Call Her Daddy: w/ Esther Perel on Cheating, Codependency, & Connection (Transcript)

Not the six-pack.

ESTHER PEREL: What do you do when you’re dealing with the messiness of human life and you’ve become accustomed to always-on delivery of your every delight, perfect pitch? That is before the advice. That’s even before we’ve come to the advice, right?

Butterflies, Anxiety, and the Unknown

ALEX COOPER: Can we also focus on — I love how you said there’s this anxiety when people go out there, but I think something so beautiful about first dates and first experiences, or second dates or third dates, is sometimes the butterflies we feel when we meet someone and there’s the unknown and again, the unpredictability that shouldn’t scare us. It should excite you to some degree.

ESTHER PEREL: Or the knowledge that when you meet someone, excitement and insecurity go hand in hand. Of course you’re anxious, of course you’re wondering, of course you’re unsure, of course you’re trepidatious, and you’re excited, and you’re expectant. It’s all of this in a fantastic soup. It’s not a problem. It is what happens when you have the mystery meeting the longing, meeting the desire, meeting the uncertainty, admitting possibility, right?

ALEX COOPER: How can someone tell the difference though between anxious butterflies and when it’s actually a warning sign that maybe something is off?

ESTHER PEREL: Ah, but butterflies are often mixed with anxiety. That’s the thing. It’s part of the soup. You can’t have butterflies that are just — because the minute you start to be drawn to someone, let’s explain why butterflies involve anxiety. The minute you begin to be drawn to someone, the minute you start to experience any inklings of attraction or love, you also experience a fear of rejection, a sense of insecurity, a question about how much it is shared and mutual and reciprocal. And a fear of loss. They go together. You can’t experience any love without also experiencing the fear of losing the love. So I think that the idea that you can have it clean without any anxiety is really taking us down the wrong direction.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah, it’s like, if anything, there’s something really beautiful about it because it means that there are stakes involved and you could get rejected, and that’s okay. You’re putting yourself out there again, going back to — your Spotify playlist recommends the exact songs that you also will like because you listened to the song, and then you go on your app and it tells you the exact jeans that you should buy because you bought these last year. And it’s like, the unpredictability is actually something that we should lean into. Because there is so much unknown and there’s things to explore about yourself and that person. But when we are so focused on figuring them out, it kind of completely denies the ability to grow and to grow into the relationship if we’re just looking for the answer on day one.

ESTHER PEREL: Yes. If you want to take out all the wrinkles from the start, you’re in trouble. Wrinkles are part of experience. Taking out the wrinkles from the start is like taking out the experience.

When do I know that the butterflies are the sign that something is opening up and happening versus a sign that there is something that may be troublesome? The only way you know is context. And context means that you look for other signs. Is it all the time? Is it in writing? Can you have a conversation in person? Can you act?

It’s not just that you put yourself out there — of course you come with your vulnerability. It’s part of you. If you’re not vulnerable, you’re probably not interested enough. Let’s just put that out there. Vulnerability is a sign that I care, that something important is happening here. I’m interested. And now I’m not sure — are you interested too? Are you interested as much as me? Did you think about me as much as I thought about you? You know, instead of wondering how many words shall I send before I show myself to be too needy and too dependent. No, if you put it out and the other person answers in kind, you know that something is happening between us.

The Checklist Problem: Who Do You Want to Be?

ALEX COOPER: Right. And if they don’t, it’s okay. You will find someone else. Let’s say someone finally is like, “All right, Esther, I am going to approach dating now. I’m going to allow myself to just move past that fear of the unpredictable and I’m going to lean in.” I think we’ve heard people say, “This person checks all my boxes,” right? In your opinion, when is it realistic to have a list of qualities you’re looking for in a partner? And when does that actually end up instead limiting you?

ESTHER PEREL: Every time I’m talking, I think about the list, the checklist, the boxes. I always think — do you put as much emphasis on who you want to be than who you want to find? I mean, what is this? This is the consumerism. I come with my checklist, I sit in front of you in a noisy bar, and I’m going to ask my questions and see if you check my boxes. That is such an awful experience. And if you think that in the middle of that you’re going to get goosebumps or some butterflies in your belly, you’re off the chart. Seriously.

ALEX COOPER: It’s also like, who do you want to be?

ESTHER PEREL: How do you show up? What do you want? It’s so product, you know? I’m coming to check if you fit the product.

ALEX COOPER: Wait, like I want to get a product review? Like, are you 5 stars? That’s actually so humbling. And I was going to say I’m married and I even was like — because I used to do that. And I think it’s so honest what you’re saying. If we all look inward half the time, we have expectations for people that we don’t even meet ourselves. Like some of the things I used to expect —

ESTHER PEREL: Who do you want to be? I mean, you want the person to have this, this, this — who do you want to be?

ALEX COOPER: Right.

ESTHER PEREL: What do you bring? What do you want to offer? What do you want to share? Who do you want them to think that they are in the presence of? Rather than this one-sided — but the piece that would help a lot with that, Alex, is that — and I think that that’s one of the most off things on the dating scene — the dating takes place in a completely secluded place away from your life.

Dating takes place either virtually, maybe at some point you’ll finally get to meet somebody in flesh. And basically at some point, if you think something is really happening here, you’ll have the big reveal and you’ll bring this person to your life. To your friends, to present them. Instead of bringing the person into your life. “I’m going to hike tomorrow. I’m going to look for antiques tomorrow. I’m going to bike tomorrow. Do you want to join? Are you into this stuff? I’m going to the movies. I’m going with some friends. Join us.” That lowers the stakes.

Lower the Stakes: Bring Dating Into Your Real Life

ALEX COOPER: Lower the stakes. Esther, that is such a brilliant and yet somehow simple concept that I don’t know why we’re not —

ESTHER PEREL: Because I’ll tell you what I’m told — “That is so vulnerable, your friends may judge you, your friends may not like me.” But your friends are the people that know you the most. They will see, they will tell you “looks good,” or they will tell you “no, not really.” And then you decide what you want anyway.

But bring the person into your life. If it doesn’t work, my life didn’t miss anything. Otherwise, what happens is 3 times a week I’m out there dating away from the people that I really care about and with whom I actually enjoy myself. And then I come back empty-handed sometimes, and I have to report on my bad dates.

