Should I Stay Or Should I Go? - Letters From Esther Live

hello hello south africa namibia canada belgium hello to all of you welcome to our youtube workshop shall i stay or shall i go too bad to stay and too good to leave and when i began writing this story i was reminded of me at 23. i was in a relationship that was exactly that too bad to stay and too good to leave and we were constantly breaking up and patching up breaking up and patching up and anyone who's been in this kind of a relationship knows when it's good it's great and when it's bad it's horrible so should i stay or should i go i call it a state of relational ambivalence when we are continuously see-sawing between contradictory thoughts and feelings of love and hate attraction and disgust excitement and fear contempt and envy for someone or for our relationship or for ourselves in the relationship for that matter and the resulting whiplash is exhausting not only for the people in the relationship but for all the people around it so many of us can think about ourselves here but many of us have probably been with friends who have been in those situations and sometimes it goes on for days months and years so a lot to talk about but first let me do the housekeeping hello hello everyone and thank you for joining me for letters from astaire live my monthly newsletter and workshop series that helps you reflect act and develop greater confidence in your relationships relational intelligence is what we are cultivating together and this series happens monthly on youtube and on facebook live if you want more letters from ester parel you visit estereparel.com blog and i invite you to join me every month here on youtube and on facebook and to discuss this newsletter live so you read it then you think about it then we come together then we discuss it then you get to ask me questions at the end here and we have a conversation all together and before we start i of course invite you to consider reaching out to a person where you think this this should be so and so should actually be here right now so reach out to someone and invite them to join us and take notes either a notebook or a phone or an ipad whatever but take notes write down some of the things it's incredible how much we think we never will forget and then it just fizzles out you know and if you like what we do here and how we go about creating relational intelligence together subscribe to my youtube channel and just like it let me hear from you okay relational ambivalence shall we define the term first of all right so i want to define it again because while that phrase relational ambivalence may sound quite unfamiliar i know that each and every one of us here has felt it this is actually a feeling that we know we don't necessarily name it in this way so relational ambivalence is those contradictory thoughts and feelings of love and hate of attraction and disgust of excitement and fear of envy and contempt that we may experience in relationships and many of us have felt relational ambivalence toward our parents that's pretty much where it starts i love my parents i need my parents but they don't let me do something or they want or they're hurting me or they're depriving me or i'm mad at them and i love them and how do i square a dependence and aggression towards the very people that i often depend upon friends we have ambivalence towards our friends the one who still owes us money the one who never apologized the ones who keep standing us up but we like them anyway because once we are with them we actually really enjoy it colleagues you know i'll touch on all of these but today i want to focus mostly on relational ambivalence that happens in romantic relationships and you may be in one now you may have been in many before so this doesn't have to be i don't have a partner therefore that doesn't apply to me it really applies to all of us but romantic relationships like the one that i had with my boyfriend in my early twenties they have a rhythm we work ourselves into a fit we decide enough is enough and finally we break up this is movement number one but eventually as we feel calmer and we reset and we begin to be more able to think and to reflect and we feel less smothered our core vulnerabilities momentarily get relieved and that little voice starts propping up should we meet should we talk it out oh god i remember how great it was when it was good it was really good maybe then we reach out maybe we don't if we reach out maybe we meet at a cafe or better yet a bar in which a drink may help the walls come down and suddenly we are so wonderful at talking to each other we're having a really sane calm sober conversation like we wish we would have every other time when we explode at each other or when we just kind of call it quits none of our buttons are being pushed in this unique conversation at least not in a bad way and it's flirty and we're connecting and we're longing and we remember and we think we were silly to throw this away weren't we we really have invested so much in each other we have such a history together and there's so much potential here inch by inch look by look we work our way back only to blow it all up again a week later that's one of the movements of the choreographies of relational ambivalence there are many but this is the one that i think we pretty much all can recognize but there are a few other typical scripts of ambivalence so let me test a few of these out with you you know one is the sunken cast right we've been together for a decade and i'm constantly thinking this