[Drea] I have a lot of expectations.
-Just say. -I feel like I'm owed...
a lot.
As someone's wife,
I am owed things.
-And when-- -[Orna] Like?
Like what is a wife owed?
Lots of time spent together.
And...
Go ahead.
Like, I don't know.
-[Orna] Keep going. -Sex. Sex.
[Drea] Not like on demand, but also...
-On demand. -...when I want it, yeah.
[chuckles]
What built up to this was after the last session,
she did go out on Friday.
I canceled my appointment
and she went out, had a good time.
-You know, felt good. -[Orna] First of all, Great.
-Yes. I had a good time. -[Orna] You did it.
-Actually did the homework. -I had a really good time.
And then for some days there,
she wasn't imposing her desire
to be intimate with me on me.
But then the next day was kind of like,
let me put on this nightdress that she puts on.
Oh Lord, with this nightdress.
[Nessa] I'm just saying she was like, you know,
"Why aren't we having sex?" And I was like,
"Well, because we don't want to continue on
in the same cycle.
I don't want to lead you on while I'm on this quest
to honor myself and my desires,
and I don't want to just have sex
because you're asking me to."
Does that make sense to you?
[Drea] Sure.
But, can we...
be going through this
and still be intimate with each other?
Like, we don't have to stop having sex with each other
to fix things, right?
-You're asking as a rule? -I'm asking you.
But as a-- There's no rules.
But when the spirit moves us, if it is...
The spirit is always moving me. I'm never not in the mood.
-If the spirit moves her... -[Orna] Yeah.
-Is there a reason not to? -Right.
Well, what do you think?
I think it would enter us back into the cycle.
[Orna] Mm-hmm.
♪ funky music playing
♪ melancholic ambient guitar music playing ♪
[Orna]Can I ask the two of you about previous major cycles?
[Nessa] Started off very passionate.
Dating, young, in love, all that.
The way we were living, I wanted to do more.
So I left our apartment together,
got my own apartment, saved up and bought a house.
That's an interesting way to say you broke up with me
and moved out, but go ahead.
I'm just telling you why.
I did break up with you and moved out.
But I'm telling you why.
Part of that was that,
and part because I wanted to...
sleep around, or at least explore other people,
or at least have connections with other people, not just her.
Eventually, we got back together.
Um...
-Still... ...moved in.
-...seeing each other. -Still seeing each other.
I was in different relationships and things like that,
but we were still best friends sleeping with each other.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -So that's what it was.
-No. -That's not true?
We broke up
when you married someone for nine months.
[Orna] Married someone?
-[laughing] -And then...
when you got divorced,
because we were sleeping with each other
the whole time you were married, then...
-Well, that's the truth. -...we got back together.
[Orna] That's an interesting chapter.
That was a very big piece of information
that I think she may have forgotten.
[Nessa] Thank you for bringing up
that pertinent part of this.
Can you say something about that?
[Nessa] I did gloss over that,
but we were already past that to talk about the cycles.
That's what Orna asked about, is the cycles.
But you don't think that breaking up and getting together
and breaking up and getting together...
-Is part of the cycle? -Yeah.
-I guess it could be. -Okay.
-I guess it could be. -It is.
[Nessa] Yes. Yes.
Broke up,
still struggling with h*m*
within myself.
Met a man at the new job I was with.
[Orna] Mm-hmm.
Got married.
Was like, okay, I'm supposed to live my life this way.
This might be a sign from God.
Let me get with him.
You know, talk with--
You were trying out being straight.
[Nessa] Talked with my mom. She was like,
"You're done with that phase. This is where God's leading you.
I followed that, wanted to be right with..."
-You know, all those things. -[Orna] Mm-hmm.
And realized this was not okay
because this isn't me.
I don't know what the hell I was doing,
trying to please other people, not living for me.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -Another cycle.
And we got divorced.
He left my house...
and Drea came in.
[Drea] She has said, every time we broke up,
"I love you. I want you to go and live your life,
enjoy your life, you know, do you,
and we'll get back together at some point."
I am years old now...
and I am someone's mom now.
