In short
This episode of Where Should We Begin centers on a couple’s “ruptures” in their 14-year relationship, culminating in postpartum conflict and a long pattern of betrayal and emotional withdrawal. The husband describes being shaped by dissociation from trauma with his mother; he says his “ultimate rupture” was prioritizing his difficult mother over his wife after their child was born, including allowing his mother to take over baby care and then not stepping in. He also acknowledges years of sexual betrayal: sexting/explicit texting with exes and, later, harvesting explicit photos of his wife and sending them to other women. The wife says the core rupture is the feeling of his indifference—him going to sleep while she is distressed—especially during postpartum when she felt blocked from support and “alone and not understood.” Key examples include discovering ongoing sexting in his phone, being belittled when she raised concerns, and a later incident where his mother’s conditional support and missed preschool deadline left her isolated.
Guests
one unnamed husband and one unnamed wife (confidentialized).
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 Impact of Postpartum Challenges
1:19 to 6:14
A couple discusses the complexities of their relationship post-childbirth.
“There has been this big offense to my relationship with my son postpartum, and it involves his mother.”
Betrayal and Trust in Relationships
6:19 to 14:00
Exploring themes of betrayal, trust, and the struggles in their marriage.
“Is it okay I take you a little bit more on the precision lane?”
Exploring Emotional Ruptures in Relationships
14:00 to 21:10
Learn about the emotional ruptures experienced in intimate relationships and the dynamics of communication breakdowns.
“It occurred to me that I couldn't do it.”
Exploring Emotional Ruptures in Relationships
24:31 to 24:48
Learn about the emotional ruptures experienced in intimate relationships and the dynamics of communication breakdowns.
“Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.”
Exploring Childhood Trauma and Its Impact
28:00 to 29:30
Understand how childhood experiences shape adult relationships and emotional responses.
“I said this to him, but in listening to it now, it's clear to me that I'm 10 steps away from where he is.”
Navigating Relationship Ruptures
29:30 to 31:30
Learn about the dynamics of ruptures in relationships and the importance of communication.
“The sentence would be, I want to go back to or I want us to talk about this moment, this rupture between us.”
The Complexity of Emotional Needs
31:30 to 33:25
Explore the challenges of expressing emotional needs in relationships and understanding partners' perspectives.
“I'm sorry that I was there and not with you and helping you.”
Understanding Accountability and Betrayal
33:25 to 35:30
Discuss the transition from shame to accountability and its role in relationship recovery.
“that they fundamentally don't really know what we're talking about, which is actually often why someone chose the very person that they chose to be with because this is what she can teach him, a life of interiority.”
The Challenge of Processing Emotions
35:30 to 40:03
Examine the difficulty of acknowledging and articulating emotions in complex situations.
“and all those things are true and we can try it but go where?”
Exploring Anger and Emotional Disconnect
42:04 to 43:56
Discussion on feelings of anger and emotional responses in relationships.
“To say, just go do this, when you couldn't even do it.”
Show all 16 chapters
A Personal Story of Disappointment
43:56 to 46:03
An anecdote about missing a preschool registration and its emotional impact.
“There was the promise of our child going to an excellent school because his sister runs the school.”
Navigating Childhood Trauma and Sadness
46:03 to 48:35
Discussion of childhood experiences and their lasting emotional effects.
“And still, to this day, it's not like my sister was willing to harm me.”
The Complexity of Feelings in Relationships
48:35 to 51:08
Examining the dynamics of anger, sadness, and communication in relationships.
“all, it doesn't actually result in something different.”
The Challenge of Sharing Emotional Experiences
51:08 to 56:00
Confronting the difficulties of sharing feelings and experiences with loved ones.
“Because in effect, you're talking alone.”
Exploring Secrets and Connections
56:00 to 56:50
Discover how personal secrets influence relationships and the importance of connection.
“If you say what the little bit you say, she says, how can he reduce it to this?”
Exploring Secrets and Connections
57:56 to 58:18
Discover how personal secrets influence relationships and the importance of connection.
“Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01None 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.
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1:18We have a really brutal beginning because of me. There has been this big offense to my relationship with my son postpartum, and it involves his mother. My mother's a very difficult figure. When she came with the intention of helping us, I sat kind of by the wayside. Well, my mother was brutal. It was really traumatic. We're not actually in contact with her anymore. She denies that there was anything that went wrong there. It was me essentially following the rules of my own family. There's a lot of pain still in our relationship because there hasn't been full healing from all of this. I'm just doing my best to show that I love her and earn some kind of trust back.
2:12Every couple goes through an interview before they come on the podcast where we get to hear what is the issue, why now, and what they hope to achieve. And sometimes there is a direct line between what happens in the session and what they spoke about during the intake interview. But sometimes an intake interview highlights a central issue. And then when I meet the couple, this is just one branch on a tree. They're all the other branches, each one. In this case, one rupture after another. So his opening line is, the beginning of our relationship was brutal, and it was brutal because of me. That in itself sets me up for understanding that there is a suitcase that this man brings with him around attachment, around safety, around loyalty, around honesty.
3:15He has been dissociated for many, many years. And he found a partner that was going to feel, experience, and express all the emotions he could not access. When I meet them, they have been together 14 years, and they have a child who is four.
3:45When we met, she was much younger and I was older. I had already a strong practice of keeping in sexual texting touch with a lot of exes. That because it was not physical, I did not give any weight to it being actual infidelity and thought that there was essentially a separate compartment that was my own, that I could do what I wanted. and she understood that something wasn't right and was asking me constantly. But I did not come forward with any of that. So I betrayed her trust, told her that she didn't know what she was talking about, hadn't had enough experience, didn't understand that this is how you do things.
4:31You belittled her. Yes, yes. And it took me a long time to acknowledge that there was a hunting for affection that was almost insatiable for me and that I was getting a sense of worth from outside, essentially. It took a lot of fighting and a lot of pain that I inflicted for me to finally see that and stop. So that was year probably one through two or three. So all of our relational foundation through our marriage, through having our child, it's only been in the last few years that I feel actually able to see things better. from her perspective and see truly what I was doing during those times.
5:14What's the ultimate rupture? What's the thing that you did that called the ultimate rupture, the most important one? So it was after our child was born. And my month was very difficult. and we brought her in because we had a puppy. The idea would be she would take care of the puppy and we would be able to be with our child. And she took the baby and there was no need for the baby to get care. But my mother kept imposing her want and I allowed that. When my wife was saying, I'm having a really tough time, I didn't stop it. I just kept asking, and tell me what you want me to do and I'll do what you want.
6:06But she was looking for help. She was looking to be a unit altogether. And when she finally said no, then my mother left. And I think at that point she realized she was on her own there. And that despite asking for help, I was not able to see that or step up to that. I prioritized my mother over my wife. Is it okay I take you a little bit more on the precision lane? Yes. Yeah, we're here to work. There's so many ways to defend my mom and not protect my wife. But what exactly did I do? And by now, I think you probably have a sense of certain moments that stand out. Here it is. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think part of the reason that the baby's birth was such a break was it showed that the patterns are still there.
7:10And the pattern was? That is something that I'm having a real tough time understanding.
7:22So he gives me a list of these betrayals and it leads me to instantly ask him can we go on the road of precision? i.e. what's the big one? What's the one that stands out above all others? And interestingly, I start to feel instantly there's a certain kind of opaqueness around the different things that are described. And the more vague he goes, the more I start to see the agitation rise inside of her. It's as if he vacates the emotional space and she fills it up. His eyes start to wander. His body starts to pull back. He starts to look up. He starts to not finish a sentence. He doesn't really know where he goes.
8:10And she starts to remember everything with all the precision that matches his vagueness.
8:21What's it like to listen to him right now? Incredibly familiar. There is this like ungraspable ambiguity and such a frustration. frankly, in anger and a really deep sadness for me because the experiences that I've had are so visceral. And so to have it be missed and to be indescribable speaks to my experience of constantly missing. So we've been together for 14 years. I was 21 when we met. And there was a lot of this, you don't know, or you just don't have enough experience, or you have it like, and there's a wide class difference, obviously a gender difference. There's a massive education difference.
