#393: Clutter, Toxic Friend, Wedding PTSD

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So anyway, we get it all fixed, and it just
wasted a day on my vacation. And now in total,
I've spent way more than I would have spent on
taxis if we just would have taken a fucking taxi
to the maritime music. So that's the point. Don't drive
in California if you can avoid it. That place it's
the devil. This is my path I learned, I got.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I got engaged this weekend from fabulous. This is therapy,
real people, real problems, and real therapists. You can submit
your questions anonymously at pod therapy dot net or email
us pod therapy.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Guys at gmail dot com. Broadcasting from the Churn. That's Jim,
that's Whitney. I'm Nick. It's time for spot there right.
We buried the lead here so I can't. I'm kind
of mad at you that you're engaged. Oh no, but
I want to hear more about your time because I
got a better you know, patch on this things out
the door, Jim. Yeah, shout out to Big O' tires
at San Diego.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Big deal. Good.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Whitney still get a lot of shame for somebody who
told her old story about tires.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, ten seconds.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
It was a story about time. It was eventful. Honestly,
I will buy them, I mean to be fair, I've
been married before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is not that
his first experience with the time, first flat tire ever
at this resort. All right, now, who'd you get engaged to? Yeah? Like,
don't leave us in suspense? Who is this chick? And
does Laura know about chick? Yeah? So I'm mad that

(01:24):
I saw this on Facebook because I feel like, why
didn't I hear it? Why wasn't I consulted about this?

Speaker 4 (01:29):
I heard about it from s J, whose question was
why didn't you tell me?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Nick was engaged right now?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:38):
This, I definitely said, Nick.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Who Nikka?

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So tell us the story, man, tell us about this
whole thing. This is great. Yeah, so we got engaged.
That's so cool. Congratulates thank you. Where you will be?
Where'd you pop the question? What's what's the story of this?
We did a little staycation at g v R Nice
Green Valley Ranch for the uninitiated Paris of Las Vegas.

(02:13):
It is so nice. It is locals hotel, but it's
like a luxury it is.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's Laura's favorite hotel. So we always like to go
there and hang out and whatnot. And uh, you do
like the spa stuff, you do all this?

Speaker 1 (02:28):
They do have a nice spot. We did not. Okay,
I love that spot. They have a pool, areas, really
great restaurants. There's a shopping district over there. Pool is amazing.
So I had told her how.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Tires getting into the parking lot?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yea driving or do you take a tax?

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Do you need any tires? Have a good story?

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Oh, go ahead, go ahead? What brand are they with me?
That's what people want to know. Pictures so hot tire pics.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
It's it's Laura's favorite hotel. So I had told her.
And she does not like surprises.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
She does not like surprise, notoriously does not like surprise.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
And I've tried to surprise her with stuff before. Does
she like surprising you and just not like being surprised?

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Think she now used the concept of the surprise on
all sides. Yeah, I love her consistence. The surprise thing
is just not type of thing I don't give a about.
If you make the waiters come out and sing happy
birthday to she just leave. Is that where she's just like,
I don't know how she would deal with that let's
let's find out. Let's take her to a nice apple

(03:34):
Bee's for her birthday. Yeah, there you go, get that
song going on. So I did tell her we're gonna
we're we're going out to eat. I said this earlier
in the week. I said, Friday and night, keep that open,
We're going out to eat. She's like, all right, where
are we going? I said, well, it's a surprise. Realize.
So she's like, she's already she handled that. She handled

(03:58):
that very well. She took that.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
That's float over to dinner. So it's like, where is
the surprise? But what you're doing is okay?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
And then uh, about a couple of hours before, I said, hey, uh,
just another surprise real quick.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Packing overnight bag.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh okay, So because you're sleeping on the well, what
do I need? I need to know what to pack?
You got to tell me what's going on? You know,
are we gonna be doing? Are we gonna be down
on the strip? Are we gonna I told her, okay,
it's a staycation. We're going to Green Valley Ranch. He's like,
all right, cool, she knows how Now she's happy.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
And then I already had arranged Whitney to to dog set.
This is why when we were remorded last time, you
were like, Whitney, can I talk to you? Yes? Because
I was like, why is he talking to Whitney.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
In the league? I knew Jim was going to be jellyous.
I was like, I hoped, like, doesn't say ship about
anything right now? Just is like so seems like it's
really important.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah. Wow, man, I was left out of all this ship.
Did you know? Did you know about h.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
I know? I'm really friend.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
J James is so mad.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
First to tire now.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
You couldn't just tell her to watch your dogs for
no reason. You didn't have to give her the deets on.
We're not on video right now, you can't see. Actually,
I'm actually remember when when you got the iPad. I
was just thinking, this is really close. This is now
his legs are turning around. God damn it. Continue with

(05:41):
your tail.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, I got lovely story, yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Which I already knew was going to happen. I was
rooting for you the whole time.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Got a room up at the very top, so it's
only like seven stories tall, but she she likes the
high floors and all that. So got that and the
uh proposed before we went out to eat.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
The hotel room. Very cool. I'll keep the details to myself, sure,
but a gentleman never to how much was the chimp.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Though, Yeah, that's what Jacob surprisingly the whatever you think
it is. It's like a quarter of.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got the right hand. Yeah
you got to shop under he works so much. Yeah,
all right, come on, don't what did she say? Uh?

Speaker 2 (06:33):
So technically okay, so this is funny because we didn't
after proposing.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Then we went out to eat. We went to Echo
and rig yeh is there one over Green Valley Ring? Yeah,
there's a new one.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
It would have been a lot funny if they left
Green Valley.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Technically it's not.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
In gv Arts in the district. It's just right outside
walk across the street. But it's her one of her
favorite restaurants. So we went there and oh yeah, the
maple bacon thing. Yes, my god, it's so good.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Uh but we didn't really discover this until we were
eating later on that she's like, you know, I never
really said yes, And then and then she's like, you
know what, you never asked? You didn't add I technically
never asked what? Like I just dropped did you drop

(07:25):
to a well, I don't want to. Did you did
you drop trout? Yeah? I dropped, and I was like,
you know what this is about? Yeah, I threw the
box at her feet. I put a gun on the
table in the box on the other side. I need
to know right now you enter one of these paths

(07:48):
leads to echo and rag. Yeah, there will be dinner served.
So that was it.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
So we did, and the last easy night of your
life after the night you become missus nick.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Nick. It's going to let me tell you Wow. Okay,
So we're still waiting to find out if she's going
to say yes, but it sounds like she signs her ring,
well I would. I'm not gonna say no, like kind
of whatever happens at this point, that's her ring, Like
that's how the judge is going to see how long

(08:23):
have you been for eight and a half years? Wow,
that's really cool.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
How many of her friends were telling her like, you
got to get him to get you a ring girl?

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Well, I told her that all the time.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I remember the first time that I I mean not
met Laura because I knew her as a kid, but
we were at we ended up at a Big five
and we were getting ready to like buy sun hats
or something to go to like a water park, and
Nick was randomly there and we're just like, oh, hey, buddy,
how you doing? And then like she comes in. He's like, oh,
she's my girlfriend. And Laura comes She's like, jimmy job,
and I'm like, what's up? How are you doing? She's like,

(09:01):
I'm great, this is my boyfriend Nick. I'm like, no,
I know, Nick. This is so crazy. So that was
so cool that I go about James. Now. Yeah. Also,
I don't know if you've heard, I'm going with this
whole James thing. To try that out for a while
sounds James Dean, sounds like a cool edgy name. Well, congratulations, man,
this is exciting. So this is the ring. Yeah, so

(09:24):
we'll see if the wedding. Where is the wedding? Are
we going? We have not playing? Okay, Well, I'm hit
you with this.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Feeling very real.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
Gym is starting ready, you can guarantee I will from that.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's what's gonna happen is the wedding week. He's gonna
come to be like, you know, Jim, can I talk
to you for a second, Like, oh yeah, yeah, what's up, man,
can you watch my dog? It's wondering if I could
drop my dogs off. I kind of have this whole
thing going on. Oh yeah, sure, so it was.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
It was challenging because I was thinking about boarding the dogs,
but then obviously, how do I do that without the dogs?

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Asked Laura to marriage.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Oh then she dogs? Yeah, so I couldn't board the dogs.
So I was like, okay, well I gotta find I wonder.
I'll bet Whitney will do it. And then yeah, then
I also, because you know Whitney was going to be
at our house, I started doing some cleaning and surprisingly
that didn't make her suspicious that you're just like cleaning

(10:32):
the house a little bit, and she's like, this is weird.
But okay, yeah, he gets in these he gets in
these moods every once in a while.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Also the weekend you're going to propose, Yeah, get caught
doing some chores. I think that's just gonna salt the
jar a little bit, like the wheel. Yeah, that's right,
it didn't hurt. Did not hurt your odds very cool man,
Like I didn't.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
I wasn't able to clean up or anything. I go
in his house like spotless. I was like, excuse you.
I was like, I don't than.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
My house random.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well that's awesome, man, congratulations, that is a big deal.
And uh yeah, I think you're you're a social media's public,
right people. Okay, yeah, so that's fine. Just going on. Well,
I was gonna I usually what I do a lot,
I run our social media for that's mean, reply to
my social media with big pics always. But there's been
a lot of times in history that you'll travel or
something and you'll be posting photos on your account. I'll

(11:25):
grab him and put them on the show page because
I know you don't mind. And this one I remember
seeing going holy shit and like I was just instantly
diving on your page to like steal it and put
it on. But I was like, well wait a minute,
Like I didn't even know he was gonna do this,
like I'm not, which is why you like it radio

(11:47):
fuck you. I just pissed, you know, Laura didn't tell
me about it text from Laura and be like, oh
my god, nothing again. He is getting a little I'm
kind of honestly, I ironically mad, But yeah, I didn't.
I didn't take it down and put it on socials
because I was like, well, this is so personal, Like

(12:08):
I don't know where that lie. I figured eventually the
world knows, but like this is day one, I'll just
shut the fuck up. So now that you're bringing it up, though,
we'll probably post it on the socials so people can
see that. That'll be really cool. So getting an honest
man out of you, finally not living in sin anymore?
I mean my favorite so those chick tracks have been
sending you every week about your.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, like the comments from aunts and uncles about like,
make an honest woman out of.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oh there it is. Oh yeah, I like that bit.
When you say it about the guy. I think that's
fine and nobody will possibly get it wrong when you
go making a man and a nick. Okay, But when
you say it and you're from the Midwest and you say, like,
finally make an honest woman out of your girlfriend, I
worry about that.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
I because she is a whore, Because she is kind
of a war because I think your girlfriend is a whore.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
That's what I'm hearing.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Now she won't be since you finally.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Make your girlfriend not a whore.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah please, that's what he said when he dropped one knee.
That's why he's not telling us because he was like, well,
you finally stopped being such.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
A well once you started when she when she stopped
crying and we had that discussion.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Wore and he's crying for the same reason. Yeah, save
so much money, miss it so much? Well, congratulations Nick,
and check us out. Check out our social media. It's
at pot Therapy Guys on Instagram and slash pot Therapy
on Facebook. There's a blue sky somewhere and if you're