isn't right this should end how much longer am i going to take this there's a gap between us and i start to think after that about the kids if there are and the lifestyle and the financial interdependence and how tough it would be to dismantle this whole thing and slowly i talk my way back into it and sometimes i can do this in one day it's just in and out in and out another one we've been together two three years and one partner wants to go deeper into the next phase of a relationship wants a deeper commitment and the other one keeps on saying i don't know i'm not sure i'm not sure this is what i want and their ambivalence becomes manifest power in the relationship because sometimes it's one thing to be rejected by someone but it's another thing to live with someone who is unsure about us that one will eat at us just you know bite by bite another dynamic of ambivalence is when we split the ambivalence one week i say we should end it then the next week i think okay i'm back and then you say no no we should end it and so we alternate there's always one of us holding the in and one of us holding the out that is another major dance and then the next one stable ambiguity stable ambiguity is a fantastic term that my colleague terry reel has taught me basically it's when you engage in the relationship because you're too afraid to be alone but you're not really willing to engage in the intimacy that is required so if you look at simmering if you look at icing when you put people on hold you know these are holding patterns in which you are stalling right and it's a kind of state in which you emphasize the undefined nature of the relationship and at the same time you get just enough comfort and just enough consistency but not too much that you forego your freedom of these undefined boundaries all these scripts are scripts of relational ambivalence so i'm going back to when i'm 23 and i'm with this boyfriend and we're just going in and out back and forth the whole time and back then we decided that maybe we should go to couples therapy and this couple's therapy it lasted one session why because when we went the therapist basically said to us about an hour or two into it you're done and it's like we both just sat there and we went home and we called it quits but a few days later i called the therapist and i said how could you say such a thing you don't understand you see us now when we are in crisis but you don't know how good things can be between us you get the picture right it's like if we were to continue one week we would be coming in to talk about the crisis one week we would be coming in to talk about why we should stick it to our true together and why this is such a special relationship and the therapist basically said i had to take a stance and i would take one side of the ambivalence and if it fit you then you would basically go with this and if it didn't fit you you would ally together against me rather than split the ambivalence with each other we would split it with me and you could continue and say this therapist doesn't know what she's talking about look i never forgot this session i never forgot this intervention she didn't want to become what we call in my jargon a homeostatic maintainer the person who basically keeps you stuck because they see saw with you one day we talk about why to leave next week we talk about why to stay and back and forth like that and i think ultimately she did us a favor no doubt but that said after practicing for quite a few decades myself i can say that taking a stance is rarely really simple so now i want to talk together with you a little bit i see romania i see montreal i see ah greece i mean you're all over the planet um here's what i want to do i want to hear from all of you um and i want to first ask you is this resonating with you you know and tell me in the chat give me some examples of your experience with relational ambivalence what makes it so hard part of why we experience relationship relational ambivalence with such challenges because it often is a core feature of our most important relationships right having ambivalence toward people in and of itself is not a problem i mean it actually is often a sign of maturity that people are not all good or all bad and i would venture to say that at this moment from a cultural point of view we're often missing this nuance we're often quick to want to resolve the ambivalence by making a choice leave stay all good all bad follow them counsel them i mean we're not holding the contradictions of people holding the tensions that we notice about others or that we experience inside ourselves when it comes to our parents the goal is actually often to integrate the positive and negative feelings that we hold toward them that holding of the tension is part and parcel of the healing process for many of us so let me read a little a few of them here oh um i've always got one foot out the door you know my gut tells me to get out of this marriage and my friends you're going too fast i'm currently dealing with this my husband cheated yes to what degree should i compromise yep yep yep look i told you earlier that i would touch upon these other areas of relational ambivalence so how many of you related just to what i said about holding these contradictory feelings to about two parents and towards a sibling the sibling that has an apologize that owes you money that you know that wasn't particularly nice growing up you know that needs the reckoning that needs to happen inside families or the old friend that just always talks only about