The ‘Esther Calling’ Session That Shocked Even Esther Perel

On this week’s “Esther Calling” episode of the Where Should We Begin? podcast — part of the Vox Media Podcast Network — host and psychotherapist Esther Perel did something she almost never does: She asked the person on the other end of the phone to consider ending her relationship. Or, as Esther put it weeks later to the Cut, “I didn’t literally say ‘run,’ but in effect, that was the energy of the session.”

“This is all I said: Something is off here,” Esther continues. “I visualize it, I hear it, I sense it, and I just need to tell you that.”

In her voice-mail message, this week’s caller described being in a relationship with a jealous man. She wanted to plan a future together, but his possessiveness, and that he’d asked her to cut off contact with all exes entirely, worried her. As Esther learned over the course of the call, there was more to the story. He wasn’t just insecure — about her past and what that meant for him in the present and in the future — he was also entangled in another relationship entirely.

As they chatted, Esther says, “It starts to feel to me like, Is this viable?” She asked the caller, she explains, “because it’s early enough because there is no family yet on her part. No kids yet. And I knew that she had doubts as well, and that another tension inside of her was between her doubtfulness, her reality testing, her ability to see the inconsistencies, but her longing to be held and cared for and supported and surrounded.” In the end, well, you’ll see …

Below is an edited transcript of the phone call featured in the episode. You can also listen and follow Where Should We Begin? for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Esther Perel: If you have had many arguments already in the first four months, you have already approached him with your concerns …

Caller: Yes, well, I’ve approached him in regards to that I think it’s a trait of possessiveness he has. So we have spoken since my message. But I don’t think it’s 100 percent resolved because what he has asked of me is to delete ex-boyfriends that I have on my phone that I have made friends with over the years since those relationships ended. And also to unfollow them on Instagram. Not that we talk every day or stay in contact every day, but the fact that I have cultivated friendships after the relationships, he doesn’t seem to understand. So, yeah, this is the difficult part for me to kind of accept.

Esther: Maybe before we plunge into the challenges, tell me a little bit about the relationship.

Caller: I’m a teacher at an English school here in Mexico — that’s where we met. We are the same age. We have known each other for a little while, but we started talking more often about five months ago now. And we have a lot of respect for one another. We have a lot of love for one another. We get along really well. We laugh a lot. We share a lot. But we’ve had our challenges, including this one. He doesn’t really want to accept my past. It hurts him, he says. My past hurts him. Even though it’s my past and there’s not much I can do to change it. And he thinks that because I’ve held onto the past, that I have these contacts on my phone, that this is gonna be the end of our relationship one day. That one of these guys might swoop in and whisk me away. This is his imagination, and I don’t see it like that. I want to spend my life with him. I have chosen this with him.

Esther: May I just ask, in what ways does your past hurt him, and how do you understand that?

Caller: Well, to put it, maybe, bluntly …

Esther: Yes, that’s how you can be with me.

Caller: Okay. I’ll speak bluntly then: He wanted to know my sexual past. I’m quite open and honest with him about things that he asks me. I mean, I don’t think I have anything to hide. And I had told him, you know, who was in my past, the sexual relationships that I’ve had. And he didn’t like that it was a number higher than his.

Esther: What did that mean?

Caller: I don’t know if it means that I had more experience than him. I think it’s the fact that he feels like that I have given a lot of myself to other men as opposed to him. Which makes me feel really bad. It kind of makes me feel ashamed in some way, which I shouldn’t be. I don’t know if that answers your question.

Esther: It doesn’t answer it, but it’s a beginning for us to think together about your situation, but you were beginning to say, “I grew up in a conservative …”

Caller: Yes, a conservative country, in South Africa. The biggest difference I’m seeing between the two cultures is that Mexicans are very expressive and they’re also very passionate people as opposed to South Africans, who are a little bit more conservative. They kind of keep opinions to themselves.
The challenges within our relationship is that because he’s a Mexican man, he likes to be in control of certain things. He likes to be the provider. He likes to be the breadwinner. This is very strong in his culture — very masculine energy coming through. And I’m a bit of a free spirit, an artist. So I think being controlled in some way is quite opposite of what I would like sometimes. I’m a bit more impulsive, where he’s a little bit more objective and thinks things through. I don’t know if that’s a man thing or a female thing or a Mexican thing. But we have recognized these two different things in our relationship as well.

