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[grunts]
[laughs]
Let me check out my face in the mirror.
You can take off that stupid bandana.
Huh?
Just take off that stupid bandana.
I like it, it's comfortable.
[grunts]
There you go. There you go.
[both laugh]
[Ping VO] There's 12 years between us.
Does it feel like a big difference?
[Will] It didn't--
[Ping] It didn't used to.
Yeah, our first few years together,
we didn't-- it never became an issue,
and in fact, we almost, like, bragged about it,
like "There's his huge age gap, but we're making it work."
Yeah.
But now, I feel like he wants to be somewhere else,
doing something else, and a lot of our conflict comes when we're
talking about what I want and what he wants,
and it's not the same.
Mm-hm.
Well, I think what she's referring to is I spent a year
in Korea.
Why there?
[Will] To teach English overseas.
There was a course I had mentioned,
and she was like, "Do you still have the information about
that course?
And let's sign up for it.
And let's get our, um, ESL license and let's go do it."
For both of you to go teach?
[Will] For both of us, yeah.
[Ping] Mm-hm.
Uh-huh.
So we got licensed and everything,
and we were like,"Okay, now it's time to go."
And so I started searching for jobs,
and she was dragging her feet, and she was dragging her feet,
and then that caused tons of arguments.
What was the crux there?
What I wasn't prepared for was four months after we got
married, that he made the decision to go and...
without me.
We made the decision to go.
It's another thing we disagree on.
[Ping] [sighs]
For me, it was about being different than the person I used
to be.
If I'm honest, a part of me really didn't want to do it.
[Orna] I see.
So you were operating with two different parts of yourself?
[Ping] Exactly.
The two voices are saying, "You really wanna support him,"
on one hand, but then tell him he can't go and do what he's
been wanting to do.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
I didn't want to be that person.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
But then, the inner child in me says,
"Wow, you're leaving me.
How are you leaving me?
I don't understand."
So the adult says, "Go!"
[Ping] Yeah, the adult says, "Go."
And the child says, "Don't leave me."
"Don't go," yeah, exactly.
Uh-huh.
[Ping] So I was aware of that--
Confusing.
[Ping] It's confusing and--
For everyone.
[Ping] Yes, yeah.
[Will] [laughs]
Yeah, for you and for you.
[Ping] Yes.
[Will] Extremely confusing.
Mm-hm.
I was under the impression that we decided as a couple this
would be good for both of us.
So I left for Korea in August of 2019,
I came back September 2020.
And upon my return, I'm finding none of that's true.
[chuckles]
What did you find?
Well, the phrase she keeps throwing out is
I came back a stranger.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
I would say I've grown or evolved.
I had this awesome experience over there.
How could that not change you or affect you,
you know?
The reality is we both have changed.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
[sighs] So he came back in September,
and when he came off the plane, he didn't hug me,
he didn't kiss me, and he was just like,
"Eh, this feels so weird, everything feels weird."
And okay,fine, you know?
He needs time to adjust.
But I don't think he appreciates that what I was seeing was a
stranger, and that, in turn, affected our intimacy.
Like, we used to have a great sex life.
Now, we have no sex life.
And that's--
[Orna] Well--
Hm? Why?
[Orna] Yeah...
I don't know, ask him.
What do you think?
I feel like she's putting this on me.
That whatever this no sex thing is,
it's all for me to figure out on my own.
And you better do it quick, 'cause I'm losing patience.
One of the reasons why I married him was because I
thought he was gonna be my playmate,
I thought he was going to be
my partner in that sense, right?
I thought we were going to have an open marriage and open
communication and blah blah blah,
and you've been anything but open with me.
He disappointed me on such a fucking level,
and now we're not even having sex,
and if we're not gonna have sex anymore,
then I don't want to be married.
But maybe, Ping, it sounds like something
about the experience...
of this departure -- of this leaving -- has hurt you,
you're speaking from a place of desperation and a deep worry,
but what's ultimately coming out is,
um, intimidation.
Hm.
[Orna] And that aggression kind of creates the opposite of
what you're needing.
So what you need to do, then, is kind of...
tame your dragon...
and move it in a slightly different direction--
I've been trying, yeah.
So you still have those strong feelings,
but they indeed go towards passion rather than aggression.
Yeah, he calls it "Grendel."