Am I sitting on the side and waiting for her
to get it together again at ?
Why? So at , she can decide
that she's got a new thing she needs to change?
[Nessa] I agree.
We have to do something different
unless we're gonna stay in this cycle
that we're both tired and exhausted from.
Mm-hmm.
-Thank you. -Bye.
-Good night. -Good night.
♪ I could be someone else ♪
♪ I could be someone else
♪ Maybe I could be someone else ♪
♪ Someone else ♪
♪ I'm so tired of being the one ♪
♪ To let you down ♪
♪ And I'm so tired of being the one ♪
♪ To let you down ♪
♪ You say I hold you back
♪ You say I'm dragging you along ♪
♪ You say that I'm no good
♪ Well, baby, I don't wanna be that for you ♪
♪ I don't wanna feel like this ♪
♪ I don't wanna feel like sh*t ♪
♪ I don't wanna feel like this ♪
♪ I don't wanna feel like sh*t ♪
[Orna] Sienna described at various points in the sessions
how she kind of makes these "choices"
towards not getting bitter
and not getting sorrowful,
but really what she calls choosing joy.
Yeah.
Which is a very powerful defense.
Yeah.
But no grief.
And I think one of her fears, like her terror with Chris,
is that whatever the transgression means to her
is just gonna flood her with grief.
That there's like some way that she's on the edge of a cliff.
[Chris] We had some tricky...
-[Sienna] Yeah. -...uh, spots this past week.
And I-I-I wouldn't describe them as tricky now.
My old self would say that they were tricky and scary.
They were just things that we worked through together and...
How so?
You know, we were--
We were close the other day
and we were laying down
and we kind of connected in a way just physically, and...
then all these thoughts started happening, like...
-[Orna] Like? -It was a cuddle.
It was a cuddle, so it was just like,
why-- Why did you need this from someone else?
Why wasn't this enough?
And I feel like when you make me explain things in here,
like the connections that happen...
I wish they didn't.
What connection?
[Sienna] The feeling of not being in control.
The feeling similar of, um, when I was r*ped.
-Mmm. -[Sienna] Um...
I was r*ped really violently when I was .
And it feels like a little spur that's just like,
what's the word I'm looking for?
It feels like you, um...
It's a violation.
That-- Yeah. It feels like you violated me.
And it feels like I've spent a lot of years
running from that incident
and not ever putting myself in a situation
where that can happen again.
Do you, uh, Sienna, do you feel comfortable
talking more about what happened around the r*pe?
Yeah. Um...
so it was at a party.
And I remember, like, realizing,
"Oh, I'm very drunk.
I should go lay down."
This guy comes in
and he, like, tries to make out with me.
I'm like, "No, I'm too drunk. I'm not interested at all.
Like, please get out." And he wouldn't.
And I looked at his face, and it was dead shark eyes.
It was like he was not a person.
It was...
a really...
drop-of-a-hat understanding
of what was about to happen.
So I start, like, really trying with all my strength
to get away,
and yelling for somebody to come help.
Nobody hears me.
I remember, like, very vivid, um...
like snapshots of what happened,
which is like being held down,
um, like my head being banged on the nightstand.
Trying to-- Like, rolling off.
Like, finally getting free and almost making it to the door,
only to be grabbed and pushed back on the bed.
And eventually, it just finished.
My good friends were still there and I was like,
"Did you guys hear me screaming?"
And they said, "What are you talking about?"
I said, "I have to get out of here right now.
We have to get out of here right now."
And we left.
And I told them what happened, and...
it was very much the culture of,
"Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
And never like,
"We need to go to the police right now."
-Yeah. -Because...
it was not safe for us. -It was not the time.
Um, so it was very much like,
okay, so I'm just gonna bury this,
not tell anyone
because I'm gonna get more hurt.
Yeah.
This is just so terrible.
-[Sienna] Yeah. -So terrible.
How are you feeling remembering this?
I think saying the events-- Like I've said them before,
so if I just say this happened, then this happened,
I can just see it. It looks like--
It's like a painting, and then it's like...
Like this painting and this painting and this painting.
