Esther Perel: The 3 Attachment Styles & Why You’re Struggling With Love!

do you know a single person who would treat their business the way that people treat their relationships the business would be dead love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm that just exists why

you shouting at me stare Parell the most famous relationship therapist on the planet cter bestselling author and she had one of the most viewed head talks of all

time in order to want sex it needs to be worth wanting so when women don't want sex is it really that they have less desire or is it that they don't have desire for the sex they have and this fear of rejection is one of the most

important emotional vulnerabilities for many men it's part of what is so alluring in porn which takes care of three major dilemmas around sex the first one is and this leads to lying and

cheating I want to know how I avoid getting to that place people end up in a rut because they're so lazy so complacent if you give the best of yourself at work and then you bring the

leftovers home taking out your phone and not present slowly you relationship degrades because the more he refuses to be present the more alone she feels and the more alone she feels the more she

tests him to see if you're really not there for me it's a figure eight Loop and whether it's money kids sex every topic could become part of the loop but

the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships without it we die what do we do about it though well this is one of the best

things I can offer to people is that every now and then I meet someone on this podcast that I classify as a wizard or witch and I say that because the

impact they have on me is so profound so lifechanging so pivoting in terms of what I thought I knew that I look at them like a witch or a wizard I just think how does this

person seem to just know everything Esther Pella is one of those people she's magic what she knows about relationships love sex and everything in

between will both blow your mind inspire you and unlock a bunch of answers that I think the vast majority of us are currently looking for I've spent 10

years thinking that relationships are slightly confusing they're a bit of a black box I've wondered why some people are needy and others are anxious in relationships why does some people in

relationships run away and others chase them all of these answers these black boxes as it relates to relationships love and sex Esther has the answer to

and I can't wait for you to listen to this episode it might just change your life and before this episode begins one favor to ask you you probably know what this favor is if you listen to this podcast frequently if you hit the

Subscribe button on this podcast which roughly 58% of you have then I promise you we will do everything in our power to make this show better and better for

you that's the only favor I'll ever ask you do we have a deal thank you [Music] Esther what is the mission you're on you

know we spoke before we started recording about a plethora of different subjects that you're innately curious about if you were to summarize all of

those subjects what is EST perel's Mission the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your

relationships and relationships are often not taken very seriously as a subject of inquiry

right because um in various worlds it has a certain attitude right so in the easiest one would be in the business

World relationships have usually been seen as soft skills fluff feminine skills or feminine concerns feminine

concerns you can always hold in high regard but then disregard in reality I think that for so long relationships were

structured organized through social order religion communal structures and so people didn't really have to think about them so much they were very very codified they still are codified in most

parts of the world but in our Western world where we have dismantled all the structures that used to define relationships relationships are going

through a massive transformation a massive makeover over and um and we don't necessarily have the skills of how to deal with all these changes that are

literally happening under our feet so my mission is to guide people to help people make sense of what their relational lives are about friendship at

work romantic relationships Family Ties and to develop understandings insights skills to be able to handle what is probably in

my mind one of the most important dimensions of our life without it we die without it we die mhm oh we don't die a natural death necessarily but you

it's a death to the soul you a life without relationships you mean there are a few Hermits but the vast majority of us are

socially wired we exist in relationships we Define ourselves in relationship I Know Who I Am by being with you I mean who am I outside of that it's like you

know it's in the presence of the other that we discover who we are alone there's no there's nothing to bounce off of and so I am passionate about the

relational lives of people the challenges of relationships in the modern world and as we enter the 21st century and as machines are entering to

replace people I am interested in how people heal from broken relationships or from relationships that broke them

um that's the mission and you've spent a long time working with people that want better relationships in a therapeutic sort of environment as a therapist right

yes I I have been a psychotherapist for more than 40 years I'm so compelled I want to start where we all start which is with our childhood and the role that plays in the

relationships we then go on to have or not to have I imagine most of the couples and people you see you can understand the way they are today as

adults based on what they experienced when they were younger or what they learned a lot a lot but we are not just what happened to

us we are also who we become and sometimes we become on the basis of what happened to us and when you ask people sometimes what are some

of your most important inner resources those very resources come from some of the miseries of their childhood

too so it's not linear it's not bad leads to bad it's that some absence some U deprivation can lead to an an acute

awareness of something that makes you become the exact opposite it's it's a dynamic dialogue with your childhood it's not just the

determinism the the determinism that your childhood will determine what's going to happen to you later I think that all of us you know I mean

this is one of there many many Frameworks around childhood but the one that I wrote about in mating in captivity was to say that we all need

security and we all also need Adventure or change or freedom and that some of us will come out of our childhood wanting

more safety more protection more connection more grounding and some of us will come out of our childhood wanting more space more freedom more

individuality more personal expression and that doesn't mean it's static I mean the beauty of us is that we are forever changing creatures and we

can rewrite the story we can't change the story as it occurred to us but we can change its Legacy its meaning its

influence in in the most extraordinary ways I mean how many people have you how many couples you sat with thousands you must start to see patterns emerging when

you're when you know your two couple a couple is sat there they've got some dysfunction in their relationships the guy or the woman starts saying describing their childhood

and saying their their parents were never around you must start to see some patterns and how that caused dysfunction and causes dysfunction later in life is

there any patterns that we can use as stereotypes or hold on to with childhood separation AB I wouldn't even call them a stereotypes I think there are a lot of patterns but the pattern is not just

what you bring from your childhood and how it manifests now the pattern is what two people create that's the pattern so

a pattern could be okay let's say I grew up and I felt that I was left to fend for myself that all of it was on me that I was taking care of my younger siblings

I'm thinking of a recent episode of the of where should we begin and you know when he's absent when he doesn't respond to a request she doesn't just think oh

he doesn't want to do what I just asked him to do she instantly goes into the I'm always alone there's never been anybody there for me I've always been

alone my life is never going to change why is it always me who has to do all of this I carry the burden and the pattern

is what she asks that makes him react that makes her amplify and it's what I do that makes you be and do what you do

that makes me be what I do it's a figure eight that's the pattern and the more he refuses or to just do it let's say and

the more alone she feels and the more alone she feels and the more she tests him every time to see if the next time she asks for something he's gonna actually

respond in kind and since he feels the pressure and the test and he comes from a story that says nobody's going to tell me what to

do that's a dance so couples have dances and the dance is how you see one person Trigger or evoke in the other a survival

strategy his survival strategy is nobody tells me what to do and that survival strategy is going to then trigger in her the vulnerability of well if no if you

won't do anything I asked then I'm again alone and then when that person feels that alone her survival strategy is to go and knock at the door and see are you really not there for

me the dance between the vulnerability and the survival strategy is one of the most common patterns in a relationship and what's really essential to

understand is that what makes the difference is the form it is fig figuring out what is this figure eight look like in this couple

not the specific detail because once you've noticed the loop it doesn't matter what they're talking about every topic could become a

part of the loop whether it's money kids sex in-laws trips it will look alike if I always think I'm alone and I can't count on you

and I feel abandoned and let down then that becomes the filter with which I enter most of these conversations and if your thing is nobody pushes me and

nobody imposes their will on me because I you know have been telling my dad for a long time that he's done being the boss of me this is the the filter so you

look for those filters and then you begin to see you know it's like music if you really listen to a sentence from a music to a phrase after the first four

notes you have a good idea of what are the next four notes that's how you do pattern recognition in couples me and my partner are going through this I think at the moment we've figured out what our

figure of eight our pattern is right tell me it's exactly what you just said which one I'm the guy she's the woman in the scenario so you're the nobody tells me I'm the one to feels like

everything's threatening my Independence you know and my and I don't like to be told what to do as in and so you also interpret any request or invitation as a

command as a threat on my Independence right it's a command which you have to push back as an intrusion yeah like the walls are closing in right as a

violation of your and so you do this yeah and when you do that then she she goes comes she uh it's almost like I'll

give you an example I'll be satad at home after work I've come home it's maybe 9:00 p.m. I'm quickly throw up my laptop and I'm doing some work um whatever she says something to me and

cuz I'm kind of busy here I give like a half acknowledgement and because I've like not turned away from the laptop or because I've not given my full attention she'll then start like asking me seemingly completely random questions

that she wouldn't ordinarily ask me what do you think of this picking up something random in the house um what do you want to drink there's literally a cup of water already in front of me and

you know what that does right the more the more this she starts doing it to me the more I start giving the blunt responses but what it means when you say

the more the more is that we make the other you are creating a knocker yeah

yeah and she's creating a withholder the more she knocks the more you withdraw or withhold the more you

withd draw half attention uhhuh you know artificial intimacy and the more she experiences you as absent and she comes

looking for you in full force and what that says is that we create the other person we contribute to making them the

very thing we don't want if you wanted her to not do this you could change this in a minute how by

basically stopping for a moment saying this ritual of acknowledging each other at the end of a long day Day means a lot and actually it doesn't just mean a lot

