Esther Calling - I Leave First So You Can't Abandon Me
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I know nothing about you nor of the question that you sent. So shall we listen first? And then if there's anything you want to add. Sure. That sounds good. Let's do that.

Throughout my life, I've met a great number of people, especially because I grew up in foster care. I moved to the United States when I was eight years old and ended up going into foster care when I was 14. And I've had to move a lot. So I've gotten pretty good at just making friends or at least putting myself out there. But I have a really hard time keeping friends. Many times I

I end up leaving the friendships because I feel unfulfilled in them, especially when I don't feel like the other person is reciprocating what I'm doing and I go above and beyond. And the moment I start to feel that this person doesn't do the same thing, I just decide they're not worth being my friend. And it seems to me that people today don't put the same level of effort into friendships maybe as before.

And I really, really want deep friendships. I want close friends that...

I spent time with that we deeply know each other, but I feel like I have this problem where I just can't keep friends. And perhaps it's my age, you know, I'm 37 years old and many of my friends or former friends have children. And maybe it's the time in their life when they're looking for other parents. I don't have children. I have an amazing boyfriend who listens to me complain a lot about my lack of deep friendships.

And he's really supportive, but honestly, I think I'm putting too much pressure on him to also be my friend, to be all the things that I want. And I think I need to at least spare him some of that. And because I feel pretty lonely and I want to make friends. So just wanted to know what you think.

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I think I want to add that the friendships I'm looking for are female friendships. I've always longed for close female bonds. What has your boyfriend said about, because he is in a way a witness to your social life, right? To your bonds and connections with your girlfriends. What does he see just as somebody who's present for you?

Well, he actually says I know a lot of people and I do. He encourages me to reach out after I've been let down, which I have a hard time with sometimes. And he's told me that I tend to see the negatives more frequently than I see the positive things that are happening between me and my friends. And what do you think of that?

I think he's probably right. This whole concept of seeing the negative things more quickly, I've been reflecting on a lot more recently and trying to train myself to

not automatically discount someone because they may have hurt me in the past. And that's what keeps coming up for me. And it's as though I'm waiting for the next opportunity for them to let me down again. So I can say, well, there it goes. Strike three. I'm over it. I'm done. Just this over and over feeling of just,

sadness sometimes because of the way that my friends may have reacted or said or done or whatever it is. And I think he's right. But I don't know how to fix that. I don't know how to lean more into the negative, into the positivity. It seems like I have to really stretch my mind and force myself to go into positives first. I'll tell you what just popped into my head. Tell me if any of this is recognizable for you. I have had

friends who I saw at some point would cut off their relationships with other friends in the same logic as you. At some point, people were bound to disappoint them and then they cut. And those of us who would still be in the pool, so to speak, would often feel like maybe I can avoid it. It won't happen to me. I know what they need or I know how to be there. But inevitably, at some point,

we too end up being cut off because we've done something that was hurtful or disappointing or didn't live up to the expectations. Yeah. I mean, I've certainly been on the receiving end of that where friends have just disappeared and have not heard why. That's happened several times with really close friends, and I don't know why. Mm-hmm.

But you primarily have been on the receiving end or it is something that you see yourself doing as well? It's hard to tell whether it's me ending it or if it's them ending the friendship. Just because I choose not to communicate doesn't mean that they wanted to maintain the friendship anyway. So I don't know. But they live with the constant awareness that they could let you down.

It's never safe that at any moment they can do something that will upset you, disappoint you, let you down. Yeah, I have never thought about that. But yeah, wow, yeah. And I'm sure that doesn't feel good for them to think that at any point someone could just get cut off like that. And there is a piece inside of me that

I'm going to use myself here, that at some point I think I can avoid this. It's not going to happen to me, which is of course a delusion because there's no reason that that would not happen to me because it's not about me. It's what you described. I anticipate that people will let me down and it becomes the lens through which I look at my important friendships and I

For some reason, it's bound to happen. And then I start to feel like I need to act on it. I mean, I may just as well end this whole thing. So strike three arrives very fast. It's not like necessarily I set it up, but somehow there is a strike three in most situations. So my question to you is,

What do you think fuels this fear, this negative wish fulfillment? I guess wanting to avoid feeling hurt at a greater capacity. I tend to be more anxious in all my relationships. I'm really good at sensing any form of change or movement or anything like that.

