Transcription
We're a family in crisis because we finally, supposedly have a life together in a stable way that we've been searching for since the moment we got married. And ironically, no sooner have we arrived in a life that's finally supposed to be stable, a good place for the kids, a home we own. We are just aliens to each other.
- Aliens to each other. (gentle music)
- I think more often than not, these days.
- And that's, would you say that's why you're here?
- Mm-hmm.
- We got married in May 2018 and we left New York City on a kind of existential adventure like two weeks later. And we didn't stop moving, despite having two kids along the way, until three months ago.
- Wow.
- New York, Miami, New Jersey, New York City, and then Montana, which is where we've been for the last two years.
- What was motivating these moves?
- Me. She was happy in New York.
- What, what were you?
- My parents settled in New York upon immigrating from the USSR and it never quite sat right with me.
- Oh, this was what year?
- 1988. Before we immigrated, like we were the unwanted people and-
- Jewish family?
- Yeah. I grew up among people who carried around a tremendous sense of having been unwanted and unsafe.
- Mm-hmm.
- And as a younger person, I had many dreams of going somewhere else. And so when I met Jessica, I sort of saw the opportunity to finally go somewhere. And every next place was pursuit of the fantasy of a kind of, a place that makes you feel at home.
- Mm-hmm.
- To have done this in our mid to late thirties with a new baby while she's trying to get her career off the ground, it was a disaster.
- [Orna] What's your career?
- I'm a psychotherapist.
- Mm-hmm. That's hard to move.
- Yeah. Well, I had a very tough time in Miami. Nobody wanted to go to therapy in Miami.
- So we went to Montana because I got a tenure track job teaching creative writing. If you're a writer, this is the ticket to every imaginable kind of stability.
- Yeah.
- And I gave that up and came back to this place. So much more expensive by comparison. And there's not one thing in this home that makes me feel at home. And so I feel completely and absolutely trapped regarding the possibility of-
- [Orna] Home.
- Home.
- I understand. Can you tell your version of this?
- Most of our moves, with the exception of moving back to New York City, were to facilitate Boris's need. And my stuff got kind of like put back. This was supposed to be my time now. All right, Jessica gets a turn.
- Mm-hmm.
- But my turn is being slowly eroded by the fact that you are not happy where we are, and that creates instability in our relationship and instability in my home, which is also where I work.
- So, what happens? Describe how you're not keeping it in and what happens between the two of you. Like bring me into your-
- Practically speaking...
- Can I go?
- Sure.
- I have become afraid of leaving my office because if we encounter each other, it all spills out.
- How?
- You'll just start listing the things that are, are bothering you, and-
- How does it sound?
- I get-
- You want a practical example.
- Yeah, I wanna hear it.
- So, like I really care about cooking, I really care about getting, you know, a nice apple versus a shitty apple.
- Mm-hmm.
- And it was perfectly possible to go do that in a completely unstressed way in the place we lived.
- So, keep going and tell, and how does this sound at home?
- So, I'm constantly reciting all the ways in which this place, it just feels like the opposite of what we need as a family. If my partner was giving me what I'm giving to Jessica, I would call the moving company.
- [Orna] Call the moving company and say?
- This is very frustrating for me to hear.
- [Boris] Let's go.
- I would call the moving company and say?
- [Boris] We're leaving.
- You don't like it here? Let's go. That's what he wants.
- That is one-
- I get it. But it is so frustrating because I've been there. I've been there.
- Been where?
- In a state of extreme distress, and-
- And we left.
- Can you, I wanna hear the story from your shoes.
- I have been in a place, Montana, where I wanted to get out and we stayed for two years, but I was not well. (Boris chuckles)
- I disagree with that.
- Excuse me?
- I disagree with that narrative.
- How so?
- How so? So-
- So, I was perfectly well? I was great, I was doing great.
- Do you see what just happened? She flipped from the truth about what she was feeling and when I disagree with that version, there's this sarcastic thing that happens all the way to the other end. "So I was great, I was perfect then?" I hate that.
- When you question my experience, it is incredibly frustrating.
- I just don't know how to live with this person and I'm pretty sure this person doesn't really know how to live with me when our aspirations for what home feels like are so different.
- Mm.
- If she wants peace and stability, all the leading aspects of this life seem to make our lives more, not less, complicated. At least the way that I live it, but I'm sorry, at least for now, you're married to me.
- When we first met in 2015, I was singing in a jazz group. Not like a band, but it was like I would sing and there was some gentlemen who would play instruments in this Russian restaurant and you had seen me before, I had not noticed you before.
