My Big Fat Greek Wedding & Enmeshment

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brittany Brownfield and
I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes
and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and
all forms.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. So we are doing your guys'
pick for twenty twenty five, which is my big fat
Greek wedding. This movie One in a Landslide. I was
very surprised. I was very surprised as well. And I
don't think for nassarily for the romance. I think people
wanted to hear, want us to talk about the family

(01:10):
and guess what, everybody, You're gonna get what you paid
for because we were gonna talk about this family, yes
we are. So the topic for episodes today is enmeshment,
how it shows up in this family, kind of like
the cultural reasons for why some families can be more
in mesh than others, the consequences of enmeshment, which I
think is what we see a lot in this movie,

(01:30):
especially with Tula and her her individualism and confidence. And
they're also obviously going to talk about Ian and Tula's
relationship and how the family dynamic trickles down obviously and
impacts the relationship. And as always treatment and final thoughts.
So long story shorts. This movie is about a thirty

(01:51):
year old named Tula who feels very I would call
her a late bloomer, yes, and she doesn't really know
who she is. She's not very confident. She gets antagonized
a lot, in my opinion by a very big, close
Greek family yep. And then she meets say ugh non

(02:11):
Greek Amien and they fall in love and they get
married baby, And so that's this movie, all right, goodbye,
everybody have the firus episodes my fund So in Meshman,
I'm gonna throw it to you, Hannix. I know you
have a definition for enmeshment on deck. And also, this
is a word that's being used a lot in our culture,

(02:32):
so I wanted to make sure that we had a
firm understanding of what we mean as therapist when we
say in meshment.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
So the definition that I have is two or more people,
typically family members are involved in each other's activities and
personal relationships to an excessive degree.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Check check, check it, e check. In this movie, I
think all those are quite clearly exceeded.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Well right away.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
You are established in the movie that this family really
doesn't do anything without each other. They all work at
each other's businesses, They are constantly spending all their free
time together. This is a family that doesn't really have
a social life, it seems, outside of their relatives and

(03:29):
or maybe other Greek people in their community.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Right, their family and their community, their church.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yes, So why is it about this family specifically other
than what I just mentioned that we would say like oof,
this family is in meshed versusges, this is a close family,
or this is a family that's just like very family oriented,
Like why are we saying enmeshed and.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Meshment shows up in this family where you have everybody's
in each other's business all the time or specifically times
of what enmeshment looks like in families is where one
person is not allowed to completely express who they are
because they have to keep within the connection to the family,

(04:13):
the connection to another person.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
So in this.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Family, it's almost like everyone, every single person is en
meshed with the next person, which is pretty which in
some in some experiences, is pretty rare to have them
be inside of each other in that kind of way.
And we see with not only like what Brittany brought
up in the beginning about how they all work together,

(04:38):
about how they all spend all their time, they spend
all their time together, and also they're all in each
other's business, but they're in each other's business in a
way that puts all of the focus on one person's
specific part of their life. It seems like and romantic.
The romantic part of Tula's life is definitely one of

(04:59):
those areas where everyone gets involved in one way or another.
Everybody has an opinion about it. Yes, everybody says the
opinion out loud. Everyone feels like they have some kind
of ownership over the relationship that Tula does not have
or has had. Trouble finding, and the way that that

(05:23):
impacts each other is that it stops someone from being
able to develop because they have to be within these
certain realms in order to keep the family happy.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, I think something that you mentioned that to me
is like the ding ding ding.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
For why this family is unhealthily involved with each other
is what you said about like everyone's entitled to like
an opinion or like ownership over what everyone else is doing.
And that, to me is the difference between like a
close family and a mesh family is that it's one

(06:01):
thing if you share everything with people in your life,
Like if you have a kind of relationship with your
family where you can tell them everything that's going on,
you talk to them every day, multiple times a day,
and everybody knows what's going on with everybody else, that's
one thing. If that works for you, all, that's fine.
You know, Like we, or at least I don't want
to be encouraging any like hyperindividualism, which I think is

(06:23):
something that therapists are going to bad rap about right now.
Is that therapy encourages like this like I don't know
anybody anything kind of thing that's not true in a family.
If you guys are all close, and that feels good
to everybody. That's a fine what you were saying, Hannah, though,
is the problem, which is when everyone feels like they
are allowed to say whatever they want and that everyone's

(06:46):
allowed to have an opinion about what everybody else is
doing in a way that's not even like advice. It's
controlling because when Tula gets told stuff or other people
get told stuff in this movie about themselves, it's not
like oof, like I don't know if you would really
like that, you know, you did like art instead of
this maybe should take our class. It's like, how could

(07:06):
you do that to me?

Speaker 4 (07:09):
The family?

