesn't know us as friends, really.
38:16He doesn't. Now that we've arrived, I'm very curious to know what your question was to Esther for the podcast. Like what, what, what did you write in? I wrote that I felt like we had very different experiences and realities about our friendship, that we experienced it very differently and that there was a huge gap and I didn't know how to bridge the gap. I really appreciate that question prompt. It's true that we have been experiencing different realities of our friendship in the last year and maybe a little more, but we're very clear on our origin story, in part because we've told this story to a lot of people.
39:11Well, because we used to be like, this is my wife. You know, in college we'd show up somewhere and be like, this is my wife. Like, here's how we met. We're in love. And people would just assume we actually met we were in love. And I think we kind of were at the time. But just not in a sort of typical way. But I think that pointing to our really different experiences of the current reality of our friendship, something that really caught me when you reached out to tell me that you had written into this podcast was you saying I've been really emotional about this for a long time and thinking about it and journaling about it and talking to my boyfriend and my therapist and our friends about it.
39:58Mostly my parents. I tried not to talk to our friends about it. Okay but your people and And I think this is sort of getting to the current triangulation, which is you, me, and everyone else. I felt so protective of our primary partnership with each other because I hadn't had a long-term committed relationship before you because you were the most meaningful relationship in my life. And I really resented the idea of anyone finding a partner and then it taking precedent over this really rich partnership that we had built. And felt very defensive of the fact that relationships can be multiple and overlapping and you don't have to get everything from one relationship, etc.
40:59But it feels like you have been talking to everyone else about what you are feeling and how you are perceiving this before talking to me. And to find out that you had been angry and frustrated but really charged and emotional about it and telling our friends, that felt like more of the betrayal. Yeah, I mean, and obviously it's like something that I know that I do and I'm trying better. I guess I just felt so, our partnership felt dissolved, to be honest. See, you emphasize loss and you emphasize betrayal. I didn't matter to you anymore. You had replaced me. Here came the boyfriend. and I was no longer your priority.
41:57And there's grief and there's loss. You know, somebody once said, every person's autobiography is another person's betrayal. You talk about me, but when you talk about me, that means you talk about things that I may not have chosen to say. And you basically bring everybody else into your orbit in a way that makes me feel like, how do you say, I'm grist for the mill? It makes me feel not so much replaced, but more like left out. But you land in the same spot. She feels left out, you feel left out. The trajectory that brings you there is different. But you land up in, I'm not important enough for you to come to me.
42:49and she basically has her version of I'm not important enough for you to come to me on different things. And this is the transition. How do we go from partner to friends when we have new partners?
43:06Well, I think that... And when you respond, if you allow me, you understand it, but then you were just about to justify it. But I did it because. It's okay. You don't need to justify it. You did it. I did it, yeah. You both have good reasons for what you do, but it's not the good reasons that are going to bring you closer. What's going to help you get closer is to understand the effect that your good reasons have on the other person and then how much you care about it. Because, you know, the thing about friendship is it's all free given. It's not something you can impose. Well, to be honest, I think at times I felt imposed upon.
43:52And that's kind of the crux of like where my distance became really intentional. I started to feel like you would ask these things of me that were like partner level asks, big asks. And again, like not because friendship needs to be 100 % perfectly reciprocal. But like if we haven't talked in a while, we haven't hung out in a while and you ask me a big favor. And I'm terrible. I don't know how to say no. Right. Like I will always say yes. And then I'll feel resentful afterwards for doing it and not feeling like properly valued. But the thing is interesting that you're highlighting is that the big things I want to do for you, but they take place in the context of all the little things.
44:39If we don't hang, check in, send messages, do pulse checks, then when you come with the big thing, it makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of. If we do all the little things and then you come with the big thing, then I feel like I'm really important to you and I matter. It's a very interesting reinterpretation. It's like if we have all the little funds, then when you come with the big question, then I feel almost honored that you rely on me and that I'm your emergency number. When I feel like I have like agency to say yes or no, which I don't often do, I often feel like I'm not good at saying no.