He does come from a military background, so he has that in him as well, where it’s very, you know, straightforward being in control and taking control of the situation in a difficult situation and thinking objectively and clearheaded and not getting emotions involved where I’m the complete opposite of that.

Esther: And what draws you to him about that? What’s the parts of his rationality, control, organization, order?

Caller: I actually like that he’s a provider because I’ve always provided for myself; I’ve always kind of stood on my own two feet and kind of, um, gone through life on my own accord. So having someone sort of provide for me and wanting to take care of me is something I’m allowing and letting in and accepting. And it feels quite good, to be honest, to kind of allow someone else to do that for me and not just, not only rely on myself.

But what draws me to him, I think it’s probably that my father was also in the military, and they do have a certain poise. Where maybe I’m a little bit up in the clouds, they can be a little bit more streamlined and a little bit more direct with certain things. And I kind of like that about him as well. And he has taught me some valuable lessons when it comes to certain aspects of life that I’ve never seen in that light. And he would kind of bring those things to light and I’m like, Okay, that’s an interesting perspective.

Esther: Like what?

Caller: So when we have an argument, I have the fight-or-flight aspect — I want to flee, I want to get away. But he’s one that would stand and just continue talking and try and work through it, even if we get angry or get upset with one another.

The other day when we had an argument, I was still very upset about something, and he just gave me this hug and he just held me tight. And he’s like, “I’m angry, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be here with you. I am holding you and I want to be here.” This is interesting for me because I don’t — I normally just wanna run away. And he’s like, Even if you are angry, you can still stay and still communicate and you don’t have to run away. You don’t have to feel like you need to get away from that.

Esther: And if I asked him what draws him to you? You’re a very young couple, and some people say your arguments, you will know them on day two, and from then on, they will accompany you through life. So there’s the parts of this that you will find he’s principled, he’s loyal, he stays put. He doesn’t run away when it gets challenging. And that same set of attributes will then be seen as he’s controlling, he’s principled, and therefore he will continue to talk about it until he has made his point. And I’ve basically said, you’re right. He will remind me of my checkered past, so to speak. If he was here, I would say, “Remember this, because everything you’re putting down is part of what has also drawn you to her.”

Caller: I think what has drawn him to me is probably my outer beauty first — from the stories that he told me, coming to the school and hoping to see me and to have some sort of interaction with me. But now it’s become a little bit more than that, getting to know me more. He’s drawn to my outer beauty. He’s now drawn to my inner beauty. He wrote me a love letter and said things like, he loves the way I flavor food. He says he loves how I paint and how I’m an artist. He loves to watch my eyes. He loves my hair and my ears. He loves the way I see the world and how I view the world in my own lens. And that he always looking forward to seeing me. It was a really special love letter, to be honest.

Esther: So your question is, what to do with what I see, or can I live with this? What is your question? Because you’re not gonna change him.

Caller: No, exactly, Esther. I don’t want to change him either. But I want him to be able to trust me and know that I am in this 100 percent, planning our future together. Me having now decided to continue living in Mexico, and also when he’s pursuing his dream and working around the world, I will be joining him. I have made this very big decision not to live back in South Africa, but to be with him. But at the same time, he is unsure about our future. He’s unsure because of my past.

Esther: He’s unsure of your future because of your past; please tell me more.

Caller: Because of my relationships with men in the past, because I’ve had more sexual relationships than him …

Esther: And that means what to him? I understand, but what are we saying exactly? Be blunt.