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Everything's taken very personally, very personally, and like it's also
very like I'm allowed to tell you what to do
versus you're grown up and I can still give you,
like maybe my opinion out of what I want for you,
versus like I'm still allowed even though you're an adult,

(07:33):
to tell you what to do, and you should listen.
If you don't listen, you're doing something to me or
you're doing something to the family. Like That's what I
think of with enmeshment, is like you guys are up
each other's butts, like you're entangled like there is no me,
there is no you, it's us.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
I think that's the the key phrase right there, that one.
There is no me without us, there is no me,
it's us. As how do we advance our group, our people,
our values, our family and you and your wants and
your individuality are not even secondary to that, It's there

(08:14):
is no secondary.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
There is antagonistic towards us. If you have things individual wants.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Right, even must advance within the singular viewpoint that the
family has always had, which usually comes down to a
figurehead and what they are espousing. Everyone else's viewpoints are,
and that everyone else must be adherent to that to
be good enough to be accepted to make their own way,

(08:42):
and their own way is whatever path everyone else is
determined it to be no variation on that.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Well, yeah, like Tula's only options are to get married
to work at the restaurant. Everyone's options are like, well,
you're either going to work at this family thing or
this family thing, and any divergence from these spoken unspoken
rules within the family is considered radical. It is radical

(09:10):
to take a community college class one in computers. Maybe
it is radical to change the style artistic styling of
the family at restaurant menu, like any toe that anyone
takes out of out of the circle to do anything different,

(09:32):
if you will, is seen as an affront and is
like a radical thing to do. There's like no wiggle room.
And then obviously with the Ian situation, Tula, that's a
bigger version of that. Like you were saying, Hannah, like, romantically,
who you marry isn't just like who you're marrying. You're

(09:52):
bringing someone into our lives, into our family. We all
we're all marrying Ian. If you're marrying Ian, And I.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Feel like the other things, what it really stops, is
it really stops anyone being allowed to do or go
for something that they're actually interested in. Your interests all
have to be the same, You all have to be
working towards the same goal, and you can't And again
that kind of like you can't step out of line.
And so I feel like where we see Nick the
brother bring the menus with different art on them, where.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
We see.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Tula trying to ask to do something different and wanting
to work at the agency, they have to do this
whole trick and pony show for the dad in order
for him to say yes, Like he's the one who
has to agree to everything before we can make any
before anything can really start happening. Where normally, if somebody

(10:48):
wants to take a college course, you just sign up
and take the course. It doesn't have to be approved
by especially when you're thirty fucking years old, it doesn't
have to be approved by the head of the family.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Well, you brought up that point right then, that there
usually is ahead of the family, and in this one it's.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Gus Gus, Yes, definitely.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
And yeah, like what you were saying, Hannah, Well yeah,
And what you were saying, Hannah, is that even for
her to take a college course, to still to do that,
they have to convince him that it's connected to the
rules of the family. Basically, they have to convince him
that it's in service of the family, and it isn't

(11:33):
Tula stepping out of the family. So she's not breaking
a rule to do that. She is following the family
in measurement rule in just a way that could look
like she was stepping out, Like all this work to
please him and to stay in line with what he wants,
and the fact that that's treated and encouraged for Tula

(11:55):
like that is okay.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's encouraged. Yeah, just okay, that's it.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
And it's actually like smart and wiley to do that.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
It's just this is the way. That's it. This is
the way. Yeah, there's no other way. And it's really
clear that the children of the next generations are starting
to view this as quite outdated and recognizing how different
it feels from the way their peers family are run,

(12:25):
while the older generations are looking at it like, yeah,
what do you expect this way? It is? You just
that's what you do. You work in the restaurant. It's
your family's restaurant. Your father built it as the restaurant.
What do you mean do something else. You're gonna be
in the restaurant. Why wouldn't you be in the restaurant?
Her monologue like, right in the beginning of Greek women
are expected to do a couple things. Mary cook Greek food,

(12:52):
Mary Greek men cook Greek food, make Greek babies.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
It's a very narrow view of what a woman's life
could be like.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, and so before we get into the consequences of enmeshment,
which we're kind of touching on, let's take a break
here and then talk about like the cultural reasons why
a family like hers would be so enmeshed. All right,
So before we jump too hard at critiquing this family

(13:24):
even more, we wanted to make sure, though, to establish
up top that there are a lot of very understandable
reasons for a family to be in mesh in the
way that we are seeing them in this movie. This
is obviously a movie, given the title, that centers their culture,

(13:45):
their Greekness, around why their family operates the way that
it does, and touches upon that throughout the movie. Obviously,
So up top, as we are all three non Greeks, yes, yes,
or any of you as are hiding some from.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Me, I'm pretty firmly Northern European according to my genetic tests.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, And so one thing we do want to acknowledge
is this is a family of people that are first
gen is who immigrated to the country.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
It Okay, so he talks about he came to the
country with.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
Eight thousand dollars in his pocket something classic. Yeah, so
Tula is a first gen correct.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
So one thing when to say is that we aren't Greek.
And so I'm sure there is a lot of part
of the Greek culture that we don't. We don't know
because we don't experience it. That does create this dynamic
we are seeing in the movie. And then also something
some things that are probably specific to being Greek. I

