Esther Perel: Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail

00:03our relationships you know i think we all certainly i think i have for much of my life and i say that because i look at my actions so what i might say is different to how i think i've behaved over the last i don't know 10 10 15 years we see them as kind of an afterthought to everything else in many regards so the amount of effort i put into my businesses and to the podcast into every little detail, the creativity, the thought, the brainstorming, all of that.

00:29Relationships, we kind of all just think they just happen. And if it doesn't happen perfectly, then it's broken and I need to find a new one. Yeah, that's a terrible way to think. I mean, and everybody knows it. If you give the best of yourself at work, if you bring the leftovers home, if when you come home, you say, I've given everything I had. Now I'm just putting my feet on the table. I just need to chill. I don't want to make any effort. You know, slowly your relationship degrades, period. And then there's all kinds of ways it ends. None of them are particularly joyful. And basically, if people were able to put a little bit of creativity, attention, attention into their relationships as they do with their customers or their guests, relationships would be doing a lot better and my profession would be seeing a lot less people and there's no doubt and why are people so lazy so complacent so unimaginative with their relationships at home I mean I see so many people when you like here you know you're not taking out your phone you're not you're looking at me you're paying attention on occasion and you look for your questions and where we go.

01:48But basically, you're with me. But at home, if you do this or this. Looking at my phone. You know, and then when the person tells you something really important, you go, uh-huh, uh-huh. You know, and you're kind of there but not present. And that's the beginning of a kind of modern loneliness, actually, is that this idea that you can share something really important to someone who is half there, half there. And I think that that's what's happening with a lot of younger people these days is that they experience a lot of half there-ness.

02:27And that begins to cultivate a real sense of loneliness that has to do not with I'm physically alone, that has to do with do I matter? Who hears me? Who cares? Who pays attention? Who notices? You know? So sometimes the advice is very banal. It's to tell people, put your freaking phone down. Take an hour and put your phone down. But I'm busy. Huh? But I'm busy. Well, you will be busy and there won't be a relationship. Sooner or later, there won't be a relationship.

03:03It's not difficult. You can wait. You can wait for the kids to grow up if there are kids involved. But in the end, there isn't. Just because someone was on their phone? Well, it's not just on the phone. It's on the phone means I am continuously saying something is more important than you. We come last. We're a cactus. We don't need to be watered. We can survive in the desert. It's called, there's a term I've been using for this that is, I borrow from something else.

03:37It's called ambiguous loss. Have you ever heard of this term? Ambiguous loss? Yeah. No. Ambiguous loss is a term that was developed by a colleague, Pauline Boss, a wonderful psychologist, when she talked about what happens when you have a parent, for example, that has Alzheimer. They are physically present, but they are psychologically gone. They're emotionally absent. And you can't really mourn them because they're still physically there. but you're caught in this in-between, in this ambiguous loss.

04:10On the other side, you can have somebody who is deployed, hostage, miscarriage. They are emotionally very present, but they are physically absent. In both cases, it's an ambiguous loss. You can't, are they still there or are they gone? Who knows? When we live with this phone thing, when we are, because you've been at work, you've been at the computer, you come home, you think, I'm so happy to finally let go of the computer. You turn on the TV, you turn on the TV, and then you turn on the phone at the same time.

04:46You're watching here, you're watching there, and there's a person next to you. And most likely, they often do the same thing in the end too. and gradually, you know, there is less and less of a thread of conversation, of connection, of joy, of sex, of intimacy, all of what, you know, that becomes ambiguous loss. Somebody is there, but they're not really present. I'm, you know, is there a difference between me and the sofa? it's comfy it's routine you sit on me but comfy and routine does do not give us joy or meaning or relevance or connection and that's what we still seem to want so it means saying to people you know it's actually not very very complicated what did people do for centuries is they took walks.

05:45That's one of the few times you can't click. So take a walk. Don't sit. Don't try to do, you know, take a walk around the block and just be in motion. Then you parallel, you know, it's not face to face. It's side by side. And you can talk about the day. If you, instead of just saying, stop, stop, stop, you just said, you know, let's go for a walk. It's London, but still you can, you know, You do half an hour walk. It will, you'll come back to me and you tell me what it will do.

06:18But it's amazing how these small interventions that are playful, creative, not digging, change the dynamic of the relationship. Because she is only pursuing you in part because of how much you are withdrawing. you change she change if you want to change the other change yourself once you understood the figure eight and how we create the other you understand that if you do something else sooner or later they do something else too so if you want to change the other change you this is part of the question you asked me right what are some of the essentials understandings of working with relational systems. This is true at work, in companies. This is true in intimate relationships. This is not just for romantic love. This is foundations of relational systems. Feedback loop, it's called in cybernetics. So many busy couples can feel the spark in their relationship waning away slowly, but work isn't necessarily the first place you look like pulling out the phone at dinner isn't necessarily the place people look because that seems so small so they aim at bigger things they'll say i don't know something bigger but do you believe are you saying that you believe a lot of it much of it often starts with those small

07:46moments of disconnection where the person basically ends up becoming the sofa the Gottmans call them bids for connection bids for connection you know it's the little things it's the difference between turning towards someone or turning away. You know, when you read something, there's a classic example they give. You read something, do you actually say, hey, did you read this? Let me send you this article. That's a bid for connection. It's not a big declaration, but it says, we're in this together. When I see something that's interesting that I think you would like to read as well, I share it. I'm thinking of you. I know you exist even if I'm not with you do you know what my partner said to me something about a year ago and i and it stayed with me because i thought that's such a strange thing to say she said to me when we were in conflict resolution so we were talking about things um she said you know when i send you things on instagram in instagram dms like i'll be out here now in new york so she'll she'll if you see something interesting on instagram she sends it to me she goes you've stopped acknowledging it i used to just like double tap on it or make a comment back she goes you've stopped you stopped

08:53acknowledging it and i thought why does that matter why does it like you send me something i watch the funny video i crack on with my day because it's like when you receive a birthday gift do you think yeah when you buy a birthday gift is it important to give it yeah okay that's reason i mean how would she know that you watched it if there is no acknowledgement and the The acknowledgement is not about the video or the DM. The acknowledgement is we share something.

09:27Well, it's even worse because it says seen on Instagram. So it says that I've seen it. Yes, but the seen it means that I have seen the video. The acknowledgement is we are part of a thread. We're connected. She's absolutely right. So in that sense, when people lose the spark, it is a lot of these small details that people say so much in the beginning. You know, all the positive stuff that people ooze. And it's actually only more important with time rather than less important with time.

10:01The death of a relationship is when people take each other for granted. And when you stop acknowledging those things, it is part of the mechanisms of taking for granted.