Esther Perel: Conflict as Tool for Connection

Esther Perel’s voice doesn’t need an introduction—nor does her work. Esther is inarguably one of the most important therapists working today, pioneering a much deeper understanding of how couples function—and ultimately how couples can thrive. While Esther has written multiple bestselling books, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence and The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, and made an excellent intimacy-creating conversation card deck that will liven up any dinner party, I am most smitten with her podcast, “Where Should We Begin?” which brings listeners into real therapy sessions with real people—people, I’ll caveat, who are not her ongoing clients. Not only do you get to hear Esther’s brain work, but you get to listen as couples engage in arguments and issues that will likely feel…familiar, meaning that the show is an antidote to feeling slightly less alone in the world. Esther’s newest project is something that we all need, in every sphere of our lives: She is teaching a one-hour masterclass in conflict, including what’s beneath the content that we fight about everyday. Hint: Our fights are not actually about the dishes, they’re about power, control, respect, and foundational questions like: Do I matter? Do you value me? Conflict is the substance of today’s conversation, which we’ll turn to now. You can find the course on turning conflict into connection on Esther Perel’s website, or in the show notes.

MORE FROM ESTHER PEREL:

Turning Conflict into Connection Course

Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

Where Should We Begin Podcast

Where Should We Begin Conversation Cards

Esther Perel’s Website

Follow Esther on Instagram

TRANSCRIPT:

(Edited slightly for clarity).

ELISE LOEHNEN: I'm sure other people say this to you, but as someone who I could never be a therapist because I love telling people what to do, but I love the therapeutic process, and as I listen to you, I am always trying to anticipate where I think that you're going based on the clues of the conversation. And it's such a fun game.

ESTHER PEREL: And do we match?

ELISE: Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, Yeah, I mean, I'm not you, I would never pretend, but occasionally I know where you're going. Yeah.

ESTHER: You know, even when I listen to myself, I do the same game.

ELISE: Oh, really?

ESTHER: I'm listening to what they said. And I'm thinking, I hope I said this, or I hope I stayed quiet or shut the up, you know, and then when I didn't say anything, yes. And when I said something, and then when I said the writing, yes, you know, I'm like, anticipating my own to see, am I consistent or do I have a completely different ear today? And I would never have done this or, you know, I said it once stop, let them watch their reaction. Let it sink, you know?

ELISE: Well, one of my favorite things that you do, and it's not very often, is when you interject and say, this is a moment that I missed, or this is a moment when I should have said X, Y, Z. I love that.

ESTHER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now if you're on the subscription, now what I do is I send some of the episodes, the shorter ones, the calling ones, I send them to colleagues of mine, like Terry real and the others. And I say, critique me, do me a life supervision of my session for the audience.

ELISE: That's amazing.

ESTHER: That's a new series that we're doing now, I've already done three, but his is already out on the Apple subscription.

ELISE: Okay, this is good motivation to do that. One of my favorite things about the world of sort of the, I don't know the right word to describe the therapeutic level, I don't want to say masters, but in some way, yes, is the kinship between you and Terry and, you know, the Gottman's, Stan Tatkin, like all of these greats working in the field, I love that so many of you guys are in constant conversation. Terry is one of my, you know, very favorite people both to talk to and learn from. And so I love seeing your work reflected in each other.

ESTHER: Have you had him on your podcast already?

ELISE: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love Terry.

ESTHER: And what did you talk about?

ELISE: The first episode that we did was about covert depression and men. Because I think that I Don't Want to Talk About It is such an important book, which was such an early book of his, and it feels like we're in a crisis of masculinity. I mean, it doesn't feel like it. We are in a crisis of masculinity, right?

ESTHER: In our quarters of the world, yes.

ELISE: Yeah. In a broader sense. And then the second conversation we did was about us, his latest book and interdependence, which I feel like none of us have really ever learned, right? We're always taught, there's sort of the codependent, and then the rugged individualism, and as you know, it's your life's work, interdependence is so hard.

ESTHER: I have an example of that, that I've been using, and that somehow has become what people often tell me is one of the best pieces of advice I gave them. And, it's like, imagine that you're in a relationship and you are late again. You can't attend the dinner, the picking up of the kids, the whatever you had agreed upon with your partner. And then you come home and you basically, you're very kind, you apologize for being late, for having missed it, for not having done your part, for having made somebody wait. But basically when you apologize, you're basically saying my life is very important and more important than this. And I made a decision to attend to that, which may have been totally justified, but still, I'm important, you are not, you come second. But if instead of saying I'm sorry, you say I'm so thankful that you're here because you're being here is what allows me to stay away for another two hours. I couldn't have done it without you being here. Then you are literally talking about the fact that you are in an interdependent relationship. I can't do this without you, therefore, I thank you, which makes you feel that you're not number two, but you're part of the construction of number one.