to her because you don't have to deal with it because she makes sure that you don't get forgotten if she would was not coming and she didn't and she disappeared for six days in a row and never came to

check in with you you would begin to wonder what's going on so she holds the flame for you yeah if you if you stopped actually and it's N9 o' you've had your long Deeds you've been on your own

you've done all your stuff and you actually said come here and you took literally 30 seconds for a beautiful kiss a hug a gaze a moment and then you

said I'll be done in probably 20 minutes I'm excited to spend some time together you would relax her nervous system she would not be you know after you and you

would actually feel like your boundaries have been respected but what happens in a couple is that you want her to change you want her to stop annoying you and do what you do doesn't she see that I'm busy I'm

done you know why doesn't she wait and so we always think the other will change and then my life will improve but if you actually want your life to change or your relationship Dynamic to change you

could do it like this because you're the one who is you and her right the same I would say the exact same thing to her by the way this is so symmetric so I would

say to her if you actually want him to not push you away here's what you can do if you want her to not keep knocking then here is what you you can do because when you do what you do you are

increasing her knocking I've noticed that this is fundamental to couple's thinking it says we are not essential

creatures we become someone as part of the dynamic that we are in with another someone this is when people begin to

understand that in couple therapy things begin to change it's like a light bulb goes on I also real resonate with the sub point you made that if she stopped

knocking I'd be like what the hell's going on and and I'd eventually end up lonely and unhappy and you're right she is carrying the um as you called it like the flame for the relationship she's the

pursuer yeah you're the distancer yeah and the distancer doesn't have to deal with his feelings of longing or desire for closeness because the other one is holding up the quot then why do we go do

we go for people that are are opposites in this regard no you go for people who Express the part of you that you don't want to deal with okay meaning you're telling me I'm

the person who who from whom being intruded upon violated my Independence my Independence but we all have needs for Independence and we all have needs for connection and dependence but those

you have outsourced on her ah so we Outsource things is taking care of the feelings that you are disavowing or the needs that you are

disavowing inside of you you vice versa I mean my thing on top of it was that no I'm joking I'm joking no but it's so true do you do you do you understand 100% we Out Source it's not

that we find someone who's the opposite is we find it looks like it's the opposite but what it really is is we all have needs for that's what I

was saying for for the connection and for the space or the independence we all need both we need home and we need Journey we need predictability and we

need Innovation we need commitment and we need Freedom we we need both different degrees but we need both what happens in a relationship sometimes is

that I assign to you I Outsource to you the parts of my needs that I am conflicted about and you are more conflicted about your dependency needs

which are actually totally normal you're much more aware of your Independence needs that's kind of your persona and she may be exactly on the opposite of

that it changes when people begin to actually integrate the part that the other one is playing and this realization that if she wasn't coming after you at some point you would suddenly

say wow where is she that is basically the giveaway and I know I know that this in our relationship I think God is she cuz when I'm over here I'm over here in New

York at the moment and she's in London doing her Retreats and stuff she's got like a breath work B breath work.com a breath work Retreat she does and when

she's not here not around me I fall into I can miss her better yeah yeah 100% And

also I fall into really like I'd say bad balance habits I'm out of balance in my life I'm I go all in on Independence and work right but when she I've always

referred to her she's like a counterbalance in my life because she's the one that says no we need to go to the beach for two hours I would never do that on my invition and and I appreciate

it so deeply because I go I know what my life looks like when you're not around and it is a unsustainable life and they often say opposites attract I think she's she's do you tell her so by the

way which part of how much she balances you how appreciative you are of it how much you rely on her for that how out of

kilter you would be when if she wasn't doing so do you actually acknowledge that and show her the appreciation for

it or is 90% of your speech to her the the part of the I need my time my Independence my this my that it's a very good question

um I would say I don't tell her enough and at the same time if it's possible maybe this is a mistake that she knows and I say she knows for two reasons

reason one is because there are moments where I express that gratitude to her and number two is because I'm so open about it in terms of like publicly which isn't always the best way to communicate

with someone don't tell me off but I'm so open about it on this podcast I talk about and she listens to it and she listens to it and she she's a big fan of yours as well and but you're right in the Moment In the Heat of the Moment I'm

all about defense so I'm like I can descend into blame a little bit too much you know you know I once I often like to ask people you know

what's the one thing I said that that stayed with you that made a difference and um it was a situation where a person

basically was talking about how um when they are late when they miss an appointment when they miss an activity that a couple had agreed upon or a game of the children or whatever it was you

know that they make a point of apologizing and I said to them you know if you still at a computer at 10:00 and you know and you're apologizing that's you consider that being

considerate I'm aware and I'm apologizing but when you apologize about your absence what you missed what you didn't do you're basically still saying

I'm super important I'm that important but I couldn't be there but if you actually said I'm so thankful that you're here because I

could not have stayed at the office late I could not have gone to that last minute dinner I could not have gone and so seeing so and so if you were not here

and instead of apologizing you thank then you are actually saying I couldn't do this without you which means I am an independent person who is completely

interdependent with you and that interdependence is the part that the independent person is struggling

with it's whatever you are doing and this is when you said she balances me she tells me let's go to the be whatever you are doing is bolstered by someone

who is making this possible for you and that acknowledgement it's not just to be nice and to say thank you it humble you

it says I could not do this without you that gives the other person not a sense that they are Superfluous or

intrusive or annoying or choosing the wrong moment but that they matter that they have a presence and a

meaning in your life and that is a secret to a connection making the other person know that they matter and have meaning in my life yeah I couldn't do it without

you I'm having a huge day at business or a huge day at work and I can do this and I can stay late and because whatever you've taken care of 10 different things that would make it possible for me to

have my mind completely focused I'm here I'm with a St pel you know I'm talking orever all the other guests are and I can do that because there's someone

there that has taken care of all of the stuff I don't have to worry about and when you acknowledge that and you thank a person for that you're basically saying I couldn't do this if you didn't

do that that's the interdependence our relationships you know I think we all certainly I think I have for much in my life and I say that

because I look at my actions so what I might say is different to how I think I've behaved over the last I don't know 10 10 15 years we see them as kind of an afterthought to everything else in many

regards so the amount of effort I put into my businesses and to the podcast and to every little detail the creativity the thought the brainstorming all of that relationships we kind of all

just think they're just they just happen and if it doesn't happen perfectly then it's broken and I need to find a new one yeah that's a terrible way to think

I mean and everybody knows it if you give the best of yourself at work if you bring the leftovers home if when you you come home you say I've given everything I had now I'm just putting my feet on

the table I just need to chill I don't want to make any effort you know slowly your relationship degrades period and then there's all kinds of ways it ends

none of them are particularly joyful and um basically if people were able to put a little bit of creativity attention

attention into their relationships as they do with their customers or their guests relationships would be doing a lot better and my profession would be seeing a lot less people I mean there's

no doubt and why are people so lazy so complacent so unimaginative with their relationships

at home I mean I see so many people when you like here you know you're not taking out your phone you're not you're looking at me you're paying attention on occasion you look for your questions and

where we go but basically you're you're with me but at home you're if you do this or this looking at my phone you

know um and and then when the person tells you something really important you go uhhuh uh-huh you know and you're kind of there but not present and that's the

beginning of a kind of modern loneliness actually is that this idea that you can share something really important to someone who is half there half there and I think that that's what's happening

with a lot of younger people these days is that they experience a lot of half darness and that begins to cultivate a real sense of loneliness that has to do

not with I'm physically alone that has to do with do I matter who hears me who cares who pays attention who

notices you know so I I sometimes the advice is very banal you know it's to tell people put your freaking phone down take an hour and put

your phone down and but I'm busy huh but I'm busy well that you will be busy and there won't be a relationship sooner or later there won't be a relationship it's not

difficult you can wait you can wait for the kids to grow up if there are kids involved things but in the end it it there wasn't just because someone was on

their phone well it's not just the on the phone it's on the phone means I am continuously saying something is more important than you we come last we're a

cactus we don't need to be watered we can survive in a desert it's called there's a term I've been using for this that is I borrow from something else it's called

ambiguous loss have you ever heard of this term ambiguous loss yeah no ambigious loss is a term that was developed by a colleague Pauline boss wonderful psychologist when she talked

to about what happens when you have some parent for example that has Alzheimer they are physically present but they are psychologically gone

they're emotionally absent and you can't really mourn them because they're still physically there but you caught in this in between in this ambiguous loss on the

other side you can have somebody who is deployed hostage miscarriage they are emotionally very present but they are physically

absent in both cases it's an ambiguous loss you can't are they still there or are they gone who knows when we live with this phone thing when we are

because you've been at work you've been at like computer you come home you think ah I'm so happy to finally let go of the computer you turn on the TV you turn on the TV and then you turn on the phone at the same time you're watching here

you're watching there and there's a person next to you and most likely they often do the same thing in the end too and gradually you know there is less

