5 quotes I want to remember from Mating in Captivity
Therapist Esther Perel’s book explores the dynamics between desire and commitment in long-term relationships.
Why I read this book
I saw Esther Perel interviewed on The Daily Show in 2017 about her then-new book The State of Affairs.
I thought it was an interesting interview and kept meaning to read the book. I didn’t get around to it until last year, but it was well worth the wait.
Esther’s writing style (at least in the two books I’ve now read of hers) is to share stories from her clients (with permission!) and base her main points around her conclusions and insights from those stories.
I like reading people’s stories. It’s enlightening to learn about others’ experiences of life, and I like how it makes me reflect on my own experiences.
In The State of Affairs, Esther regularly refers back to her earlier book, Mating in Captivity, so I bought it soon after finishing the book, interested in reading more of her work.
Why this post
There were so many quotes I highlighted while reading this book. There were so many things I reflected on while reading this book.
I’ve picked out 5 quotes that capture points I want to remember, and I’ve written some reflections on these points.
1. The danger of putting all of our sense of belonging into relationships
We live miles away from our families, no longer know our childhood friends, and are regularly uprooted and transplanted. All this discontinuity has a cumulative effect. We bring to our romantic relationships an almost unbearable existential vulnerability — as if love itself weren’t dangerous enough. (Page 9)
Esther mentions this in the context of how, only a few generations ago, people may have had fewer freedoms compared with now, but they had greater ties to their family, community, and religion, giving them a sense of belonging.
As an immigrant who moved an ocean away from my family, this quote really resonated with me.
I recognize this point as a major issue in my first relationship. I wasn’t even in Scotland a full year before I entered into what became a 9-year relationship.
Getting into a relationship so soon, I failed to cultivate a sense of belonging in Scotland outside that partnership. So when things started to go bad, I felt incredibly alone and only then recognized the necessity of building and nurturing connections beyond my partner.
2. Long-term relationships survive on the contradictions between commitment and desire
Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner while recognizing his persistent mystery; creating security while remaining open to the unknown; cultivating intimacy that respects privacy. Separateness and togetherness alternate, or proceed in counterpoint. Desire resists confinement, and commitment mustn’t swallow freedom whole. (Page 219)
This quote sums up the thesis statement of the book — that the things we look for in committed relationships (security, openness, intimacy) are at odds with what fuels desire (mystery, distance).
Esther repeatedly mentions throughout the book how we must cultivate our own separate lives and create distance from our partner to sustain desire.
Through that distance, we can start to look at our partner in new ways, like we’re meeting them for the first time all over again.
Now that I’m a year and a half into my second long-term relationship, this book has been helpful in reminding me the importance of maintaining that distance — my sense of independence and belonging outside the relationship.
Yes, I realized this lesson in my last relationship, as mentioned in point 1.
But what I’ve since noticed is that because I built my independence and connections during a time of turbulence in my previous relationship, I now associate those things with being in a bad relationship.
It’s an incredibly unhealthy connection, I know, so it was good timing to read this book and start to work on associating distance from my partner with something that generates excitement.
3. We work out boundaries in relationships
The moment two people become a couple, they begin to deal with boundaries — what is in and what is out. You choose one among all others, then draw the lines around your blissful union. Now the questions begin. What am I free to do alone and what do I have to share? Do we go to bed at the same time? Will you be joining my family at every Thanksgiving? Sometimes we negotiate these arrangements explicitly, but more often we proceed by trial and error. You see how much you can get away with before tripwiring on sensitivities. Why didn’t you ask me to join you? I thought we’d travel together. A look, a comment, a bruised silence — these are the clues we have to interpret….Whether aboveboard or below, we delineate zones of privacy as well as zones of togetherness. (Page 176)
It sounds very obvious to say we establish boundaries in relationships, but I like how this quote mentions that it’s not something we usually discuss. It kind of just works itself out by trial and error.
It’s making me reflect on my current relationship and how I want to discuss the things I can see now that my partner and I have been working out by trial and error.
So I’ll just wait until my boyfriend reads this, and it’ll be a good prompt for discussion. :)
4. Our partners are not ours
The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partners are ours. In truth, their separateness is unassailable, and their mystery is forever ungraspable. As soon as we can begin to acknowledge this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility. (Page 211)
I just think this quote is so healthy-sounding and does a great job of driving home the point about how distance is key to desire.
There’s another quote in the book that says “creating the distance essential to eroticism means stepping back from the comfort of our partner and feeling more alone” (page 36).
But the page 211 quote highlights to me it isn’t a case of us becoming more alone to create that distance. It’s about becoming more free.
5. Desire takes work
The idea that sex must be spontaneous keeps us one step removed from having to will sex, to own our desire, and to express it with intent. As long as sex is something that just happens, you don’t have to claim it. (Page 213)
I’ve heard some variant of the phrase ‘long-term relationships are hard’ or ‘long-term relationships take work’ countless times in life.
When I hear that phrase, I internalize it as being related to things like working on how to communicate with your partner or how to get through challenging times.
I never think of it as being tied to sexuality. What I like about this quote is it highlights how desire is also something that takes work.
It’s not a case of it either happens or doesn’t. It requires intention and effort.
10 books in 2023
This is my third book recap as part of my 2023 goal to read 10 books this year.
Read my post on why I set this reading goal
Previous posts:
Next book
I’m back to a work-related book. I’m reading Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behaviour by Indi Young.