ELISE: Mm. Oh my god, that's so powerful. Is that enough of a shift, or does your partner have to understand, is it implied how deep that is just in that switch, or is that a bigger conversation?

ESTHER: So far, I've had the conversation mostly with the person who has to say thank you. But when the person that is being acknowledged and appreciated, as in, I cannot be away for this more time if you were not doing your thing, which also means I value what you do and I rely on it. It's not just, I need you to wait for me till I'm back. That person often says, that's exactly it. That would make a world of difference. And it's a small thing, but it's particularly powerful for the person who has to say, because it doesn't occur to them to think that apologizing is a form of grandiosity. Apologize is a form of saying, you know, I'm so sorry because I'm so important, or my time is so important or my meeting was so important. And so, in that sense, I think that the shift is in the feeling of interdependence on the part of the person who suddenly has to realize that it's not that I have to be away from you. It's I'm actually connected to you, which allows me to not be there with you.

It's a small one, but it's such a powerful, I mean, it's such a game changer, you know? That example came up once because I was in a workshop and the woman was all complaining about how she's gonna go home and the dishes are not gonna be made, washed, and there's gonna be a mess. And he doesn't clean anything. And she goes away for three days and the house is a total. And I said, but you're away. And you're here with me and you're able not to think about any of it. He gives you complete peace of mind. You trust him enough and your kids are well taken care of and you'll be able to be at this huge summit event. And you know, how about you actually called him right now and said to him, I was on this workshop with this woman and she told me that I should call you and thank you because it is your presence that is allowing me to be gone.

ELISE: Mm. You could be talking about my marriage and the source of so much of our conflict. I mean, one of the things when we sometimes we go and we see Stan Taken and he's continually reminding us, like, where is your gratitude? Are you guys expressing? For some reason, we get very cheap and tight.

ESTHER: That's right.

ELISE: Why?

ESTHER: Because we don't think we should have to, because we think it's part of the job description. Why should I thank you for picking something up, for doing the dishes, for remembering my prescription, for filling the tires with air, for whatever. Because that's, you know, I do so many things for which I never get thanked that I don't mention to you in the course of the day. You know, it's part of the job description, so there's no need for me to acknowledge it.

ELISE: I know in this course that you're doing on conflict you talk about sort of the three Core, I don't know if they're values?

ESTHER: Hidden agendas.

ELISE: Hidden agendas: power, trust, and value. And is the ability to express gratitude or say thanks, is that value?

ESTHER: Yes. But in the way I took the three hidden agendas, so my, my point is, and is that, you know, we can talk a lot about what people fight about, but I think that it is often more compelling to also ask what are people fighting for? You know, what is it that they're protecting inside themselves? What is it that they're claiming? What is it that they're hoping to receive for which the fight is an enactment of? And so the three hidden agendas are borrowed from the work of Howard Markman. He has more than three. Because I think these are the essential ones. And in the context of conflict, when you talk about The need for respect and recognition-- do you value me? Do you appreciate me? The conflict is actually an expression of fighting for that. I was talking earlier with someone who described, you know, that he and his partner, they had two different ways of handling dishes. You know, one said, you eat, then you go and hang out. And then at the end you do the dishes and the other one said, you eat, you do the dishes. And then when you're all done, you go hang out and they would have a complete fight about this. And I thought, but the interesting thing is when you listen to the sentences, it's, you don't care about me. You don't value what I done. I did all the cooking. You know, you have no idea what my day was like. And basically in the end, what each one was really fighting for was respect and recognition, in the disguise of the dishes.

ELISE: Yeah.

ESTHER: So in, in an argument, it's the lack thereof that people are hoping for and fighting for in the good side of the nurture and the food is the simple ability to say thank you without thinking, why should I, or, and when did you Or, you know, I not everything you do should be a mega production that I have to applaud you for, or there's a lot of, you know, dismissing, disqualifying, contempt, you know, the various other emotions that are the melody of those words, the emotional melody in which those words are wrapped.

