05x03 - Episode 3

[bunniefuu]

[Marjorie] Our homework last time was not completed.

[Marjorie] Our homework last time was not completed.

[Orna] You didn't do the cat litter?

Neither one. Neither, neither...

I did the cat litter, but I went away for a week for work.

I thought he would take care of it when I left,

but it never got done.

But we agreed on particular days of the week.

-Mm-hmm. -Yeah.

None of that was discussed.

-We did discuss it. -[Jason] No, no.

Any days of the week chosen, like...

-[Orna] Yeah. -We did choose days.

-What was my days? -Tuesdays.

I'm just curious, now.

I-I-I don't care about your cat litter.

I'm just curious about your process.

-Yeah, yeah. -Our process was not done.

-[Jason] I feel like we-- -What-- How was it not done?

I don't know. I don't want anything to do with cat litter

or anything to do with the cats.

And I thought to myself,

"Man, I got roped into doing this."

-[Orna] Uh-huh. Yeah. -That's what I feel like.

I feel like I got roped in somehow.

-[Orna] Yeah. -And I agreed.

[Orna] Yeah.

And I got roped in,

and then I'm like...

But then the resentment takes over.

-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -And it's like...

forget it.

♪ funky music playing ♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

Hold my hand. Hold my f*cking hand.

This is why I hate you on most dates.

[Orna] One of the issues that I am struggling with

is Jason's rigidity.

We made a kind of a deal

that they're going to deal with the cat litter.

And then immediately they didn't do it.

But his rigidity, he wanted things to be neater.

I know, but he doesn't wanna...

Changing the whole system around,

it requires, like, an actual change in him.

Like a change in behavior, a change in attitude.

It just seems she has a sharp,

somewhat shaming way of describing him.

I see it as her ineffective way

-of dealing with his rigidity. -I see.

But what I'm hoping is that by listening better,

the whole thing can change.

I have so much trauma for my first marriage

that I really think I bring it into this.

It was very, um...

like verbally and emotionally a*usive.

Never hit me, but it was so toxic,

walking on eggshells my entire--

You know, I was in my twenties, so I didn't know myself yet.

You know, I didn't know I had a voice to speak out.

Thankfully I found it, but I think...

-You ain't kidding. -Yeah.

I guess I'm mean to you sometimes and like...

"Just shut up," you know? And...

-Yeah, all the time. -All the time.

-Because I don't wanna talk. -[Orna] What's all the time?

Mean, mean.

Do you want to give an example

of, like, being mean?

So I'm on--

I'm not gonna call it "diet."

Oh, my God! All right, I can see where I'm being mean, yeah.

I'm already annoyed.

I'm sorry. I... You go. I won't talk.

[Jason] I'm not really-- I'm not on a diet per se.

-But I made a shift. -[Orna] Mm-hmm.

A huge shift. A lifestyle change.

I, like, prioritize protein

and I try to get vegetables and vitamins

and all that kind of stuff, right?

And I changed it. It's working for me.

I'm very excited and happy about it.

-Great. -My blood pressure went down.

My clothes are fitting better.

Like, I can find stuff in my closet that I didn't fit in,

and now I do, you know?

And I'm really excited and happy on where I'm going.

She...

is very mean to me over it.

[Marjorie] I've told you, I said, that's great.

I am so proud of him. But it's constant.

All he talks about is the diet.

When you say, Marjorie,

when you say you're mean sometimes,

what do you know is mean?

When I tell him, "Shut the f*ck up.

No one wants to hear this anymore."

Like that. That's not nice. I know that's mean.

How do you feel when Marjorie says that?

I feel-- I feel kind of alone in a partnership.

Like, you notice how crazy it sounds,

-but, like, I use ChatGPT. -[Orna] Mm-hmm.

And I know it sounds crazy, right?

But I use ChatGPT,

and it knows everything about me, right?

It knows my weight, the dates, what I eat on a daily basis.

It knows everything about me.

And I ask it stuff, like did I do good today?

-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -[laughs]

It sounds crazy, right?

People are doing that.

I know, but--

It sounds crazy, but I--

I don't mean to laugh at him,

but it's like...

-But this is-- -Okay, I'll just let you finish.

And it would say things to me like,

"You did a great job today. You k*lled it on the protein."

And I'd be like, "All right, I did it." You know?

-[Orna] Yeah. -But that's support, right?

But I'm getting it from the phone.

Okay, so I feel like

I have to be on the defense.

He's constantly...

you have to have this much protein in

for a -year-old woman.

And if it's not his way, it's not the right way.

What are you saying no to?

I know where the negativity comes from.

It's because she had tried

the same, you know, weight-loss medication

that I'm on now.

