How to Stay Curious, Playful & Intimate, Decades After You Meet with Esther Perel #687

Twenty years ago, leading psychotherapist Esther Perel asked whether desire could survive marriage and children. Today, she highlights a new relationship threat: our frictionless, convenient lives – and offers a wealth of wisdom to keep love alive.

This conversation was recorded live on stage at SXSW London, where Esther was speaking to mark the 20th anniversary of her groundbreaking bestseller, Mating in Captivity. It’s her third time on the podcast and I was honoured that she asked me to interview her for this wide-ranging episode – to which the audience reactions add a real energy.

Esther is one of the world’s most insightful and original voices on modern love. And it’s her parents, Holocaust survivors who rebuilt their lives through relationships, whom she credits for the idea that underpins her work: that our relationship quality ultimately determines our life quality.

We begin with something simple: the habit of appreciation, and why we tend to be better at criticising the people we live with than thanking them. Esther reminds us that a romantic partner is simply ‘on loan, with an option to renew’, so we need to make each other feel valued. She makes the case for ditching relationship checklists, explains why perfectionism and a lack of obstacles are starving modern intimacy, and defines the ‘digital lag’ that’s destroying our ability to be physically present with others.

We also talk about eroticism as a form of vitality and curiosity, while loneliness is more about societal failings than individual malaise. And Esther makes a key point that wanting our partners to be ‘our village’, instead of looking to a wider community, is a modern pressure that’s too much for any relationship to bear. To illustrate this, she reveals what happened during her therapy session between a human and their ‘perfect’ AI companion. It was a threshold moment for her industry – and it’s a lesson for us all.

This warm and witty episode is packed with quick-fire Q and As as well as deeper observations and meaningful advice. Esther offers a way of thinking about desire, connection and expectations that carries well beyond romantic relationships, touching on friendships, family and the way we show up for everyone around us.

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Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/687

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