ALEX COOPER: Esther, we’re done with first dates being alone. No, like I’m not kidding. As you’re talking, I love it because it just made me think of something. I remember when I was dating, I had so much success when I would be at a bar or at an event with my friends, and if I met a guy there —

ESTHER PEREL: That’s right —

The Art of Dating: First Dates, Friction, and Finding the Right Partner

ALEX COOPER: And he was with my friends and I. I ended up, we’d have the best night, and then we’d go on a one-on-one date eventually. But it weirdly let all of my kind of my guard, like, was down, and we were grounded in your life, and the stakes were so low because I was like, I’m with my girls, if you blend in. And then I would watch him interact with my friends.

ESTHER PEREL: That’s right, data points. So many data points, guys.

ALEX COOPER: I think that Esther Perel just solved — we can just end it right here. We are no longer going on first dates that are just solo at a table awkwardly. Like, bring them when you are going out with your girls for drinks, or bring them on the hike that you and your friends are going on. Be like, “My friends and I are doing this, want to meet up with us?” And bring some of your friends.

ESTHER PEREL: That’s right. I was going to go do this. You can even do it alone. I was going to go do this. Would you like to join me? Meet around an activity that is part of your life where you have a certain confidence already and you can share something. And then you will see, you’ll come out of the movies, the theater, the whatever, the show, and you say, “Oh, I have nothing left to say.” And then you say it was nice and then you still enjoy the show. Or you’ll actually say, “Do you want to continue talking? Shall we go have a drink? Shall we go have a bite?” And it’s in context.

And all those questions about when do you know will become very, very different if you have a context. Because this context gives you a felt sense. And a felt sense is intuitive.

ALEX COOPER: And it’s so much more important and accurate to your real life rather than your checklist of being like, “Okay, I remember I wanted to see if he does this.” And you’re alone on your date and you’re trying to hit your checklist.

ESTHER PEREL: Like that is — “Where do you live? Where did you go to school? Where did you grow up? What do you do?”

ALEX COOPER: Like, are you applying to be my assistant?

ESTHER PEREL: Oh, it’s a job interview. It’s not a beginning of a story. Relationships are stories. A first date is the first page of a story.

ALEX COOPER: Right.

ESTHER PEREL: And it will either be a short story or a novel.

What to Look for in a Long-Term Partner

ALEX COOPER: It’s interesting because, let’s say, and I know everyone is obviously different and every circumstance is unique, but let’s say, Esther, someone is like, “Okay, I am in the dating world. I’m taking all of your notes so far, but could you help me in what traits are actually important to care about in a future partner?” Like, what should someone really be actually focusing on if they’re looking for a long-term person in their life?

ESTHER PEREL: I wish I could give you a blanket answer, but it really depends on you. Relationships thrive in complementarity. I am a person who is very solid, says one. I structure my life, I’m reliable, but sometimes I wish I was a little bit more flowy. I wish I was more spontaneous. I wish I didn’t overthink things. And I welcome someone in my life that actually is more fluid, is more spontaneous, is less rigid like that, and vice versa. That’s a complementarity that’s very common.

If I can give you basic sets of human traits, yes, find someone who is decent. Number one, number one, decency. Find someone who is kind, who enjoys giving, who likes to think about others and isn’t just constantly making sure that they have the bigger piece on their plate. Find someone who — for some of us, it’s someone who can rejoice, who really can wake up in a good mood, because that’s something that doesn’t always happen to me. Find someone who, if it matters to you, has a sense of family. Find someone who has a sense of religion if it matters to you. Find someone who loves to travel if it matters to you. Find someone who can tolerate difference.

But ask yourself also, can you tolerate difference? Look inward, look inward. Don’t just expect, because even that question can become a list too.

ALEX COOPER: I agree with you. It’s almost like you can’t tell people exactly what to look for because I agree it needs to complement you. Is there anything quality-wise that you actually think we should start to devalue though, as a society, that people are looking too much for and that’s not what we should be focused on?

ESTHER PEREL: Yeah, I think that so much of our pressures at this point are about focusing on the self and on the optimization of the self and on the self-hacking and on the self-fulfillment and the self-worth and the self-awareness and the self, self, self. And then even when you ask, “What should I look for in a partner?” it’s “What can this partner bring to me?” Rather than “What are each other’s needs that we can cultivate together?”

It’s very different to say a “we” versus a “you who is going to help me become more of myself and make me become the best version of myself.” You live in a big world. There’s a lot of things to think about besides just me.

The Role of Friction in Relationships

ALEX COOPER: Let’s talk about friction. Because I know that you are passionate about needing to invite a little bit of friction into our dating lives. What is the benefit of doing that? And can you explain what that even means?

ESTHER PEREL: When I said to you before that our technologies, our predictive technologies, are trying to remove all the inconveniences — what they’re trying to do is present you with a very polished life where there is no friction, no obstacles, nothing that you have to work through, which traditionally has always been seen as that which gives you a sense of resilience, that which gives you experience, that which is necessary for child development. It’s true for little kids as well. They need friction. They need to resolve problems. They need to figure it out. They need to make mistakes and correct it. So do we.

Besides that, I’m a sex therapist as well. And there’s a beautiful formula of Jack Morin, a major sexologist, who says attraction plus obstacle equals excitement or desire. Obstacle is friction. It makes me want more when I don’t have, and I have to reach out, and I have to seduce, and I have to be imaginative. Rather than “it’s right in my lap.”

ALEX COOPER: And I was going to say, I think it’s important too to clarify, what is the difference between good friction and bad friction? Because I don’t want any girls going like, “Oh wow, we need to fight!”

ESTHER PEREL: No, no, no, no, no. I’m not talking about toxicity. I’m talking about friction, talking about this that creates heat. It’s really that. It’s the ability to tolerate differences. The idea that other people will have very different versions of what just happened and they’re sitting right side by side with you. It’s tolerance for conflict. It’s rupture and repair.

Friction is all the paradoxes or the contradictions that we feel in relationships: attraction and disgust, care and aggression, rupture and repair, trust and betrayal. These polarities are intrinsic. They are part and parcel of every relationship. They come and go, they move. There are moments when you are deeply trusting and moments where you are suspicious. There are moments where you think, “I can’t take another minute of this,” and then the next minute you think, “I can’t take another day without it.”

The Myth of the Couple That Never Fights

ALEX COOPER: It makes me think a little bit, and I feel like we all have those people in our life where you kind of hear that friend be like, “Oh, my partner and I never fight, we never even get in little arguments.” What is your take on that?

ESTHER PEREL: Trouble on the horizon.

ALEX COOPER: You’re f*ed.

