Hello, everyone. I wanted to tell you that I have created a special compilation for you. I'm imagining it as your summer beach listen. You may have some novels by your side, and now you will have some episodes of Where Should We Begin by your Side. It's called The Ark of Love, and I put together a storyline of the many facets of love that I think we are all engaged with. The beginnings, the middles, the endings, kids, whether to Have them, If so, When, With whom, how, polyamory, consensional monogamy, death, infidelity, divorce. I mean, I may have left one out, but it's basically the big issues that are part of our relational lives. And many are new episodes that we have never released, and many are episodes that I did a little while back, but they are just ever so current and relevant today. So enjoy the Ark of Love. Write it with me. And by the way, you don't need to listen to this in order. It's not really a book with chapters. You pick the subject that interests you or wherever you are at in your life at this moment, and you say, I need to see how others deal with this.

So it's a à la carte compilation of some of the very special episodes of the Ark of Love.

Hey, Esther. The question that I have arises from a potential mismatch in the desire to have kids between my partner and me. I have not wanted kids with previous partners. I feel like I still don't. My current partner is not sure if she wants kids, but she doesn't want the option taken away from her. Both of us want to be together and ultimately see breaking up as a bad outcome. And so my question is, how do other couples deal with this mismatch? How can I have the most productive conversations with my partner? And how do I deal with emotions that might arise from mismatched desires or outcomes? About pregnancy and kids, specifically, but also more generally? Thank you.

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People aren't exactly rational.

You might run your credit card up to a silly level, or you might stuff all your money under your mattress.

Economists often like to simplify the world into more predictable equations.

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Tell me more.

So generally, this is the conversation has been a little bit more present in the relationship between my partner and I, simply because we're both at a stage where we're planning big future moves together. We both really desire to be together, and we're not considering breaking up over our current mismatch, especially because she's unsure if she wants kids or not. But she simply knows that I have, for the longest time, not wanted kids, and I, to some extent, I feel like I don't. I want to get some perspective, perhaps, of how other couples deal with this. I know that some couples, this is just a deal breaker, and they might simply terminate the relationship and move on to a partner that does match their desires, but that's not the case for us. I'm simply wanting to know what are other ways of dealing with it and also what are good ways of communicating about this, because I'm always trying to have better conversations, more productive conversations with my partner. Right.

Give me a glimpse of the conversation because you had two other pieces in your question. You said, I usually have been more firm about this, but at this moment, I am more ambivalent. She is not really sure what she wants, but she wants the possibility of deciding what she wants without having someone else deciding for her. Yeah, go ahead.

No. If I have to be honest, this is purely because with previous partners, they have themselves been fairly certain that they don't want kids as well. So it's been fairly easy to deal with it in that way. There just hasn't been a continuing conversation about the subject. And with this partnership, I just feel just very invested. And I'm really trying to make a long term plan with her. So in a sense, taking this into consideration and seeing how a future life could pan out together is just more in the... I'm more reminded of it regularly.

It's not so much that she knows what she wants, but she knows that she doesn't want someone else to restrict her decision.

Yes. I have to be honest, she hasn't been so forthcoming as to what has brought on this potential change into perhaps wanting to have kids. I feel like she's always been just ambivalent.

What are the ages we're talking about? What are your ages?

I am 30 and she is 35. But I think just recently, A, having interactions with her family. Some members of her family have started having kids. Some members in her social circle have started having kids. I think just having a family and bringing a child into her world has just been a little bit more present in her mind as well.

Have you inquired? Have you been able to be curious about all of that?

We do talk fairly regularly, and she really, with the friends that she has that have young children or with members of her family that have kids, she seems to be really enjoying being able to be with them, both with her friends or family members and the kids. I think that's what she has hinted at. I haven't Really ask specifically what has been the trigger that has been making her change her mind. I think I should now that you bring it up, that is something very concrete that I can ask her.

I think it's a very valid question. I may keep it a little bit more open. You used to be more removed from the desire to have children, and you seem to have the subject of children on your mind more. I know age matters. I know context matters. I know that the presence of children in your life can make a difference. Tell me what you've been feeling, experiencing, and entering. We are not making any decision at this moment, but I would love to listen.

