Speaker 1: You're listening to a new segment of Dear Chelsea.
Speaker 2: Call it Couple's Counseling with Chelsea, where we do couples
Speaker 2: counseling on all sorts of variations of friends, lovers, families.
Speaker 2: I'm here with my friends Jenny Mullen and Jason Biggs,
Speaker 2: and we are going to do some couples counseling. Welcome
Speaker 2: to my office. Okay, Jason, I want to talk to
Speaker 2: you about your packing and your neurosis. So you guys
Speaker 2: travel a lot. You travel a lot with the kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is great.
Speaker 2: The kids speak German because Jenny speaks German. That's also great. Jason,
Speaker 2: are you speaking German yet?
Speaker 3: Nine?
Speaker 1: Okay, So in.
Speaker 4: Little he understands a lot.
Speaker 1: It's creepy you would understand a lot. You guys have
Speaker 1: been there a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he understands way too much. It's no longer the
Speaker 4: secret thing I had with the boys. Now he understands
Speaker 4: when we're talking about him, which.
Speaker 3: But also the context is still kid conversations. I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously they are fluent and so it has gotten more
Speaker 3: advanced over the years. They can understand pretty much everything.
Speaker 4: But sometimes I'll say to Sid, like stop asking him
Speaker 4: like I need to go take him aside and bring
Speaker 4: it up so that it's his idea, Like stop asking
Speaker 4: him right.
Speaker 1: Now, you know.
Speaker 4: I'll say that in front to Sid and Jason will understand.
Speaker 1: What are you triangulating your whole family aied front?
Speaker 3: You, Chelsea, you just touched on one of the most
Speaker 3: important issues in our relationships.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I Sid wants something back from Jason. I'm like,
Speaker 4: you can't keep bringing it up right now. I need
Speaker 4: to talk to Daddy. Will decide if you can have
Speaker 4: fortnite first, and then we can present it in a
Speaker 4: different way, Like if you're going to keep asking him
Speaker 4: right now, you're not going to get a different answer. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: And so I will kind of say that to Sid
Speaker 4: to kind of nudge him, like, shut the fuck up
Speaker 4: right now. You're digging a hole.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, But that means you're all you're playing both sides.
Speaker 2: You're playing a little You want to be friends with
Speaker 2: Sid and you want to be the one trusts sometimes
Speaker 2: and then and then you're making him into the bad guy.
Speaker 2: And I would expect nothing less.
Speaker 4: From you, thank you, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I would watch your back Jason, if you
Speaker 2: aren't already watching your back watching.
Speaker 5: Believe me, this comes up in real couple therapy.
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're intimating that this is.
Speaker 5: Not really Sorry, Sorry are other couples?
Speaker 1: Thank you? It's all I have to say is last night, Jason.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry I'm cutting you off, but I just you
Speaker 4: have to hear this because you don't know this.
Speaker 1: I mean you might have heard this last night. Well
Speaker 1: I probably was covered underneath a bunch of pillows, okay.
Speaker 4: You. Jason came in because he's like mother hen like again, neurotic,
Speaker 4: fixing everything. And he comes in to turn on the
Speaker 4: air purifier in our room and Sid.
Speaker 3: Because I lower it during the day to a low
Speaker 3: level and then at night before they go to bed,
Speaker 3: I knock it up one as white noise slash purifications.
Speaker 4: Sid was about to go to sleep and he was
Speaker 4: literally just like almost out and Jason comes in in.
Speaker 5: His not frantic, he was very quiet.
Speaker 4: No, he was frustrated, okay, And Jason's like, well, I'm
Speaker 4: just turning up the air so that it drowns out
Speaker 4: all the sound. And it turns to me.
Speaker 1: He goes, Mom, are re.
Speaker 5: Okay with this? I did hear? I did hear?
Speaker 1: Did you say that in English or in German English.
Speaker 2: Have I died? So?
Speaker 1: Jason, back to your packing, what do you think is
Speaker 1: wrong with you? Do you have to pack?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: Two weeks in advance, because otherwise you'll flip your lid
Speaker 2: if you're not ready to go?
Speaker 5: Not that far.
Speaker 3: I've I've shortened the window to be sure, but it's
Speaker 3: I need to be prepared, certainly minimum the day before.