ESTHER PEREL: Trouble on the horizon. No, because conflict avoidance, or only doing that which we both like — we only see the movies the two of us like, we only go to the bands the two of us like, we create sameness at all cost. At some point it starts to feel like, in order not to lose you, I ended up losing major chunks of me.

Every relationship — and you asked me before, what are the things to look for? And I will answer it a little differently. I think that one of the most important tensions for all relationships, every dating story will have this, is: how do I connect to you without losing me? And how do I stay connected to me without losing you?

In every relationship, you will find that there is one person that is often more in touch with the fear of losing the other, and one person more in touch with the fear of losing themselves. One person more in touch with the fear of abandonment, and one person more in touch with the fear of suffocation. And they often meet.

You can give me any list you want — this is not what you look at when you are a couples therapist. What drew you together has very little to do with “we like the same band” and “we like hiking the same mountains” and “we both like skiing and outdoors” and none of it, or “we are foodies.” That is not what is really being played out in terms of the relationship dynamic.

So when you never fight, you are trying to basically smooth out the wrinkles, the differences, the tensions, the autonomy, because this is how you negotiate separateness and togetherness. This is probably the most important task of any relationship.

What should you be looking for? You’re looking for someone with whom you can — and it depends if you are capable too — negotiate what is together and what is autonomous. Where are we separate? Your friends, your activities, your interests, your careers, your family. And what is ours? What is the “we” and what is the “me?” That’s what happens in relationships. You can have the most common tastes with your partner. If these things don’t work, that’s where you will have trouble.

ALEX COOPER: You know, it’s interesting because —

ESTHER PEREL: Follow me?

Conflict, Repair, and What We’re Really Fighting For

ALEX COOPER: Not only do I follow you, I’m already in my head being like, that needs to be clipped and every human being needs to watch that clip because what the f*? No, no, no. Like— It’s so real when you’re talking about how in relationships, one is more afraid of being abandoned and one is more afraid of losing the sense of self. Like, if everyone just pauses— I know who I am in the relationship with my husband in that dynamic. And I’m sure—

ESTHER PEREL: Are you the same with him as you were with others? Because it’s not static.

ALEX COOPER: No.

ESTHER PEREL: Yeah, it changes from relationship to relationship. It’s not like I’m always in that position because my attachment style is always the same.

ALEX COOPER: Changes.

ESTHER PEREL: It changes.

ALEX COOPER: You need to go through some friction because you need to see how you two argue. And I’m not saying arguing is healthy, but at some point, human beings cannot just go through life and have no issues. That’s just not how life goes. So the beginning of relationships, it is sometimes important to see if you are almost compatible in the way that you handle conflict. And I think a lot of people can be like, “Oh, we’re getting married, we haven’t had one issue.” Do you think it’s concerning if people have never had one problem and are already like, “We’re getting married, we’ve never fought a day in our life?”

ESTHER PEREL: Oh, it’s just a matter of time. At some point they will. They will. But here’s the thing. The research is very clear on this, Alex. It’s really not so much the conflict itself as the repair. There are couples that are way more volatile. They bicker more, they argue more. It’s faster, it escalates. It’s really, can they make up and how do they make up? And do they make up just by kind of smoothing it over, or they make up and they actually are able to acknowledge what they contributed to the argument? The repair is more important than the actual conflict.

ALEX COOPER: And when you get to repair, how important is compatibility then in communication styles?

ESTHER PEREL: What matters the most is not compatibility in communication styles, but accountability. It’s the ability to say, “I was threatened and I just lashed out on you. I just said things that I wish I didn’t say, but when I’m scared or when I fight, I sometimes don’t know where to stop. I take full responsibility for this. I realize that when I said that, I was not paying attention to what you had said before, to your needs, to what you had asked from me, to how I let you down.” It’s the ability to take responsibility without shame.

ALEX COOPER: And do you suggest, or again, does it not matter, should repair happen in the moment or can you wait?

ESTHER PEREL: Great question. So some people can do it in the moment. Other people need 20 minutes, 2 hours, or 2 days. So if you are with someone who needs 2 days, don’t start talking in the moment. They’re totally dysregulated. They can’t listen. They’re not yet there. Wait.

But this is what happens — you have one person who needs to make sure that we don’t go to bed upset, and the other one who just doesn’t— “Don’t give me one more word or I’m going to explode.”

ALEX COOPER: Yeah.

ESTHER PEREL: So this is where one needs to learn to engage sooner and one needs to learn to wait longer.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah, that’s something that I’ve always found interesting in the dance of relationship.

ESTHER PEREL: That’s friction, by the way.

ALEX COOPER: And also there has to be a level of respect, right? Because I remember my husband and I in the beginning days, he would want to handle it immediately, and I would be like, “I need a second.”

ESTHER PEREL: That’s right.

ALEX COOPER: And then we would both be like, “Wait,” and then it would— we almost need to find our common ground of like, “Okay, I can’t go into a hole for 3 days and ignore you, so we need to find our middle ground of where we both can respect each other, that you need some reprieve right now, you can’t just be waiting for 3 days. And also, I though can’t have this conversation in 20 minutes, so where can you meet in the middle?” Again, that just takes accountability, right?

ESTHER PEREL: It’s accountability and it’s acknowledgement of the differences.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah.

ESTHER PEREL: Your needing the 3 days is not because of me. You need 3 days because of who you are and how you’ve learned to calm down and whatever history you come with. And the most important piece about it is not to personalize it.

Then I can say, “Look, after a day— because I’m not sure that you like the 3 days. Maybe you actually would love it if it was just half a day, but you don’t know how to do it because you wait, you wait, you wait till all the nervous system kind of sets back in. You’ve gone 3 times to do sports, whatever you needed to do to get yourself back to ground zero.” I could help you actually. That’s the thing. I may actually be able to tell you, “Hey, you’re not going to lose face and you don’t have to feel like you’re giving in and giving up if you talk to me 2 days before, and I’m not going to attack you. Can we sit and just look at what happened here?”

ALEX COOPER: Something—

ESTHER PEREL: I’ll help you with the 3 days. It’s not just the middle, because it’s nice to meet in the middle ground. It’s that I have something you don’t have.

ALEX COOPER: Right, because I’m not arguing or fighting with myself. There’s another person that has the keys to the answers of why they acted that way and why I acted that way.