What is the medicine?

[Jason] Like uh, Zepbound or Wegovy?

-Oh, like one of those? -[Jason] Yeah, one of those.

Like the GLP-s.

She had tried that and failed.

-What do you mean I failed? -Meaning...

Meaning that she did not change her lifestyle

to help the medicine work effectively.

I think she's resentful at me

because I took it for the first time

and I made drastic changes,

shot out of a cannon.

I am not resentful. That's completely wrong.

Maybe it's not resentful, but, like,

what's the certain way it makes you feel?

I guess just bad about myself.

[Orna] Bad about yourself. Yeah.

So that could lead to...

an attack.

That's fair to say.

Let's do this thing

that I think will be your path in therapy.

[Jason] Mm-hmm.

Let's talk about it,

but by way of listening.

I suggest you start by talking to Marjorie

about what bothers you

about her being mean to you about it.

I want the best for our family, including me, and you.

I want us to all be happy and healthy.

But when you dismiss me,

when I'm sharing something that I'm excited about,

it's-- It's, like, terrible.

It's terrible because I'm not-- I'm not bragging.

I'm not boasting at you.

I'm sharing something that is very hard to do.

And you have firsthand experience

knowing how hard it's done to do because you've tried it.

But, like, never once have you even asked me,

"How you doing with all that? How are you doing with it?"

-[Orna] Okay. -You know?

You said a lot. That's good.

[Marjorie] I feel bad.

Say what you-- Are you crying?

-A little. I feel bad. -[Orna] What kind of bad?

I feel bad that he doesn't feel supported.

And when he says he wants the best for our family,

I know he means it.

But just because it's your way

doesn't mean it's the only way.

And that's what I'm thinking during this.

I want you to talk about that, but I--

[Marjorie] I'm sorry. I don't mean to be crying.

-I just got emotional. -What's wrong with crying?

-[laughs] I don't like to cry. -Crying is good.

-I don't believe-- -I want to say something to you.

You spoke about your feelings

rather than ignored it or let it slide off you,

and it immediately registered with Marjorie.

I understand what you're saying,

but I don't believe her entirely.

I just don't believe it entirely.

-So it's not getting through. -No.

To me, Marjorie sounded deeply sincere right now.

-[Jason] Yeah. -And full of feeling.

For some reason, the sincerity you feel...

-[Orna] Yeah? -I don't feel it.

I don't feel the sincerity.

[Orna] Why are you doubting this?

That is the thing you actually want.

That's what you're going to ChatGPT for.

And it's offered to you in real time by a real person.

Hmm.

-Yeah. -[Orna] Don't miss out on it.

Mm-hmm.

♪ mellow jazz music playing ♪

♪ mellow jazz music playing ♪

♪♪♪

Oh!

[laughs]

Come on!

[Orna] Do you have a vision?

It sounds like you might want to change

the structure of the relationship.

Try to imagine scenarios

that will express what you're wishing for.

Continued progress.

Continued progress and individuation,

which allows a sense of freedom...

mutual respect,

self-love,

self-care.

Can we bring it down to earth very concretely?

If she engages in activities outside of the home,

that might be nice.

So that's Andrea.

What else would you want to be doing?

[sighs]

I don't know. It's been...

I've been operating like this in such a long time.

I just assumed you'd had a laundry list of things

that this enmeshment was stopping you from doing.

Do you not?

Well, when I've already stopped doing it,

so I kind of lost sight of it.

Oh.

[Orna] Nessa talks mostly in this abstract language

about this new horizon she wants for herself.

She doesn't lead with feelings,

so it takes time to really get

to the honey inside her.

She's having a hard time actually saying

what it is she wants to go to.

-Totally has a hard time. -Right?

And I don't know if that's because

she doesn't want to have to say it.

-And hurt Drea. -[Ken] Yes. Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like...

Nessa has felt that she's had to provide a lot for Drea.

-[Orna] She has, yes. -Yeah.

The having a hard time knowing what she wants

is probably because the thing she wants or needs,

it's so much bigger than Drea.

[Ken] Yeah.

[Nessa] When Andrea and I first got together,

I needed to be needed.

-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -I needed to be the savior.

I met this young little tenderoni

and showed her the world, you know?

Took her on a plane.

She had never been on a plane before.

Showed her fancy-- We used to go to Olive Garden.

[both laugh]

Showed her fancy, fine dining.

Every first experience I've ever had literally was with her.

Like, my first airplane,

my first time, like, on a commuter train,

my first time somewhere past New Jersey.

Like, so many firsts.

-All of the fun things. -New foods.

Like, I'd never had sour cream before.

