Original subtitles

- ♪cool soul music ♪ - [Alison speaking indistinctly]

♪ Can't stand the sight of you ♪

♪ What gave you the right to do ♪

♪ Anything that you wanna do?♪

♪ You do it every time ♪

♪ Can't leave it alone ♪

♪ Heartbreak when I think of you ♪

[Boris speaking indistinctly]

♪ All the things that you put me through ♪

♪ Why am I still in love with you?♪

- [Kyle speaking indistinctly] - ♪You're always on my mind ♪

♪ Can't leave it alone ♪

[Katherine speaking indistinctly]

♪ Can't leave it alone ♪

[Jessica speaking indistinctly]

♪ You're always on my mind ♪

[Boris VO] I had a very hard time with last week's session.

I hated...

the portrait of me that emerged.

How did you see yourself?

As somebody who is...

just possessed by completely unreasonable expectations,

who is unsatisfiable,

for whom there is no problem that's too small to become

annoyed by and obsessed with,

and so on and so forth.

- Mm-hm. - Um...

I sound like a monster.

Why were you interested in being with me?

Because sometimes you're a very nice person!

♪

[Boris VO] [sighs]

Meaning you're saying that...

finding yourself in this dynamic makes you feel...

like a monster?

[Boris] It's a couple of things.

When I came to this country,

I think that...

people around me had a lot of hopes for me.

And they really wanted me to do well...

- Mm-hm. - [Boris] And they pushed me hard

to do well,

and it's the most clichéd and familiar immigrant story.

But I took that,

and made something really toxic out of it

by developing impossible standards for myself.

Mm-hm.

And it is very difficult for me to imagine

somebody perceiving me as anyone other than, like,

an unreasonable, ungrateful,

and perhaps even threatening dude.

Uh-huh.

I think you're really scared of being judged,

and you're really scared of that judgment

destroying things that you've worked really hard to create.

Yeah, yeah, I think we live in a--

Okay, let me just say it differently:

I think the concern you're having is kind of an amplified

projection of how you're experiencing yourself

in the dynamic,

which is that you experience yourself as excessive and as--

that there's not enough room for you,

and that excess seems, to you, somehow toxic,

or monstrous.

And that is something to figure out;

that is not something to just take as a fact.

[Boris] Sure.

But for me to sit here and engage in all of this is to

recall the failure

to transform myself

in these departments.

Because, believe me, I'm very aware that they make my life

so much harder

than it "needs to be,"

and it misaligns me completely with this person.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah!

I mean, I agree with his portrayal of himself.

Mm-hm.

And I have tried to be more inviting,

exploratory, um, "What can I do...

to try to meet you halfway?"

And I just-- I haven't-- I haven't been able

to do the things that he would ask of me.

- Mm-hm. - The fact is that...

there is nothing wrong with this person,

she just happens to be with somebody who is built in a

different way,

and has never been able to meet her where she is.

And I don't know how to...

build a bridge.

♪ soft curious music ♪

[Orna VO] He's used a couple of times the term about himself

- "monstrous." - [Virginia VO] "Monstrous."

Yeah.

[Orna VO] Which is, of course, not at all how I see him.

I mean, I feel so much compassion for how overwhelmed

he is and his, like, painful search and restlessness.

[Virginia] Right.

When we start talking about things that we do not agree on,

it very quickly becomes

"How could you possibly think this way, Jessica?

It doesn't make sense."

It just sometimes reaches such a fever pitch that...

I fly off the handle.

[Jessica] It's not just you asking things.

You bring a very judgmental air to your questions

when you ask me things.

[Virginia VO] He needs containment.

[Orna VO] Mm-hm.

And there's no containment, so it keeps going out,

geographically and verbally.

Mm-hm.

- And you could be such a person. - [Orna] Mm-hm.

You could help him...

bear up under it

and live inside of himself, rather than outside of himself.

But I think he's not yet sure if I'm, like,

a friendly entity.

[Virginia] Yeah.

If I can... deal with him.

I-- I need to go there.

I need to understand it.

Yeah.

♪ driving synth music ♪

[dog barks]

I'm so keenly aware of your defensiveness that I had to sit

in the bathroom and think through whether I'm gonna ask

you to shut the window in the morning.

I just think that you--

You've given me, like, a list of things to do in the morning

- before I leave. - It's not a list of things to do.

[dog whines]

"Light is coming in through the bathroom window."

These are literally the simplest things in the world.

[laughs]

[indistinct chatter from waiting room]

...concerted effort every morning to close the window!

All right, well--

- [Orna] Hello! - Hello.

[chuckling] Oh my God.

Ugh, we were just, like, getting into an argument

[chuckling] in the waiting room.

[Orna] Keep going!

- [laughs] - [chuckling] Oh my God!

