I Gave Him an Ultimatum. Now What?

29:30I have a lot of empathy for how painful it is for her that he makes these promises that he can't keep. But I also understand why he can't keep them. He was left alone with his psychotic mother. He was the go-between, the mother and the church, the mother and the father. Every adult around him was dangerous. and to be under such surveillance made him understand that the mechanism for survival was for nobody to know anything that would endanger him. I don't know the details of what he means when he describes himself as the double agent, for example, but I do understand that this is not just a basic skills training about how to become more honest and more forthcoming.

30:25This is a complete transformation of his entire psyche, being and survival system.

30:38We have to take a brief break. Stay with us. Support for Why Should We Begin? comes from Aloha. So many of us are looking to boost our protein intake, but not all protein is made equal. For those of you who are mindful about what you put in your body and want thoughtfully sourced organic protein, here's a tip. Aloha protein bars. This isn't a compromise bar, according to Aloha, and it actually tastes really good. Think creamy, organic peanut butter dipped in dark chocolate and a soft, rich, satisfying texture. Not the clumpy, stodgy protein bars that feel like a punishment. Each bar contains 14 grams of protein, up to 10 grams of fiber, 5 grams or fewer of sugar, and zero sketchy ingredients.

31:33Plant-based ingredients grown in the ground and built to actually keep you satisfied. Look for Aloha Protein Bars at your local grocery store or at aloha.com, A-L-O-H-A dot com. Aloha, taste that grows.

31:52support for where should we begin comes from Shopify whenever you're starting a big new endeavor it's normal to think what if I fail especially with something potentially life changing like starting a business but maybe a better question is what if I don't fail what if I succeed even more than I expected Shopify can help you get closer to unlocking that answer It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S., from household names like Heinz and Mattel to brands just making a name for themselves. Their design studio is equipped to help you create exactly the online presence you envision with hundreds of ready-to-use website templates.

32:37Plus, you can also create entire email and social media campaigns with ease with the help of Shopify's marketing tools so you can meet your customers where they are. It's time to turn those what-ifs into… With Shopify Today, you can sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash esther. You can go to shopify.com slash esther. That's shopify.com slash esther. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from TalkAboutPD.com. Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of, and it turns out it's more common than you'd think. Peyronie's disease, or PD for short. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis.

33:27This can cause a curve with a bump during an erection, and for some men, lead to pain during intimacy and may impact mental health. It may also lead to anger and frustration, depression, lowered self-esteem and even withdrawal from sexual activity and physical intimacy. Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD. The actual cause of PD isn't always known. In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity. The good news is PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment.

34:13To learn more about Peyronie's disease, visit talkaboutpd.com. You learn to survive, and you still practice those same coping skills. I know. in an environment today that is completely different and actually requires something else from you and offers you something else. You have a super understanding person here who is not insensitive to anything you just told but who knows the difference between you living with secrets and her being a secret. And when you are a secret, it eats you from within. When you are a secret and you don't want it. And there's no reason for you to, because you made a whole set of life choices in order for exactly that, to avoid having to be in that situation.

35:21Yeah, I've been clear that the hardest thing for me is feeling like a secret. Yeah. It makes you feel like almost a mistress, even though you're not. and I'm not doing anything wrong. And I didn't ever say, please break up with these people, but I did say, please be open and honest. And I said, here's a lot of resources. Like here's all the intro to poly resources, like maybe share these. But I also understand if people aren't coming from that mentality that, you know, you kind of have to want to do that. So, but that would have been my approach. And it just got to the point where I don't see a path forward other than us almost starting over from a place of no secrecy.

36:03And I know it's probably hard to imagine what our connection is like based on what we're saying here. But honestly, when we're out in the world and when we're traveling and when we're with our community, I've almost never experienced anything like it. Like we're so similar and it's so incredible. and we have the most fun and there's so much love. So I think it makes it more like the pain of that not existing in between those moments is just something I can't make work anymore. For me, your whole life is spent managing these secret relationships and not necessarily even making time for one-on-one time for us.

36:55What makes you amenable to live in this situation, which is rationally completely outside of the values and the principles that you have chosen? Again? Yeah, you're going to tell me the specialness of our connection. And then that's your circling around. I think it's beautiful. I'm not, for a moment, minimizing. But it doesn't give you an out either. It's like, but it's so special. But it's so unique. But what we have is so incredible. And then I can't take it anymore. Yeah. And then I take a break. And then I loosen my muscles. and then I get back into the ring and then it's so beautiful and then how could I ever give up on something like this and then is how could I ever continue to tolerate something like this?