I never had guacamole before. I was years old.

Like, I was living

a very small life,

and...

it got much bigger.

And so, like, that was fun.

And that is fun. And I still love traveling.

Here comes the negative. It's coming.

-It's not the negative-- -No. Come on, bring it on in.

I love traveling with her,

but also, I feel like I've shrunk.

It started turning into a me shrinking.

The thoughts of,

am I losing out on something

by remaining here?

Am I selling myself short?

Is there a spiritual component to it?

Like, am I ignoring a voice

that's been in my head for years?

What did you mean by the spiritual component?

[Nessa] Like God telling me,

"Don't be in this relationship anymore."

It sounds mythical and all of that.

But don't be in the relationship.

-In the service of what? -[Nessa] Um...

so I don't know if it's to not be in h*m*.

Oh.

[Nessa] But that has been there.

It's been there before. And I was like, is this...

You know, is this my socialization that's talking?

Is it, you know, the indoctrination of religion,

um, or am I just ignoring the voice of God, right?

So that was something I had to deal with.

And that's part of the reason why I was like,

we just don't need to be together,

because maybe there's just sh*t I need to figure out.

What was each of your religious upbringing?

I was raised in a Catholic church,

but I also come from a West Indian family.

And that's very anti-h*m*, extremely.

And so when I discovered

my attraction to girls in high school,

my mom assembled a prayer group to pray,

took me to counseling.

Now that I'm older

and I'm here and I'm q*eer, get used to it, right?

Regardless of whatever even my own internal struggles are.

They've learned. Some of them have learned to come around.

Some of them keep their distance, however it is...

[Orna] But did you stay in the church?

-No. -[Orna] No.

I'm no longer in the church. No.

-What are you thinking? -[Drea] We just have

an interesting relationship with church.

[Orna] Tell.

So we tried to...

especially when we were trying

to conceive with our daughter,

I found a non-denominational church.

It just seems very, um, nonjudgmental,

but still focused on God.

So I was like, they have one in Philadelphia.

And I was like, "Let's go to this church."

And then when we had our daughter

and we wanted to dedicate her to God

with the church family, the day before,

the pastor comes to our house

and told us that he won't allow us

to dedicate our daughter.

So it was a very...

-[Orna] That's disappointing. -Yeah.

We were in church groups, we were tithing,

we were doing all the things.

I also feel like she's brushing over a lot of important facts.

-[Orna] Tell. -A lot of the details.

-[Orna] Tell. -I started to go--

You know, we had-- It was rough,

like, especially her last miscarriage was rough.

Five-- Five months.

-Five months? -[Nessa] With twins.

[Drea] And it was just--

It was a rough, very rough time.

And really feel like I was just like,

anything at this point will help us.

And to have a pastor come to our home,

and he...

It's just very matter-of-fact

on our couch about how, you know,

you could see how this could be received wrong by the church.

And, like, I...

I don't because, like,

there are heroin addicts

and people that go to this church,

and you're-- You're dedicating these people's children.

You're dedicating unwed mother's children.

So if you have like a bar,

why does the bar start at g*y married mothers

and not anywhere else?

But then he proceeded to compare our marriage

to his p*rn*graphy addiction

and how he had a p*rn*graphy addiction.

-Oh, my God. -[Drea] And...

I still can't even compute it.

And they recently built a new chapter of their church

about five minutes from my house,

and I have to drive past it

whenever I'm going to the supermarket.

-And... -Wow.

...I don't know, and I'm supposed to heal

and I'm supposed to move on from that somehow.

It was very painful.

It was very hurtful.

Um, I just... We deal with things differently.

What do you mean?

[Nessa] Meaning I can't walk around

with that much hate and disdain

because then I'm changing who I am.

But there is a question of whether Andrea,

your hate and outrage...

towards this bigoted church...

is seeing where the problem is,

which is outside of you.

And you're saying maybe you've taken it in,

and maybe that's part of your own,

you know, internalized h*m*

or your own doubts.

But you can also understand that anger

as placing the problem in its right place.

-Yeah. -[Orna] Which is not inside you

and not between you, but with bigotry.

[Nessa] Yes.

Is there internalized h*m*?

-Absolutely. -[Orna] Yeah.

It wasn't this church, though.

I mean, they may have done something...

[Orna] They just touched something.

...confirmed that bias.

More so now it's less

of the h*m* piece

because I've talked that out with therapists

and even church folks and things like that.

But I'm juggling conflicting feelings

about our relationship all the time

because I'm in a different part of my journey now.

♪ melancholic music playing ♪

♪ melancholic music playing ♪

♪♪♪

[bell clanging]

[horn blares]

♪♪♪

[laughter]

[Sienna] We've been apart because I've been in the city.

