150. Couples Therapy: The Tools You Need with Dr. Orna Guralnik

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I think that I know more than anyone on this entire planet that having the right therapist to talk to can make a life-changing difference.

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To be loved, we need to belong.

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Today, we have a very special to us, to Abby and me, and to a lot of the world.

Yes.

Dr.

Orna Guralnik.

She is a psychoanalyst and writer who serves on the faculty of NYU Postdoc, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, the Stephen Mitchell Center, and the editorial boards of psychoanalytic dialogues and studies in gender and sexuality.

Her writing centers on the intersection of psychoanalysis, dissociation, and cultural studies.

She has completed the filming of four seasons of the docuseries Couples Therapy, airing on Showtime.

Oh my god, that's my favorite.

I know.

Abby and I watch

just wrapped.

Wrapped.

We love the show.

We love the couples on the show and how they work things out or don't.

And we truly are enamored with you.

Wow.

Yes.

And I know

that a lot of people have become enamored with you.

And it's a very interesting phenomenon.

And I know that's not what you're most comfortable with.

You're there to show the work.

True.

Exactly.

True.

True.

Yes.

But before we start, I do need to tell you that Abby just found the things that I have Googled about you.

Okay.

I have Googled what kind of dog does Orna have?

Does Orna take new clients?

Where are Orna's sweaters from?

Where do I get Orna's scarves?

Articles about how Orna listens like that.

And how is Orna so calm?

I'm speechless.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The calmness, I would just love to start

out with, because

it makes me think of this part of I read in My Grandmother's Hands by Resma Mana Kem, where he says, something like, they think they're coming to me for answers, but they really come to sit with someone who has a settled nervous system.

Does that ring any bell with you?

Rings many bells.

D.W.

Winnicott talked about the containing environment.

He talked about it more as sort of the maternal environment, the responsibility of the maternal environment to provide for the fussy infant, where if you provide a

containing present environment for someone who's fussy, their nervous system will calm down.

They'll have the space to make sense of their own experience.

So in a certain way, I guess you could think of the analyst, the analyst's role as doing that.

That's one of their roles is to simply provide an environment in which the other person can sort out what's going on with them.

My own, what you're calling my calmness,

it's, it's, it is the result of like many years in analysis myself.

Oh, that's interesting.

The show, it takes these fussy people.

We're all fussy.

We're fussy as hell.

And then they sit and they wait in that little hallway, which is like the purgatory, the fussy purgatory.

I love that place.

Canal, right?

What happens there?

The canal.

And then they're birthed into your room.

And the room, it's so, it's a womb.

Yeah.

pup and the little dog bed and the colors in there and your soft sweaters.

I love this description.

It's so beautiful.

I mean, and we feel it when we watch, right?

Yeah, it's like we finish our fussy day and our fussy arguments.

And then when we turn it on, when we get to your room in the hallway, we're stressed because they're still fussing.

Yeah.

Those couples are still fussing.

And that's why they have all those like in the hallway, they have the little puzzles

so they can stop bitching at each other and they can just focus on their puzzles.

And then

there's some magic that happens

in that room so therapy can be expensive and hard to access right yes let's say you had several minutes with millions of people who are listening and would love to know what would love some of that womb in their own fussy houses what would you say to them that might be most helpful to people trying to figure out how would you democratize therapy in a few minutes

um well that's a good one first of all yes therapy historically, it's been kind of an expensive thing that differentiates, that follows like a certain kind of class system in terms of who can and cannot have access.

Now, hopefully that is changing.

That's one of the objectives of our show, of the series, but it's also changing in the psychoanalytic world at large.

People are more and more aware of needing to find ways to democratize therapy.

And a lot of really interesting initiatives going on in that respect.

But if I had to try to put together some words that would serve as like a very preliminary kind of container about couples, I would say

that

it would be great for people to think of both the challenge and beauty.

of their couplehood as the challenge of dealing with otherness.

Right?

You don't, we don't connect to our partners to find ourselves.

I mean, what's the point?

That's not interesting.

There's no growth in that.

There's nothing new in that.

There's nothing to be had by just having a relationship just with oneself.

That's just narcissism, which you know leads nowhere.

So

this thing that we do, which is that we reach out towards the world and fall in love and want to connect with someone else, means we are inviting otherness into our lives.

And that is important.

That is like the thorn that will make you grow, that will make you heal and go beyond yourself.

So

that's the journey.

The journey is to negotiate otherness.

And in the crisis that always gets created between a couple, it's always ultimately a crisis about otherness.

How do you deal with the fact that your partner is different from you?

So

it's what you need and it's what you will struggle with.