I think at least that's what I have been telling her all along, that even though right now we might not be exactly agreeing upon whether we both want children or whether we will have children. That's how I usually try to frame the conversation that we don't have to see this as an impasse. It's simply a place to talk about how we're both currently feeling about the subject at the moment.

But when you talk about the subject, you talk about the decision about the subject rather than the meaning. What does children represent for you? What is the presence of children in your life? What is What does it bring up for you as you were once children? What does parenthood evoke for you? How do you see that changing? Becoming a parent. Having children means also becoming a parent. It also means creating a different type of family. What is family? What makes family for us? You, simply for biological reasons, at least without any artificial input, you have a blank slate in terms of the timelessness of your question, provided that things go fine. Your partner, as a woman, has a different biological reality, as long as we talk about non-technological and artificial interventions. So your existential questions are biologically influenced in different ways. Sometimes when people are busy with yay or yay, the conversation becomes about yay or yay rather than the thing itself. Talk to me about what you know about you and about her when it comes to what is children evoke for you.

I At least for me, the thing that I immediately jump to is most of my cousins, most of my young cousins, because I myself do quite well with young kids. I think I'm quite playful and silly, so I can get along quite well with young kids. I just think of all the different members of my family that I've been able to play with and grow up with.

You're making an important distinction here, right? Tell me if I hear you well. Are you bringing this up because you're telling me not wanting children is not the same as not loving children?

Not wanting children is the same as not loving- Is not the same.

It's not the same. That you may You may want not to have kids. That doesn't mean that you don't love kids. I wonder if that was embedded in the story of the cousins.

I think that in some extent it is. I've never had an issue with children or playing with kids. And as I say, I quite appreciate when I get to play with just the younger members of my family. I really enjoy that. I can't really tell you why there's then a distinction, I guess, in my mind about seeing them myself in the parenting role of those same kids, if that makes sense. I have just never seen myself in those shoes. I've never filled those shoes, I guess.

Keep going. And for her?

I think for her, her family is much smaller. The relationship that she has with her mother, it's Okay, but it's not the most open and most emotionally available relationship out there. I don't really want to speak a lot about her without her being able to defend herself, but I'll say what I think is fair. She really values support networks. And so I think she has that in her friend group and a little bit in her family. I I think for her, children also means a broader support network that would come around, both just because of the realities of having a kid, having to take them to school and be involved in their your day-to-day activities, that you just simply form a social circle around children, as well as purely from a familial sense that you actually form just a family network.

Children are one way we make family, and children are also a doorway to community.

Yeah.

Beautiful. Yeah. And?

No, I think as far as I have gathered, I think those are the main takeaways that I've taken from her and her wanting to have kids. Those are her main reasonings as far as I understand.

When you sit with her leanings towards wanting a child, what happens to you?

If I'm honest, I told her this in the most recent conversation. My current leanings in the moment is if it was between not having a child and not having her, or having a child and having her, I would rather have her and a child. And that is simply because I have her now, and I love her, I want to be with her. And having a child, even though it's a sacrifice, it's something that is valuable and something that I do see as a thing that has worth in itself. So I'm not opposed to the idea of just being with her and having a child. It's just perhaps right now it's not my ideal situation or my preference.

So now you told me what you think. If I ask you, and what do you feel in those moments. When you feel the part of her that says, Yes, I would like to have a child, because there's the part of her that says, I'm not sure, I don't know, I don't want to, and there's the part of her that says, Yes. When you are in conversation with the part of her that says, Yes, what do you feel? Not what agreement do you make with yourself and her. What happens to you emotionally I think that there's a couple of components that I can at least bring up.

One thing that I do get is I do get some fear about just financial instability because it's something that I just take into consideration, something that I try to work on for myself to be financially stable, and I just would feel afraid of managing that in the future for a growing family. I feel insecure about being a parent. Just generally, I don't feel... I can take care of myself. I cook, I clean, I make sure that I have a reasonable adult life, but I just feel insecure about taking care of somebody else. I feel mildly guilty about, and this perhaps is a little bit irrational on my side, or I don't know. I feel a little bit guilty about just the environmental impact of having a child, which is something that I just take into consideration. It's just a big decision and it's a big burden for family, a person, a community, and the Earth at large. And then the last thing that I sometimes get, very briefly, is a fear of losing my partner in the relationship that then would grow between the child, my partner and myself, or however you want to think of it.