Speaker 3: I mean everything needs to because also it's not just
Speaker 3: myself that I'm packing, it's the boys, and it's basically
Speaker 3: repacking Jenny when she's and by the way, she's not
Speaker 3: even packing now at this point. She's kind of given
Speaker 3: it up and now given up. The nanny packs like
Speaker 3: smoking given off, but still she if the nanny hasn't
Speaker 3: packed her.
Speaker 2: Given up, I also have given up packing.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it's control issue, it's OCD, it's all it's
Speaker 3: all the things that track for me and my personality.
Speaker 3: But it's like I can't. First of all, I need
Speaker 3: to take advantage of the space, and I need to
Speaker 3: so needs to be.
Speaker 4: Space military role.
Speaker 1: And it's very true that you can fit a lot more.
Speaker 5: In your way more way way unless it's.
Speaker 1: A sweater, don't roll your sweaters. That actually takes up more.
Speaker 5: Exactly you fold your sweaters. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Sweatshirts otherwise known as suda there as an Espanol.
Speaker 1: Now, so that's controlling or OCD, right, is.
Speaker 3: That it's a touch of all of that. I think
Speaker 3: it's control issue. I think it's o CD. I don't
Speaker 3: know what else that would fall under. But it's also
Speaker 3: like there is that mother hen it's not just about me.
Speaker 3: There is a sort of need to make sure the
Speaker 3: family is so everything needs to go like whatever I
Speaker 3: can control in terms of travel, because so much can
Speaker 3: go wrong and does go wrong and is out of
Speaker 3: your control that whatever is possibly in my control, I
Speaker 3: want to make sure it goes smoothly.
Speaker 5: And so that means and so that.
Speaker 2: Means, yeah, we'd like to say one more time that
Speaker 2: Jason is not Jewish.
Speaker 3: So that means I'm not walking around with a checklist,
Speaker 3: but I am. In my mind, I've got a checklist,
Speaker 3: like are the boys medicines's kids tiling?
Speaker 5: All kids? This kids too medicated? You know? Are they
Speaker 5: drug yes? Traveling? You know?
Speaker 3: Do we charge everything downloaded iPhone's charge? Are the movies
Speaker 3: downloaded on their iPads are because this is also also
Speaker 3: I'll say this, I'll say that not only and Jenny
Speaker 3: might have a counterpoint to this, which I'm curious to hear.
Speaker 3: But I think it's not just that I feel I
Speaker 3: need to do it because of my own personal impulses
Speaker 3: and my own personal deficiencies mentally, but I also feel
Speaker 3: like it's a reaction to the fact that I'm getting
Speaker 3: no help on this side. There is zero Like if
Speaker 3: I had a partner who was also like, there's not
Speaker 3: room for.
Speaker 4: Two of us. I've actually like he's enabled me to
Speaker 4: be we don't know that.
Speaker 5: We don't know that. You like he's your assistant, Well,
Speaker 5: never know that because there aren't you.
Speaker 4: Yes, because because during the pandemic, he's like, I've never
Speaker 4: seen you use a broom, I've never seen you do
Speaker 4: these I've never seen you loaded dishrush shore. And I
Speaker 4: said to him, when I lived alone, who do you
Speaker 4: think did all this stuff? But now when I when
Speaker 4: I we paired up, it's like he's enabled me to
Speaker 4: like not like put.
Speaker 5: A paper on the rack. My belief that there was
Speaker 5: never mother.
Speaker 2: Hands, you were always looking for someone to offload your packing,
Speaker 2: Isn't that true? You were always looking for some sort
Speaker 2: of dynamic, whether it was Jason or nanny or maybe
Speaker 2: even your own children. Like if someone else could do
Speaker 2: it for you.
Speaker 5: A hundred could delegate things.
Speaker 4: I mean, when I first got said from the store,
Speaker 4: from the store and I had I had a nanny,
Speaker 4: I realized, whoa, this is ideal. This is what I've
Speaker 4: always knew, of course, but I think before, before I
Speaker 4: was with you, I mean, I did all these things.
Speaker 4: I mean sometimes, yes, like instead of washing the dishes
Speaker 4: and just throw them away exactly exactly most of the
Speaker 4: time I had to.
Speaker 5: And you had roommates that took the trash out, like
Speaker 5: you know, I.
