0:01

I wish he would have been a gambler, a

0:03

drug addict, anything

0:06

but sex. What

0:08

you're about to hear is an unscripted,

0:11

one-time couples counseling session. For

0:13

the purposes of maintaining confidentiality,

0:16

all names and identifiable characteristics

0:19

have been removed, but their voices

0:21

and their stories are real.

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Our first offer for the show comes from Gold

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1:01

I

1:03

thought I had the perfect marriage. After 36

1:07

years, I found out that my husband

1:10

had been cheating on me

1:12

from probably the week we were married.

1:15

I was totally blown

1:17

away. From a very early age,

1:20

I was sexually abused as a kid. And

1:23

it also came from a very abusive family, physically

1:26

abusive. Sex became

1:28

a way out. I

1:30

call it visual aids. There was never

1:33

an emotional attachment. Mostly

1:36

one night stands and paid for play.

1:39

It's one thing to meet

1:41

a couple where there was a one-off affair, or

1:44

a two-year, a three-year, a five-year affair

1:46

even. But this couple

1:48

is decades of prolific,

1:50

compulsive dalliances. It

1:53

asks the question, what kind of marriage did these

1:56

people have? And yet, this is

1:58

a woman who says, my husband

1:59

I know he loved me. He was a good

2:02

husband. He was always home. He was

2:04

always, he was the best father ever. Always

2:07

there with our children. Always

2:09

loving to me. I never knew

2:11

anything was wrong. The

2:13

way I feel about her never changed.

2:16

I love her. I always, I

2:19

mean, looked after her. We shared everything.

2:25

Both

2:25

of them come in with a

2:27

definition of what has happened to him.

2:29

And that definition is that this is a man with

2:31

a sex addiction.

2:33

The first time we sat in with a professional

2:36

and they said sex addiction, and then they used compulsion,

2:38

and it was like, what's the difference? And

2:41

what would be the difference for you?

2:45

Illness makes it better to know that it was

2:47

an addiction because that's an illness. Compulsion

2:50

is

2:51

control. Better

2:54

for me to say I'm an asshole than I'm sick because

2:57

once an addict, always an addict.

3:00

If you're an asshole, you can learn. You're

3:03

not an asshole anymore. There's

3:06

a lot of questions about the diagnosis

3:09

of addiction at this point. On the

3:11

one hand, it gives men a dignified

3:14

way to name what they have struggled with and

3:16

to seek help. On the other end, there

3:18

is a sense that there is a lack of scientific evidence

3:20

to support the analogy between

3:23

sex addiction and any other form of chemical

3:25

dependency. I think

3:27

it's a useful concept to use, even

3:30

if it's a metaphor.

3:31

Any infidelity is

3:34

a complex conundrum of personal

3:37

and cultural and physical

3:39

factors. And so this couple

3:41

invites us into the labyrinth

3:44

of sexual compulsion and its long-term

3:47

effect on a couple.

3:49

This is Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel.

3:59

I wanted to find

4:02

some way to make

4:04

it work, to forgive him, to

4:06

understand, to just

4:09

keep our life. You know, we

4:11

have a very full life. We have children, grandchildren,

4:14

and I didn't want to throw

4:16

that away. And through

4:18

everything that happened, I believe that he

4:21

didn't do what he did because

4:23

he wasn't happy in our marriage. He

4:26

wasn't happy with himself. He had

4:28

demons. And

4:30

I'm trying to understand,

4:33

do I wholeheartedly believe

4:36

it? That's another story. And

4:39

so here is a woman who

4:43

is able to make an important distinction,

4:45

which is that she knows this wasn't about

4:47

her. She knows it wasn't an unhappy

4:49

relationship. She knows he was unhappy.

4:52

And from that place, she also

4:54

chooses to stay with him and to rebuild

4:57

the relationship. And for

4:59

her to be able to say that to

5:01

her children, to her friends, to her community

5:04

is a real challenge.