I would do this out of love for you, but your love for the kid would take you away from me.

I think that's the way I feel it. I don't know how rational or how true that could be, but that is what I sometimes feel.

Yes. You asked me about other couples. This is a very normal and common thought. It's not particularly irrational. It's very emotional. It doesn't sound sometimes like it's a nice thing to feel, but it's a very human feeling. It is equally a common feeling to say, This brings up some insecurities for me. How can I do this? Am I capable? Can I take care of someone else? Can I bear the responsibility of this child that's going to need me? Until the day when I need them, by the way. Don't forget that. Kids don't stay little.

No.

Then there is the responsibility about finances or about provider or about maybe what you think is the role of father or man. What you will notice is that a conversation about having a child is a conversation about many other things. And that where you need to make a shift to start is that your conversation is way too narrow. It's about rather than, What does this bring up for me? You just did it beautifully. I'm vulnerable about this. I question that. I'm not sure here. I have some fear. I have some trepidation. Actually, much of what you talked about were different manifestations of things that you're afraid of and unsure about. That's what you need to talk about. It's you, not kids. The A conversation about kids is a conversation about parts of you that you don't typically discuss.

I haven't known how to breach. I think I completely agree with you. Something that I've been thinking about is how I myself come from a supportive big family, and I feel like I need a support network around me, whether it is friends or colleagues or family. And throughout my life, of course, I've I've had it more, I've had it less. And in moments where I don't have it, I find it really strange how I would not want to have a family of my own and why I don't feel like wanting to make a family that could, as you say, eventually down the line, be some of the stronger long term support structures or just things in in your life that can also take care of you in return once they've grown into their own just personalities and humans.

But I want to make sure that I hear, that I understand what you're saying. When I think about having a child and I look at my support system and my community at this moment, one thing that it brings up for me is the fear of being alone and lonely.

Yes. That is a persistent fear I have had, yes.

That you have currently as well. I'm not resourced enough in my life. I feel too... Even though I came from a very communal, supportive experience, somehow I have not recreated that in my life. I feel often alone, and I fear that with a child, I would even feel more alone.

I agree with everything up until the end. I don't particularly think that with a child, I would feel more alone. The thing that I question is why I don't even feel an inkling of desire to have a child or a broader family where I have kids in those moments where I do feel alone. I say that- I see.

I see. Beautiful. Given that I feel sometimes so alone, why it would seem natural for me to think about ways to broaden my circle and having a child? Because sometimes people do think like that, and sometimes people say, I feel often so alone now with a child that I'm responsible for, it would feel even bigger. It Having a child is not always experienced as I'm broadening my circle. Sometimes it's experience as one more thing that I'm going to have to be all in charge of and by myself.

I know quite a bit of people who in sacrifice of... That for the child, they have had to sacrifice career or they have had to sacrifice social meetings or whatever. I think I know what you mean in that sense. For me, For me, I think it's just I have always been curious why I just don't feel like a father. I don't feel any sense of being a paternal figure, even though it could create, I think, quite a bit of, I'm going to make up a word, of unloneliness.

Of connection.

Yes.

Of a particular love that is very unique, that is different from romantic love, from failure love, from friendship. But that comes also with a sense of responsibility and competence What you're saying to me is, sometimes I question my competence. Tell me more about that. The financial security, the question around fatherhood, the fact that you haven't thought about it. You're 30, you're five years younger than your partner. Basically, many people, men and women and them, may arrive at 30, and that's not something they've been thinking about. They've pretty much been spending more time thinking about themselves, what they need to build their lives, their circle, et cetera. Some people arrive to family and parenthood and the new community having not really thought about it and said, This This is what I want. This is my goal in life. It's just the next thing they do. Or it is the thing that they didn't feel strongly enough, and therefore they did what they knew their partner would enjoy or would really appreciate. It's not a sacrifice, it's a gift. The fact that you haven't sat there and said that my whole life I've dreamt about being a dad, that doesn't say much.

Unless we figure out what it says, we can't assume in and of itself what it means. But I do hear you say, I have fears. And these fears come up when I start to think about children. And I want to ask you to tell me a bit about those fears, and then I'm going to ask you to bring them to her.