Did you get that training in your foster care? Oh, yeah. I had to really know whether or not this foster parent or this group home or whatever it was I was living in was going to get rid of me. And even in those foster parent relationships, sometimes it would be me calling my social worker asking to leave because I felt like they were going to tell me to leave. Tell me more about, because that's,

I can't imagine that your question and your fears and your awareness around your friends is not somewhat shaped by living for quite a few years, right? In the foster system? Tell me a bit about that experience.

So my mom and then my biological father and her were never together. They just had an issue. She was very, very young. And he immigrated to the United States and eight years later asked for me to come live with him. I'd never really met him. And I came to live with him and he was abusive. So that landed me in foster care, which was a life saving experience for me, honestly. Who called him? I told him.

Wonderful. Yeah. To whom? It took a few tries. First to his wife, which she didn't believe me. And then eventually my school, a really good friend at school who encouraged me to go to the principal. And we talked to the school principal and I never had to go back to live with him since. So after that, just different group homes, different foster homes, but still...

Just feeling this sort of never belonging in a family. Have you been in touch with your mom? Actually, yes. Most recently, I actually, I'm going to see her in a month. I haven't seen her since I left Africa. Yeah. So in 31 years or 29 years. Oh, wow. I know. That's a big moment for you.

Yeah. I seem to have these big moments of reconciliation with people that are important to me, you know, at some capacity. And then at the same time, I have these big moments of relationships ending. I feel like I'm often at the extreme of one or the other. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever see him again? In court. Other than that, no. So, yeah. So with, with foster families, uh,

Didn't work out too great with most of them. I gained a brother through my foster care experience. So he and I are close. I'm very close to his children, his wife's family. And I visit often. And that's who I call my family now. But it's not a technical blood related or adoptive family. It's just we've just taken that each other, that role in each other's lives. And you've been there for each other.

Yeah, yeah, which in my mind, and here's me going into the negativity again. You want to do it or you want to? I don't know. I'm scared. I don't know if I'm supposed to or not. I follow people who are overly positive, toxic positivity. So I don't know. No worries with me on that. But this is just a moment, right? We have...

One conversation. So you can do it both times. You can do it once in the way that you tend to go, in the direction you tend to see things. And then we'll see what happens if you actually put on a different pair of glasses. Okay, that sounds great. I want to try that. All right.

So naturally, I would think, yeah, he's taken that role as my brother in my life. He's awesome. His kids are amazing. His wife's family, she's amazing. But when I think about a brother-sister relationship, I do wish he would communicate with me more. I wish he would visit, especially watching my boyfriend's family. They're very close. They visit often. They call. They do all the things. And

I don't get that. So sometimes it's hard for me to accept that this is a real brother-sister relationship because I'm imagining something different in my head. But I don't have a good base of what's quote-unquote normal. So I just try to hang in there. And this is the one relationship I'm trying really hard not to get into my emotions. And so that's the negative. And have you ever...

Try to simply say, would love it if you came to see me? In some ways I have, just not in a very direct way. So what does that mean? What does that look like in some ways? I tend to put it in a, if it's beneficial for you, if you're in the city, if you need someplace to stay. I've never made it so direct as to say, hey, I wish you guys would come see me too and just spend time with me.

And do you see him visiting other people?

Or is it more, he has a family, he has the kids. And so whoever has an easier time flying to him is the one who does the trip. Exactly. That it's, it's the three kids. It's very busy, all, all the sports. So it's a lot easier if other people visit him. And he did visit with the family a few months ago during their break. And I had hoped he would stay with me. I,

I was a little hurt by that. I had really hoped that they would spend some time with me specifically, but I ended up meeting up with them in the city. What I'm hearing from you is that you say, I have a very fine-tuned radar for rejection. Absolutely. I am immediately sensing loss, neglect, distance, fear.

