Speaker 1: You're listening to a new segment, 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, guys, on our last session together,
Speaker 2: I think we've made a lot of progress on our
Speaker 2: last session, healed. I want to address the ex girlfriend factor,
Speaker 2: and I would like to recap that because that I
Speaker 2: think required a lot of patience and acceptance I think
Speaker 2: from Jason, because he could have really been like, this
Speaker 2: woman is unstable, you know what I mean, This woman's crazy,
Speaker 2: or any of the things you could attribute to somebody
Speaker 2: who would be that interested in his ex girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we were on a vacation.
Speaker 2: We talked about this on your podcast when we went
Speaker 2: on a vacation together French Polynesia scuba diving trip and
Speaker 2: you brought Jason's ex girlfriend's kaftan and you wore it.
Speaker 1: I think I even at one point when you'urinated on it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what happened to that cap town.
Speaker 2: Someone someone got urinated on and something got urinated on
Speaker 2: on that trip.
Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about Jason.
Speaker 2: How did that when you found out Jenny was obsessed
Speaker 2: with your ex girlfriend?
Speaker 1: How did that make you feel? Like? Did you think,
Speaker 1: whoaa who this might be problematic or you.
Speaker 2: Already were so head over heels with her that you
Speaker 2: thought this is adorable.
Speaker 3: Not the ladder, Not the ladder kills Rachel.
Speaker 4: But there was a sense of I think it actually
Speaker 4: was sort of somewhere in the middle in so far
Speaker 4: as definitely struck me as weird and uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Can you just kind of recap when it came about briefly.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's it's so blurry, and here's I
Speaker 3: can just give you a broad stroke on it.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, I mean the thing that I'll get into
Speaker 4: is that it it wasn't just once and and so
Speaker 4: my feelings changed over time. When I when I thought it,
Speaker 4: when we was like, okay, this needs to be done
Speaker 4: and I don't like it. And then it happened again.
Speaker 4: That's where it like, Okay, it's no longer adorable. I
Speaker 4: get that you're a story seeker. I get that you're
Speaker 4: anything goes Jenny. You're wild and crazy, you're funny, you're hilarious, impulsive,
Speaker 4: all the things that I do find attractive about her
Speaker 4: to an extent, and this went too far.
Speaker 5: The things he used to find attractive about me, or
Speaker 5: now the heated about me.
Speaker 1: That's par for the course. That's what happens in every real.
Speaker 4: And it's not entirely true. Maybe I still love you
Speaker 4: for those things. There just needs to be. When I
Speaker 4: felt like I wasn't being heard, it was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this was cute, this is funny, it's it's crazy, yes,
Speaker 4: but like, okay, now we move on. Right now, we're done.
Speaker 4: And then when I learned that not just once, but
Speaker 4: not just twice, but that multiple times it wasn't done,
Speaker 4: then I then it. Then you dip into territory where
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, you're deceiving me, but let me.
Speaker 3: Like give people. Yeah, don't know, let me just give
Speaker 3: you quickly. Okay.
Speaker 5: So basically Jason had dated somebody prior to me that
Speaker 5: wasn't over him when we got together, and this person
Speaker 5: was doing things, making episodes about Jason breaking up with her,
Speaker 5: engaging with the family. The sister would cry to me
Speaker 5: about missing her. There was all this shit and I
Speaker 5: was like, this is fucking fascinating to me, Like who
Speaker 5: is this girl?
Speaker 3: You're making me love her?
Speaker 5: Like I want to know everything, and it was all
Speaker 5: these weird fucking facts. It was like, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: not gonna like expose things whatever right now because a
Speaker 5: couple of therapy I've agreed to not really talk about her,
Speaker 5: but like it'd be like things that this were incongruous
Speaker 5: to like what I did know. You know, it's like
Speaker 5: she traveled and was like a shirt but for a while,
Speaker 5: and then she did this, and you know, it was
Speaker 5: like she went to law school, like all these random things.
Speaker 5: She was married, she was and so it became like
Speaker 5: the most the Doseki's man, she was like the most
Speaker 5: interesting person in the world.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is fucking crazy.