Yeah.

Just because that's a different conversation. And that's maybe scary in and of itself, because then you say, if I tell her some of the more shadowy sides of me, maybe she will think less of me. So that comes in, too. It's not an easy conversation.

I have been trying my My heart is to be as open and as smart about emotions as I can. So I will try to be as open as I can, especially taking something from here to her. When I think of children- This is a practice session.

Yeah. The fact that you're even doing it with me, who you've just met two minutes ago, is very courageous, just so we established that. I'm asking you difficult and big questions without any preamble I believe.

That's fair. I think I have some evidence in my podcast player of how you can be tactful about these type of conversations. I feel very trusting. But when it comes to thinking about kids, the only fear that I have is not of the thought of kids in the future. I have generally quite a bit of insecurities about my broader future as a whole. I can give you a little bit of context very briefly, if it helps you. I moved away from my home country when I was 16, And ever since then, I've been living in a variety of different cities and/or countries. And currently, I'm finishing a PhD degree. My partner, she is doing a postdoctoral stay in a different country, so she'll finish later in the summer and hopefully to move back with me. But I have had for the longest time a fear of the future because I just don't know where my career is going to be. So as an academic, you're always on the edge of whether you're going to succeed or fail or what is the next step? What is this next smart thing? I haven't had a place that I could really call home.

So in that sense, I don't feel like the citizen of any single country. And all of this means that when I look five years in the future, 10 years in the future, 20 years in the future, I feel isolated and removed from everywhere that I've been. I feel isolated from my original home country, from the intermediate places that I've been in. I'm unsure what my job, my profession will be at the time. I know that some of these things are perhaps overthinking it in the future, but they are some of the thoughts, the lingering and recurring thoughts that provide this overarching fear of the future and just anxiety as a whole.

Have you brought that up with her?

Yes. She very much knows that I'm insecure just about where I will end up, that I have no feeling of home. I can't say no sense of space, but no sense of where's the right place to settle. She's home for Right now, she is the person that I can open myself up emotionally the most and that I trust the most. She's only been carrying and supportive of me and helped me throughout my work, really.

When you say she's the person I can open up and bear my heart, does that create home for you inside?

Yeah, I think in In some ways, yes. It makes it much easier for me to not have as big of a social support network or of a familial support network in the moments where I've had her present with me and that we can have a routine, a day-to-day just existence. That's very, very comforting. It's much easier for me to leave my stressors both at work, whatever it might be. I can leave them behind and really just try to enjoy the time with her. She has, maybe I've put this on her, but she has become- You have.

Yeah. You have. She's in another country. When you are wherever you are, do you have a social circle? Do you have close bonds? Do you have even other friends with whom to have this conversation with?

No. In that sense, no. Here, at least, I have good colleagues, and I get along very well with I have very nice times with them. But I can't say that I have really deep emotional, meaningful conversations with any of them. And the few people that I can have these conversations with are people here and there that I've met in previous places that I've lived or in previous lives that every once in a while I'm able to reconnect to. But it's not a regular thing. So on a day to day basis, it's mostly her for this level of depth, it's mostly her.

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Learn from people like Ava DuVernay, Mark Cuban, Martha Stewart, or myself. I have a masterclass about relational intelligence. We all live in relationships, so it's really for everybody. But there's a focus on your relationships in the workplace. An annual membership with Masterclass costs just $10 a month, and you get unlimited access to every instructor on multiple devices. That includes your phone, computer, or smart TV, and they also have an audio mode. Right now, you can get an additional 15% off any annual membership at masterclass. Com/begin. That's 15% off at masterclass. Com/begin. Masterclass. Com/begin. Where is your own family? How connected are you to them?

This is something that I've been trying to do better. My original family there are in Colombia, and I try to call them at least once a week. I try to have good conversations. It is for me, It's very difficult to have deep emotional conversations with them through the phone. I have tried to at least be a little bit more open and more present, and I do try to call them and be regularly with them. But this is just for myself. I don't think I have the level of depth in the relationship with them that I wish I could have.

Who would you like to have it with first?

I think with my sisters and my parents aunts initially, being that they are the closest. I think with uncles and aunts who are just one circle removed.