(13:37):
in the discord, we'll we'll get it posted in the
selfies area too. Nick, I am ordained. Oh that's right.
I already have a talk.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
Run a little something something, not just the train will
be run. Scoops wedding is a good idea. I think
that's just there.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Oh well, I had.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
To do it this time before scoop Fest because that
was the threat last year or last scoop Fest was
Jacob was gonna somehow arrange it, Like, Nick, you have
something you need to say.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Oh that's right, I remember. Yeah. I tried to set
up like lights and music cues, the whole thing. Really
just get it going. Yeah, saha, way to get ahead
of that that that definitely could have gone wrong. So
all right, so.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
This year, that means I could like have a just
like a minister show to do it.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Say if we because Laura usually will do a cameo,
she'll usually pop the scoop fest and say hi. But
it'd be great if we can get the two of
you so drunk that you decide to just a lope
that night. We could just go straight to that like
little chapel West side thing, and that.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
Could probably happen. I'm not against it. I've got if
you if you truly want to do that. We have
friends that like own chapels, and we have like other
friends that all character U officiates. I guess that like exactly, yeah, yeah,
that kind of thing. They do all those types of things.
It's all just the fun.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's great.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
We had a couple of friends do it and like
just have big parties at the you know that, to
drive through wedding chapels and things.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
That's so much fun. La, and then you go to
like a bar or something. It's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Being born and raised in Vegas, it seems like that
would be a Really she's probably.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Not so soft.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yes, maybe yeah, throw it up.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
I say, you just give her those two options you go, hey, look,
we can get married in a Vegas chapel, and when
she's like, oh, I don't know, or my other option
is we could have Jacob do it, yeah chapel.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, that's the hard think of all the money you're
gonna save. It's great. Also, we haven't gotten Jacob's prices yet.
He didn't say do it for free, So you know
two words. Prima knockta as is tradition in Jacob's religion,

(15:57):
of which he is an efficient. You do want to
respect the old ways. Well, welcome everybody, and make sure
that you wish our buddy a Mazeltov. Is that what
we said? Some question. We've got some great questions for
today's show. We're still here working, so we will answer
these questions despite wonderful news in our buddies' life. First

(16:19):
one is titled Cluttered House. Hello friends. I moved in
with my girlfriend and my best friend who's who've lived
together for years. I'm in my own bedroom, but the
rest of the house is packed with clutter nick knacks everywhere.
A garage so full I had to carve a path
to the workbench, which promptly filled. Back in the fridge

(16:41):
is filled with half eaten mystery food. The living room
is stacked with random stuff. I like things organized. I
like clear walk ways, less visual noise, and a few
lights on the house or lights on so the house
isn't a dark cave when I get home from work.
But they don't care about that, and if any, they
like it as it is. I've tried to tidy things

(17:03):
up and talk about it, but nothing sticks. I feel
like I have no say. And here's the kicker. I
feel like this is my problem. I don't want to
be the guy who storms in telling everyone how they
should live, so instead I just hole up in my room,
feel invisible and get resentful. I love these people, my
girlfriend and my best friend, but the clutter drives me insane,

(17:26):
and my brain tells me I'm the problem for caring
so much about it. How do I live here without
feeling like I'm trying to force my ideals on people
who don't share them? Signed some scoop, I feel like
Laura wrote this.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
Oh you got to move out. You can either move
out or be prepared to never speak to that girlfriend
and best friend again.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
It's a you gotta right.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's tough because I feel like everything you can't feel
like this like you appeal to some sort of rational
standard and you're like, okay, so there's a normal. But
then you're three different humans and two of the humans
agree that this is normal, that this is fun, this
is acceptable. God damn that sucks to some degree. Yeah,
I I do appreciate some scoop. I do appreciate the
accountability that you're taking with this. But you think it's

(18:18):
some scoop's fault.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
No, but I think some scoop is taking accountability for
their own Okay, being bothered by it because it's one thing,
like you know, if you've if these were college roommates
who it was set up by the university, you've never
met them before, you've never seen them before.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
I had one of those that's a terrible. But these
are two individuals that you knew prior to moving in,
and I'm assuming you have visited the home before. I
had an idea, which it is kind of that.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Thing of like, uh, you know, they are not going
to adjust to your expectations.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
They seem pretty comfortable where they're at or is it?

Speaker 4 (19:00):
Wait, did the did the letter say did some scoops
girlfriend and best friend live together before some scoop.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Almost sounded like you said, who've lived together for years?
Oh yeah, okay, okay, so that's interesting. So you're the
Johnny Come Lately with your fucking cleaning hands and you're
trying to make it better. Nick, I know the answer
before I asked this, But who is the cleaner and
messier person in your house? Oh? Uh, that's a toss up,

(19:28):
is it? Really?

Speaker 2 (19:30):
We're both clean and both messy and different. Okay, yeah,
so like my clean or my my my mess is clutter. Okay,
So like there's one there's one spot in her kitchen
where the countertop. That's where I've got the coffee and
all of that stuff. When we first moved in, Laura said, okay,

(19:53):
this is your space, okay, And she was very clear
about that because we lived together in my apartment first
before we moved in there, and she understands that my
biggest issue is all set something on the counter and
then walk away something else on the count and then
after a while there's no usable space on that count.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
This is like a staging ground. This is where you
just this is where you put things, and this is
your personal loss and found. So they're like, where was
that oh, it's over there.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
And natural, like her natural instinct is to come in
and set everything that she's carrying on the bar, and
I have to be like, don't on.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
The box, just don't.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
You can't put stuff on the bar because.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
And now it lives on the box.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
And the other thing too, is like that. That was
always been a big problem living in small spaces because
when you do that in small spaces, it goes from
looking very clean very messy very quickly. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
that's true. So she said, like, Okay, all the other
space on the counters, don't touch. Put all your ship whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
You're gonna do, your ship's obtained cat box. Let you
keep that spot. Uh, yes, that you? Yeah? Is that
what honest means?

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Buddy and writing, you better get that counter space in right, Yeah,
because that ship's.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
About to change. About marriage, walk all over you, Jesus Christ.
Day before you've got a counter just for yourself. Next day,
bachelor Pad's gone. Dude, how about you winning? Who's the
who's the dirty roommate in your house?

Speaker 3 (21:34):
We are we are definitely probably similar. I am the
counter clutter person. Peter is not that way, but his
is like m I don't want to say that either.
We basically both are the same, and then it'll be
a little crazy for a while, and then we're both like,
oh my gosh, this is too much, and we do
like kind of together we both hit that wall about gotcha. Okay,

(21:55):
all right, No, we're going to go through it.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Jacob. I feel like you're the clean guy.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
We're s J and I are pretty even, Okay, Okay,
I kind of take care of the kitchen and s
J kind of takes care of the laundry. Okay, but
we both like like obviously she deals with the kitchen,
I deal with the laundry. Like we both kind of
dip into those other two things. Like I'm predominantly kind

(22:19):
of I can't keep the kitchen clean. She kind of
keeps the laundry done. And then I don't know. We
we have the little robot vacuum that runs around and
does the floors.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
And the servants often they keep it nic.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Yeah, every every so often, I you'll have one of
the servants run a mop over everything.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yeah, maybe you'll have like a cleaner that comes in and.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
We've we've done that. I mean, especially when you have kids,
Like it's just it's so fucking you can never keep
up with it.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
I don't Maybe I have a cleaner come like once
a month.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah that's the bit. Yeah, I don't think I want
to have a cleaner at all. Just somebody's just going
through your ship, somebody who I don't know, coming in
the house and just moving stuff around. Okay, so you
want me to stop coming, knows you?

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah, you're right, you're right.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Also, I've got I've got an organization system where it
looks like clutter to the outside, but I know where
that is exactly. Yeah, in our house, all of my
mess is confined to the home office and like that's where,
but it's a fucking nightmare in there. Like just there

(23:26):
it's everything. Yeah exactly. I have like my office camera
set up and like this little partition behind these that
I can work, and then everything behind that is just
fucking chaos. All of my bullshit is kept in that
one room and like everything else in the house is beautiful,
everything is always tidy, and then my fucking room is chaos.
But she's just abandoned it. Like that is that's my
little countertop is like okay, I'm just not going to

(23:47):
look in here. Keep this door closed. And I'll forget
it exists like great, sure, and that works out for
both of us. But I think it's really hard whenever
you have this dynamic, because like I feel like your
house and like cleanliness is a big part of mental health.
It's a big part of feeling safe and comfortable in
your own home. And like whenever sh it's just left
out and it bothers you, and you're constantly in charge
of cleaning it, and no matter what you do you

(24:09):
put things away, it comes back out and like shit
in the fridge and just oh my god. At some
point it's like your skin's crawling.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
I kind of feel like you could, you might be
able to negotiate, possibly, but writer, I would set your
standards very low, low excitation, low expectations, because it's really
hard when like if somebody else's to have to live
by somebody else's expectations, when you're used to living the

(24:37):
way that you've been living for a while, it's I mean,
you have to really love somebody to be able to
change years of habits.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
I mean maybe the girlfriend, the best friend. Probably you
don't get it. Yeah, it's like I'll find other friends.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, yeah, you are very replacing.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
So I think I think to some degree, if it's
gonna be one of those things where it's like, if
you want a clean house, you're gonna have to make
a decision that either you do more than your share
to keep it clean or you find another place to live.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I think it's going to be really difficult.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
I wonder if there's room though, to kind of do
what you and Laura did where she's like, this is
your counter or the reverse of what Jim's situation, like
the I'm sorry James's situation over there, thank you where
his office is the crazy place. It's like, can you
negotiate a space like that?

