Marriage Counseling Insights From Westlake Village-Based Patricia McTague-Loft

According to Esther Perel, psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author, couples therapy is a fairly recent development. For better or worse, couples in marriage simply endured. Marriage meant “til death do us part,” until it began to mean “until love dies.” The survival of the family, consequently, meant that in many ways the family unit depended on the happiness of the couple.

In this video, Perel says, “I imagine a world in which we can experience our relationships with a sense of vitality and aliveness and vibrancy. Because I live with one perennial truth: the quality of your relationships is what determines the quality of your life. And the bonds and connections we make with other people, that we establish with them, gives us a greater sense of meaning, of happiness, of well-being, than any other human experience.”

With the pressure on relationships today changing and intensifying, Perel believes we have created a new world in which “we have options, and choices and unprecedented freedom. But as a result, we have to negotiate everything.” That, it hardly needs emphasizing, is difficult. To deal with the challenge of effectively communicating with your partner, Perel takes a deep and insightful look at the intricacies of modern relationships — a video well worth watching.