and less of a thread of conversation of connection of Joy of Sex of intimacy all of what you know that becomes ambiguous

loss somebody is there but they're not really present I'm I'm I'm you know do is there a difference between me and the

sofa it's comfy it's through routine you sit on me but comfy and routine does do not give us joy or meaning or

relevance or connection and that's what we still seem to want so it means saying to people you know it's actually not very very

complicated what did people do for so centuries they took walks that's one of the few times you can't click so take a walk don't sit don't try

to do you know take a walk around the block and just be in motion then you parallel you know it's not face to face it's side by side and you and you can

talk about the day if you instead of just saying stop stop stop you just said you know let's go for a walk it's London but still you can you can you know and

that you do half an hour walk it will you'll come back to me and you tell me what it will do but it it's amazing how these small interventions that are

playful creative not digging change the dynamic of the relationship because she is only pursuing

you in part because of how much you are withdrawing you change she change if you want to change the other change yourself once you understood the figure

eight and how we create the other you understand that if you do something else sooner or later they do something else too so if you want to change the other change you this is part of the question you

asked me right what are some of the essential understandings of working with relational systems this is true at work in companies this is true in Intimate relationship this is not just for

romantic love this is foundations of relational systems feedback loop it's called in cybernetics so many busy couples can

feel the spark in their relationship waning away slowly but work isn't necessarily the first place you look like pulling out the phone at dinner isn't necessarily the

place people look because that seems so small so they aim at bigger things they'll say I don't know something bigger but do you believe are you saying that you believe a lot of it much of it

often starts with those small moments of disconnection where the person basically ends up becoming the sofa the governments call them bids for connection bids for connection bids you know it's the little things it's the the

difference between turning towards someone or turning away you know when you read something this is a classic example they give do you read something do you actually say hey did you read

this let me send you this article that's a bid for connection it's not a big declaration but it says we're in this together when I see something that's interesting that I think you

would like to read as well I share it with I'm thinking of you I know you exist even if I'm not with you do you know what my partner said to me something about a year ago and I and it we stayed with me because I thought

that's such a strange thing to say she said to me when we were in conflict resolution so we were talking about things um she said you know why I send

you things on Instagram in Instagram DMs like I'll be out here now in New York so she'll she'll if she sees something interesting on Instagram she sends it to me she goes you've stopped acknowledging it I used to just like double tap on it or

make a comment back she because you stopped you stopped acknowledging it and I thought why does that matter why does it like you send me something I watch the funny video I crack on with my day

because it's like when you receive a birthday gift do you think yeah when you buy a birthday gift is it important to give it yeah okay that's

reason I mean how would she know that you watched it if there is no acknowledgement and the acknowledgement is not about the

video or the DM the acknowledgement is we share something well it's even worse because it says seen on Instagram so it says that I've seen it yes but I but but the seen that means that I have seen the

video the acknowledgment is we are in we are part of a thread we're connected she's absolutely right so in that sense when you people lose the spark it is a

lot of these small details that people say so much much in the beginning you know all the positive stuff that people

use and it it's it's actually only more important with time rather than less important with time the the death of a relationship is when people take each

other for granted and when you stop acknowledging those things it is part of the mechanisms of taking for granted I had a really good friend of mine um sit

with me a couple of weeks ago and she has been married to a CEO she's also a CEO herself and she's just going through

a divorce now and I sat with her in America and she said to me you know he was very busy I was very busy we had this kid and I just think I don't I

don't really know what happened along the way it just seems like we fell out of love and every since she said that to me it made me think that it is often quite a gradual process this drifting

apart and this kid coming into the picture as well complicates that what she said to me was you know we we both had our businesses to take care of and then we

had the kid as well so the relationship was I guess the residual beneficiary it got whatever was left and that's caused this divorce now and the child is I guess going to have to live in two

different homes so I have two two thoughts about this you know the first thing is um this is the first time in history that the Sur survival of the

family depends on the happiness of the couple if the couple doesn't nurture itself there is no family you don't stay married because you have to women have

an economic independence in her case at least to be able to leave you have divorce laws you can go so the only thing that holds the couple together you

don't get excommunicated none of it is the relationship quality if you don't have that there is no family here's your child and the second thing is when she says we

just fell out of love that's not the way it goes love is a verb and you conjugate it actively in many tenses it's a

practice if you stop doing all those things that you're telling me the acknowledgements the the the hells the

thank yous the um the sharing of the of the of the the videos Etc all of that cushioning when that thins out it means

that you have not been conjugating the verb love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm that just exists do you know a single person who would treat their business the way that some people treat

their relationships the business would be dead this is the and every and and you know I say it with kind of emphatically

but I'm thinking I'm not saying anything somebody doesn't know you have you to take that kind of lazy attitude towards your shop end of

story and therefore end of relationship but it's not that it just happened it's that they stopped doing saying

expressing showing feeling giving receiving sharing those are the verbs wanting imagining playing experiencing

exploring those are verbs that have to do with relationships and love on that first point about this is being the first time in history where the health and happiness of the relationship

determined whether the family stayed together not the church or some some other external pressure could this go to explain why people are having less and less kids as well because they don't

feel as secure as they once did I think this a little bit about because with my partner I feel like she's said or

indirectly said that she will be she'll feel happy and safe to have a child when she feels like more secure in the relationship you know imagine Once Upon

a Time the you just knew that you were going to stay with them regardless and you also knew that if you had sex you had a good chance of being pregnant true

yeah that's the first and foremost big change that took place so and sex was mostly a woman's marital Duty not that long ago so you know

um I think that many people the Lesser they have the more children they have because

children becomes an expression of abundance of care of more hands to help of the riches of a family um people who

have less food have more children it's not people who are more insecure or live in more precarious situations I don't think that that is the reason I think that there is a

certain kind of um attitude towards not wanting to give up the Comforts of one's life the freedom the comings and goings

that make some people not want to have children and then there's also the fact that for a long time you didn't have a choice and some people today want to exercise that choice you know but you're

talking about the love that goes and asked me before you know one of the subjects that I'm very interested in in light of that

is conflict and I called the course that I just created turning conflict into connection because it's

easy to look at your situation and then begin to see the strife and the arguments and the bickering and the conflict and to focus on the conflict

but this conflict is occurring because there is a fraud connection there's a tear in the fabric of

connection and that too if you say to people would you run a business that allowed for that kind of conflict and bickering to take place

nobody and and yet you normalize it in your relationship you think that that's that's an okay thing it's like I mean if I give you an assignment that you know I

would say of all the things we talked about I I I would love for you to choose three things that you're going to do differently change and that you know would improve the relationship you don't

have to go look very far you've already listed the half a dozen and and then you stay with it you you you commit yourself to it you don't do it contingent on what

she does you don't say oh I didn't and she still did the same give it a time and hold yourself to it you will see relationship is not something that

happens out there it's actually something that we are very much in charge of creatively like a business and by the way a business is made up of

relationships as well products but relationships leadership is relationships it's Vision its efficiencies Etc it's operations but it is also relationships if those don't

work you can have the best product if I want to be a master in conflict resolution in my romantic relationships man and woman let's just use that two men to

womenbody is there any differences between between the way that genders typically approach conflict resolution because there's stereotypes

right that men don't want to talk and that women want to talk yes but when you have two women there's often one that doesn't want to talk as well okay I think there is

gender there is culture there is linguistics there's a lot of different things that play themselves out but it's not in straight couples you will

attribute certain things to gender that in other couples you will attribute to roles okay because the behaviors are not

that different so we there's a whole um I think one of the most important thing is that instead of asking what are we fighting

about ask yourself what are we fighting for like when you go into the Beering around you know you see I'm busy why are you bringing up all these stupid questions now that you what are you

fighting for what she's fighting for is to connect to have some time with you to have attention to to not just kind of go through the day do everything and let

this thing kind of die on the vine you know there are relationships that are not dead and there are relationships that are alive

tell me the same as business well you can be you can survive or you can try you can survive and go through the

motions or you can be alive erotic radiant vibrant vital creative curious it's those experiences you know

now we use eroticism in as a life force not just in the sexual sense of the word that aliveness gives you energy for a lot of things that you do

elsewhere you would not be here the same way if she wasn't there and how do you cultivate aliveness how

do you cultivate the erotic is essential so when I say to people what are you fighting for usually people fight for

about three things they fight for trust they fight to feel like the the other person has their back they fight

for recognition to be valued and they fight for control they want to feel that their needs their beliefs their

expectations have priority too control trust recognition those are probably three of the main things people fight for but it doesn't look like that it

looks like they're fighting over you know money or time together or how often they have sex or you know that kind of stuff so that's a big one about how you

deal with conflict what is productive conflict and what is destructive conflict because conflict in itself is intrinsic to all relationships people fight people want to have Equity they

want to have Justice they want to be heard they want to you know so it's a useful thing but we all know what fighting looks like that is not

