Let’s Talk Love Roundtable with Esther Perel & Dr. Alexandra Solomon | Transcript

22.05.20

This transcript is from the Let’s Talk Love Podcast, available in our Podcast Feed.

Robin Ducharme | Welcome to a very special episode of Let's Talk Love. We're hosting a roundtable discussion with Esther Perel and Dr. Alexandra Solomon, where we ask them your questions, and they answer about love, relationships and everything in between.

Both Esther and Dr. Solomon are authors, day-to-day therapists, and world-renowned speakers. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to learn and grow and better my relationships because of their wisdom, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Welcome to the let's talk love podcast where we flip the script on outdated narratives and cliches about love and relationships. I'm your host, Robin Ducharme, founder of Real Love Ready. This podcast is for anyone who wants to be better at love regardless of relationship status. We'll talk about the intimate connections in our lives. And the challenges and complexities inherent in those partnerships. Through our no holds barred interviews with global experts will gain insight about ourselves and learn new skills to improve our relationships. Because when we learn to love better, we make the world a better place. Are you ready for open and honest conversations about love? Let's get started.

So we're just going to jump into questions. But I think what actually you talked about earlier, Esther, when we talked, was about the fact that you are practitioners, you Esther and yourself Alexandra. Day in and day out, you work with people, you work with individuals, and couples, in your day-to-day practice around these themes and challenges that we all face in relationships. And it's just, it doesn't get any easier.

Right? Can we just actually just start there? And it's just like this is this is the meat of it. Like you're just you're doing it right? Before we get to the questions like this is what you're used to. Right? So this is not new. This material we're going to touch on today is not new. And it's real. And it's like for all of us.

Dr. Alexandra Solomon | It is, you know, it speaks Robin, to the community that you have built. That people, you know, people don't bring you sort of the five cent questions, right? People are bringing you the meaty, paradoxical, complicated, requires more than a step 123 Kind of an answer. And so that's right. That's that's the that's what you are inviting us into with your communities questions that there's not, neither Esther nor I, are going to give you or your audience the answers to these things. We're going to give paradigms and frameworks and ways of how do we sit with the discomfort? How do we sit with the tension? How do we kind of grow our capacity?

Robin Ducharme | Yeah.

So the first question I want to ask is, can you please share what in your life is giving each of you, something that's giving you joy? Right now. And what is one of the greatest challenges that you're working through? Because we all have, like, it's like this paradox, right? [laughs] That's life.

Dr. Alexandra Solomon | Do you want me to start?

Esther Perel | Yes, go ahead.

Dr. Alexandra Solomon | So I think that I think there's a way in which my greatest joy and my greatest challenge are like right next to each other because I think so much of my joy right now is where I am life stage-wise. I love feeling wise, I feel wise at this point, you know, I feel good at my job, I feel hard to ruffle. I feel like a mentor to the next generation of clinicians and future leaders. And I love there's so much joy in that, like, I think about 24 year old me would just be like, You got to be kidding, you're friends with Esther and you get to do this, you know, it just it's such a, there's so much joy in this stage that I have worked so hard to move into and become, you know, skilled at what I do. And there's so much joy in that. And then I think my greatest challenge is sort of related to time, as well, which is I can get kind of grabby about time right now. Like I start sometimes to count backward, how many more moments like this do I get to have with my kids? Or how many? If I don't reach a particular career milestone, will it slip away? So I think that my challenge is to also just allow time to be what it is. I noticed changes in my own, you know, sort of age-related changes that I have feelings about. So my challenge is also to kind of like move with time and not do the "Am I too old to do this?" or "Is it too late for me to do this?" So I think that's where I sit.

Esther Perel | When you asked me about what brings me joy, my first reaction was simply, exactly this moment. I am with a dear friend and colleague, I am with another colleague who I've just met. But we are both already thinking, "What a smart woman, but a pleasure to talk to this person" Those questions, they gave us a really interesting, God, I get to really delve into a subject I'm passionate about, relationships. And I get to do something that I've wanted to do for a long time, which is to speak not only about it, and to it, when I'm in my office with my patients, between the four walls, but to really bring a certain psychological, what Alex calls wisdom, psychological wisdom, or experience or confidence to the world. And that brings me tremendous joy. So you talked about wisdom, I would have said confidence. If I had the confidence of today with the looks of then, or the youth of then. And when you, you know, it's like, it only gets better, is really the surprise, you get to do more of what you want because you know more what it is you want. And you get to care a little bit less what other people think about it, you don't need to be right, you don't need to be the only one, you just want to be relevant. And you want to be relevant in your personal life, I want to be relevant in my personal life, I want to feel like I touched my friends, my family, that they touch me, I want to be relevant in what I write and what I do. And that brings me tremendous joy.

And I, you know, I went yesterday, to a play and, and I'm on the street and I'm walking in, somebody recognizes my voice, just by my voice, I have a mask and I'm thinking if they recognize my voice, they've listened to the podcast, because the podcast we listen with airports, you know, and, and intimate in your ear, and I'm thinking, God, all these people, you know, I am I accompany so many people that I have no idea about in their, in their daily life kind of thing. And what gives me challenge, is that sometimes I'm very voracious, I really want to be in three places at the same time. I want to do this, this and this, because I think I am so lucky to be able to do these things. And that's why I said to you that I often have to get a chastity belt around me. Because I tend to want to do more than I can actually handle. And then I get all stressed and panicky. You know, that something's gonna slip through my fingers. But of course, I put too much in my hand.

Robin | Oh, my goodness, I really I, I appreciate that. I feel like that's me. In a way. There's so much opportunity. And you're just like, how do you contain it? Just like, but you have to choose right? And that's when you come to in your life? I think, when you have when you have all these opportunities, but you can say no, and what are your boundaries? And then you're all these, the learning continues? Yeah, it's great. So we have so many great community questions for both of you. One of the questions is, how do you maintain independence in a relationship while having deep intimacy and partnership with another person? I'm 52. I've been divorced for five years, I have fear around the idea of entering a relationship because I'm worried I might lose my independence that I've worked so hard to find. I think this is like so true for so many women, that have, like you walked out of, you actually worked to end a divorce or maybe it wasn't your choice. And then you spent all these years by yourself rebuilding yourself and then what?

Esther | But you know, it's not so difficult to be independent, when you are on your own. The true test of independence is when there is someone next to you.

Robin | Wow, that is powerful right there.

Esther | Right? Because being independent when you are rebuilding yourself, that kind of, it comes with the territory, but maintaining a sense of separateness of individuality of differentiation. When you are in a relationship. That's the true independence. Because independence is only created in response in a relationship to the connection, to the interdependence. Otherwise, you can't define, it's like you can't know what is joy without knowing sadness. You can't know what is independence without knowing connection otherwise you're on your own, you're alone, but you're not independent. Unless we define independence as the ability to rely on oneself, to take care of oneself to, you know, to handle things by oneself. But that's, that's a more narrow definition of independence. It's hard to hold on to yourself in the presence of the other. That's independence.