themselves or towards your job or towards the place you live just want you to understand we have ambivalence a lot a lot of things all the time it's not just it's a problem but we can get stuck in it right how many of the areas of your life have plagued or defined you by this question should i stay or should i go in this house in this job in this friendship in this relationship that in this program that i registered in should i stay or should i go and sometimes we need to decide but sometimes it's actually about integrating the ambivalence because it helps us understand that there is no perfection and that there is a complexity that we have to live with the question that really to me is at the core of this is this how do we know when we need to make a decision and when the decision is actually about integrating the polarities or the dualities and i think it takes practice and it takes patience my dear friend and colleague alexandra salomon has said that patience is also a form of action it's not purely passivity it's not resignation it's letting life unfold in front of us so that we get a sense as to which side we're going to lean on or what suits us for now that this isn't an irreversible for life for every decision all the time that is to say that relational ambivalence is a fact of life and it will be with us in many relationships and what does it mean to get off the right and what does it mean to hold on to it so i want to do a little exercise with you and it's an exercise that i actually asked many of our followers to do with me on social so here's the thing instead of coming up with solutions for your ambivalence i want to ask you what are your critical questions imagine i come to you in a situation where i am stuck what are the questions that you would ask me let's turn the tables around even if i came to you back then at 23 33 43 53 let's continue right and i come to you and i say i don't know what to do on one side on the other side that what would you ask me to help me clarify you know what would you say to me about my desire to resolve the ambivalence let me see a little bit he's a um what that is what life is about agreed the relationship is over laurie what ah yes you would put it in the context of my values and barbara and todd would ask why do i want to stay but you see the why what would be the consequences of the decision of staying and what would be the consequences of the decision of leaving what are the pieces that would need to come together for this or for that is probably a more suitable question than the why because the why invites the rumination whereas the what happens if and when is the consequences of my actions and my choices and then you can say i imagine i meet you five years from now and we discussed this thing and it worked out see the thing is hindsight you don't know you can only make a decision in the context and in the moment what are the pros and cons that i would um ask my beliefs okay um is life better or worse with them yes what do you feel like you're missing in life em dally it's about to put in the balance yes um believe you worth more yes because often the ambivalence is the ambivalence of the other person toward me yes how do we make a decision knowing that there is a chance of regret well there is every decision is a choice and every choice involves loss and it means that you have to remember at a time i was considering that and that was what was important for me then and that is why i decided that i didn't want to stay because i wanted to go back to my own country or because i wanted to continue my studies or because i knew i wouldn't want a child or because i was still really connected to my ex and even though i let this go it made sense at a time in the context that i was in you have to remember it at the moment when the decision is made you can't judge the decision of them with the criterias of the future this is so so important you know um i want to pose the same question to you now you know um and i'm gonna read actually a few of the things that people have said that that really stood out for me in terms of um ambivalence you know ambivalence towards my parents when i started to understand that they're not just parents but also people ambivalence towards my friends in the late my late 30s you know i am single i have no kids you know to what why am i hanging on to some of the friends that i am with i'm feeling full body yes and full body nose simultaneously towards somebody i go back and forth between green flags and red flags i'm ambivalent towards my decision to become a parent you know when it gets too hard parenthood is often at the identity that it's just that elicits a lot of ambivalence inside of us i'm in love with a married man my mother i hate her and i love her at the same time my marriage i'm ambivalent towards my marriage i want a divorce but i am staying every time i remember that my husband has cheated and lacks attention i am ambivalent about my relationship i am on and off again in a relationship and i'm addicted to the thrills of the highs and lows we could do a whole thing just on this one i'm falling in love with my straight best friend and how does relational ambivalence look like to you now i'm asking you to answer me this and i'm reading you some of the examples of what people have already answered so you get a sense of the breadth of thinking that an experience that goes around this right how does relational ambivalence look like to you full of anxiety scary but also it feels good to be seen and hurt and honest about it