Power, Trust, and Value: What We’re Really Fighting For

ESTHER PEREL: Where did you learn to need 3 days? I think that something that would be very useful for all your listeners is the typical thing is to say, “What do you fight about?” rather than “What is it that you’re fighting for?”

And when you look at what people fight for, Howard Markman summarized it really beautifully. He’s a researcher on couples, and he said people fight about a few major things.

The first one is people fight for power and control. Whose decisions matter most? Whose needs get priority? Who gets to decide? Much of our fighting is actually about power and control. It doesn’t matter if it looks like it’s about money or the kids or the parents or my activities or your friends.

The second thing we fight about is care and closeness. Can I trust you? Do you have my back? Will you look out for me? Can I rely on you? And we don’t say, “I fight about trust.” We fight about, “You didn’t call me and you didn’t tell me we’re going to be late, and you didn’t tell me that you had visited these people, and you didn’t share that with me.” Care and closeness.

And the third one is respect and recognition. Do you value me? When you didn’t invite me to join you, we can talk about how I wasn’t included, but the issue is I didn’t feel valued. I don’t feel like I’m important in your life.

So power and control, care and closeness, and respect and recognition. Power, trust, and value. That’s what most fights are about.

ALEX COOPER: Shit.

ESTHER PEREL: If you get away from all the “what,” you will actually understand the “why” — why people get so upset.

ALEX COOPER: It’s so—

ESTHER PEREL: Does that make—

ALEX COOPER: I’m so happy you’re here. I’m going to say that a million times today. It’s so real because I can already see it. I’m sure everyone else can that’s watching. It’s like you’re venting to your friend and it’s like, “I’m waiting for him to text me and it’s driving me insane. ‘Cause then I found out he ended up going to the dinner and he never even invited me, and I just don’t understand. I’m just so over it. I’m done. And I actually f*ing hate him, and I’m over it.” And what you’re saying is like, okay, slow down for a second because this is someone you love, and get underneath — what is it that’s actually upsetting you? And that probably would fall, I would assume, into the last category, right?

ESTHER PEREL: Totally.

ALEX COOPER: Where you’re just like, you’re looking for the recognition, and you want to be respected and seen and a part of their life.

ESTHER PEREL: You want to feel like you mean something to someone. And when you went alone and you didn’t tell me or you didn’t invite me, you didn’t include me, I’m like mashed potatoes.

ALEX COOPER: I don’t feel valued.

ESTHER PEREL: That’s what hurts. I don’t feel valued.

The Power of Apologizing First

ALEX COOPER: And I think what you had said earlier, even in the dating, that really applies to this — what’s so hard in conflict resolution between couples is that so much of the time, no matter what argument it is, it also starts in terms of like, “I don’t want to admit I was wrong here,” but it also is about power in terms of like, it requires you to actually get vulnerable.

ESTHER PEREL: You know what is the most beautiful power? One of them — there are so many. But I have often said to people in sessions — the person who apologizes first and feels the weakest is often the person who has the most power.

ALEX COOPER: I love that.

ESTHER PEREL: Do you understand?

ALEX COOPER: Roll that again because we feel the weakest, right?

ESTHER PEREL: Yes, exactly. And especially those for whom this feels weakening — to admit, to acknowledge, to take responsibility, to say “I made a mistake” or “I was wrong” or “I went too far.”

ALEX COOPER: Why do they have the most power?

ESTHER PEREL: Because if I say that to you, it is more likely that you will say, A, “Thank you.” B, “I appreciate this.” C, you feel seen. D, you realize that we’re both in this together. And E, it’s not so bad, I can get over it. Because my admission is all you needed. I don’t need to stretch myself on the floor. It’s not, I shame myself — I’m simply saying to you, “I know, I see, I own it, I take my responsibility.” And then usually what do you do? You say, “Well, I wasn’t at my best either.”

ALEX COOPER: Right, then they’ll meet you there.

ESTHER PEREL: You meet me there. That’s power. That’s power to, rather than power over.

ALEX COOPER: ‘Cause there’s such a difference — power sounds negative, right? Power sounds like you have something over people. Because I remember growing up, my mom would always say, “The person who cares the least in the relationship has all the power.” And it pisses people off when you say that. They’re like, “That’s not true.” And it’s like, no, no, the person who cares the least has all of the power. They don’t give a f. So you’re constantly trying to get their attention and get them to care, and you’re the one that’s anxious, and the other person can just sit back and be like, “I’m fing chilling.” That’s toxic.

ESTHER PEREL: “Why are you making such a big deal? What’s the big deal? Can’t you just, you know?”

ALEX COOPER: And that’s toxic power. That’s using power in a way that’s not fair in the relationship.

ESTHER PEREL: Why is it toxic?

ALEX COOPER: Because you’re—

ESTHER PEREL: What is the tone when you say what you just said?

ALEX COOPER: I think it’s an imbalanced relationship in a way that feels manipulative, right? Like they’re using—

ESTHER PEREL: There’s a word for it.

ALEX COOPER: What?

ESTHER PEREL: Contempt. What stands out when you say, “What’s the big deal? Why do you need to always overblow things? You always have to make such a big drama, just chill, just relax, just keep it in perspective.” Just, just, just — meaning, what’s wrong with you? And “what’s wrong with you” says I have contempt, which is really the number one killer, actually.

Sharing Too Much: Betrayal, Boundaries, and Emotional Intelligence

ESTHER PEREL: Every biography is a betrayal of someone else. You cannot tell your story without telling things about people who are in your story who didn’t ask to be spoken about. That’s it by definition. I mean, this is the era where more people have written biographies than ever before. Every person has a biography to write. So a biography tells my story in the context of many relationships with others who didn’t ask for the story to be told. Every biography is a betrayal. A small one, but it’s a betrayal. Yes.

ALEX COOPER: Okay, wait, but Esther, it doesn’t— it helps you to some degree process when you get to—

ESTHER PEREL: Oh, I didn’t mean to say therefore you shouldn’t tell.

ALEX COOPER: You’re like, oh girl, get after it.

ESTHER PEREL: But you need to know that that’s what we do. And I’ve, look, I’ve had more than one, in this instance men in hetero relationships, tell me, you know, if I knew it’s about how much my partner, my girlfriend, my wife, whatever, my girlfriend tells her girlfriends about us, betrayal would be redefined.

I think that there is often a sense among women, girls, that it’s not a betrayal because I’m talking to my best friend, whereas for many people, many men, who are much less likely to share that much about their girlfriends to their male friends. If they were to discover all what she is able to put out there, betrayal would be redefined. And I think that there is something to think about that.