It's in a way, you could think of the fact that you're, you could imagine it that you're creating your own mini-political system.

So, what kind of political system do you believe in?

What are your ethics about difference?

And try to have that guide you.

Holy shit.

That's interesting.

So, we need to become more political political system, less evangelists for our own way.

Love it.

Exactly.

Yes.

And isn't that interesting?

Because when you think about the otherness,

it either leads to this

pattern of kind of

righteous, I am correct, and you are wrong, blame.

cycle or it leads to I see that you are other

and incorrect, and therefore I have married the wrong person.

Well, those two are kind of the same way of thinking.

Right.

They're both one is right, one is wrong, and you need to either squash difference or get rid of difference.

But none of that involves.

opening up to difference and figuring out how do you live with difference.

How do you live with both understanding who you are and who your partner is and figuring out a third way that will involve both?

A third way.

We just need a Disney movie.

We need a Disney movie where the princess set meets her princess, other princess, and then says,

Now we negotiate our political system of otherness instead of you complete me happily ever after, right?

She needs to sit down with Dr.

Orna.

Dr.

Orna needs to come in in after the wedding and sit down with Nico and negotiate the otherness.

That's good.

Okay, go, I think before the wedding.

Maybe before the wedding.

Yes,

um, what is the fear

that underlies this issue of otherness?

So I'm not necessarily mad because you do X and I do Y.

I am deeply disturbed by this because I have some fear of what?

That is huge.

That is a huge question.

You can try to answer that question on

many layers.

I mean, some people say that we were kind of wired to understand the world by creating differences in our mind.

Like we have to create distinction to be able to even have any kind of thought.

So there's some way that we always have to like separate what's this and what is it not.

So what I am is not you.

What you are is not me.

So there's some way that it's kind of inherent.

But then what is the fear?

There could be all sorts of fears.

And you could talk about like

early childhood fears that get triggered.

Like, what is the fear?

If I depend, will that other abandon?

If that one is other than me, is there immediately the question of who is better?

Is there immediately a question of hierarchies and power?

If we're different, who's on top?

Who's exploiting who?

Is there a fear of the person's otherness means I'm not entitled to exist?

There are many ways that you can imagine, like, what this difference and what the fear brings up.

And then there's the question of your life experiences and how you've been indoctrinated to respond to difference, right?

If you're,

if

let's say the political system you grew up in invites dealing with difference by way of oppression, then that's what you think.

Other oppress.

If you're growing up in a society in which otherness is like

you seek to harmonize, then you'll have a very different kind of reaction to otherness.

It's actually a great question, like to try to answer it, like in a deep way.

Like, what is the existential fear that otherness brings up?

Because, you know, that underlies like racism, it

underlies homophobia.

Every kind of of difference obviously can is a riddle.

Like, how are you going to respond to that?

What is the fear of otherness?

Dang, start with a big doosie.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's also interesting the way you're talking about it from a political system.

and otherness.

And I think especially in the last few years, we have experienced a huge polarization, and many people are experiencing it in their own homes.

And even if they're not politically polarized with their partners, one thing I love about your work is you honor feminist theory within your psychoanalysis.

So there's this whole idea of an awareness of the political reality within the realities of our relationships.

And so, what have you seen?

That's a major otherness.

If you're in, like i am uh

a opposite sex marriage and you're having a very different experience of the last four years just by nature of who you are than i have had

i have noticed myself these resentments these kind of the anger

that I have to experience being a second-class citizen in this country and you never will.

And therefore, you cannot understand me.

You are so other.

Have you seen that more in the last?

Absolutely.

Yes, absolutely.

I mean, first of all, what's happening now in the States, I mean, it's not only happening in the States, it's happening in Europe, it's happening in Israel, it's happening across the world.

It's like

a disease, but this

business of more and more extreme polarization, you know, and we can see it like between Democrats and Republicans, red and blue, but when that is the

way of thinking that has marked our time,

then it will make its way, of course, into like gender dynamics.

It will make its way into the smallest difference around how to load the dishwasher.

When people are in the mindset of what I would call splitting, and I'll explain what I mean, it goes everywhere.

It goes in relationships between parent and children.

It's really a disease.

And what I mean by splitting, and that goes to this question of difference and response to difference, is this British analyst, Melanie Klein, I mean, many years ago, really emphasized this primary defense that we all come into the world with or start our life with, which is

this trying to distinguish good from bad internally.

There are things that feel good and things that feel bad.

There's the breast that is giving milk and then the empty breast that is keeping the baby hungry.

And those differences between good and bad are very important.

Like we need to preserve the good inside us and then project the bad outside of us.

