Desire thrives on distance. That is the core of Esther Perel's thinking — and it is provocative, because we normally believe that closeness is the answer to everything in a relationship.
Esther Perel is a Belgian-American couples therapist and one of the world's most widely read voices on love and sexuality. Her point is simple and uncomfortable: the things that create security in a relationship — predictability, routine, shared finances, children — are precisely the things that suffocate desire.
The tension between safety and freedom
We want two things at the same time. We want to love and be loved. We want security and stability. And we want passion, play and surprise. The problem is that these two needs pull in opposite directions.
Perel says: desire needs air. It needs to see its partner as something other than an extension of itself. Desire awakens when we see our partner in a new light — when they are absorbed in something they are passionate about, when they are in the company of others and we see them from the outside, when there is a distance to cross.
What happens over time?
In the early years of a relationship, desire is often self-sustaining. We don't know enough about each other to get bored. There is still mystery. But as we come to know each other more deeply, we can lose the ability to see each other with fresh eyes.
We stop seducing each other. We stop showing the sides of ourselves that are surprising, vulnerable or unknown. We become familiar to each other — and that can be beautiful, but it can also extinguish the spark.
What can you do?
Perel does not recommend tricks or techniques. She recommends curiosity. Asking yourself: when do I find my partner most attractive? When do I see them as an independent person rather than as my partner?
And she recommends preserving something that is your own. Interests, friends, dreams that are not shared. Not as distance — but as the freedom that makes closeness possible.
Desire cannot be forced. But it can be nurtured.
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