If I said, Pick one to start.

Without thinking about it, the first thought would be one of my sisters.

Okay, which one?

I am the oldest. She would be the middle one.

Okay, that's what you're going to do. Because what I'm hearing is I don't have a home, and I am a bit of a wandering child. I've been uprooted, and I feel far away from home and far away from my roots and far away from my language and far away from my large circle of people. Sometimes I can't even believe how I left such a vibrant community to find myself quite isolated. It's very difficult for me to think about children or a child, period. I need to reconnect with family and community first to create a different context for the conversation about children. That is not always for everybody But that's what I'm hearing for you. There's not one direction here. No, that's fair. When you talk with your sister, does your sister, does she have kids?

No, she does not. But you can say, I'm in a transition.

My partner is about to end her post-doc. She's thinking about the next phase. She's thinking about children, which she may have thought of before or not, but in any case, at that time, it wasn't feasible. I realized that it brings back for me a homesickness and an awareness of the disconnect that has taken place. It's not that I don't have the people, but I've lost the connection with the people. I was thinking about all of that. I met this woman. She has a podcast. I don't know if you know it. We were talking. When she said, You need to pick a sister, I immediately thought of you.

I think that's a very nice segue into a conversation. I like that.

You like it?

Yeah, it's fun.

And then what would follow? Take it from here.

I think, initially, here we're just talking about reconnecting with my family. I think what I want to try to be a little better at is having conversations that have more meaning to them than just a blank. And I think in that sense, the thing that I want to be able to share much more are just my raw emotions and thoughts, realistically. Because most of the conversations that I have with my family, as I say, I call them regularly, but they go like, Oh, how's the business going?

We're talking with her right now. You're right in there. We've just opened it up. Go ahead. This is our role play.

If I was telling her something about what's currently going on, I could tell her a little bit about how I am still unsure about actually taking the next step once I finish my degree, I'm afraid of moving again. I'm afraid of this shift that is happening in me and this potential life-changing idea of having a kid and changing the way I've perceived myself for a long time and doing this in this relationship that I have and just everything that is associated with having a family. Right now, I feel very confused about how I can even consider the idea of having a kid when in the past, I just have dismissed it so easily.

What have I dismissed? How I felt lost?

No, in the past, I've just dismissed The idea of having a family, even if I was alone, was very easy to brush aside.

Yes, because in the past, I made sure to completely live in the present. If I didn't have to think about the future, then I didn't have to think about big decisions. Then I didn't have to ask myself, Where now? What for? I didn't have to ask, how can I belong somewhere but be anywhere? So children forces us to think about the future. And you've lived a life in which you hopped places and you tried to make it painless when in fact it was sometimes painful, as it is. And your family may think you're the lucky boy who is traveling the globe and who's having a wonderful opportunity to be in an academic career, and they think of it as the glamor side. And you're about to tell them that there's a glamor to it. It's beautiful. You've had fantastic experiences, but you've also shed parts of you in every place you've been, and you've lost a chunk inside and with them.

That's undeniably true. I constantly think of- Just take it in.

Just take it in first. Take it in. Just sit with this for a minute. Where do you feel it?

I feel confused. I feel emotionally confused because at least some of these feelings or thoughts have perhaps gone through my mind and I've been able to dismiss them, and they've just bounced off, and I've been able to keep going. I think this conversation really brings them to We're putting a spotlight on them because I do think of- That's what you came for. Yeah, that's fair enough.

Because you know part of why you haven't thought about it is because you made sure not to. Because kids means future. Kids means connections, community, one way to be thinking about family. And you were too much tossed in moment.

Yeah, it's undeniably true.

I could even imagine you telling your sister, I miss having deeper conversations. In order to live the life I've lived, I've had to keep myself a little bit on the surface.

I think that's a wonderful way of putting it actually.

Say it in your own words.

I guess in every phone call and in every conversation that I've had or that we've had at a distance, we've really said nothing. We've shared very little of actual substance. So we say a lot of words without a lot of meaning. I think.

Right. How come? Why do you think they do that?

