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Perel: Love requires predictability, but desire thrives on the unknown

Esther Perel · #71 Esther Perel: Cultivating Desire · Dec 10, 2019 · at 57:23

Psychotherapist and author Esther Perel discusses the fundamental psychological divergence between cultivating romantic love and sustaining erotic desire in long-term relationships.

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“Love thrives on closeness. It thrives on deep knowledge with each other. It thrives on minimizing the tensions, on narrowing the gaps, on, you know, and on a sense of predictability. You do want to know that you're going to have the same person the next morning, I will still love you and that you will still love. And desire is a lot more fickle. You know, desire is to own the wanting. And that wanting, how you connect to that sense of sovereignty and agency and freedom, you know, that is the opposite of you won't make me, you know it's, it thrives much more on mystery, on curiosity, on the unknown, on discovery, on exploration.”

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