(14:49):
know something you mentioned Ben before I started recording is
that the country of Greece was going through a lot
of turmoil.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
I mean historically Greece, historically by a great many nations,
in particular Turkey. Greece has been invaded a lot. Think
about the course of history, how many wars that there
have been in that region. And for that reason, there's

(15:20):
been a lot of genetic cleansing. Greeks have been enslaved,
and they have been viewed as less than and they
have gone through a whole lot of loss and violence.
We see the grandmother character in this constantly in a
state of trauma. The Turks are invading again, and that

(15:43):
is something that happened a lot. So when you think
about a people that have had to lean into their
own genetic identity for safety, it explains a lot of
where the enmeshment may come from, because outsiders were seeking
to kill or enslave their people. So therefore trust no

(16:03):
one who is in Greek gets to be very very
simple and rooted in survival. Are they Greek? No, then
they are in our friends. If you're the child of
war or the child of a child of war, you
or train your children to understand the world from the
frame point you understand it.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
And the movie, even though it is played for jokes,
they clearly inform us that the turmoil was so bad
in just their like immediate famili's memory, that their grandmother,
the grandmother is having like yeah, PTSD, you know, maybe
like dementiaes PTSD field flashbacks, but she is having PTSD,

(16:47):
so it was bad enough that she's still experiencing the
intensity of that, and her son chose to leave their
country and come to another country and bring her with him, obviously.
And so then the other layer to this is, you know,
being immigrants to America, a country that famously likes to

(17:14):
treat every wave of whatever country immigrants is coming in
as like the new parasite. As much as we like
to pretend though we are like a melting pot, as
we like to say, or that we are like immigrants welcome.
If there's one thing that America is good at, it's
like choosing one scapegoat per immigration cycle. Yes, so immigrating

(17:36):
here just compounds like these protective the protective nature of enmeshment.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Of course it does, because you are moving to a
place that is very different than where you are from,
and literally everything is different. Chicago does not look a
single thing like Greece. What what even though this movie
takes place here, and even Greek Town is a thing. Yeah,
it is not a tremendously large area, No, but it exists,

(18:05):
but it's not big and it certainly doesn't look anything
like Greece. And you don't see Greek people everywhere like
you would in the country of Greece. So people that
move here obviously are going to want to create a
community around other people that they feel at home around.
And that's normal. That's normal for anybody that moves anywhere.

(18:27):
Is to want to keep some sense of familiarity, because
that's how we foster safety. We find things that are
familiar because then we understand how to operate within a culture.
And human beings are at our core social beings. Part
of our neurological structure wants us to connect to other

(18:48):
humans because animals that get isolated in the wild die,
So we learn to connect to other people and the
other people that are like us. Is really simple, and
it's understandable why we see this entire community of this
family lean further and further into those traditions as they

(19:10):
are farther and farther away, especially from what their parents
would know. The more emigrated families integrate into the place
they emigrated too, the more the children by generation become
more like the people of the new country.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
Well, yeah, which being Americanized or wherever.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, But they the parents who see them becoming exposed
to more and more culturalisms that are unfamiliar to them
and feel dangerous and threatening, and like they lose their
children and lose their own identity by losing their children.
Starts to become a pretty big conflict.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
So why you see so much pressure for the enmeshment,
Because no, we have to keep them Greek, keep them
Greek Orthodox. They can't change religion, they can't step outside
of the family because if the family doesn't approve, we'll
be bringing in people that aren't safe.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, and also makes more sense of why there's this
idea that you only work at family businesses that their
safety to that too, Like you're not going to get fired,
you're not going to be discriminated against.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
You know, you can we can depend on the family.
And they did really well.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Like they have a lot of businesses if they run
so they are doing kind of what we would call
like the quote unquote American dream of like coming here
and being like very self sufficient within their family.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Absolutely, and so one I.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Can also understand the attack, like the attachment to those
achievements as well of like I mean, I would understand
how it would probably feel really heartbreaking if you work
really hard to build a business and you have kids
and then none of your kids want to take over
that business and the business just dies on the vine.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
That would be really hard, you know.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
And and also so this idea that yeah, you came here,
you created this foundation for your children, and you want
them to appreciate it and then also take advantage of it.
And so I get there's a lot of safety within.
Don't venture too far outside the house. You can work

(21:19):
somewhere else, but you can work at your aunt's travel agency.
And then like you were saying, you're going to marry someone,
can we trust them? Do they get it? Do they
understand us? Are we starting to like water down our culture?
Which is why with situations like this, there might be
the request, like with Ian, of converting to their religion
as a way to take the edge off of that,

