Is My Fantasy Ruining My Love Life?
After years of struggling to stay present during sex, one caller wonders if her fantasies are keeping her from the intimacy she longs for. T...
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Society & Culture
Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Listen to the incomparable therapist Esther Perel counsel real couples as they reveal the most intimate, personal, and complicated details of the conflicts that have brought them to her door...
Episodes
20 of 161 episodes
Can I Still Be a Good Man if I Leave?
After decades together, he wonders whether he can stay in a marriage where intimacy and connection has all but disappeared. He's touch-starv...
I Want You To Want Me
Couples often struggle with gaps in their sex drives, but what does a couple do when one person has no desire for sex whatsoever? A married...
I Don't Mean to Be Mean, But...
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? She has no boundaries, he’s walled off. And their opposing communication styles cause im...
My Ex, His AI Girlfriend, And Our Kids
After the end of a fifteen-year marriage, she is trying to make sense of something she never imagined would become part of her family's stor...
Good Relationships Need Better Fights
Conflict is not toxic or immoral. In fact, it's generative and the lifeblood of our relationships. It isn't something to avoid. It matters,...
How Many Times Can You Betray Me?
A married couple arrives at Esther’s office hoping to recover from a devastating rupture with his mother after the birth of their first chil...
On Again/Off Again
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? They've been on and off for almost 20 years. While she takes care of his and their child...
Will I Always Be Alone?
He comes to Esther not with a singular question but with an overflow of words and unspoken truths. Betrayed by a once-supportive church and...
Can I Be Loved?
A young woman writes to Esther asking why she is interested in someone emotionally unavailable. Despite efforts to break this pattern, she r...
Am I Being Gaslit?
In this classic Esther Calling, Esther talks to a woman looking for clarity on whether she's being overly sensitive to her partner's critiqu...
I Love My Partner, So Why Can’t I Let Go of My Ex?
What is the distinction between a love story and a life story? And what happens when they no longer move in the same direction? After return...
Burdens of the Family
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? They share a legacy of war, a refugee upbringing and family trauma. Their marriage was s...
Is Using ChatGPT Hurting My Relationship?
She comes to Esther with a question that feels distinctly of this moment: when does a tool become a transgression? After leaving a long, sta...
You Slept With My Best Friend
The two couples had been inseparable—neighbors, chosen family, godparents to each other's children. She reaches out to Esther in despair aft...
My Hero Complex
When his ex calls in the middle of a crisis, he finds himself pulled back into a familiar role: the rescuer. He's always been the one women...
20 Years Later, Esther Revisits Mating in Captivity
This week, Esther invites you into a conversation about desire, disruption, and what it means to stay alive to one another in a rapidly chan...
In This Relationship What Is "I" and What is "We"?
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? They grew up with traumatic backgrounds, met in college, immigrated to the US together....
Are You Abandoning Me or Am I Suffocating You?
Twin brothers come to Esther with a shared question: how do they break free from the conflict that has shaped their relationship for years?...
Love in the Time of AI with Kashmir Hill
A recent session was a threshold moment for Esther where she found herself doing couples therapy with a man and his AI companion. To explore...