Dr. Solomon | Well, there's a way in which this community member is building, she's setting herself up for it to be a problem. She's saying I'm afraid of losing independence as if it's a finite resource, rather than something renewable, right? It's renewable in the space between her and her future partner, she can say to her partner, I'm not available to go out tonight, I'm going to be with my girlfriends tonight, or I'm going to be in bed with a book tonight. There's the idea, right? She's confusing connection with dependence or smothering or suffocating, which perhaps that was. I mean, perhaps what she's pointing herself towards really is perhaps a story from her first marriage. Maybe that was the way she was in her first marriage as she conflated being a good wife, with being, you know, a smile on her face, always of service, no needs of her own. And so and so she may need to just reimagine what it means to be in like, truly in partnership and to choose a partner who really celebrates that she is resourced in lots of ways, with friends, with activities, with hobbies, somebody who celebrates that is going to celebrate time apart as much as they celebrate time together.

Esther | But I would add to that, Alex, also, that, the best thing is, if you have someone who says "Go ahead, have a great time, I'll see you later." But you may have so if somebody says, "Oh, I really wish that.." you know, you need to be able to say no, and to accept that the other person may not like it. That too, you have to be able to tolerate that there may be discomfort on the other side and that you don't abdicate in order to avoid strife or displeasure on the other side, you are allowed to say no. And the other person is allowed to say, Oh, I wish you would come anyway. And those two shall coexist. That's another part of it.

Robin | I think that there's a bigger discussion around this today. I think you made a great point because both of those can coexist. I have a point of view, you have a point of view. And it's not right or wrong. It's like they both exist. And understanding that, getting through that.

Dr. Solomon | Yeah, yeah, there's a partner who says I wish that you would do this. It's very different than punishing, right? So that's, that's another that's a different world, right? If there is retreat and sulking and punishment, and criticism and guilt-tripping, that's very different from "I wish." My husband and I get into this because his bucket for time with me is larger than my bucket of time with him. I need a bit more, especially in this chapter of our relationship as we're emptying our nest, I just want a lot of alone time. And so there are times when I'm not available. And then he'll say, Oh, you poor thing. You have a husband who wants to be with you all the time. Like it's so sad for you, you know like that's in this chapter. He has a larger bucket. And so I have to not confuse him by being disappointed that we have a different need at this moment. He's not he's not punishing me. He's like guilting me and He is disappointed. He has a different set of desires and interests. Sometimes.

Robin | Yes. Oh, yeah. So our next question is, I have been with my partner for 20 years. We met as young adults, got married, I had two beautiful children, no major issues, but my husband has rage issues sometimes when the slightest thing happens and he really goes and loses it. I try to do my best to placate him. But it just doesn't work. Right. She's saying, Do we go through going through his thing? Or do I recommend he goes through counseling? What's your advice?

Dr. Solomon | I think this is a, I mean, I think it's a wonderful matter to bring to couples therapy. I don't you know, she describes it. She describes rage issues when the word rage is a strong word. She, I don't know how somebody else, I don't know how he experiences it. I don't know how a therapist would experience it but certainly, that gives me pause like I want to know if they've got kids. I think that this is somebody who's got kids at home right and so I can imagine that there's she's writing about kind of placating him. I think it certainly is a matter to bring to a couples therapist. As my supervisor Bill Pinsoff used to say, God is in the sequence and so we would really want somebody to be looking at the sequence of what happened. Like what are the antecedents to his rage episode with leading up to it and that there's a set of skills, you know, the kind of the nice thing if there has to be a nice thing about this is that emotion regulation skills are teachable and learnable. And I don't you know, if we looked at his family of origin, it may be wholly understandable. This is a man who does not know how to do relationally empowered communication, all he saw was silence or rage. So it might actually be a skill deficit. And those are some teachable and learnable skills. The thing I don't want is for her, you know, if she's if what she does is tippy toes, placates and smooths over, then he has chronic experiences of himself as unable to control his emotions and the people around him. There's few things worse in the world than being fully aware that people are tiptoeing and walking on eggshells around you. So there's a way in which her placating reinforces this idea that he is inadequate, inept, problematic, you know, whatever. And so he deserves a chance to learn these skills so that he can feel really proud of handling a frustrating moment differently than he was able to before he learned some things about emotion regulation.

Esther | At the same time, this is entirely presented by one partner who says we are together 20 years my husband has these outbursts and you what has been your role vis a vis these outbursts? You know, he has rage and you have what placating could be one thing, tiptoeing but it also could be contempt, dismissal, belittling, so the if the God is in the sequence, the God is also in the dance. If you go to couples therapy, you don't just go to present your, the problems of your partner. And you say to the therapist, fix it, he's got some rage outbursts. You also look at the dancing. But you know what happens when he begins to go just a tiny bit up to you already immediately hear it as rage? Because after 20 years, there's a very rigid pattern in place. So the minute you begin to think of it as rage, you shut down the minute you shut down, he feels abandoned, the minute he feels abandoned, he screams louder, because he hopes that that's how he's going to get through. And you're going to hear it. And the minute he screams louder, you say you see,

Dr. Solomon | You have rage issues.

Esther | You know. You have rage issues. So the question is a beautiful question. But it is a question that presents the couple through the lens of one person. And generally, every person in a relationship at this point has a lens. But there's also a dance, what he does that makes her do what she does that makes him do what he does. And it becomes the more x the more that the more this. And that's what they would be looking at in couples therapy. Otherwise, he can go alone and get those skills. But the question is, does he even see himself as such? Or does he answer and says, And what about you? Want me to tell you your issues? Or is it that she's on her that she's wondering, do I want to stay and she's looking for something that is legitimate to possibly go? There's a lot of questions I would have here before I just say, here's what you do with your, you know, screaming husband. And I'm sure that when you listen to this community member that the question I would ask you, is what has been your relationship to this? You're trying to calm him down. Obviously, you see it hasn't worked. That's not so true. Otherwise, you wouldn't be there. 20 years later, you must have done certain things that have worked quite well. And maybe they worked well for certain things. You know, in what way did they work well, and in what did they not? I sense you're fed up. You kind of tired of this. And tired of what? Tired of what he does or tired of what you do? And I would want to invite you to think a little bit more because the story the way you tell it is very set. And this is the issue with couples is that we settle on a story. And the change begins when the story opens up and invites other possibilities of another story.

Robin | Oh, that's good. Oh. So the next question is, After getting to a place of knowing the two main roadblocks of my two year marriage, I shared these with my partner. Instead of being received and heard, and in a safe place. I felt criticized and unsupported. How do I proceed with seeing if we can work through these roadblocks given the previous sharing?

Dr. Solomon | This one flows. This one flows right from the last one doesn't it?

Robin | Yes it does.

Dr. Solomon | So, we don't know. If we got to be flies on the wall and we kind of got to watch how she presented the two roadblocks, we'd have much more insight, right? Because there's there is I think there is a danger or a risk, at least in a presentation of Okay, my dear. Here's our two roadblocks. What are we going to do? Right, she kind of came in potentially, with a beginning, a middle and an end and a request for change, rather than the positionality that we love to help couples get into, which is the two partners side by side looking together at the knot and kind of building the story about the dance, the pattern, the sequence together. So she's identified two roadblocks. Does her partner identify the same two roadblocks? Like do they use different language the same perspectives.