(21:40):
take the sting out of that.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Oh, if they don't, they won't be recognized by the church.
That'd be a constant source of shame for the whole
family have been expected to not ever acknowledge them as
married according to the church. The Orthodox churches are very
very strict.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
What are other other things that you see hand in
terms of like cultural reasonings, protective factors around and meshment.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
I don't know if I feel like there's anything else
that needs to be said about it. I think that
a lot of times families do what they have to
in order for them to survive, and especially when they're
not from this country, that's, you know, a big ask,
especially in America, you have to do a lot of
different things to protect the culture from being appropriated, from

(22:30):
being misunderstood. It definitely makes sense for this family why.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
They are so enmeshed. And I feel like also in
some ways kind of when the whole family is in
such a dynamic where everything revolves around exactly what's happening
in the family all the time, that's all everybody is
ever talking about and that's all you're ever doing.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
That that makes you almost detached from the rest of
the culture that's around you in general as well. So
then and then the only way to keep that culture
up is to continue to do things within the family.
So you also the there's a really big lack of
even wanting to try something different, of even thinking about

(23:19):
something different. Like those things just aren't gonna happen because
it's not what well.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
It's not what feels safe.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, And you can see also Gus, like there's that
clip in the beginning when they're in the car and
he's expounding about Greece and she says that my dad
will bring anything back to Greek culture. Yes, like every
like word is relating Greek culture. Yeah, things like that.
And at the time I was I was kind of pondering,

(23:49):
is this same reaction to maybe like guilt for like,
because I'm like a third generation immigrant technically, so like
I feel very far removed from.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
All this kind of stuff, And.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
I wonder, like, was is he feeling guilt for like
leaving his country, And so there's like this overcompensation for
bringing up Greece all the time. It's like, you know,
but Greek is the best, and even though I left Greece,
like they're still the best at everything, and like needing
to make that known all the time. But now as
we're talking about it, I also wonder if there's also
a bit of there's such a pool in American culture

(24:24):
to assimilate understandably, so, yes, and I wonder if that
is him also kind of trying to battle that with
his children of like, you will want to assimilate, and
I'm trying to remind you that like that's not necessarily
the best option assimilating. We come from a great culture

(24:46):
and you don't have to assimilate to be proud of
yourself to feel good.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, of course, it's the struggle that all immigrant families
go through. You eventually run into the reality that you
did leave. You do still have family connections that are
back there. In some cases you are doing quite a
bit better than they are, And there is guilt and

(25:11):
grief and a sense of loss of your own culture
that you are trying to resist and that people struggle with.
And I think Gus probably does struggle with that and
still wants people, especially his children, who aren't going to
know Greece like he does, having not ever lived there.
Although oftentimes people are from Greek families are do a

(25:36):
lot of vacationing with family in Greece, but they still
will never have the experience of being Greek from Greece,
and the parent is always going to have that as
part of their identity. The person who emigrated will always
be where they are from first, and so long as
that's making up their identity, they're going to resist changes

(25:57):
that make them step away from that. Everyone does. Not
Speaking English is difficult in America, yes, and if you
don't have people that also speak the language you do
to consult on how to emigrate here, you may get
difficult answers, like on the culture of Chicago, especially downtown

(26:21):
area where Greek Town is just to the west of
downtown that's just off South Loop, and where Gus would
have struggled moving here is encountering that had he had
a question or anythink, he would have encountered people being
like why the fuck are you talking to me? As
their immediate basis. They may have gotten past that, but
it wouldn't have been friendly faces of do you need help?

(26:43):
That It would be a vast minority of Chicagoans that
would do that for him, and leaning into other people
who are of his culture, he would have been able
to learn what he needed to do to navigate this complicated,
ridiculous bureaucracy of America.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
I also imagine with what you're saying about Gus in
Chicago that like the people that are finally like I'm
finally being seen as part of the end group here
in Chicago. So don't come over here with your Greek
accent fuck my shit up, like you stay over there
like that protective nature. Unfortunately, that happens with like assimilating
into a culture like America.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, I think that generally happens. I'm not aware of
that happening to Greek, but that also is because I'm
not Greek, so no one would have told me that story.
I'm sure they exist. I've heard lots of the Italian ones, yeah,
but the and Polish and others. It's true that you know,
once people get a foothold it, you know, the assimilation starts.

(27:41):
But that that's too where that guilt that you're mentioning
comes in is people still want to maintain a connection
to what feels like home and what feels right to them,
because everywhere in the world has a different way of
doing things, and no one's right or wrong. It just is.
But if it's right to you, you're going to it,

(28:01):
and it will feel weird to you to let it
go because you'll be abandoning what is your home.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
So why don't we take another break here and we'll
be back with consequences of enmeshment. As much as we've
sort of been like doing a lot of justifying and
understanding why the family is enmeshed, we've also been talking
about how there's a tipping point where this community togetherness
starts to outlast its use, its function, if you will,

(28:32):
And this will happen in what we see with like
Tula and Nick, because as you mentioned before, it's recording
Ben Nick's pretty well, it's not his story. Maybe it
was a Nick's story, we would see more Nick, but
it's Tula's story, so we don't see as much of Nick.
He's kind of in the periphery all the time. But
this idea of you can't let your child become their

(28:54):
own person outside of what the family has sanctioned appropriate
and so because of that, how can you develop as
an individual if you aren't allowed to even be curious
about your interests and what maybe makes you and not
even different than the family, just what makes you unique.