Caller: Okay. He thinks that I will be disloyal to him. That I would cheat on him, basically. He thinks that if I stay in contact with these ex-boyfriends that there’ll be some communication, and then one day I will leave him and go to someone else, or I will cheat on him. And this is just so far from the truth.

Esther: Has that happened to you in other relationships?

Caller: No, it hasn’t. I’ve lived many lives. I’ve had many different occupations, but I want to change that. I want a different future. I want to have a partner, a life partner. And …

Esther: But does he have ground to think, I mean, is there a history of cheating or betrayal or disloyalty or is there a history of a woman who has been free-spirited and who has lived many lives, but each of them with integrity?

Caller: There has been integrity in my past. I haven’t cheated on anyone.

Esther: Okay.

Caller: I’ve also made it clear that if there are problems within our relationship, I would rather talk about it as opposed to trying to find it with another man. I’d rather try and sort it out, and if it can’t be sorted out, if we do have to split up, it would be with between him and I. It wouldn’t be because of external people.

Esther: And does he think that the problem is your past, or is it that what is now being defined as the problem of your past may lie with him as well?

Caller: I think with him as well. There is another aspect to our relationship that I haven’t mentioned that might be important. It probably is important. Let me just say what it is:

He is married and he has a child, but their agreement before they got married was that they can both find partners outside the marriage. It was more a marriage of convenience.

Esther: So now the plot thickens.

Caller: Yes, it definitely does.

Esther: All right, we’ve spent too much time without knowing this. So tell me, how does this enter your relationship?

Caller: Sorry, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bring that up or not. But maybe it is important. He is married, and he has a 1-year-old. They entered the marriage out of financial convenience, and not out of being together out of, like, love. I guess there’s love and respect between the two of them, but they won’t be spending their future together, basically. He’s there to financially support them. Him and his mother-in-law and brother-in-law. So this is what he’s brought into the relationship. I have known about this from the start. We have spoken about this many times. His wife knows about me.

Esther: And do the other people know about you?

Caller: His wife does, yes. His mother-in-law has an inkling about it. She doesn’t know 100 percent, but she has some idea that there is someone else. And the brother-in-law, I don’t think so.

Esther: And his wife understands that you are what? Who?

Caller: That we are in a serious relationship. She does know my name. She knows where I work. We haven’t met, but she does know of me.

Esther: And how does this shape your relationship?

Caller: In many ways. We do want a future together. Him and I, we are planning our future together. He would like to have more children and have those children with me. But divorce with his wife is out of the question. And I think why it’s so difficult for me to, coming back to the initial problem, is that he will have a connection with his wife forever. But I can’t have a number on my phone with my ex-boyfriend.

Esther: Right. And what do you think about all of that?

Caller: This is where I have had difficulty with this, and this is why we have had many arguments about it, because I know I keep bringing this up. I keep bringing up this point. I’m like, “You still have a wife, but I can’t have any ex-boyfriends on my phone. But you can keep in contact with her every day to see how your daughter is.” Like, they live in the same city as we are, as I am. He can get to see his daughter whenever he wants. And rightfully so. I mean, it’s his daughter. I wouldn’t, wouldn’t want him to not have a relationship with her. But it has been difficult because he is still connected to his wife in a big way. And this is why I had a problem deleting these numbers, to be honest.

Esther: Right. Well, you’re being very moderate. I mean, there is a whole lot of family.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: People who don’t know about you, or they kind of know you exist, but, you know, there is basically a ceiling above you because I don’t know if marriage matters to you or not, but there will never be such a thing. There is a profound asymmetry.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: And you’ve been arguing since the beginning. No sooner has he met you, that he’s already putting his conditions.

Caller: Mm-hmm. The big word: conditions. Yes.

Esther: Okay, I’m sorry. I understand the caretaking, and I’m sure if he can take care of his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, who will be dependent on him forever and his wife, that you know that there’s a lure for you. Oh, finally, someone who takes care of me. I’ve had to do it all by myself. I’m so tired of being on my own. Here is a real guy who’s gonna show up. But the conditions.