Robin | Yeah those are hers, right?

Dr. Solomon | Yeah, I mean listen, I think we can do two things at once. We can validate that it must have been immensely painful to get up the gumption to present, here's what I think are the problems in our marriage and to feel criticized and unsupported, I have every confidence that was immensely painful. And I really want to make sure that she's setting the two of them up the best way possible by putting a really, really relational framework around those two roadblocks. My fear is that the two roadblocks are, if you will, you know, if you would do more of this, we'd be better or if you would do less of that we'd be better. And I don't we don't know. But that's I think that would be the challenge is to how do we hold the empathy that comes from feeling unsupported along with that invitation or ask to make sure that this is a really robustly relational presentation of the pattern, the dance, the cycle that keeps her as much in the ring as it keeps her partner in the ring?

Esther | What you see here is that both of us think systemically, we look at problems in a context. And we look at how the relationship organizes itself around the problem. Because that organization is what maintains the problem as well. And it's not just we take the problem, you know, we look at the ecology, we look at the transactional or you know, the dance around it, you know, how it gets repeated. Now, that said, she brings something up, and I think the thematic here is, what do you do when you are with somebody who can be very quickly defensive, and kind of has a knee jerk reaction? And when you say I'm hungry, they say, You didn't ask me to cook. You know, it's like I say something about me, and they hear something about them. And they personalize it all the time you hear a wish, and every wish becomes a criticism. There are people who are critical, and behind the criticism is a veiled wish, but there are people who are just talking about the feeling and experiencing something and the other person hears the whole thing as a criticism. And so they're instantly back, you know, with this defensiveness and you, you know, you just cannot, you can't say anything about you, or you have to so, you know, massage it and massage that in the end, you know, you prefer to go talk to your girlfriends.

Robin | Yeah. It's hard to walk on pins and needles all day long.

Esther | Oh, it's very difficult. It's very, because, you know, it's difficult, because we're talking about this over years, or months or years. In the beginning, you do this very kindly and with full heart and you say, oh, you know, you can be sensitive sometimes No, honey, I didn't mean it like that, like, you know, but over the years, this becomes like,

Robin | Oh, it's like a child, right?

Esther | Again, like, I just can't be bothered to talk to you because, because all you hear is you because you're at the center of the universe. And sometimes I say to people, you're very important, but you're not that important. Not everything is about you, you know, if she if she's trying to tell you about something, you know, then of course, you ask if you have both people. May I ask you what you just heard? So first of all, go for the distortion. What is it that you just heard that made you react the way you did? Because obviously, sometimes somebody says, you know, I wasn't hungry yesterday, so I didn't want to eat and all you hear them says that your food sucks, right? You know, so, what did you hear? You know, and then you try to understand how come you know from this to there, it went through such a transformation of meaning. And then you try to locate that distortion into a larger story. How is it that that's where your ear takes you that it takes you to a place where you got to be put down, criticized, belittled. Where did you get used to that translation? And then you know, you also go back to the other side, and now you say, you know, would you if there was a way to hear what you partner said, in a way that doesn't make you feel bad. Would you want that? Does that draw you? Are you curious about what it could be like to listen to your partner without instantly thinking that once again, they're coming at you?

Dr. Solomon | It's so often, it's so often there is this piece that is interest psychic, right internal, about my ears are primed to hear your feelings, to hear your experience as meaning that I've disappointed you, I've screwed up, I failed you because of my relationship with me. And your love cannot outpace like, your love cannot be the only force that heals my shame, right? There's something about the experience of shame. Yeah, there's something about the experience of shame. That really is my reckoning with self, you can say I'm here with you, you can say I love you, but there's a piece of it that cannot land inside of me if shame is in the driver's seat, and that experience of shame. And I think that very often is and when, you know, if the person is the defensive person or the critical unsupportive person if that person is a man. And there's not like that sort of, I think there's an added challenge of sitting with the immense vulnerability of shame, right, the immense way that I hate feeling like you're disappointed in me because I turn it against myself, and I feel so inadequate, not that I did something that was disappointing, but that I am disappointed and that piece is so, it can be hard to get to and it's essential to get to because she can put ribbons and bows and softness and, you know, color and shade and texture on her description. But if shame is in the driver's seat, shame is going to find the "See I knew it, I knew that you were disappointed in me." Because that's just what shame does. So there's a part of it that is like an individual reckoning with self about being able to kind of just tend to oneself a bit more gently.

Esther | Three exclamation points at the end of the sentence. Because really I don't have to add anything, it's just uber important.

Robin | So the next question is and this is a discussion in our community quite a bit around the erotic and understanding that between, within ourselves and with our partners. The question is, what tools would you recommend for having conversations with our partners to better understand and explore our erotic desires? And the second question around this was also, when should I bring up conversation around kink and fetishes in our new relationship?

Esther | I would actually like to separate the two questions, because I would like us to talk about the erotic and erotic desires without it leading also into the question of fetishes and kink, which is equally important. There is a beautiful question that I borrowed from Gina Ogden, and it goes like this, I am in front of two people and you can do this alone with your partner. I turn myself off when or I turn myself off by. I extinguish myself, I shut down, I numb myself by. Which is not the same question as you turn me off when, or what turns me off is, so I turn myself off if I do emails before going to bed, if I feel bloated and I overeat, if I have been really anxious about the kids the whole day, if we haven't had any time to be together, if it's been weeks since I had a minute to myself, if I've not been able to just walk in nature and smell the flowers, you know, I shut down when. And you will notice that the majority of things have very little to do with sex they have to do primarily with permission, with self care with the presence of pleasure and joy in your life. And it's from that place of worthiness and of permission and of pleasure that the erotic energy comes. Erotic energy in the sense of aliveness, vibrancy, vitality, life force that becomes sexualized but that is not in and of itself just sex. You can have sex and feel dead. What we're talking about here is the aliveness that precedes the sexual encounter with oneself, the sensual encounter with oneself, you know, I turn myself on when or by is very different from you turn me on when or what turns me on is. I awaken my desires when and they go back and forth. You know, so it's a very conflict free kind of conversations I awaken my desires, I ignite myself, when I'm in nature, when I play music, when I go out with my friends, when I go dancing, when we spend good time together, when we laugh when you know when we connect when we feel alive when there is energy between us. That is the erotic energy. So this is a very nice, easy entrance for talking together. So, then the next thing is if what turns me on is to go run every day or to go dancing, then the next question is, when's the last time you went dancing? And if it's been six months, then reconsider, and you can dance in your house. I mean, the point is, when you do something that is playful, imaginative, you know, free of responsibility is usually connected to desires. Then when the question about how do you bring in the idiosyncrasies of your own sexual proclivities, fetish, kink, or anything else, anything. I think the question is just simply what is erotic intimacy? How do two people talk about the parts of themselves that they often have spent years learning never to talk about to anybody. How can we start talking about the stuff we've been silent about all the time and had to hide? And basically, the issue is fearing judgment, or ridicule, or contempt, or shaming, because our erotic desires are often contradictory, and not understandable to ourselves. They're mischievous, they fly against all other ways that we tend to look at ourselves. And that's why it seems so you know, not normal, not normal as people are. And then the question is really a preamble. You know, you generally have a sense if you are with someone who is in a similar community as you sexually speaking, but if they're not, and you realize that you are crossing a Rubicon to be with them, and there is a whole world of sexuality that they don't have, know, or have never been interested in, then it becomes how much difference can you accept? How much real intimacy do you want? Because people say, I want to be intimate, but don't tell me anything that I can't stand. I don't like, you know, how much of me do you really want to get to know? And can you do it from a neutral place? You don't have to like what I like, but can you be curious about it, because sexuality is a text that reveals us at our most basic, intimate, and it's if you talk about your sexual preferences, you're talking about your deepest emotional needs. And the more you go into Fantasyland, the more that is even deeper like that. Your fantasies are the code language with which people express their deepest emotional needs, but disguised as sexual preferences, but the needs are emotional and want to be taken care of. I want to be that little child again, that is just carried. I want to feel really powerful without having to be afraid of my power. I want to be able to surrender and know that I can completely be unselfconscious and nothing bad is going to happen to me. Those are the emotional needs. And those are translated through the preferences through the fetishes, through the kink, etc, etc. Translate, don't think that the conversation about sex is just about a bunch of actions and behaviors and moves.

