The Exchanges

Q Can you expand on that and explore that with us for a little bit?

A Why don't you ask me a question about, uh, my new podcast, for example, right? That would be, I actually would like you to talk with me about my new podcast, but I won't say that, right? Why don't you bring me flowers? Why didn't you say good morning? Why didn't you thank me when I did? Why, you know, What is actually, what am I saying? I'm saying, I wished you had thanked me. I wished you had noticed that I bought you this new suit. I wished you had, you know, shown me your appreciation for, I wished. But if I say I wished, I have to put myself out there. It means I want something, and I can be refused. I can be rejected. I can be not heard. And that, in a relationship that is not secure, I will defend against that. I don't want to show you that side of me. So instead of saying what I want, I'll say what you didn't do. That's the criticism. What you didn't do and what's wrong with you is safer in some bizarre way than to tell you what is special about me and what I would have wanted.

AI assessment note: “instead of saying what I want, I'll say what you didn't do.”

Q Did your parents meet in a concentration camp?

A Interestingly, my parents met the day of liberation, um, on the road as they came out of the camps. They were in neighboring camps, and people just basically wandered the roads, and, um, you know, as my mother would say, with cotton balls in your head, and looked for whoever they knew, or whoever knew something about the towns they came from, or about their families, or their, their whereabouts, and, um, and People basically would say, oh, there is such and such, I just saw from that village, you know, and go, go find them. So they met each other like that, and they knew of each other because my father traded with my mother's family, um, when they were still in Poland. Um, they probably would never have met, um, or married for sure, because my mother was Orthodox, um, Aristocracy, educated aristocracy, and my dad was rather, um, illiterate and uneducated, and, um, and a grand man, but not necessarily, uh, an educated reader. So they would, they were completely of different classes, um, and he always thought that he had, uh, um, found a beautiful princess that he had, like, Come on, le gros lot, that he had, uh, the lotto, that he had won the lotto with my mother. And they came like that. Basically, people gathered on the roads and began to travel and wonder where they should go. I mean, they were not going to go back to Poland. It's refugee stories of today. It's the same stori…

AI assessment note: “my parents met the day of liberation, um, on the road as they came out”

Q You mentioned that they were a young couple, and that sort of call, I have a question about what are the important conversations to have with your partner early in a relationship, and how do those differ from the important conversations to have later in a relationship?

A You know, there is a theory that says that basically, whatever you discuss, the difficult conversations, if you want, that you discuss 20 years later, they were all there in the first two dates. People actually know their things, they know their key conversations from the first, from the first moment. It's not that you have different conversations. The conversations evolve because you have different life stages, you have different stressors, you have different seasons and phases in a relationship. There are new members sometimes that join, children, there are people who leave, death and loss, and all of those Shift the system. A couple is a relational system, and that system is continuously morphing and adapting itself to external things, work, money, where they live, moving, et cetera, health, and internal things. Um, and the conversations that you have are about that, you know, um, but there are a few basic ones you want to have in the beginning. This couple, you know, they have 20 years apart. Um, they're young as a couple. They're not necessarily both young in age. Um, she has more experience than him, even though she's 20 years younger, in terms of relationships. He's actually quite new at this, at the long, at the more, kind of, committed long-term relationship. Where do they want to live? Um, they're both foreigners. Do they want to have a family together? How will they …

AI assessment note: “It's not that you have different conversations. The conversations evolve because you have different life stages”

Q No, I, yeah. I mean, you said it and I'm like, oh, I was totally wrong. Um, is there such a thing as too much honesty in a relationship? And is, is sort of the opposite of transparency and honesty a secret? Or how do you, how do we think about the, these, these dynamics of honesty and transparency and secrecy and caring for our partner?