5:07

The

5:07

way that it happened for us, we didn't have

5:09

any kind of formal disclosure. We had

5:12

eight months of staggered, I had eight months

5:14

of staggered disclosure. It was brutal,

5:16

telling our kids. Our kids knew everything.

5:19

Why? When

5:22

somebody tells me to be honest, I

5:25

became honest. He wasn't

5:27

allowed to see our grandchildren. He

5:29

and my daughter don't even talk today.

5:33

She's living in another state. Can she be mad at you? Yeah,

5:36

she was very mad at me. For not throwing him out?

5:39

Well, I did throw him out, but for not ending

5:41

it. They thought I was weak. They thought

5:44

I had Stockholm syndrome.

5:47

They felt I, you know, because I've

5:49

been together, we've been together so long that I

5:51

never... How many years? I met

5:53

him when I was 15 and we'll

5:55

be married 40. Come next year.

5:59

They just felt that I

6:01

was too weak in character. They

6:04

didn't like what they saw. If

6:07

it was once a stigma when you divorced,

6:10

today the new shame is choosing

6:12

to stay when you can live.

6:14

And that is the challenge of a lot

6:16

of betrayed partners. What's wrong

6:19

with you? Woman, where is your self-esteem?

6:22

Now that you can go, now that you can divorce,

6:25

how come you don't? And

6:27

she's dealing with that new shame.

6:30

As much pain that it caused my kids

6:32

to go through this, I'm glad

6:35

that they know. I'm glad that they know

6:37

what I was, what I am now,

6:41

and that I was man enough to face

6:44

the demon and do my best to

6:47

get beyond this and not let that

6:49

whole

6:50

portion of my life define me. And

6:55

my father, most of my lessons from my dad,

6:57

I learned what not to

6:59

do because of what he did. Say

7:03

more. Well, my father was

7:05

a very

7:08

abusive person, physically, mentally,

7:10

and

7:11

a

7:13

philanderer. And I

7:15

grew up with him being

7:18

very physical with my mom. So

7:21

I learned not to do that because

7:24

I remember the pain that caused me to see my

7:26

mom get beaten up.

7:30

This is a man who, as a boy,

7:33

had to absorb a lot

7:35

of very difficult, scary

7:39

situations. And most

7:41

of us don't know how to

7:43

do so. It's too much, it's

7:46

too frightening. And we begin

7:48

to dysregulate. We don't know how to hold

7:51

all these emotions inside. And

7:53

this dysregulation will

7:56

often lead us to seek

7:57

other means to

7:59

regulate.

8:00

to calm ourselves, to

8:03

deal with our depression. My

8:06

dad never stepped up and

8:08

apologized to us. So

8:11

I taught my kids a lot,

8:14

you know, I was there for them. They

8:16

learned a lesson from me how

8:19

not to be a man from this, how

8:21

not to treat your wife. It

8:24

bothers me because I wasted 59 years

8:26

living a mask. Now,

8:32

if you meet me, you meet me. And

8:34

it's a wonderful feeling that I don't have to

8:37

have all these things in my head and

8:40

what I can say, what I can't say.

8:42

What happens when

8:45

the secret dissolves, when

8:48

the shroudedness is removed? Two

8:51

things come up that are

8:53

the hard thing for me to get by is

8:56

still the shame and the self-pity. I'm

8:59

not proud of my actions. And the voice

9:02

of shame says, I

9:04

can't believe you did this. How

9:07

did you do these things? You're

9:09

no good, you know. How

9:13

could you have just been this human being that

9:16

was living a dual life? That's

9:21

the shame and the self-pity part, which is even

9:23

harder for me to get over now, which is, I wasted

9:27

my life. I

9:29

can't have a 40-year

9:32

marriage with her. I

9:35

gave up a lot of things. My

9:38

kids didn't really know me. I

9:40

was this other

9:43

person. As much as I was involved

9:45

with them, I wasn't

9:47

present in my life. You

9:52

can't get that back. The

9:56

sadness runs all the time. There's a pain

9:59

right here. that's there

10:02

all the time. It never goes

10:04

away. It was there before, too. Never.