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Sounds like they have a room, right then they say
it because the writer has his own room, some scoops
room because.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
He's not sharing room with the girlfriend.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, I have a private space, can keep how they want. Okay,
how do I get that though?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Because you don't want to be locked in there forever
and you kind of have to have that shared public space.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah oh yeah, but I kind of agree that you
not agree. Nobody's on my side on this, but I
think that you should actually have some amount of say,
like just like some scoop say third of the occupants.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
I feel like that, what does that look like.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
I don't think we're saying that the that the roommates
should not meet some scoop in the middle, Okay, I
think we're saying, uh, be uh wary of setting too
high an expectation for how clean those roommates are going
to be.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
I feel like there are scenarios where the the the
shared agreement has to rise or fall to whatever, like
the highest standard is. There are scenarios like that where
it's like, okay, like you can't get married and be like, look,
I'm kind of a dirty person, you're a kind of
clean person. I guess you're just gonna have to fuck
accept me. It's like, no, that's not how this is
going to work. Like you're going to change. Like you've

(26:41):
got Laura on the line. Let's say she's going to
accept that. Let's get some answers on this, but no,
I feel like there are scenarios where you're going to
find like this minimum threshold, and I think like a
clean house, it does it falls to like the lowest
standard of of whoever has the highest standard. So I
feel like some scoops should be able to say, look,
I agree with that. This is kind of what I

(27:02):
I have to have. This, this is what works, and
like I'm asking everybody to get to that standard. It
only improves everybody's living space. I'm not asking you to
paint the walls orange like I'm asking you to clean shit.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
I mean just to live better. Is that a weird
thing to ask some scoop? Don't present it like that, okay, correct,
polish it up alone.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
I do think.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Consider two would be like rent. So it's not like
the The Girlfriend musical, Yes exactly. It's not like the
girlfriend and friend are not benefiting from some scoop living there, Okay,
assuming he's paying rent, that would then indicate that the
other two are paying less in rent. Okay, So it's

(27:45):
kind of I think that's kind of a negotiating chip
to Okay, to be able to say, like, look, you know,
the three of us living together, it brings all of
our costs down, you know, so I feel like we
should each contribute. You can even do like a chores list,
like I used to do that with my roommates, like
we all had different things that we were responsible for.

Speaker 6 (28:05):
Okay, you know, so somebody don't do it. What happens beatings,
Oh in a guy household. Honestly, Yeah, yeah, I mean
get one nice punch to the back of the head.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
And you're like, no, no, you would hope for the
beating because the alternatives were much more.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Ice water.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Somebody put their dick in it.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
Yeah, maybe maybe you should, Like, maybe you should fucking
vacuum every now that day.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
If you ran the vacuum, your water wouldn't taste like
my dick. You thought about that. We had an agreement.
I just got back from a workout. No, I agree
with your theory though that like there can be a discussion,
but I just feel like it's not. There are scenarios
where you can't ask a person to actively suffer all

(28:55):
the time in order to live here, and so like
the cost that some scoop and I don't know what
you think. Marriage is good point solid. We can scare
him out of this, by the.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
Please, I've been married equal number of times as all
of you put together.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
This is true, This is true, and he's still a
scar bunch.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Cardun card, I'm signing up to go again. I'm ready
for my next tour in Vietnam. I'm sure this time
it will work. So you know, just keeps swinging. But no,
but like if I can't officiate this, WEE could at
least officiate the next one is there? It is an
this bit I want to guaranteed shot at number four.

(29:39):
You get a frequent flyer card at some point, just
go to the same venue at some point, like, oh,
mister Tangman, we appreciate your business. If I get married
a fourth time, not only will you officiate, I'll tell
Jim first, and Whitney will never know. I like this,
it's all fair. But like asking some scoop to go
through a certain amount the units of suffering to live

(30:01):
in a space, when asking the other people to just
clean and live in a nicer space, there's almost no
suffering attached to that. You're just doing adulting. You're just choring.
Like I just I feel like asking somebody to suffer
to live with you is too far. I don't disagree
with anything you just said.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
But the other side of that is always going to
come back to the other Like I'm really looking at
it from the from the other roommates, yeah, spot, because
like they're looking at it going like I had a roommate.
I was fine with my roommate. Yeah, now I've got
two roommates and my prices might be a little down. Yeah,
but maybe I wasn't looking for a third roommate.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Maybe I was just cool with me in my roommate.
You just feel like this is the cost to be
in relationships though.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
I agree, Well, but they have to decide that though.
So that's where I like what Nick was saying, where
it's kind of like, hey, I'm paying a third of
this rent, this is what I would like to see,
or you know, like this what i'd like to see.
What do you think you know you can find somewhere.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Here's of my minimum standards, And yeah, well I definitely
would want some scoop at a minimum. To make it clear,
this sucks for me, Like I'm writing into therapy shows
like I'm unhappy. I don't like being home. I'm avoiding
you guys. I'm not coming out into the social spaces.
I don't I'm I'm feeling hurt being here. I don't
like it because like if we were all roommates, which

(31:17):
you know, if you guys were open to it, I mean,
we could get a cool space and like over here,
you take everything from me, brought you on the show
so I could take a break every once in a while.
He is the man I'm going to Oh my god,

(31:39):
so upset. I'll give you a hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
My my wedding party is gonna be Whitney Jacob, some
guy I met at the Busy.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
Half the therapyroducer.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Jim Son. Can you show me how to do this
boat tie? Where are you going to a place? Yeah,
you have a monogrammed fucking whiskey. Flower girl is going on.

(32:15):
But like, yeah, know, if we were all roommates and
it was like, look, regardless of who pays what or
who moved in with who, our relationship clearly matters. We
all would like each other to be happy. And like,
if I'm unhappy in our space, and if I should
tell you that, and if I could not be a
dick about it, great, But like I would hope that
that bothers my roommates, my girlfriend, my best friend. I
would hope that it'd be like, yeah, okay, you know,

(32:37):
we're sad for you, man, we We're not just gonna
push back. And I'm kind of pissed at his girlfriend
and best friend. They're kind of like that sounds like
your fucking problem. It's like, fuck you guys, like I'm
really unhappy, Like this is not a crazy ask.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Have you ever watched a show called Hoarders?

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Okay, tell me more. I mean for late at night
on Cinemax? Right? Is that is that the one I've seen?
That horrible? Yeah? Yeah, whit Whitney. Also, somebody figure out
if a go daddy hoarders dot com when the w

(33:12):
is available, we changed the name of the podcast, or
we have a third link to the store. Yeah no.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
But here's the thing with that show is that you're
you're valid, just like Jacob was saying. But I watched
that show because it seems bananas that these people will
put their stuff over people that they love, really do
they love they care about these people, and they're like, yep,
I do. I want to do it. I want to
clean up. I'm going to let go of all this stuff.
And then when the therapist comes in and it comes

(33:48):
time to get rid of the stuff, they freak the
fuck out because it's it is obviously a mental health thing.
I'm not saying that's what your girlfriend in this roommate
or I don't know where. There's a lot of emotion,
but there can be like those I want to call them,
like borderline where it's like okay, maybe we're not on
the show, but.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, just a little little tip. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
So with those people, I think it's like you still
have to be very cognizant when you're sharing your feelings
that they may say like, yes, I want you to
feel comfortable, I want you to be welcomed here. I
want to be with you. That's where I really go
into what we said in the beginning. I think Jacob
said this where it's just like Okay, well you can
go live somewhere else, like I don't know if you're
not even sharing the same room, why are you. It

(34:33):
doesn't have to be you can buy the apartment next
doore or like rent the apartment next door. You can
be like a walking distance away, like it doesn't have
to be that difficult or complicated.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
By the way Fuddy or Die already did.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Hoarders, Yeah, it's about a guy who hoards whoress.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
How are we spelling hoarders? W H O R E
D E R S. Okay, good, that's the episode title. Yeah,
I just wanted to make sure we got that. That's
that's excellent engagement. It's on the episode titled It's with
a And also, if we can be real, the fact
that you didn't turn your proposal into Patreon content a

(35:14):
little uh selfish? Getting read again, he's getting read. I
can just wear a wire, you know, like you have
a mic, like, yeah, it would have been it would
have been really yea one more surprise throw it out there.
So anyway, writer, I don't know. I think I'm on
a team. Like when you are hurting and you are annoyed,
I don't think you're justified to be cruel or mean

(35:36):
to other people, Like that's that's a choice crossing the
street to like poke somebody in the eye because they
bother you. Like, I don't like that. So I don't
want you to be unpleasant, but I do think that
you're not. I don't think you have to keep it
a secret. I don't like that we live together. Like
your choices hurt my heart. You got to have a
talk about it. We've got to talk about it. It's like, well,
I don't like having a clean toilet, so fuck you.
You can clean the toilet, and it's like, no, not

(35:58):
worse than a clean toy. Yeah, but that's my point.
That's what I'm saying. I'm saying like that, you're actively
choosing a dirty lifestyle that bothers me. I'm not we
like to stick to it.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
Yeah, Oh god Jesus, I don't even know in that
sentence what it is referring to.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
I'm bothered. Either way, I don't like it. I don't
like any part of it. I just thought of part
that I liked. Good luck with this. If you need
to stage an intervention, uh, and that that's another Just
go the opposite way. Just invite a whole bunch of
friends over and just like constantly have them all over place. Well,
this is how I like it. I just like my
house like this, fuck you guys, or out dirty them.

(36:39):
Could we do that? Just leave your ship everywhere? And
then at some point it.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
Bos starts actively shipping on the floor.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I think, yeah, it just it's it's just trash chicken.
You just keep throwing everywhere, and eventually they're like, hey,
this kind of fucking sucks, and you're like, oh does it?
Do you not like that? Would it make your life
better if I tidied the fuck up? Great?

Speaker 4 (36:56):
Why don't we all do that? That?

Speaker 1 (37:00):
No, I'm telling you, Sassy James is here. He's talking
around like a clean fucking house. You could tell that
Jim is really pissed off. You can really know. I'm
so upset. It's funny because my first thought when I
saw the because the photo's lovely and Laura has her
hand up, she's showing the ring, and there's and it

(37:22):
says it's official, and I promised, to God, my first
thought was, fuck him for not telling me this. How
did he not tell me this? Like, I was like,
it's probably a joke, it's probably not real. I'm sure
there's some kind of I'm sure if I look close,
it's gonna be like a ring pop, you know. And like,
as I looked at it closer and I realized it
was real, I was just increasingly fucking furious. God damn it.