38:00So now you start to be in a betrayal of yourself, not just his betrayal of you. So, yeah, I learned a lot about where he came from and what he's been through. And I have incredibly deep empathy for that. And it helps me contextualize what he does and it helps me understand it.

38:35And sometimes knowledge comes to a detriment to yourself, I guess, because I know how much good there is in him and I understand why it's so difficult. And so I make a lot of space for that. And I think that's just what love is. And then you reach the point where your love for him becomes degrading of you.

39:14Yeah. Change the world. The world didn't sit well with you. No. It just never sees me. No matter how much empathy and space I give, I just realize maybe I'll never be seen in that way. I mean, I do see you. I just am not necessarily super forthcoming. I'm not very vocal on emotions. when we're apart it's not that I don't see you anymore and it shuts off for me I will think of you often I don't operate the way a lot of people do where they like think of somebody or see something and then immediately messaging that person I know that's a normal thing but it's not that I don't love you or see you it's I don't know how to change I've become more aware of what Because you're bringing it back on you.

40:16And then every time you rope her into this empathic attunement of your situation, if you can, stay with her for a moment. Yeah, I mean, I'm mainly trying to say I understand where... So that's a short sentence. You can say it in one sentence too. Yeah. You know, I know it's coming back to me, but I'm also trying to give us a chance to move forward in the right way. And I've never had more tough conversations. I know you're not there, so you don't see it, but it's tough because on the other side, there's other people that don't want things to end or change. I know, but you have a choice of your life, right?

41:09If you need to change a situation with a partner, you have full autonomy to make that choice. It's for yourself. And as I said, like eight years, a long time of somebody being in my life. And I've had two full-on breakup conversations that are so hard, that are so out of my norm. I know there's no easy way and I have to do it the hard way. Do you wish that she would understand that more? For sure. how hard it is to have these conversations, how much you are hurting people you care about deeply. Yeah. You get a lot of understanding for your past, but you also live in the present. And you can ask for some understanding about the challenges of your present, even if it's late, even if it's after years, whatever, because you've so presented it as they're monogamous and I am just the one floating through, that to acknowledge that these breakups, which have been the most steady relationships in your life, are tearing you apart.

42:16Yeah, but I also take responsibility in my action to it. Correct. And I feel terrible. Correct. Correct. And you can judge yourself a little bit and you can also acknowledge your feelings about it. Not one wipes out the other. I realize this is an area I have not been able to be kind or empathetic around how hard this would be. And I think in an unfair way, I just say that I would never be in this situation. So I can't understand it. But I hear that if I'm so understanding about the past, I also need to be understanding about the present. And I haven't been probably more because the present does seem to directly affect me.

43:11So it's a really hard balance to strike, I think. And I am sorry for that. I wish I could take back time to be super honest. I mean, even in the breakup of eight years, I mean, from when we first were talking, I hadn't met other people really that were living that way and living truth. Like, I had no examples of that. So a lot has changed in understanding how to do it, at least open honesty, not hurting anybody. And I know I'm hurting people. I know that that's happening. and I'm at a breaking point too that I don't want to do that anymore for my life. But the other side is also, it's a big loss as well and it's a loss for me.

44:06Like these are friends that won't be friends. So I lose real people. That's not just so simple as, yeah, you're not happy. Like, well, I am actually kind of happy and there's nothing wrong. They treat me well, I treat them well. It's just that it's not aligned with how I should live and I shouldn't be secretive. And what you're saying now, have you said to her before? Yeah. The part about your loss? Yeah. Yeah, we have talked about that. And I think it's really just hard for me to understand what those relationships could be like and what those relationships add to his life, to be honest. All I see is him move through the world in a very open, authentic, beautiful way with me and my friends.

45:00And all I can picture is a completely different person when he's with these other people that everything else is hidden from. and, you know, they don't go on adventures and they don't travel and they don't, like, it's just hard for me to understand and conceptualize. Do you ask? Yeah, I've asked what he gets from these relationships. That's not a question. Oh. Because you already have decided that it's inferior to what he has with you. It's not a real question. That's fair. I don't ask in a curious way. Yeah. So here's the collusion. You don't really ask because a part of you wants to think that what you have is so special, how could he say no to that?