It's sort of a basic way of organizing an experience.

And with time and with the development of mind, one can integrate good and bad and say, oh, mom is both feeding and sometimes not there.

Our partner is both this wonderful person that provides a lot of warmth and sometimes not available.

And it's the same person.

And the good feelings that get created in us are the same.

We are the same person that feels both love and hate.

So the integration of this good and bad is like developmentally where we want to be.

So going back to your question of, for example, gender differences and completely different ways of experiencing the world.

Ultimately, what you want is for people to be able to understand that their inner experience of

goodness and badness is the same.

I mean, it's not the same, but it lives within the same container.

When I work with couples on,

for example, on gender differences, on how, let's say, patriarchy shapes their experience in the world, people come into the negotiation or into the conflict assuming that, for example, women assume that they're the only one suffering from patriarchy.

Men suffer from patriarchy tremendously.

They're robbed of so much by having to split and perform this kind of masculine

role.

And they have to like split off all that's within them that has to do with femininity.

And it empties them out.

Like any kind of splitting ultimately empties you out.

Women suffer too.

Not only do they suffer the oppression of patriarchy, but they suffer of having to like split themselves off of all the goods that the whatever we want to imagine as masculinity is.

So

you want to bring people into the understanding, the deep, deeply felt understanding that we're everything.

And these splits are artificial,

they rob us.

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So is splitting playing a role then?

Is splitting like I am a girl, so I act this way.

You are a boy, so you act this way.

I am a Christian, so I believe these things.

You are a whatever.

is it is it identity roles yeah

yes they're identity roles that that um

force us to occupy certain aspects of ourselves and then dissociate from other aspects like disavow lose touch with

push aside and then feel compelled to see whatever we've pushed aside in the other

and then try to control that other because it's really scary to constantly constantly have to disavow stuff in yourself.

So you got to like see it in the other and then

get a grip on that other, control.

Damn.

So a woman who has squashed her own ambition says to another woman, I just don't like the way something about her.

Or a man who has hidden all of his femininity and homosexual, whatever, is the one who teases the other, the other person about their gayness.

Is this what we're saying?

Yeah.

Wow.

Is that related to maybe in a couple where

one person feels responsibility for the logistical business of running a family

and so has to avow that because they feel obligated and then therefore squelch the human part.

So the machine part.

is adopted.

The human part, the sexual, the curious, the joyful is squashed.

And therefore, I'm resenting that in my partner

because I have split.

Exactly.

Exactly.

There was a couple like that on the show a couple of seasons ago, Michael and Michal.

They were like such a classic example of that, where one of them was like, you know, the hyper-functional, all she could think of was like how to get the family moving.

And her husband was all about like,

wait, what about fun?

What about relaxing, vacation, like hang out with the kids?

And they were so split between them.

And she forgot.

she loves having a good time like you know my my

what we call a paradoxical intervention with them was like michal you have to take two hours a day and do nothing

nothing

like play on your phone you cannot be productive for two hours a day and that was like a magical intervention because suddenly she was like oh actually i love doing that and he was suddenly like oh my god i've given up all these like functional roles that i actually love doing too

What is a paradoxical intervention and how does a couple do one on themselves?

A paradoxical intervention is it comes from like the cognitive behavioral world, but it's when you instruct a person to do exactly the opposite of what you ultimately think is going to happen.

So let's say if you want a person to take more responsibility for finances, you paradoxically instruct them to spend as much money as possible.

With the idea that you're then kind of

scrambling the system and other things kind of get evoked in them.

You break them out of certain patterns.

And in a way, you allow for the opposite to emerge.

So, how can a couple do that on themselves?

For example, if you feel

compelled to

yell at your wife for

putting her shoes in the wrong place.

You feel compelled to do that.

Instead of doing that, every time you feel compelled to do that, go up and give her a hug.

You're wonderful.

Opposite game.

The opposite game.

The opposite game.

Because then she doesn't have to put her shoes in the wrong place to punish you for withholding your love.

For example, yeah, you're both suddenly released from something.

That's so interesting.

Do you feel

that

the new or unnew version of toxic masculinity is passivity?

Because I'm just,

I do feel that way.

I'm just, I think we're all looking for toxicity in the wrong place.

I don't think it's, it's too obvious.

It has morphed from the yelling yelling and the screaming.

So, okay, a non-friendly way of describing that is as toxic.

That passivity is another way of asserting a certain kind of dominance.

It's toxic in its own way.

I

encourage myself not to split.

and to try to understand all sides.

So I've given a lot of thought to this, like

kind of new form of masculinity that is indeed on the face of it,

defined by passivity.