10:07

No, you didn't know it. I didn't know it. You

10:09

made sure never, never to feel it. Right.

10:13

Right.

10:14

But that's there now. And

10:16

I call that the sadness. And

10:19

then sometimes that sadness reaches

10:21

a point where I can't get out of bed. Mm-hmm.

10:25

And then what do you do? I

10:29

got to really fight. Um,

10:33

one of the things the

10:36

12-step program talks

10:38

about is the maintenance

10:40

part of it. It's what you're supposed to do on a daily

10:43

basis. So one of the first

10:45

questions I do every day is I ask, what

10:48

can I do to make your day better?

10:52

What can I do to make my kids' lives better?

10:56

This is not a situation where you

10:59

slug along and you hated

11:01

your life, and then you

11:03

find this, and then you really wonder why was I here

11:05

all these years. This

11:07

is the story of I thought I had a perfect

11:10

life. We had a

11:12

very good sexual relation together.

11:15

And I

11:16

find out that my husband has been

11:18

having a sexual problem

11:21

for the entire duration of his life. Does

11:24

that invalidate everything you felt? Does

11:27

that invalidate every trip you took, every

11:29

dinner you had, every celebration? Or

11:33

does it say, this is the most bizarre

11:35

thing, but there were two realities

11:38

living side by side, one of which

11:40

you actually have nothing to do with.

11:45

It has nothing to do

11:47

with your marriage. How

11:49

does one element like this, however

11:52

huge, does

11:54

it change the entire history?

11:56

Does it change

11:59

everything you believe? or

12:01

does it have to find its place

12:03

because everything you believed in was and

12:06

yet there was a whole other reality?

12:10

That's something to consider. And

12:13

that versus that instead

12:15

of that. I

12:19

didn't believe that at first because I ripped

12:21

up every wedding picture I had. Any

12:24

picture that I found that

12:27

was of he and I during

12:29

that time was torn to shreds. Anything.

12:33

My wedding dress. I had our

12:35

wedding vows on tape cut that

12:37

to shreds because that wasn't

12:39

real. You don't stand

12:42

up in front of all

12:44

these people, make these vows

12:46

to me and then a month later break them.

12:49

It wasn't real.

12:54

We all understand that the future

12:56

is unpredictable. But we

12:58

expect that our past will

13:01

be dependable and that we can look

13:03

back and trust what

13:06

we experienced. And when you

13:08

are betrayed by your partner, you

13:10

lose the coherence of the narrative

13:12

of your life. And maybe the

13:15

essence of the betrayal is when

13:17

we rob somebody of the story

13:19

of their life.

13:23

So, yeah, that part of it

13:25

takes away from what I thought I

13:27

had. I mean, he

13:30

was a good husband. He was always home.

13:32

He was always he was the best

13:34

father ever always there with our children,

13:37

always loving to me.

13:39

I never knew anything was

13:41

wrong. And I

13:44

don't want to say I'm one of those women who lived in,

13:46

you know, a tunnel without

13:49

any peripheral vision. I,

13:52

you know, if I'd something came up, I'd

13:54

question him and he'd tell me the story and I

13:56

believe him. Why not believe

13:58

him? He's never done anything.

13:59

anything to cause me to mistrust

14:02

him.

14:03

Now I look at him

14:05

and if he tells me this pen is red, I

14:07

will turn it 15 different ways today.

14:11

And that's a huge issue for us now.

14:15

So yeah, I mean, we had a good marriage

14:18

and that's why I'm

14:20

still here.