Caller: Yes, Esther, that’s it, the conditions.

Esther: So, I’m sorry. I can see the beautiful love letter, the hair, the eyes, the lure, and the whole thing. But this is not just a love story you’re aiming for; you’re choosing a life story.

Caller: Yeah. I mean, we are looking for an apartment to live in …

Esther: Doesn’t matter. The conditions won’t change.

Caller: Can we clarify the conditions, please?

Esther: Well, the conditions start with: You need to tailor yourself to what I think is palatable. You need to make sure that I don’t have to feel any insecurity on the risk that you could have an affair on me while I have my own wife. Baby’s a year old, so the convenience came when exactly you met him when the baby was 6, 7 months old. So it’s like something doesn’t click, you know?

You should make sure that I cannot ever think you can betray me in any way whatsoever. You are too much of a free woman for me, but I am having an affair on my wife, to whom I’ve told what exactly? I will forever be there for you. I will take care of you. I’m just gonna go and have my romantic love somewhere else, and I’m going to install the oldest system of wife and mistress. I’ll have kids with both, and I’ll take care of both families. As long as you know what you’re doing. 

Caller: I have known what I’ve been doing.

Esther: This is an old system. You’re not creating something new or original. This is the old system, and you will feel taken care of with conditions, beholden, and responsible for him to not have to necessarily take responsibility for what? For his part in these stories. So that he’s the upstanding citizen and you’re the slut.

So you tell me, what is drawing you to this? What are the hurts you carry that you are allowing this to become the box you wanna live in? I’m being really blunt as well because we have one hour together, and you’re not gonna make this guy less jealous or less possessive or less controlling, or less suffocating. Those are a lot of big words after four months.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: What are you doing? What are you bringing with you that you are willing to forego your better sense, your home, your roots, your past, your story to enter into this quagmire.

Caller: I have asked myself this question too. I just …

Esther: I hope you’re not hearing me disrespectfully. I’m saying this with utter respect, but you seem to have had some life experience and you are walking into an absolute mess.

Caller: I don’t know; sometimes he makes it sound so easy. You know, just making everything sort of black-and-white, like we are planning our future together. We will live in a different state, in a different country as opposed to his wife and daughter. I have had many questions that I would ask him, and he would always have an answer. So the surety always seems to be there. So I find myself just accepting or kind of agreeing — there have been other things that have come up and that I would ask him about, and he is more than willing to to talk it out and to speak about it. And I have my concerns.

Esther: Like what, if I may ask?

Caller: Well, you know, if we do live in a different state — because he is aiming to be a commercial pilot, so we would live in different states — if he doesn’t see his daughter, how would we plan around that? How would you get to see your daughter as well as your own kids with me? You’re flying for many days at a time or many hours, how do you juggle everything? How do you juggle two families that you have?

Esther: And how does he respond?

Caller: You know, it’s interesting. He brings up loyalty quite often. He says he is loyal to his family. And he is showing loyalty to me by doing this. Like if he comes back home, then he would buy a flight ticket for his wife and his daughter to come visit, or he would go to the state that they live in and, and I’m like, I haven’t even met his wife. And there’s a lot of unanswered questions. A lot of questions have come up, a lot of questions have been asked, but it’s still very unsure because we really haven’t found ourselves in those situations.

Esther: And he answers you in ways that put you to sleep. They lull you.

Caller: Can you say more, please?

Esther: It’s, it’s false reassurances. On stuff he has no idea about. “We’ll figure it out.” Every problem has a solution.

Caller: Yeah. There’s no hundred percent surety.

Esther: But I’m really asking you because I don’t know anything about you or your past or what you bring or who have been the relationships before or who’s the family that is left in South Africa — but there’s something. Or as you said, when we have an argument, my tendency is to run away, and you are as far from South Africa as can be. So you are a runaway.

Caller: Yes.