And lots of things are happening, I think, in gender politics and in the distribution of roles.

But one thing that is happening is

it's pretty confusing to be a man.

an aware man in today's world.

The coordinates of what makes you perform your gender well have been scrambled.

Like

society is no longer asking of men simply to be a breadwinner or simply to be dominant

and clueless about anything else.

So a major defining role has been removed.

On the other hand, there's still all sorts of like very powerful fantasies, phallic fantasies, like fantasies of what masculinity is.

And I think it gets really confusing when, on one hand, there's like this great pressure to perform some kind of masculinity.

On the other hand, the clear coordinate of what that is have been devalued.

Women are making more money than men.

They're taking on positions.

I mean, there's no longer an expectation that women will just

subserve and take a secondary role.

So, how is a man to perform masculinity?

What are they supposed to do?

It'll take a few generations to socialize men to actually find other ways to bring themselves into society and be valuable, like to connect with other parts of themselves.

So, they're left with a kind of a vacuum while there's still a great deal of pressure to perform something.

And I think men are confused and paralyzed.

I mean, this is a great generalization.

I mean, they're sure, of course.

Yeah.

But, but that's what I think of this passive situation.

I can feel myself understanding passivity in this way because it's like the structure of being dominant, being the breadwinner is very clear.

And now when you, when you take that away and then you're left in this other pot of like, I have, I could decide all of these other options.

It's scary.

It's like, wait, where do I even fucking begin?

So you begin by like picking the kids up from school.

So one of the, you're not like me with what I just did.

I just split.

Yeah.

Is that why you're such a good listener?

Are you always avoiding splitting?

Because sometimes when I watch you do the show and I think clearly, she's going to tell that guy that he's a jackass.

Like, clearly, that's the next thing to do.

And you just have this way of double down, get deeper, deeper, deeper.

And you, is that what you're doing?

You're resisting

judgment.

What are you doing?

I think that's a good question.

I think after so much analytic training and work, I think there is kind of a almost like already now a built-in suspicion of splitting.

I don't believe it anymore.

When I find myself splitting, you know, I can listen to the news and I'm like,

you know,

monsters.

And then I'm like, come on, you know better.

Try to understand what's, what are their fears?

Where are they coming from?

what's motivating that side and there's also something else that helps which is that when i sit with couples

my patient the the the the unit that i'm treating is the couple

so i see each of them as

each of the participants i see them as just a part of a whole And what I'm trying to listen to is what's happening in the system, not what's, I mean, sometimes I kind of take a pause from that and I dig into each person's individual history and go in there.

But, but then I kind of zoom back out and I'm like, okay, but how is this part of the system as a whole?

Is this system thriving or is the system stuck?

And how do I help the system

keep growing?

Can you talk a little bit about

what commonly you see in your work as proxies for bigger issues?

If there's all of this confused

dynamics inner relationships, what are the things that we go to

to give that meaning?

Like we fight about sex, we fight about money.

What are those things?

And then what are they representing that are bigger?

Yeah, I understand.

Obviously, different

therapists will listen in on different interpretive paradigms, but I can tell you that for me, there are a few layers that I listen for and assume underlie certain fights about sex, money, dishwasher.

There's the

one of, I mean, I guess to me, might seem obvious, maybe it's not obvious to listeners, but

which is

childhood histories, like how are each one in the couple

reenacting childhood issues, whether it's traumas or unresolved dilemmas or patterns or

unresolved attachment questions, riddles.

How are they reenacting it with their partner to try to figure something out for themselves?

So that's one

layer that I go to.

Then there's the layer of,

if you want to go even beyond that, like what are intergenerational stuff that couples are trying to resolve between them?

Maurice Aprey is

a wonderful analyst and writer, talks about these intergenerational errands that are passed down

that still need to be resolved.

So that's something that I keep in mind.

That's why, you know, some family therapists like start any kind of family therapy with these like elaborate genograms.

where they go like way back, like several generations to understand what are the forces that are influencing the particular family unit.

Wow.

Can you give us an example of a, you called it a generational errand?

Errand, yes.

Yes.

What is an example of one of the an example?

This is this is a couple that we filmed a couple of seasons ago.

They actually, they're not on the show yet, but hopefully they'll make it in.

This is an African-American couple.

She was describing how

she comes from many, many generations

in which

the men

never stuck around.

The women were always left alone to raise the family, to raise the kids, and a great deal of

resentment that has been passed down intergenerationally.

And with this particular partner, that she had a wonderful, wonderful relationship with her current partner, but she did feel like there's a certain kind of debt that he owed her that is not between them.

It's something that has been passed down from generations of women that have been abandoned.