Now, when you talk to your girlfriends, the question is this: are you ever actually saying what you have done as well, or are you only talking about what he or she or they did to you. And that’s where the girlfriends can come in and say, look, everything starts with the name of the other person. Alex did this and Alex said that and Alex didn’t. And you know what Alex did? And what have Alex again did? Alex, Alex, Alex. At some point you want to say, and where is Esther in the story? And if Esther is not mentioned, and what did you do? You know, when I see a couple and I see one person telling me a story, and then when the other one arrives, it’s like everything this one left out is what this one starts with.

ALEX COOPER: But how though then, Esther, do you protect the privacy of your relationship without fully isolating yourself from your friends and your family?

ESTHER PEREL: It’s in the tone. It’s in the way you, of course you come to your friends, I’m struggling with something. I don’t know what to do. And good friends sometimes give advice and sometimes really make space and listen. And just say, you will figure this out. I’m here for you if you need to. Sometimes I need to tell you, this is what I think is happening now. You need to talk to her. You need to tell her what’s happening with you. You know, you’re dealing with loss, you’re dealing with illness, you’re dealing with children, you’re dealing with no work, you’re dealing with loss of your best friends, whatever. You need to be able to talk. But talking is not the same as dishing.

ALEX COOPER: Right. And also starting more with “I” statements rather than the constant, and then he did this, and then blame, blame, blame, blame.

ESTHER PEREL: And I’m the victim of the other person’s doing. That is not always the case.

Emotional Intelligence and Compatibility in Relationships

ALEX COOPER: Interesting. I do find that emotional depth and intelligence— I think sometimes a lot of women write in just feeling like, I really like him in the beginning, it’s been fun, but I’m starting to wonder if he’s emotionally intelligent enough and can go deep with me enough, and I’m starting to go to my friends and family when I’m going through hard things or when I’m looking to have an intellectual conversation because he can’t meet me there. Like, how do you gauge if your partner is emotionally intelligent enough to match where you’re also at in your life? Because that’s a very elusive, hard—

ESTHER PEREL: By going outside of your own definition. What you think is emotionally intelligent may not be his vocabulary. And maybe the day something happens to you, he will show up and he’ll deliver and he’ll be there for you without many words. We have many vocabularies. Words is one. And girls are often more trained to be in verbal vocabulary. We talk, partly because we’ve been taught to distrust our bodies. So we became masters of talk intimacy. But intimacy can be experienced in a lot of different ways that don’t involve only words. And by the way, we talk with our bodies for 18 months before we utter the first word. So our mother tongue is often physical.

Emotional intelligence and intellectual compatibility are different things, you know. If it’s very, very important for you to be with someone with whom you can have these meaty conversations, know that upfront. If you say discussing how I should handle my mother is not something that I do talk about with my boyfriend because I don’t think that his advice— then go to your girlfriends. Do not think that one person can give you what an entire village should provide. A boyfriend is wanting a boyfriend. A girlfriend, if you’re a girl, is wanting a girlfriend. We need a community. You need to diversify. Better relationships, stronger relationships are often diversified. You know exactly when I have this kind of issue or this kind of interest, that’s not where I go. I have my friends with whom I share those things, and I have my friends with whom I talk about those things. That is not what I do with my partner. And that is okay. It’s okay.

Cheating, Infidelity, and the Shame of Staying

ALEX COOPER: Okay. Let’s talk about cheating. We’re back, girl. Let’s get into cheating. Everyone’s oh so favorite topic.

ESTHER PEREL: That’s right.

ALEX COOPER: When there is infidelity, I think as of recent, and because this didn’t obviously used to be it, in previous generations, but there is an expectation now, it feels, that the relationship has to end if there is infidelity, especially when the woman is cheated on. There’s a lot of shame from other women being like, you have to leave, you don’t respect yourself, get the f* out of that relationship. Why do you think there is so much shame on a person staying, and should there be that level of shame?

ESTHER PEREL: I love the question because it is probably one of the most important changes that took place between your grandmother and you. You know, when marriage was a one-stop enterprise from which you could not get out, then you had no choice but staying. Everything changed with divorce, with the democratization of divorce, with no-fault divorce, and with women being in the workforce so that they can actually take care of themselves and not worry about the destitution and the loss of their children.

And now that you can leave, you should go. If you stay, it becomes a sign of no self-esteem, no self-confidence, weakness, the opposite of what it used to be. The fact that you actually can forgive or can rebuild, or that not every infidelity is actually a sign that your relationship is over, and that staying and reconnecting and rebuilding the trust is actually a sign of strength rather than weakness, has really become a challenge. And the younger you go, the more this takes place. This is the belief system of the moment.

ALEX COOPER: And why do you think, although I feel like this is a very obvious question, I just have to ask you because I want your opinion— why do you think women disproportionately bear the shame of staying? Because there are men who stay after getting cheated on, you know.

ESTHER PEREL: Yes. That is very cultural. When I work in Mexico or anywhere south of the border, that is not the case. You only know it more from the women. You know, when a woman stays and is quiet about it, you may be sure that the silence of the man is even bigger. What kind of a man are you that you would stay? With a woman, nobody says, what kind of a woman are you? We just say, what kind of a low self-esteem woman are you? But we don’t challenge the whole constitutional element called woman. We just think about her strength of character.

With him, we say, what kind of a man are you that you let your wife— you couldn’t control your wife, do those things and you still choose to be with her? You’re not a real man. So it’s misleading to think that the pressure is more on women. The pressure is more overtly on women, but that pressure is usually even bigger on men.

ALEX COOPER: Right. Because it’s emasculating.

ESTHER PEREL: Yes.

Rebuilding After Infidelity: The Right Questions to Ask

ALEX COOPER: What conversations do you think need to take place in order to make the relationship work after someone has cheated? Because I know you meet with couples. And you do help repair relationships.

ESTHER PEREL: So I spent 10 years studying infidelity, wrote State of Affairs about it, and began to really— I have a list of 150 questions, really, that it wasn’t just one. But I think the most important set of questions come from this distinction. Try not to go for the facts. Where were you? When did you do it? How often did you do it? Did you do it standing? Did you do it lying? Did you keep your clothes on? Did you bring them to the house?

Go for the meaning. What did it mean for you? Why do you think you did this? And what were you thinking about us as this was happening? And do you want me to forgive you, or do you think I actually would be more respected by you if I didn’t forgive you? Do you think you are forgivable? Would you have accepted something like that from me? Go for the investigative questions rather than the detective questions.

