She’s a world-famous couples therapist. Here’s what she thinks about ‘The One’

This story is part of Sunday Life’s most popular cover stories of 2022.See all 10 stories.

As one of the world’s most famous couples therapists, Esther Perel has come across the full spectrum of relationships. But it’s the marriage of her Polish-Jewish parents that she credits with shaping her worldview. They met at the end of World War II, having survived life in a concentration camp. They had nothing, had lost their families and been through unthinkable trauma.

“My father thought that he was the luckiest man because the woman he ended up living with and marrying would never have been a wife of his if it wasn’t for the war,” Esther says, adding that her mother was very well-educated and her father was not.

“My mother’s philosophy was that relationships are based on will and compromise. It was a very pragmatic view. They had their tensions but they were also very good companions; they enjoyed life together, they had similar views of how they wanted to live.”

Mostly they taught her how to stay alive in the face of adversity and how to connect with joie de vivre. “Everyone knows the difference between a relationship that is not dead and one that is alive: a relationship that is surviving and one that is thriving,” she says.

The Belgian-born, New York-based therapist, best-known for her popular podcast Where Should We Begin?, is talking to Sunday Life ahead of a speaking tour of Australia next month.

Launched in 2017, the podcast features real-life counselling sessions with anonymous couples: young and old, gay, straight and curious, monogamous, polyamorous, in new, long-term and on-and-off relationships. The secret ingredient, of course, is Esther. Empathetic and insightful, she is also tough when she needs to be. Her manner is gentle but firm, playful yet serious, compassionate and demanding.

People reveal the most intimate, raw, extraordinary details about their lives, and her ability to help them work through issues is inspirational. Even those in happy and healthy relationships enjoy the show, which may account for its huge popularity, from Gen Z to Boomers.

Esther recently launched another podcast called How’s Work? that examines workplace connections, and her TED Talks, including one given at the Sydney Opera House, have generated more than 40 million views.

The 64-year-old psychotherapist speaks nine languages and cites curiosity and being a good listener as the traits that make her good at her job. Her move into relationship counselling came after years of working in family counselling and was inspired by the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair. She has written two books, including Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence and, more recently, The New York Times bestseller The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity.

As well as operating her private practice two days a week, she has a multidisciplinary online training platform for therapists and coaches called Sessions, and an online course for couples called Rekindling Desire. After the pandemic, she released a card game that’s designed to get people to tell their stories.

Esther has worked with thousands of couples since she started her practice and wants to help people’s relationships thrive, not just survive; for them to enjoy pleasure, connection and wholeness. “Not to be broken doesn’t mean one feels whole,” she says. “Not to suffer does not mean one knows how to feel pleasure.”

She is best known for saying things like, “Fix the sex and your relationship will transform”, arguing the erotic is not an optional extra, it’s intrinsic.

“Connecting with our aliveness is a source of healing trauma,” she says. “The erotic is in itself a source that helps us deal with our pain and suffering.

“In the camps, people made theatre, people sang, they made music, they drew, they made love in the most dire of circumstances. They didn’t wait to come out of there – it’s what kept them alive in the first place.”

“Connecting with our aliveness is a source of healing trauma. The erotic is in itself a source that helps us deal with our pain and suffering.”

But the biggest challenge couples coming to her for marriage counselling confront is the issue of “The One”. She says that question is actually a mirror to ourselves. “It’s not just this notion of, ‘Have I found the right person?’ but ‘Am I the right person? Who am I?’”

Often it’s a case of relational ambivalence, about which you have mixed emotions, she says. “This question of, ‘Shall I stay or shall I go? It’s too good to leave, it’s too bad to stay. Am I happy enough? Is there another life for me? And can I take the steps towards it?’ ”

After almost 40 years, Perel has seen dramatic changes in what brings people to her practice.Credit: Katie McCurdy

Married with two children, Esther and husband Jack Saul – an academic and psychologist – met when she was 23. They were good friends before they got involved romantically. Did she think he was “The One” when they met? “No, I did not. We were very close friends for two years before we got together. But I knew I’d never had that depth of connection with anybody, that nobody had ever talked with me at that level.”

Several decades on from their meeting, she says there is no way they are in the same relationship. “We were able to shift it, to create different dynamics all the time. That nimbleness, that ability to be creative in a relationship, is what will help people reinvent themselves.

“It’s not just this notion of, ‘Have I found the right person?’ but ‘Am I the right person? Who am I?’”

“I often joke but it’s actually true: most of us today are going to have two or three relationships or marriages in our adult life and some of us will do it with the same person.”

While people applaud long-term relationships, she points out that longevity is not necessarily a marker of success; people can stay together for years and be entirely miserable.

After almost 40 years, Esther has seen dramatic changes in what brings people to her practice. Being in a sexless marriage or having a cheating partner was not something people came to therapy for several decades ago. It was just how it was, she says.

Nowadays, infidelity is a primary entry point for therapy. She recalls when gay couples started coming, then it was people exploring polyamorous relationships, platonic co-parenting, relationships where someone had come out, or couples wanting to explore their queerness. These things have emerged over time and become triggers for help.

Does she think we place too much expectation on one individual? “Yes, it’s a set-up,” she says. “We need multiple relationships: family bonds, friendships, colleagues, creative partners, sometimes it is other romantic partners. We want one person to give us what once an entire village would have provided.”

Esther argues that we ask our romantic partners to give and meet us with a set of contradictory needs. “This idea that we want anchoring, stability, predictability, safety, dependability, security, but also adventure, freedom, exploration and curiosity, passion and excitement – that’s the paradox.”

“Most of us today are going to have two or three relationships or marriages in our adult life and some of us will do it with the same person.”

We are asking the same person to meet two fundamentally different sets of needs, which are often in opposition to each other, she says. “The art of modern love is the reconciliation of these two opposing forces; it’s not impossible but it is an art that changes all the time,” she says. “It demands nimbleness and agility, with very centred people, that’s the beauty of it.”

Those who succeed have relationships that are way better than the relationships of the past, she says.

Interestingly, Esther says couples therapy is the most difficult of all therapies. So why does she do it? “It is endlessly fascinating, and incredible how two people can create heaven and hell,” she says.

“That’s why I created the podcast. It’s a phenomenal thing how people can tell you what happened yesterday and then the other person tells you, this is what happened yesterday. Those stories can be quite different, even though they describe the same events.

“The ability to live with multiple perspectives is one of the constant challenges of life,” Esther says. “That’s an art, that’s more than a science.”

Esther Perel will be in Sydney on November 25 and December 3, in Melbourne on November 27 and in Brisbane on December 1. Buy tickets here.

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