And I experience the decisions my brother makes about if to travel or where to stay as a statement about how he feels toward me. Yeah, him and everybody else. And that makes sense. First of all, it makes sense. It's a lifelong training that you had on a daily basis, and that saved you. So before we just say that's not a good thing,

I would be very cautious. It has been very good to you to be vigilant, to be alert, and to speak out. Yeah, it's exhausting sometimes. Yes. Yes, I get it. We'll be back with a session right after this. And while we love our sponsors, if you want to listen to this session ad-free, click the Try Free button to subscribe to Astaire's Office Hours on Apple Podcasts. Support for this show comes from Shopify.

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Now let me ask you, if we were to put different glasses, different tint, and you described me the same situation. I met a brother. I don't even know how you met him, meaning he was another foster child in the same family at the same time as me, right? He was the birth child. He was the birth child. I was the foster, yeah. I'm the foster, he's the real, is what I say. And how old were we when we met?

Oh, quite far apart. I was 16 and I think he was 24 or five. He was really kind to me and he was at the university at the time, but just whenever he visited and came home, you know, he, he treated me like his actual sister, even jokingly, you know, making fun, poking fun at me and things like that. It just wanted to incorporate me in the family. Yeah. Yeah.

So if I were to put on a positive pair of glasses? No, it's not just a negative pair, just a different pair. Yeah. It's not like you're going to just flip, flop, you know? It's just a different lens in which you bring other sensitivities. Okay. So that you have a broader range of awareness and sensitivities and awareness

and ways to experience people's responses to you. Okay. My brother, who was much older than me, who really helped me feel comfortable in his family and has maintained incredible, actually, communication with me, even when it was frowned upon because his mother and I don't speak at all.

He's incorporated me fully into his own family now. And I'm the aunt to his children. They look forward to seeing me. He's helped me feel really accepted in that family for every holiday, every birthday, every vacation, everything I want to attend. He's left the door completely open for me to come and go as I please, even at times when I've pulled away.

pretty far, he's always left that door open for me to stay part of his family. That does feel better. Sounds better too. Tell me, how does it feel? It feels as if, weirdly enough, like I'm able to get myself like a better bird's eye view of what's happening. Also, for a moment there, being able to see his perspective a little bit more, that this was

This was his choice too, right? And I'm not so in my internal feelings. I'm seeing a bigger picture and that feels nicer. Right. Feels more open. And in an interesting way, it's also more connected to him. Yeah. Maybe he didn't stay with you because he didn't want to come with a family with three kids and the whole chaos that comes with that. Right.

But it has nothing to do with how he feels for you. I guess that right there is just how I've been taking all my relationships, every single one of them. It's easier to let go of the friendships because I don't consider them necessarily family. But I have felt the same way all around. And when you say the same way? Just that immediate wanting to criticize him

the relationship, how they feel about me, connecting their behavior to what they might, I think they might feel about me, my importance in their lives. And then my immediate, so immediate desire to just end it all, you know, not communicate anymore. Because I learned what? I learned that if you go and it's your choice, then it doesn't hurt as bad. And that is,

made a lot of sense in the circumstances of your life then. It's a good survival strategy. And the thing about our survival strategies is that sometimes they saved us at one point and then they become somewhat of an impediment at the later stage of our lives. Because we interpret all the situations through the same lens, because we were wounded, because we learned to survive in this way and it

It definitely helped us. It's not just something we imagined. Yeah, I can't, where I am in life now, I can't imagine having spent too much time feeling hurt. And I felt bad and my thought was, I got to feel better. I got to go to school. I got to get my degrees. I have to, I just have to keep going. So I never really, I don't think I really fully addressed it. You didn't address it in this way.

but you address it in, I'm leaving. I'm getting out of here. You don't want me, I want you less. And our survival strategy at one point in our life, sometimes later on, is so tenacious and so powerful and so automatic that it doesn't really invite us to put on another pair of glasses and see, as you say, the world broader.