Speaker 5: And she's still in love with Jason and now she
Speaker 5: was like commenting on my IMDb. So for me, I
Speaker 5: was like, oh my god, I'm with this famous guy.
Speaker 5: I'm invisible.
Speaker 3: I'm twenty eight years old.
Speaker 5: I feel so cute and like I'm fucking invisible everywhere
Speaker 5: I go because people are like, can you hold my
Speaker 5: baby while I.
Speaker 3: Take a picture?
Speaker 5: With Jason Biggs, and I have one fan in the
Speaker 5: world and it's the Josekis guy. So I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 5: I want to make myself like perfect for her. I
Speaker 5: want to know everything about her. I want to curate
Speaker 5: my online profile so that she's obsessed as obsessed with
Speaker 5: me and stays obsessed with me. But like when Jason
Speaker 5: I kept dating and she sort of moved on, I was.
Speaker 3: Like, wait, we need her back, like I need my
Speaker 3: fan back.
Speaker 5: So that's when I the table flipped and I started
Speaker 5: stalking her.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Anybody doesn't know. It doesn't.
Speaker 2: But the stocking went on for some period right of time,
Speaker 2: and then it became problematic for Jason because you were
Speaker 2: lying to him about didn't you arrange to meet her?
Speaker 5: And so when I was hiking Running Canyon with her
Speaker 5: behind Jason's back, I was regifting her things of hers
Speaker 5: that I'd find around the house, like as a way
Speaker 5: to like lure her into like a real life friendship.
Speaker 5: I might have set her up on a date with
Speaker 5: my acting coach and then gone on the date with them.
Speaker 3: A lot of things happened, right, but you know how
Speaker 3: it ended.
Speaker 5: No, I think you should tell us how so like
Speaker 5: it was because she was my Moby Dick and I
Speaker 5: was a app And guess where it ended?
Speaker 3: Main Street in Nantucket.
Speaker 5: Like is that's the ship, writes itself, Like, how can
Speaker 5: I not as a writer like I am in fucking May,
Speaker 5: I'm on main Street in Nantucket, on those cobblestone streets.
Speaker 3: I'm a she is fucking moby and we are face
Speaker 3: to face. It is like made for.
Speaker 1: And what happened?
Speaker 3: Memoir like sitting in my lap, grant for it?
Speaker 2: And this was this was after how many how much
Speaker 2: time of spending with her like the.
Speaker 3: Course of I would say eight years. But it had ended.
Speaker 5: It had ended, but it was just such a f
Speaker 5: the coup de gras, It was just fucking phenomenal.
Speaker 4: It had ended, but you hadn't stopped writing about her.
Speaker 4: She was still a subject for your books. And well
Speaker 4: did she understand? Did she understand she was a subject
Speaker 4: of your books? Or she didn't make the connection? I
Speaker 4: told her necessary.
Speaker 5: I just like it's such great fodder, and like it's
Speaker 5: so fucking funny and random. And to be honest, the
Speaker 5: reason I leaned so hard into it is because of
Speaker 5: the reaction I was getting online my Twitter personality or
Speaker 5: like persona became that of like this crazy wife who's
Speaker 5: obsessed with her husband's ex girlfriend. Unfortunately, all of Jason's
Speaker 5: ex girlfriends thought I was talking about them. So now
Speaker 5: I've burnt a lot of bridges on accident. We were
Speaker 5: friends with many of them, and now they don't speak
Speaker 5: to us because they all thought I was talking about that,
Speaker 5: which she.
Speaker 3: Was a tweet about. It wasn't just like the memoirs.
Speaker 4: There was regular tweets about like like.
Speaker 5: When you write a joke, it's like, it's not necessarily real,
Speaker 5: you're just fucking It can be. It could be based
Speaker 5: on something, it could be based on something a friended.
Speaker 5: It's just a fucking joke. It's not real. But unfortunately
Speaker 5: for me, a lot of people took it at face value.
Speaker 1: So do you feel well?
Speaker 2: First of all, what happened on main Street in Nantucket?