45:17Which is my problem. Absolutely. It is your responsibility to say no. Sure. Sure, but like, okay, I have like a very specific example in mind. A year ago you asked me to drive to Springfield with you. Yes. You called me on the phone. I answered the phone. You said, are you working on Monday? And I was unemployed at the time, so I said, no, I'm not working on Monday. And then you said, would you drive to Springfield with me, like a three and a half hour drive? And I did not want to. I was like, that sounds like a long trip. You're going to get me at 6 a.m. I was like, ugh. But we're on the phone.
45:53and I already told you I'm not working. What am I going to say? I don't want to. That feels rude. So I say yes. And we go and like, you bring me breakfast and it was great. And then we get back to the city and you're like, I want to go to therapy in person. Can I drop you off at the bus? And I was like, you picked me up at my house at 6am for me to do this like giant favor for you. And you like, you're not going to drive me home. And so you like drop me off at the bus. Bus never came. So I ended up biking the five miles home. And then I got home and I was like furious. And then you didn't text me like, hey, sorry, that was a slog.
46:34Like, hope you got home okay. I get a text from you two days later that's like, these two people we went to college with broke up. And I'm like, what am I to you? Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. like I didn't even just feel like thanked like bro I know that was so annoying and in my head I was like why can't she just do therapy from her house she lives four blocks from me and if we had the type of dynamic where I felt like I could just be like no drive me home yeah but I didn't feel that way you were like is it cool if I do this and I'm just like yeah I guess and again that's on me like I should speak up but I don't always feel like I can and to your point if we had had that rapport it wouldn't have felt like such a pressured yes right and you might have felt like you had more of a leg to stand on to be like no bitch drop me off totally i think i think in different years i would have been like absolutely not talking about like drive me home yeah but i just was like i didn't feel comfortable around you frankly and i was feeling used and i just was like I kind of need this to end.
47:44And like I biked home on Fullerton five miles like fucking furious and sweating. Yeah that sucks. I got up at 6 a.m. I was like are you I was like is this a fucking joke? Yeah. And this is the first time you're telling her this? Yes. I think I feel in part mortified and embarrassed for treating you that way. That's not how I want to behave and that's not how I want you to feel. And I think there's also a little part of me that's like, if you feel something, it's your responsibility to say so. Like, I can't be always guessing and trying to read between the lines and interpret your silence as being mad that I didn't text you a follow-up.
48:32Like, I... no wrong yeah no wrong no wrong but I know you're keen to think about whose responsibility is it but you know enough that if somebody spends their day driving with you you don't need a school or a degree to tell you you know the nice thing to do is to send a mail message afterwards. We don't even have to send a card anymore. It's in the palm of your hand to just say much appreciated or something that acknowledges. So that's not for her to tell you to do. Yeah. This is the product of distance. This is more about the emotional distance than about accountability and responsibility. I think.
49:32so it's not why as much as how how have things unfolded that i would be in the situation where the things that naturally come to me don't anyone who you pick up at 6 a.m it kind of understood you probably will drop them off or you'll check afterwards if they got home okay given that you drop them at the bus stop to then go to say no no this is for you to tell it's less about the telling it's more there's a detachment yeah that allows these thoughts not to be thread together
50:13yeah when you have friends when you start to have a situation where you're reluctant to see your friend because you're beginning to think about what's going to come up this time. What's the thing we haven't addressed? Or what's the resentment that's been lingering? Or what fuck up will I be exposed with this time? Then you start to not want to see the friend. You look forward to seeing a friend because it's going to be nice, fun, interesting, deep, mischievous, whatever. but not to belabor wrongdoings and criticisms and all of this. So I'm watching this because I think if you do that, you may get it all out, but I'm not sure you will want to spend time together.