useful and that is destructive and that harms you and that you seen when you are a kid and that travels with you for the rest of your life so we we know all of those versions

too um and I think that these days we live in a society that is also more and more conflict avoidant we really don't

know how to go we have so less much less face to face with other people there's a question that I have loved asking recently that has to do

with conflict when you grew up did you play freely on the street yeah okay do you know do you don't have kids

right no but you have friends with little ones yeah my my brother has three kids he's under the he's only one year older than me as well all right how much

do his kids play play freely on the street um they don't play freely on the street so to me this little piece of

information is so so important because what happens when you played freely on the street you had unchoreographed unmonitored unscripted free play with

other kids with whom you learned friction rubbing fighting making up competing collaborating being jealous making alliances breaking alliances

recreating you learned a ton of social skills and dealing with conflict and disagreement and reuniting and all of

that this entire universe of experimentation that children had gone and you really don't learn it by playing games on the

screen so we find ourselves a little bit socially atrophied then comes a pandemic and comes the virtualization of Our Lives there's a lot of things come come

come coming together here and we are more and more unable to deal with conflict and we polarize people keep telling you how do you stay connected with people who disagree with you who

have different points of view different politics different belief systems Etc so we are conflict avoidant we lack the social skills we are socially

atrophied and we polarize and what's the cure I mean I think that a major piece of it is um and I hope Alpha generation

is actually showing us a little more of that is you know close the screen and go outside and play and meet people in

real in whatever version two or groups Sports no sports but it's about it's not about structure activities it's about

happen stance Serendipity chance chance is an essential piece of our life why is this so important because if everything is controlled everything is predictable

every technology is trying to give you a polished friction free answer to every problem that you have you learn to not tolerate uncertainty and if you can't tolerate

uncertainty you become increasingly more anxious and if you become increasingly more anxious we're going to talk about the Mental Health crisis and this Mental Health crisis doesn't come from

nowhere it's connected to a whole bunch of things that are happening in the world around us let your kids go and have sleepovers connect with other people don't just stay in your little nuclear

system AR younger Generations less resilient in your view because they didn't get to play on the street they

are definitely less able to deal with um with disagreement divergences of opinions conflict they polarize but so

do other people older people too there is definitely more polarization because they but what they do show is

a lot increased levels of anxiety um increased levels of all kinds of other symptomatologies of around mental health from eating disorders you

know you name it that start earlier and earlier difficulty experimenting making mistakes not being so perfectionistic not attributing everything to themselves

as I'm not enough I'm not enough like this is the whole manufactured insecurity going on so those things yes I think that you know notice it we

notice it parents notice it teachers notice it you know do I I think we could say that there is less resilience but I I think that that's a dangerous statement because there are plenty of

kids who are extraordinarily resilient in very very challenging circumstances I would not want to say younger kids these days you know but I

do think that they struggle with certain things uncertainty is essential you can't innovate without uncertainty without an appetite for it

yes yeah you need to be able to take risks you need to be able to take chances you need to be able to try out certain things if it instantly becomes

you know I'm afraid to fail I cannot I have to know before I even try I have to know in advance etc etc we it it doesn't just affect one

individual why did you write this book mating in captivity you could have written about anything but for some reason you felt compelled enough to take on this subject of unlocking erotic

intelligence why why did you write about this at a time this book is 17 years ago

it still it lives as if it was yesterday um I guess that that means it touched something that had a timelessness to it which was really how

do we reconcile the two sets of fundamental human needs that we have never wanted to reconcile in one relationship our need

for security safety predictability dependability and our need for Freedom exploration change risk they have traditionally they come from different

sources they pull us in different directions and we've rarely really wanted them to be in one relationship today we want a passionate marriage or a passionate you know

relationship and those two things have never had to because they they demand different ingredients so I was very interested in that what does it mean that romantic

love has promised us that there is one relationship in which we can have all of that that was one Rel reason I was interested in writing this book because I thought this is you know we used to

have religion to experience belonging and continuity and identity and then we had family for security and economic support and children and social status but now we want the partner to be a best

friend and a trusted Confidant and a passionate lover and on top of it I want you to help me become the best version of myself and I'm going to start calling you a soulmate soulmate used to be the

realm of the Divine not a person so it's is an incredible thing if we've never expected more from one relationship and asked one person to give us what usually an entire Village

used to provide that interested me so something must be broken there I mean it's just an incredible shift it's a unique thing it's an It's a grand

experiment in our in our life and then the third part was sexual you know sexuality went through major Transformations it went from duty to

desire it went from you know being inexcusably linked to children to being now I mean if you only have two kids you have sex for the long ha for pleasure and connection there's no other reason

so what does that look like and why do people always say that sexual s are the consequence of relationship problems which is sometimes true but in many

instances sex and intimacy they are they are a parallel process they're not just a metaphor of each other and so I thought I've seen many couples improve their relationship and it did nothing

for the sex but I've seen couples who when the sexuality changes between them it transforms the relationship and so that demands a deeper understanding of

what is sexuality not what do you do do you know and how often do you do it and how hard and how often and how how many I mean the measurable stuff that is you know sex had become this thing that you

measure rather than you know where do you go inside of you with another what is the experience like you know what is the

meaning of sex not what is the frequency of sex and all these questions had not been discussed much certainly not in the field of couple therapy and not in in

the General culture at large and to explain that dilemma seemed to have been something that till today people found

really there's not an answer by the way there there's not an answer no the book tells you that because relationship issues are not binaries they're not black and white they're not problems

that you solve they're paradoxes that you manage the strength of the book is that it didn't have an answer the strength of the book is that it told you you have to

learn to live with some of these contradictions people don't want to hear that people want people want to know the two steps to fix their sexless

relationship in 60 seconds yeah well they can they won't find that with me but they keep finding something else with me see you want your freedom you want your travels you want to be here you want to do your podcast you want to

do the stuff that is interesting to you but you also want your girlfriend you do want both and you're looking for how how do I not bring all my passion

all my energy my creativity my erotic charge my imagination my curiosity everything to this part of my life and I let that other thing dry up and once you

will find that not it's not so much a balance it's really you know um a distribution of your resources you will experience a very different level of

satisfaction in your life because you won't half the time be guilty when you look back through different cultures they is that true yeah of course it's true because you said it so of course it's true not because I said it no it's

true because everything you say is true oh come on no absolutely not I'm sound very confident but I actually never think I'm right no but I think you're right that's what I'm saying um on this

contradiction point about us expecting everything from one person are you telling me that we just kind of have to live with the contradiction that that creates because

you're right we want spontaneity and excitement and you know all of these kind of erotic fantasies but at the same time we want safety and belonging and

familiarity which seem like a contradiction is it is is it that we just have to live with the contradiction or are we meant to be polygamous

and a bit more I don't know Reckless and have lots of different partners and you know like some of the people used to have throughout history and some people have in different

religions I think it's two separate questions what is about monogamy and the other one's about yeah well the other one is about how you keep a relationship

alive and um that's that I think we have somewhat addressed right um it involves doing more things you the contradiction

is when you stand you know if you really want to stand it's actually about constantly moving the weight from one side to another it's

not about neutralizing the two polarities it's about playing with these polarities so there are times of the day or times of the year or times in your life when you know you want a bundle and

then there are times when you want to explore and play and be be creative and curious and do unusual thing so I don't think that it is in inherently

impossible to do it in relationship but it demands activity look every system every relational system every company straddles stability and change

continuity and Innovation if you don't change you fossilize and you die so will your relationship so will your company if you change all the time and you're running spinning spinning spinning

spinning you will disregulated and you will be chaotic and you will be exhausted and you will forget what you're even running toward words so

nature knows that we continuously straddle these two polarities that's what I call the contradiction you know but monogamy is a different question

about that it's it has to do with what do we think are the viable relational Arrangements at this moment for whom is this a model that

appeals and um and it has opened up a whole Vista about what does consens non- monogamy look like or what does

polyamory look like for whom is this you know an expression of Liberation and and for whom is this actually rather

torturous and it's and I think the what it says to us is that you can't have a one siiz fits all and when it comes to love relationships we have usually not

been the most Innovative you know family models have changed but couple models haven't changed that much romantic Romantics and

realists yes you discussed this in chapter one of your book how do you define a romantic Romantics are

aspirational Romantics are live in the realm of the imagination they live in the realm of how do you transcend the

limits how do you project yourself outside of the narrowness of your own reality boundaries Consciousness body