- 'Cause I was in the kitchen.
- [Jessica] 'Cause you were in the kitchen.
- I would stare at her through the rhombus window.
- There was a little tiny rhombus window, I remember that. Yeah. So then we had very pleasant conversation, but at the end of that conversation, Boris noticed that I was wearing a very thin wedding band and you wrote me an email about it, and how like, too bad.
- I was attracted to you and I enjoyed our conversations. I would've loved to have more to go on but you kept standing me up.
- I was married. I was married and it made sense that I didn't want to go out with a man while I was married, right?
- There's no issue here whatsoever. This is just like something we playfully spar about, but like, there's no issue here. I totally get what was happening. It's all good. Yeah, and that was when we fell in love and she wrote a parting letter to her husband.
- I saw him only once ever again.
- And then she moved in with me.
- Oh.
- [Jessica] Yeah.
- I mean it's a lovely romantic story though, with dark elements because, can I talk?
- Go, go.
- Jessica was incredibly disoriented when she came out of this relationship.
- What kind of disoriented?
- She was just, just profoundly misaligned with her circumstances and just looking for something to hold onto. And some of the issues that we encountered right at the beginning there, they're the issues that are with us to this day and they're the issues why we're in this room.
- Tell me.
- I'm somebody who tries to anticipate problems and because I'm the one who anticipates the problems, I end up just doing everything.
- Mm-hmm.
- And I think the task list became so long once the kids arrived that I gradually developed just an enormous amount of rage at how much I had to do. Jessica, I think, has an, if you're okay with me speaking about what I think the issue has been for you, you look so angry.
- Mm-hmm.
- You feeling angry? Well, maybe we should slow down.
- Finish your thought.
- No, hold on. Just say what has angered you.
- Boris's narrative of my competence and ability at different times in my life is very unfair.
- Describe.
- Boris, I did all those things in my life before I met you. And there are reasons why you ended up doing a lot of the things that you ended up doing.
- Tell.
- Boris does not like me to go grocery shopping because I shop very differently than he does. It's not efficient, it's not economical. We used to just shorthand it by saying the tomatoes. 'Cause I once went and I bought some tomatoes that were very expensive and this was proof that I could not do it to his standards, and therefore he must always do it.
- Are there other areas like that?
- I hate the way that this makes me sound.
- How would, how would you characterize grocery shopping.
- Who gives a fuck about the grocery shopping? It's such a small part of the overall issue. Yes, we can talk about why I would go the extra block to buy tomatoes that are as good. I don't wanna buy shitty tomatoes, I wanna buy nice tomatoes. But if you can get them for a dollar less per pound a block away, I would go with that block. That is the person I am. That is the place that I come from. I want tools to figure out how to be cool with what she decides to do about the tomatoes and the 1 million things the tomatoes are a metaphor for.
- Can you guys tell me about a few more things, just so I'll get a sense of it.
- Boris finds me to be forgetful, unreliable, flighty, unable to concentrate, generally not trustworthy. Not in like a, I'm a bad person, but I can't trust that if I ask Jessica to do something that it will get done.
- [Orna] Yeah.
- Therefore, I must do all things by myself.
- Do you see any of that in you? Or is that?
- I can say that that has never been my role in any previous relationship.
- Mm-hm.
- But there's something about this relationship where I've been shifted into a role that is a mystery to me. I don't know why I'm this person in his mind and in this relationship.
- What are you supposed to do when two people in a relationship have just diametrically opposite feelings about one of the most prominent experiences in their lives?
- Like their home?
- Like Yeah, like their home life. As I mentioned here before, I feel like we have made our lives, and particularly my life, much, much harder through the choices that we've made. And Jessica has a different experience of our lives and I'm unhappy and she's happy. But what do you, what do you, what do you, there there's only so much hiding in your love for kids that you can do, right? I would, I would say that I'm clinically depressed, right? And I think I'm clinically depressed in a cumulative reaction to an ongoing series of failures to find a place that feels like home.
- Yeah.
- And I can, like putting a smile on my face while I feel that-
- [Orna] Impossible.
- Right. It's like asking a paralyzed person to get up. It's just, it's a mental issue. It's just I can't do it.
- Can I, can I ask you to pause?
- Where are you, Jessica?
- I've never asked you to put a smile on your face. Ever.
- Where are you?
- I'm not good. I'm very tired. I'm very tired of talking about this. I'm very tired. I'm very tired.
- Tell me.