Like, I can see it.
And it's like I'm so far away from it.
But the problem is, like, when I come in here...
-[laughing] -[Orna] Mm-hmm.
...everything doesn't feel like a painting anymore.
It just feels like, um, like it was actually me.
-[Orna] Yeah. -Um...
And, you know, I was a kid.
Like, I was such...
like...
a bright, sweet kid.
It felt like looking--
Like thinking about it now, I'm like,
why would I ever think that that was my fault?
Oh, I hate coming in here sometimes, Orna, because...
I think that's, um,
why I dissociate so much when things get complicated, is...
I really want to believe
that I have like a power to make things okay.
But there's some things I cannot, and...
those are the things I don't touch.
It makes me really f*cking mad.
And really sad.
So many places there
where somebody could have intervened.
Stop it from happening, take care of you.
Deal with him.
Oh, I haven't thought about this in a long time.
I used to live with a lot of rage about it.
[Orna] Say more.
I used to fantasize about murdering him
and, like, hurting him
and making him feel the way I felt.
[Orna] Yeah.
And I hate-- It was like a guilty pleasure, almost.
[sniffles]
Like, I really don't like violence
and I really don't like hurting people.
I hate hurting people,
but I wanted to hurt him so f*cking bad.
[Orna] Yeah.
And it would feel so good to feel that.
It would feel so good to think about what it would feel like
to, like, break his face.
I've been thinking a lot about, um, like,
I wonder what else is in here?
Because it takes up so much space.
-It takes up so much space of... -[Orna] Yeah.
-Protecting. -Yeah.
And like the constant positivity of being like,
"We can fix this. We can make it okay."
Letting...
of me letting the sadness exist sometimes.
Chris, how are you doing hearing this?
[sighs]
We've talked about it before, but not-- Not like that.
I know you started by saying, "I hate that these connections,"
but I think this is a really...
big one.
And I think you naming it,
it doesn't feel good, but I'm glad
that you gave voice to it, and I...
I can see how my dead shark eyes,
the fact that I turn into anger
and use that to get through
probably hurt you so bad
in ways that I didn't understand.
I didn't let myself understand...
how tremendously awful
those actions were over and over again,
and how it betrayed you and broke the trust
and went against our vows.
Like, I know there's no way
I would ever do anything near that again,
and I'm so f*cking sorry.
I really am. I wish I could take it all back.
Me too.
I mean, I guess this is life.
I mean, I guess this is like the work.
But it just feels, um...
I want to jump in here
because it's not just this is life.
It's also, this is how
repressed or dissociated events
that happen in each of your lives,
everything that you don't process
and come to peace with
kind of haunts and colors...
what you do.
When things are not processed,
they get enacted
like you're the closest people to each other.
Everything that you haven't really
had the chance to work through
is gonna get played out between the two of you.
But I also do want to say that cheating is not r*pe.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, I know.
It's a door that opens to your...
something that is an injury.
A deep injury there.
♪ melancholic music playing ♪
[Orna]Jason has, like,
incredible self-discipline,
and he can speak to it beautifully
on how it helped him.
On the other hand, he's also incredibly impulsive.
So he's always in some sort of internal tug-of-w*r
between those two forces.
[Jason] Good job.
[Marjorie] I have never been as angry as I was
ever in our relationship or marriage ever...
like I was last week.
I'm just starting to talk to him now.
[sighs] God, it's hard.
All right, so...
last week I was at work
and I get these random text messages from Jason.
"I'm pulling Ryan out of school.
He's not going to do that drive for hours.
It's not fair to him."
Because the old school...
-Yes, I remember. -...an hour and a half away.
-We talked about it. -And he decided
to also pull my son from the school,
call the other school, start doing transfer stuff.
And it was upsetting because I'm in a meeting and I'm like--
And he called me, I couldn't answer.
I'm like, "Oh, God, what is going on?"
And then he wrote, "I emailed your mom."
And, like, I literally couldn't even breathe.
And I don't even know what he was gonna say,
but it's never good when Jason gets impulsive and mad and--
Just listen.
I'm panicking.