9:08And being immersed in his world, there was very little room for my perspective. And so when I shared it, it was pushed out of the way or demeaned in some way, like it was really devalued. And then there were times where we would be in these moments that I was so clear, like this isn't love and this doesn't feel in any way good to me. When you say this, you think of particular instances immediately, right? Yeah. Tell me. Tell him, too, for that matter. So when we started dating, I learned a couple months in that he had shared explicit photos of me with a friend, a woman. And when I saw it, I was really upset, and I said, you may not do that.
9:56These are my pictures, too. And I cried. He cried. and I thought we had an idea of what we were doing going forward now from this experience. And as it turned out, I found out a year later, when things weren't quite right, and I kept bringing it up, I looked in his phone, and I saw that not only had he been sexting for that whole year with other people, but he had been harvesting pictures from me and sending them out and then having these explicit conversations with other women. And the day that I learned this, it very much became about me looking in the phone and not about what I found. And this is really where my ability to make sense got wobbly.
10:46And I started to become like actually turned upside down because everybody reflected. Like, he's so charismatic and is so available and, like, has so much to say to everybody and, like, enlivens people. Like, so what I was seeing out did not make sense with what I was experiencing. Right. The people that we were living with, one of them was someone that he'd had a sexual relationship with before. And she was calling us sister wives. And I was very clear with her that I do not like that and not to do it. And things kept being weird there. And every time I raised like, hey, this is a problem, this is a problem, it was dissolved because it didn't fit with his position or I think maybe how he thought of himself.
11:35This losing of your perspective was the first time? Like in my life? Yeah. This kind of being enraptured? Yes. Made to question your every thought? Yes. So wholly and thoroughly, yes. That's what made you stay? Yes. And I was quite isolated because on the one hand I love him and on the other hand I didn't believe that anybody, any of my people would understand the complexity with people not just either reinforcing he's wonderful or siding with me. As a victim. Yeah. He's also very fun. And I was able to do things like travel internationally and be exposed to all kinds of things that I had never done before.
12:21So I was very open. There was a lot that was happening and not all of it was bad. And so I was wanting to kind of hold all of these pieces, but didn't trust that friends or family would actually be able to do that with me also. So yes, it was the first time that I had become so upside down, but it was also the first time I was, well, I was 21 when we met and I was quite sheltered and from a very working class family and I hadn't had these experiences. And it sort of feels like this is the cost of admission in some ways, but it has crossed a line. And so to your question, yes, postpartum was part of it, but we also moved our lives to be closer to his sister.
13:04We accepted a huge, huge, huge amount of money from his mother just before our child was born.
13:16And we moved our entire lives to live on the same street. Now? No, now we're back. But that was the rupture when it got so incredibly bad there that...
13:39Oh, this is so hard to say out loud.
13:44Take your time.
13:51I sincerely thought because he couldn't hear me and because there was so much that would have been extremely difficult to do on my own. And we were so deep in. It occurred to me that I couldn't do it.
14:13that I couldn't do it. That I couldn't do it. That I couldn't go on. With him? With her? No, with life. With life. With my own life. But not to a place of having a plan or any of that. But just, I was so fully worn down. I had said to him, we need to figure something else out. I need to feel safe. And he went back to sleep. and um to me that is the rupture of I am holding far too much on my own and you are oblivious to it and you are I think like maybe wanting to see it but it doesn't seem to impact you and I have done everything that I can to communicate that to you and I am ineffective that you're willing to go to sleep.
15:13Fuck you. That is the rupture. That is the rupture. Your indifference to whether I can go on is the rupture.
15:25Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. It's okay. Thank you.