(29:17):
And like with Nickots's art and with Tula, I don't
know does she figure out what makes her unique other
than like doing computer classes with the travel agency and
meeting Anne.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
And she's clearly smart and she likes smart. She likes
to modernize things, and she wants to take lessons in
computer classes. And she also has felt two thousand and
two right, and she's felt like pretty consistently kind of
on the outskirts of the cultures or her you know,
meeting somebody that will accept her for her.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yes, well, yeah, you're making a great point, which is
that a consequence for someone like Tula is if you
don't fit in yep, to the family that you're in
mesh within. But that is her big sin, that's her
uniqueness which is fucking her up, correct, is that she's
not conventionally Greek hot like her cousin Nikki. Mm hmmm, yeah,

(30:15):
so she isn't dating, She isn't like I mean, the
amount of times they talk about her appearance. Everyone in
this fucking movie has a fucking opinion about how she looks.
And not only the opinion about how she looks, Tula,
but they also the amount of times that they say
that she's not attractive.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
She looks old is the most common one they give.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, yeah, the amount of times that they but the
amount of times that everybody makes a comment about that
or everyone is like worried about it, and everyone's talking
about it, and meanwhile Tula is just meant to what
not absorb any of those thoughts or feelings.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
How she clearly does, and.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
She clearly soaks them up because we can tell that
she doesn't feel good, she doesn't look happy, she doesn't
feel like she she also doesn't feel like she knows
who she is.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yeah, she's When we first meet her, she's doing nothing
to accentuate the features that she could feel good about
herself about. People tend to highlight the features of themselves
that they feel good about, and she does none of
that until later in the movie, where she starts feeling
secure enough in herself to go like, you know what,

(31:26):
I am smart and I can do this, and I
am kind of pretty. If I make myself look this way,
and then well look at that, I look way better
and I feel good and I'm shopping in buying clothes
that don't make me look like I'm wearing hand me
downs from nineteen eighty three.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
She just really dresses like she's she is stuck in time,
like the outpha she wears in the very first like
cafe scene, yes, where she's serving coffee, she looks great, Like,
I'm just like.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Girl, who what ben.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
In?

Speaker 4 (31:58):
Who's relatives house? Did you get this clothes?

Speaker 3 (32:00):
I mean you already know the answer to that.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
You're probably one of your aunts or like an older
cousin her mother. But yeah, this is what's so enraging
about this movie when I was watching it, is like
you guys are so preoccupied with how she looks and
her being confident if you will, yet no connecting dots
in your brains about the fact that, like, the way

(32:24):
you're treating her is why she feels like this.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
Like cutting her down at every opportunity.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
You're cutting her down. You're not.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
But they're also not supporting her learning anything about herself.
They're not supporting her until and only until she already
does the work on herself. Then they begin to support her.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, because if she's told her whole life, because it
seems like she's been told since she hit tween years,
maybe not even puberty, about how she looks, Like, then
you're just going to accept at a certain point, I
guess I'm just ugly of how my family or how
the culture talks about beauty. So if I've decided I'm

(33:05):
just ugly, then I will just not do anything to
not be ugly.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
What's the point.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, So her also leaning into not taking care of
her physical appearance makes sense to me from someone who
at some point just gave up. You know, I'm not
going to meet the standards of this family. I'm just
not naturally Baba boom in the way that like my
cousin Nikki is or my aunts are or whatever.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
So who cares what I look like?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
I can't be what they want, So I'm just going
to give up, which is so much of what we've
been talking about. You could also define as like rigidity
in this family, like it's very all or nothing. Either
you're fully in or you're you're betraying us. Yes, what
does he say when she wants to say the commuter class,
why you want to leave me?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Because she wants to take a community culture class, and
so there's this idea that like you can't there's no nuance,
there's no grayer of anything. So I think how choseo
Fortula is she's given up on how she looks, she's
given up on being marriageable. She's really taken on the
mantle of not even like a late bloomer, like it

(34:09):
never was.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
And the consequences of enmeshment are that unless you can
meet the pre established criteria, then you are constantly reminded
of what you do not meet and aren't built up
in a way that allows you to meet any markers
of growth that are possible for you.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, And I think what her family. What I want
to distinguish as well when this comes up with the
clients I work with, which is that there is nothing
like that. Don't think's being through close to your family.
And there's a difference between being really up each other's
butts and being unconsiderate, inconsiderate, and unkind. There's also a