(37:45):
Not only when s j asked me did I say,
I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
I'm learning about it right now. She didn't like ask further.
She wasn't like what Nick didn't like. None of us thought.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
I was furious. It's weird that Nick didn't give me
a heads up. I just fuck you know. I knew
her first. I knew you first. I practically introduced you well,
you know, to be fair, to be fair there, Whitney
was the only person who knew that christ very she

(38:16):
need to know. Why couldn't you just say watch my
dogs and I'll tell you why later or whatever? Just
fuck you know, just god damn it.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Well, I intentionally didn't tell anybody because I didn't want
to risk having to later tell him.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
She said, no, Okay, all right, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I was eight percent sure she was gonna say yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
But that two percent is real.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
That's a big two percent. That's I mean, that's what
I said.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
I told everybody except Laura that I was going to
propose it happened to be She said no.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
No, Now that I'm not in that simulation makes a
lot long trail to have to walk back. I feel
like you chose the right friend to conceal shame. Like
I feel like if if she had said no, and
Whitney was like, so how did it go, and You're like,
you know, I don't want to talk about it, she'd
be like okay, And like I feel like I would
trust Whitney with that. She was the only one in
this room who would have empathy. Yes, let's you don't
learn about that one. There's no way that doesn't come

(39:13):
out in the middle of trivia. I don't know that
was the right move. Actually, I'm not mad anymore. You
chose wisely. That's exactly the right choice. We are gonna
take a quick break and when we come back, we
are talking about the weight of one toxic friend. I
have one when you could have two. And being a podcast,
you're listening to bod Therapy.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Today's episode of Fatzi Bye, Judy Schneider, Leon, Carolyn Albert,
Sammy Scoop, Sarasmian Might Com, Darren Cunningham, Tody the DeLorean Guy,
Brady Malayscheck and Max the Ginger Scoop. Would you like
to sponsor show? Become a therap producer at patreon dot
com slash. All right, all right, here's our trivia. I
hope it's wedding trivia.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Nope, damn it. What movies did they appear together? I'm
gonna list off some actors and you gotta say what
movie they appeared in? Are we buzzing in? No, let's
just go on order. All right, let's probably what's the order.
Let's go wors.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
We're sitting differently now than we usually said. We'll go
with an order of people who knew about the engagement.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Good good. I probably am third because I'm pretty sure
saw the post pretty quickly. Yeah, I don't know. No,
by the time I saw it, there was like over
a hundred likes. No, it's not, Whitney. I couldn't get

(40:39):
a text. You couldn't just say this first, Like, I
feel like you're on social media all the time. It's
as quick as text. I just feel that I deserved there,
all right, Whitney, Matt Dillon, Ben Stiller, Sarah, I.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Haven't Okay, I kind of want to shoot, going to
have to there's no options. Okay, there's something and friends
on Facebook. I got the I got the trivia right.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Just who is Matt Dylan. I don't know if I
know how to him.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
He's just about it.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
I didn't point it out that I don't follow follows me.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
That's been there.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Sorry, I missed the question. What was the question? What
was the answer? There's something trying to tell me the
mat Dylan is so uh Sarah Silverman was one of
Mary's friends.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
The friends. Okay, like that one threw me off a little,
but I was.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Like immediately, what was it was? There's something about Mary.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
There's something about Mary.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Who's Matt Dylan.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
He plays the investigator, the big teas, hilarious, a lot
of stuff.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
But I can't even tell you.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Okay, I got it Day's character, so you got she
got one point for that? Yes, okay, all right? Jacob
oh right, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Huge Jackman, Huge Jackman. Oh,
that'll fuck you because it was Batman until you got
Hugh Jackman.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
I don't even know which Batman that is.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Hugh Jackman.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
Need to know fucking Batman's hue. Not the Hugh Jackman part,
the part with the other two who are the other joke,
all of them. Christian Bale, Michael Kane, Christian Bale and Michael.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
You know Michael Kane from him up at Christmas, Carol.
I know all three people are.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Batman then Diagram over last and.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Batman Broke who was the last one, Pierce Broston, Hugh Jackman,
Huge Jackman, the Pierce Broston Australia, Huge jack Hugh Jackman,
Michael Caine, a local.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Porn star, really cool guy. Jack Hugeman. Uh and he
looks like Hugh Jackman.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
That's huge. Jackman.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
He just does Hugh Jackman parody porn exclusively.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Amazing, really nice guy.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
I don't know. Oh, I can't want to steal. I
mean fuck Christian Bale, Muppet Christmas Carol. No, fuck.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
I don't have a guess.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
The prestige, Oh, Michael, I never would have gotten to
the pristige.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yes, I know, people are one.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
We make fun of that movie on ice Cream Social
quite a bit. I haven't seen it enough. Oh Magic,
Oh that's right, because at the same time there was
a movie with Edward Norton that came out. It was
also a magic movie, and it was I think it
might have been The Illusionist or so in my brain,
I've now conflated all that and I think it's Edward

(43:38):
Norton and Christian Bale and I forgot that. Hugh Jackson.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Your excuse is Michael Caine.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
He's in every fucking thing. Okay, Jim, here we go.
Amy Adams, buzz, Jennifer Gardner, what come on? You gave
me girl ones? Because you know, I don't know. And
Leonardo DiCaprio. Okay, I know who that is. Okay, who's
Amy Adams? What I don't know is like Whitney. Yeah,
but red hair like Houston with red hair? Okay, Man

(44:07):
of Steel, she played Lois. I never watched The Superman.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
She's the sender. I don't want to say any answers
that might be it. I think she plays Cinderella, the
Cinderella characters in the live action.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
I only watched The Cinderella with Brandy in it. That's
the move, Okay. Whoever? That chick is Leonardo DiCaprio. And
who's the other chick, Jennifer Gardner? Fuck? Who's that? Wait
a minute, isn't it the chick that was married to
Ben Affleck? Yes? Oh and Jennifer Puerto Rican Rapper? All right,
I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, Jennifer Gardner, she is

(44:45):
not she's you're thinking Jennifer Lopez.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Fuck, Jennifer Gardner is an actor in the names all right?

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Okay, So Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Gardner I could probably
get somewhere with that. Uh, come on, Leo, And so
you're only in so many movies? Wasn't inception? What's another
Leonardo DiCaprio movie? Nick?

Speaker 4 (45:13):
Was an inception?

Speaker 1 (45:14):
It was not let's do that?

Speaker 4 (45:15):
I really hoping would be exception.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Oh oh h the one. Don't look up no ship
whinny for the steal.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
I'm gonna get it goes around the horn. You're just
gonna guess off to catch me if you can.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yes, very good.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Oh my god, I honestly don't remember that. And they're
just leo.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Amy Adams was the nurse or she.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Was the candy striper.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah that was Amy Adams. Oh my god. Jennifer Gardner
was the model who he paid to have sex with
in the hotel.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
Wow, I've probably seen that movie twice.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Geeze, yeah, I got zero, you picked up two and
then you. Wow, we suck. All right, Well, I hate
this game. These are hard. They are really hard. Also
because you're a dick and you're not saying, like Tom
Hanks Leonardo dicapri answer order. I'm putting them in as
strategic as well, order of appearance. Okay, I'm so excited

(46:21):
there for I think we're fine. It's all right. The
weight of one toxic friend. Hello, pod therapy crew, long time,
first time. My pronouns are he and him. I'm forty
and I have a mostly amazing friend group of about
eight people. We're a pretty tight knit bunch, and I
consider myself close with all of them. Over time, I've

(46:44):
kind of fallen into the dad role of the group.
I'm the oldest, I host the gatherings most often, and
I'm usually the one to come to for advice, whether
it's out a budget, write a resume, or just talk
through stuff. I have mixed feelings about that role, but
that's not really why I'm writing in. I'm here because

(47:06):
there's a metaphorical ticking time bomb in our group, and
I could really.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Use it as a literal one.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yes, apps always pick the metaphor one. I need some
help figure out how to navigate it. It mostly involves
the three youngest members of the group, John, Greg, and Amy.
John and Greg are actually my younger cousins, and they
grew up together as best friends. I didn't really get
to know them until we were all adults, mainly due
to the age gap. They're in their late twenties. Amy

(47:32):
is married to Greg and the three of them currently
live together. I wonder if they wrote in the first question,
oh my god, that'd be so crazy. They're so messy,
and they're so messy, but Greg's unhappy with it. I
introduced them to my Friends, which eventually formed the group
we have today. I understand no one is ever one
hundred percent to blame for any situation, but there's been
a lot of tension in the group lately that is

(47:54):
centered around Greg. He's the only one in the group
whose politics don't align with the rest of ours, and
he often made comments that many of us find problematic.
He drinks too much and pressures others to drink more
than they want to. He can't seem to hold down
job and owes several people in the group over one
thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
Despite that, man really sucks being the second person videos
that thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yeah, that's right, you didn't learn from the first one.
Despite that, he's managed to go on to international vacations
just this year and keeps making expensive purchases. You know
how you do that. You don't pay those thousands of
dollars that would probably help. He makes expensive purchases like
cosmetic upgrades to his car and new video game consoles.

(48:39):
It feels disrespectful and hurtful to the people he owes,
and oh shit. Greg also has a history with theft.
He was caught stealing thousands from his parents' emergency fund,
and he's even bragged about how easy it is to
steal from certain big box stores. Why the fuck is anybody.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
Friends with this asside avice because he can get you
anything you want from a good point, Yeah, you got
to know about Honestly, it's gotten to the point where
I don't feel fully comfortable having him in my home
week after week.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
To be completely honest, many of us likely wouldn't still
be friends with Greg if it weren't for how much
we cared about Amy and John. Historically, the three of
them have kind of felt like a friendship package deal,
if that makes sense. But that started to change. John,
who only ever had Greg as a best friend growing up,
is starting to see that genuine, healthy friendships look like

(49:33):
what they look like, Oh, I'm just older to and
closer to others in the group. He's beginning to recognize
how one sided his relationship with Greg has been, and
he's developed some resentment. He doesn't want to confront Greg yet, though,
because he's worried Greg will react badly and make the
living situation unbearable until the lease is up. John has
confided in the rest of us, and we all empathize.