15:35When I asked him, what is the main rupture? He came up with a particular story of what happened between his wife and his mother. But there was no description of the emotionality of that moment. And as she starts talking, her memory of the rupture comes back, which is less about what was she specifically trying to convey to him or which of the things that they were arguing about was she talking about than the incredible experience of feeling that your partner on some fundamental level does not really care, is indifferent. It doesn't matter about what. It's the feeling itself, the relational position of someone who is supposedly loving you, committed to you, and who just goes to sleep when I am screaming to the heavens.
16:37That's what she is reliving with a level of poignancy and acute pain, bordering on the rage that lives right next to it about what it feels like to not exist in the eyes of the person who is lying right next to you. So then I turn to him, and I just look at him and try to see how does he respond to her.
17:07The same way that I think you're holding all of this just now, I think that you are incapable of putting a sentence together because your shame is standing there like a wall. If you are wrapped in shame, you can feel bad about yourself, but you won't be able to feel bad for what you did to her. And the shame is useful to you because it organizes you to at least accept and to acknowledge more that you did things that were deeply hurtful and sometimes wrong. But it also prevents us from actually really relating to the pain that we inflict on others. Because you go from an inflated sense of I'm right, I know you're stupid, you're young, you're dumb, you have no experience, to I'm so bad, I'm so bad, I'm so bad.
17:59But it's all about you. I don't know if the way you talk to him here is the way you've talked, but you go back and forth between I have choice, how did I land here? What happened to me? This isn't what I imagined. This isn't who I am. But maybe it is. what does it say about me and it is the ticket of admission because I think there's a class issue here involved too because I think that there is the life I wanted and the relationship I wanted and they're not always the same he gives you maybe the life you wanted but he's not giving you the relationship we're not even doing that so no there is a class issue sure I have not made good on very much despite being very well educated having these sort of flares of success I've sort of middled out and so I was not able to provide enough during the move and I was working a lot and I was the only one working at that time and so we moved for support and we really didn't have it the support that was being offered was conditional and so when I went to sleep that night and there were nights where we would fight and it would go and she can go and go and it's all real and it's meaningful I still have to get up and work and so I would want to pause and go to sleep so that I was able to function on the only income and that that wasn't really getting us through and so it wasn't meant as I don't value what you're saying it's it's that I at some point in this, I have to be able to do this thing for us too.
19:52And there was a frustration at myself for an inability to make the decisions or get the position that would give the freedom and the safety she wanted. And I was doing everything I knew how to do.
20:08So when I listened to her describe his going to sleep, it was unequivocally a description of I can't be bothered, I need to go to sleep. When I listened to him, what he's describing is a set of circumstances that were probably part of the same night. We were broke, I needed to get up because I was the one working for us. And she could keep going the whole night. And at some point, I just knew I need to stop because I need to get up. And it wasn't because I'm indifferent. It was because I was dealing with other worries and concerns that I was responsible to. And this is a classic moment of couples work.
20:53The same situation described by two people with very different experiences. and it's both ends, not one or the other.
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Read the full transcript
24:48My seeing our child reopened issues for me of how I was raised and with a mother who I do believe loved us the best she could. She still had some issues and she was very physical with us. Physical meaning? It would hit us. When she drank. You know, it's fascinating the way you relay a story. At every word, it's like another pen just opened.
25:20it reopened a lot for me that I had always categorized under what I've always been told to do, which is she's your mother. She loves you. She did the best she could just love her. And while all of that is true, seeing for the first time to have my own baby in there became very hurtful for me. There became power leverages everywhere, and we distanced ourselves from that.
25:51Here are pieces you've told me. The more mom behaved in ways that were hurtful, be it corporal punishment or her drinking or her control or her intensely conditional love, the more I was told, all of this is because she loves you. Yes. That's thwarted. Then you tell me, I've allowed important people in my life to deeply hurt my wife, and I've never stood up for her. Yes, correct. and I've let her fend for herself and be increasingly isolated because she would go tell her family what she's living with with you and what would be really powerful is if you can actually experience guilt instead of shame guilt says I have a conscience and I've done something to someone shame just wallows into I'm so bad I once was so great, now I'm so bad.