ALEX COOPER: Right, for the meaning, not the facts.

ESTHER PEREL: For the meaning, not the fact. Because it’s in the meaning that you will also understand, did it have anything to do with you or with your relationship, or did it have absolutely nothing to do with you, which is hard to believe but is actually a lot of the time the case.

ALEX COOPER: Really?

ESTHER PEREL: It has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the fact that I felt lousy about myself, that I felt lonely, that I didn’t really feel like you were giving me enough attention, or that I thought, you know, suddenly somebody is laughing at my jokes again, and, you know.

ALEX COOPER: But is that then inadvertently kind of about the other person? Like, what drives someone to cheat?

The Psychology Behind Infidelity: What It Really Means

ESTHER PEREL: Let me tell it to you in one sentence that to me became a real — and sometimes people go to look for the gaze of another, not because they’re looking for another partner, but they’re looking for another self. Not that they want to leave the person that they are with, but they want to leave the person that they have themselves become.

Oh, shit.

What they’re dealing with is their depression. Is there loss? Is there grief? Is there aging? Is there whatever issues inside? Is the way that they lost themselves into — they forgot who they are and all of that. And that’s what they are reclaiming. And their sense is that they can’t reclaim it in the same place where they lost it. But it’s not the other person’s fault that they lost any of it.

ALEX COOPER: It’s also so hard though, because you’re like, yes, it may not be about you, it impacts you obviously so deeply. And it’s almost — I wonder, for people, have you found when you’re in these moments and you’re talking to these couples, is it more infuriating for the partner that got cheated on to be like, “Ah, that’s okay, I didn’t do — like, this is all about you. I couldn’t — like, it wasn’t even because I wasn’t having enough sex with you. Like, there’s nothing I can change. You just were going to do this no matter what.”

ESTHER PEREL: You were into women. You were into —

ALEX COOPER: Like, which is easier for someone to —

Phase 1: Acknowledging the Damage

ESTHER PEREL: It depends who. So I think the most important piece that you’re saying here is that every thinking about infidelity in a relationship is a dual perspective. What it meant to you and what it did to me.

So the first thing in phase 1 is I need you to know what it did to me. You don’t go instantly for what it meant. What it did to me, how you hurt me, how you deceived me, how you lied to me, how you betrayed me, how you were duplicitous, all of that. And do you feel bad about that? Do you experience guilt or remorse? If I don’t get that, there’s nowhere to start. Even if you had good reasons for doing what you did, you need to be able to know what it meant, what you did to me with it, especially if it has nothing to do with me. Even more so.

ALEX COOPER: Do you find when you’ve done couples therapy that the person who cheated is usually capable of meeting the partner there?

ESTHER PEREL: If they don’t, then that’s a bad sign. If they don’t and if they only justify — those are also people who typically will say it’s because of you.

ALEX COOPER: You’re like, there’s patterns here.

ESTHER PEREL: That kind of goes together. So generally, I give you an out because I’m telling you, even if you had good reasons and you don’t feel guilty about what you did, you need to be able to feel guilty for what it did to your — have empathy. Have empathy and take responsibility. It’s both. It’s always the empathy and the accountability. It’s two parts.

And then what are you doing to give value back to your relationship? You now have to prove to your partner, because a betrayal is a devaluation of the other person. “I didn’t think of you. I didn’t care about what it would do to you. I put myself first.” It’s all of that. What are you doing now to redeem the relationship? And that’s on you.

And one of the main ways you do it is that instead of waiting for me to ask you another question — “Did you come to this restaurant? Did you take her here? Did you go there?” — you are the one who says, when we pass in front of the restaurant and we drive there, “We didn’t come here.” And you preempt me.

Because what you think is that all my questions are because I want to make your life difficult. That’s not the case. I question you 100 times the same question because what you did has just shattered my reality. And I don’t trust myself anymore because I thought I knew my reality, and now I think everything I thought was real was actually possibly not. So I come back to ask you the same thing because I need to kind of reconstitute my reality. That’s what I’m doing with you.

ALEX COOPER: It must be so hard too, because I could see the person that cheated wants to move forward, but the other person is like, “I need you to know I’m actually — if I’m deciding to move forward, I’m not actually trying to hold you against the fire forever of being like, ‘Did you come to this restaurant?’ But I would love if you could meet me there in trying to just fill in the gaps for me so I don’t have all these question marks.”

ESTHER PEREL: If you think of it at that moment and you tell me, then I learn to trust you again. That’s actually where the trust gets rebuilt, because now I’m not thinking that I’m the only one who cares about what happened. I’m the only one who’s hurt. I’m the only one who thinks that we’ve just taken a big hit in our relationship. I know you’re in it with me, and that allows me to then think about something else.

ALEX COOPER: Even as uncomfortable as the brutal honesty can be from the person who cheated, that is the beginning of repair.

Asking the Right Questions After Betrayal

ESTHER PEREL: Sometimes. But sometimes before you ask a question — and this I’m going to say to all our viewers here — ask yourself: do you want to know the answer to your question, or do you want your partner to know that you have the question?

ALEX COOPER: Give me an example.

ESTHER PEREL: “Did you fall in love with her? Did you think about leaving me? Did you hope I would never find out?”

ALEX COOPER: Wait, what if we do want to know those questions? I’m like, did he?

ESTHER PEREL: Well, that’s the thing. Do you want to know the answer to your question? Because then you have to deal with the consequences of knowing.

ALEX COOPER: I think I would want to know if someone had fallen in love. If my husband cheated on me, I think I would need to know — are you in love with her? Because then we have to be done, right? Go be with her.

ESTHER PEREL: That’s you, right?

ALEX COOPER: Some people don’t want to know.

ESTHER PEREL: But another person in a very different set of circumstances, I would ask.

ALEX COOPER: Yes, I would need that.

ESTHER PEREL: Fair enough.

ALEX COOPER: Because that for me would just be like —

ESTHER PEREL: But you just answered me. “I need to know because I’m prepared to deal with the consequences of knowing.”

ALEX COOPER: I see. And some people would be like, “I don’t want to know because no matter the answer, I’m willing to work through this.”

ESTHER PEREL: I just did an episode on my podcast — a 25-year affair.

ALEX COOPER: He had 25 years.

ESTHER PEREL: Yeah. So that’s not necessarily for our viewers here, but it is maybe your parents.