Speaker 2: What was the interest? Didn't speak to me?
Speaker 1: Oh she did.
Speaker 3: Spoke to Jason. My son ran straight into her arms,
Speaker 3: into her arms and said, Mommy, did.
Speaker 1: You say hello?
Speaker 3: I did you try spoke to her sister? I smiled,
Speaker 3: I must thank you. The parents were there. It was
Speaker 3: so bad, It was so bad.
Speaker 5: It was so bad, and now my sister and her
Speaker 5: sister are like really good friends and they go to
Speaker 5: the same school and it's.
Speaker 3: The whole thing.
Speaker 2: Oh right, yes, yes, yes, I heard that. So now
Speaker 2: what have you learned from that lesson? If anything have you?
Speaker 2: Was it a lesson or so?
Speaker 3: I wrote her like a crazy because it's.
Speaker 2: Almost like you could never ever even not that you
Speaker 2: would have an affair, but like, it's so scared girl.
Speaker 5: And I need to sleep with her and make her
Speaker 5: let me wear the Jason because I'm not competitive, that's
Speaker 5: what would happen. But no, I've written her several Amen's letters,
Speaker 5: and I'm just like, listen, I am so sorry, like
Speaker 5: the woman that the girl that I was, is not
Speaker 5: the woman I became. I'm I'm so sorry I did.
Speaker 5: Like I let myself just get so seduced by the
Speaker 5: story of it, and I just didn't want to stop
Speaker 5: because I was addicted to the plot, you know, I
Speaker 5: wanted more.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting because I'm hearing this, I'm listening to this,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking about my own personal experience with exes,
Speaker 2: you know, from like a young age to my reaction
Speaker 2: to exes as to when I'm older and like now
Speaker 2: in my present day moment, like I don't want to
Speaker 2: know anything about exes. I don't care, I'm not interested,
Speaker 2: I don't even want to. The less information the better.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be thinking about them. But I
Speaker 2: do remember like dating someone when I was in my twenties,
Speaker 2: and when he went to England for a week, I
Speaker 2: went through everything in his apartment, every photo album, every
Speaker 2: piece of paper, just to find his past that he
Speaker 2: had before he met me. So there was no reason
Speaker 2: for me to have any sense of feelings of invidiousness
Speaker 2: or you know, any of that. But I remember he
Speaker 2: came home from that trip to England and I was
Speaker 2: in a rage that he had even had a pack
Speaker 2: that he had met a girl before we dated, Like
Speaker 2: what was he thinking dating someone who was pretty before
Speaker 2: he met me? You know, like so irrational and so unreasonable,
Speaker 2: And his reaction to my behavior made me realize I
Speaker 2: could never do.
Speaker 3: That day of this.
Speaker 2: I know, I know exactly my British boyfriend when I
Speaker 2: was like young, young, yeah, yeah, but I remember being like,
Speaker 2: you know, just the overwhelming need for more information, like.
Speaker 1: I need more, I need more.
Speaker 2: I'm going to look and find everything, and it's like,
Speaker 2: and it's so irrational, right, Like it's so irrational that
Speaker 2: I was like, oh. Once I saw his reaction, I
Speaker 2: was like, I can't do that if I want him
Speaker 2: to stay with me.
Speaker 3: Well, it's the Yeah, it's the need, it's the mine.
Speaker 3: Wasn't jealousy. It was like, I want there is a need.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's some overlap.
Speaker 4: Perhaps I don't know, there's that thing you're describing, which
Speaker 4: feels like that sort of youthful naivete in thinking that
Speaker 4: everything needs to be about you and how could particularly
Speaker 4: when it comes the romance and love, Like, how could
Speaker 4: you possibly if there's any sort of indication that you
Speaker 4: ever had anything else going on, Like, it takes away
Speaker 4: from what I have with you.
Speaker 3: I loved that Jason had other things before me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to know all of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was probably a turn on for you and
Speaker 2: your sick brain.
Speaker 4: But I feel like you're not able to see that
Speaker 4: there can be different things that can coexist at the
Speaker 4: same time. He can be in love with you, but
Speaker 4: he could also have loved someone else in the past.