Now, of course, you cannot separate that from the larger history of like what it means to be black in America.

And so it's not just intergenerational.

It's of course immediately tied to the sociopolitical system in which these families grew up.

I'm working now with a couple where

one of the couples,

he's like first generation Mexican-American

and he's always been the translator for the parents.

Like he's the one that knew English, he's the translator, and the partner he chose is deaf.

Wow.

So he's working on the business of translating and bringing someone into current culture.

So he's bringing the deaf into the hearing culture.

Wow.

It's kind of amazing and gorgeous to notice these kind of intergenerational transmissions of errands that people are tasked with, and then they live out in their current relationships.

And then there's the layer of

power and sociopolitics that you want to listen in for.

And it's always there between couples.

Like there's always some negotiation about class.

There's always negotiation about gender.

Even in gay relationships, there's negotiation about gender.

Who gets the bugs?

Yeah.

Negotiation in this family.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Well,

those are the layers that I listen for myself.

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Would it be okay with you if we played some questions from our pod squad that they sent in for you?

Sure.

Wonderful.

Okay.

Let's hear the first one.

I could just listen to her talk all the time.

My question for you today is:

what is the difference between a want and a need in a relationship, and how does that play out?

Because if we don't get a need met, if we don't get a want met, does that become a need or vice versa?

And then if I don't get my needs met, do I even want my partner anymore?

This is all very confusing.

And as someone who's highly codependent, how do I separate the two?

Interesting.

There's this

thing in the zeitgeist in culture now, which is this like want versus need.

It seems to be like something that's out there in the world.

I'd have to think about

what is it that people are trying to figure out by making that distinction.

It's not a distinction that I use, the distinction between want and need.

But I think it's a question

of, which comes up between couples, of legitimacy.

Like what is a legitimate ask?

Yes.

And what is not?

What do I have a right to be mad about versus what am I supposed to just accept as

normal?

Yeah,

that's a very good question.

And it's always going to be there.

I don't think it's something that you can simply resolve within yourself because

we're full of wishes and wants and desires and needs, and that's our humanity.

I think it's a question that should be figured out intersubjectively.

Like in a certain context, a certain

need becomes a want because you're asking for something that is exactly very difficult for your partner to offer.

And in another environment or with another dynamic between a couple, something that might feel like a desperate need suddenly becomes a very easy want.

It really depends on the dynamic

the contours of each person.

So I don't think it's a simple question of like, oh, is my need or my want legitimate?

Should I work on it on my own or not?

I think it depends on who your partner is.

What are their,

you know, I'm thinking, for example, a very classic thing or like if your partner is like, let's say somewhat like neuroatypical, like they're somewhat on the spectrum and they don't exactly use the language of of affect of emotion the way you do.

It's much more confusing for them.

In those situations, the ask for a certain kind of like verbal empathy, which is like a very basic wish, ask, need.

For some people, that's like, what are you talking about?

I don't know how to do that.

It's like milk from a rock.

And it's not because they're withholding.

It's not because a power dynamic.

It's just like they're not wired that way.

It's like a very complicated ask for them.

So in that situation, what would be like in another context, a very legitimate wish,

it's a more complicated one.

So what do you do with that?

It's,

you have to think of it intersubjectively.

On the other hand, in other couples, it can be someone who's very capable of being empathic and verbally available, but because of a certain dynamic that got created, I don't know, too much criticism, power, this, that, or the other,

you know, the fountain is closed.

And then it's a very different kind of conversation.

I'm wondering what the third way is in this question, because she's saying, do I need to change my needs or do I need to change my partner?

What is the third way for her to be thinking about this as opposed to those two?

Right.

I'm going to operate with the goodwill assumption that change the partner is not really the third way.

Sometimes it is, but let's start from how do we work it out.

First of all, trying to figure out between two people what is going on here.

Is what you're asking really something that your partner, it's just not in their making.

They're not made that way.

That's a very difficult ask from them.

Think of it of like, you know, asking someone who wears glasses to take off their glasses and see better without glasses.

It's just kind of possibly the wrong ask,

in which case, the third way is how do you figure out the thing you need and not bring it to your partner, but take it somewhere else?

How do you see your partner for who they are?

And what can you focus on in what's going on between you and your partner that is kind of an open channel and an ask that will be that will bring a lot of good exchange between the two of you rather than ask your partner to take off their glasses and see

talk to them about like you know listen to music together

what are what are good places in which you exchange goods between you

there's some kind of connotation about need and want too i don't know what this means but i noticed in my yoga class recently that every time the yoga teacher says use these blocks to the class use these blocks if you need them nobody uses the blocks But if she says, use the blocks if you want them,

so many people use the blocks.