What's the panic? What's your fantasy there?
-My mom would read that. -[Orna] Yeah.
And she wouldn't come into my house ever again.
She maybe wouldn't talk to me ever again.
But that would have been your mom's response?
Yes.
-[Orna] Wow. -Uh-huh. I know she would have.
So I had Alexandra,
my oldest daughter who lives with her.
I said, "Please go check grandma's phone.
Look at-- See if Jason emailed her."
She said, "Mom, oh my God,
you are so lucky that I intercepted that email."
She deleted it and blocked his email
so he couldn't email her again.
I still don't know till this day what was in the email
because I don't even want to know.
[sighs]
I want to understand better,
your mom and her existence
in your marriage.
She doesn't like things
Jason has done in the past.
It really started with you and my mom
getting in a big fight, which is why
I didn't talk to my mom for a few years.
It's my relationship, I'm finally able to, you know,
to be on talking terms with her again,
and I don't need him to muddy the waters.
Where does she get her power?
She's paying for their school.
Okay.
So that gives her a little more power...
-[Orna] Got it. -...in the situation
that she should not normally have.
What made you reach out to the mom...
-[Jason] That day? -...rather than to Marjorie?
Well, at work, sometimes I have a little time in the morning
before I actually have to start working.
So I'm sitting in my car scrolling.
So I said, "You know what?
Maybe I should call the school and just find out
about switching him."
"Is there room for Ryan in the second grade?"
"Oh yeah, we'd love to have him here."
And they were so nice to me on the phone.
So then I started thinking about her mom,
feeling like grandma's overstepping her boundaries.
This is all while I'm sitting in my car waiting for work.
I'm like, "Grandma's overstepping her boundaries.
Somebody needs to stand up to this woman and tell her
like it is."
You're sitting in your car and stewing.
Yeah, you know, yeah.
[Orna] It's giving you an adrenaline rush.
It's bothering me more and more.
What prevented you from talking to Marjorie?
-[Jason] First? -Yes.
I tried calling a couple times.
I was in important meetings at work.
So I felt like I got to get this done
before I get out of the car to go to work.
-Impulsive. -[Jason] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Marjorie] You say impulsive? -Yes.
[Jason] It is, it is, it is.
That night, it was done.
-I feel like I had no choice. -I didn't get home until :...
What do you mean you have no choice?
...communicate with her and give her all the reasons why
the kids should switch their schools,
I get met with, um, dismissal
or not hearing what I'm saying.
So if I don't step up and make the change myself,
it'll never get done.
That doesn't mean that you have no choice.
It means the two of you have different opinions.
How do you negotiate that?
But it's not that you had no choice.
No, yeah.
-No, I had a choice. -[Orna] Right.
You could have gone home and said,
"We need to talk about this,"
or, "We need to talk about this in therapy."
-Yeah. -In hindsight, what do you think
about this sequence of moves?
I think that I don't know how...
to be received...
by her...
when I'm expressing...
utter heart...
about a situation.
[Orna] Right.
[Jason] I don't feel acknowledged.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -I don't feel respected.
I feel dismissed, rejected,
and that I don't know better.
Her and my stepdaughter, they have sign language
to one another that I pick up on.
Like, they roll their eyes, they shrug their shoulders,
they go, "Get a load of this guy," you know.
Whatever I'm saying, you know,
and that really alienates me.
Any thoughts on this?
I mean, it's usually when he's saying something
like, ridiculous or--
To you, though, it's my sincere feelings.
I hear you.
-You hear that too? -Mm-hmm. Of course, yeah.
-I don't feel that-- -What do you need to hear
from Jason?
I need you to not just apologize.
I need you to recognize what you did was overstepping.
That's my relationship with my mom.
-You should not-- -Shouldn't have did it.
I really apologize, and I will never do it again.
This is the stuff that I think
that is really core here
between the two of you, right?
There's some way that each in your own way,
you feel like the other one doesn't really
take what you're saying and what matters to you seriously.
[Marjorie] Yes.
[Orna] It goes both ways.