Esther: And you are running away and you are entering somebody else’s life story. Jumping in with two feet. Abdicating your own story, your own life. I would love to know a little bit more about that because there is a feeling when you tell this story of, I am running away from my own, entering someone else’s, a little bit scared about what’s lying there, but he just says, “It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you. I love the spices you put in the food, and I am allowing myself to be totally transported,” and I become a little girl, so eager to be taken care of that I am not saying anything.

Caller: Well, my background, my mother and I have had a difficult relationship since I was a child. My father and I are quite close, but he wasn’t around much when I was a kid. I’ve had an interesting background, Afrikaans family, but went to an English school, so I have a different sets of cultures within me. Internally and externally with, you know, friends and family. I have worked as a graphic designer. I have traveled the world working on a cruise ship. And now I’m in Mexico teaching English.

Esther: How old are you, if I may ask?

Caller: I’m 38.

Esther: And you’re a little bit tired of being unmoored?

Caller: I know what I want from my future, but I’m also tired of being alone and not having a partner, doing it on my own. I wanna build memories with someone, and I can see that with him. But yes, unfortunately, this very heavy topic is always there. I think I’m very patient.

Esther: With him and his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law and his wife, who will forever be his wife and his daughter, you think you’re gonna be less alone?

Caller: And him flying.

Esther: Yes, of course. I forgot the big piece. Maybe you should all gather together? All of you.

Caller: This is what I would love, Esther. Like, I would love to meet them and make myself seen and be like, This is who I am.

Esther: Why is he taking care of all these people? Do we know that?

Caller: His wife lost her father a couple of years ago, and he has always looked out for her …

Esther: She depends on him?

Caller: Yes, she does.

Esther: So he doesn’t have to worry about the possibilities of her predatoriness?

Caller: I mean, they both can have a relationship outside their marriage, but from what it sounds like, she is not interested. Because I think that her daughter is a priority, but I often wonder, What would happen if she does find someone? How would he feel about that, you know? She seems to be okay with me.

Esther: Says he.

Caller: Says he, yeah.

Esther: Everything you know is, says he.

Caller: I just have to trust what he says. This comes back to the initial thing, like, I don’t know how I can delete people from my life when someone in his life will always be there, you know?

Esther: If I may? If these exes have really become your friends and they are your circle, and some of them at least are part of your support system, wherever they are strewn across the globe, regardless of his being married or not, within X amount of weeks, he’s asking you to basically cut off contact with the people of your life — it is a bold ask. And one that I’m not sure I would suggest you trust. On what basis?

Caller: Mm-hmm. He feels threatened, I suppose.

Esther: Well, that may be a feeling he has to address. But to ask that from someone you just met, and he probably asked it to you after a few weeks, “I like you, but I need you to rearrange the pieces a little bit. Do some editing for me. Take away some of the parts that make me uncomfortable.” And, I mean, I’m curious about his request, but I’m particularly curious about your willingness to even consider it.

Caller: Well, up until recently, I have refused. I have kind of pushed back and said, “No, that’s not something I would do.” But then, of course, it would be a recurring thing and a recurring problem that would come up.

Esther: Yeah. But you know what, if you do it, that will leave you very much in a vulnerable and threatened position.

Caller: Mm-hmm. That’s how I feel too, Esther.

Esther: Okay, so I think I’ve answered your question. I mean, I didn’t answer your question the way you asked it to me, but I think I’m being quite transparent about how I’m registering the choice you’re about to make.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: And I know that you may come home tonight and he will give you the lulling reassurances again, which your heart is aching to hear. Your heart doesn’t wanna hear what I’m saying.

Caller: Mm-hmm. Thank you, Esther.

Esther: You understand? If you wanna follow that, that’s, that’s your choice too. But you will have to remember what you were willing to accept and to do, and how could you?

Caller: Yeah. I still haven’t deleted these numbers because I feel, once I do, I will be in a very, very vulnerable situation.