27:04But it's all me. And then she will continue and say, I've never been met. And then you will explain why going to sleep was not indifference, but it was because you needed to get up in the morning. But the three hours that you talked, you could have said three things that would have allowed you to go to sleep much sooner. the reason she keeps going is because she doesn't get what she's looking for otherwise I promise you she would go to sleep too I don't think you're doing this maliciously I think you don't know so you're here because a part of you says how does one hold a sense of responsibility and guilt that doesn't instantly make me feel so unworthy that I cannot be there for her.
27:59Yes. I said this to him, but in listening to it now, it's clear to me that I'm 10 steps away from where he is. Yes, we can talk about the grandiosity and the shame, but what is much more palpable is the trauma that he experienced as a child with his mom and the dissociation that took place inside of him that he carried for decades and that somehow got pierced when his son was born. By watching his son in the arms of his mother and seeing how she was treating him, he began to remember not necessarily explicit memory, but implicit memory, The memory that is lodged in the body, the memory that senses.
28:55And unfortunately, everything he didn't allow himself to feel with his mother, his wife is feeling with him. It's as if he has outsourced the entire intensity that is blocked behind his frozenness, and it is all redirected through his wife, the mother of his child. and in a way he has for the first time someone next to him who is feeling that which he did not have the permission to feel.
29:29So, what would be the place you would want to start?
29:36So, I don't know. Okay. The sentence would be, I want to go back to or I want us to talk about this moment, this rupture between us. Then I would talk about the major rupture that she spoke of, the postpartum. Yeah. It was a moment where my mother-in-law was feeding the baby and he was laying on his back and she had the bottle at a 90-degree angle and he gagged and coughed and we looked at each other. and neither one of us said anything. And she stopped. But I was also like, he's at a 90 degree angle. Like, that's how you waterboard somebody. He's brand new. And a little while later, I hear the baby burst into tears and I go in and she's covered in curdled milk and I go to take the baby and she says, I'm good, I've got him.
30:38And I said, I'll take him. And he's screaming. And I hadn't ever heard this kind of scream. And I go to take him. And she keeps saying, I'm good. I've got him. And I, frankly, I don't give a fuck how you are. I'm not good. And he's not good. So give him to me. But I couldn't say that. And we went through the cycle one more time. And it was that moment for me that was very clear. Like, oh, this can't continue. I know exactly how I feel. But I needed help and I said, hey, your mom won't give me the baby and I need him. And he said, just go get your baby. And it, like, couldn't land anywhere in you.
31:22That's how I would define that rupture. That you are gone and not only is she a barrier, but now you are too. I'm sorry, I wasn't there. I'm sorry that I was there and not with you and helping you. Because if it would have been, then what? I believe then at least you and the baby would have been able to be together. But why does that matter to you? I mean, I also wish I was there with you guys. Yeah. I would love to be present and able to be a great partner for you from day one of meeting you. But why? Why does that matter to you? Like, not just because all of these hurts have happened. No, because I love you and I would like to be in a relationship that is rich with great memories.
32:16That if there are bad things, it's things that come from outside, not all caused from inside the house.
32:24this is a very important moment because he says i'm sorry i wasn't there and her first question is there in what sense what is it that you are sorry for what do you wish you had done differently and he keeps repeating i had been there for you but she wants to know why does that matter to you you're responding to my hurt but you're not responding to any of your own needs and gradually it becomes very clear that he doesn't have them it's not that he didn't want to but he may not know how to because as she describes so beautifully he's the life of the party in the outside world he vanishes when he comes home because that's what he had to do to survive and it is really challenging when we want something from our partner and we believe that they have it and they just don't want to do it to actually understand that they don't know what to do, that they fundamentally don't really know what we're talking about, which is actually often why someone chose the very person that they chose to be with because this is what she can teach him, a life of interiority.