Dr. Solomon | Esther, as you're saying that. I think that makes it so much more approachable. Because I think sometimes when the question is, when do I bring this up? It's like I have to disclose to you something that you're going to have a reaction to versus if it's embedded in a deeper conversation about what are you looking for? What are you wanting and experience than the rope? Right? The rope is not it's not that I'm into ropes. I'm into this experience. What I love to experience is the sense of as you're saying, surrender or power or closeness or so that that's and that makes it I think it makes it less frightening then right. It's not like I had to tell you these five things I love. It's these are the kinds of experiences the erotic opens for me. It's a gateway, the erotic is a gateway to this. And so it's less a confession.

Esther | That's correct. And you can do it when you read a book together, you can do it when you're watching a series together. You can do it when you're listening to Where Should We Begin? You can do it when you're listening to Alex's podcast. You can do it when you're playing the card game of Where Should We Begin? I mean, you're just playing and the cards give you a container, and it says you know, something that I wish I could tell. You know, something I wish people knew about me sexually. Well, now it's in the card. The card is making you, when do you have to tell it when the card is the one that tells you to tell it. You no longer have to deal with "We have to choose the right moment." So frame it. Find playful, creative containers like games, not just mine. There are plenty of them out there. That gives you a safe structure to then take risks.

Robin | Love it.

Dr. Solomon | Triangulating. Triangulating in a resource. That's right and then it is yeah, I love that. It's not me, it's the card. The card asks. So now, that's right, I love it's so much less frightening, it's so much less of a confessional. And I'll just I just want to put the three exclamation points on that Gina Ogden exercise that you have. I've done that when I was at your workshop you do with Dr. Holly Richmond in March, you had us pair up with another attendee at that workshop. And we did rounds back and forth. And it was beautiful. I mean, I you know, it was beautiful. It's so simple. I love those things that are just so simple, but so powerful. And I, I love that now, Robin, your audience is going to have that exercise to play together because it also, it keeps such a relational frame around sex. It's not you do this thing wrong. Or how can I want sex when this is what's going on? It really is it's taking such, taking responsibility. And it also so it's just like, it's self-revelatory, but it also then gives us a chance to witness the way that our partner is different. Like, I didn't know that for you, I didn't know that this kind of a situation shuts you down, right? There's no, how on earth can we expect that two people coming together are going to have the same set of accelerators and brakes, you know, at every moment in time? So it's a chance to also learn about each other. It's not that either one of you is right or wrong, or good or bad. It's like, how does erotic energy flow through you? How is it different than how it flows through me? And how do we capitalize on that and work within that? I'm so glad that you talked about that exercise.

Robin | Beautiful.

Esther | Every one of these questions could be an hour long answer.

Robin | I know! We're already halfway through, I don't like it. I don't like it. It's going too fast! [everyone laughs] So, many people struggle to decide when it's time to date after being in a long term relationship. How do you know when you're ready to start dating? One question is I've been with a 15 year marriage, it's coming to an end. We've been living separately in different countries for nine months. But we've only just now had the official separation conversations. My body is really shouting it wants to start dating. So I started chatting with people on Tinder. It's been super fun, and has made me feel really alive. But in equal measures, I'm blindsided by huge feelings of sheer panic, which you could understand right? I'm wondering if I should sit with the panic and move through it all and just keep dating or just take it as a signal from my nervous system that I'm just not ready. What do you think?

Dr. Solomon | It makes total sense to me that she you know, is basically a spinning wheel of emotions and sometimes it lands on joy and giddiness and sometimes it lands on panic like that is the experience of grief right? To end a marriage even if she feels very clear and very ready and very planful there is, there is grief, there's grief, even in what we choose. And certainly, something as big as a 15 year long marriage ending there's going to be grief and in grief, no feelings are the wrong feelings. And so I don't know that I would want her to take the panic as a signal. I would want her just to kind of invite it like oh, there's panic, you know, what, what is panic saying? And how do I kind of make space for that in the whole kind of tableau of this experience I'm having and it means that she gets to titrate? She gets to go at the pace that you know her nervous system is ready for. Nothing needs to happen until you know she can take little nibbles and little bites and pause and breathe. And I would hope that whoever she is dating kind of has at least a sense of where she's at. This is not something she needs to be I don't think secretive about that she's just beginning and that much of this is unknowable, because some of it is she has to kind of dip a toe in and then take a step back and catch her breath and dip a toe in. So it all makes sense. It all feels really reasonable. You know if she's sitting, I sometimes when I'm teaching about this topic, I've got these sort of like gut check indicators and one of them is if you're sitting on the date and all you're doing is kind of running this person through the filter of your ex you know either they are nothing like my ex, so I'm never gonna love again and I'm doomed or uh oh, they just said this one thing and it reminds me of my ex. If that's the only, if your filter is just is the lens of the ex it might, that might be a sign you need to just kind of take a bit of a smaller bite and right we want I want her to be able to meet somebody on their own terms and get to know them as themselves rather than filtering through, you're not him or you are him or I'm scared you're him. So that would be one thing is I really would want her to be going at a pace where she gets to have the experience of the date, a date is just an opportunity to sit with another human and just feel what does it like to be present with somebody and play with these possibilities of how does it feel when we share space together, who might we be to each other, what kind of a story will with the two of us create together and kind of on its own merits?

