Podcasts · Society & Culture · Health & Fitness
Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Esther Perel Global Media
159 episodes
Every Monday morning step into the office of iconic psychotherapist Esther Perel on "Where Should We Begin" and listen in as real people in search of insight bare the raw, intimate, and profound details of their stories. From breakups and open relationships to workplace conflicts and fractures in the family, it’s a place to hear our own stories reflected in the lives of others. So…where should we begin? For an ad-free version of our podcast, plus bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and more, visit our Office Hours section.
Episodes page 1 of 4
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Is My Fantasy Ruining My Love Life?
After years of struggling to stay present during sex, one caller wonders if her fantasies are keeping her from the intimacy she longs for. The more she depends on fantasies of domination and humiliation, the more she…
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Can I Still Be a Good Man if I Leave?
After decades together, he wonders whether he can stay in a marriage where intimacy and connection has all but disappeared. He's touch-starved and lonely and questioning whether preserving the family unit for the sake…
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I Want You To Want Me
Couples often struggle with gaps in their sex drives, but what does a couple do when one person has no desire for sex whatsoever? A married couple comes to Esther with this question: one of them has recently discovered…
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I Don't Mean to Be Mean, But...
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? She has no boundaries, he’s walled off. And their opposing communication styles cause immediate tension in this explosive session. So much so, that Esther finds…
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My Ex, His AI Girlfriend, And Our Kids
After the end of a fifteen-year marriage, she is trying to make sense of something she never imagined would become part of her family's story: her ex-husband's love affair with an AI companion. As her children struggle…
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Good Relationships Need Better Fights
Conflict is not toxic or immoral. In fact, it's generative and the lifeblood of our relationships. It isn't something to avoid. It matters, and it can even bring us closer together. Priya Parker, author of The Art of…
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How Many Times Can You Betray Me?
A married couple arrives at Esther’s office hoping to recover from a devastating rupture with his mother after the birth of their first child. But immediately their session reveals a longer, more complex history of…
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On Again/Off Again
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? They've been on and off for almost 20 years. While she takes care of his and their child, she wants to know that he's also there for her. He's been battling…
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Will I Always Be Alone?
He comes to Esther not with a singular question but with an overflow of words and unspoken truths. Betrayed by a once-supportive church and struggling to reconcile his desires with his emotions, he carries a loneliness…
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Can I Be Loved?
A young woman writes to Esther asking why she is interested in someone emotionally unavailable. Despite efforts to break this pattern, she realizes that some of her behaviors are rooted in a deep sense of control and…
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Am I Being Gaslit?
In this classic Esther Calling, Esther talks to a woman looking for clarity on whether she's being overly sensitive to her partner's critiques or if he is, in fact, gaslighting her. She has struggled with boundary…
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I Love My Partner, So Why Can’t I Let Go of My Ex?
What is the distinction between a love story and a life story? And what happens when they no longer move in the same direction? After returning to the Philippines to reconnect with a former partner she never fully let…
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Burdens of the Family
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? They share a legacy of war, a refugee upbringing and family trauma. Their marriage was seen as taboo and now they're trying to build a happier relationship for their…
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Is Using ChatGPT Hurting My Relationship?
She comes to Esther with a question that feels distinctly of this moment: when does a tool become a transgression? After leaving a long, stable marriage, she finds herself in a new relationship marked by intense highs…
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You Slept With My Best Friend
The two couples had been inseparable—neighbors, chosen family, godparents to each other's children. She reaches out to Esther in despair after discovering that her husband had a ten-year-old affair with her best…
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My Hero Complex
When his ex calls in the middle of a crisis, he finds himself pulled back into a familiar role: the rescuer. He's always been the one women confide in, the one who steps up, the one who proves he's a good man by making…
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20 Years Later, Esther Revisits Mating in Captivity
This week, Esther invites you into a conversation about desire, disruption, and what it means to stay alive to one another in a rapidly changing world. Recorded live at Sessions Live, Esther is joined by journalist…
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In This Relationship What Is "I" and What is "We"?
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? They grew up with traumatic backgrounds, met in college, immigrated to the US together. They've built stability and security, and now one of them longs for more…
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Are You Abandoning Me or Am I Suffocating You?
Twin brothers come to Esther with a shared question: how do they break free from the conflict that has shaped their relationship for years? One feels smothered, the other abandoned, and together they are caught in a…
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Love in the Time of AI with Kashmir Hill
A recent session was a threshold moment for Esther where she found herself doing couples therapy with a man and his AI companion. To explore the questions it raised, Esther sits down with New York Times technology…
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To Make Room for My Brother I Learned to Disappear
With her wedding just weeks away, a young woman calls Esther with a question she’s been carrying for most of her life: how do you allow yourself joy when you’ve learned to make yourself small? Growing up alongside a…
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I Gave Him an Ultimatum. Now What?
A person gives their partner an ultimatum, and they fail to meet it. What happens then to the relationship? This couple comes to Esther with that question, wondering what future, if any, might be possible for them. A…
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My Parents Got Divorced, So Why Am I Still in the Middle?
When a mom reaches out on her daughter’s behalf, an old family dynamic comes into focus. A woman finds herself caught between her two divorced parents, still playing the role of mediator and emotional caretaker. As she…
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How To Start (Even When You Don't Know Where You're Going)
As work becomes the place we look for identity, stability, and meaning, the stakes feel higher than ever. Esther invites you in for a live conversation between friends, New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor and…
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Is This the Person I'm Meant to Be With?