ELISE: Oh, a hundred percent. I'm the primary breadwinner and in many ways the primary caretaker, although we have help and my husband is fantastic. And I, you know, I was just gone last week and instead of saying like, thanks, I was in Australia, you know, I sort of am preparing myself, one, for needing to pick up more this week, even though I'm tired, to pay him back. But there's no sort of acknowledge, I did, I am not good at acknowledging the fact that it's a pain when you're the only person in the house for a week. And instead, I'm full of justification, right?

ESTHER: I think sometimes it's a pain, sometimes it actually is clarifying because you know that you're in charge and so everything relies on you and you become ultra organized and you're not into the, I'm depending on you, I'm relying on you and you're not giving me the thing that I need from you. So in some ways, sometimes it's actually clearer, but You know, the two things I could give you the second part of this, the thank you on the part of the person who is gone and the have a fabulous time on the part of the person who stays.

That's generous, right? Because instead of saying, again, I have to take care of everything, you're leaving me with all of the stuff and it's instead, you know, I have a wonderful time. I'm handling it, you know, go for it. You feel so attended to, you feel so given to that, you know, and then in the response then is, and thank you for all what you do that allows me to do that, that those are two generous expressions of interdependence that meet.

ELISE: Yeah, 1000%. I mean, I'm sure people come to you. I've done this in my own life, right? And they're full of their content everything that is aggrieving about their partner and their relationship, right? They're ready to rehash all of the content. And do you ever stop them? I'm sure that sometimes there's gold. But are you ever sort of like, Okay, you've clearly had the same fight 120 times, like, now we need to get underneath it. At what point are people ready to put the content, the conversation about the dishes aside and move to what's really at play? Can you get them there quickly or do people have to rehash?

ESTHER: So there are two ways to answer this. First of all, it's not in order of importance, but I would say first when people fight, ask yourself what are they fighting for, you know, so they're protecting something. You want understand why this is going to a feverish pitch or to a complete cutoff, you know, what is it that is driving this? Don't stay stuck on the manifest content. Number one. But number two is your question about do I intervene when couples are instantly showing in a session the recurrent, rigid, narrow, repetitive, predictable, dense argument that they have with each other? I would say session one.

ELISE: Yeah.

ESTHER: I do not wait. I mean, there is not much creativity. I watched the dance. I look at the figure eight. I look at what each person is doing that is provoking the other person from doing their thing, which then is leading the first one to do theirs. How each one is contributing in making the other person, the very thing that they don't want.

Okay, that's the important piece, when we are locked in an argument like this, we are each contributing doing something that sets the other person up to react in the very way that we actually do not want them to react. But it's not just because it's their essentialist self doing this. We are setting them up. If I go and I say, why don't you say anything? Why don't you say anything? You never talk. And I keep the whole floor and I do all the talking. Well, I will have contributed in making you silent because you are going to feel that what's the point of saying anything. There is nowhere to go because at the first word I will utter that you don't agree with, you are going to cut me off. Just going to stay silent and wait for this to pass. And the more I stay silent and I wait for this to pass, and the more you're going to become vociferous and more intense, if you are in the explosive side and I'm in the implosive side, which is one of the three main choreographies, and you're going to become more and more talkative and more and more loud because I am actually Contributing to you being the only person talking since I'm not saying anything.

ELISE: Right.

ESTHER: That's the figure eight kind of thing. Then I tell people, give me the sequence. I look at a fight sometimes, especially repetitive fights as a board game, you know, one, two, three, then he does that, or they do this. And then this is what happens. And then they turn their head, you know, and I basically track the sequence of the escalation of the fallout. That's one other intervention. Another one would be one of my all time favorites. I have two favorite ones actually, is that I basically tell them at one point, continue to have this argument, but I want you to lay flat on the floor. Because I figured out something magical, you know, that that fighting is fists, fighting is a straight up position, fighting is I'm attacking my shoulders are up, my neck is shortened, my head is protecting itself. There's a whole physiology to fighting that when you live flat on the ground, looking up at the ceiling, it's much harder to do. So it sometimes it breaks out in laughter, and sometimes it breaks off in the other affect, the sadness that is or the fear or whatever else that is at play here. And sometimes I make people do a fight, I borrow this from my colleague, Heidi Schleifern, where she makes them fight for literally 13 minutes. That's a long time, even if they have nothing to argue about. And she doesn't let them stop before the 13 minutes. But then once they're stopped, she basically says, these people, they were sitting next to you at the restaurant and they were talking a language that you do not understand, you've been attend, you've been witnessing this fight now for 13 minutes. What did you see? And so it's basically like lowering the volume and watching the entire fight. And then he rolled his head and then the other one, you know, just basically looked down and then they moved the shoulder and then they had their back completely turned off and then they just lean forward and then they just lean completely back and then they just push their head into the wall and then they just bang the fist on the table. You see an entire, you know, you don't need the content to see. This one tried to get closer. This one just wouldn't have it. This one tried again. The other one still wouldn't have it. By the third time, this one decided, well, the heck with you. You reject me. I'll reject you more. And then turned around completely and then just ate and then started swallowing the food at an eeper speed. You know, see, so, you don't have a clue what these people were fighting about, but you have a good idea of what they were doing to each other.