- I think it's just assumed that I can't understand and that I can't change. I can't give him what he wants.
- Which is?
- Understanding and solutions.
- Well, I guess those are two different things.
- Yeah. They're different things. So if I understood him, I could help us find solutions for this problem.
- For me, the issue is not understanding, it's acknowledgement.
- Or being in there with you. As you said, feeling like it's our problem rather than your problem.
- Yeah. It's a feeling, it's a matter of tone. It's not a matter of words. Any words can get said, but you can't fake feelings.
- Mm-hmm. Can you say more about what it's like to be in your shoes?
- I don't know.
- [Orna] Keep going. What's coming up for you?
- There's nothing to say. There's really nothing to say.
- [Orna] Because?
- Because we've had this conversation so many times and it's just blown up in my face.
- Right, but I'm here, so let me at least hear how it potentially blows up for each of you and maybe I can help.
- So we know we can't move. What can we do to help you feel comfortable for now? Is there anything that we can do that would give you any comfort?
- And the answer is no.
- Right.
- The remoteness of the place is the problem. Home ownership is the problem. Joblessness is the problem. Professional and financial insecurity is the problem. Like, there's nothing that my wife and kids can do. The only thing that would make me feel less alone is if I felt like my wife wasn't gritting her teeth through the times that I brought this up. Can't you understand how this move has, this thing that is helping you thrive? I don't understand. It's so plain. It's so simple. Like, can't you see how it's made my life harder?
- Yes, Boris, I, yes. And I would do almost anything, at this point, to help you feel better. I know that you're in a lot of pain, (Jessica sniffles) but my knowing doesn't seem to help. And I have failed to make you feel that I have sympathy for you, that I'm proud of you for doing everything else that you've done. And so you feel really alone. And I'm sorry.
- Thank you.
- That doesn't mean anything.
- I'm sorry, it doesn't.
- Yeah. (gentle somber music) (door slides open) Thanks. (Jessica sniffles)
- It is really important for people to recognize when their partner is offering them something. And with Jessica, she's really trying and he's just refusing to see it.
- Yeah. Do you think the therapy is making it worse?
- I don't know. But there's something about the therapy, like sitting there in a pressure cooker, which is really not good medicine for these guys.
- [Unidentified Speaker] Yeah. They're too fragile.
- [Orna] Yeah.
- Yes, yes.
- Yeah.
- There's things in life that one wishes to do, there's things in life that one doesn't wish to do but one has to do, and there's things in life that one doesn't wish to do and doesn't have to do. And there is a fuckload in my life that is in the third department.
- Like?
- I will never again live in a house. It is somebody else's dream. I'm running around trying to figure out what filter needs to go into the water softener.
- Mm-hmm.
- You multiply that by 20, 40, like there's just, there's a dozen tasks like that that arrive at your doorstep every day.
- Mm-hmm.
- Our time on earth is not long, like...
- Boris, can we just like, just, can we talk about me for a little bit? I wanna talk about like-
- So I, we are getting to you, love. I'm just trying to explain where I am. Like don't worry, it'll get to you. It'll get to you! You're not forgotten, I promise! You are on my mind all the time! This isn't just the Boris show. I'm just trying to explain. We will get to you, I promise.
- So how does all of this play out between the two of you and what is the ask?
- So, I'm just, I'm radiating negativity, which is no fun to be around for Jessica and-
- So all of this is on your mind and heart.
- [Boris] Yes.
- And what happens?
- So like right now, I'm feeling like let's talk about us and the other side of the coin, like there's all the things that Boris feels he needs to be doing, and then there's the stuff that I need, need, need to be doing for us to live right now. I have to make money. And I was more stable at one point and I'm getting less and less and less stable.
- Because what is happening?
- Because what is happening here now is happening here.
- How?
- I've been not physically well for a while. I've had a persistent cough for like nearly a year.
- Mm-hmm.
- I've lost weight that I wasn't trying to lose.
- Mm-hmm.
- Sometimes, my hands will shake.
- Mm-hmm.
- Like, I just, my immune system is just shot. Like, if I get something, I don't get over it. It just stays. That plus the emotional part of it, I just see that I'm heading towards a place where I will probably not be able to work at all.
- Yeah.
- And I said to you, "I think that I need to be, I need you to go away for a while, I need you to move out in order to calm this situation down."
- Mm-hmm. What would you prefer?
- I would prefer to stay there.
- Mm-hmm.
- It does not, it's not a life that works for me but it's even worse to move out.
- Mm-hmm. Can the two of you imagine what would be a better idea, to just either take a break or separate? What can you live with?