Etc when I say aspirational idealistic um longing yearning Discovery exploration unknown a

kind of an active engagement with the unknown and and a and a reverence for the connection realists are more pragmatic realists you

know are basically you know instead of this is not possible there must be more they say this is fine as is why should there be

more and um this is a conversation I just Ed these two terms because they were handy it's not because I had entire definitions of them but I understood

that in relationship you often have one person who says why you always want more and then one person who says but there is so many possibilities and then

the other person says yes but so many mindfields or landmines do you see a gender difference between those two no typically as all no I think that what makes the gender

difference is the dynamic as well I mean um no I I I I refuse to

just make it a a man wom because I see the dynamic in all couples and there it's less defined around gender and more

defined around childhood story or or or gender identification in the broad sense of the I no I I mean yes in the you know the

classic old line that you could see in in the hetero couple is when Mr says but it's like so that is cliche you know everything's fine and if she was fine

everything would be fine is speaking a man's strength though is what speaking Yeah communicating yeah about how they feel is that a strength that it depends

how it's said you know because people think of um intimacy as verbal communication often it's one of the things I saw in Chapter 3 of your book that we so here's

the thing I don't buy the thing that men talk less I do think that yes men are often

uh emptied out from the vocabulary of emotions by age seven it's like siphoned out of them the socialization of boys does not really

prioritize an a an active engagement with one's emotional life and one's interiority okay it's much better to be stoic to be Fearless to be competitive

to be you know those kind of values are more but when I sit alone with men it's not because they don't have a vocabulary that they don't have the

feelings and I've been a therapist of many men for decades for it was actually something I actively sought and when you take your time and you listen and you

support the the expression things will come out and they when they come out here's the thing when a woman talks to you many times you know that she's

already said that to somebody else that which doesn't diminish it but when a man talks to you you know that he's hearing himself for the first

time himself but that's not because that's what men are that's because that's what we make men to be that's how we socialize

men um I think that this notion that women want more connection look you were asking me about sex before I think every gender has been given license to what

needs they're allowed to have publicly and officially and in what language they're entitled to talk about them so men will not necessarily talk

about the need for tenderness connection care uh intimacy um holding um be because that is not the

vocabulary that has been assigned to them so they will talk about it in the language of sex women have basically not been given

the license to say what they want sexually that is really not what they have been educated to develop so they have learned that they are allowed

to speak about relational needs and wrapped in their relational needs are all kinds of other longings for sexual

intimacy for seduction for pleasure for connection every gender is allowed to ask for the same things but in a

different vocabulary men are allowed to talk about sex women are allowed to talk about intimacy but that's not the fact that is not the same as

saying men and women want other things actually they are more similar than we think they are and all research supports

that but it's just the socialization is causing a different a different uh

effect like we like to think that you know men's sexuality it's autonomous it's unprompted it's spontaneous they don't don't need anything they're always

ready they're always looking for an outlet you know as and that you know men are creatures of Nature and women are creatures of meaning whereas for her

it's the context it's the quality of the relationship it's the that elicits the desire Etc ET I mean seriously on what basis are we saying

things like this I mean you want to know men have an a range of very Deep Emotions that completely affect how they experience sex you know the rise in um

feminism and equality of the genders in every regard do do you think that has had implications

for relationships and specifically sex in a way that you've seen over the last decade because you've been working with thousands of couples over the last

couple of decades so is there any way that feminism or gender equality has influenced sexual Dynamics tell I asked it because it's

one of the chapters in your book from you know was it 17 years ago or something talks about how some of America's best features the belief of democracy equality consensus building um

compromise fairness and mutual tolerance can when carried to bonusly I'm so glad you knew what word you'd written because I had no idea how to say that word into the bedroom result

in very boring sex yes sex is not always politically correct sometimes we demonstrate during the

day against the very same things that we delight at night if it's playful if it's consensual if it's voluntary that feels like a

contradiction you understand it's but so do children children play prisoners and children play firemen and victims and doctors and patients would they

understand that when they play they enter a universe of as if nobody wants to be pinned down and

tied up you know for real against their will as in a situ you know nonc consensually a non-consensually and with the mean and without the meaning that says this is

for pleasure this is for connection this is for surrender this is for very powerful ritual you know when kids are tying each other up because they are the prisoners

they are not tolerating it because they know that they are in the realm of play as if make belief and it gives it the fun and a different meaning nobody wants

to be trapped who when it becomes real you know if you play hide and seek the most

amazing thing is when you're hiding is to know that somebody's looking for you but the minute you begin to wonder are they still looking for you the thrill turns into Terror this is what happens

in sex too you know you have to it's extremely important to differentiate when it is sexual when it's a form of play when

it's a particular practice you enjoy and everything around it is Con is coming together to clarify that but are

you seeing couples struggling though with these sort of newly defined gender roles as it relates to their sex lives and as we said like feminism and the

equality of the Sexes and all is it is it changed anything I mean I think that one thing is to talk about sexual rights and one thing is to talk about sexual

pleasure and experience I think you know I was I was teaching this course yesterday I think it's about 97 % of

research on desire is about women what does that say to you that says that we think women have challenges around desire men don't have to be researched

because the assumption is they're always interested just to G them an opportunity which is so not true yeah but the

science is completely Bor into the bias what's the difference though why does it matter whether if if all the research is are you getting different results from men and women no because

because yes the the the the experiences are different but what it says is that the science has decided that women need to be helped around desire yeah yeah

that that they have hyposexual desire disorder you know today it's that in the past it was the opposite that we were researching and that men don't need to be researched because because men don't

have challenges around desire and be that is that first of all it leaves many men unattended to it puts an unfair burden onto the women that is

not about feminism that is about but science and political changes and social changes they are in they intersect with each other have women you know changed

fundamentally around the fact that at least in the West in most situations hopefully sex is no longer just a woman's marital Duty

but that it is also about her desire her pleasure their connection together that is huge yeah I mean we first separated

sex from reproduction when we got contraception then we separated reproduction from sex when we got artificial ways to conceive and now we

are separated Anatomy from gender and those are huge revolutions that change the way we conceive of the relationship you know we used to think sex elderly

people that is the weirdest thing possible but when is elderly people start this days I mean we understand that there is a way to stay intimately physically sensually connected till till

the end of your life are you having more and more couples come to you and this is difficult I guess because maybe it's just more people talking about it now but are you having more couples come to

you that are experiencing problems in the bedroom sexlessness in their relationships of course but what does that mean

sexlessness because you know in a in in a in a relationship or in a culture where the woman's experience doesn't really

matter there may be sex but that may be miserable sex do you think there's a lot of miserable sex of course you know and when women don't have desire is it really that they have less desire or is

it that they don't have desire for the sex they can have in order to want sex it needs to be sex that is worth wanting well my I've said this before but it's worth saying now again my

partner turned around to me one day and said I don't like having sex with you and I was shocked I was like this was super early into our relationship and as a very young man I didn't understand

what that meant very emasculated by it I thought there some must she must be broken in some way there must be some kind of medical defect maybe she needs some pills or a doctor or something we

ended up breaking up we spent year apart she ended up doing some work on herself I did a little bit of work on myself we got back together uh and went on a bit of a journey together to find out what the

actual answer was and it turns out it wasn't that she didn't like having sex or having sex with me she very much enjoys sex but there was a series of

blockages and I almost describe it like I thought sex was one language Spanish and it turns out she thought it she was speaking speak in French and I

just assume because she wasn't speaking Spanish that we couldn't have sex basically mhm and at some point I started to view it as maybe there's 10 different languages or five different

languages of sex and maybe my job is to learn the language that she is speaking and I have to say and I say this I give this conclusion because there's a lot of people that are in that situation right now I know that because I'd say at one

point about 20% 20 to 40% of my friendship group were we have a great sex life now um and I say that because I think couples

often think they just can't turn it around they think that when one partner turns and says I'm not enjoying this they think it's the other person's broken we manag to turn it around um

it's wonderful it's a it's a it it's wonderful and what is not said often enough is that when people are able to

change this it changes the whole relationship mhm that's what I said before and I said you can change the kitchen but it won't change the bedroom but when you change the bedroom it

changes the people who walk into the kitchen and it's very very important and and but it's you need to do things you can't talk about not having sex let me

put it differently you you it's difficult to want to have more sex by talking about not wanting to have sex you have to try new things yeah and that

means you take take chances you risk you explore together and when it doesn't work you try something else and that is what people often find really

challenging they'd rather take it as a criticism and then they defensive and then they Counterattack and then you say to her there's something wrong with you etc etc you know what really strugg I

struggled with was that first day when I tried to initiate sex and then I basically got rejected that created this almost

anxiety every going forward and then there was maybe about a year not even a year maybe less than that I know 6 months where if I if ID like tried to initiate sex I'd be like rejected and

that kind of just totally turned me off and it it was even when we fix the situation I almost had to do a lot of work on myself just to because then she starts initiating all the time when we when we get out of the other end of the

situation when we resolve it and then that's basically a problem because I've learned this habit that she has to initiate sex now because there was these periods for 6 months where I was just rejected all the time and uh yeah that

was difficult cuz I tell you I tell you what when you've got to get an erection the last thing you want to be doing is thinking and thinking and thinking am I going to be rejected is does she want to have it to you know it's the last thing

you'll be thinking so this fear of rejection is probably one of the most important emotional or sexual