I think with time, my sister has been trying to make much more of an effort herself. I think I can put the blame on myself in that I have been very... Both with friends and family, I get busy with work and I let my connections fall through. But also it's difficult to tell people, or for me it is, to tell people what I'm experiencing emotionally through just a phone call, which is- You just did it. Yes. I suppose it's maybe with recurrent patterns or after doing a behavior a lot of times, they get cemented in a certain way. So We're having this conversation and we don't have to break any old preconceived norms. With my family, with everybody who I've known, I've known them my whole life. There's these unwritten rules that at least I have thought about for how the interactions are supposed to go. Challenging them is sometimes hard, and sometimes I don't actually even know that they're there. I can't put my finger on them, I guess.

Now you can put the blame on me.

Yeah, no, that's fair. I think starting with my sister, I can try to challenge a little bit, A, the rules that I've made for myself, and also take control again over my view on social networks and support networks from my family side.

Yes, but it's also on your own evasiveness. It's to challenge your own aloofness or evasiveness. It's to challenge your own, I'm just going to keep myself superficial so that I don't have to deal with loss and with sadness and with pain and with difficult questions about the future. I mean, I've taken care of myself in a certain way, but that way has been useful at times and has made me pay a price as well. Yeah. Support for Where Should We Begin comes from Masterclass. Masterclass is a streaming platform where you can learn from more than 200 of the world's best to help you become your best. For example, you can try an improv class from the iconic Amy Poehler and learn what it takes to push past your fears. Or you can try my own Masterclass and learn some of the essential tools and principles of relational intelligence. I We've often asked what person would enjoy the Masterclass, and it's been really a broad range. People use it primarily to change their relationships in the workplace, to deal with issues of boundaries, conflict, communication, empathy, reflectivity, reactivity, all the basic things that often keep us stuck in relationships.

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Immediately, it jumps to my mother, who is also, personality-wise, very similar to my sister, and she's quite empathetic. She is within her generation, we can say. She is constantly the one who's trying to keep connections going and help with organizing events so that all of the members, again, of her generation can meet. I have also done a bad job at having deep, meaningful conversations with her, at least through the phone. I try to have them when I'm in person, but being that I'm not always there, it's tough.

Give me an example of a question she asks and how you go surface.

No. She could ask me about how my work is going or how it's going with the relationship with my boss who I don't have the best relationship with. I will simply say, Oh, it's okay. I've just been busy. I had to work on Saturday and Sunday as well. I'm just tired. It's okay. I'll leave it somewhere where she knows that physically and in the sense that I am alive, that I am feeding myself, that I am sleeping, she can know that I'm okay. But I don't really expand further on how the relationship with my boss brings up imposter syndrome or how I feel a lot of fear about the next move in my life or whatever it might be. I never really bring those things No veo ningún beneficio de que yo haga más esfuerzos en mi laboratorio porque mi jefa no me now.

You speak Spanish to her?

I do, yes.

All right. Say it to me in Spanish. In the language you would speak to her.

.. La verdad, la única cosa que me mantiene tranquila y feliz es que dentro de poco voy a terminar y voy a poder irme. Aunque la verdad, no estoy seguro de cuál va a ser mi siguiente paso. Aún no sé qué voy a hacer. Y la verdad...

Debe ser muy difícil. Porque siempre has tenido una dirección muy clara. Y esta vez, es como que no sabes dónde vas. Debe ser muy difícil Es complicado porque es el final de la carretera académica.

De aquí en adelante es un mundo desconocido, no sé a dónde voy a saltar. Ya no hay más títulos que conseguir.

Yo no conozco mucho en esto, así que no te puedo dar This is just a first step, right? Where you tell her things are not glorious. It's not just fact that I want to tell you, but I want to tell you the questions and the doubts and the fears that this brings up for me. What does it mean to suddenly wonder about being an imposter, to have a boss that doesn't believe in me? Then to have her say, I believe in you, and I am there for you. I don't know anything about the questions you have to figure out, but I'm an empathic witness. Sometimes we don't help people by telling them what to do because we don't know, but we tell people and we help them by telling them, I'm here while you figure it out. When you ask me about the conversation about kids, I don't know that the conversation is as much about having children or not as the fact that you feel like your life has been upended, and you don't know where it's taking you, and you feel like you can barely find the answers for yourself. So how can I think about somebody else?

That's a very good point. It's a very big component of it.