51:02It's not inviting. So I'm thinking, what's the right dosage here of this? I think you naming the trip to Springfield is a good example of a grievance that is symptomatic of a larger dynamic. I think a thing that I sometimes feel is wanting you to ask the favor of me and not anyone. Like texting in the group chat, hey, does anyone want to watch a movie tonight? My boyfriend's busy. I don't want to just fill in the empty space that you have. I want you to text me and say, hey, I haven't seen you. My boyfriend's out tonight. I would love to watch a movie. Do you want to come over? Right. But I haven't wanted to do that.
51:59Yes. But I'm saying that my experience of you being self-centered is that. Is you not asking me to do anything, not asking me about myself and then it feels like expecting someone to come in and fill a need for you and I want you to ask me to be burdened I want you to ask me to drive to Springfield with you right but I don't because then I'm like Emily's gonna ask for something in return like I'm gonna have to you know do another drive to Springfield but it's a different request what she wants is for you to make her feel that she's important to you it's not a burden piece here this is more like you're seeking her out it feels very loaded right it feels very loaded and so it's not chill and we love to chill and that's like been so much of our relationship is like relaxing and like unwinding and well I'll add that my experience of us hanging out hasn't felt super loaded I did not know all of the emotional baggage that was happening for you around the truth to Springfield and how much weight and meaning there was in it and I understand that that's part of the issue but it's hard for me to know how sensitive it is but then why don't you ask no each of you is saying to the other if you did it differently things would be easier I know but I'm just saying she knows me yes and you know her and you have a 10 year friendship and it could just be the next day after she drops you just say listen yesterday was a real bitch and I had let out a bike and this and that and it wasn't cool that's it you have to kind of shorten the distance between action and reaction.
54:03That's on your part. But the other piece is when she says, you know, invite me to chill, is of the same vein as you're putting it out in the cosmos. You're checking to see if she's offering herself. If she doesn't offer herself, you think you're no longer on her priority list. But in the same way that you requested, she wasn't put on your priority list. It was more like a, I'm free tonight, who's available? And the specialness becomes questioned by each of you. This is the crochet of the friendship too. It's like little things like this. And suddenly there's a kind of a cloud. So when she says, call me, I wouldn't explain why you don't call her.
54:56I would say I'm glad to know you want that because I want that too. End of conversation. It's like the processing, but then there's a limit to the processing. Yeah. Because if you become too much of a processing relationship, it doesn't feel chill. And I think your suggestion about calling me to go and do things, you need more of that. Ask me to borrow my car. Ask to borrow the dog. I mean, yeah. Both of you, though. No, I know. It's like I, something I said to her was that I felt like we were sort of mismatched in, like, the expectations of each other and our actual level of current closeness, right?
55:41Like, I don't want to reach out to you to borrow your car because I'm like, that's weird. Like, if I'm not hanging out with Emily and then I'm like, let me borrow your car, that feels transactional. You need those hangouts. Right. You need those small things that you enjoy doing together. Whatever the things are, it doesn't have to be small. But you need to do the stuff that gives the cushion. Right. The only times I end up seeing you is when we need something from each other. Have you ever met the four of you? Us and our boyfriends? Mm-hmm. Like maybe once. Okay. So you need twos. You need fours.
56:16Because your group at this point, your group of friends is in a way keeping you together without you being really together. Yeah. So in a way, it's kind of deflecting. The corrective is more things to two of you. Yeah. That you have a huge repertoire of things that you can do together. The four of you, for that matter. Yeah. Because if you're going to continue this at some point, if it's not do and if it's not for, it won't sustain. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's okay to have had an incredible friendship in college that didn't sustain. People will tell you stories upon stories of how things just went in different directions and dissolved gradually.
57:04But if you want it, then it's about creating these new configurations. Yeah.