14:21

And I don't doubt for one second

14:24

that he

14:25

didn't love me with all of his heart. Now

14:28

for one second. Do

14:32

you hear that? I'm

14:34

here. Which means that when

14:37

you're taking a piece of shit, you

14:42

have to know that your wife has this

14:44

incredible ability to

14:46

see that what you did was really

14:48

hurtful. And

14:51

at the same time that you did it because you were hurting.

14:53

I don't think she gets all of that 100% yet.

14:56

She's coming around to it. And very

14:58

lately she's been coming around to it, I

15:01

would say within the last four to six weeks. She's

15:03

finally starting to see my side of the story.

15:08

She's been so, and it's

15:10

a wonderful feeling.

15:14

It makes me wanna cry because it just validates what

15:20

I'm doing and what I'm doing. What I'm

15:22

doing and what I am. Her

15:26

pain has been just so overwhelming that

15:30

whatever I was going through didn't matter. She

15:34

needed to figure out

15:37

her side before she could

15:39

even start to think about why

15:42

I was doing what I was doing. She

15:45

was just so much anger, hatred

15:47

towards me. And-

15:49

You're on a complete roller coaster? Roller

15:53

coaster was being gentle. Disgust. Oh

15:55

yeah, I still

15:57

hate him for what he did to me. I hate him.

16:00

for it. I, you

16:02

know, I can't

16:05

come to terms with accepting it,

16:08

you know, whatever the reasons

16:10

were, he still cheated on me for

16:14

a very, very, very, very long

16:16

time. And

16:18

when he

16:21

first got caught a number

16:23

of years ago, 15 years ago, and

16:26

swore to me it was a one-time thing, and

16:29

looked at me in the face and held my hand and said,

16:31

oh my God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I will

16:34

never do that to you. I will never

16:36

cause you that kind of pain again.

16:38

And only, you know, 12

16:40

years later to be caused undescribable

16:44

pain, worse than anything

16:46

I could ever have imagined, I'm

16:49

now supposed to trust him, that he's never

16:52

going to do that again.

16:54

The question of trust that

16:56

he will never do this again is

17:00

completely premature. Okay,

17:04

tell that to him. Tell

17:08

that to him because that's a huge issue.

17:12

My answer to this woman in this moment

17:14

should have been, it is unacceptable.

17:16

It feels too big to

17:18

accept. When you have

17:20

a new element that enters into

17:22

the narrative of your life, you start

17:25

to wonder, does it color

17:27

everything? Does it redefine the entire

17:29

story? Does it make everything else fraudulent?

17:32

Or do you actually hold on to it and you say

17:35

what was, was real? And then there

17:37

was this other piece living in the shadow

17:40

that was also real. And how

17:42

you integrate those pieces of the reality

17:45

and come back to creating

17:46

a coherent whole is an essential

17:49

part of the process at this moment

17:51

for this couple.

17:59

Support

18:02

for Where Should We Begin comes from Masterclass.

18:05

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18:07

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18:09

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18:12

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18:19

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in learning. I do. So

18:28

many things that I've been meaning one day to

18:30

delve into,

18:31

but of course, never do. From

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19:38

The point of if you do this again or not

19:40

is central, but there are so many

19:42

more things to understand here. Okay.

19:46

I mean, you're not just trusting that he's not doing

19:48

this again. You want to trust the human being. Right.

19:52

And that comes from him being able, as

19:54

he learns about himself and

19:56

as he

19:57

connects with his own trauma story. Because that's

19:59

what he's doing. that ultimately is at the core

20:01

of everything he's been doing.

20:04

I mean, I don't have to tell you, but I'm

20:06

sure in your 12-step meetings, there are

20:08

a lot of men

20:10

who were beaten by their dads. Yes.

20:13

And a lot of men watching their dad beat

20:15

their mother, wanting to save the mother,

20:17

not being able to protect the mother, and

20:19

then disconnecting, and being able to

20:22

only relate to women as long as they were

20:24

as anonymous and as objectified and as

20:26

commodified as can be, so that you don't

20:28

have to worry about them.