Speaker 4: He could be in love with you, but he could
Speaker 4: also go to England for weeks at a time.
Speaker 3: He could. It's those it's giving Chelsea therapy.
Speaker 4: Okay, So what I'll say about that though, it's the
Speaker 4: idea that the story becomes one or the other person,
Speaker 4: like it belongs to one person or the other. Forget
Speaker 4: about oh it is my ex. It becomes like it's
Speaker 4: her story now, and then it's less about it.
Speaker 3: I pirated his life in his story.
Speaker 4: And that's where And we still get into this to
Speaker 4: this day, not about her necessarily, but more about like,
Speaker 4: whose story is this? You know what I mean, like
Speaker 4: even you know her getting stuff done? You know, a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago, it was like I had some
Speaker 4: feelings about.
Speaker 5: It, stuff done, the surgery, my booms lifted, her boobs
Speaker 5: and stuff.
Speaker 4: I had feelings about it, not about whether or not
Speaker 4: she should do it necessarily, but just in terms of
Speaker 4: like whether I should share it, about her sharing it,
Speaker 4: about how it affects our kid.
Speaker 1: Just there.
Speaker 4: I had other stuff, and it was we got into
Speaker 4: it because Jenny's like, this is my story, this is
Speaker 4: my story. I'm choosing to do this. It's my body,
Speaker 4: my story, Fuck you other things. And I get that.
Speaker 4: I totally understand the impulse for it to be like
Speaker 4: get your fucking opinion out of my face.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 4: This is what I'm doing and it's my Instagram and
Speaker 4: I'm choosing right. But but and so we had a
Speaker 4: whole therapy session about this where, you know, it was
Speaker 4: interesting because the therapist asked Jenny how it went, and
Speaker 4: then very quickly after said, and Jason, how do you
Speaker 4: feel about this? And I was like, thank you for asking.
Speaker 4: I actually do have some feelings and Jenny was like,
Speaker 4: what the fuck, Like this is my thing. And so
Speaker 4: that's where we will butt heads some times, and it's like, no,
Speaker 4: we can have feelings. I can do something that I
Speaker 4: feel is mine, you know, But I have to remember
Speaker 4: that Jenny can have a reaction to it, she can
Speaker 4: have feelings about it, and that doesn't take away from
Speaker 4: my feelings about it. We just need to be respectful
Speaker 4: and understand that we can each have feelings about it,
Speaker 4: even something that is ostensibly very personal and very like
Speaker 4: this is my shit. Fuck you for having a feeling
Speaker 4: about it. And that's where we get in trouble. That's
Speaker 4: where the competitiveness happens more than any other place.
Speaker 5: But why would I would say just to pat us
Speaker 5: on the back, we are the best in terms of
Speaker 5: Jason's sobriety. That's the one place like I've never been
Speaker 5: like I have feelings about this, I want to talk
Speaker 5: about this, like, I'm not for being so quick codefident.
Speaker 5: I'm in no way enmeshed in his sobriety, whether he's
Speaker 5: sober or not sober or when he was getting sober.
Speaker 5: That was really that has been Jason's journey entirely.
Speaker 3: That's very true. That is true.
Speaker 2: That is true when you bring that up, because I
Speaker 2: agree with that, Like, you never have been like that.
Speaker 3: No, I was never like were you drinking or should
Speaker 3: you drink? Should you not? I don't know why. I
Speaker 3: can't tell you why. But for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: You didn't seem to care about whether or not he
Speaker 2: was going to deal with the problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was gonna deal with it. And if
Speaker 1: he was going to drink. You were kind of fine
Speaker 1: with that too.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is your journey, not my journey. No,
Speaker 3: you should absolutely pat yourself on the back. That is
Speaker 3: totally fun.
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know, I don't think I should pat
Speaker 5: myself on the back because honestly, like, it wasn't like
Speaker 5: I tried to do that. It's just right well, whatever reason,
Speaker 5: we don't, that's not been a struggle for us that
Speaker 5: that particular.