ELISE: Yes.

ESTHER: So that is what I'm trying to highlight with people. It is not the content, it is the form.

ELISE: A thousand percent. Yes.

ESTHER: If the form is of a certain way, you could be talking about your kids or sex or in laws or green peas in South Korea. It will all sound the same.

ELISE: Do you think that there's some sort of spiritual driver within partnership, where in pushing each other to our extremes, where for me. I'm the talker. I'm not the yeller. I guess you would call me explosive but I just keep talking and talking and talking as you can imagine, and like logic and Rationality and my husband just like chin goes up arms go, you know, he's stonewalls me.

ESTHER: You say he stonewalls me. You're not saying I overwhelm him.

ELISE: Exactly.

ESTHER: You know, research shows to you when they have watched hours of videos of couples that are fighting and basically, if she becomes more talkative, it doesn't have to be yelling or explosive, just more, you start to see him going to the corner of his couch and then slowly the head moves to the side and slowly the eyes go up. It's like in a kinetic NLP fashion to try to make some boundary or some space to prevent from the overwhelm. So, The fascinating thing is you're telling me he's stonewalling and I'm saying, you know, this is exactly that in a sequence of conflict. You started with what he's doing to you.

ELISE: A thousand percent.

ESTHER: what have you just done to him? That may be a response of what he just did to you before. So it's very circular. It's very circular to really track the sequence of contention.

ELISE: Yeah. No. A thousand percent. We've actually been put on video in conflict, and it's wild to see, because it's exactly that. It's, Elise, why are you still talking? And it's helpful. Do you find when you work with couples, and I know you, in the show specifically, you get such a short amount of time, but do you find when they write to you and talk to you after the session, that even pointing this out is often enough to disrupt the pattern and push them to analyze themselves in that moment?

ESTHER: So I just did an episode for where should we begin? That is a young couple. It presents, they have a two year old, they're in their twenties and they are fighting a lot. It's a high conflict couple and they barely come back down to neutral, to base. And the next thing explodes and it's about three times a week. So there's not much downtime and they present as, on paper before I meet them, so I read a small intake interview and then I see them for three hours. So it's about four sessions length. And it's presented as when he talks in the intake, she goes upstairs, she shuts the door, she throws all his stuff on the floor, she throws his stuff down the staircase. And you have a sense that You know, he's holding it together because he doesn't want to make it worse. He's keeping it all in. So he sees himself and she is the crazy one, you know, the explosive one, the one who loses it all of that. Then slowly when you're sitting with them, you begin to notice that maybe she's outwardly aggressive, but he is passive aggressive. And he slips little things. He's Mr. Harmony, but he slips pieces where he ignites her, where he basically says she's unreasonable. She shouldn't be thinking this way. You know, why does she make everything complicated? He basically, she doesn't give any credibility and she's a very resourceful, smart, thoughtful person. And that doesn't create a cause and effect, but it creates an understanding of the sequence. You know, this is not the saint and the villain.

ELISE: yeah.

ESTHER: It's a lot more, you know, subtle than that. And so at one point I say to him, you know, you've taken on this, the role. And in the end, when they did a summary of all what the session had offered them, which was a series of skills and insights into their cycle of conflict and how to step out of it. He says, I think that I have to stop just seeking refuge in my role as the victim. Which is a word I had never used, but he understood beyond what I said. He recognized it. He knew it. And by him being the victim, she instantly was continuously put in the role of the villain or the perpetrator or the one who makes it worse.

And for her to actually see that he was a collaborator, And, you know, of sorts in the creation of this plot, very much the fact that she thought, you know, I'm the messy one. I have the, I have the bad family. I have the traumatic history. I have the abandonment, you know, and he comes from this super harmonious, totally conflict avoidant family. So he always has a one up on her. And I think that was the most powerful piece of the session. It was not just a shift in how they argue and making it more constructive fighting, but really a shift in how each of them saw themselves and how they saw themselves in the eyes of the other.

ELISE: mm. That reminds me of a session, I don't know if you'll remember, but in this session you told them to lie down on the ground.

