Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
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Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
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 th...
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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 marria...
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 discove...
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...
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...
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 bu...
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...
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 quest...
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 w...
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 ques...
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...
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 conversatio...
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 li...
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 emo...
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 f...
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...
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.
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...
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 ma...
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...
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. Year...
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...
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 i...
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...
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 s...
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...
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 infidel...
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...
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...
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 ra...
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 relationshi...
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 herse...
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...
Esther Calling - 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 o...
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...
Esther Calling - 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...
Esther Calling - 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 sp...
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 h...
Esther Calling - He Doesn't Believe in Marriage, But I Can't Let Go of the Hope
When her younger sister gets engaged, a woman finds herself spiraling with unexpected grief and frustration. She’s spent years in relationships with m...
Is It Our ADHD, OCD, and PTSD? Or Is It Us?
A couple sits down with Esther Perel to untangle trust, control, and intimacy after becoming parents. He feels weighed down by anxiety and responsibil...
Breaking News Has Broken Us
This is a classic session of How's Work? A large and scattered network of journalists meet for a virtual session with Esther. Over the past year, they...