20:32

Did that make sense, what I just said? Yes. Yes,

20:35

it does. And

20:39

while at the same time,

20:41

being super responsible and

20:43

fatherly and a good husband at home.

20:48

This man pays to play as he

20:51

calls it.

20:53

And I

20:55

would probably say that he pays to heal.

20:58

He pays to take care of his

21:01

pain. He

21:03

pays so that he can acquit himself

21:06

of any emotional debt. If

21:09

it's casual, if it's transactional, if

21:13

it's recreational, if it's anonymous, it

21:16

frees him from the emotional responsibility

21:19

that he feels towards the women

21:22

that he loves.

21:23

And cares about. It

21:25

gives him a certain room for

21:27

simplicity and selfishness.

21:29

To

21:33

me, a lot of the honesty is

21:35

about that. It goes

21:37

beyond the sordid details

21:41

of your sexual art maneuvering.

21:44

You know, the story is

21:46

not a story of sex. I've

21:49

tried to explain that to her many times. Yes, but

21:51

for that, you need to bring in the other content

21:55

because what is so difficult

21:59

for any part. is the

22:01

level of compartmentalization. You

22:03

have lived with it.

22:05

It's kind of a second skin.

22:08

For the person on the

22:10

other side, it

22:12

is something inconceivable. And

22:16

so then you wonder, who was I

22:18

with? Not

22:20

is what we experienced real, but

22:23

who was I with, who's the guy? And the

22:26

guy was both. He

22:29

was both. And now he's working

22:31

on one thing, and that is

22:33

to find some way to integrate his

22:36

good self

22:37

and his bad self.

22:39

And these two,

22:42

most of

22:44

the time lived very, very, very separate

22:46

in you. Yeah.

22:49

No more. And there's nothing

22:52

I could think of that

22:54

would ever want me to go back to that place.

22:56

I get it. But when you talk

22:58

about being honest, this

23:03

is a different story of honesty. For

23:08

all of our adult life, she never knew about my

23:11

sexual molestation. She

23:15

didn't know about it till I... As a matter of fact,

23:17

nobody knew about it till

23:19

I was 59 years old. I

23:22

took some sort of responsibility

23:25

for that because I

23:27

didn't say no, I didn't fight.

23:30

It happened on more than one occasion. With?

23:34

An older male. And

23:37

I just put it in a place and it

23:40

just, and I went on. I

23:47

think what's important in what he describes

23:49

is that he tells

23:52

us about an experience

23:54

that many, many boys have. They

23:57

live with tremendous shame.

23:59

and tremendous sense that they're damaged, and

24:02

tremendous sense that maybe they could have

24:04

prevented this, or maybe

24:06

that that's what they deserved.

24:09

It internalizes

24:10

a sense of dirty,

24:13

bad, and that begins to be

24:15

the split between the good me and the bad

24:17

me. I could have an entire

24:19

individual session with him about

24:21

his past, about how the

24:24

split emerged and then was fostered

24:27

and so forth. But I also know

24:29

that they came as a couple, and

24:31

part of what needs to happen with him, so

24:34

that they can really begin to mend, is

24:36

for him to step out of himself

24:39

and to be able

24:40

to reach out to

24:41

her.

24:52

How much

24:54

does he talk about what he did to you? Versus

24:59

what happened to him. I

25:03

would say he talks more about what happened to him.

25:06

Correct. And what happened to me. I'm sensing

25:08

that. That is off balance. Okay.