Speaker 4: Lived alone, Jason, I lived alone.
Speaker 5: She did take the trash out the other night, first
Speaker 5: time I've ever seen her do it.
Speaker 3: Trash downs, no, of course not no. We have a
Speaker 3: trash shoot in the hallway right across. But hold on,
Speaker 3: but here's the best there. It couldn't be an easier
Speaker 3: task given our building and the trash shooting across the
Speaker 3: hall like it is so so easy.
Speaker 5: You're really getting on me now, and I come back
Speaker 5: in the apartment.
Speaker 1: We're here for.
Speaker 4: The one thing that I did something great, and you're
Speaker 4: gonna talk about it.
Speaker 5: Well, I think this is funny.
Speaker 1: Hold on, you did not do something great?
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The throwing trash out into a shoot is like what
Speaker 1: I would say to someone if they But she's gonna,
Speaker 1: did you do anything today? I like, you, bet?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 1: You fucking bet I did.
Speaker 5: But that's her.
Speaker 3: She's like, what do you mean I took out the
Speaker 3: trash today? Don't even get on me about this, this, this,
Speaker 3: and this. It's like, uh, okay anyway. But she didn't
Speaker 3: even complete the task because I came back in. I like,
Speaker 3: had some trash and I go, I opened the trash
Speaker 3: can and I throw it in the trash and I realized,
Speaker 3: I go.
Speaker 5: There's a fucking bag in the trash.
Speaker 3: I go, Jenny, You know when you take the trash out,
Speaker 3: there is another step in the process. You have to
Speaker 3: put a new bag in the cant Oh okay, she
Speaker 3: was a lost gone into space something else.
Speaker 2: You was thinking, right, what about the cooking at your house?
Speaker 2: Who's in charge of that?
Speaker 1: You do a lot of cooking, Yeah, because you do
Speaker 1: your dictator lunch.
Speaker 2: Yes, And what about you cook too, though, Jason, don't
Speaker 2: you who's who's holding the fort down?
Speaker 1: On that.
Speaker 4: I usually do the cooking for the kids, and then
Speaker 4: Jason will do like a weekend pasta and.
Speaker 5: Roast a chicken.
Speaker 2: Right, because you can only eat like two things, right
Speaker 2: because of your situation?
Speaker 1: Or have you been able to eat more nuts?
Speaker 4: I mean I don't. Yeah, I eat more things. I
Speaker 4: guess you love you really just love I love a
Speaker 4: fucking nuts.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anyone eat nuts.
Speaker 2: You actually turn into a squirrel when I squirrel out
Speaker 2: Sophie my friend also you you guys know she fucking
Speaker 2: loves nuts too.
Speaker 1: What kind of you guys have made me so turned
Speaker 1: off by nuts that I can't even eat them anymore.
Speaker 5: But it's not even like good nuts, like a roasted peanuts.
Speaker 5: It's like a tiger nut with me.
Speaker 2: And then Jenny eats it and she can somehow take
Speaker 2: like fourteen bites have one.
Speaker 3: Peanut, and then and then because this is yeah, and
Speaker 3: then yeah, and then because this is healthy, she'll leave
Speaker 3: like a half a bite and then put that aside
Speaker 3: and be like, Okay, that's I didn't eat the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So and then who cleans up after you? Guys?
Speaker 5: Oh my god, are you kidding me to? This is
Speaker 5: fucking this bad.
Speaker 1: I knew the answer to before I asked him.
Speaker 5: This is truly for me.
Speaker 4: I can't wait for Jason to listen to this back
Speaker 4: and be like, WHOA.
Speaker 3: I really really was hard on her.
Speaker 2: So I think he's just exposing you, you know what,
Speaker 2: for what we all know to be true. I mean,
Speaker 2: some people are very good at a certain group of things.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I can't do anything.
Speaker 2: My dog Pete in the house the other day and
Speaker 2: I waited for someone to arrive because.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what what. I was like, these are
Speaker 1: wood floors.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to use is it's just regular
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, it's better just
Speaker 2: back away.
Speaker 5: Someone's I will make this worse. Yeah, ROLLI.
Speaker 2: He's like, you know, you can just use paper towel,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I don't think that's right.
Speaker 1: So you're doing all the cleaning.