33:46imagine you have someone who really understands layers and contradictory feelings and the complexity of all of that. I love you, and yet I have done one thing after another to basically let you down, to lie, to cheat, to deceive, to side, to collude. Let me talk about that. how does that work inside of me and what do I think that did to you it's switching from shame to accountability people say I love you in all kinds of versions and then they do all kinds of shitty things sure, I've been saying I love you for 14 years so she needs to understand how these two are sewn together when you work it out there in your head I do what I want I decide what is hurtful I decide what she should be upset about and what she shouldn't I decide what is considered mature and I love you how does that work?
35:02not well we know that and next how do you do it in your head in your body, in your heart I know you don't I have it right, you don't I'm inflated, you're deflated and we dance a little bit in a type of abusive dynamic here and I love you it's kind of the chorus in the song and all those things are true and we can try it but go where? When you say I cheated because I needed affirmation it's very interesting but it does nothing for her Right It's me and me in a reflexive loop when you say I needed affirmation and therefore I made yours feel like mashed potatoes.
36:12And sending her pictures for, it's not even just I went to flirt and play with other people elsewhere, it's I involved you in this whole sexual machination. Yes. All right. That all needs to be addressed. Okay. Because if you don't, she will repeat it till the day she drops. Yeah. So the story has to go back to where it belongs. I'm just trying to process. It's one of those things where it sounds so easy when you say it. When you literally say it.
37:00And, of course, you're right on. But when I think about it and try to organize it in my head or like what I'm trying to acknowledge just feels like I'm moving through mud. Try it. I will be here. And if it needs redirection. Yeah.
37:21So I know saying that I wanted you to love me and to adore me and be with me, but then I did nothing to honor that love. But it still seems like I'm flipping it to me. Keep going. Okay.
37:43when I did this I can imagine that you when I did this I did this to you
37:56I'm talking to him I'm not sure much will come but I'm looking at her and I'm watching her response to my initiative to help him, in effect, articulate that which she has longed to hear, but which she knows without wanting to admit it, has not come because there isn't much to come, yet anyway. And I see the brewing.
38:39We have to take a brief break. Stay with us.
39:08We'll see you next time.
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41:08When I tried to make you looking through my phone somehow a breach of trust, I see how hypocritical that was. I see how disorienting it must have felt when you found all those messages. It must have felt awful, like such a betrayal. That would have been way more simple. Because, okay, thank you much, goodbye. Mm-hmm. And then there was a time then... Yeah, and then... there was a time that I said, go get your baby. And I can imagine that felt so lonely and not understood. May I say something? I feel so angry right now. To say, just go do this, when you couldn't even do it. You go get attacked by wolves.
42:20You go do this thing. No, you go do this thing. If it's so easy, you go do that thing. I feel angry that this isn't in you. I feel angry that you're not angry about it. This is what I mean about why it means something to you. Like, it didn't mean anything to you that that happened. Like, to you! Mm-hmm. I don't mean to make this impossible, and I, but it... You're not making it impossible at all. You have been the emotional barometer here from the first day you met him. Yeah.
42:59If he could, he would. Right. Which is why from entitlement to shame, there was already a big step. Yes. Because shame at least creates a structure. Right. But the feeling, this is right, this is wrong, this is true, this is false, this feels close, this feels distant. He doesn't have it. Right. but you need to know whenever you're angry that he's not feeling something part of it is you've been enlisted to feel for him yes and since you do it so strongly intensely well precisely and with a whole range he differs and when he says to you I didn't see anything it's hard to understand but he may not and what she wants to know is not just that you can be empathic toward her but that you have your own feelings toward what happened so that she doesn't have to be the one holding it all
44:14I really would like to illustrate with a couple of moments that I'm like truly how are you not enraged by these moments Like, we moved to live close to his sister. There was the promise of our child going to an excellent school because his sister runs the school. So we were there for several months. And at the turn of the year, when we're expecting, okay, the baby's this old. It'll be time to enroll in preschool. We ask, hey, when do we register? When do we sign up? And even though we'd seen her a few days before that, she says, oh, you missed the deadline. And immediately I was like, I have no real support right now.