25:13

So listen to her very carefully, because

25:16

I think she may have tried

25:18

to say this already more than once. I

25:22

really feel that you talk more about

25:25

you, and the

25:27

pain you're going through, than the

25:29

horrific pain you caused me. All

25:32

of your pain was self-inflicted. You

25:34

made choices, you made decisions, you

25:37

put yourself out there. But

25:39

everything that was done to me

25:42

is not something I asked for, not something I wanted

25:44

to be party to. I

25:47

mean, I know you know you hurt me, but

25:49

I don't think you really get the

25:51

magnitude, because

25:53

it always switches back to you. But

25:57

the point of the whole story is... Sorry,

26:00

but can you just tell

26:02

her what you just heard so that we know

26:04

that it reached you? That

26:06

I'm not compassionate

26:10

to your trauma,

26:12

and I talk more about my own trauma than your

26:15

trauma. Is that it? Mm-hmm.

26:18

Pretty well sum

26:21

it up.

26:21

Talking about it, it just brings

26:24

us both to such a bad place, and

26:28

all it does is bring out anger and

26:30

hate from you every time

26:33

I try to talk about this with you. So, let me

26:35

try to help you do this in a way that

26:39

is more healing and less

26:41

activating. Because

26:45

you're in a certain phase.

26:50

You've gone from the 59

26:52

years of trying to

26:54

deny everything, numb myself,

26:57

feel nothing, medicate.

27:00

And now, I'm in touch. I'm in

27:02

touch with myself. I'm figuring it out.

27:04

I'm putting the pieces together, and it's making

27:06

sense for the first time. There is no mask

27:09

in front of me, and I am so

27:12

deep into myself. I'm so freaking

27:14

self-absorbed.

27:17

It's still more about me. It

27:20

was about me then, and it is about

27:22

me now. And

27:24

now you've got to step out of yourself for a moment. Because

27:28

it's always both. It's what it meant

27:30

to you

27:32

and what it did to her.

27:34

If you attend to her primary

27:37

concern, then she can attend

27:40

to your primary trajectory. But

27:43

she can only do that if there is space

27:45

inside of her, and that space is

27:49

created because you are saying to her,

27:51

how are you doing? How much have you been thinking about

27:53

this today? I cannot believe what you are thinking.

27:57

And that I cannot believe from

27:59

a person.

27:59

A place of responsibility, not from a place

28:02

of shame.

28:03

I take responsibility. Be very

28:05

clear, I take 100%. There

28:08

is no excuse. There are a couple of

28:10

reasons. But the problem is that if you go to her and you say

28:12

to her, I can't believe how I treated

28:14

you, you have to be able to not

28:17

say, I feel so bad about me

28:19

for having done this. It's

28:21

the difference between I feel so bad about

28:23

myself versus I feel bad for you.

28:28

That makes a lot of sense. And

28:30

what she needs is for you to finally

28:33

step out of yourself and

28:35

actually be able to say, I feel so bad for

28:38

you.

28:41

I didn't do it to

28:43

you. I didn't cause you all of this pain

28:45

in your life, but you

28:48

caused me all this pain in my life. You

28:51

have to find a way to help me through it.

28:54

I came to

28:57

you last night. I hugged you. And

28:59

you have to let me say that. But

29:01

people, you're gonna help each

29:03

other, help each other. You're

29:05

gonna learn that together. So

29:08

when you get all upset that he has to,

29:10

he has to, he doesn't know. He

29:14

doesn't disagree, but he doesn't know. So

29:17

you tell him what you want. Don't tell him what he

29:19

has to or what he does wrong.

29:21

It's good that all the time.

29:23

Tell me what you want. I'm there. I

29:25

am all in. I

29:28

am 100% all in. I believe

29:30

you. I am self-absorbed. I gotta get

29:32

out of that. Do you understand the difference?

29:35

Yes, not until 10 minutes

29:37

ago. So I would like just to hear

29:39

it, speak from that place. The

29:46

12-Step Program very

29:48

clearly says, you're not

29:50

supposed to say I'm sorry all the time,

29:54

that your actions are supposed

29:56

to speak. Just mumbling,

29:58

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. is

30:01

not. It's

30:03

waking up in the morning and

30:05

first thing telling her what can I do to make your day

30:08

better. It's putting

30:11

her before my

30:13

own self

30:15

and needs and I demonstrate

30:18

this every day and

30:21

it's important for me. It's beautiful. It's beautiful

30:24

but your wife is more

30:26

isolated than you. Okay.

