Blog | Relationship Resources for Couples & Individuals

Letters from Esther #11 - Change is in the Details

Letters from Esther is my monthly newsletter and livestream to inspire reflection and action in areas that are important for your relational intelligence. This month's theme is: Change is in the Details.

A Look Inside Couples Therapy: How a Podcast Turned into a Global Mental Health Resource

Hearing others’ experiences can help us with our own. Read more about how Where Should Begin? came to be and what you can gain from listening to the stories and struggles of other couples.

Opportunity from Tragedy: Realign, Reprioritize, and Rebuild Emotional Connections

The New Normal is here and it requires a new mindset—a curiosity about what we want for ourselves, with our partners and families, with our dates and friends, and with our work lives. Read more about how you can begin to rethink your emotional connections in this new landscape.

Letters From Esther #10 - The Joy of Complaining

My monthly newsletter to stay in touch and inspire reflection and action in areas that are important for your relational intelligence. This month's theme is: The Joy of Complaining.

What Is This Feeling? Anticipatory Grief and Other New Pandemic-Related Emotions

The unprecedented crisis caused by the novel coronavirus has left us with a set of unfamiliar emotions. Read more to learn about these new emotions you may be experiencing and what to do about them.

Letters From Esther #9: Life and Love Under Lockdown

My monthly newsletter to stay in touch and inspire reflection and action in areas that are important for your relational intelligence. This month's theme is: Life and Love Under Lockdown.

How to Engage in Social Connection While Socially Distancing

How do our communities remain emotionally and socially connected when we must be physically apart? Read more on how to stay connected in a time of uncertainty.

Letters From Esther #8: The Myth of Self-Love

Letters from Esther is my monthly newsletter to stay in touch and inspire reflection and action in areas that are important for your relational intelligence. This month's theme is: The Myth of Self-Love.

Letters from Esther #21: Risk

My monthly newsletter and workshop is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Risk.

Letter's from Esther #20: Play

My monthly newsletter and workshop are meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Play.

Letters From Esther #19: Routines and Rituals

My monthly newsletter and workshop is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Routine and Rituals.

Letters from Esther #18: Questions That Meet People Where They Are Now

Letters From Esther #17 - Eroticism Suffered in 2020; Fantasy Thrived

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Eroticism Suffered in 2020; Fantasy Thrived.

Letters from Esther #16: Who Was There For You?

My monthly newsletter and workshop series meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: Who Was There For You?

Letters From Esther #15: The Only Certainty Is Change

My monthly newsletter meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: The Only Certainty is Change

Letters from Esther #14: What Death Can Teach Us About Life

My monthly newsletter meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships. This month's theme is: What Death Can Teach Us About Life.

Intimacy and Your 5 Senses: How to Invite Eroticism into Your Relationship When You’re Feeling Depleted

Eroticism is fundamental to maintaining intimacy when couples are facing challenges, whether they are coming from inside of the relationship or from external stress in our lives. Read more about how to use the power of your senses to practice eroticism and increase intimacy when you’re feeling depleted.

In Long-Term Relationships, When Do You Find Yourself Most Drawn to Your Partner?

Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act in long-term relationships. It requires knowing your partner while recognizing their persistent mystery. Read more on the one simple question that reminds us to appreciate our partner’s otherness and what the four most common responses tell us.

Sexless Relationship? Take the First Step Toward Reconnection.

From physical challenges to breaches of trust to parenting exhaustion and beyond, there are so many reasons couples fall into a sexless relationship. Read more on how to shift your focus and take the first step toward intimate reconnection. A hint: it has nothing to do with frequency.

Sex? After Kids? - A Podcast with Dr. Becky

What happens when two become three, or four, or five? Who is responsible for the needs and wants of a couple when days are filled with playdates, pick-ups, and meal preps? Nights lack the erotic energy that couples need not only to survive but to thrive. Dr. Becky and Esther Perel come together to talk about what parents can do to rekindle their desires.

The Power of Apologizing: Relearn How to Say “I’m Sorry”

A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. Read more on the power of apologizing and relearn how to say "I'm Sorry."

The 3 Types of Relationship Fights You Keep Having—And What To Do About Them

Your relationship arguments aren't always about what you think they are. Read more to learn about the three hidden dimensions under most relationship fights and how to break the loop.

Owning Your Part: Self-Accountability in Relationships

Relationship dynamics go beyond the binary of perpetrator and victim, powerful and powerless, betrayed and betrayer—the accountant and the accountable. Recognizing that all parties are a piece of the pie does not mean that everyone’s slice is the same size and made up of the same ingredients. But owning your part is essential to breaking through impasses. Read more about the practice of self-accountability in relationships.

The Myth of Unconditional Love in Romantic Relationships

“Relational Ambivalence” is the experience of contradictory thoughts and feelings—of love and hate, attraction and disgust, excitement and fear, contempt and envy—toward someone with whom we are in a relationship. It exists in every relational configuration, but we put a lot of pressure on romantic love, in particular, to rise above it. Read more on how ambivalence shows up in your romantic relationships and the common responses to it.

Articles

Letters from Esther #61: The Art of Erotic Communication