Huberman Episode - Esther Perel on Relationships

Huberman When we enter relationships, are we looking to (whether we know it or not) extend our identity in its current form, or update it?

Perel Completely both. We want to change, but only so much. I am drawn to you because you are structured, organized, disciplined, I am not, and I seek to be. At the same time, I might start resenting you for your rigidity. Maybe we seek others as catalysts for change, but when the friction starts we get defensive. We want change, and we want stability. Sometimes these desires complement each other, other times they contradict each other.

Cornerstone relationship: Two people meet in their 20s and grow up together, develop their identities together.

Capstone relationship: Couple meets 10 or 20 years later and partner serves as confirmation of already established identity.

Today, we have 2 or 3 relationships in our adult lives. Some of us do it with the same person, but the relationship has to change.

In the modern age, when it comes to relationships, we have more options than ever before:

• You can get married later
• You can have children later
• You can move around
• You can join someone who already has kids
• You can be part of a throuple

This freedom is rich but comes with a tremendous amount of anxiety and requires a certain set of skills to navigate.

We need curiosity to navigate issues with other people.

Language

Huberman We’ve developed all this sophisticated language for describing our relationships and our roles in them (e.g. attachment style, love language), which kind of presumes that relationships can be navigated in a methodical way. Maybe some of the categorizations we assign ourselves are limiting? What if we should treat relationships as more of an art than a science?

Perel Some naming is very useful. It frames things and gives them a foundation. Language matters and is important for understanding. At the same time, we might have completely different understandings of the same words.

In times of conflict we have confirmation bias. confirmation bias = looking for any evidence that reinforces your beliefs while disregarding any evidence which contradicts it.

We also have fundamental attribution error. “I’m complex and you’re simple”.

• If I’m in a bad mood, there’s a reason why
• If you are, it’s because you are a grumpy person

We categorize and totalize the behavior of others.

This kinds of cognitive biases have names and those names are useful for neutralizing us.

Language can also be reductive and narrow our view of someone.

• E.g. calling someone an “addict”

Naming is useful when it expands your understaning. It is not useful when it locks you into a symptom, when it is reductive and gives “false certainty to prophets”.

Sex

Huberman Some view sex as the microcosm of a relationship, as in, behavior during sex reflects greater aspects of the relationship. Thoughts

Perel Sexuality is a window into a society. It’s also a window into a person.

Historically, sex has been identified with procreation. Nowadays, we view it performance + outcome. Let’s think of it more as an experience.

Sex isn’t just something you do, it’s a place you go. Where do you go during sex? Why? Do you seek:

• deep spiritual union
• deep intimacy and conneciton
• transcendence
• vulnerability/ surrender
• a place to be taken care of
• a place to feel powerful? naughty?
• fun
• an opportunity to abdicate your responsibilities

Sexuality is a deeply coded language for our deepest rooted needs. “Sex is never just sex”.

Some believe that sex problems are a consequence of relationship problems. However, Perel has seen many relationships where things improved outside the bedroom without improving inside the bedroom. So maybe sexuality is not a metaphor of the relationship, maybe it is a parallel narrative to it.

“When you change the sexuality in a couple, you change the whole relationship.” But not necessarily the other way around.

Love and desire are fundementally separate things and modern relationships seek to fuse the two of them. That is the “great experiment” of modern society. Perel seems to think this experiment has been successful.

Ask yourself: What do you think of when you think of love? What about desire? How about what it means to you for someone else to love you? Desire you?

Investigate whether these ideas are related and compatible or not.

“Your sexual fantasies are a translation of your deepest emotional needs” The problem of sexuality in modern society is the literalness with which we approach it, and in our pornographic society, even more so, to our detriment."