45:46And he doesn't really tell you because until now he has pretended that none of this was that important. Yes. So here's a moment of change. You know, it's not just it's hard for them, it's hard for you too. to say goodbye or to explain why this has to change or to explain that these beautiful relationships have existed also shrouded in secrecy. And while you offer travel, maybe they offer a cocoon. You offer adventure, they offer something else. I don't know, but I have a sense that there is a lot more that you could tell about it but you've had an investment in making them look like they were nothing so that she wouldn't have to worry about it.

46:40So there's a collusion of misrepresentation of what means what and what matters and doesn't.

46:50Yeah, and there's comfortability, habits. It does bring cocoon, I guess, or a comfort to life. it's like a stable thing for me, which I didn't have. Obviously growing up, I know that's a part of a need and want that I have, like taking care of and, you know, even if it's making food, things like that, like they're comforts of life. I assume that in your therapy you are connecting those dots? Yeah, but in all honesty, I'm like working through trying to change my situations more so than I am there. Like that's all I went in with and that's all I talk about almost. But you have put a lot of emphasis on honesty and transparency and secrecy.

47:52and what I'm sensing throughout our conversation today is that there is a whole other emphasis on loss on the burden of caretaking on feeling incredible responsibility on wondering who is there for you on aloneness and on creating relationships that become safe harbors where somebody cooks for you so that it becomes more layered why they feel like a root canal to have to end and why on some level they have nothing to do with your relationship right now. It does and it doesn't. I think what's hard for me is that I want to be a safe harbor for you and I think I offer you that comfort and doing things for you and not just the community, but like one-on-one.

48:59Like I do truly believe that we want the same thing. And I recognize the barrier and how hard this is for you. But that like puts me back in like I don't know what to do with that because it's a pretty tough boundary for me. again. So even if I can understand how hard it is for you to change your dynamics with these other individuals, like, can I change my boundary? And like, I've tried. And now I'm back in a pretzel in my head of like, why can't I just let this all work for me? Like, I feel like I'm right back there. I saw the loop I see the circle I see the making of the pretzel if you want and yes there is also a place at which you say love him love some of what we have special, unique love story but maybe reached its limit in terms of life story to me that is a boundary the people that we can deeply love and then the question is can we make a life with them whatever the style of life you choose more pressure you can't put that's one thing you know for fact because he's not doing this for you but he has been watching you and he wants something else for himself and that demands the disentangling from very deep, meaningful relationships that are way more meaningful than he has actually allowed himself to even know.

50:53So it's in the moment of saying goodbye that he realizes what they have meant for him. Not just the hurting of the other person, but also the loss for himself. You can say, I will be there with you and I will accompany you through this process or I will let you go through this process by yourself and I will continue with my life and the door is open.

51:25I do want to be there for him and I do want to be there for you. But if I'm also the one that's being affected, can I do both?

51:37you know where do we begin again do we begin again i do feel like we're back in our circle we're stuck you know i know all these things i know where it comes from i want the relationship but while he's going through this and figuring out if he can actually live in a polyamorous lifestyle where do I put myself in his life can I be there can we plan things together can we do things together or does this require a full separation and then when do you come back together

52:26it's very much what happens when we talk we kind of circle um it's a difficult situation because we both love each other and want to spend time together and be the partners we can be when we're together, but there's other things that are not aligned right now. So it's the draw of us being us again. I don't think that it's going to be a joint decision. No. I think that this is a situation where you make a decision for yourself and you may be in agreement about it, but it's not, we have come to the conclusion together that

53:19it is in your best interest to have this transparency be immediate, and it is not his. You operate from a place of a chosen set of values and a certain design for your life and a certain conception of relationships. if I listen to you I know you mentioned those words to those women early on but I don't think that your lifestyle has much to do with poly nothing you're using poly because it's an acceptable word for multiple partners multiple love stories but in fact your whole thing is way more internal than lifestyle it may change yeah but that is not from what you think you describe what i see you having done yeah oh i recognize for sure okay so that's where the misalignment you're using a vocabulary that is not a joint vocabulary yeah well i said i have not i haven't practiced poly i said it but i haven't been but you've practiced something else and that something else is way more intricate.