(34:54):
certain level of like normalized criticism in this family. Yes,
I would even say normalized meanness. Yeah, that's different than
being close, and that is to me where it really
turns into more like toxic enmeshment because a lot of
enmeshment because it's so we're allowed to have opinions about

(35:15):
each other. There is this like freeness about how you
talk about each other to each other's face a lot
of the time.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
And that's okay.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
The way that I'm allowed to have an opinion about
myself that's not kind. If I also view Hannah as
my arm, then I'm also allowed to talk to her
in an unkind way that I would talk to myself.
And so that's where it starts to veer from just
like we're really close knit family to we are in
mesh in a way that's not.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Healthy, or that we say it within earshot, yes, because
we pretend that somebody won't hear it, or that somebody
who will tell them it was said won't tell them,
and it's neither of those are ever true. I'd go
back to Thomas Pain on that one. The only way
three men can keep a secret as if two of

(36:04):
them are dead, Yes, that before that is true. And
looking at like these things with enmeshment, you see is
like a lack of confidence, a feeling of I can
never be good enough, I can never be enough. And
there was a study done on how people and animals,
in particular how animals respond to punishment. With the dog

(36:24):
on an electrified floor, where they would rotate around where
the food was, where the safe sun was. There's four panels,
four quadrants of electrified floor, and they would mix up
when the dog would get a shock, where where it
would step, and then when it could get food so
it could get a reward. They found when the dog
could figure out when the dog was going to get shocked,

(36:45):
you'd just hang out wherever he wasn't going to get shocked,
and whether the food was present there or not. He'd
wait until he wasn't going to get shocked to go eat,
and he'd figure out the pattern and be okay with it.
When the dog couldn't figure out when he was going
to get shocked, he wouldn't move. When he got shocked
for doing anything, he wouldn't move. And when you see

(37:05):
someone like Tula giving up because no matter what she does,
she's not good enough. Yeah, she's not gonna try, or
she'll believe she's just stupid and her ceiling has already
been met because her purpose has been fulfilled. According to
her family. Oh wait, no, sorry, we're talking about Tula.
That's Nick. Nick feels like he's reached his ceiling because

(37:27):
everyone's probably kind of told him, Yeah, Nick's kind of
a fuck up. Nick's kind of dumb. I don't know.
I don't know Nick Wood does. But Nick is clearly
a gifted and talented artist. But that's not seen or
reinforced or rewarded by the family because it's not seen
as something that has value to the family, to the
point that even something that would have value is rejected

(37:48):
because it wasn't Gus's idea.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
And when you have these very specific boxes you're allowed
to be in that if you can't fulfill those boxes,
you will feel like a failure.

Speaker 4 (38:02):
Like there's e.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Einstein quote right of like if you judge a fish
by how while it rides a bicycle, I think it's
fucking stupid, basically, yeah, And so I think, thank you,
he would have liked it.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
And so with Tula, she.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Is very smart and and maybe even like ambitious, right,
And that's not a characteristic that you're allowed to be
as a woman in this family. So she is judging
herself by how while she rides a bike basically, and
that ain't good. And so she just thinks that she's
a failure. Similar to Nick, if he was allowed to

(38:41):
be curious about all the parts of him that could
be intelligent and strong, he would feel better about himself.
But no, you're only allowed to judge yourself based on
these like very narrow traits and very narrow roles. And
so if you just if you're just unlucky enough basically
to just not be able to fulfill those roles, well
you're fucked. And that's also where a lot of this

(39:03):
judgment can come from, where it really is like luck,
like her older sister Athena just happening to check all
the boxes within the family system, that's just luck, Nikki
being like conventionally attractive, that's just luck within their narrow
view of.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
It, within the genetic lottery, it's luck.

Speaker 4 (39:23):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
And it's also luck to like intelligence wise, to be
interested and intelligent in the very narrow interest pool that
you're allowed to be interested in. And it is stifling,
it's truly stifling, and people will just stop growing.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Especially because they can't even think about their wants or
needs at all. They're not allowed to have them. So
if you're not allowed to have them, you're not allowed
to voice them. Then what's the what's the point.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
Or do you even know this? Things exist?

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yeah, if you're in such a close, closed system, how
would you know if you're good at art unless you
happen to come across something that inspires you, or good
at something like technology and computers. I think one of
the great things about I guess the Internet is that
it's exposed a lot of people to more ideas like, Oh,

(40:21):
I didn't realize like that could be something you could do,
and I think that's something I could be good at.
And prior to that, unless you were resilient enough to
go out there and look for it, if it wasn't
shown to you, you wouldn't even realize that it is
something that's a positive, like a strength.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Why would you?

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (40:44):
And the deeper that goes into our sense of self,
I'm not good enough becomes a core belief yes, and
then it becomes the way they view themselves in the
world all the time. And if no matter what I do,
I won't be good enough comes to be a core

(41:05):
belief for a person, they don't have any more internal
reason to try because they've already decided, because they've been
shown and told that they're not enough, that you can't
be enough, Like, why can't you just be prettier? Anybody

(41:26):
else been successful at that?