A Look, I will say to you like this. I tend to not think in categoricals. I think that all of those behaviors, values, interactions, honesty, transparency, confession, they are all contextual. They are all contextual. Relationships take place in a context. And once you Agree with that premise. Then you ask, what does honesty mean in this relationship at this moment? Is it caring? Or is it cruel? There's consequences to honesty. What will it be like for the other person to live with what I just said? I actually really think I should never have married you. You're dumb. You haven't said an interesting thought in God knows how long. I actually still really think about the person that I was living with before, but they died, and, you know, I remarried you because I had four kids, but what I was, what was I going to do?

AI assessment note: “Is it caring? Or is it cruel? There's consequences to honesty.”

Q Why does good sex so often fade in relationships, even for couples who continue to love each other?

A There are loads of reasons, I think, that, that, ah, that sex fades. Um, and when I say that sex fades, I think that it's important to distinction, distinguish. I'm not talking about the act of sex itself. People can have some type of regular sexual activity, perfunctory, um, comfortable, you know, or less comfortable, but I'm not interested in the performance of sex. That is not really what, ah, that is not really what the, the people come to me for, I would say it like that. Some people come because they've become really sexless relationships. Sometimes they are deep, affectionate couples that are de-eroticized, that are de-sexualized. But sometimes what they want is to reconnect with a degree of intensity, of aliveness, of erotic Uh, charge. And that's very different than just the act of doing sex. So, that said, there's a long list of things that make people disconnect from their erotic self, basically. Um, and some of them are not of their choice. They're stressors of life. They have to do with health. They have to do with economic, uh, difficulties. They have to do with, uh, employment struggles, et cetera, et cetera. And, and Children and family life and all of that. But sometimes it's also, I think, and that's where it became the exploration that I got interested in. It's really a kind of a breakdown of the imagination. It's a willingness to go for, for the least, basic…

AI assessment note: “It's really a kind of a breakdown of the imagination.”

Q Can you talk to me a little bit more about the stories that sort of shape how we see the world and your experience with them a lot in terms of your psychotherapy is that are you replacing narratives with people? Are you sort of trying to get them to open up and expand their view in a relationship therapy or how does that, how does that work?

A It's a great question. So look, I am a therapist that integrates a lot of different Modalities and different approaches, but the narrative approach is very dear to me, and because I do see relationships as stories. So, yes, when people come in, and they come in with one version or one way to tell their, the story of their relationship, or the story of themselves in their relationship, my first thought is, what else is there? What other story is here that has not yet been told? But is this really the story? Is this the only way to look at this story? That is very much how I think. Because I do believe that language shapes our experience. If I say it certain ways, I will feel certain things and have certain thoughts that accompany those exact words. And so I have in my mind that when you come into a first session, I just did it yesterday, you come in with a particular story. By the time you leave that first session, my goal is that you will leave with a different story. And if you leave with a different story, you leave with a different experience of yourself in your relationship, which opens up possibilities for new insights, for changes, for new degrees of responsibility, and for freeing your perception of your partner as stuck in the story that you have put them in as well. So, The change, the story is to create movement, is to create possibility for change, and that is basica…

AI assessment note: “my goal is that you will leave with a different story.”

Q What do you mean it's never happened before?

A We've never looked for, you know, the word passionate marriage is a contradiction in terms. We've never looked for passion in the same place where we looked for security and anchoring and somebody with whom to pay the checks and fix the house. These two things were separate for all of history. Love stories took place somewhere, and marriage took place somewhere else. Marriage wasn't necessarily about love in the first place. It was an economic enterprise, primarily. But the place where you want to experience full surrender, you know, and, and, and, and the intensity of the unknown, how do you bring that in the same place where you want to know that what you have today is what you're going to have tomorrow? It's a very, it's a grand experiment of modern love, is that we are trying to experience security and adventure in the same place. Now, it's not impossible, but it is a grand challenge. How do I pretend with the person with whom I've been living for 30 years that there, that there's still so much to discover? How do I remain curious about somebody who I, at the same time, I desperately want to feel familiar with? How do I bring surprise in the place where I want to experience continuity? How do I bring out parts of myself that I've never revealed to someone who pretends to know me so well? How do I take risks, sexual and emotional risks, in a place where I usually don't want …

AI assessment note: “We've never looked for passion in the same place where we looked for security”

Q are struggling to keep their relationship intact. Perel has focused her work on studying the tension in human relationships between the need for security, like love, belonging, and closeness, and the need for freedom, like erotic desire, adventure, and distance. We start this portion of the interview asking the question, what kind of conversations should new couples have, and how do those conversations change over the course of a relationship?