Esther | Ditto. And I would just very briefly add, you know, life is a story of beginnings and endings all the time, and when you end something, you have the last time of everything, and then you're going to have the first time of everything else that is new. And so you're going to be panicky, the panic doesn't mean don't do it, the panic just means something's happening. And you're doing something that evokes certain feelings. And that's a combination of excitement and insecurity and uncertainty and curiosity. And, you know, all of that mixed in. I think this idea of, Am I ready to date? Is a very individualistic framework, it's like, I first have to prepare myself, you know, I have to put all the spices around me. And then I can put myself on the grill. And it's like, we live in relationships all the time. Some of them are on the way out. Some of them are burgeoning. Some of them are on a plateau, some of them are spiking, it's part of a whole list of things. So are you curious? You know, I think the grief piece is the central thing. You know, and, when do you know, I remember when I was, you know, what, in my early 20s. And I remember saying to somebody, I know that I can start because there was a moment where somebody looked at me and I actually caught their eyes, I finally was ready to see and to be seen. Plenty of people were looking, but I probably didn't notice because I was, like Alex said, in the filter of the previous one. And so I didn't see a thing. And at one moment, I saw, I saw the person in front of me, and I knew something has opened up again. And I'm, I'm ready, I finished the cycle and I'm ready to begin a new cycle.

Robin | I really, really, really like that.

Dr. Solomon | The spices on the grill! [laughs]

It also, you know, it's the way that in this realm of relationship education and relationship coaching, there's a lot of people turning to the expert for "Tell me the five signs, the five..." And you're right, it is it's highly, it's individualistic. It's capital T truth. You know, I think, and I think it reveals how fricking vulnerable, all of this stuff is. So just tell me, Esther.

If you don't want variable do arranged marriage, I mean, you know, then you don't have to sit, then your feelings don't really matter that much. Because they're not the ones that make a decision. They matter. But they're not deciding. But if you want a free choice enterprise around relationships, then it comes with tremendous ambiguity and ambivalence and a lot of things that are not utterly clear. But what makes the problem is not the lack of clarity what makes the problem is that we think that it should be utterly clear that we should know exactly when, you know, that is a kind of a, you know, by experiencing when you are with somebody and you realize that you're utterly not interested because you're still in your previous story. Then you have a sign that's a sign, not the panic.

And not something somebody else can tell you necessarily.

Esther | But I think what you're seeing is that both of us, you know, we're not so quick at saying 123, I know, I'll tell you.

Robin | No.

Dr. Solomon | Though, it's tempting. And there's lots of folks out there who are giving it and selling it.

Robin | So this question is: I'm nearly 40 and newly dating someone who I finally feel is a match for me, my values, and my desires for my life. We're future tripping on creating family, children, working together, and getting married. He's 47. Both of us come with worlds before. My question is about dating and about the idea about creating a relationship agreement, a document to align us in a variety of areas of life. Do you suggest we do this? And if so, where should we begin? What's the best process for creating this and making sure it doesn't suck the romance out?

Dr. Solomon | I'm picturing a spectrum, right? Like one end of the spectrum is no conversation about values, boundaries, fears, and expectations. And the other end of the spectrum is right, the sucking the, you know, sort of like a contract an eight page contract that spells out things that are unknowable, and that need to be revealed over time, and that our efforts to control and micromanage vulnerability. So those are kind of if those like the ends of our spectrum, I want them to find some shade of gray between that where there's, I don't know, maybe a formalized, maybe agreement, if it feels really mutual, and there's room for it, if it's seen as a working document an alive document. That might be really beautiful. But that if it's sort of from the ground, if what it does, if it becomes the excuse, or the forum in which to have really beautiful conversations about our values, about our boundaries, about our fears, then I'm here for it. I'm here for those kinds of conversations. But I want I guess, I'm thinking about like the energy like, what's the energy that infuses it if the energy is the energy of collaboration and love and bounty, I'm here for that. If the energy is control and fear and what if, then I would not be as, I'd be more concerned, that's kind of falling on that end of the spectrum of trying to kind of squeeze the juice out of the relationship. And I think that is a risk in some ways. In some ways. I think this moment in relationship is we've swung right the pendulum has swung from. Everything is silent and hidden and covert to think there is like a risk that we're so far at the other end of the spectrum where everybody is negotiating every possible aspect that there's times I just like,

Robin | It's restriction. It's rules. It's agreements.

Dr. Solomon | Yeah. But I like the word agreements. I do like that word, because it could be agreements, it could be collaboration.

Esther | I mean, I think that you can, one nice way to frame it is that there's a philosopher that talks about relationships can be defined through exclusivity, through exclusiveness, or through uniqueness. Exclusiveness focuses on what you can't do, on the boundaries, on the surveillance, on what you know, on the restrictions, uniqueness focuses on what is special here. And it's two different codes. So I too, like the word agreement, I think that if you're 40 and 47, you should feel free to go about it, you know, in the way that deems sensical to you. And that is creative and imaginative. There's many, many ways to do family building, and family creation, and this is what you are doing now. You know, what are the values that you want to put on that agreement, I think that your view about a living document is essential, come back to it once a year, you take a trip, you go sit in nature, and you look at your doc and you update it, you know, so that it becomes really a third, you know, a supporter of the relationship, a witness to the relationship, this document is not just there as you know, your your your pseudo-legal thing, but more as a witness, you know, what is the world that you would like to create together, that you want to live in together? Who are the people that you would like to invite in order to create that world together? You know, what, what are some of the things that you say, would be really hard to overcome? Don't say, I will never accept or I will never forgive. Just that, you know, would be major, egregiousness into the relational agreement. What do you wish for each other? What do you commit to be, to do? You know, where are the places that you know, you're going to have to work on? All of that may be part of the relationship agreement, rather than just, you know, we travel together where we don't, you know, you get to go, you get to spend as much money as you want to or after $500, you have to ask the other person what they think. You know, so there's different, there's really not one kind of agreement. So what do you want to achieve with the agreement? What is the meaning of this agreement? What would you like it to do for the two of you? That will inform what are the different clauses of the agreement. But as an idea, I think it's very important. If you marry in your 20s in a place where everybody knows what are the gender roles, you know, who does what, you know, who has which privileges, who owes what to whom? It's clear, its duty, its obligation, it's hierarchically set up, then you don't need to talk much because it's passed down from generation to generation. Everyone knows what they need to do. But if you want this free model that is more creative in which you have to spell it out. Then the scaffolding is all-around conversation. It is the art of conversation that establishes the relationship at this moment with a formal agreement or without, it's the same conversation.

Robin | It sure is.

Dr. Solomon | I love that. I love that. And I love the idea of part of the agreement is we agree to not bring the agreement to the other and say, Look, you didn't you're falling down on clause number 3.2. You know that it's not going to be you. It's not gonna be weaponized, it's used as a cudgel. I love the idea of updating it. I wonder also if it might be an interesting challenge to create an agreement with no numbers in it, you know, so it's not quantified it's more about the spirit, the energy, the principle, the emotion? Yeah, like that it's you know, or we will do this X number of times or in Esther's example, you know, $500 There's something about putting numbers to it, that then there's, it's so measurable in quantity, I wonder if that would be an interesting challenge.