See it not just from the internal place, but actually ground myself in the reality of today, rather than assume it's the same reality. This is how we do it. This is not just you. We are so convinced of that reality that that's the only reality we see, and then we misinterpret. Like you may misinterpret your brother who has been with you

Regardless of, against his mom, against, I mean, just because he cares deeply about you. Yeah. And the hard thing is this. When we have a survival strategy that really helped us, it's why you were able to continue, go to school, get the degrees, build a whole life, make sure your father is where he needs to be. It's very, very scary to give it up. Yeah, it's almost as if if I do give it up,

What do I hold on to? Right. Which is why I just said, all I'm inviting you to do is put on another pair of glasses. And it was very easy for you to do it. It's not like you struggle to describe your brother, his family, who he has been, what he has done. And they can coexist. You don't have to take anything away. You have to add a layer. Right.

You have to just allow yourself to ask yourself, if I wear these lenses, you know how when you go to do an eye check, they put you all these, that's the image I have, you know? If I put on a different frame and they block my one eye and they ask me to look and to see the letters, what do I see? And they always say, which one is better, this one or that one? And they go back and forth. It's not like I drop my entire eye

way that I have constructed the world and how I've learned to navigate in this world. But what you say to me is, I have a feeling that I always land in the same place. And at some point, if everyone else is disappointing me, maybe I need to look at me. Cannot be that I'm so good at meeting so many people and sooner or later, I feel let down by them.

The constant factor is me. What am I doing? Is there something I bring as well that ultimately backfires? Yeah. We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us.

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inviting me or canceling, things like that really upset me. I'm just trying to figure out in the moment, how do I help myself? Beautiful question. What would happen if you actually did feel it and you just acknowledged it first and foremost? There's something when somebody cancels on me that just goes above and beyond. Or when someone checks out or when, what are other situations?

Well, I planned a brunch for six people last weekend and no one came. One person came, but she works with me. Yes, that's upsetting. Yeah, it was crazy. I thought it was nuts. Why accept an invitation that you won't? And did they even cancel? Yeah, an hour before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is unfortunately a reality now.

that is happening all too frequently, not just to you, where we are losing a sense that there's someone on the other side who actually prepared, went to buy, cooked this, that, and the other, and we just kind of, you know, we found a better thing to do. Yeah. And there's a difficult choice because on the one hand, your feeling that this is a shitty thing to do is totally valid. And five out of six, yes, what the hell is going on?

The next piece is the one that you ask is, and now what do I want to do with that? And maybe I just go to one or two of them that I think I can talk to. And I'd say, you know, that didn't feel very nice. Hmm.

I don't know if you invited people and you went all out and you prepared and this and that and they called you an hour before. I don't think you would like it either. It's like we can't just do this to each other. This is not the way friends act. And I say this to you because I love you and I respect you and I think you're capable of more. So I just needed to tell you that because I know that we both value friendship and honesty.

That sounds much better than what I did. Tell me what you did. Well, it was a group chat for brunch and I deleted the whole group. I just left it. I'm over it, which goes back to that extreme. But then you spite yourself. Yeah. Right? But you can go back. These are people you've known for a long time, right? Some of them. So you go back and you say, I was really hurt.

I was upset and I was hurt. I don't think anyone here in this group should ever be in this kind of a situation. We can't become casualties of the times we're living in. This has become a practice that is way too common and we need to be better with each other. It's a we. Okay. So what I'm saying to you is your disappointment, your hurt, your being even pissed is completely understandable.

And in this situation and in others, your feelings are valid. How you then choose to respond, that's the survival strategy. I responded by getting as fast and as far away as I can. Now, that's where I begin to switch. I don't change how I feel. I may sometimes say, I take this very, very deeply.