It's, like, driving me insane. [laughs]

[laughs] I'm driving you insane?

[laughing] Yes!

How?

He was like, "I think we've been doing really good work and

I wanna continue last week, but I also feel like we've been

getting into it this week, and you've been, like,

really abrasive with me, and I just need...

gentleness from you."

- And, like... - [sighs]

We got into something last night,

and it's so dumb-- like, the fight is so dumb--

and it was in front of Luna...

so she woke up this morning, apparently, talking about it

and telling him to lay off me. [inhales deeply]

Anyway, really dumb fight, but, yes,

I got very...

annoyed... [chuckles]

quickly with him.

Yeah...?

Well, I just-- there's been, like,

three separate incidents this week.

She went away for a girls' trip--

- [sighs] - On Friday,

I watched Luna for the whole weekend...

And so, she was coming home, and I was lying on the couch,

and Luna was lying on the couch, and, like,

we had the busiest...

weekend ever.

And so when she got home,

she came in the house, she put down her bags,

she said hi, we both said hi, randomly--

You didn't get up.

I-- well, I'm telling the story,

I'm gonna say that.

So... [inhales sharply]

then, she went back outside immediately,

got more bags, came in...

I didn't get up right away, and she immediately said...

- "Don't any--" - "Don't everyone get up at once!"

"Don't anyone get up at once!"

And it really bothered me, 'cause I was like,

"Oh, you're coming home, and you're talking about how I don't

support or love you or care about you."

So I got really upset, and it caused a-- a fight.

How?

How did you express your upset?

The same way he always does: he didn't wanna talk to me.

[Orna] Mm-hm.

[Katherine] Like, he punishes me with silence.

Like, he won't talk to me.

It takes him a long time to, like...

get over it and then decide to talk to me again.

I feel like he just shuts me out.

A long time for you is like three seconds.

Like, if I'm not immediately out of being frustrated with

something...

Right, so if we not litigate the specifics,

I mean, this is completely continuous with what we've been

talking about all along.

Your mode is to lean back

and hope that somehow, it'll be felt,

- and then feel resentful... - Mm-hm.

[Orna] That it's not coming.

- [Katherine] Yeah. - Yet you're both doing it.

I don't know, I-- I guess I just feel like we would...

embrace when the moment...

called for it.

That, like, she could come home and put her bags down and...

come over and she could say,

"Hey, how are you?"

It doesn't require this sort of...

- performative thing. - [Orna] Mm-hm.

And...

No?

Hold on.

Could there be some part of you-- not conscious--

that is thinking,

"You've been away, I've been waiting,

you should come find me?"

Maybe; I'm not s-- I'm not sure that that's what it is.

[Orna] Mm-hm.

Maybe that's what it is.

Maybe that's what it is.

- Yeah. - Um...

let's assume there's something in there that we could be

- thinking about. - Mm-hm.

Perhaps a part of you feels like it's waiting too long.

To share or to...

- connect. - [Orna] To connect and...

- debrief, process, like... - Mm.

All that you do.

Yeah.

These reunion moments are super important

after some time of separation.

Mm-hm.

There's something about just going towards each other

that is difficult.

And it's holding the two of you back.

So this seems, to me, something you can hold in mind and think

about how to do differently and have a totally new experience

with each other.

[inhales deeply]

[Katherine sniffles]

♪ quirky mellow music ♪

I feel like the last week or two,

you've been kind of, uh, avoiding me.

I have.

[chuckling] There we go.

[Alison] [chuckling] Okay, it was that easy.

- I mean, you know, she-- - Well, yeah, I have.

When you live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan,

and your wife disappears for a three-hour dog walk,

you know, for a few days consecutively,

you know, you know there's definitely an issue.

We've not addressed it until now.

So... [clears throat]

tell me how it affects you.

[Rod] Um...

well, it was upsetting.

- You know, my mum's in town from overseas... - Mm-hm.

And I was conscientious of how I was behaving around my mum,

because I felt like Alison thought I was babysitting.

You were upset with me, like, you know,

making her a cup of tea, and "Can't she do it herself?"

and stuff like that.

I can make my mum a cup of tea.

- [Alison] I-- - D-- don't...

- [Alison] Okay. - Don't.

The timing felt a bit curious-- my mum's here and then she

disappears for, you know, three hours,

- two days in a row or whatever the case was. - [Orna] Mm-hm.

And Alison keeps on telling me,

"Communicate, communicate.

- Talk, talk." - [Orna] Mm-hm.

Which is, like, her mantra, and yet she's, you know,

done some disappearing acts the last week or so,

so I'm not quite sure--

Obviously, she's nodding her head so there's something.

[Alison] No, no, no, no.

- No, I'm just listening. - [Rod] Okay.

I'm listening.

But you're not just listening, you're making...

[Alison] Yeah, no, absolutely!