45:05We've moved away from my family. We've moved away from my friends. I am doing everything I can right now. What do you mean we missed the deadline? She was like, well, you can register next semester. Okay. because of the financial impact of considering sending him elsewhere it would mean that we would now have to reconsider having more kids like it was a big deal and a few days later she texted him and she said um I would love a bottle of wine from your basement all the stores are closed and of course it took me like a year to develop the comeback of like oh I guess you missed the deadline. But at the same time, he went right down with a bottle of wine and dropped it at the door.
45:51And when I asked him, like, how are you not furious? Like, how are you not pissed? Like, yep, I'm your bitch. No problem. You can, you can stab me and I'm going to turn around and give you the knife again. How? And his response was, I would do that for any neighbor. And still, to this day, it's not like my sister was willing to harm me. Wow. I acknowledge that part. I think you repeat it back to me No, I acknowledge that part But she doesn't want you only to acknowledge what she says She actually is puzzled So I have said that how we were raised I was angry for a lot a long, long time At and about?
46:36At my mother for how we were raised Do you have a dad? I do and for his lack of willingness to stop it. What about mom? I hated the back and forth. I hated the I love you, the erratic nature of the drinking that would start so bubbly and goofy and then end with hitting us and huge rage and then cuddle us and apologize, but there being no actual change. And so for a long time, I hated being held because I felt like a little bitch for just wanting. I wanted that moment once the cycle started because then at least it was calm and I was okay. So I was angry for a long fucking time and it didn't do anything.
47:22It didn't change anything for me. It didn't change her. It didn't do whatever. What I was very rarely in touch with was any kind of sadness. And that hit very hard when we moved down there and this was how it went. The distance from my family makes me very sad. Rage is not the emotion that comes up for me over her doing that. I'm heartbroken that that's even possible from her. It's not how it would go if it went the other way. And this is the sibling that used to make me laugh the hardest. Someone I was really close to. Makes me very sad. I don't have rage about it. That's okay. it just feels like the feelings aren't enough it doesn't seem that it satisfies something else you're looking for from me in this example so yeah that yeah that is true there is part of it that is dissatisfying for me but not not because like sadness or heartbreak isn't like enough like you continually said where's my rage about it it seems like you want me to be angry No, what I really want is for that to matter enough for you to do something or for that to touch you or move you because it's like this thing happens and it either doesn't register at all, it doesn't actually result in something different.
48:52It's like a rolling over about it and not saying more about it. Like not having a direct expression of that to her. Like, I miss you and I want to have a relationship with you and I'd like for there to be room in it for me. Meaning I don't mean to give you a script. I just, I mean, like, it wasn't like that thing happened and it touched you and then you moved apart. And I realize, like, I sound like a hypocrite because I don't, I'm not even telling my people what my experience is of you. I don't mean to be superior. It leaves it then to me to have the experience that moves us to do something. And it is, in that way, dissatisfying.
49:34Yes. But it's not like being heartbroken or sad isn't enough. It's like then you roll over.
49:45Is this different or more of the same? This is more of the same. Okay. the only difference in it is I would not usually explain where I was. In that aspect, it's slightly different. No, but you did something else. You said the feelings that you have are not mine. I experienced this situation, my emotional experience, differently from you. And she's told you three times, that is not the issue for me. I completely understand that while I may feel anger, you feel sadness.
50:29What she then said is, but once you have that sadness, what do you do with it? If you miss your sister, do you do something?
50:41Meaning, this is my additions, you're very active in the destructive path. You're quite passive in the reconstructive path. Sure. That's what I'm hearing is what's bugging you. I can imagine usually you just go silent, and then she goes into monologue. And then it goes from very low tone to higher voice. Because in effect, you're talking alone. That has to stop. It will just erode at you. so in distinguishing I know your experience is X my experience was actually something else I don't have those feelings that was really important you are entitled to have very different experiences that live side by side of the same situation it will do you a lot of good to actually make these statements
51:43because the less involved you are the more her view of the relationship is that everything only moves when she's at wit's end. Mm-hmm. You know, she's also able to insert in a little aside, who am I talking to? I myself have not spoken a single word to my own family. I mean, there's a double standard here. Mm-hmm. I think I do ask, like, where is your anger about this? Like, where is your rage about this? and I do wish sometimes that there was anger because then it would make something happen. But I know that's not necessarily true. That's a false assumption. Right. But even where there's sadness or even where there's heartbreak, we don't sit in that together.