Esther | Because what feels controlling to one feels secure to the other. So that's the thing right? To me is what to somebody else, you know, the amount of what you can spend until you have to discuss it is is a control, but to the other person who may have come from another story where somebody was spending money, God knows, you know, the idea that you would come and check spells collaboration, connection, consolidation, respect, for my opinion, you know, inclusion. So it's a very interesting thing that I do like. You would rather go for, you know, something that is more collaborative than surveillance, but I understand that what some people experience as surveillance, their partner may experience as safe.

Dr. Solomon | Yes, because then if we've agreed on $500, then I have got all the freedom in the damn world to go out and spend $499. Like that is freedom.

Fascinating. That's right. It's not the number. It's not the number of the energy. Yeah.

Robin | So the next question is, how do I tell whether a recurring relational trigger is due to my own historical trauma that needs to be addressed versus inappropriate or disrespectful behavior on my partner's part?

Esther | It's both. It's both, it's an appropriate or what you deem an appropriate comment of your partner that triggers something, which obviously, if he triggers it, it means that it means something to you, otherwise, you wouldn't hear it, there are plenty of other things that you don't hear that somebody else would be sweating over. It's, it's the trigger is defined by the combination of both your personal history and what your partner is doing. And your partner is doing just enough to get that thing going. With somebody else who does a little bit less, you may not even get triggered. It's just the right amount for the right condition.

Dr. Solomon | Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I understand I understand, I feel like I understand the spirit behind the question. It's like, is it my job to fix it? Or is it my partners? Or is it do I soothe myself? Or does my partner soothe me? And I understand that, and it's both right. And I also want, I also want the member of the community, to be in a relationship where their partner understands the landscape of their triggers, not so that the partner walks on eggshells but so the partner can say, ah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Not I'm a piece of shit because I triggered you. But it makes sense, given what I know, I can I hold that image of, you know, little boy you and the pain that you went through when you were little. And it makes sense to me that that's an area that, you know, I can hold myself in warm regard while understanding that when I said this to you, it triggered that old feeling in you.

Esther | So I have a beautiful example, of a couple I was working with this week, and you know, he would say we just don't get along. And he just puts it out there. And then instantly she starts to talk about but I've really changed, you know, and she and you could see that she heard it as from the ear that has failed for many, many, many, many decades. I'm not enough. The ear, I'm not enough heard the statement we don't get along as it's because of you. And that is you know, but that ear of I'm not enough would be dormant, it would be latent. If he didn't systematically throughout the sentences, we just don't get along and let it sit there. He doesn't say, I wish we would get along better. He doesn't say I haven't been very present. He doesn't really say to you, but there is just enough space for her to then insert herself into his statement. And so it's both ends and it does invite her to really not just say to him, I'm enough, but to say to the little one that sits on top of her shoulder, you know, it's, you know, you're not that nine year old anymore, you know, you are enough. You're an amazing woman. And at the same time to say to him, when you say that statement, it stings. I know, you probably don't mean me, necessarily, I think you making a statement about us in general. But for whatever reason that I'm owning, it stings. So maybe we could change the lines. And I, you know, it's both ends. You will change the lines. I will, you know, tell this one don't make it all about you.

Dr. Solomon | That's right. That's right. That's right. It's a great, that's a very, very common example. I think that everybody listening to this podcast will relate to. That's right. We there's, there's something that we want to ask of both people, right. There's a little bit in that where he's putting, he's putting his exasperation at her feet. And he knows he can put it at her feet because she will pick it up and take responsibility.

Esther | And then he sits there helpless. And she gets all...

Dr. Solomon | Sure, sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.

Esther | You know, because he doesn't know what to do when she gets into overdrive.

Dr. Solomon Mm hmm.

Esther | Robin is absorbing all of this.

Robin | I sure am.

Esther | As we're passing.

Robin | So good.

Esther | I hope you community members that we are really addressing your questions, you know.

Robin | Oh, no, it's gold. Liquid gold. We're getting therapy on this podcast. [laughs]

So the next question is about heartache, which I think is very prevalent in all of our lives. We do go in and out of heartbreak and in many ways,

but, the question is, how do you get over someone that you're still in love with that does not want to be with you anymore?

Dr. Solomon | Mmhmm.

Robin | It's hard when, I mean, we've all experienced it.

Dr. Solomon | It's a hard one and it and it hurts because it hurts, right? There's research that shows the part of our brain that is activated in heartbreak is the same part of our brain that's activated when we break a leg like that hurt hurts because it hurts.

Esther | Or withdrawl from heroin.

Dr. Solomon | That's right.

Esther | I mean, it is really, the first thing is to really understand that it is a serious ache and pain.

Robin | Oh definitely like your heart is broken. And there's no doubt about it. Like, yes.

Dr. Solomon | And this is I mean, I spend so much time with my college students, you know, validating this, it doesn't, your heartbreak has zero shits to give if it was a six month relationship or a six year relationship, or if they were no good for you anyways if your brother didn't like them like it doesn't matter. We try so hard in the space of heartbreak, to create a narrative around it to contain it and the narrative around it is like nothing compared to the magnitude and the texture and the tone of heartbreak. And so really our only move is to just carry it and be with it and to know, just to know that it isn't, it is not going to be, it's not going to be forever at this intensity forever. Right. And therapists love to say: The way out is through so you have to arrive before you can leave. And then also the in, in the experience of heartbreak, you know, grief is synergistic. So grief in this moment has energetic ties to every prior grief we've experienced. So it's I'm grieving the loss of this partner. But I'm also now grieving the loss of my mother, the loss of my homeland, the loss of that dream I had. So there's so many layers. And so it's another way I think that we invalidate is by acting as if the loss of you know what is so special about this partner. They were just a mere mortal. There's a "yes and..." Yes and in losing this partner, you are awakened to so much, to every prior loss, frankly, every prior loss you've ever experienced.

Esther | I think that that's that's a very important piece that people don't always think about. The person is a portal to a world and with them going goes a whole world. Go the people that you met through him, go the place where you've lived with him/her/them.You know, it's not just the person.

Robin | No. Like let's say you're married, it's like that whole family you're with, it's like, you are literally grieving the loss of a whole family.

Esther | And I would say don't stay in touch with them. Don't stay in touch with that person.

Robin | Because they're loyal and they're, you know that that whole loyalty play.

I experienced it. It's like, I know what it's like. It's just like, well, I'm loyal to him so I'm not going to talk to you anymore. It's like, well, what is love? Like, I believe in love, like love doesn't end. That's my motto.

But that's not their motto. So it's such a, it's like so much. There's so many dynamics at play, when you break up with someone.

Esther | Guy Winch wrote a beautiful little book, How to Mend The Broken Heart that I have often recommended, as well as his TED Talk.

Because it's very explicit, and it gives you a few real, concrete things of what to do.

One of them that is interesting is, you know, you still love that person. But the question is, do you now that this has all happened, do you want to live with that person, still? Do you still want to be in a relationship with that person? And then it's sometimes it's do a kind of a little bit of a work on your head, where you make a list of all the things that draw you in, and all the things about the person that you didn't care for so much. And you try to look at that list, so that you don't just begin to idealize them by the sheer loss and absence of them, they become even more phenomenal. So you keep it grounded a little bit more in reality, it was all he wasn't all rosy all the time, either. I think that sometimes is useful. There's lots of different things that people can do. And I'll give you one more that I find very helpful.

