- "Therapist Reacts Raw."
I've actually never seen "Bad Moms,"
but this is the couple's therapy scene,
so I don't know what I'm in for.
I'm just going to give you
my real time thoughts on the matter.
Let's do this.
(upbeat music)
- I like to start by saying
that every marriage is savable.
- Oh, Wanda Sykes.
- Just need two people who are willing to work at it.
- Okay, right out of the gate,
every marriage is saveable
if you have two people who are willing to work at it.
I actually believe that.
But again, how much work is it gonna take
to save this marriage and do both parties want it, right?
The marriages that won't be saved
is because people don't want it,
and sometimes they don't want it for justifiable reasons.
There's been abuse, there's been an affair,
there's been, you know, intense neglect.
There's been all sorts of things.
And so I'm not saying that every marriage should be saved.
(sighs) And now that I say it out loud
maybe I don't believe that every marriage can be saved.
I think in cases of truly important behavior,
it shouldn't even be considered.
Really, it comes down to the individuals
in the relationship.
Is this what you want, right?
And are you willing to pay the price to get there?
I know a lot of people who say
that they want to stay married
but the price of change is too high.
It requires too much humility.
It requires too much looking in the mirror
and not pointing fingers.
It requires too much effort to get to where they need to be.
And in some cases, that amount of effort means
this relationship isn't supposed to make it
in the first place, you know?
That if I'm going to be with you,
I need to do a page one rewrite of who I am
and maybe that's not the best fit.
In other cases, it comes down to selfishness.
It just does.
It comes down to pride.
It comes down to ego and vanity.
- Work at it, okay?
Mike, Amy, I want you to look at each other
and say three things that you like about each other.
Mike?
- Can I go second?
(therapist laughs) - Okay, yeah. Sure.
Uh, Amy?
- Okay.
Uh, Mike, I like that you gave me my children.
I like that you pick them up from school sometimes.
It's actually really helpful.
And I like that you came to therapy today.
- It's a good start.
It's also, if I'm that therapist, I'm like huh.
I mean that you gave me my children
is deep and profound.
You picked them up from school.
Okay, I like that you came to therapy.
Like these are all good things,
but she's not saying really anything about his character,
anything about who he is.
It's indicative right out of the gate
that she's grasping at straws a little bit.
I mean, the things she said are sincere,
but if there were more to Mike,
two of those three things
would be much further down the list.
You came to therapy and you picked the kids up from school
would be further down the list than at the top right now.
These are the only things you can think of.
- Okay, Mike.
Your turn.
- Okay.
I like your spaghetti and you make a pretty good calzone.
Was that three?
- That was like one and then one-eighth.
(therapist laughs)
You know what?
Let's try some role playing.
- Okay, so actually I have no comment other than Mike is...
(chuckles) I don't know
what Mila Kunis's character's name is,
but she's at least trying to talk about something
that has to do with him.
But hers are still pretty surface level, you know?
She doesn't have a lot of respect for him,
but he's not even really...
He may think he's complimenting her on her cooking,
but again, shouldn't that be further down the list?
You know, I like your kindness.
I like your integrity.
I like your intelligence.
Not you make a pretty mean calzone. (laughs)
She's your wife.
She's not Papa John's, you know?
Like dig deeper.
So now we're gonna do some role play.
- You know what?
Let's try some role playing.
Alright, Amy, I want you to pretend to be Mike.
And Mike, I want you to pretend to be Amy.
Okay?
And now I just want you to just tell me about your day.
- Role play is good for prospective taking,
which is something that people generally struggle with
especially when the relationships are having a hard time
is getting into the shoes of the other person,
what they're thinking, what they're feeling.
Very often we're trapped in what we think and feel
and then we judge the behavior of the other person
on a very shallow level
of they're just a jerk or they're just selfish,
instead of they're hurting or they have goals
or they have dreams or, you know,
we don't really get into that space.
The role plays can be very good.
I'm gonna go ahead and assume
that this is a clip from a comedy film,
so the role play is about to go terrible.
So let's see what happens.
- And now I just want you to just tell me about your day.
- Hi, I'm Amy.
All I did today was, like, rub lotion on my face
and talk to talk, to talk, to talk.
- Okay.
- Okay, so (laughs) this does happen in therapy.
This is an exaggerated comedy version,
but when people imitate the other person's voice
and make them sound like an idiot.
And I like to do this thing in therapy
where I have a box of tissues
and I use a tissue like a flag in football,
that if you do something that is condescending
or rude or mean then I throw a flag,
a flag on the field, right?
