Perhaps the best evidence that Esther Perel’s brand as a sex-and-relationships expert is strong is how often her name is invoked in instances of infidelity. Recently, as lurid details of a very public breakup between the political journalists Ryan Lizza and Olivia Nuzzi trickled into the public, Lizza shared that the couple attempted to salvage their relationship by reading “a lot of Esther Perel.” Elsewhere, a new play about a couple opening up their relationship is titled “Esther Perel Ruined My Life.” The 67-year-old psychotherapist is so steeped in the contours of affairs that she even served as a consultant on the popular 2017 Showtime drama, The Affair.
That Perel’s ideas remain part of the zeitgeist is proof that she’s a gifted communicator in nearly every format she’s tried her hand at over the years. Her books are widely read, best-selling reference points for navigating modern relationships, her podcasts about relationships and work frequently rank among Spotify and Apple’s top 50 culture podcasts, and her Instagram is a one-stop shop for tips on how to have better sex, get along with your mother-in-law, and stay polite during the holidays.
Perel’s time-tested, patented method of relational intelligence is just as important today as it’s ever been, especially in a moment where modern dating is largely considered to be a wasteland. Earlier this year GQ surveyed American men on the state of masculinity and found that only 56% found it easy to talk to women about dating and sex—a figure up from 47% in 2019. Meanwhile 43% of men under the age of 35 struggled with feelings of loneliness. Perel doesn’t deny that things are bad out there. Instead, she asks that we confront it head on, communicating our needs, hearing other people out, and moving out of our comfort zone.
“These days, it’s not older people who are isolated, it’s young people, people in their teens and in their 20s,” she said earlier this year on her YouTube page. “Here’s the thing: You don’t need to meet people who are thinking [or voting] like you…. You need to enter their world and bring them into your world.”
Communication is Perel’s secret sauce, the muscle she’s worked her whole life that’s allowed her to bridge interracial, intercultural, and interreligious couples. The Belgian native is fluent in nine languages: Polish, German, Yiddish, French, Dutch, Flemish, English, Spanish, and Arabic. Shifting her mind between them all allowed Perel to understand the idiosyncrasies of couples around the world, to solve problems between the most disparate of arrangements and to understand that each different society comes with entirely different norms when it comes to love and relationships. After studying French literature in Jerusalem, Perel came to the United States to earn a master’s in expressive art therapy. During clinical rotations as a therapist in a Boston hospital, she used her Spanish and French literacy to counsel non-English-speaking patients. It was then she realized that, beyond basic communication, this also allowed her to better understand cultural paradigms and enhance her counseling.