He named it.
You called it "Grendel."
That's her dragon,that's her Grendel.
[laughs]
And she always talks about how the Grendel's there to protect
the little girl inside.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
The few times she has been able to
open up and I've seen her
vulnerability, and I've seen that desperation,
I've seen that fear...
it instantly melts my heart, you know?
And...
I feel it too, and I just want to,
like, comfort her, and I feel like those times,
we instantly connect.
But it's so rare that happens that way.
So rare it happens that way.
Yeah.
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[woman] Whoa!
[Cyn] Hello, Orna.
[Orna] Hey.
Oh, oh, you're excited, okay.
Hi.
They're always drawn to you.
All the time.
[Orna] Yeah?
All the time.
[Orna] Really?
All the time, it's always her.
Whether it be kids, whether it's dogs,
it's always her.
[laughs]
What do you make of it?
I'm okay with that.
I'm like, "Okay, go."
But what do you make of it?
That's 'cause she's so motherly.
It's her, um--it's her nature.
[Orna] Mm-hm, motherly.
Extremely motherly, yeah.
[laughs]
Which is a good thing; there's nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong with that at all.
[sighs]
Nothing wrong with that, but maybe it's getting in your way
a little bit--
[Cyn] Oh, yeah.
As a couple.
Oh.
[Yaya] Oh.
Oh.
Oh, like "Hi, Mom."
[Yaya] What, you think I treat you like the kids?
Orna, you don't ease into this stuff, man.
[laughter]
That just came out of left field, wow!
[laughs]
[Orna] Okay, so tell me more about what's going on between
the two of you.
Thoughts after our first session...
So the whole sex thing for us
like, I just...
I don't want anything.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
Like, even if she tries, I'm like,
"No, I just..."
And she's tried several times.
Mm-hm.
I always tell her, like, "When you're ready,
like, I don't ever want you to feel like if I push,
that I'm re-triggering something."
I don't want her to feel like I'm violating her.
Mm-hm.
Can I ask you, what do you mean by that?
[clears throat]
[voice cracking] I was abused as a kid.
[Orna] There's a particular incident?
[Cyn] Yes, my uncle.
Mm-hm.
And the first time it happened, that morning,
I literally woke up with my uncle's hands in my pants and I
was like, "What is that feeling?"
Mm-hm.
And I remember walking...
to the bedroom that my parents were in,
and it was-- I clearly envision it.
It was sunny, the kitchen was flooded with sunlight,
and then I get to the bedroom, and I'm at the door and I hear
them snoring, but I don't remember what happened from that
point of me trying-- I don't know if I tried to wake them up,
I don't know if they shooed me away,
I don't know.
All I know is I ended up walking back and I got back into bed...
with my uncle instead of...
instead of going--
Instead of getting the protection--
[Cyn] Getting away, yeah.
The protection you needed.
[Cyn] Yeah.
[Orna] And what about your parents?
My parents didn't see any signs...
of me being molested.
Mm-hm.
But then, as I got older, I know my mom asked me...
Mm-hm.
But I never told her it was my uncle.
But if she has an inkling that someone may have touched me,
then why not explore that more?
But I feel like she did not know.
So you're saying there's kind of a knowing and not knowing.
Yeah.
[Orna] Like a half-knowing.
[Cyn] There was no exploration of that statement.
Mm-hm.
[Cyn] And then it was, like, left alone.
Part of me was always pissed off about that.
[Orna] Sure.
And I think from there, that's where all of the,
you know, "If you truly love me, I'm just gonna just talk shit to
you all the time."
And I think that's why I talk to you like that when I'm
pissed off.
But I think what you're saying right now is that part of the
pissed-off is that something's wrong.
Yeah, and it kind of just--
[Orna] And what feels wrong right now?
[sighs]
I don't know.
I feel like the wrong is in me.
It has nothing to do with...
I gotta fi-- I don't know, I just gotta fix me.
[sighs]
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[Orna VO] I have a case that I wanted to bring to the group.
So with Cyn and Yaya,
there are two things that I thought I'd love
your reactions to, thoughts on with them.
Their presenting problem is that Cyn lost
her sexual interest in Yaya.
And most of the time, Yaya seems oddly unaffected.
I'm thinking to myself, like, "Why is she not alarmed?"
