Esther Perel

Go for the investigative questions rather than the detective questions.

For the meaning, not for the meaning, not the fact, because it's in the meaning that you will also understand.

Did it have anything to do with you or with your relationship or did it have absolutely nothing to do with you?

Which is hard to believe, but is actually a lot of the time the case really is nothing to do with you.

Yes, to do with the fact that I felt lousy about myself, that I felt lonely, that I didn't really feel like you were giving me enough attention or that I thought, you know, suddenly somebody is laughing at my jokes again and, you know.

Let me tell you in one sentence that to me became a real, sometimes...

people go to look for the gaze of another, not because they're looking for another partner, but they're looking for another self.

Not that they want to leave the person that they are with, but they want to leave the person that they have themselves become.

Oh, shit.

What they're dealing with is their depression, is their loss, is their grief, is their aging, is their whatever issues inside, is the way that they lost themselves into, you know, they forgot who they are and all of that.

And that's what they are reclaiming.

And their sense is that they can't reclaim it in the same place where they lost it.

But it's not the other person's fault that they lost any of it.

Yes, you were into women.

You were into...

Like which is easier for someone to... Depends who.

So I think the most important piece that you're saying here is that every thinking about infidelity in a relationship is a dual perspective.

What it meant to you and what it did to me.

So the first thing in phase one is I need you to know what it did to me.

You don't go instantly for what it meant.