ESTHER: I remember it very well.

ELISE: yeah, that was such a powerful session as well because It seemed to me, listening, like they came in to address conflict, and then very quickly the conversation moved to his family, right? And the way that he, it was very powerful, really, really beautiful. I mean, clearly we learn these patterns somewhere, right? Is that also almost always at play? Family of origin?

ESTHER: Yes, culture, family of origin, gender norms and gender scripts hierarchies, religious beliefs. There's a lot of things that go into how we conceptualize anger, conflict, aggression, fighting, arguing, you know, people, and I think there's such a rich vocabulary that, and I'm always asking people, what do you mean? What does anger look like for you? What does aggression, what does defensiveness, you know, because I think I know what it means, but I find that some people, unless you are totally screaming, don't think that they're fighting or angry. Some people, the minute they experience a tension in their belly, think that they are enraged or their partner is enraged. So, I think we have to really understand the subjectivity of the Language and the times we live in. Yeah. I think like, why did I create a course on conflict or turning conflict into connection at this moment? Because I think that we are more and more living in a conflict avoidance society in which people do not learn the practice of disagreement, discord, difference, fighting, competing, making up, repairing, as in the way you learn when you play as a kid, for that matter, from the beginning, when you're playing on the street. And into adulthood, more and more, we are avoiding conflict and finding ourselves in polarized situations.

And this is happening at work. This is happening inside our families and inside our intimate relationships beyond the fact that it's also happening on a societal level. So I thought, and when you handle conflict better, and you feel less completely taken over by it, you actually manage your relationship better. It's not just fighting better is not for its own sake. You fight better means that you have a different sense of trust, a different ability to express yourself, a different way of making your needs explicit, of responding to the other person's requests without It constantly being organized within a power struggle.

If I give in and if I do what you ask me to, then you have a one over me. It's constantly, we're, we're fighting, you know, we're fighting supposedly to preserve that very fragile self and identity. So I don't want to be a pushover and I don't want to be, you know, a weakling and I don't want to be at your service and This language is very much a language of fighting, you know, the self is constructed as a part of a fight in and of itself at this moment.

ELISE: Yeah, and all of that was in that one episode because essentially from what I remember the guy he had an impressive family that appeared to be picture perfect and she came from chaos, I think, and that any urge from her or any demand or requirement or request in partnership was perceived to him because of his family of origin as another oppressive, Like he had never learned how to be himself.

ESTHER: Every time he said no, she experienced it as a complete abandonment that I'm always going to be alone. It's all going to be on me. The two women are very similar in that way. They both really had to raise themselves and raise their siblings. And they both live with the same. They are resourceful. They have learned to do it all by themselves and they yearn for somebody to support them and to give them a back. And they have. supportive partners, but the one you're mentioning that episode, he's more involved. They have, and he's actually more involved. They have four kids amongst them, but whenever he says no, she thinks I'm back alone. All of us. And whenever she asks for something, he thinks, my dad again with his authoritarian commands. And so, neither of them hears the other in the here and now.

ELISE: I mean, that has to be so common, even if it's whispering, right, is the way that we are allowed to express ourselves, or, I mean, it's boundaries, effectively, which I know is a word that's been sort of cheapened by culture lately, but it's essentially being able to say, don't tread on me, or these are my needs, which I think can be difficult, maybe more difficult for women.

Maybe not. Maybe it's just as difficult for men. Just to sort of flip it, and I know parenting isn't your focus, but like how do we break those cycles and learn, I know you're teaching a whole course on conflict, right, which theoretically is about how to have healthy ones because it's so essential, but how do we change that paradigm?

ESTHER: I think we start by Having more face to face contact and we learned to have difficult conversations. I mean, a part of where should we begin the podcast was to invite you to listen in on how other people have these difficult conversations so that a, you're not so alone and b, you can learn the vocabulary that you need for your difficult conversations. you can call it a difficult conversation. It doesn't have to be a conflict, an argument, a, you know, a disagreement. It starts earlier. So that's the first thing. You teach it from age, from early on. You, you don't intervene in every argument that your kids are having. You let them work it out, figure it out, and it doesn't always look pretty, and it isn't always an instant resolution.

