What happens to a relationship when the people in it expect each other to be comfortable yet daring, familiar yet edgy, and steady yet growing? These tensions are fundamental to contemporary relationships, Perel says, and that’s why so many are doomed to fail from the outset. When spouses are expected to want both dependency and freedom in a relationship, something will inevitably buckle under the pressure of unmet needs.

There’s a note of worry in Perel’s voice when she describes how men have fallen behind in discussing manhood, desire, and relationships, in contrast to an awakening of women’s conversations around those topics. For millennia these topics were the purview of men, and now that women have taken back the narrative men are stuck thinking of themselves in self-sabotaging ways. Watch as Perel calls for men to step up and have tough conversations about how they can think differently about themselves for the sake of stronger relationships:

The evolution of sex, relationships, and marriage over the past has moved the institution of marriage away from a model of economic necessity to one of love and passion, argues Perel. While that’s been liberating for many, especially women,  we have to be very purposeful about continuing the conversation. Perel wants us to keep talking about monogamy, infidelity, and what those mean in this new conception of marriage.