vulnerabilities for Many Men man um it's part of what is so alluring in porn by the way you never rejected in

porn shio never says not now she always says me too more more more and that takes care of one of the very important sexual vulnerabilities

that many men grapple with by the way the next one would be um you're also never incompetent you never have performance anxiety it doesn't does matter whatever

you do you do it's for you so that takes care of the second vulnerability and the third one is that you never have to wonder is she enjoying it because she only screams and makes sure that she she

lets whoever the actor is know how phenomenal he is so and also you've searched out the fantasy that you want so you're getting absolutely there's no rejection in the fantasy so it's very

interesting thing when you look at what does porn do for many men is it takes care of three major emotional dilemmas around sex it's it's not that it just

takes care of the sex it takes care of the vulnerabilities the emotional vulnerabilities around sex that's a real different way of understanding when you say to people what are you looking

at are you not concerned that with artificial artificial intelligence on the way in virtual reality that we're literally if if porn is taking care of those vulnerabilities that are standing

in the way of many men so will Bots yeah exactly so will machines ever more so a machine I put a headset on I buy the machine on the internet you know and then they can talk to me and I have an

augmented reality and they never say no and they know exactly what I like and they accompany me everywhere and I don't have to feel like I want too much or too little or I'm doing it wrong or anything

yeah absolutely it's a fantastic idealistic World in which one can enter scary and understandable

especially as people are getting lonelier they they'll P they'll see that as a substitute for the real thing maybe a better substitute for the real thing in some

people's minds yes those who will seek it out will want you to will want to believe that it is um a good substitute

you look concerned I I it's a world that I don't know yet that I'm watching when I say I don't know yet I know I know plenty but I I

I there are things that are changing where I say I'm excited this is phenomenal and then there are things that are changing then I'm saying where is this taking

us and I'm a lot more cautious and this is one of them when couples do come to you with sexlessness in their relationship I can we have to Define what sexlessness is but that they

stopped having sex it's been six months since they've had sex oh six months why not 16 years you had that six months it don't yes I mean when

we talk about a block some you know a a a a breach an impass a shutdown we're not talking

months and by the way this is not people this is you your best friends and you don't know I asked them and I was shocked you know that's why where should

we begin became so people began to see that this is not just some others or just them that it actually is very

common um and so sexlessness is not about frequency though at some point for some people it means nothing nothing for years and then you ask do you still kiss

do you hold do you touch do you rub skin do you is there any physicality still is there affection that may not be sexual touch but that is affectionate touch so

you you you you really look at a broad you know definition and then you ask what what you know what is it that you would want do you do are you prepared to

take the chance I don't want that I don't I want to know how how I get back from that place but also I want to know how I avoid getting to that

place it's two separate answers I guess there's 16 years in no sex how do we get back so first and foremost maybe this is

a place to start when I think about the conversations I have about sex with the people I work with individuals or couples and and I think probably the

best way for you is is to to listen to it in in the pcast episodes because you you you you can hear how how one begins

to have this conversation it's that sex is not about a five minute foreplay that is just in preparation for the real thing and the real thing in a straight

couple is penetration and orgasm and then you know it worked that model that in performance model of you know with an outcome is so

not what I'm talking about this is what couples have had for centuries people have had sex I mean you can do it and feel nothing that's not the goal so I don't care how often I'm care about the

quality of the experience that the connection you have with yourself and with another and so it has we talk about touch we talk about giving touch and

taking touch we talk about fantasy imagination we talk about how do you ask for the things that you like but that doesn't mean just touch me here touch me there it's how do you communicate

sexually what is that transl translation from Spanish to French you know how do you say to somebody I enjoy this I would enjoy that more how do you create a

vocabulary that isn't negative and CR critical and castrating how do you pay attention to how the other person is responding and not just say why don't you like this everybody else likes this

that kind of stuff so it's it's very very rich you know and the definition of sex is really Way Beyond this and so you

start to ask people about their their imaginative life around what excites them around Peak experiences that they have had around the kind of touch that

they enjoy around what what do you look for in sex is it a communion is it a spiritual union is it an a free experience of being dominated of being of giving yourself over to someone of

being naughty of not having to be responsible and take care of other people which you do the whole day what do you look for in sex where do you go what do you seek to express there these are

conversations a lot of people most people have never had sometimes one person in the relationship doesn't want to have that conversation right and the other person does then I meet with them

alone okay I and because some things need to be sometimes articulated separately first you know what is it sometimes it has to do with smell and

body and and sometimes it has to do with trauma sometimes it has to do with lingering resentments sometimes it has to do with a fundamental inequality in the

relationship in which one person expects and assumes and it it what blocks the sex can it's a sleuth work it's you know

it's it's not just it stopped does sometimes couple say to you in private that I'm just not attracted to them anymore of course and sometimes they say it flat out to each other too people say

hurtful things yes and sometimes it's I I can't believe somebody would be attracted to me I don't find myself attractive I have been ill or I have

struggled with or I have had addiction issues or I Lots the sex intersects with a lot of things it intersects with your health the vast

majority of couples 55 up that stop being sexual it's actually because of the men in hetero couples

because the men are often on medication for diabetes for blood pressure for prostate for depression and s and all these medications have sexual side

effects if you are a man who basically has focused your entire sexuality around your penis and your erections and your

ability to get hard and last and have autonomous spontaneous erections and suddenly it doesn't happen and you suddenly think now I have to ask for

help help you know what kind of a man this is I'm no longer you know then you give up and the notion that actually you have an entire body to make love with and that

penis doesn't make the decisions it's a person who makes decisions for the penis that's a very different story and that you actually can experience pleasure in all kinds of other ways or that you have

had all illnesses with which you have grappled with so sex human sexuality is a very broad topic that evolves in the course of your life that changes with

your successes with your illness es with your children's lives etc etc and that is one of the best things I can offer to people is that suddenly the conversation

when you say the person doesn't want to talk about it it's because what they've talked about is that narrow why don't you want to have sex you never want to have sex all you can think about is sex

that kind of thing and once you've actually invited them into a whole other conversation about what is pleasure for you what is connect

what is the difference between desire and arousal what does it mean to start because you're in the mood versus to start because you're willing I've had Partners before where I thought you know

what if I laid out the full menu of what I find pleasurable they would think I was a weirdo listen I'm not into anything extreme like I'm not into you know I have a very look at me

apologizing um I'd think oh they they wouldn't be into that so I just won't tell them or it might make them run off so I won't tell them and I think dawned on me a couple of um maybe about a year ago my girlfriend turned around to me

and actually asked me the question for the first time about like what my fantasies were and I was like do I give her the vanilla menu or do I tell her about the that's where the card game

comes in this card game mine yes this one I have on the floor it has a I have a whole bunch of sexuality related questions and because you're

playing you know it's the pink triangles are the sex ones but in play mode you can ask this

question about fantasy in a way that is much less directed yeah or loaded loaded you know confrontational yeah you you

and and you know there 60 cards on that subject alone and that creates a very different kind of conversation and I I really think that to put it in the

context of play and playfulness invites very different kind of Revelation and

honesty are you looking yeah I mean this one says my guilty pleasure is MHM give me the stack I I'll get you quick one I discovered a product

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into it and to join the huigan family I'd highly recommend you try this out the most sensual sexual experience I've had without having sex oh that's a good

one that's a beauti it h it' probably be being in the shower with my

partner which is a very vulnerable experience but it's there's something quite Central about that experience absolutely that's the first thing that came to mind I'll just read a few and

then you can decide because you're flaccid at that point so you're not you know you're not looking you best you're a little bit you know and because one of the earliest Central experiences that we

had is when our parents or our caregivers wash us oh okay interesting when they wash our head when they wash our back when they rinse off the soap I

mean there are a lot of imprints in the best of circumstances of being washed as one of the most initial pleasurable sensual

without it being sexual at all MH little kids you sit in the tub and somebody puts the water over you and you a lie I've told about my sex life a

fantasy of mine I'm conflicted about I've got a couple never forget the time I was seduced by you say that in chapter six you say as

um a lot of your work has to do with people who have shame and anxiety around sex as people withdraw from a lover as they fear being judged or rejected by

what their sort of sexual fantasies are that's a piece but shame and anxiety is because a lot of people look if it's one

in four women and one in six men have experiences of unwanted sex or abuse or

violation or assault as a lot of people carrying a lot of very negative experiences traumatic experiences around

sex let's let's start with that for a minute so we don't going La La Land MH so people carry a lot of Shame a lot of

guilt around this whole dimension of their being and then it's a subject that we often are trained to be silent

about and that means that suddenly now as an adult we have to be able to communicate about this out of where I did a thing when I was in London recently and I'm doing this I'm going to

ask ask this question again when I go back on tour it's extremely powerful I ask people to please let me know if sexuality was