questioning the loyalty in my relationship the suspicion that i carry inside of me the whole time unsure about how to move through moments of rupture and then feeling incompatible it looks gut-wrenching it looks like a state of chaos and i don't know where to turn it looks like confusion it looks like cognitive dissonance i know things are not good but i don't know what to do about it or i would correct it you know things are not good and you know what you need to do about it and you're afraid to do it or you're not sure what would happen if you do it or you're actually very sure what would happen if you do it and you prefer this to the consequences of that decision walking on eggshells with my own brain i love this one can't trust what i feel moment to moment so the ambivalence escalates into a full-blown experience of chronic self-doubt i feel empty it feels like i'm sabotaging a beautiful relationship by wanting to end it while i know that it has all that that that it has all the time so let me see what you are telling me yep in i'm working on eggshells in my own home i feel um hector i feel shame for staying yes uncomfortable and comfortable i feel shameful saying because of what others think i'm no longer interested in sex so i let him go makes me feel like i can't trust what i feel veronica yes bartel and jessica is ambivalence love no ambivalence is not love love experiences ambivalence as one of its many feelings sometimes but ambivalence itself is not love i'm addicted to the ups and downs as the knees how can therapy help yeah so many many so many good questions okay i feel the print now take these experiences and turn them into questions to me and let's have a conversation together what are some of the things on the basis of what i'm saying how does all these land on you and what are you experiencing as you're hearing this right now and as you are recognizing your own experiences of ambivalence what's happening inside of you physically emotionally mentally like so it's not just your thoughts right um i love her but she's still married she's still married for financial reasons need this okay yeah let's see what what what about an open relationship as a way to either confirm or resolve ambivalence it's is it just fomo it's a great question um sexual and romantic non-exclusivity is a set of values it doesn't it's not just a lifestyle it sits on the values between individual fulfillment and commitment and how to reconcile these two the need to belong and the need for autonomy how to reconcile these two so if it's uh i'm not attracted to you but i really like our friendship and i like our life together but i don't really want to touch you and therefore we should open our relationship i would say that as the moment that the opening up of the relationship is experienced by one of the two people as a rejection and as a solution to a lack of something that i experience as a rejection and not as a joint choice of life then it is it is not a real choice it's a solution to another problem and we call it open relationship that's on a relational level it's not just about the fomo it's much more than that how can i know which way to go terry um [Music] relationship i'm uh what do i okay when when to know if patience is the right look um sometimes you you stay patient because you realize i need more science i need more evidence inside of me or from my relationship i need to test a few things i need to see how we respond to different pieces of life i need to know if this is something that's going to change or if this is actually permanent but i think that if somebody says to you i don't want a kid i don't want to i don't want to to a commitment i don't want an exclusive relationship i don't want listen to them listen to them don't hope that it's just going to change and that this will turn around because you're going to make them turn around etc and that's where the patience peace becomes problematic if it's vis-a-vis yourself and you say you know um i i'm not sure that this is where i need to be they're not sure what this is bringing out in me this relationship or the kinds of issues that we are struggling with or if the addictions are gonna stop or if there's gonna finally be somebody who's gonna get up from the couch and i'm not sure that i can sustain for many more years to be with someone who is so chronically depressed or whatever the situations are then you may need to say to yourself have i waited long enough has anything changed in the years that i have been waiting here or in the months that i've been waiting has the conversation led to something else are we just turning around and around and around and it's a ruminating obsessive kind of situation of ambivalence back and forth this and then we go around again and up and up if you find yourself in that kind of a dance then the patients may be more an experience of stuckness than of patients in order to observe in order to wait for science and experiences that will help you make the decisions that's really the fundamental difference but it's subtle this is not a hard science patience right how should one approach talking about their ambivalence with their significant other in a way that doesn't make them feel attacked or judged um it's very difficult in the sense that some people no matter what you will say and how nicely you will say it and caringly you will say it and take it on you put it upon you will still feel like it is you know about them if you say to someone i can't i don't feel like i can comfortably talk to you about xyz uh they don't hear