And meaning people don't want to feel like they need.

Yes.

I think if she says need,

everybody thinks, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to be the one who needs.

I'm not weak.

I should be able to do without this.

Yes.

Which is what this lady is saying in her question.

I should, what can I do without so that I don't

that's why I just like the want.

Like, why not just use the want all the time?

It feels like there's a lot of agency in it.

Maybe what you're all talking about is how certain, I don't know what word to use, needs, wants, certain kind of wishes to use a neutral word.

evoke in people a sense of deficiency.

That's right.

And they need to kind of work around that rather than sit in that and understand, like have, you know, understanding, compassion, like have a way to sit with that feeling of deficiency without like getting

worked up, feeling like they're demanding or asking for too much.

Like sit with themselves with what's going on there before it becomes an intersubjective issue.

And talking about women and the deficiency that

we have all felt along the whole of our lives to not even have the ability to consider wishes.

Yeah.

Right.

And so I think having to work on this stuff to pull it up for ourselves, I mean, it's like that scene in the notebook, like, what do you want?

Right.

Like, and I think that it's hard for so many of us to really nail that down.

to then give that away and have to expect that your partner is going to give you for this marriage or this relationship to work.

there feels like you're it's vulnerability, all of the things.

Yeah.

And to talk about it in terms of gender, it's again going back to the idea of splitting.

I mean, all that has to do with vulnerability need has been split and kind of dumped into the feminine.

So there's just like so much

shame around that.

Yeah.

Yep.

Let's hear from Keaton.

I'm Keaton, and I have a silly little question for you.

Long story short, how do you tell someone that you love so deeply that they are annoying?

I have a boyfriend of about five years

who gets so very interested in niche topics and loves to share what he's learned with me, which I love.

But my words, can he go on and on?

It just so happens that he picks the moments where I'm, if I'm doing the dishes or making the bed or I'm actively involved in something, and he will just talk at me.

Like, it's like I don't need to be there.

Like, I could just, he just wants to get this information that he's so excited about.

So, am I the problem?

Is it my issue that my brain and ears like grow legs and run away from the situation when he starts telling me about

a new political issue that he's discovered.

I love him so much.

I don't want to hurt him, but sometimes I just have to say,

I don't want to be talked at right now.

Give me any advice you have or just tell me I'm the problem and

shut up.

Love you so much.

Oh, Keaton.

Glennon is feeling your pain right now.

This is Tori and your husband.

Big time.

I just want to tell you yesterday, and I don't even know if you know this.

Yesterday, we went on a three and a half mile walk.

Okay.

I tried an experiment where I thought I'm going to just respond in grunts or one-word answers and see if she even notices that I'm not wanting to have this conversation.

It doesn't matter.

Mile two.

It doesn't matter.

She talked for an hour and 10 minutes at me and never picked up on the fact that I just.

Mile two, I picked up.

But you kept going.

I didn't.

You did.

You said, I'm going to stop talking.

And then five minutes later, you started talking about the talk.

I walked ahead of you.

I walked ahead of you.

Okay, anyway, let's talk about Keaton.

I love it.

First of all, I appreciate

the impulse to be kind.

Yes.

That's great.

That's great.

And I guess to some degree, we're talking about like

self-absorption.

versus relatedness.

We have this concept

in the analytic world

you're probably familiar with the concept of transference

right there's also the concept of counter transference which is what the analyst feels what their experience is while sitting with their patient

and we consider counter transference a very important source of information

So if you're feeling

one way or another with your partner,

you might be struggling with something with the feeling, like let's say boredom or I want to run away, but you also have like really important information

for your partner in that feeling.

And the question is, how do you artfully and kindly use that information to send back feedback to your partner?

If one of you is

self-absorbed or talking on and on and not reading cues that's important information i think you'd want to know that you're doing that i mean you can still choose to keep doing that but it's important information so rather than run away find the right time to and the artful way to translate your experience into information for your partner

Like when you go on and on,

I feel irrelevant.

I feel like I'm not in the picture.

I'm not exactly sure what to do with myself.

What's going on between us in those moments?

That is interesting because that's what it is.

It's not like you're annoying.

That's not what I'm thinking.

I'm thinking, why isn't she noticing that I'm not wanting this?

And I actually think she is noticing, which I was right about, right?

You are noticing.

It's just not as important as you continuing the thing.

Well, what I noticed, even though you don't believe that I didn't stop talking, when I noticed

I made adjustments.

Okay, great.

But isn't there another step to that too, Doctor?

Because so let's just say theoretically, Abby's going on and on.

Glennon is not present in it.