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Ever, the way that they're treating how Tula looks like
she's doing something wrong. Yes, right, Because what I do
like about this movie is that even when she quote
unquote like makes herself over, she still looks like her.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
She hasn't gotten a nose job.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
She hasn't like gotten like, she hasn't done that horrible
thing where they put there in like a fat suit.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah, and she loses a bunch of weight.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Like she really just starts taking care of her She
gets a curly hair routine that works for her, She
pulls her hair away from her goddamn face, probably starts
finding a good skincare routine, and maybe starts wearing clothes
that she.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
Picks out herself. Yeah fit her.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yes, And that's really all that she does differently is
she just starts taking better care of herself, But she
doesn't change how she looks.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
She couldn't wear a cool tracksuit like Joey Fatone, so.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
You know, swishing swishing, swishing everywhere you go?

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, are we talking about windexer tracksuits?

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Both if you're lucky.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
And what I do appreciate that about this movie is
that she does all that before she meets Ian. That also,
it wasn't this thing where an attention from a man
made her finally start taking care of herself better. That
as she got more confident she disagree with me.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Then partially it was I disagree.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
With you, disagree with my chip, I disagree with ben Oh.
I'm just saying that.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
Just the same because she was rejecting it. But Ian
paying attention to her though she like, I'm not saying
he's the cause of her change, her getting confidence in
like realizing she did a step up in the world.
I'm not crediting like a man paying attention to her
as her change. But I think the story hinted for
her that her believing somebody could possibly be interested in

(43:25):
her nonspecific to Ian, somebody that looked like Ian being
interested in her genuinely no qualmed about it. The way
Ian was presented as like smiling at her, looking at her,
being tuning into her, that was the catalyst for change
in the story of Like seeing that change. I don't
think that's the psychological reason why Tula changed. I think

(43:47):
Tula realized that she isn't working for Tula here.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yeah, that's what I kind of read it as. More
is like that was kind of her final straw. Yeah,
where she was like, this isn't working, like I'm not
getting anything I want in this life.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Well like this and right, and the man that is,
the one man that is showing attention to her wasn't
Greek and therefore wasn't available. I think that dynamic produced
the change of realizing I can't play this game and
win no matter what I do. Like this man who

(44:24):
looks perfectly fine, This is a handsome man who's interested
in me, and I can't even I couldn't even have
him in the fay I wanted to because he's not Greek,
so I can't win against my face. I think that's
where she realized I am playing a game that is
a trap, and then I like, fuck this shit. I
need to do the things that work for me.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
And I think what she does, which is very masterful
and insightful, is she's just pushing a little, like she's
still trying to evolve within the framework of her family,
Like I'll just work at the travel agency, you know
what I mean, Like Yeah, she's not trying to go
full I don't know, like teenager, full rebel fuck you guys,

(45:03):
like I'm gonna be goth and I'm gonna go to
art school and you guys gonna fuck yourself. She is
still trying to please them in a way, which is
something else I wish they'd appreciate more in this movie.
Like she's she's being very appeasing. Still, she wants to
be close to you guys. She's trying to make it
work in a way that doesn't make her die on

(45:24):
the inside.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Yeah, she's not running in and being like so hard
like a prop mawk and you know, disrupting everything.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
She's not like moving to a different town or going
away to college. She's just trying to like make a
little corner of their world that she can fit in
and be herself ish without ruffling too many feathers. And
even that isn't good enough until the well it gets there.

(45:52):
But but I think another consequence I did want to
make sure to bring up though, with the Tula thing
and with Nick two, is that when you have a
family that's this close, that's enmeshed, when someone isn't having
a good time within that system when the system isn't
working for them, so they start branching out.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
What do they do? They start keeping secrets?

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
And so Nick is keeping his artistic endeavor secret, his
artistic desires at least, and then Tula is keeping her
whole relationship with Ian secret.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
She's making up.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
That pottery class. She's like full blown, like having a secret.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
From a completely secret experience from her family.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
And what does her dad say? Why is nobody telling
me nothing?

Speaker 4 (46:39):
Why the fuck do you think? Asshole? Which is this?

Speaker 1 (46:42):
This is also when I work with families that have
this stuff going on. This is the unfortunate side effect,
ironic consequence of being sold up each other's asses is
that then when your kid or whoever your loved one
wants to do their own thing, saying, they will ironically
tell you.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Less, not ironically naturally right, Well, yeah, they don't naturally
tell you wrong or tell you less because you haven't
made it safe to tell them a goddamn thing. Because
anything anything Tula does, any single thing she does, is
used against her because some way, shape or form, her
dad is going to find some way that it is wrong,

(47:26):
and then everybody else in her family is going to
hear about it, and they're going to tell her it's wrong,
and she's wrong. She's always been wrong. She's more wrong
than she's ever been, and she's always wrong.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
This is the ironic thing that I try to emphasize
to families in this kind of situation, is that, especially
when I work with parents and teenagers, if you let
your kids, if you let your loved ones have some privacy,
I would argue boundaries, Yes, they are more likely to
ironically tell you more counterintuitively tell you more. Like I said,

(47:59):
it goes back to that all or nothingness. Either we
know everything or I can't tell you anything.

