Esther Perel

Nice.

And I bring in like, and I was like, who's going to be our best teachers? Well, if you know Esther Perel, she's one of the top in the world.

So I was like, Robin, You're going to hire her.

That's going to be our very first teacher.

Is that like, if you're like, all right, this will be interesting.

So typically when people become attracted, so Esther Perel, if you've heard of her, she's really interesting, like relationship person.

She's like one of the top Ted talks on it.

There's a thing it's called mating, mating captivity is her book.

Those ongoing betrayals are like breaking a bone over and over again in the same place.

So, what's the difference between that and being cheated on by somebody who's not a narcissist? If you read the work of famed psychotherapist Esther Perel, who's done some really, really interesting work writing about and speaking about infidelity in relationships, she takes the point of view that not all cheating is created the same way.

and she actually highlights the fact that in some relationships they actually use it as a wake-up call they grow from it instead of it destroying them they take some important lessons from it and pay it forward into their own relationship she sees that cheating is sometimes a byproduct of excitement seeking in a relationship it may reflect different temperaments in a relationship but that reparation can be made because Esther Perel works with a different patient population than I do.

I don't see that as much because I tend to work with people who are dealing with narcissistic cheaters.

But her work is actually really quite compelling, and she makes the points really, really well.

Orna from couples therapy, she's charging $700.

Esther Perel, she's charging $2,000 I just learned.

So it's a hugely privileged thing to be able to access therapy.

And so I was really wondering, how does the choice and ability to consent to being exposed in television play into that dynamic? And also, how does the presence of the cameras influence the therapeutic dynamic? There was something that came up on the most recent season of Couples Therapy, where with one couple, they were starting to talk about something, and the husband said out loud, oh, I thought we weren't gonna touch on that on the show.

I mean, you know, Orna Goralnik from Couples Therapy is $700 an hour, so...

I'm like, that's it? That's it, I know.

Because Esther Perel's like two grand or something.

Really? And none of these bitches are even...

And it is such a disservice to the marriage and to the woman to not find it outside of sex and on your own.

Esther Perel talks about how, how people try to turn their partners into everything, right? They want them to be their lover.

They want there to be their best friend, their confidant, you know, all these things.

And I, when I was actively in men's groups, I did the mankind project long time ago, but for a good amount of time, I remember how empowering it was.

There are a lot of lovely people in our field that are inspiring and have a lot of inspiration.

great uh things to share and insights like Esther Perel is a big is a big guru in the relationship couples world um and her stuff is less around communication per se and it just really um validating around um romantic sexual desire in long-term committed relationships and how to...

She really normalizes the challenges of being in a long-term relationship and moving through different phases and still being able to feel physically attracted to your partner and how and how can you do that and what does that look like and can you expect all these different things from one person or can you you know outsource some needs to friends to other outlets um so she's a really great um uh, leader in the field.

And, um, John Gottman, he's a very well-known family and marriage therapist.

Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way.

That makes me think about mystery more generally and the issue of privacy and mystery and the work that we often talk about around Esther Perel's work about mystery and attractiveness and sexual desire.

And generally, I think it's, coming back to what you were saying, my preference is definitely for clear demarcations of privacy.

Sure.