And Glennon is thinking, why is Abby not noticing that I

do not exist in this moment and therefore my existence is not important to her in this moment.

But then when Abby feels that, Abby might be thinking, why when I share, does Glennon disappear?

And why is she not in it with me?

Exactly.

First of all, there are a lot of assumptions already there.

But you want to translate that into a question for the two of you.

Like, what is going on?

I'm feeling like Glennon, you can say, I'm feeling like I don't exist.

I don't know if that's what's going on, but I feel like I'm not existing in this moment for you.

You're caught in your own story.

And Abby, you might say, well, you're not sending me enough cues.

I don't actually know where you are with this.

And maybe I am lost in my own mind and I'm kind of using you as a vessel.

But the truth of the matter is you're not giving me enough cues.

So if you responded, I'd know who my audience is and I'd adjust better.

You've already left the scene.

Yeah.

yeah and i i would just like a heads up we were going on a walk which is where we do a lot of our talking right about totally true what we do on the show so i thought you know i was like here we go we're gonna we're gonna you know creatively brainstorm about future episodes and so i'm just talking about whatever comes into my mind and she's not responding and you're right and i could have said babe i just needed some time but instead i'm stewing like why isn't she noticing why isn't she noticing when i could have just said

hey let's just i just need some quiet sure Yeah, that would help.

Okay, how about

sorry that we stole your question?

Sorry, Keaton.

We had some issues.

Hi, this is Jo.

I am 28 years old and I've been married for five years.

And I'm struggling because before I got married, I completely fell in love with someone else.

And

my current husband is.

a great guy.

We have a great relationship.

We had a great relationship before I fell in love with someone else, but we were in a very strong conservative environment, Christian environment, and marriage was just the obvious great next steps for us.

And

this other person came into my life and I completely fell in love with them.

And my husband knows about all of this.

And that person is no longer in my life.

But five years later, we have two kids and I'm still struggling with the feelings of love and the feelings of loss and the feelings of grief from that relationship and Feeling like I discovered more and real love after

finding my first love, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, basically, my question is,

how do you move on when it's so fucking hard?

Thanks, appreciate it.

Yeah,

difficult, painful.

Obviously, this isn't there's no easy answer to this.

I can just think out loud.

And if I was like in conversation with this person, I would

want to first of all try to distinguish between: is this a question of courage, the courage to leave

what I guess sounds like more of a communal self, a self that is consistent with the community you grew up in, your Christian environment,

family?

Is it a question of like

the courage to abandon that part of oneself to go for, you know, I don't know, true love or passion or excitement?

Is it that kind of choice?

Or is a more useful way to think about it

that this other entity, this like true love entity that remains there, is it in a way almost like a

stand-in, like a symbol

for the thing that

the fantasy of the thing, the fantasy of perfection or the fantasy of going back to the womb or going back to childhood or going back to the country you came from.

People have all these fantasies of where it could have, should have been better and where real life is and not dealing with current life as the reality of our very difficult lives that we actually live.

So is this true love kind of a really a fantasy that one refuses to let go of that serves the function of always drawing this person away from life as it is?

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Let's hear from Ashley.

Hi, I'm Ashley

and I'm wondering how to know when you've lost yourself in a relationship.

So

I have been in a relationship for over a year now and it has been one of the best things.

One of I've just learned so much.

It's been so loving and fun.

But I'm also thinking that I might be losing myself in the relationship.

For example, last night my partner told me that he had like done an activity with friends and we had planned to do that activity together.

And it just like really hurt my feelings.

I felt jealous of his friends.

I felt jealous that he did that.

I felt jealous that maybe I don't have as many friends as I used to or like really any at all, if I'm going to be honest.

And don't have someone to go do that with besides him.

So I think that's probably a sign that I'm lost in the relationship.

But I guess, what are the signs that you're lost in a relationship?

What can you do to get out of that?

Interesting.

Sounds like this person is already doing a lot of the work.

Yeah.

So keep doing that work.

And I guess the work is

a strong feeling comes up.

And often the indicator that there's something to investigate is the feeling of blame.

And then, rather than indeed just go after the person, like turning it back to herself and asking, What's going on for me?

What am I feeling?

Okay, I'm feeling jealous of what he's doing.

How do I turn that question back towards myself and ask myself, what's missing in me?

I mean, often this

lost in the relationship symptom is

some way that some question that should be turned to the self is

interpersonalized.

It's put into the relationship.

Like your partner is supposed to fulfill something or answer something that you're not doing the work of answering to yourself.

And it sounds like this person is already doing that work.

So great.

It's a good example of what it means to try not not to get lost in a relationship.