Speaker 4: I also think the fact that you weren't aware of it,
Speaker 4: like you told me, right, but even that, like in
Speaker 4: other words, you weren't invested in me getting sober to
Speaker 4: begin with, because my alcoholism might not they totally, but
Speaker 4: you're not even a little bit. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: you are to it in a healthy place about it
Speaker 4: like you should be. I think you should be. I'd
Speaker 4: be upset if you weren't.
Speaker 5: I don't worry about you the way that I feel
Speaker 5: like a lot of people who are with the sober
Speaker 5: person maybe like are concerned.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't. I don't see people pouring.
Speaker 5: Drinks and be like, oh God, because you're gonna have
Speaker 5: a drink, you know, somebody can offer him a drink.
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't know why, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, no, I hear you. Okay. Well, on that note,
Speaker 1: I think this concludes our session. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you guys should.
Speaker 2: Do you have some parting words for couples out there
Speaker 2: or people that are looking for long term relationships? What
Speaker 2: would you say would if you had to give a
Speaker 2: piece of advice to people that were embarking on marriage.
Speaker 1: What would your one piece of advice be for each
Speaker 1: of you to get it?
Speaker 5: I would say, honestly, to be able to listen, you know,
Speaker 5: to really listen and not hear what that person saying
Speaker 5: as about you or a criticism view. When somebody's talking,
Speaker 5: they're talking about themselves, they're not talking about you, and
Speaker 5: that it is so hard to keep your ego and
Speaker 5: yourself out of it, but to be But I think
Speaker 5: like the biggest gift you can give somebody is to
Speaker 5: just listen to them and not personalize it.
Speaker 2: Even when they're telling you you're a piece of shit,
Speaker 2: it's still about them, it's still about them. Still always
Speaker 2: good advice, that's good advice, And that's an unactualized person
Speaker 2: who's usually doing that.
Speaker 5: Yes, and they're telling you, I feel like shit. I
Speaker 5: feel hopeless, helpless and out.
Speaker 2: Of control, scared or insecure or unsure of the relationship healthy. Okay,
Speaker 2: y well, I think in celebration of this time together,
Speaker 2: you guys should either do anal tonight yes, or do
Speaker 2: it this afternoon?
Speaker 3: How about right now?
Speaker 1: I don't think this is an appropriate place for that.
Speaker 3: Why there's no pillows right It.
Speaker 1: Will make you feel like you're at home.
Speaker 3: Could be fun for you. I'll fuck it.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for being here, Thanks for sharing.
Speaker 3: Thank you Chelsea.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you can check out Jenny Mullen substack The
Speaker 2: Best Friend Experience and her new side hustle The Shirts
Speaker 2: Off My Back, where you can buy fabulous vintage clothes.
Speaker 1: And you can also check.
Speaker 2: Out Jenny and Jason co hosting Dinner in a Movie
Speaker 2: on TBS. Okay, So upcoming shows that I have you, guys,
Speaker 2: I will be all over Maine, Charlotte, North Carolina, Charleston,
Speaker 2: South Carolina.
Speaker 1: I'm coming to Texas. I'm coming to Saint Louis and Kansas.
Speaker 2: City, and then I will be in Las Vegas performing
Speaker 2: at the Chelsea Theater inside the Cosmopolitan Hotel. My first
Speaker 2: three dates in Vegas are September first, Labor Day weekend,
Speaker 2: and then November two and November thirtieth.
Speaker 1: I'm coming to.
Speaker 2: Brooklyn, New York at the King's Theater on November eighth,
Speaker 2: and I have tickets on sale throughout the end of
Speaker 2: the year. In December, So if you're in a city
Speaker 2: like Philadelphia or Bethlehem or San Diego or New Orleans
Speaker 2: or Omaha, check Chelseahandler dot com for tickets.
Speaker 5: Okay, if you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an
Speaker 5: email at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and
Speaker 5: be sure to include your phone number.
Speaker 3: Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad
Speaker 5: Dickert executive producer Catherine Law and be sure to check
Speaker 5: out our merch at Chelseahandler dot com