♪ I didn't want to fall for you ♪
♪ Like all the others do ♪
♪ Just to be made ♪
♪ To feel blue ♪
♪ Thinking that you love me too ♪
♪ I didn't want my heart ♪
♪ To break ♪
♪ I don't like ♪
♪ To count mistakes ♪
♪ But even if my heart ♪
♪ Should break ♪
♪ I fell in love with you ♪
[Orna] Clinton's increasing investment
in this Discord community
is that it offers a remedy
for a lifetime of feeling misunderstood.
And for Shay, it's been a lot about
feeling cheated on and him hiding.
She feels like all of his attention
is now going to this Discord group,
and she lost him as her partner.
-[Virginia]Yeah, her person. -[Orna]Yeah.
She originally wanted an open relationship.
She wanted it.
She wanted to be having sex
with other people, and did.
Uh-huh.
But by a certain point,
he started to enjoy it
and Shay was like suddenly not wanting it anymore.
So it's ambiguous.
Definitely.
People sometimes catch their partner
in the context of a session
to have a witness
so that the partner can't just...
avoid blame.
Yeah. I don't know that I've had something like that.
No? Oh, I've had it.
No, the one that I can't bear
is when people actually break up in your office
and they maybe didn't know that they were going to,
or maybe they might have,
and then you're bearing witness to that.
And I feel like I shouldn't be there for that.
Hello.
[door closes]
[Shay] Did you have someone over your house Monday?
You sent them a car and sent them home on Monday?
-No! -You didn't, right?
-No. -You're positive?
I'm positive.
You're sure?
Whatever, man.
Whatever. Yo, why are you spying on me, my n*gga? g*dd*mn!
If you cared anything about this relationship,
you wouldn't be acting that way.
You know what? I'm gonna be honest with you.
I care about-- I cared about the relationship.
I still care about the relationship.
You had it right the first time. Past tense.
Shut the f*ck up, man!
God, you frustrate me.
Let's just start from the tail end of this.
What do the two of you...
How would you like to walk out of here today?
I'm coming with amicable, like, amicable separation.
I feel like an amicable breakup
would have happened a long time ago.
But do you want to walk out of here broken up?
I don't think there's anything left.
[Orna] So yes.
Um, honestly,
it gets to a point where
a two-hour-long text barrage of just like...
insults, cursing,
threats to throw out my stuff--
I actually tried to schedule it with you to come pick it up.
-You didn't respond. -I'm sorry.
I was busy with, like, lesson planning and stuff.
Or having someone over your house, but that's--
Sure, you can claim it on lesson planning,
but we both know that's not the case.
-But that is the case. -If it was the case,
why do I have receipts of otherwise?
[Clinton] So why are you actively f*cking back-channeling
and doing that type of stuff?
[Shay] Why are you actively lying?
[Clinton] Why are you back-channeling?
I'm not lying to you.
Did you sleep with someone on Monday?
No!
No, I'm not entertaining that.
You're saying you didn't?
I am proving that--
That's not proof!
-That's not even proof! -It's not proof?
That I'm sleeping with somebody?
Did someone come over your--
Let me ask the right question because you're a man
and I need to ask the right question
so you answer properly.
Did someone come over your home
that you sent them a car
to and home from?
-To pick them up? -You said last week, right?
Yes. And you sent them back home at : in the morning.
I may have sent them back, yes.
Because you sent them there.
I have literally proof of the Uber.
Yes, you have proof of the Uber,
but you are jumping to conclusions.
What conclusions am I to jump to?
I could have been traveling from a certain area.
Is that what it is?
Is that what it is?
-Let's pause. -[Shay scoffs]
You-- You're not even my friend.
Yo, you are so convinced that I'm trying to f*ck you!
You're always convinced somebody's trying to hurt you.
-You are trying to hurt me. -No, I'm not!
You brought someone over and asked them to sleep with you.
You literally wrote in the message,
"Well, if you want to get f*cked, you can."
What the hell are you talking about?
Oh, hold on. Time-out. Time-out.
-[Shay] You're cheating on me-- -Can you-- Shay and Clinton?
[Shay] I'm sorry, Orna.