Yeah, it's like the fact that she's asking this question means that she's doing the work and that maybe she's a little less lost than she thinks.

Yeah.

It's interesting that both this one and the one prior where we talked about wants and needs, it's like part of the answer may mean that we're searching for something within the relationship that we can access and maybe only can access outside of the relationship.

And that that's not a deficiency that's just the way we were made yes

or inside of ourselves access inside of ourselves as well yeah right there's a

an inclination to what i call interpersonalize certain issues to to turn it into a relationship issue when it's not it's something else

interpersonalized that's good can we hear from caitlin Hi, this is Caitlin.

Please, can we talk about sleeping with our romantic partners?

I've been with my boyfriend for two years.

To date, I have never been able to successfully sleep in the same bed as him.

Our spring habits are different.

He's a heavy sleeper.

I'm a light sleeper.

He snores.

I don't.

The sound of a bird will wake me up, and he could sleep through a hurricane.

I feel the weight of expectation to just do the thing, be unconscious on the same piece of furniture.

for a whole eight hours and I cannot do it.

It's causing deep anxiety, stress, and humiliation and shame in my 30-something life.

He sees this as an act of love and connection.

The harder I try to sleep in the same bed to meet his need, the more unlikely it is that I sleep.

So I want to know whoever decided that this was a thing.

And do you have any advice?

Thanks.

Good for you.

Thank you, Caitlin.

Let's hear it.

Yeah, that's a great.

I love the way she's phrasing the question.

This is good.

To be unconscious on the same piece of furniture for eight hours.

How did that become a symbol of love?

How did that become a thing?

Yep.

That's great.

So I'm again just going to think out loud.

This is no, there's no cookie cutter answer to something like that.

But

I would pursue two different questions, two different ways of thinking about this.

I mean, one would be,

yeah, whoever decided that's a thing.

There's plenty of ways to live life.

And not everyone needs to live in this kind of put it all in one box, all in one bedroom, all in one apartment.

Plenty of people choose to be in a romantic relationship and not live together, not sleep together, give a lot of space.

People have different needs in terms of how much together enmeshment they need and how much space they need.

And I'm like, figure it out.

There's not one way to live life.

That's on one hand.

So whoever decided that's a thing is a very good question.

It doesn't have to be a thing.

But I'm also thinking,

you know,

sleeping, being unconscious on a piece of furniture is a time when we are indeed very vulnerable.

Yes.

And trusting,

right?

And

you might want to ask yourself, what is scary about that?

What is your unconscious telling you about like

what could happen to you if you let loose and fall asleep in the presence of another person?

What are the dreads that come up around that?

What is the kind of mixing up that sleeping together threatens?

I wouldn't take it as simply like being very sensitive as far as hearing, although who knows, maybe that person is like a highly sensory person, but maybe there's more to it.

Maybe that unconscious has something to say.

Fascinating.

We always end with a

teeny segment called The Next Right Thing, which is just one little thing that if people don't try anything else that they can do, and even though it's called We Can Do Hard Things, we like for this to be an easy thing.

Is there some way to operationalize the embracing of otherness?

Like, what does that look like or sound like in a relationship?

Because it sounds like that's the main thing, that we have to forget the complete me and celebrate the otherness that relationships insist we celebrate.

How do we do that?

What do we say?

What do we stop doing?

What do we

do today?

Ah, that's a good one.

How would I operationalize it in a nugget?

Maybe

challenge yourself to think of the thing about your partner that is the most disturbing to you,

that brings you the most agita, to try to imagine it as the thorn from which the most growth can happen.

I believe that shit.

That's good.

We love you, Dr.

Orna.

After this, can you send me an email about where you get your sweaters and scarves?

And are you taking new clients?

Right.

Just all the answers to my Google searches.

That would be great.

You're the best.

You're wonderful.

Thank you for your show.

I actually think, well, you know this, but it's making a big difference for so many people who can't get to therapy but need your brilliance.

So thank you for making that show, everybody.

You can catch it on Showtime, Couples Therapy.

It's a good time.

All right.

We can do hard things like operationalize otherness and consider other people's annoyances as the thorn from which our growth will come.

Thank you so much.

So much.

This has been fabulous.

Really wonderful questions.

Oh, thank you for pushing me to the edge.

Oh, that's great.

That's what we tend to do to people.

And we will see you back here on We Can Do Hard Things.

Bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire,

I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on map.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a heartbeat.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the

problem,

sometimes

things fall apart.

And I continue to believe

the best

people are free.

and it took some time.

But I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are map.

A final destination

we lack.

We stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find

our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a hard pain.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

do

hard

things.

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