57:40doing that because they're comfortable with you. And so we're not always our best selves with each other. And I suggested, I was like, I want to feel like we are just new friends because I don't know what music you listen to. Like, I don't know what shows you're watching. Like, I don't know, like, really small, like regular things about you. It's like you have the decision to make, will we remain childhood friends? It's the friends you meet, but they're frozen in time. and they didn't really evolve with you. Then you have the ones who travel with you, and they are people who are charting the territory with you.
58:20They're creating the new experiences. And then you have the circumstantial ones, the ones who you met because you have kids at the same time or you are in the same school, but it's circumstantial. When that phase ends, so does the relationship. and the ones that you kind of say, they've been in my life 20, 30, 40 years, that's the ones that you create a combination of all of this. Even if you don't have the same circumstances, you manage to remain updated. And it's beyond what series are you watching. It's kind of who are you now. Completely. And that's what I said to you. I was like, I don't think you know who I am right now.
59:04Yeah, well, we're in our boyfriend eras. I know. Nay, our live with partner eras. I know. And I think I have a lot of grief and resentment that because I'm in a partnership, I'm not single. Right. And because you're in a partnership, you're not single. And so we're not each other's primary anchor partners.
59:30It's time for me to suggest something concrete that they can do together. And I'm thinking about my card game, Where Should We Begin, the game of stories, and how people have told me that they play the game by picking one card every day and telling a story about that card. and how much it has elicited so many untold stories, so many reinterpretations of the other person which they thought they knew, but then discover so many new things about. But also, especially how it's energizing, it's playful. It doesn't process the problems. It generates new cells in the relationship.
1:00:19so every day you flip a card you send it and you tell a story and find a way to bring each other back into your lives today but not only by talking about the things that you're upset about but by actually creating an energy that makes you want to connect to each other you want to save friends by talking about what makes you upset. It doesn't work this way. It's important to do, but it's not what keeps the friendship alive. I also like that as we rebuild and refresh our relationship, that we can invite our partners into this new family system, that there's this new important person in your life who I get to meet and become friends with as well.
1:01:15Yeah. Yeah, I would love for you to know him. It's crazy. We live four blocks from each other. And what if you took a walk together, you know, a few times a week, half an hour, and you walk the dog? We love dogs. I mean, it's that kind of ritual, fun, simple. And we found that in group dynamics, But we've lost that on a one-to-one basis. But you're right. I mean, we do have, like, tons of things. I was just like, we should go antiquing. Like, we love antiquing. And we live in the Midwest. I started knitting. I know. She didn't even tell me. I've been knitting. But I'm stuck because I fucked it up and I don't know how to fix it.
1:01:58And I'll help you. Yeah.
1:02:02And you haven't seen my new beading. I've been beading. Literally.
1:02:10All right, that's the energy you're going to leave with. I'm not going to add anything. Because you'll have a lot of things to discover. What else don't you know about me that has happened in those last few years? I love you, buddy.
1:02:40Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julianat. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. we'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton Mary Alice Miller and Jack Saul
1:03:37You can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. Fall is here, and that means the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks. It's the one we've been waiting for. So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte, or ready to mix it up with an iced pumpkin cream chai, the new iced pumpkin cream matcha, or the new iced pumpkin cream shaken espresso, you can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks.
From the publisher
Friendship is a key thread of the social fabric. But what happens when the thread starts to fray?
They met in college and have been close for a decade. Now, with long-term partners in the mix, their once-easy bond is under strain. Resentments—some spoken, many not—have started to pile up. Can their friendship adapt to this new phase of life? Or will it unravel? Esther offers them both some hope.
Topic: Relationships with Family & Friends
For the month of July, Esther is offering 20% off to join her Office Hours on Apple Podcasts. It's a place to continue conversations on important topics like sexlessness, infidelity or the perils of modern dating. It's also a place to follow up with couples and find out where their stories went. You'll also get an ad free version of all the episodes.
Want to learn more? Receive monthly insights, musings, and recommendations to improve your relational intelligence via email from Esther: https://www.estherperel.com/newsletter
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