(49:55):
Many of us feel the same way about Greg. So
now we're all in this weird holding of trying to
keep the beast until John can move out in a
few months. The ticking time bomb I mentioned is the
inevitable fallout once that move happens. Everyone except for Amy
is probably going to side with John, and as the
group's dad, I have this strong sense that everyone is

(50:16):
going to look to me for guidance on what happens next.
I truly believe Greg brought this on himself. We've given
him more grace and second chances than a lot of
other people would have, but I still feel awful about it,
and I genuinely like Greg despite his faults. I enjoy
spending time with him. We share a lot of the
same hobbies and interests, and he's family. But this friendship

(50:37):
is deeply unbalanced, and he seems unwilling to grow or
take accountability. Honestly, the group would probably be better off
without him, but he's still a person and this is
likely going to hurt him badly. He'll likely lash out,
blame us, and spiral even further. And as if that
wasn't enough, someone recently confided in me that they slew

(51:00):
with Greg a few months ago. Damn it, Nick, damn it, Nick,
I can't help it, meaning he Nick, you have to
keep a professional distance. As a podcast, Yeah, you can't
just go in there listeners roommates podcast ethic. Yeah, yeah,
we signed a code, my man, and as if that
wasn't what I asked us, but we did. We wrote

(51:22):
it ourselves. Someone recently confided that this up with Greg
a few months ago, meaning he has likely cheated on Amy.
I don't know if, how, or when to tell her,
and now I'm carrying that weight too. So I'm asking
for advice, not just for me, but for anyone in
this story. How can we handle this? How do I

(51:42):
support John and the group through what feels like an
unavoidable explosion while keeping the fallout to a minimum. Thank
you for taking the time to read and ponder my question.
I love you all in a healthy and totally non
parasocial relationship way, truly The friend father of frenemies.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Boundaries.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Oh, I'll start at the end because I think it's
the easy one.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Good if you want to stay friends with Amy, Yeah,
if there is a way, if you think that you
can keep it a secret that you already know that
he cheated on her, and you think that she will
not find out that you ever knew, then I would
take that ship to my grade. It's just not your
truth to tell that's it. Then she could find out
that you knew and didn't tell her. That makes it complicated.

(52:28):
But if she's not gonna find out that you somehow knew,
I'd never say a goddamn word about it.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
What if he only suspects, then I wouldn't say then
my even more so, fancy, now you have plausible deniability.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
I wasn't sure, and not my business.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
And like people are telling people are telling this girl
that her boyfriend is not the best, Like there's already
enough friends and coworkers and family and whatever in this
person's life. I imagine telling her that not the first time.
She probably don't need to add to that chorus. I'm betting.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Yeah, if she's unaware of it, I guess maybe let
her know. But God, short of that, Oh my goodness,
so many layers to this. I felt like that was
the easiest one.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
I wanted to tackle that one.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, I'm on the same page. I got nothing to add,
So we're okay. So let's let's start at the end.
Are we all in agreement. It's not what's our writer's name,
friend father, let's go with that. Yeah, it's not friend
father's responsibility to go straight to Amy and just out
this rumor that Greg has maybe hooked up with a members,
especially if not if he doesn't know. Okay, if Amy

(53:33):
doesn't know, if a friend father doesn't know, sure, that's it,
got it.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
Okay, the friend knows that, and maybe you feel like
an ethical or moral responsibility to your friend to tell her. Uh,
I wouldn't, Yeah, okay, that that relationship is going in
one way or another with without your help, So like
why involve yourself?

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Right? And you also don't have a responsibility to take
action on a rumor, like you don't even have a
responsibility to investigate. This is just people talking shit, that's it.
And I wouldn't even if you think, I definitely think
this happened, Like yeah, no, Greg's pretty shitty. He's done
a lot of bad things. So it's one more thing
on the pile.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
I don't know. It says that the friend confided in
them that they personally are oh.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
That they have had an affair with Greg. That means
you can find out.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Yeah, because it's worded like they say that someone confided
in them that they slept with Greg a few months ago,
meaning he is likely cheated on Amy. But I'm like,
what do you mean likely he didn't he like, maybe
they don't.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Know and it could have been like they break up sometimes,
and so there's an open question of like.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Oh, they broken if it's anything like that, I think too,
or I.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Don't know their arrangement, you know, so, but yeah, oh
my god. That puts father figure in like a lot
of tough positions just to like call it out because
I don't. I don't want to betray a friend. He
told me this, They told me that in confidence, So
I don't want to betray them. I don't want to
intervene in these guys' relationship.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
I don't want to get involved.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
That's kind of where I'm at. I don't know if
i'd get involved in that mess, because you got another
mess that you're already dealing.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. There's already enough going on,
I think, saying like, well, they mentioned it, but I
wasn't sure with the timeline, Like you can kind of
have some plausible deniability there, especially if you're trying to
not ask more questions, when was it, how what happened?
Were they dating?

Speaker 1 (55:19):
And I know that there's some people that are like, no,
you have responsibility to tell amy, like this is so nuclear,
you just you have to break all the rules, and
like I don't side on that. I'm usually like, nah,
that's taking an awful.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Response, just like I made sure I didn't say anything to.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
God damn you, God damn you couldn't tell me.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Don't tell anybody. You told her not to tell anybody.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
I want to make get very clear when I say
that Jim is tiny read all these different times, I'm
not kidding.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
I didn't tell her that. She knew that. I just didn't.
That's how Broy. It hurts because you pulled her away
from me. Jacob went back in his house, and the
three of us were in the parking lot, and you
specifically said, oh, Whitney, can I talk to you for
a second? Jim keep going, Yeah, pretty much that part

(56:13):
of it wasn't spoken, but it was strongly implied. Whenever
you specifically said, oh, Whitney, can you come over here
for a second? I talk to you guys, I assumed
there was something like, oh, I don't know what this
comes up. I'm just gonna gets they were fucking yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
I assume you guys well, and Jacob has his camera
so he has to hear it all.

Speaker 4 (56:31):
I almost told Jim about it when I saw it
on the camera and heard the camera. I remember, I
almost called Jim. I actually got in.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
All came to the front door. We had we had
some celebratory drinks. Just hurts celebratory drinking. That band little
party party, Yeah, doing the shush sign. A lot of
people can't tell Jimmy. Jimmy doesn't know. I couldn't believe
Jimmy doesn't know that louren Nick got engaged a Green
Valley branch. So what are we saying to this guy? So,

(57:08):
father figure, I don't like that you're being assigned to
all this extra responsibility. Nobody's assigning father Figure that this. Okay,
jump on that I was coming in. I was coming
in hot on that one.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
Nobody's assigning you this. Yeah, I've been in this position
in friend groups before. Let me actually I thought about
this while while you were reading it. Uh, weird question
for the three of you, have you ever done any
kind of like intervention or anything like that with a friend,
not as part of being a therapist. M yea for

(57:39):
bad behavior, for drugs, for whatever I did.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Your friend was an alcoholic. There you go, destroying his
life and family's life. And several of us close friends
sat him down and had the talk and was there
was there a friend in that group that was kind
of like that that parental Yeah, that was me. That's
a stupid thing to be. It was shitty because like
I've been, I've been that friend.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
And the last time I did one of those one
of kind of the intervention things, I really I was.
So I was aware that I was in that position,
and I was aggravated that I was in that position,
and I literally just sat there and didn't say anything.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Oh so you almost protested the role a little bit,
but not not exactly though, because I wasn't.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
You know, something was happening with a dear friend that
you know, and they were in trouble and they had
some a lot of things that they that we were
having to deal with. So you know, I'm not trying
to take focus away from that, right, But at the
same time, I'm just not doing that role. And man,
I would suggest something along those lines yeah, you know. Literally,

(58:46):
I'm just sitting you know, I'm not pouting. I'm certain
you know, nothing like that. I'm just sitting over there.
I'm listening to what everyone is saying. If someone asks
me a direct question, I answer it directly. Yes, I'm
not expounding a whole lot on it, you know. Uh,
you know, I just I answer the question. I say
what I think about it. I'm honest about it. But
I don't need to lead that conversation.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
And I don't need to.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
I don't need to sway where people are going with it.
If I can just say here is what I think
about this, yeah, and that can be the end of
my opinions on it. I don't have to have an
opinion on what everybody else needs to do.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
If people in the friend group like to come to
you to confide in you because they feel like, Hey,
on a one on one level, I like to talk
to you, and you tend to receive it pretty well,
and you give me advice one on one. You're not
broadcasting it. But this is I talk to you about
my stuff. And if everybody in the friend group is
talking like fuck this one person Greg sucks, that puts
you in a weird position where like you kind of

(59:43):
are holding all the tokens, like everybody independent. You don't
want to be in that spot. That's a weird spot
to be.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
You don't want to be in that spot. For one thing.
Nobody fucks the dad figure. That's a solid point, you
know what, the asshole of the group. Yeah, he gets
a little stink on the hang low. Yeah, yeah, daddy, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
You know what they do with daddy. They leave the bill.
That's right, that's what they do. You know what. He's
in the best position. He's older, he'll take care of it,
he'll clean up, he'll do the dishes, you know, and
he just wants the big piece of chicken.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
Yeah, things are knocking out them lights, dad, But if
y'all want fatherly advice from me, y'all better start saving
me the big goddamn piece of.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Chicken at the very least. So what are you guys
doing this? Okay? So here's what I would do if
I was in the writer's position. The thing that I.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Like about enforcing boundaries, I think if you do it correctly,
you don't have to tell somebody, hey, new rules.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Here's some new boundaries. I'm gonna start enforcing these boundaries.
I don't think that's the right approach. I think if
you're gonna start enforcing boundaries with Greg, what you do
is you internally know what those boundaries are, and when
he tries to push them, then you just enforce them, okay,
and that's it, and then he learns the boundaries natural
when he comes to you from it's not a conversation

(01:01:02):
that needs to happen. It's just like, oh, we're gonna
hang out. Yeah, I'm gonna come over to your house. Nope, Nope, nope,
we're gonna go over here. We're gonna go do something else, right,
and you just start enforcing those boundaries. So that's what
I would do with Greg. With John, when Greg says
could I get some money? Yeah, absolutely not. Don't ask
me for money.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
I'm not gonna give you any money, and I would
just make it quick, just no, exactly, and then if
he wants more information, just be like, well I still
haven't gotten my last thousand yeah yeah, and then and
then just yeah. I mean you could just say like
I'm not gonna loan you any money, yeah, just quick,
let's let's get lunch, let's do whatever exactly, and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Then with John, what I would do is, as I'm
enforcing these boundaries naturally with Greg, I'm watching John okay,
and if he starts feeling like the boundaries are being
enforced with him, then I go to him privately and
I have a conversation to say, Hey, look, just want
like you know, we're cool.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
We're cool.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Yeah, I really like hanging out with you. I like
you know, I I respect you. I get the sense
that you respect me. I'm enforcing these boundaries with John
because that's what I think.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Yeah, Greg. Yeah, Yes, in fact, I won't even use
his real name. Yeah, I called him John. I also
call him John, other John, little John. I know it's confusing.
I like it John with a scene like John with
an age versus j O N John John.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
So I think, yeah, that that's how I would deal
with it. I wouldn't even go and have a conversation
with John. No, I have no reason to have the
house down, because then what happens is then then now
you're putting this on John to keep from Greg, as
opposed to just letting it happen naturally.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
That's how I deal with this.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Yeah, And it's one of those things like because that
is less rewarding kind of in that immediate you know,
it's less gratifying. I think to just be like, I'm
going to change how things are done in this I'm
going to change this dynamic from my Yeah, it's not exciting.
It's not like a story that you're ever going to

(01:03:03):
be able to tell, right, Well, but it's not like
I told him this and this and this and then
he said this, and then I said bla blah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
But I I called me James, I know, yeah or else. No.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
I think you're touching on something else too, though, Jacob. Yeah,
where it's like, uh, well sorry, you're sitting next to me,
all right, she shoo. So then when he says in
the beginning, like my role has been this like parental figure,
and all these people, these other people in this story
are in their twenties, you're forty, like not even about

(01:03:35):
a big story. But I think you're just used to
being in control, so that feels comfortable, Like that urge
to step in and do that comes so naturally to
you that it's like you may not even be thinking
about it. So that's why you're asking these questions and
they're swirling around in your head like do I step
in and tell Amy, do I like step in and
do something about Greg? Like, do I manage this situation?