Oh, shit.

And she is clear that she doesn’t want to leave because she’s also very clear that they actually had a very good marriage throughout those 25 years. And that is true too. And things are not so black and white. And it is not my job to tell this person, nor any friend’s job to tell this person — and talk about the shame. Because 25 years, you have a lot.

She doesn’t want the family to know because she doesn’t want them to pity her for staying with him. And she doesn’t want them to be angry at him because then she can’t love him if they’re all despising him. So she’s now carrying the secret about the secret, right?

ALEX COOPER: And the shame. That’s so —

ESTHER PEREL: And we can’t be so judgmental about that.

Judging Others for Staying After Infidelity

ALEX COOPER: No, we can’t. It’s like, I’ve had people on the show before that have come on and talked about staying after cheating, and the way the internet has just torn these women apart. And it’s like, but it’s their life. And everyone’s like, “Well, you don’t respect yourself.” But do you know that? Do you really? You don’t know that. This person may have done so much work within that relationship to repair it. Like, why are you so triggered? It’s her life.

ESTHER PEREL: Look, everything on Where Should We Begin was to say to people, we don’t really know what’s happening in the private lives of other couples. And it’s very easy these days because you can anonymously state your opinions on every platform you want without any consequence.

ALEX COOPER: Is there, Esther, a timeline in terms of — as a couples therapist — that you’re like, “Repair should fall within a little bit of this timeline”? If not, like, you can’t keep going back and forth of like, “You cheated, I need these answers,” and we’re 5 years down the line? Or can it just be forever?

ESTHER PEREL: No, I think you can be forever, but you will be stuck in a marital cell — or a relational cell of any sort. No, I think that sometimes if you can’t accept it, if you can’t learn to live with it, if you can’t find a place for it in your life, then you may need to make a decision.

Or if you live with someone and you’ve done all the repair and all the showing up that was necessary, and your partner is still coming back to you every day, every time you’re 5 minutes late — you may need to think about that. What do you want to do?

So no, I don’t think people need to remain stuck in misery and in blame cycles all the time. But at the same time, for some people, they still prefer that — and you make sense of it, you understand why they prefer that, you understand the stories and the childhoods they’ve had, etc. It’s very important for us not to become the public square that oozes with judgment, as if we know when we don’t. We don’t know if people are also taking care of elderly or sick children or there are other reasons.

ALEX COOPER: I love that too, just even to close out on that cheating chapter. For anyone listening — we all have those people in our life that, whether it’s your sister or your friend or whoever, that stays. There is understandably an anger within you as someone who loves them because you are protective of them, and you think, “I want better for them.”

But again, we all know the extreme level of intricate detail that goes into why we are who we are that no one will ever understand, even if you explain so many times. You’re living in your own body with your own trauma and your own history. And so as much as you say you want better for them, if they genuinely are saying to you this is what they want, at some capacity you have to also relinquish control of trying to dictate other people’s lives. Because what does it affect you?

Self-Trust and the Decision to Stay

ESTHER PEREL: So there are two parts of the “what they want” that I think are often not spoken up. It’s one thing to think you are not trustworthy, but it’s another thing to doubt your own self-trust, your own self-confidence, and the idea that you could have made a bad decision — that you made a bad choice, that the deal, the bargain that you struck with yourself that you were going to be with somebody who would never do such a thing to you.

That you purposefully didn’t stay with the person with whom you had much more passion and much more intensity. You chose someone who was safe and stable, and you thought, “That person will never cheat on me, my ex did that.” And then this person does it, and then you have to deal with your own reckoning. So that’s one.

The second one is that sometimes you stay not because you’re weak and because you let the other person roll all over you, but because you’re actually silently admitting to yourself that you know that you contributed in some way too. I mean, the loneliness is one of the most important reasons why people seek connection elsewhere.

Intimacy, Codependency, and Connection

ALEX COOPER: Let’s talk about intimacy. What do you do? Because I truly believe this is one of the biggest, most prominent issues in every single relationship. Not every single, but a majority is like, when you and your partner have different ideas of intimacy, of how much you want it, of how often, physically. Yes, physical intimacy, like touch, affection, sex. What do you do when you’re on different pages in a relationship with that?

ESTHER PEREL: I think that the interesting thing is that people seem to be talking about sex with everybody, but the least is with the person they’re actually having sex with. And in the beginning, you don’t want to talk about it because you don’t want to jinx it. And then you don’t want to talk about it because you didn’t talk about it before. And then you only talk about it when there is crisis.

For a lot of people, by the way, connecting it to the previous question, infidelity becomes the moment where people start to talk about a lot of things that they put under the rug for a long time. And finally, the shit hits the fan. So now we start to discuss all our grievances, our resentments, our longings, our disappointments, our unfulfilled needs, etc., etc.

ALEX COOPER: And it’s like, had you talked about that, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten there.

ESTHER PEREL: No. And monogamy and all of those issues. It’s more so in straight couples, actually, especially around monogamy and questions like that, and exclusion, and boundaries, and all of that.

So then there is — what do we talk about? What is candid communication around physicality? It’s even — I touch you, do you like it? I just saw you twitch, do you want me to continue? Shall I stop? Instead of guessing — they seem to like it, they don’t seem to like it, I don’t know, I do, they don’t respond, is it because of me, is it because they’re tired? Okay, I won’t do it anymore. Ask, check in, talk. Sometimes you may get unpleasant answers, that’s okay.

So that’s the first thing. Then you have discrepancy of desire. I think that there is a big difference between sex and eroticism, between doing the act for which you may do a lot and feel very little, and doing very little for which you may feel a lot, which is the erotic that involves your imagination, touch, meaning. The experience of it rather than just the act of it. It’s not just — sex is not just something you do, it’s a place you go, it’s where a lot of things happen.

So what happens to you? That’s a question. Where do you go? Why do you hold back? What ignites you? What blocks you? Is it on your mind? Is it not on your mind? Is there something that has been unpleasant that you’ve never talked about? Does it hurt and you never say anything?

In order to want sex, it needs to be sex that is worth wanting. And many times, women, girls, want it less, not because they’re less interested in it, but because it’s not the sex that they want. It’s not what they’re looking forward to. So how much are you able to express that?

Sometimes you do it in writing, sometimes you do it by playing a game — there are lots of ways that people learn to become more at ease talking about the very topic that they spent their entire childhood learning not to talk about. You take a subject that has constantly been hidden, and suddenly you need to be able to be all eloquent about it. So that’s not so easy. It’s difficult.