But really, this is, you try a bunch, and then you see what, what works. And sometimes you try the same one three times and the fourth time it works. So don't worry about it. It's not like there is the thing when you immediately find out how do I get over this person that I still love. But what I do think is very important is that you find yourself in other situations with friends and other people that are close to you, who value you. Because the loss of a person is such a loss of sense of the value of I don't matter, enough, and therefore I can be just rejected, ejected. And you want people who really tell you how much you matter in their lives, how happy they are that they love you and that they value you.

They don't need to devalue your partner, because then that actually makes you protect them more, but they have to be very explicit about how much they value you. And they have to tell you things that in that moment, you don't believe and you don't feel, but they have to hold this for you. They keep telling you, you know, you are an incredible person, and you will find someone else if you choose to. And you will overcome this, you know, you don't feel it now, but we know it and we are here for you now. And we will be here when you reach to the other side of the tunnel.

Dr. Solomon | I love, I love in our responses there's this like toggling between, like the big existential nature of the loss of a person and the need for micro action steps and practices. You know, both those things have to be held in the big picture and the little picture.

Robin | Absolutely. All of this is so important. I think about that. I mean, your breakup is a grief, you have to live through it, you have to work through it. And I think a lot of people don't actually think of it as grieving. But actually, if you're breaking up with somebody that you spent a lot of time with, even if you didn't spend a lot, like let's just say your heart is broken, it's broken. Okay, let's acknowledge, let's accept, and then go through the grieving process. Like it is a process.

Esther | Right, but what you want a little bit is to spell out that I remember a woman who blew my mind because she came up with all of it on her own, I have to say, I mean, we created it together but she came in 20 something years into it discovers you know, whatever other things he's been up to, decides to leave, and does two things that I thought were so beautiful. The first one I've liked ever since you know, and even before she made the list of five people that she really thought would understand what she's going through. And she took two weeks, and she traveled around the country and went to visit all five of these people.

Robin | Wow.

Dr. Solomon | Oh, I love that!

Esther | So good. So good. Food for the heart, food for the soul. You don't sit there alone and weep. This is not something

Robin | You're like okay, I'm gonna go on this journey and like talk to people who know me and would have compassion for this situation.

Esther | And then she began to paint. She always wanted to paint, you know, and so she started to take painting lessons. What I'm saying is that she was doing erotic things. This is an eroticism, you know, friendship, art, painting, self-expression. And she did this. She embarked in these erotic expressions meaning antidotes to deadness.

Deadness being the death of the relationship. She didn't mourn by just staying in the mourning, she went through the mourning by affirming life. And this is very, very important. You know, often we think only when I've processed I'm going to be able to go back to dancing and singing and painting and, you know, no, it's those very acts.

Robin | You have to dance through it. Yeah, you do.

Dr. Solomon | It's what it's, you know, Aristotle said, "Nature abhors a vacuum." So, she filled the vacuum with friendship and art. It's beautiful. That's beautiful.

And the cognitive behavioral therapists, right? They talk about behavioral activation, you do the thing to get the feeling. So she did the thing. She went to the friends, she went, beautiful, that's a wonderful example.

Robin | That's beautiful.

Esther | The Jewish tradition says the same thing. You don't have to feel in order to do, it's the doing that will create the experience and bring up the feeling. There are many traditions that have, you know, set it up from that place. Just the action itself. Action is an experience. In the action will become the feeling rather than waiting till I feel like it and then I go do it.

Robin | So we have a lot of discussion in our community about opening relationships. And I think COVID brought on a lot of that, too, like we're stuck in the same home, this same person 24/7 I've heard it so much. Right. So the question is, I've got two questions from our community. I've been hearing a lot about polyamory and open marriages. I want to approach my partner about this to see what is their interest in this. We have been married for 15 years, but our sex life is non existent.

Issues mostly on my side, trauma from childhood. We love each other and neither of us wants to end our marriage. But we're wanting to see if there's something that should be considered. I haven't broached this subject with my partner. But I wanted to understand how I go about doing that.

And the second question on the same note is, if one was to suggest an open relationship, how do I go about doing that without seeming like the other partner is lacking? Because I think that is another thing too, right? You're like, it's very sensitive.

Dr. Solomon | I'll just say something briefly, and then Esther, I'm happy to punt to you. I, you know, one of my first thoughts and I think there's a risk, I think that we because we have normalized sexual monogamy. What that means is those who explore anything in the realm of consensual or ethical non monogamy, polyamory, open relationships are at risk of feeling pathologized and certainly have been pathologized by our field, I think our field has done a lot of damage around alternative arrangements. So so there's a risk in me bringing this up. And at the same time, one of the things that strikes me about this question is what she's saying is part of the struggle in her marriage is her own traumas are creating problems in their erotic connection. So I would if I was her therapist, I would really want to thoughtfully not because I'm pathologizing, consensual non monogamy, but I would want to be really curious about what is how is this an attempted solution to something that has to do with deeper childhood trauma? And I would worry, I just would want to be mindful and thoughtful and intentional about that, because I don't I would want just to have a kind of a really thoughtful, supportive narrative around are we are bypassing something? Are we, is she putting she at risk of putting herself in a spot where she is kind of being... I don't know. So that part of it just kind of sits with me in a troubling way. But certainly, yeah, sexual monogamy is one, is a choice that has a set of consequences. And any kind of open relationship is another choice that has all kinds of consequences as well. So it is not, I think, in our effort to destigmatize and depathologize, which we absolutely need to do, I worry about us somehow being at risk of painting a utopian vision of it as well, it is not a solution in and of itself. It's one that needs to be, I want couples to be very well resourced, and luckily, she's you know, she's loving at a time when there are wonderful resources out there. So I think that's the most important thing is kind of planful, mindful, thoughtful, and intentional choices.

Esther | I had the same reaction to the first question. I think the questions are very different. The first one says, we have a problem and I would like to think about opening the relationship as a way of dealing with this problem. The second person says, we have a model. The model is that one person should be enough for everything. And that if you want more, it devalues the person

