Overview of Esther Calling — One Relationship. Two Truths.
A caller tells Esther Perel about a two-year secondary relationship that felt uniquely alive and loving, but which was built on decades-long deception: her boyfriend had been secretly cheating on his primary partner and lying about being polyamorous. Two months after finally ending the relationship (after discovering repeated lies), she remains shattered — holding two irreconcilable truths at once: the realness of the love she felt and the enormity of the betrayal. Esther helps her articulate, contain, and begin to integrate those opposing truths without annihilating either.
Episode summary
- Context: Caller has been married 11 years, polyamorous with husband for ~5 years. She entered a two-year lover relationship that felt intensely alive and true.
- Rupture: She discovered the lover had lied — he had never been poly with his primary partner; she was a secret lover and his primary partner had not known. Friends confronted him, he admitted the deception to the caller. Later, when she checked his phone, she found further dating activity against their agreement — she ended the relationship two months prior to the call.
- Aftermath: Caller exported message history and used ChatGPT to pull out instances of deceit — identified 63 pages of lies and manipulations. Emotionally she oscillates between grief, deep gratitude for the lived intimacy, righteous anger, disgust, and confusion about how to hold both realities.
- Esther’s therapeutic stance: She normalizes the coexistence of conflicting feelings, reframes integration as “letting two animals lie next to each other” rather than forcing one to win, and gives practical ways to hold both truth and betrayal simultaneously.
Key themes & main takeaways
- Coexistence of opposing truths: A relationship and the love inside it can be real even when parts of the context were built on deception.
- Integration vs. erasure: Integrating conflicting truths doesn’t mean excusing the wrongdoing; it means allowing both sorrow and gratitude to occupy the same inner space.
- Don’t force tidy stories: Trying to create a single coherent narrative too soon prolongs distress. Allow the mess to be messy.
- Compassion as preservation: Seeing the deceiver’s brokenness with regulated compassion can help preserve the genuine parts of the relationship (the caller’s aliveness) without negating the betrayal.
- Body as an instrument: Physicalizing emotions (postures, sounds, sensations) can shift internal experience faster than cognition alone.
- Grief and rage are both necessary: They meet and transform each other over time — each must be allowed expression.
Notable quotes and therapeutic insights
- “Two animals cannot be one animal. And I stopped fighting that.” — on allowing contradictory feelings to coexist rather than forcing integration.
- “If I allow myself to only focus on the wrongdoings… I don't know how to hold the fact that the love… was equally true.” — caller articulates central dilemma.
- Esther: “The aliveness is inside of you.” — the vitality felt in the relationship travels with the caller and is not solely owned by the ex.
- Practical metaphor: “Let them quietly lie next to each other.” — a vivid image to hold opposing emotions without annihilation.
Practical recommendations and actions suggested
- Step back from the “ring”: Create psychological distance from the internal fight (mental imagery, pause practices).
- Sooth both forces: Don’t try to banish anger or nostalgia; soothe and validate both so they lose the need to fight.
- Physicalize feelings: Use posture, breath and movement to access disgust, grief, delight, and safety (e.g., embodying the sensations associated with each).
- Keep the archive, but use it functionally: Reviewing messages can validate intuition but balance archival work with containment so it doesn’t become obsessive.
- Boundaries & closure: The caller instituted no-contact and ended the relationship after repeated violations — clear boundaries preserved integrity.
- Allow time: Two months is early; expect evolving emotions. Grief may precede or alternate with anger and forgiveness.
- Seek support: Continue therapy, lean on primary partner (who supported her), and allow community to witness the mess without shaming.
- Preserve the positive: Claim the “aliveness” as yours to carry forward into other relationships and life.
Emotional timeline & context details (concise)
- Marriage: 11 years (married 8), poly for ~5 years (entered intentionally with a therapist).
- Secondary relationship: ~2 years, intense intimacy and feeling of being deeply seen.
- Discovery: Friends confronted lover → lover admitted he’d been cheating (not poly) → caller connected with his primary partner and others; found pervasive minimizing and lies.
- Final breach: Discovered lover had gone on date without disclosure; ended relationship ~2 months before episode.
- Current state: Persistent shock, oscillation between grief, love, anger, and confusion.
Who will find this episode useful
- People coping with betrayal in consensual non-monogamy (or monogamy) who need a model for holding ambivalent feelings.
- Anyone struggling to reconcile a meaningful positive experience with evidence of deception.
- Therapists and support persons looking for language and metaphors to help clients integrate conflicting emotions.
- Listeners interested in relational ethics, boundaries, and the emotional complexity of polyamory.
Final framing from the episode
Esther’s therapeutic core message: you can hold the truth of your pain and the truth of your aliveness at the same time. Integration is not about choosing which truth to keep; it’s about creating an inner container where both realities coexist without erasing each other — through time, boundaries, physical practices, compassion, and patient grieving.