30:30

And she needs not an apology

30:33

she needs an acknowledgement of her experience.

30:37

Yep it's just that you can

30:40

use the words you want you can use your body.

30:49

When he speaks he

30:51

wants to be there for her but

30:54

it's more about him. When

30:57

his body speaks he's

30:59

actually there for her and the

31:02

moment he holds her both

31:04

of them start sobbing and

31:07

they have crossed the bridge to each other.

31:09

I

31:11

can't imagine what you're going through but

31:15

I'm here for you. That

31:26

was good. Do you understand

31:28

the difference? Yes I do. She

31:31

needs

31:32

on occasion for you

31:34

to leave your

31:36

belly button and reach

31:38

out to her and feel

31:41

bad for her and not so

31:43

bad just for yourself. Otherwise

31:48

she's left all alone to try

31:50

to justify what's

31:53

wrong with me that I

31:55

am here accepting this. Where's

31:57

my self-esteem? Something

32:01

like that? That's exactly it. Yeah,

32:04

that's it. That's it. And

32:07

she's dealing with that

32:10

new shame of, where's your self-respect? What

32:13

kind of woman would let herself, you know, particularly

32:16

even her best

32:17

friends, may be questioning her. And that barrage, she has to

32:20

confront and often alone,

32:23

because he has a community. He

32:26

has the 12-step support groups, and

32:29

he has an entire new family

32:31

with whom he can discuss all the issues

32:34

that he's grappling with, whereas she is often

32:36

quite alone. Part of

32:38

why he can't see what

32:40

you're going through is

32:43

because he's responsible for much of it, and

32:46

he can't look at himself. It's

32:50

not happening for no reason, and

32:53

it's not happening for a long time. It's

32:55

very hard to stay in the position of responsibility

32:59

and guilt versus shame. Very

33:02

hard.

33:03

But this is your practice,

33:05

your relationship practice,

33:09

is to be able to feel more guilt,

33:13

because guilt is

33:16

the responsibility towards another person. But then

33:18

when he crosses, you

33:21

need to also be able to

33:24

hear it and not say, I need you to

33:27

or you have to, when he's actually

33:30

in the midst of doing it. That's probably our biggest

33:32

problem, is

33:35

every time, not every time, a majority of the

33:37

time when I do cross over, instead

33:40

of getting a pat on the back, I

33:42

get slapped in the face, so I don't cross over. But

33:45

I

33:45

want you to know this is a big problem. I

33:49

want you to know this is a bit

33:51

of a beast for many people in your

33:53

situation. It is one of

33:55

the most difficult challenges,

33:58

because I don't think she means to slap you.

33:59

I don't think that

34:02

that's her intention at all. What

34:04

she's trying to say is, why

34:07

am I not feeling any better, even

34:10

though you're supposedly doing what I say

34:12

I want you to do?

34:14

That's... I don't know. And that is true true

34:17

and normal. I

34:19

understand it, don't apologize. But

34:21

apologizing is different from acknowledging

34:23

the other person's experience.

34:26

Yeah. Yeah.

34:30

How have you come to understand what has

34:32

happened to him all these years? By

34:40

reading about it and being

34:44

educated that men, women,

34:47

do this because of

34:49

their need to soothe, and

34:52

had he ever

34:55

disclosed that any one of the

34:57

people that he was with, there was more than

34:59

just sex.

35:01

I probably wouldn't be here today.

35:04

But

35:05

there was nobody that

35:07

was more than just casual

35:10

sex. And that

35:13

feels better. In

35:16

what way? For

35:19

you. Because of me, he

35:21

just... he loved me.