And then Cyn disclosed that she had a history of sexual abuse,
and when we think about, like, childhood trauma and how it
manifests later in life, there's this classic triangle of
perpetrator, victim, and bystander.
Like, the bystander who does nothing to protect.
[all] Mm-hm.
[Nuar] So the mother is the bystander.
Mm-hm.
So maybe there's some way in which Yaya's becoming maternal
condenses her with the maternal image,
and that may have something to do also with her lack of libido.
This is why you find a partner who triggers these dynamics,
so that you can participate in these re-enactments at least
with the hope of resolving them,
so it's like Cyn maybe is back in
the same position with someone where she's,
like, desperately screaming, like,
"Wake up and hear this."
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[Orna VO] Moving to Dale and India,
the problem that they came in with was this kind of classic
couple's dynamic of one person feeling like they're designated
like the angry one.
So I wanted to, like, talk about how anger is packaged...
by categories like gender, or like race.
[man] Yeah.
[Kali] Well, there's also respectability politics
in operation.
So in the Black community, southern Black women,
you are supposed to be, you know,
this virtuous sort of...
[chuckles]
[woman] Well-put-together.
Right, and that is to be expected of you.
You're supposed to keep your business to yourself and not
show rage.
[India VO] From the very beginning of our relationship,
I was under a lot of pressure.
He was coming out of a marriage before,
um, so immediately, I'm thinking,
"Oh, great, now I have to measure up to this woman or make
him feel comfortable again," because he had his guard up.
And, uh--
[Orna] What kind of guard?
You know, he had this timeline of these steps that he had to
take before he got very serious with someone,
so, you know, I felt like I was kind of walking on eggshells a
little bit with that.
Mm-hm.
And then, we had a conversation and he said flat-out that,
you know, "I almost gave up on dating Black women."
So there's a little bit of judgment there;
he feels a type of way.
[Orna] A judgment that Black women are...?
Hard to deal with,
and he just doesn't want to argue all the time, so, um--
[Orna] But a generalization that
Black women would argue more.
[India] Yes.
Mm-hm.
[Dale] So--
What are you thinking?
Well, I mean, at first,
I'm so sorry
that she felt that way.
But here's the thing: every time there's an issue,
she comes to me with guns blazing.
It's never, you know, "Okay, let's talk about this.
Or let's discuss this.
I have a problem."
Is that true?
I never come guns blazing.
[chuckles]
I come and, like, we have a conversation and it escalates
when I feel like I'm not being understood or if I'm being
dismissed or if I'm not being heard at all,
and then it escalates.
I mean, I'm not saying-- I think we...
I think we have different tolerance levels,
and I think when India has a plight,
it's very quick for her to get to,
okay, now it's explosive.
Mm-hm.
But I don't like the way you make me feel.
You make me feel angry, aggressive,
and like the villain--
Like a villain.
When I was the one-- in my mind,
was the victim.
[Orna] Yeah.
You know, just trying to communicate to you what my
problem is.
Okay, but--
[Orna] Hold on, hold on.
Okay.
I'm getting a flavor of what the two of you are talking
about, and I think that we can agree
that you each hurt each other with your words.
Yeah.
Yes.
So I guess the first question then
is how do the two of you
create a space where you can say what you need to say to each
other that feels still...
productive?
-Yes. -Yes.
[Orna] For the two of you.
-Yes. -Yes.
I'm happy to be a part of that conversation,
but I feel like he tries to put me in a box of being overly
traumatized or overly insecure
or too emotional.
Mm-hm.
And I'm not saying that I don't get upset and angry,
but he's very uncomfortable with confrontation.
[Orna] Yeah.
And I feel like, okay, that's something to decode with him.
I don't want to feel like I'm the only person here who's
broken and who needs to be fixed when in fact,
I don't think I'm broken at all, actually.
Maybe he is the broken one.
Well, we're probably all broken.
I mean--
-[Dale] Yeah. -[India] In some form.
[Orna] I understand the tension and the conflict,
but be aware of how you talk to each other,
because these are ways to not have to listen to each other.
[India] Yeah.
[Dale] Yeah.
Okay.
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[Molly] What the fuck is this?
If you went both times, it's totally unacceptable.
[Josh] [laughs]
[Josh VO] We actually met here in the city.
This is right after 9/11.