A You know, there is a theory that says that basically, whatever you discuss, the difficult conversations, if you want, that you discuss 20 years later, they were all there in the first two dates. People actually know their things. They know their key conversations from the first, from the first moment. It's not that you have different conversations. The conversations evolve because you have different life stages. You have different stressors. You have different seasons and phases in a relationship. There are new members sometimes that join children. There are people who leave death and loss, and all of those Shift the system. A couple is a relational system, and that system is continuously morphing and adapting itself to external things, work, money, where they live, moving, et cetera, health, and internal things. Um, and the conversations that you have are about that, you know, um, but there are a few basic ones you want to have in the beginning. This couple, you know, they have 20 years apart. Um, they're young as a couple. They're not necessarily both young in age. Um, she has more experience than him, even though she's 20 years younger in terms of relationships. He's actually quite new at this, at the long, at the more kind of committed long-term relationship. Where do they want to live? Um, they're both foreigners. Do they want to have a family together? How will they arran…

AI assessment note: “It's not that you have different conversations. The conversations evolve because you have different life stages.”

Q I hate to end with conscious uncoupling, but I do want to get to it because we had a lot of questions from readers and listeners about conscious uncoupling. So what is conscious uncoupling? What does it mean? How does it work? And why is it, um, proven effective?

A In season three, I have a whole episode that is called the happy divorce. Um, and it's actually a couple that is getting along better now that they are no longer married. Than they were when they were married, and they actually remain very involved as a couple. Partly because now that they're not married, they can finally Free themselves of all the restrictions and assumptions that they had about what is expected from them in marriage. It's very, it's like they liberated themselves from the constraint of the, of the definition called marriage. And so now they can finally have the relationship they want. Um, so I, I, I highly recommend it. It really will explain that. But for me, the conscious uncoupling is the idea that There needs to be a way for people to, at some point, choose to separate without us still thinking that longevity is the main marker for success, that if you meet at a funeral home at the end of life, then it means you had a good relationship, um, and that every breakup or separation or divorce is a failure. Um, I think it's that that needs to be challenged. We live Way too long. We live twice as long as a hundred years ago, and not all of us will necessarily only have one relationship, an adult relationship, um, you know. We will have two or three, many of us, and some of us will do it with the same person, but others will sometimes change, and if you can leave…

AI assessment note: “for me, the conscious uncoupling is the idea that There needs to be a way”

Q If things are sort of impermanent, I guess, in a way where you're constantly questioning tomorrow and what could be there and what might be there and how does that affect our relationship as, um, individuals with trust and vulnerability?

A I mean, you know, the question of permanence and impermanence is the question that also points to the distinction between East and West. We believe that there is such a thing as permanence, and we believe that there is such a thing as stability and predictability. Um, there are entire philosophies who look at the world and at life as being in permanent flux. That's the state of impermanence, that things are continuously changing and morphing. And therefore, you know, to, to imagine that you can create stability is basically a fiction. Um, and I think there's something very powerful about that. That means that you actually Are, it, I don't think it necessarily doesn't permit you to trust or it doesn't allow you to feel vulnerable. It just is a different awareness about, about the world. It's a different philosophical stance. Look, for example, I, in, in, in mating in captivity, I wrote, I remember a moment when I read that sentence and it made a lot of sense for me, right? The idea that you should trade passion and for security, for example. From the Eastern perspective, or from the perspective of impermanence, if you trade passion for stability, you basically trade one fiction for another. Both are products of our imagination, and once I began to think like that, I, it, it offered for me something way more flexible in what people can do in their relationships to maintain a sens…

AI assessment note: “I don't think it necessarily doesn't permit you to trust or it doesn't allow you to feel vulnerable.”

