Family estrangement and infidelity: Esther Perel answers your questions
All In The Mind
ABC Australia
4.5 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do you grieve a dying parent you're estranged from? Do cheaters ever change? People say love should feel 'easy', is that true?
Psychotherapist Esther Perel is back on All in the Mind, answering your questions about heartbreak, loss, and love in this extra special mailbag episode.
We've got questions on how to reconnect with estranged siblings, what to do when global conflicts impact personal relationships, and whether a first love can still feel special, even if it happens later in life.
And if you missed part one of our chat with Esther Perel, you can listen to our episode titled "Couples therapy with an AI partner? Esther Perel's just done it" here.
Esther also featured on our first episode of Mind Hacks!
Guest:
Esther PerelPsychotherapist and couples therapistAuthor, The State of Affairs and Mating in CaptivityHost, Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Credits:
- Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
- Senior producer: James Bullen
- Producer: Rose Kerr
- Sound engineer: Roi Huberman
More information:
If you want to hear more from Esther Perel, she chatted to Lisa Leong on This Working Life. The episode is called Esther Perel on conflict and power struggles at work.
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. |
| 0:07.2 | For the first time in over 50 years, astronauts will soon fly around the moon. |
| 0:12.7 | They're ready to fly. |
| 0:13.8 | But there are real concerns about their safety. |
| 0:16.5 | We're playing Russia roulette. |
| 0:18.0 | In our series, The Challenger Legacy, we trace the history of two space shuttle disasters. |
| 0:23.7 | And we ask, what are the lessons for today? |
| 0:27.0 | I'm Carl Kisholnetski. |
| 0:28.8 | And I'm Fiona Pepper. |
| 0:30.3 | Binge all the episodes now. |
| 0:32.1 | Just search for The Challenger Legacy on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:38.3 | Hey, it's Sana Khadar. This is all in the mind from ABC Radio National, Mailbag |
| 0:43.8 | edition. And this is also part two of our chat with psychotherapist Esther Perel. |
| 0:52.1 | Two weeks ago, we had part one of our chat with Esther, and we also asked you when we confirmed that she was going to come on the show to send us your questions so we could do a mailbag edition with her. |
| 1:04.1 | We asked and you delivered. There was a lot of pain that spilled into our inbox. It was quite humbling to read your stories and to know that you trusted us with these questions. |
| 1:15.6 | So in this episode, we have questions on infidelity, on family estrangement, on global events impacting personal relationships. |
| 1:24.6 | Esther also talks about how to make amends for past wrongs. |
| 1:28.9 | Without a big mea-culpate of what you were going through, |
| 1:32.1 | because the point is not for them to become empathic toward you. |
| 1:35.4 | The point is for you to basically be accountable, take responsibility. |
| 1:39.5 | She also addresses this idea that love, when it's good and real, should feel easy. Love is not a permanent |
| 1:46.9 | state of enthusiasm. So we're going to pick up right where we left off. Here's part two of our chat |
... |
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