Tim Ferriss is in Kevin Rose’s words, “very private,” despite his very public personality and lifestyle business. We, the audience, see a very detailed and in-depth view of some parts of his life, but with things like love and relationships, he is more reserved.

I have often felt curious about that side of him, and this episode starts to pull back the veil just a bit. They have a very interesting conversation about modern relationships and the implications of too-much honesty in relationships.

Esther Perel is the daughter of two holocaust survivors who is a world-renowned therapist specializing in relationships and adultery. Fluent and working in more than half a dozen languages, she brings a culturally diverse perspective to the conversation. Her wide-ranging therapeutic experience gives her many experiences and examples to draw on. She does an excellent job of articulating and contrasting different ideas of what is normal for different cultures.

They talk about the how American culture’s “traditional” relationship model has evolved from defining monogamy as one person for life, to serial monogamy as the norm. And in both cases, clandestine adultery as a norm.

They discuss polyamory and the importance of considering the cost and burden to partners when considering whether to reveal indiscretions which they seem to argue are inevitable with our culture’s unrealistic ideas of what relationships should be like.

This was a fascinating listen which left me feeling very unsure about how I feel about many of the topics they covered.

Tim also recommends checking out her TED Talk which he describes as being, “on maintaining desire and rethinking infidelity.”

She also talks about several best-selling books she has written on this topic. This one in particular I intend to read…

I will relisten to this episode many times!