- One very easy thing, one very clear but not easy thing for both of us, Boris figures out ways of not being so upfront with everything that's making him upset, Jessica continues tolerating and acknowledging Boris's difficult moments by engaging with him in a way that makes him feel like this is her burden too.
- But I wanna ask whether the solution you're looking for, trying to recruit Jessica to the task, is the way to go? I just wanna tell you that sometimes that is a fantasy that is not realistic.
- Recognition, and acknowledgement, and shared purpose cannot be a fantasy.
- I don't know. I don't know. (Boris scoffs) Recognition, sometimes is code name for something that is beyond another person's capacity to give.
- But then it's not a good dynamic for me.
- Trust me, from clinical experience, sometimes the ask from another person, they can't give it to you. It might be that Jessica is saying to you, "I cannot be the person helping you here."
- I understand. The thing that I'm seeking, the other person can't give.
- Okay, well I wanna hear that. I wanna hear the two of you try to figure that out.
- We did this last week, let's not, let's not.
- So, how can I help you with that?
- Look, the fact is that Jessica, and I think a lot of it is valid and understandable, is fucking furious with me existentially.
- [Orna] Mm-hmm.
- And has very, very, very little rope to do anything other than grit her teeth through what I'm going through.
- Ooh.
- [Boris] She doesn't want to deal with this, she doesn't want to hear about it.
- What does it mean to deal with it?
- Just with real soul and heart, just be like, "Love, this is a catastrophe for you." Like, in terms of personal identity and self worth or purpose, whatever you... What? Why is that your reaction?
- Because I have done that. I've done that and you do not feel that it is enough.
- Can you just, can you open yourself up to the possibility that you haven't?
- Your feelings are so big and so, they fill up a lot of space.
- They take up all the room.
- [Jessica] I'm tired of fighting for space.
- Mm-hmm. I understand. How else are you feeling? (Jessica cries)
- I was initially hopeful and now I feel, I feel doomed.
- Mm-hmm.
- And I just wish there could be some part of you that was like, "My wife is, like, shriveling. My wife is unwell. Let's give her some stability. Let's prioritize that for just a little bit so she can get in a good place again, an okay place again." But your problem is so big that there's no room for those considerations. (somber music)
- I've had a very funny day.
- So, I wanted to go back to Boris and Jessica. So, I saw them for several sessions that were increasingly difficult.
- Yeah.
- Like, the more I saw them, the more they were unraveling and whatever I was doing with them was not, in any way, helping them. Was kind of salt on wounds.
- Mm.
- And they said they're gonna take a break and then decided they're not doing it at all, and they were always offered the option to come back, talk about it, try again, so that's what I'm gonna do with them this week.
- I see. A full session?
- One session.
- What do you feel in thinking about meeting with them again?
- [Ken] I'd be nervous.
- Yeah, I would be too.
- No, tell me.
- Yeah, I'd be worried that she was still trapped and terrified.
- Mm-hmm.
- My guess is they've stayed together and they're gonna come back and it's going to try to be the same kind of session, although it's the last one 'cause they haven't moved anywhere, they haven't resolved anything.
- I wanna know where they're at and how they're doing to make sure they each feel like they got to own the story despite the fact that they left in the middle.
- Yeah.
- I don't wanna pretend it's okay. 'Cause it's not okay.
- Yeah.
- I don't know what to say, but it just feels ominous.
- Mm-hmm. So, how are you two?
- I think we're pretty good. I mean, yeah. I think we are good. I think circumstances of our lives have not changed particularly.
- But I think we're, I think we're more than good.
- Yeah.
- So, how'd you do that?
- Do you wanna answer? (Jessica laughs)
- I think what was happening around the last time that we saw you was big shifts and a lot of fear for both of us about our situation, and I think, somehow, it felt like if I signed on, or co-signed, Boris's unhappiness that would mean I'd have to give up what I had just gotten, which was my time.
- That if you acknowledged it, it would open the doors to having that taken away from you.
- Yeah, we'd have to renegotiate everything all over again and I would...
- Lose what you had longed for so long to get.
- Yeah.
- Right, and you know, that was really hard for me 'cause I felt like I was, I was in despair. I also had huge hopes pinned on this new part of our lives and it was the very opposite of what I hoped for in every way, so I was in a bad place. I was kind of like reaching for a little comfort, having a hard time finding it. That was making it worse. It was just a dark time. And I think coming here temporarily exacerbated all of that.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause there was a lot of talking about it that happened here, and it had a very long tail that pursued us for days after the session.