the i don't feel comfortable talking they hear only the to you so uh there are ways to really say this you know i would love to have a different experience when we discuss this subject i had a beautiful example yesterday of a couple that needed to dis they have had children they're young and they are talking will and at one point you know one of them just basically said to the other you know this is how it should be and the other one was just able to say look you know this is a difficult conversation to have and i need to be able for both of us to have our opinions heard about this this is not a decision you make you need laterally um and the interesting thing was not what this person said it's that when that was said the other one put their arms around gave a big hug and said i don't want you to feel excluded from the conversation that was the thing that allowed the discussion to continue so when you say how do you approach you can approach in being caring kind uh equitable etc but the response of the person is what is going to determine how the conversation will have happened you're not the only one in charge of this that's the really important thing to understand so um what is it that you want to say i don't know if i want to be with you i don't know if i want to stay with you i don't know if i want to continue seeing you um you know you can say this is about me this is you are a wonderful person and i know you will take it personal because it is impossible not to but to the greed which you do i really want you to understand i find you a fantastic person i just don't seem to share the same feelings that you have and it hurts me to hurt you it's the last thing i want to do i care about you deeply but i don't think we can continue and you have to be able to tolerate that the other person will be hurt you cannot circle around it i like it but i and and then you need to be able to accept to say we're going to end this and not i'm going to continue because i would love to continue to see you you know set them free if you're not sure if you're ambivalent set them free and deal with your own sense of loss at that moment because you have some too the hidden story is that it looks like only the person who is being left or who's being you know put on hold is the person experiencing loss and that's not true because the person with the ambivalence is so busy with what they don't want that only after it happens do they get to experience the parts of the relationship that they did want and what it means to live without i cannot overemphasize this yeah i know i'm anxiously attached how do i know i choose my partner because of him and that it's not my attachment style that may that makes me stay you ask yourself a few questions um will a man you'd ask yourself a few questions you know how much anxiety do i experience in the relationship how much do i continuously want to make sure that you really want me that you really like me that you're really here to stay that you're not going to leave me that you're not critical of me that i'm able to be everything that you want me to be that i'm pleasing you that i'm not speaking up because i'm making sure that you wouldn't be hurt or offended track what you call the expressions of the anxious attachment you know or that i say you know you should leave me because i'm not going to be you're not going to like me once you get to know me anyway you know that kind of thing i'm setting it up so that i don't have to experience it coming from you and i can be in charge of my own rejection if you find that you're very busy with all these expressions of the anxiety then go find yourself a good therapist and address this on your own don't drive your partner crazy about it and just say i have to deal with a few issues you know because sometimes you're going to have a partner who is going to respond positively and after a while they get exhausted um because it feels that they are constantly having to prove themselves to you so that you can feel worthy of them that kind of dance yes let's continue eoc colleen colleen what do you say what is the action that patience produces loving or getting to know the other person for who they are rather than who you want them to be or learning who i truly am in response to another it's not patience that produces that ability to recognize and accept the other for who they are it is the acceptance and the recognition that the other people are separate from us that they they have they their breath is separated from us it's that there is a clear place where i start and where you start and there's a boundary between us and that when we look outside the window we see the same sky and we register the sky very differently and that recognition without it feeling if you experience something differently from me and i don't think of it as i'm unseen i'm invisible i'm stupid uh how can you see that when i see this it invalidates me and all of that this is not an act of patience this is an act of differentiation it's a very different experience in relationship the patience in this moment i put it colleen in react in contrast to reactivity it's if you want you could call non-reactivity a state of patience a state of receptivity a state of curiosity those are the pieces that go with patients but what allows you to get to know the other person for who they really are is your willingness and your acceptance to receive difference right next to you that's a very different story yes jasmine my experience concerns the relationship with my dad he's constantly violating my