You may have to live with tension for a while with, you know, that sits there in the room until you, one of the people is ready to say, you know, are we still friends or something like that. So there are all these. Practices of social living. Part of what makes it more complicated in this moment is that more and more people are struggling with social atrophy. They've lost the muscle that actually enables them to have this kind of friction with people at varying degrees of friction and then to just continue to interact with them and not to cut them off. Boundaries is not about separation. Boundaries is about holding on to yourself in the presence of another and staying connected to another without losing yourself. That's boundaries. It's dyadic. It's not just something you do for you. Not in the context of relationship the way we talk about. So part of the course is this idea also that, you know, there are a few major defeating strategies that people Systematically get involved in, well, let me just present them to you. And we can even laugh at some of it because when I, you know, actually one time in a workshop, Terry real and I, we role played the strategies. We literally formed them, you know, and the whole audience is of course, cracking up because it's the theater of the domestic, right? It's the theater of relationships and everybody could recognize themselves in one of these things and humor would be fantastic in some places, not sarcasm, humor, levity, something that says, because humor says there is perspective and our relationship is more important than the fight that we are having.

ELISE: Right.

ESTHER: So that's why we were role playing these strategies. And when people receive clear tools. You know, how do you stay connected to your family at this moment, even when you have fundamental differences of opinion or values or political stances? Is the only option that so many people in the United States are cutting off from their family, from their siblings, from their friends? Because they think differently, or from their partners, for that matter. So, you know, there's a proliferation of articles on how do you have relationships with people who have different opinions than you? I mean, isn't that part of what happens when you partner with somebody? You know, of course it's a range, but how do you not take it as, I cannot be with somebody who thinks like that, you know? Because I am right and you are wrong or because you threaten me or you know, so it's really creating public spaces for these conversations to take place rather than the ones that are the dominant ones of the moment. That's how you create change on a societal level and then gradually on a personal level. And I think, you know, a podcast is an interesting tool because it's a course. I have the course, of course, and I have the podcast. So you read it and then you study it and then you go and you listen in on the sessions and you actually see how does this actually play out in real life.

ELISE: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think anyone listening can relate who has a partner because you might not even disagree about anything that's substantive, like politics or human rights, right? Like you're disagreeing about sort of standards of cleanliness in your house or how, you know, this stupidest stuff, theoretically, But I love that the course can be taken by one, it's not something that you necessarily have to do with your partner because I think what you're also guiding people to is if you look past dishes, if you look past, inequity in child care, whatever it is, These things are significant, but if you can look past it, then you understand. I think you distill it into sort of these three core buckets, right? Is it about power and control? Is it about care and closeness? Is it about respect and recognition? I mean, just thinking about that for me is actually quite deep, personal work, right? is part, yeah, and it's part of it that we expect our partner to attend to 90 percent 99 percent of each of those, is it too much?

ESTHER: So that's a question about, you know, what is the responsibility of our partner for us not to have to feel some of these uncomfortable feelings? There isn't one model of relationship. Some of us in the field think that, yes, if your partner can alleviate your suffering, they should do so. There's some, those who think it's their responsibility to do so. And then there is those who think, you know, it's an option, but it's not their job. But what is the job is for you to understand what sits underneath this that makes it so repetitious? You know, what is it that you're wanting? What is the wish that is hidden in the criticism? You know, what is it that makes it so hard for you to listen to the other? Because there's a lot of attention about expressing what we need, but there is not always enough attention about how we respond to the needs of others. How is it that saying yes for some of us is feels so quickly a form of subjugation? And is it only because of my personal history? Or is there something in the zeitgeist that is so protective of the self that we are losing some relational capacities?

It happens on, you know, we are always living in the culture and in our personal history and there is always a blending of these two. So what is clear is that people say, how can I fight better? How can I stay hopeful? How do we repair? How do we not, what I call, kitchen sink, you know, every argument is about everything that's ever gone wrong in the relationship and we put all the dirty dishes and pile them on top of each other. You know, why do I boil when I have to listen to what my partner is saying? Why I can't even stand listening to it, and nobody's asking you to agree with anything. Just simply there are two people, you may have very different experiences of the same situation. You know, how do I not get trapped in confirmation bias? Yeah, confirmation bias can be something like at least this is between friends too. And that's why I can totally take this course alone. I feel that Lately, you really don't care about me. You're much closer to our other friends, actually, even to friends that I have introduced you to. And I just feel really neglected by you. And I feel that you've kind of a little bit dumped me or put me on ice, or, you know, but Every time you do something, I actually interpret it as another proof that you don't really care.