- Absolutely. - [Orna] What do you mean "absolutely?"

No, absolutely, I'm making notes and I'm processing what

- he's saying. - No, but you're shaking your head, so you're...

- Oh. - In your body language, you're conveying disapproval,

despite trying to keep it in.

So...

[Alison] Sure.

Listen without voicing an opinion.

Okay.

But in Alison's absence,

you're filling the blanks with...

the idea that there's a lot of judgment.

Yes.

Yeah, I am, that's correct.

It sounds-- even though you're not saying it,

but correct me if I'm wrong-- it sounds like you were missing

her being more involved?

Yeah, I was. That's correct.

- That's correct, yeah. - [Orna] Mm-hm.

When you're noticing that you want her to be back in,

what do you do?

I don't think I-- I didn't do anything.

When this happened this week, I just let her come back.

So I think I just went with it; I didn't wanna kick up a stink,

so I just let it be.

Right, kicking up a stink is...

- not a good idea. - [Rod] Right.

But there might be other things you can do.

[Rod] Mm-hm.

[Alison] But you know what, Rod?

It's your mother!

It's not my mother!

It's my mother-in-law, I would love to see her,

but I don't have to hang out with her 24/7.

- Mm-hm. - This is an opportune time

for me to have time for myself!

And I gotta tell you something:

I like it a lot.

[Orna] Mm-hm.

I didn't intentionally leave the house saying,

"I'm taking hours."

The weather was beautiful, I had the dog,

- I didn't need to be anywhere... - Mm-hm.

You know, like, there was not even a care, like,

in my head to think, "Oh my God."

But it's interesting that when Alison is not

- filling the space... - [Rod] Mm-hm.

The first thing that comes to mind is you're being criticized

or punished.

Yeah.

That's good for you to think about that,

and say, "Hmm, I wonder if that's really happening,

or is that my automatic assumption?"

[Rod] Got you.

And then it sounds like you were also missing Alison.

So ask yourself, how do you make something happen?

Not by way of kicking up a stink,

but by way of being inviting.

Right.

But you, um, filled in the blank with a feeling

- of conflict... - Mm-hm.

[Orna] That something's not going well.

So that makes me think that you might, um...

unconsciously be baiting Alison...

- to come in... - Mm-hm.

Create conflict, create turmoil

so that you're not left with those feelings.

Interesting, okay.

So I think the more Alison leaves space open for you to

come in, I want you to be observing of your own process.

Okay.

Like, what kind of interpretations are you making

- of this empty space? - [Rod] Mm-hm.

And then, think, "What do I want?

And how do I make that happen?"

That's serious homework.

Mm-hm.

I guess that brings us back to when you say, like, you know,

"What is it I feel?

- What is it I want?" - [Orna] Mm-hm.

Sometimes, I just don't know or don't--

- [Orna] Great! - I'm not in-tuned, so, okay.

- [Orna] That's fine! - Mm-hm.

Just wait, ask yourself, give yourself time.

Go for your own dog walk.

[chuckles]

♪ chill groovy music ♪

[laughs]

[dogs barking]

If you remember when we were in Fire Island,

like, you kind gave me an ultimatum;

you said, "It's either this,

or we don't do this."

- Right? - "This" being...?

"This, we either stay open,

or we don't, and this relationship ends."

Like, there was no working around it.

Got it.

Well, if I'm working very hard at trying to figure out

how to make an open relationship work,

have you given it any thought as to why you have such an aversion

to monogamy?

Hm!

Why are you so scared of monogamy?

What about monogamy is so...

hard for you to be in?

[muffled speech] I think there are multiple

thoughts that come up:

the fear of containment,

the fear of being committed to one and one person only...

What's wrong with that?

I don't see it!

I don't see how we could love one person and only be committed

- to that one person. - [Mondo] Mm-hm.

How I see it is that the energy that I have,

I want to contr-- like, give it off to you,

and if I have a friend that I feel this...

energy and it's consensual, it...

works both ways,

why not share that?

[Mondo] Okay.

I just am trying to understand.

If monogamy is something you know you can't do,

I wanna know that you know why.

Mm-hm.

Because I think-- for me, personally--

- the thing that I fear the most... - Mm-hm.

Is when Kyle can become...

another person when he's intoxicated,

under the influence,

and then I just kinda see Kyle drifting away,

with either another guy or another group of guys.

And then, inside, I'm, like, falling apart.

Like, I'm just like, "Oh my God, where is he going?

What's gonna happen?"

You know, like, I get concerned.

Mm-hm.

You have a tendency of thinking of the worst case scenario.

[Mondo] Sure.

Whether it's in our relationship...

Sure.

- Previous relationships... - [Mondo] Sure.

All the way from childhood.

And that overprotectiveness is like...

it feels naggy, it feels "Okay, you're being unrealistic.