I know where it comes from and that's how it is. And I try to talk to myself and I try to remind myself. And as I just did with my brother, I put on the other lenses. But I do know that that is a real sensitive spot for me. And I need to massage it and I need to be kind to it. What changes is that I'm not the 8-year-old or the 14-year-old.

Or even the 17-year-old. What changes is that I can go to people and just say, come on. Yeah, that part feels hard. I think I struggle with, does anyone love me enough to change their behavior? That one is... Yeah. I feel like I can easily say probably not. I think people have their own best interests mostly. But that's hard for me to just go talk to someone thinking that it may improve. Well, you will have given...

the value or the respect to the relationship that it deserves, and then you will know. And by the way, you're not supposed to know this instantly. This is a practice. It's a very hard thing to do. It's called difficult conversations. For a good reason. But I think sometimes the we version of it, you know, we can't do this to each other.

I don't want to do this to you and you don't want to do this to me. I mean, we can't be friends and treat each other like that. We need to be more caring and more careful with each other. It's a shitty thing to do. And you wouldn't want it either. I mean, nobody likes this, you know. So everybody had a good reason, supposedly. Not in my book.

No, I mean, typical reasons. I'm tired. Children, my friends with children were always children excuses. Yeah, there weren't any emergencies or anything like that. And you think that their answer would be you don't understand what it's like to be basically they would say you should understand you are asking for too much.

Yeah, I had an experience with that. A very good friend of mine, when she became a mom, I was very involved in visiting and doing all this stuff to support her, knowing that we wouldn't get a ton of time together. Well, five years later, I happened to reach out and I said, hey, I've been inviting you to things and you've been turning every single one of my invites down. I miss spending time with you. Mm-hmm.

And the reaction I got was, you don't know what it's like. Just totally rejected what I was feeling. And since then, I've been too afraid to talk to friends about my need from them as, you know, as a friend, adult time together. And, you know, I'll come and do the children things with you. But I would like to go to dinner, have a glass of wine, things like that.

I didn't get the response that I felt like I needed. So I've just, I'll respond when she reaches out, but I, and I haven't totally cut it off, but I won't usually go out of my way to do anything with her. And when you look at her life, do you think it's about you or do you think that it says more about where she's at? Definitely where she's at. I could never understand until I become a parent, but it's, um,

I'm sure she's going through a lot. I mean, a number of the things that you are producing here are societal. They're not just you. You know, it is many times that people who enter into the life stage with young children do not maintain their friendships with people who are not in the exact same life stage. And they meet new people circumstantially because they are in

families with young kids. Yeah. That doesn't mean that a loss is unreal. So that's why I want you to separate between what I feel and how I choose to react to what I feel. I can't get to see my friends who have young kids because they're constantly busy with kids and stuff and I don't... That's sad, frustrating, a loss, annoying. It's a range of things. And...

I also understand that it's not like they're going to see other people. It's where they're at. And so it's really upsetting because one loses friends in that transition often. And I will stay connected with them and I will be the one to go because it's like in the workplace. The person who doesn't have kids is supposed to be able to be flexible for all the other people who have the constraints of family lives. I mean, this is a...

a discussion that takes place very often. But at the same time, I also want people who still have space and bandwidth to go out for dinner and have a glass of wine. So you're saying it's possible to maintain a connection with my friends that are changing lifestyles or...

growing in some other way while also expanding myself to meeting other people without necessarily cutting them off. Okay. I understand. Yes.

And I'm also saying that it is often the case that you will be the one having to be more flexible and coming to meet there where they are at and what they're doing. And every once in a while, you will meet one who has children, but who loves to have a friend who still doesn't have kids so she can go out with you and go do whatever you enjoy doing together. I do. She lives in Switzerland. Yeah.