(01:03:55):
And it's actually really hard to step back and not
manage a situation and not make it like a big
deal kind of what Jacob was saying, because that's where
your tendencies will go to. If that's the role you've played,
that's where you've probably been validated and praised for your
whole life. Like, without going into all that, that does
play a part in what you're doing now. So I
think just taking a step back and yeah, making those

(01:04:17):
simple changes, people will respond to those as someone who
can relate to this writer, and yeah, being that person
and just starting to set those boundaries. What I find
is I had a family member who borrowed around one
thousand dollars from us and they didn't pay it back.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Cousin Greg. What cousin Greg?

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Cousin Greg, Yes is absolutely his name, So Greg and
my family Greg, Mike Greg. They never paid me back.
And so after that, guess who doesn't ask me for
money because they know the laid me back.

Speaker 4 (01:04:49):
Yeah, Greg, the bail The last person that bothered or
that borrowed money from me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
I said, yeah, that was the that was the first
spot therapy host. I miss Richard. He was a great guy.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
But yeah, I remember telling me. I was like, I
don't want to loan you money. I'll give you some
money or whatever, but like I don't want to loan
it to you and this whole thing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
And that's fair. I've like given them or like, oh
I need money to pay myself and Bill I paid
that for them, whatever, but I'm not gonna I.

Speaker 4 (01:05:20):
Want to get into it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Just don't.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
No, I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
I think it's also really hard to keep a friend
group of eight together and keep it tight over a
long period of time. Eight's a lot and so like
you know, father figure, like trying to position is like
how do I keep the team together? It's like, oh,
that was never gonna happen, like eight people being friends
in close for a long period of time. No, they're

(01:05:43):
gonna date each other as is happening. They're gonna fling,
you know, like all that shit, their roommates together, they're
gonna break leases, they're gonna you know, borrow money. Like
there's just so many fissures in an eight person group
that I just don't feel like I want The writer
to have any sense of responsibility of like, oh, I
alone can hold us together. I can like or I
am the judge deciding if Greg is voted off the island,

(01:06:04):
like no, if if three of them don't like Greg,
that's kind of fucking it gonna be the end of
the eight person group. Or Greg's not invited to the
next hang, like that's what's gonna happen, Especially whenever he's
not plus one ing with John or with Amy, You're
probably gonna lose Greg and Amy and they're gonna go
off and do their own fucking thing. I don't know.
I feel like the writing's on the wall. I think
it is a time bomb. I think it is gonna

(01:06:26):
fall apart. I don't think it's a father figure's job
just try to prevent any of this. So I think
at best, you can be a person who others can
confide in and say I'm struggling with this or that sucks.
And I wouldn't want you to have any advice. I
would just want you to give people permission to talk. Yeah,
just hear them, man, Like that's it. If you have
to be in this role of caretaker, because that's your
nature and Okay, there's a person like that in every

(01:06:48):
friend group, of course, regardless of your age. Maybe that's you.
But I just wouldn't take any position of trying to
drive this thing or steer it or tell people here's
how we're gonna handle it. You can be a caretaker.

Speaker 4 (01:06:56):
You can even be that parental figure for people, and
you know, being that person who's just taking care of
everybody and making sure that everybody's got what they need
and being okay, you know, yeah, a lot of people
are like that, and you can do that. It is
just that like, all right, daddy, it's time to make
the decisions, like you don't you don't want that. No, no,
I agree, And it's so much and like it's like

(01:07:17):
Whitney was saying, like you do get into that loop
of doing that, it's so much nicer when you get
out of that loop.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Yeah. Yeah, it's so hard to do in the beginning,
but it's very so.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
Much less stress when you're out of that, when you're
out of that loop, and you could still be helpful,
you can still do all these things, but it is
you know, it's a little bit of that boundary and
everything else.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's a tough one writer,
and you know, at the end of the day, I
just don't want you to be responsible for any of this.
I want you to accept that friendship groups have a
life cycle. Like I mean, over the years, I've had
little groups of people that have you know, collaced a
different ages or whatever. None of them last forever. You know,
like it just isn't going to and eight people. It's
just destined to eventually crack, and it is, and it's

(01:07:57):
probably gonna reshape, especially like as you get older, friendship
groups get smaller. I think that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Yeah, yeah, Like when you're in high school, you can
hang out with a large group, but now like I
just need one or two people.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I think that's probably well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
And this is a good example because the three of them,
like John, Amy and Greg were brought into the original
group to create the eight. So it's like if they
kind of split off again, or if Amy and Greg
split off because she sticks with him, I mean, you
don't need to be in control of that. Just let
that be and let I play itself out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Yeah. Well, I think also the only reason you have
an eight person friend group right now is because you're
hanging on a bunch of twenty year olds like, I'm
almost forty. I don't know eight people I want to
hang out with. There's only one person in this room
I want to hang out with. And it's not fucking you.
And it's not you, No, it's Jacob.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
I like, Jacob, God, fucking dad, You're welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
No, we're best friends now, fucking these idiots, you and me.

Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
But you know what when we leave you right died? Hey, Jacob,
can I talk to him?

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Yeah? Oh fucking lose it. I'm too busy talking to naked.
But no, I'm gonna start telling Jacob all my secrets.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
I'm not walk out the front door. Then Whitney and
I are going to walk around the back as everybody's
been in their.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Cars, and Jacob's like, oh, hey, can I talk to
you really quick? Whitney? You two by Jim, Fuck this, Jim,
get off my prophet. That's right. We're gonna take a
quick break, and when we come back, we are talking
about wedding PTSD. There we go in time for Wow,
Here we go. You're listening to pod Therapy. Today's episode

(01:09:32):
is brought to you by Judy Schneider, Leon Cas, Carolyn Albert,
Sammy Scoop, Sarah Smith, Mike Holm, Darren Cunningham, Cody the
Thelreian Guy, Brady Malay, check.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
Max the Ginger Scoop. Would you like to sponsor the show?
Become a therap producer Patreon dot com therapy. All right, Uh, Whitney,
it's you again. Zoey Daschanel, Anna Paquin, Kate Hudson, Philip Seymour.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Hawk, Jesus I don't know who any of the March
of the Pegs. Oh, there it is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
M Sam one more time, please, Zoey Deschanel, Anna Paquin,
That Kate Hudson, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Jesus Christ. He was not okay, so not Jim Caviezel
got it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
The only movie I can think of with Kate Hudson
in it is How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days?
And I guess that one.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
No, Oh goes to Jacob Oh, I don't know, can
it go to me? Give me the Hunger Games? Were
any of them in the I feel like Philip s
wore Hoffman was in The Hunger Games and so was
that one girl.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
This one was tough because I started off with Zoey
Deschanel and Anna Paquin who are bigger names but had tiny,
tiny rolls almost famous.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
Oh I never saw that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Were not going to get that. I never saw that movie.

Speaker 4 (01:11:01):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
I also scure enough movies, you can win the game. Jacob,
What am I thinking? Right you?

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Jim two points, Jacob, Keefer Sutherland, Richard Dreyfus, River Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Oh my god, I might know this one.

Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
I think I did to Richard Dreyfus, who is the
first one?

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Keefer Sutherland?

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
I know it is this, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
I think I was like, I don't know what I think.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
Debbie does doubt that's it playing the part of Dallas
keeper Sutherland. The big d was that that'sn't that vampire movie?

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
Okay? Oh fuck uh, I don't know what that one
called Lost Boys, that's it? Yeah. I don't think Dustin
Hoffman was be a weird movie, but Dustin Hoffman's I
am d read Dustin Hoffman. Richard dy.

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):
Wuld also be weird if Richard final answer I was
I'm really glad you said that, because I was definitely
thinking Dustin Hoffin this whole time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
All right, Wait, Richard Dreyfus, huh River Phoenix?

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
And who was the other one Keeper Southern Keeper Southern right.
Fuck now my brain just flipped upside down.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
I have no idea. It's so weird because I also
thought of Dustin Hoffman for Richard Dreyfus, and now I can't,
for the life of me, remember who the fuck Richard
Dreyfus is. Ah, but I'm going to stand by me. Yeah,
River Phoenix and stand by Richard Dreyfus was the writer,

(01:12:57):
so he was also narrating the way you're doing your game.
You got.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
Yeah, there's gonna be an explanation.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
At some point of why you're naming the people you are.
There's a system here. Yeah, well no, I mean I'm
intentionally making it difficult. Oh great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
If I would have said Kate Hudson, Philip Seymour, Hoffman,
it would have been easy. You're easier to get it
wasn't almost famous. Okay, here you go the last scene
stand by me.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
I'll take that point and go for another. Bruce Willis,
Oh got it, John Travolta, Chris Kirsty Ally, God damn it,
Look who's talking. Yeah, let's go nice. Because you were

(01:13:49):
thinking pulp fiction for like five seconds, right, and then
you're like, wait, what and look who's talking? Remember, Oh,
my god, your taste of movies so Chirsty Ally was
so fucking hot back then, Jesus Christ not as a
baby the voice of a baby. She was not the voice.
She was the mom of the baby voice. If I'm right,

(01:14:11):
hold on, was the voice of the baby. You're gonna
have to look this up, so I'm pointing at you. Great,
I think the voice of the baby is the guy
from Back.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
To the.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Bruce Willis. Yes, Oh, I just thought he was in
the movie. I think he's also in the movie. He
was a cameo. He was going to say, No, that's uh,
that's three men and a baby. Look who's talking to
is when he has a little sister. Yes, I definitely
want all these movies. Wedding PTSD, my dearest host, I

(01:14:46):
think my wedding gave me PTSD pause for everyone to
guess what happened. No, you're all wrong, probably story time.
Back in late May, I got married to the absolute
love of my life. Being as we are pushing fifty
and this was not the first wedding for either of us,
we planned and executed almost every aspect of the wedding ourselves.