Speaker 2: And then when you guys argue, do you have is
Speaker 2: it okay for you to argue in front of the
Speaker 2: kids or do you try to keep it away from
Speaker 2: the kids.
Speaker 1: I feel like you guys probably just argue in front
Speaker 1: of the kids.
Speaker 4: We bicker in front of the kids. I don't know,
Speaker 4: do we argue in front of the kids. Some sid
Speaker 4: would be like, oh, my parents are always fighting. You know.
Speaker 4: It's like, but he has an idea. He's so fucking
Speaker 4: like privileged and like, you know, I said him one night,
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I'm putting in your room and
Speaker 4: you're going to sleep by yourself, and he screams into
Speaker 4: the hallway. You would do that to an innocent child,
Speaker 4: you know. So it's like his version of reality, yes,
Speaker 4: is just so far off, Like he doesn't understand when
Speaker 4: we bicker even you know, he's like, oh.
Speaker 5: Here they go again.
Speaker 4: It's right, you have no idea, but it lands.
Speaker 3: I guess it's a good sign because we don't. I mean,
Speaker 3: the house I grew up in was constant fighting, operatic, loud,
Speaker 3: always screaming and stuff.
Speaker 5: So that was the one. And Jenny grew up in
Speaker 5: a house where they just didn't they ran.
Speaker 3: Right, which is also not new people always new people, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: they flee and start a new thing, like there wasn't
Speaker 3: fighting because they wasn't around long enough to fight, which
Speaker 3: is also not healthy. We grew up in the opposite end.
Speaker 3: The healthy thing is like, yeah, couples that love each
Speaker 3: other get into disagreements, there is bickering, there are fights.
Speaker 3: Sometimes we do our best. We do maybe and maybe
Speaker 3: I can do better. Maybe we can do better. I
Speaker 3: know I can do better. Because of the two of us,
Speaker 3: I will be the one that will get louder, quicker
Speaker 3: for sure, and I have a harder time. Jenny, because
Speaker 3: of her family of origin, can be like, all right,
Speaker 3: I'm out, Like can leave and just be like we're
Speaker 3: not doing this now, whereas I'm like, what, no, I
Speaker 3: need resolution.
Speaker 5: This feels like abandonment. I can't. I need to fix this.
Speaker 5: Stay in a fight.
Speaker 3: I'll stay in a fight, ironically in the hopes of
Speaker 3: ending the fight, whereas Jenny will just leave the fight
Speaker 3: in the hopes of ending the fight.
Speaker 5: But that actually triggers me more.
Speaker 3: It's it's that's part of our many dances that we
Speaker 3: do where we do trigger each other, but we do
Speaker 3: our best to not do it in front of the kids. Jenny,
Speaker 3: for a long time, even the bickering, because again she
Speaker 3: did not grow up with bickering or any any type
Speaker 3: of fighting, was like we you know, we'd be in
Speaker 3: couples therapy and she'd be like and he just we
Speaker 3: were fighting, screaming in front and I was like, well, Jenny,
Speaker 3: hold on, we have done that. But the fight you're
Speaker 3: referring to was literally us just disagreeing in like her
Speaker 3: definition of what a fight was in front of the
Speaker 3: kids has changed as her as like she's I believe
Speaker 3: in my speaking out of turn. You've realize like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this happens, this is okay, and some of it is
Speaker 3: okay to happen in front of the kids.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think that's right.
Speaker 2: Like, who doesn't have disagreement, it's scarier if there isn't anything,
Speaker 2: well then yeah, then it's like you're describing your childhood right,
Speaker 2: your family dynamic. But the good thing is that Jason
Speaker 2: has been to so much therapy so that he's a
Speaker 2: willing participant in actually resolution and conflict, like dealing with conflict,
Speaker 2: not conflict avoidant, because conflict avoiding doesn't get anybody anywhere.
Speaker 2: And we'll be back with this worry about when Jenny
Speaker 2: and Jason went scuba diving and she left Jason for dead.
Speaker 2: You can check out Jenny mull and substack The Best
Speaker 2: Friend Experience and her new side hustle The Shirts Off
Speaker 2: My Back, where you can buy fabulous vintage clothes, and
Speaker 2: you can also check out Jenny and Jason co hosting
Speaker 2: Dinner in a Movie on TBS