35:25

You know, and then I... I

35:28

question, how could you really love

35:30

me if you did that to me?

35:33

You know, fidelity

35:36

between a couple is sacred.

35:41

It's sacred. I

35:44

wish he would have been a gambler, a

35:46

drug addict. Anything

35:49

but sex. It's

35:54

just something that I thought was

35:56

ours. To

35:59

be... You know

36:00

told that it wasn't and for

36:03

the amount of people

36:06

and years You know and we

36:09

calculate in my head exactly

36:11

how many years it was 22 years

36:15

22 years

36:16

We're married 36 should take away the two

36:18

you take away the 12 you cheated on

36:21

me for 22 years It's

36:25

mind-boggling. I didn't cheat on it for 12

36:27

years It's mister

36:30

my wife has just said so

36:33

many important things and the only thing

36:35

you respond to is the calculus We

36:39

go through this all the time is the calculus

36:41

you know you have to respond differently

36:43

than what you just did You

36:46

can do better. Yeah Yeah,

36:49

there was a horrible. It's a horrible thing That

36:52

that you had to go through them. I See

36:55

you're you're my family and

36:58

it's crazy. It sounds how can

37:00

I do this to my family? I can

37:02

I I

37:03

Have the answers

37:06

and I know why and I know why I I Don't

37:10

want to ever have to go there again And

37:13

that's the part that scares me.

37:15

You know once an addict always an addict

37:17

is I

37:18

I

37:20

sit in rooms with a lot of guys that

37:23

have what they call slips

37:24

mm-hmm And I can't understand

37:26

how anybody could slip Once

37:28

you get it once you understand

37:31

that It's

37:34

not real. It's just gonna add

37:36

to to shame. It's just gonna add

37:38

to depression It's not

37:39

gonna again. I'm not worried about

37:42

what you're asking me you I'm worried

37:44

about what it's gonna do me asking me what

37:46

could drive me off the road And

37:48

I'm trying to tell you you know

37:50

what may be more helpful Don't

37:53

try to convince her Okay,

37:57

because you can't be that certain either I

38:01

would suggest that you simply

38:03

tell her your process.

38:07

But don't try to convince her.

38:09

Okay. You understand?

38:11

And most of the time, talk less and

38:14

touch more. Talk

38:16

less, you over talk. You

38:19

think? You know that about him.

38:24

Yep. You know, because it

38:26

is the one language between the two

38:28

of you that never got contaminated. Yeah.

38:31

And that is very special because in

38:33

most situations it could be exactly the reverse.

38:37

So when

38:39

she gets upset, half

38:41

the time all you need to do is hold her and just

38:43

say I'm here. And for the

38:46

rest, if you allow me, shut

38:48

the fuck up. Ha ha. Good

38:52

advice. What you're saying is

38:54

meant, is meant really well

38:57

and it's not coming across.

38:59

I know. So

39:02

you just hold her and at the best

39:04

you tell her, it's okay, don't talk.

39:08

And you stay for a moment, quiet,

39:12

sad. We

39:14

have each other and

39:16

it is freaking uncertain.

39:22

The reason

39:22

this woman or this couple will

39:24

be able to overcome this and

39:27

to turn this tragedy into a triumph

39:31

is because the rest of their life was so

39:33

solid. It is

39:36

because they had a good marriage. It is because

39:38

they had a good sexual relationship,

39:40

particularly because

39:42

they had a good sexual relationship. It is because

39:44

he has been there for her. So

39:47

I think they can overcome it because

39:49

they have a very rich tapestry

39:53

that has never wavered.

40:02

You just heard a classic session of Where

40:04

Should We Begin with Esther Perel. We

40:06

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40:22

Esther Perel is the author of Mating in Captivity

40:25

in the State of Affairs. She also

40:27

created a game of stories called Where Should We

40:29

Begin. For details, go to her

40:31

website,

40:32

Esther Perel

40:33

dot com.