How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel

About this video

Huberman hosts Esther Perel, a psychotherapist and author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, to discuss how to find, build, and maintain healthy romantic relationships. Perel explores identity within relationships, how partners both hold onto and evolve themselves over time, and how functional relationships develop through curiosity and adventure. She examines the dynamics underneath conflict rather than specific scenarios, what healthy conflict resolution looks like, and what Perel describes as a truly effective apology. In the slices, Perel outlines conflict patterns as pursuer-pursuer, distancer-distancer, and pursuer-distancer dynamics, and argues that shifting from competing stories about what happened toward feeling states and physiological states is a first step. She also contrasts love and desire, noting they can run in parallel or in opposite directions, and invites people to examine their own models of both.

Key takeaways

• Esther Perel argues that healthy relationships require both holding onto identity and evolving over time.
• Perel describes conflict patterns including pursuer-pursuer, distancer-distancer, and pursuer-distancer dynamics.
• Perel recommends parsing feeling and physiological states rather than only debating competing stories of a conflict.
• Perel discusses what a truly effective apology looks and sounds like.
• Perel contrasts love and desire and how they can move in parallel or opposite directions.

Episode details: published September 16, 2024 · 1.3M views · 2:06:14 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The science and protocols described are Andrew Huberman’s, presented for education — not medical advice. Consult a qualified professional before changing your own health practices.

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