Are Couples With Mismatched Desire Doomed? Esther Perel Weighs In

“The primary issue that couples bring to therapy, whether it is sex therapy or relationship therapy, is mismatched desires,” says renowned couples therapist Esther Perel. “The problem can be the absence of it, the decline, the unevenness of it, the tension that it creates in a relationship, how to get out of stalemates, and how the tension from it impacts the ability to experience closeness, connection, pleasure, fun.”

Today, Perel launches a duo of online classes dedicated to desire, which she defines as “wanting associated with freedom, sovereignty, and autonomy.” We’re actually both in New York during the time of our chat—Perel in a cozy home office with her podcast’s name Where Should We Begin? in unlit neon behind her, me in a white-walled Vogue conference room—but our conversation takes place over Zoom, as if spiritually honoring the format of the digital sessions. The pair, named Bringing Desire Back and Playing With Desire, are meant to bridge the accessibility gap that many couples face when it comes to counseling. “Not everybody can come into my office to talk about their problems, so with this class, I am coming to you.”

Jumping to conclusions, and I guess potentially spoiling the resolution of her sessions, I ask: Are couples with mismatched desires able to work out in the end or are they simply doomed? “They can work out,” she says. “But we find that a lot of people want to have more sex by talking about why they don’t have sex. That doesn’t really work.” Instead, it takes work and productive conversation around a list of verbs Perel has developed during her 40 years of practicing—“to ask, to give, to take, to receive, to share, to play, and to refuse,”—and that’s what Perel helps facilitate in these classes.

“There is tremendous need for sound, common sense, and truth-based sexual information,” Perel adds. “Often, we’ve learned to grow up and never talk about it, so it’s not so easy to suddenly be in a relationship and have to talk about it. But that cannot be the case in moments like this.”