[Clinton] I'm not even cheating on you.
Sit down, Clinton.
Sit down.
[sighs] f*ck.
[Orna] Okay, you have a few options right now.
You can have it out, yell at each other,
twist each other's arms...
leave enemies.
I don't want to do that.
[Orna] Okay, so how about this?
I'm going to ask you to go into each other's shoes...
and I'm going to ask you, Clinton, to tell me
in the friendly, caring way that you know her.
-Yeah. -Tell me what's upsetting her.
She's scared.
[Orna] Of?
[Clinton] She felt abandoned
and she felt like she was getting pushed away.
[Orna] Mm-hmm.
And also that you're messing around with other people.
Yeah.
[Orna] And she feels--
[Clinton] And she feels betrayed.
[Orna] Right.
Okay.
What do you know is upsetting Clinton?
Oh, he feels betrayed as well.
-[Orna] How? -In the sense that I have...
went behind his back
to find out information he would never offer.
He feels accused.
-He feels shameful. -[Orna] Mm-hmm.
So you know what's going on.
Both of you, you know what the other person's dealing with.
[Shay] I actually do understand him.
We're in two different spaces in our life.
I was looking for partnership,
and he's really just living out his youth.
He is...
He has never had that type of opportunity to...
That freedom that he has now.
And when we met, he didn't have that freedom.
He was still tethered under his mother.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -Like, and this control of like,
"You need to do this."
And here I am coming in
some sort of savior to some degree,
pulling him away,
and now I'm the person controlling him.
Where it's like I could care less to control him.
How are you doing?
Where's your mind?
There's just some things that, like,
are just not compatible in our lives right now anymore.
In what way?
[Clinton] Like Shay says frequently,
a lot of times, "If you would just listen to me,
things would go easy."
My mom used to say that to me all the time.
However, that doesn't excuse the things that I did.
And that is a fact.
[Orna] It doesn't excuse,
but maybe there's a connection
because it sounds to me like you're saying that--
And I'm totally translating.
--you've held Shay's views on things with very high regard.
I hold everything she says in high regard.
[Orna] But maybe too much
in the sense that the only way
you could find your own self
or freedom or mind is on the sly.
[stammering] Yeah.
[Orna] There's a certain kind of... You feel--
I have to do it on my own, you know?
[Orna] On your own, but not...
Like face-to-face you feel... - [Clinton] Yeah.
Like, 'cause sometimes--
-[Orna] ...as you said, scared. -[Clinton] Yeah.
Where are you, Shay?
[sniffling]
He promised me he wouldn't treat me like this.
He promised me that he wouldn't put me in a position like this.
What does that mean?
I just think I've just realized, like...
[sniffles]
...I...
I found-- I found the love I grew up with.
I found the exact love I grew up with.
People who tell you they love you
-and mistreat you repeatedly. -Mm-hmm.
[Shay] And then you go back to normal again.
And I know it so well.
My whole life, I've been searching for love
in anyone and anything.
And I thought this relationship was different.
I thought that, like, I had found someone
that really understood me.
And then you can mistreat me
and-and-and bear...
bear witness to me in pain.
Can I ask you, Shay?
I understand that part of what you're feeling is angry.
But we can assume that a lot of that anger
is just a superficial cover-up.
Can you try to speak to Clinton
not from that part of you...
but again, drawing on your friendship,
and talk about how you're feeling.
It doesn't matter.
He doesn't care about my feelings.
If he cared about my feelings, he wouldn't act this way.
[Orna] It doesn't work like that in relationships.
[sighs]
People hurt each other in different ways,
but people are just themselves.
Even when they love other people,
they're just themselves.
I don't think I want to be in a relationship.
How would you feel about taking a break from each other
and coming back next week and continuing to talk?
[Shay] Fine.
[Clinton] Okay.
[Orna] Okay.
Take a deep breath, think about things.
Remember your friendship.
And let's see where you're at next week.
Okay.
[exhales]
♪ melancholic music playing ♪
Welcome to our World! Where we serve you cookies to ensure you get the best viewing experience on our site.
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register