54:39There's a whole psychological infrastructure about what you have done. To just think it wasn't poly because it wasn't transparent because of all. It's true. It's all there too. But what you have put in place and what you're trying to dismantle is an infrastructure that has very little to do with polyamory. It doesn't necessarily even have to do with secrecy. That's the mechanism, the compartmentalizing, the evasiveness, and the way the entire thing is set up. You know, if you ask, I answer. But since you didn't ask, I didn't really need to tell. And then evasive is a very powerful dynamic. And at the same time, the relationships are deeply meaningful.

55:23But you're looking at an infrastructure of values and lifestyle and accountability and responsibility and transparency and all these things. and that is on its way but it has not been there.

55:41There will be loss for both of you. There will be attempts to come back because who wants to leave something good? And it won't be perfect and it won't feel certain and it will ache and you will wonder why the hell did it have to be this way? And should you have been more patient? and more flexible, and more anarchic. And then you have to accept that you had limits, which goes against your grain, because you think you should be able to be beyond all limits, and accommodating in every arrangement. And this is kind of the place where you meet, is that his relationships are more meaningful to him than he has allowed himself ever to feel.

56:33and that your limits are more real than you have allowed yourself to feel. It's a place where both of you say, whatever flows isn't necessarily always the right thing for me.

56:50But you will find a way out of the loop when you accept that you too have no's, that you have limits, that you have things that you don't want to live with. You know, monogamous people, exclusive people, sometimes are challenged to admit that they have thoughts, fantasies, explorations beyond the limits that they live in. But poly people sometimes have the challenge of admitting that full-on openness, exploration, everything goes, everything needs to be understood, every feeling needs to be managed. is sometimes also not what suits every person. Does any of this reach you? It does. I mean, you just described what kind of we go through when we break up.

57:50It just hasn't stuck. Mm-hmm.

57:55When you make the decision, you won't feel sure. You will question yourself. It's important that you not think these decisions are made with certainty. I know that. I mean, that's what I've already been in. Right. Okay. And he will try to help you stay. No, no, you won't say it. You won't say stay, but you will say what you said today, which melts her heart. So grief lives in that space. The more you grieve, the more you know you loved. I've already grieved this a lot. I know. But you also put him in ultimatum. He didn't meet the ultimatum. Then you had to follow through on your decision. Then you thought, is there another stone unturned?

58:56And sometimes I have nothing to say that you don't know already. I think today is one of those. Is that disappointing to you?

59:09A little bit.

59:13Yeah, I obviously wish there was something I hadn't thought of. I wish too.

59:23Where do I leave you besides frustrated or disappointed? I think it is just what it is. It is frustrating and it is disappointing, and those are two good words to describe our relationship arc. Where do I leave you? To me?

59:51Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have to make my own decisions too. And it's quite different. I'm the one making the decisions on those other sides. And in this position, I'm not making the decision here. I can respect that, recognize that. And it could be a complete restart for me too, to go forward in a much better way. but is there an avenue that we can be in each other's lives that looks differently where our care and love for each other just doesn't go by the wayside and we still care for each other we still love each other what can something else look like you know what something else looks like is that you are now friends and therefore when she calls you in an emergency You do not have to worry about answering the phone.

1:00:51And then you will pick up and then you will show up. You are more likely to be able to show your depth of affection and love and care for her, potentially in the framework of friends than in the framework of partners. See, but that's the crazy thing is we've had that conversation and the level of compartmentalization doesn't allow that even as a friend. Really? Yes. Oh, okay. Then I take it back. The compartmentalization doesn't allow for a deep friendship any more than it allows for a partnership.

1:01:31Then you have your answer.

1:01:36And that's the problem. Then you have your answer.

1:01:50In the beginning of the session, he said, I never write my own story. At the end of the session, it becomes clear that she will have to make the decision for where the story goes. This will not be a joint decision. This will be hers because he can go on like this. He has begun a process of dismantling and rebuilding, but they're not at all in the same place. And paradoxically, while he carries the secrecy, we know a lot more about him. While she carries the transparency, we actually don't know as much. We know the predicament that she's in at this moment and the aching that she feels, but we don't necessarily know what predisposes her to find herself in the most paradoxical situation, meaning she's experiencing the one thing she built an entire system to prevent.

1:02:48And my frustration at the end of this session is that there was only one session.

1:03:04Where 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 Julian Hat. 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.

1:03:38Have no fear! Chosen Foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of seedy oils and sketchy ingredients. With cooking oils, salad dressings, and mayo, all powered by the good fats from 100 % pure avocado oil and simple, delicious ingredients. Chosen foods. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just$15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.