(light music)
- Why am I in your life?
- I think that you're in my life
because you're a good father
and you're a good support system.
My family loves you more than me.
- That's not true.
- It's true.
And your core as a person is a kind person
and someone that I want to share happy times with.
How do you describe our relationship to others?
- Usually pretty good.
I mean, it's by far the most mature relationship I've had.
It's an intelligent relationship.
It's a, it's a loving relationship.
It's a caring relationship.
It's, again, coming from places where both of us
have not exactly been exposed to a whole lot
of care and love sometimes in the past,
it's really easy to take rough spots and smooth them out
and say, "This is a person that cares and loves for me."
What do I do that makes you feel heard?
- I think I said just a few days ago,
I wish that you would just hear me.
I want you to hear me.
I don't think you hear me.
I just want to be heard and known and loved anyway.
I think sometimes, very very rarely,
you'll sit down and just listen and talk.
Not often and not on your own, not without being asked.
When do you think I feel the closest to you and why?
- That's tough to say.
That's tough to say, because again, you...
you desire so much to be heard,
but you don't really notice when people are listening.
- Just, if you notice the theme,
I feel close to you when you just shut everything else off
and just focus.
I understand that's hard.
- That's not hard at all actually.
It, that theme, shutting everything off and focusing,
again, that, that, that doesn't guarantee
a time of closeness because that,
that time can also be used for again,
like we were talking about earlier, just clearing up
whatever it is you were trying to say earlier.
That doesn't necessarily make me feel close to you
if I don't have a cell phone by,
or if somebody from work isn't trying to get a hold of me,
or you're trying to get ahold of you.
That doesn't necessarily make me feel close
because oftentimes, the downtime is still filled with,
"Hey, this is what you did wrong."
I think, I think why I do the things that I do,
why I try to help the most that I can around the house,
why I try to do whatever chores and things like those,
it doesn't require speaking as much as it does actions,
and I'm a lot better at actions than I am,
I have a much higher success rate at actions
than I do explaining myself to you
or trying to navigate a conversation with you sometimes.
- When do you feel close to me?
- I feel like you are closest to me
in the most random times,
when you honestly just accept me for the person that I am
and not the person that you are hoping
that I become one day.
How can we better meet each other in the middle?
- I think that if I'm talking about something
that you don't understand, you can try to understand it,
and I can see your household chores as actions
that you're trying to communicate something.
And I think that you could try
to actually communicate with words more.
- I will continue to try, and I will try more.
- What do you need from me, and am I providing it?
- Usually.
I'm still here and involved and dedicated to this
because yeah, I feel like I am getting what I need
for the most part.
There, there's those moments where things get rough
and we get in a rut
and I, I see your need for me to be something different.
And I try to do that the best I can,
but every person has their limitations.
And I'm, one of these days,
I just feel like it's going to be,
the exact thing you need is what I can't do, you know?
And what do we do when that happens?
- I don't think that's gonna happen.
- I hope not.
- Okay.
- You?
How about you?
- How about me?
- Yeah, do you feel like I give you what you need?
- Yeah.
Most of the time.
I, I have that need for that consistency and that partner,
that person to share the minutiae every day.
Yes, you're there for that, and I appreciate that,
and I love that.
I do feel like there's some needs you don't meet
that are deeper.
But I feel like you could if you really wanted to.
- I try.
- Hi, Miriam here, producer and director of The Skin Deep.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
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