And if you called me on Sunday, but you didn't call me on Saturday, then it's a proof that you really don't really have such a sense of urgency of meeting me. Basically, I have a lens now and everything you do is interpreted through that lens. And I'm going to disregard evidence that disproves me, but I'm only going to keep the evidence that reinforces my belief. And basically what you start to see is that sometimes we are more committed to our assumptions than to the relationship. Like, why would I want to convince myself that you don't care about me? And that's when you can say, that's an interesting thing. It's like, you know, why? But for that, you want to create curiosity. And what happens when there is too much conflict is that there is a lot of reactivity and not enough curiosity.

ELISE: Yeah. Well, and the self justification. I mean, I love when you talk about fundamental attribution error. What I do is because of circumstances, and what you do is because of character flaws. I think we can all relate to that, right?

ESTHER: Yes, yes, yes. Look, if I'm in a bad mood, it's because I really had a tough day. I've been really stressed lately. But if you're in a bad mood, it's because you are a cantankerous person, you know, that complains a lot. Yours is characterological and mine is circumstantial. And therefore I am complex and you are simple because you just went one dimensional. It's a fantastic thing. And what I like when you laugh is that when you put it like this, it's non threatening to recognize it. We can all see that we have done it sometimes others do it. This is human. This is not, you are good. You are bad. You are flawed. You are, you know, filled with shame. This is what we do. And I think that normalizing that. Conflict is intrinsic to relationships. There is no relationship that grows without a modicum of fight, friction, discord, duking, you know, righting wrongs, things like that. So people would, you know, come in when they say, you know, we never fight. I'm worried.

ELISE: Yeah. I was going to ask about that.

ESTHER: I'm worried.

ELISE: concerning. Yeah.

ESTHER: You cannot differentiate when you never fight. Fighting is also a tool for differentiation, for having two people be able to breed and grow inside a relationship. If all you try to do is avoid any friction, any conflict, and merge into one, then there is a relationship of two halves, not of two holes, basically, to put it in simple terms. So some people find it very scary. Some people find it scary because there was uncontrolled fighting where they came from. And nobody could disagree without the whole thing going on fire. So there is good reasons for why people have learned not to fight or not to stand up for themselves or not to argue or not to say no, for some people simply saying no is experienced as a declaration of war. It's a continuum for those who are avoiding fighting and who are scared of it and reluctant to engage with it are basically said to themselves, I will never be like that person, my mother, my father, my grandparents, whoever it was, and then hold it in and hold it in. Or there was violence that came their way and it shut down and frozen inside of them. So when you explore conflict, you also explore aggression. You also explore, you know, violence. There's other words that are adjacent that are part of the conversation, especially when you explore the fear thereof, the ultra familiarity of it, or the avoidance of it, on both sides.

ELISE: Yeah.

ESTHER: very powerful portal into many major parts of our personal and relational life to explore conflict.

ELISE: Yeah. There's no way probably to really study this, but I think, I feel like my parents would fight behind closed doors and I could hear it from the basement and it became quite scary to me in part because I wasn't obviously present. I could just, but I could feel it, you know, you can feel the tension. And someone had told me. It's better to, I mean, depending on the content, but it's good for your children to see you

ESTHER: see the parents right and to see them get makeup.

ELISE: Yes. That's good.

ESTHER: I have a point of view. I don't know that there is a definitive answer on this. Plus it depends on cultures. In some cultures, words need to be used, you know, very carefully. And in some cultures, words can be used for effect. So you can say all kinds of things. You know, I was, as in preparing this course, I was speaking with some people about, you know, and I said, In my house growing up on Friday night, we would often have dinner all together and we would have screaming matches about politics, you know, and the war here and the demonstrations there. And, you know, and then in the middle, somebody said that cheesecake is delicious, you know, in the middle, because we were just, you know, at the same time as my mother would say, you are impossible. One can't have a conversation with you. You're so instantly, you know, on your high horse. And I would say, how can you think this way?

And then somebody would say, you know, okay, okay, we stopped fighting. We don't talk politics. So then we would start talking about something else. And then three minutes later, politics back on the table because everybody was a news junkie. And then at the end, it was like great. So what are we doing this weekend? And, you know, but it never occurred to me what this looked like from the outside in, you know, somebody else would have sat there and said, what are these people, you know, how do they do this? There was a kind of an understanding that, you know, it's okay to be intense and to be fully engaged. We would call that because the relationships were steady.