(01:15:09):
So when the day finally arrived. I was so happy
to finally make it happen and, for lack of a
better term, get her done. My parents lived two hours
away from us, and they drove in on the morning
of the wedding and got ready at our house. Everything
seemed to be going according to schedule. They were in
good spirits and happy for us. Skipping ahead, we all
got to the venue, which was a beautiful ranch outside

(01:15:30):
of the town we live in. As always happens on
this day on days like this, time suddenly moved very quickly.
The ceremony was performed inside a tall barn. People cried
happy tears, and everything went off without a hitch. Well,
aside from the unexpected one charming, low tech, beautiful, with
a few nice surprises from the ranch owners to make

(01:15:51):
our special day. Aside from the usual nerves you feel
on a big day, everything was going great. Then things
took a sudden left turn. After taking some pictures with
our photographer, we returned to the barn area, where the
reception was already in swing. With our small gathering of
forty people enjoying drinks and mingling. The time had come
to gather our children and other family members for some

(01:16:13):
family photos, and then we'd be all set to finally
relax and enjoy the party. As I locate my mom
and let her know the plan, she suddenly gets a
concerned look on her face and says, I feel kind
of dizzy. It was a very warm day, so I
assumed she was just feeling the heat and maybe a
little dehydrated. I get her seated on a stool and
get her a glass of ice water. She seems okay,

(01:16:35):
so I left her for a minute to go take
care of something else. Suddenly I hear people calling my name.
At first, I thought to myself, yeah, yeah, I know,
we need to go take the family pictures before dinner
is served. But then I hear your mom fell. I
whip around and my mother is laying on the ground
next to the stool that she was sitting on. We
get her on her back and put her legs up.

(01:16:56):
She is slightly shaking and her left arm is curled
up toward her face a strange clench. Luckily, one of
the guests happened to be a firefighter and EMT, so
he starts talking to her and doing his thing. She
regains consciousness but cannot sit back up without going out again.
Nine on one is called the whole time. My mom,
true to her ways, was apologizing profusely, and I kept

(01:17:18):
telling her not to worry about it and just focus
on feeling better. She is taken to the nearest hospital
and my dad goes with her. Everyone said I was
amazingly calm through the whole incident. I think both my
dad and I were in a state of shock and
our practical brains took over. So there I was left
to wonder if I should go too, but I know
she would have wanted me to stay and enjoy my

(01:17:39):
big day. I consoled myself that she was in good
hands and that it was probably just heat exhaustion. I
managed to sort of block it out of my head
for the rest of the reception, and we all danced
and had a mostly lovely time, while occasionally getting text
updates from my dad. Don't worry, She's okay now. However,
it turns out what I had missed, or what I
had witnessed, was my mom having a mild heart attack.

(01:18:02):
Even though all her health indicators have always been pretty
darn good for a seventy six year old woman, she
had several blockages in her heart and ended up having
a quadruple bypass surgery a couple days later by an
excellent cardiac team. The surgery was a great success, and
she is back home recovering and doing well. My issue
is that I keep flashing back to those scary moments

(01:18:24):
and seeing her on the ground, and I think about
her falling, which I thankfully didn't personally witness, and it
just makes me so sad and afraid for her. Why
do I keep obsessing about the incident even though everything
literally ended with the best pausible outcome. She's doing well,
getting better every day, but I still sometimes relive the

(01:18:45):
incident and play it in my head over and over,
especially when the day is done and I lie down
to sleep. It keeps me up sometimes. Is this a
form of PTSD or intrusive thoughts? Or is it me
trying to come to grips with the fact that I
have aging parents and I'm probably going to have to
start stepping up more often to help them. Thanks in

(01:19:07):
advance for your thoughts, Sincerely, anonymous. Pronouns are he and him,
p S, continuous, pillow, reservoir, wow in there at the end, wow, Wow, wedding.
By the way, Jim.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Reading them quickly doesn't change the fact that you mispronounced whatevernounced.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
If I mumble them, I feel like people will notice.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
That is so scary to go through on your wedding day.
I was sitting here thinking what would I do.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
In that situ?

Speaker 3 (01:19:39):
Like, how do you decide to stay that house? To
feel bad? Decided to feel bad?

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
And if I'm the parents that has that medical episode
and I come to I know I'm going to be apologizing,
Oh yeah, I feel like I feel so terrible.

Speaker 4 (01:19:52):
I think I think mom apologizing constantly is just standard.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, That's a lot to go through,
and I actually think it's really insightful and You're not
wrong that A big part of this replaying in your
mind is like maybe this was the first time you
saw your parent be like right weak or you know,
like not just carry everything on their shoulders take care
of everything. If that's the type of mom your.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Mom was, like, I feel like seeing your parent in
a fragile health state always shakes you. I remember when
I was a kid, my dad fell in a parking lot.
I remember he just like it was dark. We were
walking to the car and he stepped on a stone
that was in the parking lot that neither of us saw,
and is just foot landed on it awkwardly and it
just took him down, just boot collapse onto the ground.

(01:20:36):
And I remember as a kid seeing my grown man
father hit the ground and just have the wind knocked
out of him, to see him so fragile for that
one moment. He was probably like in his late thirties
at the time. Yeah, And I remember just being shaken
by that, like, oh my god, like you can't fall
like your dad, you know, like what the fuck? Just
it's a weird moment, like just and I think at
any age it probably rattles you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, is it PTSD?

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
I you know, here's the thing, and I don't know,
time hasn't gone by. Yeah, I mean yeah, probably doesn't
meet criteria as far as like diagnosed, but I think
it's relevant all all, you know. Nonetheless, I think what
it and here's my take on this, And I don't know,
but I feel like your brain needs to process this. Yeah,

(01:21:23):
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
I always like to use the analogy of like your
brain kind of being like a filing cabinet, like it's
got this really important piece of information. It's not really
sure where to put it yet, right, and so it's
it's kind of keep it keeps coming up and like
as a way to kind of say like, hey, do
something with this, right, we need to put this someplace.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
What do we have a countertop in your kitchen? You
know it's a lot like that, which is like a
stage cabinet. There was a space ye where your brain
was like hey, look, fuck up this area all you
want just keep this area clate wow, the designated sites out.
If there were arts of the brain like that. I
do think the brain stem is the part that you

(01:22:03):
want to keep clean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tidy tighty brain stem. Yeah,
you know that's anyway in case guests come over. Yeah, anyway. Writer,
to me, it just sounds like this is something that
you maybe need to talk to somebody about and just
kind of process and you know, just be able to
kind of experience it and just be like, yeah, this happened.

(01:22:25):
Be aware of how you feel about it. Yeah this sucked,
you know, And what were the thoughts that I had? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
I felt vulnerable, I felt fear, I felt all of
these different things. Just so that you can kind of
language it and maybe stow it away somehow.

Speaker 4 (01:22:40):
So parent is not going to suddenly start getting younger, right, yeah,
so go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
And start thinking about this, right, No, it's it's definitely
a warning sign. I think that we could definitely use
the word trauma here. I think that's fine. It is
a traumatic moment. Use them there, you go, well, give it.
Probably it stops short of And again, we don't diagnose
on the show. It's an educational program. But if you
were to visit with a therapist and they were to
go through the story with you, they would probably be

(01:23:05):
reluctant to write down PTSD. And it just really has
to do with the length of time. Right, you got
married in May. As we record this, it's July. So
we do with PTSD try to look for these symptoms
to be intrusive and disruptive and alarming and bother some
over a longer period of time. And that's whenever we're
starting to say, hey, this is malignant, this is sticking

(01:23:27):
to you. But it also indicates that it's quite normal
for a person to be shaken up any length of
time prior to the limit that we usually classify PTSD,
which is correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's
three months. Yeah, it might be three or six somewhere
in there, but it's not two. And so like, I
feel like it's well with it. It's par for the
course to have gone through something like this and to

(01:23:48):
still be haunted by it, to have flashbacks on it,
to feel like these intrusive thoughts are happening and you're
reliving it. And part of the dynamic of why that
happens in a traumatic moment is because of this unique
situation you catch yourself in where you're in that fight
or flight or freeze kind of moment, and we are
freezing because something beyond our understanding is happening in this

(01:24:09):
very abrupt, frightening way. You're seeing your mother on the ground.
You're a moment earlier at your wedding, just your head
is spinning. You're trying to get to the pictures. You're
trying to go over here. Where's your bride? Okay, now
I'm supposed to go here, We're supposed to got the cake?
What time is it? Is? Everybody having a good time? Hi?

Speaker 4 (01:24:23):
Mom?

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
You know it's good to see. Oh, you're feel all flush? Okay,
sit down and you're just like your your brain's going
in so many different directions. You're trying to keep your
clothing nice. You're wondering why your friend didn't fucking tell
you about the proposal way beforehand so you could just
you know, know about it, support him, pray for him,
you know, whatever, whatever he needs, you would have done it,
because you're a good friend, you know. I'm just saying,
all these things are welding to the story, and then

(01:24:45):
you know, all of a sudden, your mom collapses. Your brain.
I think it's like stuck between gears when that happens.
And this is usually the the the kernel of what
we see with trauma, that something beyond our ability to
language or functionally understand happened in an abrupt way, and
that is bigger than us. And so it's like Nick's
filing cabinet situation. It doesn't cleanly get filed. The brain

(01:25:07):
just holds it out and sort of says, I don't
know what the fuck to do with this, and just
kind of leaves it out, and so you keep bumping
into it. So again, it's probably not going to meet
that criteria for PTSD because of the amount of time
it's gone by, but I do think it is a
traumatic experience and that trauma is traumaing and not fitting.
And so the way that we usually deal with that,

(01:25:29):
as Nick had already suggested, is languaging it, discussing it,
storytelling it, sitting down with others and just recapping the
story and trying your best to go back and remember
what was that like for me? What did I feel
like in that moment? What do I remember? And you'll
probably find that it's a blur that you think back
to you're like, oh my god, it was also fast.
I don't know what was I feeling, what was going on,

(01:25:50):
what was happening right here? And then questioning yourself like
should I have done more? Did I not respond well?
Did everything go okay? That is normal traumatic reaction stuff.
But what we've is that when people go through some
kind of crisis like this, and that was a crisis,
that was an emergency situation, we usually want them to
debrief afterward. And you probably didn't get to do a
lot of yeah, you know, debrief, you know, hang some

