Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel

Episode: "Was I Used for a Visa?" (January 12, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this poignant session, Esther Perel speaks with a caller grappling with the aftermath of a devastating breakup. After sponsoring her partner for a visa in Australia and sharing nearly five years together, she discovered his infidelity and now questions the authenticity of their relationship. The conversation explores grief, self-doubt, trust, and the process of reconciling lived experience with painful revelations—especially when external advice, including from a therapist, challenges one’s deepest truths. The episode features the caller’s struggle to reclaim self-trust, the meaning of love, and how to move forward from betrayal.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Shattering Discovery

• Caller shares her story: After sponsoring her long-term partner for Australian permanent residency, he left her and she later discovered years of infidelity.
• The sense of betrayal is compounded by hearing from a therapist that she may have been "used for a visa" and manipulated by a "psychopath or a narcissist."
• Caller struggles between factual evidence of betrayal and the "realness" of the love she felt.

Memorable Quote:

"Facts have come to light that probably support the psychologist’s assessment and yet there's a part of me that wants to hold on to the felt experience of love." (Caller, 00:00)

A Love Polarized by Reality

• Caller is caught between the story she lived ("deep care, love, and kindness") and new, harsh realities.
• She obsesses over the past, questioning "Was any of it real?" and looks for signs she missed.

Quote:

"The relationship and my experience in it is completely polarized from the facts that came to light." (Caller, 03:56)

The Story of the Relationship

• Relationship began in Melbourne during COVID lockdowns.
• Initial intimacy—bonding over personal losses, deep connection, physical affection—felt intensely real to the caller.
• Partner shared about his mother's suicide, wore her wedding ring, and eventually opened up more emotionally.
• Issues arose: sexual distancing (partner lost his libido), visa stress, and inability to integrate love and sex.

Segment:

• [04:35–07:09] Relationship timeline, dynamics, his background, and onset of issues.

Sexual Disconnect, Closeness, and Intimacy

• The couple struggled with a divide between emotional intimacy and sexual connection, with the partner avoiding eye contact and intimacy during sex but being otherwise affectionate outside of sex.

Perel’s Analysis:

"Sometimes, the way I get excited, what frees me, what allows me to let go, is a certain kind of objectification... Tender will come after or before or around, but not in that experience itself." (Esther Perel, 13:29)

The Visa Factor: Was Love Genuine or Transactional?

• The caller questions whether her partner’s relationship with her was love or a calculated move for residency.
• She details how she was the one to push for a partner visa to resolve uncertainty, making the betrayal feel deeper.

The Fallout: Discovery, Gaslighting, and Fact-Finding

• After the breakup, caller uncovers cheating (multiple partners, inappropriate workplace relations).
• In therapy, the partner expresses both remorse and distress, confusing the caller, while her therapist labels him as a manipulator, pressing her to cut contact for her own safety.

Quote:

"She was basically saying to me, yeah, he's just completely manipulating... Nothing he’s saying is real." (Caller, 27:45)

• Family and friends offer conflicting character references.
• The caller faces an internal war between two narratives: her lived experience and the “psychopath” label applied by her therapist.

Perel Challenges the Binary

• Perel urges caution with rigid labels ("psychopath", "narcissist", "love addict"), emphasizing ambiguity in human behavior and relationships.
• She points out that even harmful people can love and be loved, and that the caller maintained awareness and agency throughout:

"It's not like you were transported in something that made no sense... You had your head on your shoulders quite well." (Esther Perel, 32:26)

• Esther questions how the caller internalized the therapist’s diagnosis:

"How much power do you want to give my profession?" (Esther Perel, 44:04)

The Power of Narratives and Moving Forward

• The caller's core wound: a loss of trust in her own judgment, and fear of never again being able to "feel at home" or relax into love without suspicion.
• Perel suggests that people often seek a “good enough” story to move forward, even if it’s less than certain.

Key Insight:

"You pick a story that for the moment is good enough, that allows you to sleep, that allows you to meet new people, that allows you to not second guess yourself all the time." (Esther Perel, 48:12)

The Pain of Replacement & The Search for Certainty

• New pain surfaces when the caller learns her ex is engaged within months, amplifying feelings of being dispensable, replaceable, and questioning the authenticity of their bond.

Quote:

"The idea that he could just do that all again so quickly is almost in a way more shocking to me than the cheating." (Caller, 50:51)

• Perel identifies this as a fundamental shattering of romantic fantasy and the wish for irreplaceable connection.

Reclaiming Self, Accepting Complexity

• Perel reframes the therapy experience, advocating for taking some power back and tolerating ambiguity.
• She talks about "secondary naivete": loving with eyes open after betrayal, allowing trust and alertness.
• Warns against letting the actions of one person or a therapist’s label rewrite one’s narrative or future love life:

"One person cannot be given the power to rewrite an entire story." (Esther Perel, 53:26)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• "Sometimes the half that people give us is plentiful." (Esther Perel, 42:42)
• "I want to take that love with me because it I felt to be so profound and it changed me. So erasing that feels like really challenging." (Caller, 51:32)
• "I can sit with you in the uncertainty... take some of that power back for you." (Esther Perel, 57:52)

Key Timestamps & Segments

• 00:00–02:01: Caller’s original voice note—betrayal, heartbreak, therapist’s diagnosis
• 03:19–09:34: Dissecting the relationship’s origins and intimacy
• 12:00–15:46: Sexual disconnect and intimacy paradox
• 17:43–25:98: Discovery, breakup, the therapy session, confrontation
• 27:45: Therapist’s strong interpretation and the aftermath
• 32:40–36:58: Perel’s challenge to pathologizing labels; unpacking caller’s childhood and people-pleasing
• 40:55–43:13: Rumination, self-doubt, attempts to validate her reality
• 44:04–49:28: The power dynamic of therapists, reclaiming agency
• 50:11–54:09: The existential wound of being replaced & fear of loving again
• 54:43–57:00: Learning to trust again, eyes-open love, secondary naivete
• 57:00–end: Accepting complexity, reclaiming self-trust, and closing

Flow & Tone

• The conversation is raw, analytical, sometimes circular—mirroring the caller’s struggle between logic, emotion, and competing narratives.
• Esther Perel is warm, unhurried, gently incisive, pushing back against binary thinking and offering hope rooted in complexity and self-compassion.

Summary Takeaway

This episode is a masterclass in grappling with betrayal, ambiguous loss, and learning to trust oneself again. Esther encourages listeners not to surrender their own narrative to definitive labels or external authorities, but to cultivate acceptance of uncertainty and the possibility of loving again—with greater wisdom, but not cynicism.