We both got hired at the same company and,
you know, the first moment I saw her,
I was, like, very into her.
And, um, I asked her out a few times.
I asked her out I think within those first two weeks.
We were putting chairs away and I was like,
"Do you wanna go get some coffee?"
And she...did not.
[laughs]
She turned me down.
And then, we were at a holiday party.
We ended up-- you know, there was wine at the party and she
was a little bit more...
talkative with me.
[laughs]
'Cause we were flirting!
[Jason] And then we were-- yeah, then we were, like,
flirting with each other.
And then, next thing you know, it's, like...
four in the morning, we're at a deli eating and just--
that was it.
What did you see in each other?
You know, she's like--she has this light and energy and,
like, she also is, like, really fiery.
That was sort of my...thought.
And for you?
Josh was like the first person who I felt really saw me
and understood me, and...
he was just so -- and still is -- but so kind and so gentle
and so calm.
Like, he was the opposite of chaos.
It felt calm.
Yeah.
And I felt, like, energized.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
I felt like, "Oh, I'm, like, alive.
This is--life is happening.
Mm-hm.
[Josh] But that feels so far away.
Like, that was a lovely story, but there's a lot of shit from
there to here, and a lot of pain.
[Orna] Say more.
You know, before we had my first-- our first child,
I had, like, a bunch of miscarriages and...
I think for me, that's kind of where I got...
broke down.
How did it go between the two of you?
The miscarriage experience.
For me, I felt very helpless.
And, uh...
it was-- the feelings that she was having were unattainable for
m-- like, I couldn't share in her suffering.
And I can't believe...
that I wasn't there for her in that time.
Or where was I?
"Where was I?"
maybe is a better way to say it.
Where was I then?
You couldn't experience sort of
the level of loss that Molly was
experiencing, so you were kind of
left behind...
and you were left alone.
Yeah.
And then, when I got pregnant with our third child,
Josh met someone and they became very,
very close, and it came out that he was having an inappropriate
relationship with her, and I was pregnant.
[voice cracking] That felt like the rug had been pulled out from
underneath me.
Half of me was like, "I'm not gonna have this baby to
spite you."
The other half of me was like, "I have to save my family.
I can't bring in another child because there's all this chaos
going on and this is the right thing to do."
[sniffles]
And then it it was extreme-- I did it at home with a pill.
It was very painful.
And then, the doctor gave me Percocet,
and then I got addicted to Percocet!
[Orna] Mm-hm.
And I...
crashed my car in a tree a block away from our house.
Like, it was just a terrible, terrible time.
It just feels, like, so fucked up,
I don't know.
And, like, we haven't really talked about it like this.
We have not really talked about it.
Let's.
Well...
I was so angry--
Yeah.
At Josh because I then had to go through
losing a child again...
which was devastating and still is.
And I feel so, like...
dead.
[Orna] Yeah.
First of all, Josh, where are you?
Um...
I can't even believe that that happened in our life.
Like, I can't...
I can't believe it happened.
Mm-hm.
Choices that I made...
daily for a least a little while...
you know, directly led to a decision that we made to...
not have a k-- you know, this child.
Like, I just can't-- I cannot-- I can't wrap my brain around the
fact that that actually happened.
Can I just understand...
The choice that created the outcome is
the relationship is the cause of the abortion?
Yeah.
That's how it lives between the two of you?
Yeah.
And then, I was, like, crying out for help,
you know what I mean?
With the...
Percocet and...
then seeking someone who would hold fucking space for me
outside of our marriage but knowing that that wasn't right
but I just wanted someone to hold some space for me!
[sighs] I mean, this is the thing,
it's like how do we...
how do we carry all this forward with us, like...
whether we have to carry it or whether we can leave it behind,
or what-- how do we-- what do...?
That's how I feel.
I'm like, "What...
what do we do with this stuff that we--"
In a way, at least part of what the two of you seem to be
telling me...
with all these words, like "dead inside,"
"Can we carry it?
Do we leave it behind?"
I think there's part of it that has to do really with,
like, the processing of all these,
like, unborn...
babies.
Miscarried, aborted.
Where does it live inside you?
Between you?
A future that didn't happen, a past...
[Josh] [sighs]
Yeah.
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[sighs]
[Josh] Thank you.
See you soon.
[Orna] See you soon.
[muffled heartbeat]
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