and it says you're not enough, because if you were everything, then I wouldn't need to think about others. So one question is about the cultural model, the model of exclusiveness, the way that romanticism has set it up and the other one is a modern solution to an old problem. Which is what happens here? Why did you shut down? Community Member? What do you know that you can you say you have something it's due to you because of the past? But that doesn't tell me much. I would if I was in conversation with you. How did you shut down? Were you always shut down to this person? Is there something that makes you be shut down? When you in the context of family? Why you think that you will be less shut down and less and more free or more alive or more expressive or more erotic and sensual if you are in an open situation? Are you doing it for you? Or are you doing it to liberate your partner because you're afraid that otherwise when they'll either cheat or bolt? You know, who is this for? You know, is this many gay couples who have not been necessarily sexual with each other have created openness as a way to say we have emotional monogamy and we have sexual openness and sexual non monogamy if you want a plurality. So it's not that the model is unknown. It's just that it's less common. And there needs to be more learned for straight couples to think like that. But the conversation since both people ask how do I begin the conversation, you don't start to talk about opening up, if you don't have a relationship where you have open conversations period. The word open first has to apply to the quality of you know, first you need to open up the quality of the conversations. Are you people who are openly talking with each other about all kinds of things? You know, your up your aspirations, your dreams, your disappointments, your frustrations, your longings, the things that you don't have with each other, which you know, everybody has without thinking that that is, you know, taboo. Open up the conversation first, the openness in a relationship and you can have an open relationship that is, as a non monogamous, that is utterly not open. Because simply one person just said to the other, this is what I need and this is what I want. So I want to really play with the value and the quality and the preciousness of the word open. Okay, open means, you know, open minded, tolerant, welcoming, curious, interested, you know, even if the other person will say, that's not for me, they may want to still have an open conversation that says, Why do you think that would be good for us? For you? What are you looking there? What would it mean? What do we do if this happens and that happens? There's a whole literature out there that I also invite you to read, from Poly Secure to Polyamory a Guide, you know, there are a number of very good books to, to Tammy Nelson's books. I mean, people are really trying to give couples a vocabulary for how to have these conversations, you know, but what do you do? When you say, I haven't been there for you sexually, I know that. I have been shut down. So we talk about that, you know, I know that that must be painful to you, or I know you've tried many things, or I wish you would try certain things. Or I don't know why I'm not able to experience this with you. And that must be really painful. Because sexual rejection is acutely painful. You know, it's a unique kind of rejection. And that's where you begin in the conversation is where have we been at? How have we been both experienced this? What does this mean for us? Have you ever thought about what we could do? Do you sometimes think that opening up could be an option? Do you sometimes think that leaving each other could be an option? These are very difficult, but very courageous conversations that people need to have. And unfortunately, most couples who, straight couples in particular, wait till there is a crisis to have those conversations for the first time.

Robin | I love it. Like I just so love that.

What you said about if you're gonna have an open conversation about opening your marriage and your relationship, you have to first start is your relationship already open? With different conversations.

Because literally, that's the truth of it, right? Like, oh, goodness, can't drop the bomb, if you haven't already had those conversations or those, that intimacy with your partner already.

Dr. Solomon | Well, it gets to that second question, doesn't it about like, how do I not how do I not convey that I'm asking for this because my partner is lacking. It's not, it's only a framework of lacking if it's a right hand turn, you know, from we haven't talked, we haven't been vulnerable, we haven't been open and now I'm kind of dropping this bomb as you say, Robin.

Esther | I mean open also implies do you talk about your exes? Do you let the other person see that you've noticed someone that you were attracted to when you're on the street or in a club or at a party? Do you talk about your fantasies? All of that is part of open, you know, open doesn't start the day you begin to talk about wanting to be with other people.

Dr. Solomon | And so I would, I would imagine Esther that there's a set of couples for whom just opening up those kinds of conversations, that's enough of a flex, it's not whether or not either of us ever goes to bed with somebody else. It's just Oh, now we have just infused our connection. We've like opened the boundary up enough that there's some air now and there's some space, and I see you as separate from me. And that's interesting.

Esther | What's your definition of monogamy? I think, if we three began to talk about our definition of monogamy, we probably have varied, you know, most couples have never asked, What's your definition of monogamy? The same way that you say what's your definition of marriage? What do you want? What do you think it is? What do you want to find there? What do you want to bring there? So, you know, talking about the exes is particularly important. It's very telling to what people can tolerate accepting in their mates? Do you pretend that this is the beginning of the whole story? There's never been anything else before? Especially not after? Or do you actually understand that in some interesting way today, in the West, we all have been polyamorous, we've had boyfriends, girlfriends, partners, you know, because we have the permission to be intimate and sexual long before we settled with one person? So you know, in a way, if you really want to talk about polyamory or nonmonogamy, monogamy used to be one person for life and today, monogamy is one person at a time. And so people tell you, I'm monogamous in all my relationships, plural.

What does that mean? This is a complete, my mother wouldn't know what I'm talking about with that definition of monogamy, let alone my grandmother. So this is the conversation. You start like that you don't start talking about who can go where with whom, there's a beautiful episode on the podcast that is called you want me to watch the kids while you go out with other men. And she basically says to him, it's on where should we begin, and she says, You know, I, my sexuality belongs to my Indian culture, to my Christian family, to my Christian boarding school to patriarchy, you name it, you know, it's never been mine. And the only place I can feel that it's mine is away from us, away from the institution called marriage. And he says, But you know, I know that you love to ride this horse, but I want to be your only stallion. It's a beautiful thing. And he says to her, I'm not ready to, I know that what we have is special but I want to be the only one and the best one and the first one and all of that. And then I met them again two years later, I just dropped it and the new story about what happened two years later to this couple who did open up their relationship and they give it to you in real granular form. It's one story. One example only but if you want to hear these two people begin the conversation. This is very good and it's nice to listen together as a couple, because it invites you, as Alex was saying before the triangle to reflect on that couple but to talk about yourselves.

Dr. Solomon | Beautiful.

Robin | I was just looking at the time and I'm like, Oh, my goodness we're like way over time.

Esther | Yes, I think so.

Dr. Solomon | Yeah we did it.

Robin | Were over it. And we've done, well we've answered not all the questions, but we've answered a lot of questions. And it's been amazing. And I want to thank you both Dr. Solomon and Esther Perel for your time. And something that you said earlier in our discussion esther, was about your practitioners. This is real deal. Like you're you're seeing patients, you're seeing clients, couples, individuals with these issues all day, day in day out in your practices, right?

Dr. Solomon | Absolutely. Yeah.

Esther | So when a person asks a question, we hear a story. You know, it's not just some generality, and we can't answer it in one way, flat answer, you know, the same size for everybody.

Dr. Solomon | No, no, but that's right. That's right. And so that is the hope is that this community will take all the little bits that feel, that feel right for them and then leave, leave all the rest of it. That's right, because no, no one answer is going to be it's going to fit your situation perfectly, but then you get to stretch it or bend it or patch it together in a way that fits for you. That's right.

Robin | Yeah.

Esther | Thank you so much.

Robin | So appreciate your time and everything you've given to our community today. And love you both. Thank you so, so, so, so much.

Esther | Thank you.

Dr. Solomon | Thank you, Robin. 

Robin | Thank you.

Robin | Please visit realloveready.com to become a member of our community. Submit your relationship questions for our podcast experts. At reallovereadypodcast@gmail.com We read everything you send. Be sure to rate and review this podcast. Your feedback helps us get you the relationship advice and guidance you need. The Real Love Ready Podcast is recorded and edited by Maia Anstey. Transcriptions by otter.ai and edited by Maia Anstey. We at Real Love Ready, acknowledge and express gratitude for the Coast Salish people, the stewards of the land on which we work and play, and encourage everyone listening to take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you live on as well.

Transcription by https://otter.ai & edited by Maia Anstey