ALEX COOPER: It’s so difficult. And that’s such a great point, even just to ease all of our minds. I understand that it is sometimes really hard and awkward to talk about it with your partner, because sometimes from what I’ve experienced in the past and what people have written into me is — it just feels like if I approach this, it’s going to come off like I’m not happy, and then it’s going to be so awkward the next time we go to have sex because he’s just going to be thinking about, well, you literally just complained that you’re not enjoying it. And it’s like, no — the way that you approach the conversation can dictate so much of how it goes.

Shifting the Language Around Desire

ESTHER PEREL: The way you do it. I wrote Mating in Captivity 20 years ago, all about what is desire in a relationship, how do you sustain it. Then I did the Desire Bundle — it’s a whole course with these kinds of questions. And one of the things I understood is one of the main shifts that we as women need to do is, instead of saying, “I don’t enjoy it,” is to say, “I would enjoy it a lot more if.” “I very much like when you do, and I would love it if you did more.”

Go with what you ask for. Women have always learned to say what they don’t like when it comes to sex. They have not been necessarily trained to actually speak about their wishes, their needs, their preferences, their likes. Go to your partner — male, female, them — and say, “I like when, I would love if, it would please me a lot if you could do that.” That’s a way to not have the other person the next time saying, “Oh sh, I don’t want to approach you because you’ve just told me that you really don’t like that.” Now I’ve lost my entire sense of confidence. I thought you liked it. Because you faked it.

ALEX COOPER: I love that so much, because I think it’s very relatable for anyone listening — where you’re in a situation where you become so comfortable with your partner in every aspect of life, and then this thing over here that’s one of the most important aspects of your relationship, you never talk about. So then it does get awkward, because the person that’s holding on to not being as fulfilled by it — the other person’s like, “How long have you been feeling this way?” Like, holy sh.

ESTHER PEREL: Right. “What did I not know? How did I miss it?” That’s a form of lying too. Sometimes, by the way, that is a betrayal too. “For 6 years you haven’t said a thing to me?”

ALEX COOPER: Because what are they supposed to do?

ESTHER PEREL: Or you’ve been fantasizing about someone else, or you’ve been not liking it and pretending to me? That sometimes hurts no less than — because you’ve been elsewhere. Whether you’ve been elsewhere alone or you’ve been elsewhere, I feel like you have just — I thought I was with you in this, and I’ve just discovered that I was by myself.

Understanding Codependency

ALEX COOPER: Let’s talk about codependency.

ESTHER PEREL: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: When you’re in a serious relationship, understandably, your lives become fused together, right? You do so many things together. You’re living together most of the time. What are some signs though that you have gotten yourself into a situation that is fully codependent?

ESTHER PEREL: When you are cold, I’m not instantly cold. You’ve got your own body temperature and I can say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” I can’t say, “How can you be cold? I’m not cold. Why should you be cold? I’m the thermometer.” When you’re hungry, I’m not immediately hungry. When you’re tired, or when I’m tired, you’re not instantly tired. We have a different system.

But somehow, when you’re upset, or when you’re sad, or when you’re anxious or worried, that instantly makes me anxious. Because your feelings are my feelings. If you’re unhappy, that makes me unhappy. Or I think that you’re unhappy because of me. “What did I do? What’s wrong?”

I use the temperature and the hunger and the tiredness because people immediately understand it. When it’s physical, they understand where I stop and where you start. We are two separate people. We are close, we are not fused. We are not so enmeshed that what happens to me happens to you.

But when it comes to the emotional level, for many of us, that is not how we grew up either. We grew up with somebody who wanted their feelings to become our feelings, their needs to become our needs. And so we have not known where the line is — where I stop and you start. That’s where codependency lives.

Finding Your Individual Identity Within a Relationship

ALEX COOPER: If someone is sitting here being like, “You know what, Esther, there’s a really good chance that I am in a codependent relationship. I do love my partner and I think we’ve just fallen into this and it’s not toxic by choice — it just happened.” What are some steps that you can take within your relationship to reconnect with yourself and build back your individual identity while still remaining in a relationship?

ESTHER PEREL: I think the first thing you do is — what belongs to you and what belongs to them. Don’t personalize. It’s a strange thing. Somehow, sometimes it’s even worse if it has nothing to do with you. It’s like, “I would rather be part of a bad story than not be part of the story at all. Cast me, please.”

ALEX COOPER: That’s literally the entire internet. They’re like, “This isn’t my life. This isn’t my situation, but I’m in it.” And it’s like, wait, what?

ESTHER PEREL: It’s not your story. And sometimes what it means — because a friend can tell you something and you don’t instantly think it’s you.

ALEX COOPER: Why do people personalize it though?

ESTHER PEREL: Because there are only two relationships that really mirror each other. The one you had with your family or your original caretakers, caregivers, and the one you have in your romantic intimacies. Those two match. People can tell you, “I don’t have this with any of my friends,” and I believe them. To maintain that differentiation — what we call this — is that there are two people here, and when one person feels something, the other person can feel for them, but they’re not feeling the same thing as them.

Closing Thoughts

ALEX COOPER: Esther, I could talk to you for 10 hours. I am so happy that you came today because I needed this, and I know the Daddy Gang needed all of this. I think even from the beginning — Daddy Gang. Oh, they’re still the Daddy Gang.

ESTHER PEREL: Remember the first time?

ALEX COOPER: I know, right? I remember the first time you said it and you were like, “Daddy Gang, listen to me.” And I was like, Esther Perel just acknowledged the Daddy Gang. That was everything. And it still is. I am going to go back and listen to this and take notes. I have so many thoughts. I have so many episodes I want to make from this episode. You’re so wise and you’re so brilliant and you’re so warm and generous with your time. And I just can’t thank you enough for taking your time — because I know you’re so busy — to sit down with me and impart all of your wisdom on the Daddy Gang and myself.

ESTHER PEREL: I care about it and I see people struggling more and more. And I also know that there is nothing that matters more in our life. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships, and everything else follows from there.

ALEX COOPER: I can’t thank you enough. It’s a pleasure to be here. We can do another episode soon — we have so many topics we could have covered. I know we went even longer than I expected, but thank you, thank you, thank you. And congrats on all of your success. I love just watching you and the wisdom and all the things that you have given to society, truly. Thank you for always coming and stopping by and giving me your time.

ESTHER PEREL: Anytime.

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