I do that with the tissue and it gets people to stop
and think about what they're doing.
Because he's not trying to take his wife's perspective.
He's not trying to understand her.
He's trying to make her look bad
and communicate to her that he doesn't respect her.
And that is not an effective use of therapy.
It's good that he came to therapy
but now he's just wasting time and money.
- Okay.
Uh, Amy, would you like to?
- Yes, I would.
- Hey, I'm Mike.
My life is awesome because my wife takes care
of everything in the world for me.
- This is the problem!
Here's the bottom line.
She's a perfectionist.
- So (laughs) they're both very defensive right now.
She doesn't like that he imitated her
so she's imitating him back.
He went petty and childish
and she met him there instead of staying above it.
And then instead of having the humility to be like,
"Oh yeah, that's what that feels like
when you get imitated and made to sound like an idiot,"
he just launches right into anger.
Neither of them really knows or understands
how to have a healthy relationship,
how to navigate conflict,
how to regulate their own arousal, their own frustration,
their own anxiety or fear or anger.
And so this is just escalating.
And right now the therapist,
it seemed like this is the first session
'cause she's not interrupting this.
She's not stopping this pattern.
And I would say if this were later in therapy,
she needs to interrupt this and stop the pattern.
But because this is the first session,
what a lot of us do in the first therapy session
is we kind of let the conflict play out
because we need to see what it looks like
to know what we're dealing with.
We need to see how the couple before us handles conflict,
handles disagreement, handles fights.
- She's a perfectionist.
So what's the point of even trying?
- How is that a problem?
- She hasn't given me a blowy
since my birthday five years ago,
which is so not cool! - Hold on one second.
You wanna blowy?
Maybe if you cleaned the kitchen, made the kids' dinner,
cared for someone other than yourself
I would give you so many blowies
your (beep) dick would explode.
- My dick would never explode 'cause it's indestructible.
- Oh, I'm gonna kill you! (therapist laughs)
- I mean, that's vulgar, but that's really funny.
Yeah.
I love that he starts to tear up.
It's been five years since my birthday. (laughs)
She's right though that people
who pull their weight at home with chores,
people who pull their weight when it comes
to being a partner and being a spouse
are more sexually attractive and you're more likely,
it shouldn't be transactional.
You shouldn't show up and do what you do
in your relationship for sexual favors.
But it doesn't change the fact
that when you are a full partner
and fully present and giving your all
that tends to lead to more positive outcomes.
And he's just expecting,
she's my wife so this is what she does
and he's not doing a lot to show up for her
so why would she want to do anything for him?
- But I can't deal with you.
I can't (beep) look at you.
I'm like, I don't love you anymore.
I'm so sorry, but I just don't.
I'm so sick and tired of pretending like I do.
- That is exactly how I feel.
- Okay.
Remember when I said that all marriages are saveable?
Well, it ain't gonna happen for you guys.
(therapist laughs)
- So what do you think we should do?
- Well, as a therapist,
I'm not allowed to tell you what to do.
- Accurate.
- But as a human being with two (beep) eyes in my head,
(chuckles) yeah, I think you should get divorced
as soon as possible.
This is catastrophic (beep).
- (laughs) So I can't tell you.
I love that.
The therapist right now, Wanda Sykes' character,
she's doing something called matching.
And it's a form of joining or bonding with a client
which is if they're excited or angry,
you get excited or angry, right?
If they use harsh language, you use harsh language.
And you'll notice that she starts very calm
and very professional and she's not cursing
and she's not being vulgar,
and they're matching her for a while
until they get into what's really going on
and then we see how they talk to each other at home.
And at that point, the therapist connects
with them by meeting them there.
This is why as somebody who used to be offended by cursing,
that doesn't bother me anymore (laughs)
because I have therapy sessions like this.
And I'm like, mm, okay.
When she says,
"Remember when I said all marriages are saveable
but that's not gonna happen for you two"?
The reason it's not gonna happen for them
is they both just said, "I don't love you anymore"
and they both basically admitted
they don't wanna work on the relationship,
so what's the point in staying around?
Have you ever been to couples therapy?
What was it like?
Was it like this session?
How do you know, what do you think,
if a relationship is saveable or it's time to move on?
We'd love to hear your comments below
because we all learn from each other.
And if you are needing a consultation or a therapy session
for your relationship, go to mendedlight.com
and schedule with one of our clinical team.
There's a link there in the description below for that.
Until next time, folks,
keep shining because we need your light.
(upbeat music) (crowd cheering)