Central in their family growing up and of course the vast majority of people say no it wasn't why because we never talked about it I never

saw my parents being close with each other or affectionate with each other and then you begin and you say but if sex was hidden or up up fiscated or

minimized or only hinted at with dirty jokes does that make it absent or does that make it more Central and if sex was violated or

misused or abused does that make it more peripheral or does that make it more Central and if there was infidelity in your family does that make sex absent or

does that make it more in the end you have 90% of people telling you sex was Central in my life growing

up and 10% saying no it wasn't it flips the whole thing and from there you begin to have conversations about sexuality you don't plunge into the

sexlessness you know you ask people how do you avoid each other what's the dance here one of you goes to sleep two hours before the other you make sure you pretend you're asleep you know what what

is how have you developed this whole avoidance thing or one person wants one person doesn't want one person counts the days I've just read an episode recently and literally he would have

wanted sex every day and she is just out besides herself and and then it becomes clear that the part of it is because he needs help to go to sleep but he doesn't

need her necessarily he can also take care of himself if he wants and that he would have a much more willing partner if she wasn't just you know an

alleviation for for him and basically they have a system she counts she knows two days is okay by the third day it's not and so she braces herself and so she just gets through it and you think ah

this is really not a good situation uh and they have fantastic relationships and they tell me this is the only thing that's been an issue

between us now they have had four children so he waited patiently and he thought once the kids are a little older they're going to resume and he and they have not re and she is not at all

interested in resuming to that and he is so rejected but he has no concept of how much pressure he puts on

you and she does not necessarily understand how much he would love for her to enjoy it and to to experience some of what he loves to experience and

she has no connection that it's a very powerful episode coming up it it it gives you you know they are not sexless

but in some way I could say you know having sex doesn't make you sex not sexless I took all the most replayed moments from some of the interviews you'd done and I looked at those moments

so I went through all the YouTube interviews you've done and there's basically the spikes in conversation of the parts that people replayed over and over again and I've got them all written here wow like what and give them to you

after people are so compelled when I tell them that we do that the first one was about cheating but specifically this idea that even people in open

relationships cheat as we can't resist what is forbidden the situation you were describing there seems stereotypically like a situation where the the man would then go on to cheat because his needs

aren't being met why do people cheat I I mean because we we tend to think it's because one person isn't getting what they want or because one

person's a bad person or look people cheat for a host of reasons some of them have to do with the relationship a loneliness is probably

the biggest one and I was going to say oh the varience between men and women when they cheat ah all right so the first one is

why do people cheat second one is is there a difference between infidelity in men and in women so um let's go let's

start with the first thing okay um I mean I put much of this in the State of Affairs in the book Because I

had spent 10 years studying Affairs and infidelity so when you ask me how many couples it's a lot of

couples and um and I really thought this experience is so shattering in so many relationships there must must be another

way to understand it it is more complicated than and there's so much suffering around it I want to really

delve into this deeper so people cheat because they're lonely they cheat because they have been sexually frustrated for so many years they cheat

because they are resentful they cheat for vengeance and vindictiveness they cheat because they um need to constantly affirmed by anybody that can make them

feel better about themselves they cheat for a host of reasons that have to do with conflict and discontent and disconnection in their relationship but

they also sometimes have affairs that have nothing to do with the relationship and that's what was one of the big discoveries for me in the book

it was that sometimes that Affairs happen in happy couples too and that sometimes it's not that you want to leave the person that you are with as

much as you want to leave the person that you have yourself become and that it's not that you want to meet another person as much as you want to meet another self or other parts of yourself that have disappeared in

your life and that at the heart of Affairs you find betrayal and duplicity and

lying and cheating but at the heart of Affairs you also find Long in and loss and yearning and the word that I heard

the most and this brings us right back to the beginning of our conversation all over the world I've gone to 22 countries on this one is that when people would describe

their Affairs they would say how they they talk I'm not talking about paid sex every night sex I'm talking about Affairs and you know in a more meaningful sense but people really

talked about the fact that they felt alive so Affairs are erotic plots they're they're not just about sex actually they're about feeling

alive and reconnecting with a some with an essence of something for many people but there many different stories around Affairs for most of History men have

basically had a practically had a license to cheat and it was explained that they are more nomadic and rors and conquistadors and that they are more quickly Bor and they are in need of

novelty I mean basically we gave them all kinds of justifications to explain you know and to rationalize why it happens to them and not to women when in fact it didn't happen to women because

the consequences were far more dire on women than on men so we said that when women cheat it's because they are lonely and they are in need for intimacy and

you know we def all of these stories have been kind of Rewritten from by now the biological consequences of a woman cheating were she would get pregnant back in the that's one she'd get

destitute yeah she'd lose her children she had I mean come on we talking till the 70s women didn't have access to their own bank accounts on what was she going to survive she would

be walking with a Scarlet Letter she I mean everything you want so the consequences on women women have not necessarily had different aspirations or

fantasies than men but the women have done what makes them safe more than what they would actually what makes them feel good I felt like I was alive yeah you hear that from people who have cheated

on their partner does that then infer that one of the causes of cheating is that it felt like the relationship or us as a three me her me him and the

relationship were dead or yes dead yes an affair is often experienced as an antidote to that kind of death

yes but of course my next sentence would be if people were to put 10% of the creative imagination that they put into their Affairs into their marriages or

primary relationships those relationships would be doing so much better they put the planning in the the planning the attention the creativity the messages

the the 100 texts the flowers the the the I mean the whole thing the production you know if people were bringing that full self so to speak that

creative imaginative effervescent self that they bring to their lovers to their relationships their relationships would not be agonizing do we need novelty of course we do and how do we get 40 years

into a relation almost 40 years into your relationship into your marriage you give me it blink once if you're trapped you gave me you're look

like you're trapped no by far not how would you keep the novelty 40 years in doing new things together if you do this is the research

of Eli fle in the All or Nothing marriage is that if you do the things that you enjoy but habitually we like to go to this Cafe to this mountain this

hike this restaurant this beach you know that that breeds a lot of friendship and warmth and satisfaction but if you want

to experience desire it is wanting something that you don't yet have it's exploring something that you don't yet know and that means that

couples who do new things together that involve an element of risk not because it's dangerous new things together could be a conversation that they've never had

new things could be going to a hotel something outside of the ordinary you know that you don't do anymore when you are together for 40 years or 20

years whatever it is is it's that that the the Regeneration of new cells putting yourself into situations where you are not predictable to each other and so you look Suddenly at each other

and you like what was that like for you and what does that like for you and this we know is one of the elements that creates aliveness in relationships I

mean that that is the distinction now not everybody wants that and that's okay too is there a part of when you've been cheated on that suddenly value your partner more I say that because it it highlights that someone else was

attracted to them and then presumably you're kind of seeing them through not as like Dave who just comes home and just lays like horizontal that is one of the responses there are many different

responses but when you ask people when do you find most drawn when I can ask you when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner not just sexually

attracted but most drawn what would you say when I one of the one of the times was when I went and saw her doing her thing at work so when I go and see her

doing her thing in the breath work Studio it's like looking at a completely I guess a new person in a in some way that's right that's right and what would be another

one when other people know how be notice how beautiful she is right right right so you've just basically named two out of

the three most important answers I have heard for decades now about this one worldwide by the way there's only you know I most drawn to my partner when I

see my partner in their element oh interesting passionate about something competent and it could be on stage on a horse on a slope whatever it is on a

piano it's when I see my partner as a separate other person that is already so familiar but that is yet again somewhat mysterious somewhat unknown somewhat

Elusive and in that moment when they are radiant and in their element they don't need me she's not pursuing you she's

doing her thing and that space between me and the other is where lies the erotic Elon this is the bar non the most important one the second one is when

people talk about I'm drawn to my partner when we reunite when we've been away from each other which is the second one you told me before and the third one is when I see my

partner Through The Eyes of a third and that allows me to see my partner not just as my partner as Bob

but as a separate person who other people see things that I no longer pay so much attention to so can we create that in our relationships yeah I can go watch her do her thing in her element I

can create some distance we spend time apart I travel I do my own thing whatever and also I don't know I go and ask guys if my girlf girl friend's hot I mean you can do it that way but um

of course she needs to have her breath work yeah there needs to be something that you know it can be breath work it can be what she's done with the house what she does with with with other careers or or or with her parents or

with her children it doesn't have to just be you know can it just be lingerie H can't it just be like a new I have rarely heard somebody say that and because also I wasn't talking about I'm

attracted to I asked you when I'm drawn to okay and that drawn to is a very particular but this answer when I went

and I saw her do her thing is Baran the number one so interesting and I I mean and the only one by the way that is

gender specific is when women say when he plays with the kids because it is not you know when a woman plays with the

kids it's called motherly it's not drawn to and that's the only that is gender that is gender different or specific all the others I I mean I can't tell you the

the breath of different countries where the same answer there's something about this thing you know I'm drawn to is an a it's a movement towards and that

movement towards is because there is an other and that other means there's a bridge to cross and that bridge to cross is that erotic energy and that's what

cheating is yes so can people experien that in their own relationship yes but of course it demands recreating it I mean you know we are living twice as long not everybody's going to be married

for 60 years and we're working from home that is recent but yes that da sat over there all day and his that was killar for a lot of people is to see you the whole day doing

doing your thing it's a it it strengthened the Friendship for many people and it lessens the erotic for many people

you know but I I think that seeing her do her thing or her saying that to you or I I I I find it a very beautiful

answer because it really says when I see the other as an other it was that meeting her for the first time that's what it felt like the first time I went to one of her breath work sessions and I