Esther: Of course, he will isolate you from the rest of the world. He will make you dependent on him too. And I would say to you, you didn’t run away from South Africa and travel the globe to create yourself another cage.

Caller: Yeah, that’s a very good point.

Esther: I understand that you say, I don’t wanna do it alone anymore. I want someone. I have complete empathy for that. But this is not the same.

Caller: Yeah, I don’t think so either. Why do we like people that … because I do like him. There is a lot about him that I like.

Esther: You can like people, you can love people. That doesn’t mean you need to make a life with people. There are plenty of people we love, but we should not be partnered with them.

Because at first when someone says, “I want you to delete the people that you slept with so that I can feel more manly and I don’t have to feel like you’re used goods,” we interpret that as love. He must love me so much that he wants me just for himself. I’m so moved by his vulnerability, by how hurt he would be to know that I have loved and made love to other men before him who may be better lovers than him too on occasion. We interpret that as an expression of love.

Caller: I think that’s true. I don’t know if that’s true for me. I found it quite shocking when he first asked me. He expected it of me first, and then he had to ask me, and I still refused.

Esther: The fact that he doesn’t think there’s anything problematic with the request is a big red light. It’s preposterous.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: But it’s traditional. It belongs to a system. It’s a system in which control provides care.

Caller: Does control always provide care? Not necessarily, right?

Esther: No, no. The idea is, I will control, and in return I will provide, and in return, you will stay put.

Caller: Do you believe that love has a price?

Esther: In what sense? That’s a big question. In what way? Meaning that that’s the price to pay for being with him? No.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: No, I don’t.

Caller: But also, the family …

Esther: I think you’re entering a quagmire with someone who is telling you, “I have the wife that I told that we can be with other partners, but I am the only one who will be with another partner because I know for a fact that she wants the baby.” I mean, you’re being told stories, one story after another, of which you have no way of knowing what’s behind and who’s behind them. You have a cast of characters of four people that you’re about to live with for decades to come, and you have no idea who they are. Would you do that with anything else?

Caller: No.

Esther: It’s like, what are you doing?

Caller: Mm-hmm. Yes, Esther, what am I doing?

Esther: I am sure there’s plenty to like about him and plenty to love about him, but you’re not a 22-year-old woman either.

Caller: I should know better, right?

Esther: If the price of love, as you call it, is to be controlled, is to live under conditions, is to be lulled and is to be presented with an entire fait accompli. That’s a decision you make.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: I don’t often make statements like the ones I just made, and I may be off. But I’m also following my intuition and my decades of experience. I mean, I’m often asked, “Do you ever tell someone to leave or to not continue?” And this is one of those times when I’m listening to this and, I’m just the free bird who traveled the globe to do what she wants because she’s tired of being told. And who had to run as far from Mom as can be to then find herself willingly entering a cage.

Caller: Oh, I feel like a bird in a cage.

Esther: That’s why I’m saying, what is happening? I mean, I know what is happening: I’m tired of being alone. And he’s there and he shows up in beautiful ways and all of that. But I would not move on to the next phase without having some clarity over who are the other birds in the cage.

Caller: Mm-hmm.

Esther: As you say, I have to delete and cut off from people who are essential pillars of my life to live with someone who has an entire family, and I have no idea who, what, when, excuse me.

Caller: It is a bold ask.

Esther: How does this land on you?

Caller: It’s landed. It has landed, Esther. It’s interesting because I haven’t been able to speak about this to anyone because of the situation that I’m in. So it’s nice to have a voice of reason and someone I can sort of project on.

Esther: Wow. And you haven’t been able to talk about it because what?

Caller: I don’t think anyone would really understand.

Esther: They would judge you.

Caller: Yeah, probably.

Esther: So now we have shame not just about your past, but you have shame about your present.

Caller: Yeah.

Esther: Oh, no, do not. Please.

Caller: Yes. Esther, I hear you. It’s landed, what you’ve said. Thank you.

Esther: Thank you for trusting me. Good luck to you.

Caller: Thank you very much.