Q I like that a lot. And one of the other things I wanted to follow up on was sort of, um, it sounded like we were almost getting into common argument patterns within couples. What are the most common argument patterns that you see, and how do we learn to have better conversations with our partner?

A There are three primary choreographies of, uh, of arguments. It's fight, fight. Fight, flee. Flee, flee. So either we go at each other, and it, both of us go at each other, and we are, we enter into the more, um, conflict, high, you know, bickering, chronic, uh, picking. The other version is one person attacks, but the other person flees, or stonewalls, or withdraws, and you get pursuer-distancer. One pursues the whole time, and the other one is distancing. And the third one is you got both people basically closing the door, going into their room, and not talking to each other for the next two days. That's three main choreographies of arguments, and what's really important in terms of couples and relationships in general, I will say, is that it's, it's probably one of the golden rules, is to understand that the choreography, the form, is way more important than the content. If you have people who are going at each other, they go at each other about everything. It's not the specific topics that make them go at each other. Their style is, we attack, and every subject will be spoken like that. If they are into, we close the door, it's not the particular issue that makes them close the door. They close the door, and every issue they will discuss, they'll address it with the same dance. And What you're challenging in a couple is the dance, is the rigidity of the way that they go at …

AI assessment note: “There are three primary choreographies of, uh, of arguments. It's fight, fight. Fight, flee.”

Q That's hurtful for your partner though, is that something?

A If you don't, if you have doubts, deal with it. There's no need to, what can the other person do with those doubts? I mean, it's like, you know, what am I going to say? I'm not attracted to you anymore? What can the other one do about that? Assuming that they still try very hard to look good, and all of that, and they haven't gained 75 pounds, and even then, and all, it's like, you know, if you have doubts, at best you, you figure it out alone, and, and, and, and then on the things that the other person can't do anything about, and then you basically say, you're a fantastic person, but I don't want to live with us anymore, and I know this is going to hurt you terribly. But you don't put the other person in a bind about something they can't change. You know, some honesty is cruel. And, and, um, and some, and, and, you know, I, I wish I could leave you, but I don't because I like our lifestyle. Excuse me. You know, that's your problem. That's not the other person's problem. Um, I think we should really not confuse sometimes what are things that we need to take responsibility for. What, I'm going to be angry with you because I feel trapped? You're not, they're not trapping you. You want to go, you go. But I don't want to go, but I'm angry at you for the fact that I can't go. These are all the dances and the games that people play with each other in the name of honesty. Of course, …

AI assessment note: “You don't put the other person in a bind... some honesty is cruel.”

Q I love the idea of, of sort of couples discussing values. Uh, and I don't, are those values permanent? Do values change over the course of relationship to what you expect out of relationship? Does that change? Cause often, often people say they grow apart. Is that true? Like, how does that happen?

A Yeah. But that's a, I'll answer that in a sec. It's a different, for example, I saw a couple this week and they're having infertility issues. You know, and one of them wants to really get in there and use all the means possible that science and medicine can provide. And the other person basically is a more religious person and says, you know, if it's meant to be, those are not things we decide. And they, this is a real philosophical value question. What is the right of an individual to tamper with fate, if you want? You know, or to tamper with what life puts in front of you. Do you go at it and, and, and try in every way you can because your agency is what's at the center, or is what's at the center an acceptance of what life puts in front of you, or if you want, what God puts in front of you. This is a, but they're not discussing it like that. They're talking about should they go for infertility treatment, and when is the next IVF cycle?

AI assessment note: “I'll answer that in a sec. It's a different, for example”