The fact that you haven't thought about kids till now, that's okay. Because you didn't. You were a student. That's not a new girlfriend. She's coming to the end of her post stuck. For her, it's, I'm done being a student, and I'm ready to become a mom. There's going to be a bit of a timing glitch that you may not figure all of these things out before you both decide on this because she doesn't have all the time in the world if she wants it done a certain way. You're going to probably have more questions on your plate for a while than less. You're going to have the ones about your future and the ones about the other aspects of your future. You're going to think about two parts of your future at the same time. Until now, you've only had to deal with one aspect.

Yeah.

But this is a such as life done to you.

In some ways, I chose it, and in other ways, I've just been floating on the river of my life and just going with the current. Right.

This is a moment where you have to steer.

Yeah.

You'll steer by beginning to have deeper conversations with your family because they will ground you. Then you'll steer because at some point, your boss won't be your boss, and he won't decide about your whole life, and he won't remain the obsession that is making you question everything. Then you'll steer because in your love life, in your relationship with your girlfriend, you're coming to a crossroads. The same way that you are thinking about you, she knows where you are at, and she doesn't want to derail you either. At the same time, there's something that she wants which is new in the relationship and which she wants to know he will be participating in.

Yeah.

You have a plan?

I very much do. I very much will talk to her after we're done and just ask her. Then the next time that we can call, that she has a little bit, of course, of emotional bandwidth and time to sit and discuss, I think. I have a variety of questions to just ask her and see what she says.

Beautiful. And just listen. You don't have to solve the problem when you're just trying to explore what it's made of. So that's just a moment. We only have one conversation. We've been here less than an hour, and we can't touch on everything. But I just wanted you to have a little bit of a redirecting.

I appreciate it. This is precisely what I... This is the conversation that I wanted to have. I didn't really know who else I could have a conversation that could guide me just in how to proceed and how to think in a different way. Because perhaps sometimes in my analytical mind, I think there's one path, one way, or that we just tackle a problem, we solve it and we move on. But that's not always the way. I know that.

Good. I wish you good luck. Be well.

Thank you so much, Esther. This was an Esther calling, a one-time intervention phone call recorded remotely from two points somewhere in the world. If you have a question you'd like to explore with Esther, it could be answered in a 40 or 50 minute phone call, send her a voice message, and Esther might just call you. Send your question to producer@esterparel. Com. Where should we begin with Esther Parelle is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Eva Walshover, Destri Sibly, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julian Hat. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin? Are Esther Pirel and Jessie Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul. If you've been enjoying this podcast, here's a look into what else is happening at New York magazine. I'm Cory Seca, and I'm here with Reeves Weideman, who has written about the American obsession with NDAs. Where did they come from? Why are they everywhere? And are they good for anything besides covering up for abusers?

After you poked around at NDAs for a while, do you see NDAs used mostly as tools of abuse and coercion? Do you see positive results? Where did you land on NDAs?

I think in most situations, it is used as a way to claim power, but not even necessarily to do a bad thing. It's just it is now this boring standard tool in the toolbox of corporations or powerful people. But now it's being used on the people at the bottom. It's the warehouse workers at Amazon being made to sign them. Or I was just trawling job listings while doing this story, and there were NDAs for forklift drivers and people working in butcher shops. And I think on the one hand, it's just like, well, I might as well. There's no downside for me to do this. But it is also just another way that you keep your employees or people you get into a relationship with that you keep your thumb on them. So I do think it is at the end of the day, the people who are giving them by and large are trying to control someone.

Do you think that they're going to become standard for literally every interaction and job interview and possibly relationship as well? Or do you think they're just finally going to die or become outlawed? Where do we go from here?

It was corporations first, then it was celebrities. Then it was just rich people who aren't famous, but they also want to protect their privacy. The next frontier is people like you and me. And are we going to start giving them to their partners? I think some people are going to start experimenting with it. It doesn't take much to go online, download a free NDA, and without even consulting a lawyer, and hand it over to someone. I did, as a joke, send one to my girlfriend. She hasn't signed it yet, but I at least sent it.

That's Reeves Weyand, who may or may not be single soon. You could read his work on NDAs in our beautiful print magazine in your own home or on nymag. Com/lineup.