(01:26:13):
things out, go on the honeymoon brief. I can never
hear that word without thinking it is you're welcome. Yeah.
He always comes back to taking off underwear as to
that been doing for years anytime we talk, especially on
the honeymoon bed, you've got a deproof donemit. But you

(01:26:33):
probably didn't get a chance to do that. You probably
didn't get a chance to talk it out with people
because it was like, hey, we're not trying to bring
attention to this is your mom, Okay, Yes, Dad's got
at the hospital. Dad checked in. She's great, Okay, great,
And people are not trying to make that a big
stink and you're probably trying to move on. And that
wasn't selfish, that was the correct thing to do, but
I think that that would ultimately cause you to not
have an opportunity to digest it. So if you're now

(01:26:54):
at a place several months later where she's safe, everything's okay,
finding opportunities to just ask somebody, Hey, can I sit
down and just kind of do some emotional work with
you where I talk through this thing and just kind
of play it out block by block as I can
best remember it and just talk through it, and can
you sort of ask me reflecting questions and just give
me a chance to wrap my mind around it and

(01:27:15):
to get, you know, my mouth to shape the words
and recall this in an active way. If you can
do that, writer, that's sort of the emotional yoga that
ultimately stretches the stuff out, and then over time we
do see it diminish. If you don't see it diminish
and you see these intrusive thoughts coming and like feeling
this sort of like ab reaction whenever it's happening, then yeah,
we probably want you to get into some therapy and
and they're probably going to start that process over again

(01:27:37):
with some processing work. But yeah, this could be something
that lingers over you. I don't expect it will. I
think the vast majority of times that humans go through
these really scary things, these do resolve on their own.
But what you're describing, I think is pretty par for
the course. Yeah, going through trauma usually feels like this. Yeah, yeah,
glad to hear your mom's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
I know, I'm really glad to hear that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
I mean, I've heard stories like this that whenever I
was a school teacher, there was another teacher at the
school whose son was getting married and she passed away
at the wedding brain aneurysm. Just that was it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
Some people just can't handle it being about somebody else for.

Speaker 1 (01:28:12):
A little while are you saying I'll fake my own
death at at Nick's wedding because.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
I show up hands who puts it past at Nick's wedding?
I mean, you know I'll come, I'll miraculously be okay,
but I would. I'll be texting Nick from the hospital
and from the ambulance like.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
Hey, No, I just really want you to enjoy yourself. Man,
don't even worry about me. Just I'm in room three
one one. That's fine, you know, I just I just
wanted to let you know I'm at this hospital. It's
no big deal. Everything's gonna be. I'm gonna be fine. No,
but you enjoy yourself. Send me photos. Tell everybody to
pray for me. If you want to, like have a
small prayer circle, that's fine. But again, I just don't

(01:28:51):
want it to be about me. I'm going to there's
like an in Memoriam at his wedding. Everybody, gim's going
to the hospital or you're gonna minister this thing? More
one out for the old boy. Rick jam Anyway, writer,
congratulations on the wedding. It's wonderful to hear that you're
so happy. It sounds like you found your person. It

(01:29:12):
sounds like, besides this one little setback, everything went really
really well. Other than that, Missus Lincoln, how was the player?
Everybody's great. But anyway, congratulations on this, but don't don't
overthink it. I do think it will pass on its own,
but yeah, find an opportunity to language it. I really

(01:29:34):
feel like the more you need that dough, the more
it kind of goes away that the filing system just
eventually processes it. And you know, you put away the
shit on the counter, so I think you'll get to
the other side of it. We are going to take
a quick break and when we come back, we're wrapping
up the show. You're listening to pod Therapy.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
Today's episode is brought to you by Judy Schneider, Leon
Carolyn Albert, Sam Scoop, Sarah Smith, Mike To, Darren Cunningham,
Cody the Dolorian Guide, Brady Malaychic and Max the Chin
your scoop and if you would like to sponsor the show, become.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
A therapister paton dot com. Slash Therapy got a couple
more if you want them. All right, let's go, okay,
rapid fire, can this be called out? Buzz in? Okay, yeah,
buzz in Okay, Pierce Brosman, Sally Field, Buzz, missus, doubt
fire everybody, Ewan McGregor, Eric Banna, Josh Hartnett, Oh Buzz yes, no, no,

(01:30:30):
nice try buzz black Hawk down, Yes, fucking wow, Paul Bettany,
Ed Harris, Jennifer Conley. Who's Jennifer Conley? Who's She's the
same Jennifer Conley? Oh no, that was Jennifer Garden.

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
She was in Top I feel like I know this one.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
Okay, the second one she bangs Maverick, she's the bartender. Yeah.
And Ed Harrison is the other one. Who's the Paul Bettany.
Who's Paul Bettany?

Speaker 4 (01:31:04):
Paul Bettany, He was the voice of Uh that does
not help buzz in Top Gun Mavericks.

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
Yeah. No, oh but two out of the three? Two
three is good. He was Vision in The Adventures. Oh,
is not that one? Ed Harris? And he also played
the roommate in A Beautiful Mind? Yep, yeah, it's not

(01:31:31):
Eastern Promises, is it? No? Is that Eric?

Speaker 4 (01:31:34):
Ed Harris?

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
Apollo thirteen? No, the Cleaner? Nope? What is it? A
Beautiful Mind?

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
Fuck that one you just said, the one I just
told you about. Great Kim Beason, Jack Nicholson, Oh see, williams.

Speaker 3 (01:31:53):
La it's not Joker one. It's one of the Wow wow.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
It is. But I don't you do not give that
whatever absolutely to play for that. This game has no
fucking integrity. If you give the name of the movie three.

Speaker 3 (01:32:11):
Tell me the name of the two, then Joker, the
Batman returns.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
Buzz, yes, Batman, Yes, what I said? Batman returns? Has
Michelle Pfeiffer his Catwoman? And is it Danny Devi?

Speaker 3 (01:32:30):
They're both penguin.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
That's it? Oh no, it's not. I got more, okay,
real quick, Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
Keller, Buzz cruel intentions, Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
God damn the movie hot. That was my sexual awakening.

Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
I think a lot of us.

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
That was a big one. The incest.

Speaker 3 (01:32:48):
I was just gonna say, it was like all the
inappropriate things.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
Okay, rich kids, fucking Don Rickles, Penjulette, buzz, cruel intentions. No, so,
John Ratzenberger, Tom Hanks, I don't know, Jesus, I don't know.
Did you say Pellette? I did? And Don Rickles?

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
Is this like Joe versus the Volcano? No?

Speaker 6 (01:33:12):
Is this.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
Pen made a movie?

Speaker 4 (01:33:16):
Is the Aristocrats?

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
No, oh, ship, that would have been a good one.
Slasher or whatever he came up he had it was
something else. Don Rickles, Pett's the Red Herring. Oh is
this gonna be.

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):
Something?

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
No, it's probably gonna just be a Las Vegas background. No,
this is a Pixar movie. The fuck? Oh what?

Speaker 3 (01:33:41):
Don Rickles one of those little African animals? What's that one? Madagascar?

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Racist? Not believe that's streamworks? Don Rickles, racist?

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
Bitch inside out?

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
Okay? Tim Allen, Oh, toy story, toy story, Don Rickles,
Penn Gillette. Yeah, apparently he got an IMDb.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
Oh yeah, what was he he was?

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
He was a voice?

Speaker 4 (01:34:06):
Yeah, I forget what Don Rickles, the first Slinky Dog, right,
I can't remember what.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
He was John Rat Don Rickles might have been mister
potato head. Oh, yes, he's mister potato Yeah. So now
I'm curious what Penn played. He might have just been
like a voice on a TV. No, I think he was.
I think he had a part of it.

Speaker 4 (01:34:31):
I don't know what it was.

Speaker 1 (01:34:32):
As we wrap up the show and remind you can
send up a Patreon dot com slash therapy. You can
get the extended show add free a day early, as
well as enjoy our live chat discord community and our
weekly deep dives, interviews, skill shares, research roundups and rants.
And we have somebody new to the Thera party who
has joined us at patre dot com slash Therapy producer

(01:34:53):
the wrong column, but it is a producer, Inca Prince Nice.
I feel like it's ONCA like I nka Ben was
the Trevy announcer.

Speaker 4 (01:35:05):
I was right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
I said he was a TV announcer. You didn't say
it loud. You should speak into the microphone. Yeah, I
should do that. We'd like to thank the benevolent, revered, generous,
and flagrantly pro therapy diehards who love you all so
much they give till it hurts that they're partners Dirty
Be and Pickett. And we want to especially think our
boss is the mysterious and shrouded Illuminati members of the
fan club that their producers thank you. Jake Schneider, Myra,

(01:35:27):
Robert Brownie Junior, Mint, Smitty Scoop, Richard Fucking Macy, Judy Schneider, Malia,
Leon Cassab, Carolyn Albert, Kevin Chamberlin, Tess Miller, Dan Martin,
Sammy Scoop Slerpi Kai Motherfucker, Ben Stanley Slapping your Face,
Sarah Smith, Adam Hathaway, Builer Team, Mike helm Oscar Swan Rose,
Paris A Sunny Boy, Darren Cunningham, Lib Team Nope, Sandra

(01:35:49):
Mcgwaffle Team, Monico, Thunder Cougar, Falcon Scoop, Heyo Hanna, Marie
Andrew Langmead, Emma Tonka and Pony Soprano Alina Cody, Delorian,
Guy Brady Malay, Chick Chick Filetio gabriel A Dame, Sean Sutherland,
Max the Ginger, Scoop, Chad mag Adam Warren and introducing
onca Le Prince.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
If you'd like to hear this episode, I'm cut and
un editude and why do you enjoy spontaneous side projects?
Go to patreon dot com slash Therapy and thank you
for supporting mental health and.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
Special congratulations to Therap producer Kevin Chamberlain who became an
honest man this last week and got himself married to
the woman who was secretly pining for Jacob's gray hair.
And if you'd like to support the show, you can
patreon dot com slash That's the one that wrote said
stealing my wife after Scoopfest, go find us on the socials,
or go fuck yourself. We don't care. Uh. And you

(01:36:38):
can submit questions of the show at Patreon dot com, Nope,
at what's our website, pot therapy.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
I want to questions the show as pod therapy dot
nuts at email us at pot therapy guys at gmail
dot com, or click the link in the episode description.

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
I'm Nick Tangeman, I'm Jim. Thanks and we'll see you
for appointments next week. Goodbye, a

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