boundaries and used to be abusive i love him still but i want to go no contact to protect myself any advice um this is a situation that is probably a little bit more complicated than i can instantly say yeah or no on the contact okay in general i tend to not run for the cut-offs because a cut-off demands a tremendous amount of psychic energy to not be in touch with the person that you're thinking about all the time i've seen brothers who haven't talked to each other in 30 years but they still think about each other all the time so it takes sometimes more energy not to see someone and not to be in contact with you a family member than to actually be in contact this is an opportunity for you because you're going to need to learn it for you in your relationships with other people too is to remain very clear and very firm up to here stop no more thank you uh uh be it on the phone be it on text you know not to escalate not to not to get in there into the arena all the time and to remain very non-engaged so the issue before you go into the no contact is how do you learn to emotionally disengage from someone who is basically putting a whole bunch of things on you that they are experiencing inside of them and then blaming you for it that's the dance yes i mean if i understand your question so i would say learn very grounding centering practices of where you say up to here and that means he may get angry he may push more he may withdraw he may pout he may take money you know lots of retaliatory tactics that are meant to intimidate you and make you not respond and you need to be willing to endure some of those consequences it's only when the person knows that they don't have an effect on you that they begin to change the you know as long as they know that you get hooked and they have you just the dance continues thank you yasmine this is a great question hence how to start being intimate again after loss of trust does the partner that is not trusted have to wait forever for the other person to initiate it look i think that uh this is a big question do you wait to trust before you initiate being intimate again no it is often the act of being intimate again emotionally sexually in multiple ways that slowly slowly brings up the trust but what really brings up the trust after you know after i'm i'm going to imagine here a relational betrayal and infidelity etc is that the person who injured you is able to engage fully in your feeling validated again the loss of trust is the fact that somebody put their interest ahead of the relationship and they acted selfishly in a way that made it look like they didn't care about the effect it would have on you so they need to be very proactively protecting the relationship the more they become what i call the vigilante of the relationship the more they protect the relationship and the more you can actually think about something else that allows you to then bring more trust it's not that you wait it's not all happening just inside of you this is very important this thing this idea that you you know you need to wait and see okay what is my trust measurement here for today you know has it gone up that is absolutely not how it works it works the trust gets rebuilt through tiny moments of interaction all kinds of what john gottman calls bids for connection between the two people and slowly slowly you learn you have this leap of faith again because trust is ultimately a leap of faith so hence we could talk a lot about this this is a subject that's very dear to me that you can read a lot about in my book the state of affairs or on the blog and on the podcast as well i've done a lot of episodes on betrayal on loss of trust in where should we begin just uh really go and listen you learn so much about you from listening to the others you know we always think that we learn about ourselves by thinking about ourselves but in fact that's not necessarily the only way it works virginia how about accepting imperfection ambivalence is about the battle of perfection imperfection yeah absolutely absolutely and integrating and holding the ambivalence is the acceptance of the fact that people and life is not perfect um and perfection you know we could do a whole thing what is this thing called perfection right um what does it mean that we need to be in control of everything what does it mean to surrender to the control of imperfection actually rather than to the control that everything has to be exactly the way i need it to be because one millimeter short of the plan i instantly feel like the whole world is falling apart or i am falling apart because i i only am as good as my last performance so that is the dance around imperfection um it's a given imperfection it's not something that you need to come to to learn and develop it's there it's a it's a fact of life everything is imperfect you know and even if it appears perfect in the moment it could break the next minute nothing is permanent in that sense these are amazing questions people erica how do you disrupt stable ambiguity ah that's a great question um you know we're in and out and we don't see each other for a few months and one of us sends an email a text whatever you know and says you know what are you doing then we kind of get back in we see each other for a week or two it really is one person saying um either i really like this as is because it suits us both at this moment that's what both of us don't seem to want more and so but let's make it obvious let's make it clear or you make it clear to yourself for that matter or you say i don't