52:34We don't share, like, wow, you feel so sad about it. But when he tells you that he feels really sad about it, You don't join him either. You tell him, what do you do with it? Yes. But you don't join him. And even when he says she's the one who makes me laugh, tell me more. Or do you think of particularly these instances when she would make you laugh? Or what's it been like to not have that laughter in your life anymore? Or something that makes you actually cross over to the other side. Yes. And I do actually want to know more. And I realize I don't yield to it enough. to make more space in there.
53:22I'm gonna get selfish for a minute. I don't have enough room for me to be sad about all of these things, just all of these moments of loss. And instead, I have to be angry. And so it's like, what a luxury. Frankly, for you to have grief, for you to feel sad, I feel sad. And so now I also, it also gets to be about your sadness.
53:53There is no room for sadness because I'm too angry at myself or at them. Both. Both. Usually when we don't have room for sadness, it's because we're angry at ourselves. It doesn't mean the others are not a part of it, but there is a particular anger that is the anger at ourselves.
54:21My immediate pull when you said that was, I'm angry at allowing myself to be humiliated time and time again. Like, I know that these moments are humiliating and I'll like fight for the dignity. But like also, okay, why not just walk away and actually preserve and tend to my dignity myself? So yes, I feel angry for that. The bind that I see you in is the fact that you live in secret. The fundamental thing is that the people close to you do not know what you experience. They may know some pieces, but they don't know the places where it feels compromising. and a little bit like various situations of abuse.
55:09So then it becomes your shame. Small amount, big amount, but it becomes your shame. And I can only fully accept my sting if he joins me in the anger because then we are warriors together.
55:26So you want him to claim something, but you need to claim something too.
55:33that doesn't justify anything that you've done because there's a stack of pink slips. Yes. But you don't address the stack of pink slips. You give your little thing here and a little thing there.
55:50So if you don't talk, it's complicated. But if you do talk, it's even more complicated. That's a bind. If you say nothing, she says, how can he say nothing? If you say what the little bit you say, she says, how can he reduce it to this? And you meet in that very place. That's the bizarre thing of it. It's like in the end, you each have your secrets. And then when the opportunities occur to actually cross, look, if we met again, we will get there. And I hope you have somebody that you work with that you can do this, literally crossing the bridge and entering the neighborhood of each other rather than just identifying the myths.
56:34And your effort is to actually take from there whatever you can salvage.
56:50Where 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.
57:55We'll see you next time. bill over$1 ,000. Always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance for dogs and cats. According to consumeradvocate.org, you get paid back up to 90 % of vet bills at any vet in the U.S. and Canada, with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to FetchPet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's FetchPet.com slash save.
58:28Thank you.
From the publisher
A married couple arrives at Esther’s office hoping to recover from a devastating rupture with his mother after the birth of their first child. But immediately their session reveals a longer, more complex history of betrayal within their relationship and within his larger family system. Having a child, and experiencing an absolute break from his abusive mother, finally disrupted the toxic dynamics between the couple. Now, as they revisit the moments when she felt most abandoned by him, Esther helps them explore the differences between shame and accountability, the legacy of childhood family systems, and what it takes to truly repair the pain you've caused someone you love.
Producer’s Note: When our anonymous guests do a session with Esther for the podcast, it is an act of generosity for everyone who listens. These sessions are meant not only to support the people in the room with Esther, but all of us who learn from their stories. Our stories have many chapters, and what you hear is just one moment in someone’s journey. So even though the sessions are anonymous, please remember that real people are behind them and they may be reading your comments.
Also, please join me on Entre Nous, my new home on Substack for anyone who wants to live, love, and work with more connection and imagination. I invite you to sign up and become a free or paid member at estherperel.substack.com
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