Where's my little bit of freedom?"

[Orna] Mm-hm.

And that's when I start to roll my eyes.

"He's overreacting, he's overprotective,

he's overanalyzing."

You're not my mom, or you're not my dad.

I think one of the reasons why we came here in the first place

is to learn how to communicate with each other.

Yeah!

How I can be able to...

be vulnerable and be able to effectively communicate

with you...

[breathing deeply, stifling crying]

Knowing that you will be there--

- Can we pause for a second? - [Mondo] Yeah, sorry.

Sorry, it just... [chuckles]

- [Orna] Yeah. - It's, like, intense.

[inhales sharply]

I'm really holding myself down right now,

because it's like-- it's--

- this is heavy. - Yeah.

[Mondo] This is some heavy stuff coming up.

I'm sorry. [sniffles]

[sighs]

- [Orna] Mondo, take your time. - [Mondo] Yeah, I know.

I just-- I'm, like...

[sighs]

Um...

So I was, um, in a domestic violence situation with an ex

who was on...

- drugs... - [Orna] Mm-hm.

And I didn't know.

- I had no idea. - What was he on?

[Mondo] Uh, crystal meth.

Anyways, um, we had gone out one night,

and, um...

I found him completely...

naked.

It wasn't that kind of party; people were not--

- Yeah. - [Mondo] Naked.

It was just him; he'd lost his clothes,

lost his wallet, lost his phone, lost everything, keys...

I got us home to my house, and, um...

he must've not known who I was, because then,

he just turned around and then punched the hell out of me.

Then, he repeatedly beat my face into the ground until...

I was able to, like, push him off.

And my whole eye was completely out,

my cheekbone was completely exposed,

my whole mouth area was raw.

Like, he hit this-- like, I was literally like this,

just taking it.

[sniffles] Um...

How terrible, what you're describing.

- [Mondo] Yeah, it sucked. - Wow.

And so, openness, to me, comes with so much unknown.

It scares the crap out of me.

You have understand: for me, it's like...

these little things that tend to be super minor and small

and innocent just for playful fun, right?

Those could have meaning,

which is why I'm giving you the responsibility to understand:

why not monogamy?

Why not keep your partner safe?

Because I would do anything to keep you safe.

Mm-hm.

How are you feeling listening to Mondo telling what happened?

Right now, I do understand, um,

how you're making an association, because,

like you said, you never thought that in a million years that

would happen to you and it did, so now you're thinking,

"Okay, if that happened to me,

then anything could happen to me."

Yeah, 'cause I let me guard down...

Yes.

- Completely with this guy. - [Kyle] Yeah.

[Mondo] I'm sorry it's coming up, but it's...

I-- I'm using it because I'm trying to get...

you to understand that, hopefully,

there is some clarity there that...

now you understand where I'm possibly coming from.

I'm thinking that's where it could possible come from.

Okay.

What's your reaction?

- [Kyle] Hm? - What is your reaction?

My reaction is telling myself and reminding myself,

"You know, you have this really amazing partner that you want to

take into consideration.

Not be mindful, but be considerate of his past,

and how my current decision can...

cause emotional pain for him."

So, yeah!

I-- I'm hearing you!

Mm-hm.

♪ soft tender music ♪

[Orna VO] Kyle wants to be a good partner.

Mm-hm.

At the same time,

there's a certain kind of immediacy of empathy

and connection that is not there.

I see.

Things that we take for granted about the back and forth...

[Virginia] Yeah.

Don't work like that with him; he has another way.

And he said, "I did not have the experience

of being understood."

- Literally. - Yeah.

He said, "I could not understand

- what's going on out there..." - [Virginia] Yeah.

"And out there couldn't understand what was going on...

- here." - Yeah.

So I think he spent, like, very formative early years,

in a certain way, in a state of complete isolation.

[Virginia VO] Yeah!

♪

[Orna VO] And there's something about being with him

- that replicates that. - [Virginia VO] Yeah.

[sewing machine whirring]

[Virginia VO] Do you have a sense that Mondo feels that

there's something not fully there for him?

[Orna VO] Oddly not.

And it's not obvious to me, like,

what's going on there.

[Virginia VO] Maybe he's getting so much from loving Kyle

and helping him, that in a way, he's treating himself.

Interesting, yeah.

And it will require you saying,

"Yes, but what about you, actually?"

Yeah.

[Virginia] Like, "What about you?"

Yeah.

♪ I get lost and when I do ♪

♪ I run on back to you ♪

♪ Tell myself another truth and fall back ♪

♪ What's the use?♪

♪ But leaves don't ever know which way they'll fall ♪

♪ And I've been sitting waiting for the call ♪

♪ I get lost and when I do ♪

♪ I run on back to you ♪

♪ Play myself another tune and fall back ♪

♪ What's the use?♪

♪