want this and this isn't going to change because it it is giving exactly what the other person wants it comes saturday we have plans but we don't talk the whole week everybody does their thing you know um and seriously if anything happens to you is that the person you would reach out to is it a person that you can rely on has this person actually entered the inner circle of your life or are they on the periphery on the outskirts you know suburbia or rural far far far you have to drive a long way to get there and metaphorically speaking this is not um and or vice versa you know so this is your question is what does it serve me this just enough and not too much what am i afraid of too much distance or too much closeness which part of me is getting attended to here in a kind of a protective way but also in a way that doesn't really let me experience that which i say i may want so sometimes it is the thing you want and that's one thing if it is not the thing you want then you really need to ask yourself what is what does it serve me what is it doing to me to me not the other person that isn't so obvious at first sight kyla aquila can ambivalence spread my ambivalence i have with my family always seem to seep into my relationship yeah yeah yeah yes if you um it's not that it spreads it's that it's a learned pattern it's a certain way of being in relationship i'm never sure i never know if this is what i want i never know if i'm here because it's what i want or because i am trying to please people and i know what it is that they want i and that it's those kinds of questions and i learned them every time you experience something it's a useful thing where did i learn this where did i become proficient in this language you know where did this vocabulary become so part and parcel of how i am in relationships and sometimes it's your family sometimes it's your community sometimes it's your culture your religion so it grows it's it the context is broad where did i learn this you know and what has it represented for me this ambivalence what what does it do to myself and to my relationships and to others the fact that i am in that state so that's the question of how does it look how does it perpetuate itself you know what role does it play how does it become another member of the family the ambivalence you know and then you ask yourself what would happen if i lived without it how would it change you know what does it protect for me and what would happen if i put it aside for a moment and i see the world through a different lens you know do i fall in the trap of the perfection since i'm never sure i prefer to always live with chronic doubt that's one way of turning this or um or does it make me feel like i i don't have to worry about failing right making the wrong decision because i make no decision and i wouldn't you know and i don't want to have to live with the consequence but this is maturity that is the sign of growing up is that we make decisions and we live with their consequences and we don't berate ourselves for it the whole time so um i just take out the word spread all right let's do one last one or maybe we stop it here i think that men you people are how do i differentiate between intuition leading me or trauma misguiding me after being cheated on it takes time to to begin to differentiate this it's like you know um it's a lot of conversations with your partner it's a lot of new experiences it's a lot of reinterpretation of what happened before you know a an infidelity it makes you reinterpret the whole script of the relationship it's a new lens to which you see everything but it's also dangerous to do that because sometimes it's not a redefinition of the whole relationship it's one dimension it's one thing that happened in the relationship but it doesn't mean that the whole thing was fake the whole thing was a fraud the whole thing was a lie so be careful about that but it is what trauma experiences will do to us in the moment so your question is on a timeline in the beginning trauma it's not misguiding it is the way that trauma reacts it wants to protect you so it wants to make sure that you don't trust anything and since you feel like you were lured before because you trusted and you didn't see now it says i'm going to make you see everything and when you see the person sitting next to you at the table you're going to look under the table but that's good at first that is what it is it's in the nature of the beast afterwards is when you begin to say you know this thing is holding me back so the beauty of your questions is that they are so rich we could have a whole session on each one of these questions and i love the way you are thinking in depth with nuance about these very complex issues of relational ambivalence so i'm going to begin to say thank you here if you want to hear about this dance between intimacy and independence join me on june 24th i'm doing a beautiful dialogue with the poet david white and you can register directly davidwight.com where we're going to be talking about this duality about this polarity between intimacy and independence so i hope you join us next month for letters from astaire live and follow along by signing up for the newsletter if you haven't already it's a stairparel.com blog and follow me on instagram and anywhere else at a starbral official thanks everybody and see you soon

Channel: Esther Perel

Views: 482,563

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Id: IrkjMgAlnVk

Length: 46min 6sec (2766 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022