Articles

Letters from Esther #65: Is love worth it?

Letters from Esther #64: Searching for Connection in a Disconnected Era

Letters from Esther #63: New Year, New Possibilities

Monthly Newsletter

Letters from Esther

Exclusive personal reflections from Esther on relevant relationship topics.

Important takeaways to help you develop your relational intelligence.

A curated list of related resources to further explore. 

Letters From Esther #38: How I Learned to do What I do

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 topic is centered on a commonly asked question: How did I learn to do what I do?

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.

Letters From Esther #37: Eroticism is an Art. But It’s Also a Practice.

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 focus is on practicing eroticism in your relationship.

How to Introduce Role Play Ideas To Your Partner

Role play and fantasy are playful opportunities to break routines and enhance excitement and pleasure in the bedroom. We all have imaginative resources that allow us to play and be curious and to ask ourselves: what would it look and feel like to be intimate together in a different way? Read more on simple steps to help you introduce role play ideas to your partner.

Letters From Esther #36: Fighting with your Partner about Values?

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 focus is on clashing with your partner around values.

Finding Freedom in What Feels Good: 3 Reasons to Embrace Foreplay

Contrary to popular assumptions, foreplay is so much more than just the physical suggestion that kick-starts sex. Let’s adjust the lens. Read more on three reasons to embrace foreplay as the freedom to experience what feels good, for no other goal than pure pleasure—from a quick warmup to lasting erotic energy.

Letters from Esther #35: The Last Time I Felt Free…

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: The feeling of freedom.

Letters From Esther #34: How Are You?

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.

Letters from Esther #65: Is love worth it?

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #64: Searching for Connection in a Disconnected Era

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #63: New Year, New Possibilities

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #62: How do you connect to others?

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #61: The Art of Erotic Communication

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #60: Reconnect to Your Erotic Self

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #59: “Nobody’s f*cking anymore.”

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

Letters from Esther #58: Introducing The Arc of Love

My monthly newsletter is meant to inspire you to reflect, act, and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all of your relationships.

How Erotic Thinking Helps Emotional Connection

Creativity is where Eroticism lives. No matter how effective our routines have been—or how much we’ve even enjoyed them—if they’re not filled with creativity, they inevitably leave us numb. Read more on how eroticism helps emotional connection.

Why Do Sexual Taboos Make Up Our Sexual Fantasies?

Is your sexual fantasy normal? In short, yes. Our sexual fantasies, and the taboos they contain, are symbolic maps of our deepest needs and wishes. Accessing that vulnerability can turn our sex lives from a ledger into something so much greater, but getting there is a taboo in and of itself. It means talking about it. Read more about sexual fantasies and how they're more normal than you may think.

Why Eroticism Should Be Part of your Self-Care Plan

Self-care isn’t just about facemasks and mindfulness. It’s about tuning into our bodies and letting them teach us what we like, what we don’t like, and what we don’t know about ourselves yet. Read more about what it means to incorporate eroticism into your self-care plan and why it's important.

The Best Steamy Movie Scenes—And Why You Should Indulge

There is something to be said for the specific elixir of escapism and engagement that a great sex scene can inspire in us, whether we’re watching alone or with a partner, in bed or cozied up on the couch with candles lit. Read more for a collection of steamy movie scenes from Esther and our community, and why you should indulge.

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."

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 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.

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.

You can also browse articles, Letters from Esther, and Podcast Episodes in our “Focus On” sections, where we group resources based on important relational topics.

Communication and Connection

Security vs. Freedom

Intimate Relationships