And even if somebody said, you know, you know, who in your right mind can have such an opinion, which of course is the worst sentence to say to somebody who has a different opinion from you, you know, but it didn't have that same corrosive effect. In another family, that would be a very different situation. So, I think that context matters a great deal. The question about parents fighting in front of the kids depends a lot on the culture, a lot on what else goes on between the parents. Did you see them fight? And then after that, they're saying, you know, Hey, can I make a coffee for you and have what Gottman calls a bid for connection? And you realize that even though they were pissed off and mad at each other, they actually still treat each other very respectfully and kindly and generously that, you record that, but if what you remember is that you were picking up broken dishes, which I have, you know, I've been witnessing of some late with someone, you know, this is a person who is very upset when their partner thinks that they are angry and critical because they'd hear that word and they instantly translate it into the violent situation of their childhood. The word doesn't mean anything for them. The movie that they have in front of their eyes of what they see as they remember it is everything.

So that was parents fighting in front of the children for this person. And I think the most important thing you can always do is describe the fighting that you're talking about. If you were a camera on the wall, what would you see? That will then guide my answer to should parents disagree in front of kids? Yes. Should parents show that they have different opinions? Absolutely. I think that that's how kids learn, you know, how do you live with people that are different from you? I don't think people should necessarily always close the door, but I think it's also fine to close the door and to go and say, Dad and Mom had a real argument, a bad dispute today. You know, boy, I was so angry, you know, and then to say, still love him, you know but here I am, we're going out tonight. We're going to a dinner and life continues and to actually that invites the children to know that these are not dangerous feelings, that these not out of the range, that you don't have to hide from them. I was so upset. I was so mad. Oh, man, dad was really mad at me today because I fucked up.

ELISE: Mm hmm.

ESTHER: You know, I really acted poorly on something or I made a big mistake and you know, my mom was very, very angry with me. And I think that those are fantastic life lessons that normalize and also give it the right proportion.

ELISE: No. I agree. And I think listening to your podcast is a great way to sort of exposure therapy to normalize conflict. And then I can't wait to take this course. I'm very excited. And I want to, I of course want to watch you and Terry real role play, that should be a movie.

ESTHER: Come to Costa Rica. We're doing a whole week together in Costa Rica. February 17 to 24.

ELISE: okay. Amazing. I'm gonna come. Well, thank you for everything. Thank you for your work. Thank you for making it public and sharing it, cause I know we can't all be your clients, but someday.

ESTHER: By opening the four walls of my office, so at first I wanted to open the walls and share with the world what we do because one patient is after another is not, you know, I think there's a bigger need at this moment in our society relationship wise. But then bringing people in so that they don't experience such aloneness with, because really, we don't know what happens in the neighbor's house.

And we often think, you know, everybody else has it and we don't. So relationships are undergoing such massive change at this moment and the norms are shifting under our feet. And so to hear it as it is unfolding in real time with anonymous people who are not patients it seems to really reach people in a very, very personal place because when you listen attentively to others, you see yourself.

ELISE: Yes. Very much. And, it can confirm or remind you that yes, you are quote unquote normal. I mean, which is a meaningless word, obviously.

ESTHER: Normal means I'm not alone.

ELISE: exactly.

ESTHER: It's in that sense, normal. It means I'm not alone. This is not just happening to me. I'm not the only one who has this feeling that is just like holding my neck. And I actually have a sense of hope of how other people seem to be able to walk through it. And maybe I can too.

ELISE: A hundred percent. Well, thank you and have a great day and hopefully I'll see you soon.

Well, it’s always such a pleasure to spend time with Esther, which I do every week. I love her podcast, Where Should We Begin? Whenever it’s the end of a season I feel sad because not only do I love her voice but I love her wisdom, and insights, and the vulnerability of the people who participate is incredible. And she’s recently added a new version of the show where she works one-on-one with callers and some of the insights she delivers are really stunning and almost always applicable to anyone’s life. And, most excitingingly, she’s doing this one-hour conflict course—it’s short videos, you can do it alone, or with a partner—but in the course of the series she really drives at, not only insights like the fundamental attribution error, which is the way we see our own behavior making so much sense and being completely attributable to the factors to the factors of the day, where we tend to see our components or partners full of character flaws, i.e., this is who they are, this isn’t just a function of behavior in that moment. It’s full of insights such as explosive versus implosive fighters, but she really gets at the nut of it, which is often due to the way in which we are raised, conditioned, programmed by culture and it’s pretty powerful, this idea that often we are fighting about power and control—who makes decisions? Whose priorities matter most? Care and closeness—does your partner have your best interest in mind? Can you trust them? Respect and recognition—Do you value me? Do I matter? Again, she really knows how to sift the content, the fights, the conflicts that chase us through our days to get to the meat that’s haunting us at our core. Thanks so much for listening to this very special episode, I will see you next week.