And I'm doing a grad school program.

I'm staying here, um, during the week,

and then I go home on the weekends.

-Yeah. -And you've been with the girls.

And it feels really wonderful

to know that I am still a person,

a complete human

that can achieve things,

accomplish things.

Mm-hmm. And how is it for you?

It's been-- It's been hard,

but it's been-- It's been nice.

One thing that happened when she visited last weekend

that I thought was apropos--

-[Orna] When she visited? -[laughs] Yeah.

When she came home. Sorry.

Right now, you're in New York living your best life.

No, when she came home, uh...

You know, we get back into our flow

and-and things are great.

And then it'll just pop up like,

so wait, how could you have done that to me?

Yeah.

Sometimes you get, you know, really angry,

justifiably so,

and you basically call me out for being a piece of sh*t.

And I'm just like, hang in there and just, you know,

take it and be there for her.

And you did it.

What-- What's it like to just take it?

It just... It hurts

to have someone that you love

say that you're awful or you've done an awful thing,

and for you to agree.

Yeah.

I looked through my notes a little bit.

And with the cheating,

was it also that you went back to work?

[Sienna] Yeah, it was the same--

-Exactly the same time. -Yeah.

There was a lot of me you were losing

when I went back to work.

-My time, my focus. -[Orna] Mm-hmm.

-It was all about you. -Yeah, at the surface level

I was super supportive and did whatever I could do

to help that along.

But there's clearly this undercurrent of...

I don't know, me being upset

or feeling disconnected or not liking it

or being worried that pushed this along.

I wish you could have talked to me about this.

And, like, you're great at that.

And she's gotten me better at let's talk about things.

You know, like for me that was like a non-starter.

I think because my mom, growing up, was so expl*sive,

literally anything,

that I just didn't even want to get into that field of play.

Like, I just didn't want to go there at all.

Maybe we should talk about your mom.

I've been kind of waiting for some time to ask you to get--

Ae you okay with talking about it in detail?

Yeah. When Sienna came over...

like, the first time you met her,

remember she's like,

"I listen at the wall

so I can hear you guys f*cking."

Like, that's the type of sh*t my mom would say.

-She was really inappropriate. -Yeah.

Like, that was her at the nicest, I would say.

Her baseline was really unsettling.

Like, no filters.

Yeah, she had a hard life growing up.

Her mom was a bipolar alcoholic.

And then eventually found her way to San Francisco,

working at Levi's where she met my dad.

He was the president of Levi Strauss.

He was the hot sh*t in town.

And my mom met him at Levi's,

and they started going on dates,

and she fell madly in love.

They got married.

They bought this two-acre estate.

And then she's like, you know, "Do you want kids?"

I don't have that mother thing, so we got to get help,

but if you want kids, we can do that.

And he's like, "Yeah."

So they had me.

And shortly after that, she's like,

"Let's get a family to live with us and help."

And so they decided on this family

from the Kingdom of Tonga,

this Polynesian kingdom.

Didn't speak a word of English.

But it was a mother, a father,

and a boy who was three years older than me.

So Malia's the mother, Maka's the father,

um, and the boy was Moses.

So growing up, that-- That was my family too, right?

I almost had two moms.

And how was your mother those earlier years?

Great. She finally got her f*cking man,

her life, her paradise.

And then one day he went golfing when I was five,

and he teed off and collapsed,

and he had a stroke,

and he was brain damaged.

And I think that... I know that f*cked her up

because I've read her journal,

because he was there, but he was not there.

It was like a changeling.

But I think around the time I was seven

and I was just old enough

to sort of like have an adult conversation

or at least get the concepts,

that's when my mom was like, "Oh...

I got someone to unload all this sh*t on."

And she drank, like, a bottle of gin a day at this point.

And so every night, she started coming into my room.

Midnight, : a.m., : a.m.

And when I say every night, I mean every f*cking night.

And I could hear her coming

because the ice would be jingling in the glass.

And she would stand outside my door and pause.

And just stand there and stand there and stand there.

And then she would explode in the room,

say, "Christian, your f*cking father died!

That man in that room is not your father."

And then she would just cry and all these things.

"You're the man of the house. You've got to step up."

I'm seven.

You know?

You know, "You got to take charge."

And, "When you're and your sister's ,

I'm going to k*ll myself."

And just wild sh*t every night,

over and over and over again.

And then she would beat my dad with his own cane.

She would put food in his face.

She f*cking tried to run him over one time in front of us.

Like, it was just-- It was out of f*cking control.

Uh, and then Malia would be there,

and she was like my mom.