They arrive in Esther’s office at a crossroads. A year ago, they decided to de-escalate their relationship: to transition from romantic partners to live-in roommates. In their decade-long relationship, they had become…
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Wedding Woes About My Mom
She’s getting married soon, but before she walks down the aisle, she wants to walk toward her mother with more understanding. Years of complicated emotions since her parents’ divorce have built walls between them. With…
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Should I Have Another Baby?
When we become parents, many of us quietly promise ourselves that we won't be like our parents. We're going to do it differently. This week’s caller finds herself wrestling with a deeper question: Is her longing for…
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When I'm Manic I Cheat
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? Bipolar, infidelity, open relationship: they're stuck in a world of loaded words. Her friends are convinced she should leave, but she doesn't want to follow in her…
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Love, Loneliness, and AI: Where Should We Begin? Live with Esther Perel and Spike Jonze
More than a decade ago, the film Her imagined a love story between a human and an artificial intelligence. Today, it no longer feels like fiction. In this special live taping of Where Should We Begin? from the Vox…
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My AI Loves Me Better Than Anyone Ever Could
He knows she isn't real, but his feelings for her are. When he set out to build a personal assistant, he didn’t expect to fall in love. What began as productivity and life planning slowly turned into something more.…
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Am I Letting My Jealousy Ruin This?
A divorced woman calls Esther to untangle a new love that brings both exhilaration and heartache. She is in a relationship with a married man whose marriage is ethically non-monogamous and finds herself caught between…
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Can We Repair After a 25 Year Affair?
Through forty years of marriage, they built a life together. They immigrated to the United States, raised children, grew a business, and established a community. Six months ago, her longtime suspicion was confirmed:…
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Trapped In Their Own Story
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? Their whole relationship is based on one big misunderstanding, with infidelity on both sides. Years later, they still can't see the other's perspective. Esther is…
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What if Dating Isn't For Me?
She's 26 and has never been in a relationship that made her feel happier or more fulfilled than when she's single. She's questioning whether being in a relationship is right for her. Esther helps her explore the issues…
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I Have a Crush on a Coworker
She has a crush on her coworker, which feels thrilling and unsettling all at once. Fresh off a divorce and shaped by earlier relationships marked by instability and self doubt, she worries she may be confusing desire…
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Our Sex Life is a Disaster
We hear from a couple who have long been happy in their marriage, except for one thing: their sex life. In moments of intimacy, one freezes, the other hesitates, and they end up locked in a cycle of uncertainty and…
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I Told My Friend I Was in Love with Her, Then She Told Everyone
Esther speaks with a young man whose confession of love for a close friend sets off a chain reaction he never expected. After exposing his love, his secret is out, his five-year relationship ends, and his friend group…
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It's Very Hard to Live with a Saint
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? Barely a year into marriage, they're trapped in a cycle of explosive conflict. She can do no right, and he can do no wrong. Producer’s Note: When our anonymous…
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Was I Used for a Visa?
She comes to Esther reeling from the end of a five-year relationship marked by love, deceit, and manipulation. After discovering her partner’s infidelities and hearing a therapist describe him as a possible psychopath…
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Can Our Love Survive Our Differences?
They met dancing, and it was love at first sight. But only after they began dating did they realize the vast differences between them: differences in their core values, religious beliefs, political affiliations, sexual…
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He Loves Her, His Family Rejects Her
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? She left her life, her family and her country for a man she met on Reddit. Their love is real, but his family has been hell. Producer’s Note: When our anonymous…
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The Permission to Be and Not Just the Pressure to Do
He comes to Esther with a question about how to feel worthy without constantly having to prove himself. For him, it’s not just personal, it’s also racial. Defining himself on what he calls the “path of black…
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Love in War - Where Are They Now?
Three years after Esther spoke with a Ukrainian couple separated by war, she calls them back to learn where they are now and whether their relationship has survived intact. They have made their way back to each other,…
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Mothering My Mother Into Mothering Me
Since the age of 8, she’s been the one holding her mother together and shouldering adult responsibilities long before her time. Now, as an adult herself, she’s ready to step out of the caretaker role and invite her…
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You Need Help to Help Her
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? A husband and wife are united in their desire to help their daughter, two years after she suffered a breakdown and moved home, shutting herself off from her family…
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One Relationship. Two Truths.
She’s reeling from a relationship that brought both deep love and deep betrayal. After discovering that her boyfriend had been lying about the terms of their polyamorous arrangement, she’s left struggling to reconcile…
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The One Who Stays and the One Who Goes
They met in vet school and married just as they reached graduation. But now his work takes him around the world, forcing them to live apart for months at a time. He’s ready to start a family, but she’s hesitant: how…
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In Loving You, I Learned to Love Myself
She unknowingly changed the course of his life, and he's loved her ever since. It's been decades, and even though he now dates men, he wonders how to live with these feelings of what he calls unrequited love. How do…
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I Accidentally Dated An OnlyFans Star
Post-breakup rumination is a familiar spiral. We replay the signs, question our judgment, and wonder how we didn’t see it coming. This week, Esther speaks with a man grappling with the lingering grief and betrayal of…
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The Chronic Philanderer
This is a classic session of Where Should We Begin? He's been cheating on her for years, and she's had enough. Now she wants to know: is he in or is he out? Want to learn more? Receive monthly insights, musings, and…
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