I was just kind of hiding in the corner I was completely irrelevant it was like spying and she's got all of her you know her clients there there's 25 of them they're all hypnotized so none of them

even know I'm there she's doing her thing I'm like who is this person and who are all these people and what's this place and it felt like I was I guess meeting her for the first time in in a

way um it's beautiful and also they have a different relationship with her and me as a partner we become kind of encrusted in a certain way of being with each other that's why the opening up in the

Triangular gaze is so important how others see her allow you to see her her differently again and that is all generative those are all new

cells I'll read you these most replayed moments anyway just so you know them and there's I mean we got a bigger list of them but I just pulled off the ones that I thought were pertinent the things that all erotic couples do have sexual privacy for players crucial have an

erotic space where they abandon their usual roles responsibilities and desire don't get together the difference between men and women cheating um is how to balance Love and Desire and erotic is

being engaged and giving the best of yourself to your partner whereas most people give their best of their yourself to their friends their colleagues and give their Partners the leftovers and then in our other guest that we had on that speak about relationships and love

the five most replayed moments from those conversations were the best techniques for dating apps and different attachment theories so attachment theories is very popular um Paul talked about the importance of longer

engagement periods in being physically but not sexually attracted to someone Marissa Pier is about sexless relationships again and Tracy Cox you again has been talking about sex

relationships for about 20 years Co I know um is what her most replayed moment was why hot sex stops after two years in a relationship and the only way to keep going is by swapping in Partners

constantly and never finding long-term happiness it's a myth that you can keep hot sex and a long-term relationship easily that's true you can have it on

occasion here and there if you think about it as hot like that that's true um and that's not necessarily the goal of

many people either I think you know there are people for whom this is essential in their life and it it it's the gate that opens them up to a lot of other important experiences in their

life and then there are people for whom this is not nearly as Central they enjoy it but they they don't need it to be hot they enjoy

the what is often called maintenance sex erotic couples have a lot of Maintenance sex and on occasion they get suddenly this

really unusual hot you know different wow it's been a while out of nowhere but they have actually a lot of of Maintenance and and they do have an

understanding of not just I'm drawn to this person who is different from me but also a person who has their own erotic interiority of them of their own and they don't and they are okay with that

they're not threatened by it because because each of them have thoughts and Fantasies that are not necessarily just about the relationship of course how do we conclude our conversation yeah like how

do we conclude we've talked about relationships love connection all of these things in between is there a through line of advice a conclusion that would help people maybe something with a

that is actionable maybe something that feels somewhat easy or simple easy so we can go back to the things that we talked about together and about you as well I

said to you relationships is an active engagement it demands uh risk it demands vulnerability and it

demands accountability which we didn't talk about as much typically when people are in trouble they want the other person to change and to do the work and

I said if you want to change the other change yourself ask yourself what can I do that would make it better and do it and don't begin to say by me and but but

you know just do your thing because it's ultimately what you want because there is such a thing called enlightened self-interest do it because it's the relationship you want the relationship

is the third it's exactly the way you said it so when you are about to say or do something ask yourself what will this do to the relationship if I do this now or if I say this now or if I don't say

this now and do things not because they suit you but because they suit the relationship because ultimately the relationship is there to serve you but it's a back and forth Love Is A Verb I

think is a very important thing and that means you you actively do a bunch of things I mean it's the same with food you know some people just are okay eating whatever is in their fridge and

most of the time there nothing on the Shelf it's said but some people are actively searching the right ingredients they go to this Market to this store they put it together there's an art to

that it's an art a relation ship and that art you can bring to your love relationship as well I think a lot of people end up in a rot because they're complacent they're lazy they're

unimaginative and they have a lot of imagination for a lot of stuff outside but not with their partner and then they say I'm bored well then that they didn't

you know do something um and and it's amazing how hard it is for some people to do it I one of the things I think is really interesting imagine instead of

the DMS and stuff you know we just had a long conversation and this evening when you go and wherever you stay and you just basically write a letter and you

write a letter to your partner and just say you know I had this woman there today and we talked about all this stuff and and it made me think it made me think about the first time when we met and I told her about being there in the

background watching you do this work and and I realized that it's been a long time since I watched you do this work and I probably should show up again because I don't even know what you've been doing since I don't do the same

thing as five years ago or however long you are together can't imagine that you are and I realized that you know I expect a certain kind of coziness but then I'm thinking oh where is the

novelty and I don't pursue the novelty but there is novelty I have been doing new things you must have been doing new things why am I asking you know is novelty important it is and it's there

but I need to go look for it and I was talking about the maintenance sex and I was talking about the shower and I was talking about so many moments between us and I just thought I should share this

with you when people sit down with themselves and they start to write you know I've been thinking about us and it's been a long time since I even said

any of these things I mean man this is like filling up a tank of gasoline

why because you say I value this and I value you and I value what we've created and we matter and it's important and I cherish it and I adore it and I and I

sometimes don't pay enough attention to it and I just take it for granted and and that is not a good thing to do it's like food that stays on a shelf for months on end well it

rots and there's something about something fresh and it's it be it it's breaks through the calcification it is a lubricant in the

full sense of the word speaking of something fresh you have an online course called Turning conflict into connection we've talked about connection we've talked about conflict why did you make this course

and who is this for this turning conflict into connection course it's a one-hour course it's very short it's eight videos and a fantastic

workbook and it's for people who kind of say I could we keep getting into the same arguments it's for people who say you know how do we turn this thing

around it's for people people who say you know we're in a rot and and who are willing to try things without having to go to therapy necessarily so it gives

you a very clear understanding of what's the difference between what is it they fighting about versus what are you fighting for in terms of what are the

underlying unmet needs what is you know behind every criticism there's a wish what is it that you're wishing for rather than how do you turn what is called negative sentiment over right

when a relationship becomes overly critical judgmental you know spiral you know how do you turn the tone around how do you remember the fondness for another

person Etc well everyone needs that well and that's why I created it because I think people are lacking the skills therapy is not the only place to do it

um I think that we are avoidant in Conflict we don't have enough of that free play practice and I thought God the thing that I hear so much is people who

are not talking to their friend people who are saying this is too difficult we shouldn't have and I thought wo before you throw the whole thing let's see if you can you know the some some of these

things are changeable of course you have to be accountable if all you want to tell me is how you are the Saint and the other is the villain we're not going anywhere so I thought let me create a few courses like this I've done the

conflict I've got one coming out on sex the things that I've been talking about that I've written about and I thought after that or even the thing you listen to on the podcast but now I want you to

have something where you can actually do and practice some some things that I think will help you we have a closing tradition as you know which is the last guest leaves a question in this book not

knowing who they're going to be leaving it for okay and I don't get to see it until I open the book here we go oh what is the one piece of advice you received

in the last decade that you think about most frequently I think whenever I'm thinking

this way the first person that comes up for me is my father who was illiterate had gone to school for three

years and who basically would say to me my little one do not get impressed by the money by

the Name by the education look at the decency and I was a hitchhiker for many

years as a young person I traveled a ton and that became the thing I took with me I was taken in by the kindness of strangers in various circumstances who

knew nothing about who I was who probably had the most different political opinions from me you could imagine who had never never heard about where Belgium could be anything they

just were kind decent caring human beings who shared whatever little they had you know

and sometimes they had no electricity no nothing they just cooked me an entire meal with a candle next to them and I think that that has really stayed with

me it's it it's look at the decency of the person and don't get impressed by the putramas and the status symbols and

all of that um and I really thank him for that it it gives you Clarity it keeps you very

grounded um I love the message and I've actually passed a message on to my own kids as well Esther thank you so much pleasure thank you for your Brilliance and um everyone has been hammering me

for many a year on all of my social media channels in my team in London here all over to have this conversation with you and you exceed all expectations every single time you're just uh you're

such an incredible human being that um that I'm so I'm so glad exists because there's something so special about you that as I said it's like you can't replicate that Brilliance thank you so thank you so much it's been a pleasure

to meet you I mean it with every word of every fiber in my body so thank you esta thank you very [Music] much as you guys know I'm an investor in

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okay go and use it right now do you need a podcast to listen to next we've discovered that people who liked this episode also tend to absolutely love another recent episode

we've done so I've linked that episode in the description below I know you'll enjoy it [Music]