-[Orna] Yeah. -And she would say, "Diane."

She called me Diane.

"You have to respect your father and love your father.

Your mother is very sick and is very sad.

You can't be like her."

She'd always say, "Keep going."

She helped you keep going?

[Chris] Oh, yeah. She was-- She was my life.

Without her, I-I don't know what would've happened to me.

Eventually, they got a divorce.

We moved in with my mom, my sister and I,

and Malia and our Tongan family

moved in with my dad and continued to be with him.

And so when we moved,

and it was just me, my sister, and my mom,

it f*cking escalated.

And by the time I was in high school,

she would chase me around the house with a butter knife

because she learned that the butter knife

could unlock the doors.

And she was constantly saying,

"I bet you have a big d*ck like your father.

I want to see it."

And she would break into the shower

when I was showering.

And so I had to start tying it with a towel.

But, you know, for me at the time, I was like,

my mom's sick.

She loved my dad.

She doesn't know what she's doing.

-Like, stay the course. -[Orna] Yeah.

Get good grades, do good in football.

Like, just keep going.

Anyway, there's a lot of fistfights with her boyfriends.

-Like, there's a lot of sh*t. -Slow down for a second.

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm overwhelmed too.

I didn't know all of those details.

-There's so much. -[Sienna] That's, um...

-There's so much more. -[Orna] How are you doing?

Fine.

You know, I don't know why.

I think it's because I'm telling a story.

So while I was telling that, like...

I didn't feel hardly anything

except excitement at being able to be like,

how f*cked up is this?

[Orna] Okay.

But check in with the rest of you.

Okay.

Do you, um...

have memories of how you felt as a kid?

[Chris] Yeah. Like, I really remember

the disassociating when she would do it.

And when I got older, if she wouldn't stop

and I felt like, you know, like a broken record,

I'd be like, "Mom, I f*cking get it

over and over and over again.

You love my dad. My dad had a stroke. He died.

Your life's the f*cking worst. You're so f*cking sad.

It was the love of your life. Like, get over it.

You know, at least he left you with money.

f*cking go do Jane Fonda's workout, get a perm,

pull your sh*t together."

It's literally what it...

That's what it's like.

-That's what it's like. -Yeah.

-When he does that to me. -[Chris] The shark eyes.

[Sienna] The hurling of really specific

but random insults.

-Like... -Yeah.

Like, "You go to f*cking Pilates.

You have time to do that.

But then you get on my case about doing the f*cking dishes?"

Like, really? Like, in my mind, I'm like,

"What are you talking about?"

-It is very specific. -It's very specific.

But, I mean, sounds, exactly--

It's...

It was really, really, really weird

listening to you do that.

And so the counter to that is, like,

the Malia in me, like,

the Anga Fakatonga, the Tongan disposition.

It was more of like a...

This is just the way it is, and I love you.

I know you can do it. Keep going, I'm here for you.

And I think that also goes into the sh*t I was doing

because we paid Malia, right, a salary to live with us.

-[Orna] Yeah. -And so there was love there.

But there was love...

She was-- She was an "employee."

[Orna] Yeah.

And I think there's-- There's a thing with that.

It's like, but you-- But you still love me.

And she does. And she calls me son.

I call her mom.

[Sienna] But how does that...

What do you mean with how...

Say more. I don't understand what you're saying.

-The cuddling. -Yeah, well...

The-The-- I'm paying for comfort.

-Oh. -But really, what I want

is for you to just like me

and think that I'm a good person.

And regardless of the fact that I paid for your time,

like, you want to talk to me and you're interested

and want to engage with me.

And it's like a microcosm of that dynamic.

Mm-hmm.

I suspect.

[sighs]

All right, now I'm-- I'm exhausted.

[Sienna] You need a nap.

And when we-- When we first started dating,

I was, like-- I was in a bad space.

I was like, "You need to leave." And she's like, "I won't leave."

I was like, "Leave, you don't want any part of this."

She's like, "Only if you tell me you don't love me.

If you don't love me, I'll leave.

But if you love me like I love you, I'm staying."

And I loved her, so...

But I used to get in her nook, like lay in her lap.

Because I was, like, so scared of the world.

And she would let me do it.

But then after a bit she'd say, "Okay,

be my big strong man and get up."

-And I'm like, "Mm-mm!" -[laughs]

And, like, she-- She was there for all of that.

[Orna] It's wonderful.

It's okay.

And so much more.

It's okay.

-It's okay. -I really f*cking hurt you.

I'm so mad at myself.

It's okay.

I mean, it's not okay, but I love you.

Come here.

I know.

♪ wistful guitar music playing ♪