So that person exists too, you see. There is the one who says, at least I have one friend who I can go and I don't have to talk about the kids with. I can talk about it, you know. So you have both and you also expand your circle. You say, this is a moment when often people...

become more distant and more wrapped into their family realities and enveloped there. And therefore, I go and I meet new people. That's something I know to do very well. Yeah, for sure. But the piece of the disappointment, that is not because they have kids. You have had that piece for a while, right? That has existed regardless of the particular circumstances and life stage that people are in.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to find some reasons so that it decreases the hurt a little bit. And in that, I'm sure I'm finding some truths of their circumstances. And they probably existed all along. And if that frame helps you to say, I need to put on my other glasses, see what I see.

If I put on my vision glasses, my prescription glasses, what do I see with my prescription glasses? What do I see when I don't have them on? And the two realities interact with each other so that I don't only live in one groove and I always sniff the rejection, sniff the, I'm not loved enough, I'm not lovable enough.

Why would I even go say something? If I bring it up, I'll give them the opportunity to tell me. Yeah. Yes to what? Yes. Giving someone an opportunity to reject me is not something I'm into. But there doesn't always have to be rejection. I know there are a lot of people that really care about me. Tell me more about them.

The exact same people that are disappointing me. Yeah, yeah. Friends, family, even with my mom, that...

I harbored a lot of resentment at some point of why would you let your little girl go live in a place you've never been, you don't know about. But I've learned to let that go. How did she answer that? I haven't asked her. That's something that maybe we'll do when I visit. But I do know, you know, in the African culture, where I'm from, you put a lot of hopes and dreams in your children.

And you send them far away sometimes hoping that their lives could be better and hoping that maybe you'll need your life could be better too. I'm not angry at her for that anymore. So this is a beautiful example of a different pair of lenses, right? As a kid, when you were in the midst of pain and suffering, you thought, how could my mom send me

to live like this? What was she thinking? Why did she abandon me? Does she even care what I'm going through? And more. And then over time, what has allowed you to not be angry anymore is you began to say, from where she comes, she probably thought, I'm going to give her the opportunity of living in America.

She's going to get a better education. She's going to get more opportunities than me. And these two realities began to blend with each other. Your experience and her experience. Yeah. Tell me more. It took 30 years. I've had multiple opportunities to buy plane tickets to go visit, and I would always find a way to back out of it. And until I finally got to this point where I could...

potentially see what she experienced. I can't imagine that it's easy to let your firstborn leave. And if you're wanting something better for them, you might put them on a plane, on a boat. Many people have done that. What made you change your mind this time? I think just getting older and thinking about children myself.

Also just understanding more the concept of sacrifice and knowing that it would be a huge regret if I couldn't get myself to go see her and she were to pass away or something. So just really trying to understand, understand her more. And it's crazy because I haven't talked to her about it at all. It's just, just trying to understand if I were a mom and if I were in that situation.

What would I do? How old was she when she had you? I think 15. And so she was old and all 23 when she gave up her precious daughter. Yeah. And also just, I've reached out. We chat a little bit here and there. And she has never...

said anything that would make me want to reject her. She's always just said, I want to see you. I would do anything to see you. And hearing that over and over and over again gave me the reassurance that, okay, she does love me. And she sent me away because she loved me. Yeah. Which is a real mindfuck. Yeah. Yeah. I can't even imagine what she went through.

Being left with a newborn and then having to send your eight-year-old away. And what happens to you when you begin to see your story through her lens? I feel less abandoned. I feel a little sad that so much time has passed. Do you dare to say I feel loved? Yeah, absolutely. Good. Can you say it?

Yeah, I feel like my mom loves me. So I've been able to make those sacrifices. She really loved me. You're going to go next month, right? Yeah. If you remember, I would love to know how this trip is going for you. How transformative it will be for you. Oh, gosh. How it's going to put so many pieces in place. How proud she will be of you. Yeah. Because you're a real fighter. Yeah.

Thank you. The fact that at eight years old, you could go and stand up for yourself when you were all alone in this country is remarkable. While you sometimes are very sensitive to being abandoned by others, you have been there for yourself in remarkable ways. And I'm humbled in this conversation with you. Thank you, Lester.

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 at estherperel.com. Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel 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, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Julianne Hatt. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul. Support for the show comes from Mercury.

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