- And it was very, you talked about it very differently a few months ago.
- Mm-hm.
- Yes. So, it just felt like we can't actually, we're not strong enough to withstand the initial blow that this process delivers before it begins, potentially, to help.
- Mm-hmm. I, frankly, I did not really understand why is the talking not working? Why don't you feel understood? Why don't you feel understood? Like, you're saying things to each other here that sounded to me like, "Wait, this should be landing." One of you should feel heard, understood, like something should land, and it didn't.
- Yeah. I think, like, when we are not feeling connected, the other-ing that happens is very intense and he was like, "You're just another parent who doesn't understand."
- Yeah, I alienized her. I have been doing this to Jessica since we met.
- Mm-hmm.
- And I think it accumulates, and I think you very justifiably got fairly sick of it.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah, like it wasn't just that we stopped coming here, like I asked you to leave.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that's one of the things you said here last time you were here.
- Yeah.
- So what happened then?
- So, Jessica asked me to leave but like, I really kept dragging my feet on responding to her request.
- Mm-hmm.
- And what Jessica didn't know was that for about three months, I had been planning like a complicated weekend long to-do around her birthday in the city. And I'm terrible at keeping secrets but I had somehow, miraculously, through three months, managed to keep this secret and I wasn't gonna give it up now just because I've been asked to move out, you know what I'm saying? Just because my marriage is falling apart, I'm not gonna give up the secret. (Orna laughs) (Jessica laughs)
- Uh-huh.
- So, we got to have the weekend together and a lot of fun things happened.
- Like what?
- Just everything worked out the way it's supposed to work out. One of the funnest things that we did is we went to a club and danced until all hours of the night.
- Oh.
- And like, it was just so relaxed. Everybody was so friendly, the music was great, the people were great. It was just an awesome evening and it just seemed to create that little bit of extra room in Jessica to hear where I was.
- [Orna] Yeah.
- And it was all that I needed. Like, just that little bit of extra hearing made me feel less alone and just made it easier to survive the days.
- We'd never gone dancing before.
- Wow.
- Ever, together. And something about you meeting me on the childlike delight plane made it much easier to accept the layers on top of that unhappy Boris, tortured Boris, scared Boris. It's like all of those layers became easier to invite in because I could connect to the core of it.
- What did you see in the child Boris?
- So, I did this really cool workshop this weekend like, to address trauma you story tell.
- [Orna] Mm-hmm.
- So you put someone in the chair, you put yourself in the chair, but you tell the trauma in third person. So instead of doing my own trauma for the sake of the exercise, I decided to tell Boris's story instead.
- Oh, what did you tell?
- Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Boris who was born in the Soviet Union and despite the fact that he was born in the Soviet Union and his parents and family were Jewish, he lived like a little prince and his family decided that they would move to America and everything changed, and he wasn't the little prince anymore, now he was the little king. And with kingship came responsibilities that the little prince didn't have because the little king had people looking to him for answers and decisions. But the longer he did it, the more resentful he got and the more resentful he got, the harder it was to keep playing the little king. And then he met a blonde haired woman (Boris laughs) who looked like freedom but very quickly, they got married and they had kids and all of the sudden, that freedom looked a lot like the responsibilities of kingship and he just saw that promise fade away into a long, gray tunnel of the exact same responsibilities that he'd been hoping that he could be free of. You just haven't had a time when you didn't have a title. (Boris chuckles) How nice would it have been if you weren't a prince, or a king, or a father, or a husband, or anything in particular but you could just be whatever the fuck you are without any of that? (Jessica laughs) And-
- It is amazing 'cause it's amazing to be understood in this way.
- Mm-hmm.
- Because, you know, I wish I had some carefree child years but my god, does it feel amazing to be understood this way by your partner, right? And that helps you transcend that former, that other feeling.
- Yeah.
- And that's a pretty good trade off.
- Ooh.
- And I intend to have a really rambunctious retirement once they're off to college. (group laughs) But-
- Yeah.
- Sorry, go ahead.
- I wanna ask you something, just for my own curiosity having done some time with you, do you think there would've been another way to work here that would've helped the two of you get to this place?
- If there could've been some way to help us see the childlike core of each other.
- Mm-hmm.
- As opposed to the hardened adult personas and responses that had been calcified over time, both individually and in our coupledom then maybe there could've been connection. I don't know what that would look like.
- You would've had to go dancing with us. (Jessica laughs)
- I would've loved that. (gentle music)