Speaker 4 (48:04):
And so if you.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Let people feel like they're allowed to keep seecrets, allowed
to have private information, then they are more likely to
feel like they can tell you something, especially in the
situation like you were saying, Ben, where if I tell
one person this fucking family, by midday, my second cousin
knows what's going on, yep, and everyone has a fucking opinion.

(48:25):
It's like living with like a fucking Reddit board that's
screaming in your face, you.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
And so part of that too is there might be
things that you just want to tell your mom, you
just want to tell your dad, your cousin, your brother
without telling everybody else. And so this is a byproduct
of this leaky faucet communication where everybody gets where everything

(48:51):
that gets told to anybody gets kind of put up
on the wall for everyone to see and read and
comment on. Is that then people just keep things to themselves?
I fundy this family is a ton.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Of secrets, guarantee.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
Oh for sure, more secrets than they have they were unenmeshed, yes.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
And they spend a lot of energy faking, and they
create parts that fit into their family, and then other
parts that the parts that fit in their family have
to reject in order to operate, which is really tricky
for people. But it's it's always interesting to see how
many pregnant teenagers drop out of Catholic school. Only people

(49:30):
who don't have sex go there.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Right right, you're making the.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Yeah, you're pretending like the narratives being upheld upheld by
just rejecting what doesn't comply correct. And I think, going
back to what you're saying of the parts part, are
we finally ready to talk about the neck analogy?

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Her mother says that she is the neck and that
she she has control.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
Over which way the head turns.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
The woman controls the moves the head or whatever she says,
turns the head.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
The man is the head, Yes, the man is the head,
but the woman the.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Woman, which I feel like is what you're saying, Ben,
which is trying to legitimize the position therein which is
I'm stuck as a woman. I'm stuck in this powerless
position because we are in a system that adheres to
very specific conservative gender roles. Yes, and so in order

(50:30):
to feel unimburdened by that, or just in denial of that,
I create this idea that I actually, well, I do
have more power. Actually, it's like in the House of
the Dragon, which Ben, you still have not watched, when
one woman says to the other woman, you are trying
to build a window in your cell. I am not

(50:52):
trying to be a prisoner at all. When the mom
said that, I was like, I know what you're saying,
and I also know what you mean. And you're trying
to make meaning out of this position you're in. Yeah,
And then and.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
You're joining also trying to give yourself and your daughter
hope by using while using that language of like you'll
have control over someone's neck. At some point you'll be
able to have more flexibility in your life.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
And it's like, no, bitch, I don't want to be
someone else's neck. I don't want to be someone else's neck.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah, last I checked, the neck is still under the head.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah, exactly. That would be a good comeback to that.
But yeah, and it's the that's all, that's the whole thing.
When they were doing the whole like where her aunt
came in and they were talking to her gusts and
trying to make the computer thing seem like his idea. Yeah,
it's that idea of Like then they can kind of
pat themselves in the back, like see, like we really
run the world women behind these men.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
But it's like you still don't have power.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
You still don't have power. You still had to convince
him of something that wasn't true. You still had to
lie about where it came from, You had to lie
about your ambition for it.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
You had to.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
Pretend that only what that, only what Gus.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Could see, was acceptable because in this specific family system, culturally,
the male ego is the most important, and so that
by definition, will create a situation where the women in
this system are under not under well, under the thought,

(52:23):
but also stifle.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
The stifles a great way to put it.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Actually, it's an important way to look at what felt
like an empowering moment in the movie, but it wasn't. No,
you know, and it's it's the mom thinks she's being empowering.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
The mom says a few things where she thinks that
she's being empowering, Like she says, like, we gave you
a life so that you could live it. And it's like, really,
you say that, that's a nice thing to put on
a pillow.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
Yeah, but are you living that?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
Nope?

Speaker 4 (52:53):
Are you showing that to your daughter or your son,
or your other daughter or anybody anybody?

Speaker 3 (52:59):
She has a short to her No, oh.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
God, yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yeah, but you're making a great point because also, like
with the thing with the mom and all these like
gender roles in this movie that are so adhered to,
is there also she is saying to her daughter, I
give you a life. I give you a woman's life
so you can live it to a point, and you
have to find the man that actually lets you live
life through and you have to get power through the man.

(53:23):
So then if you can't get a man.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
You can't have power.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
You're powerless. You are a nothing burger. You are a
piece of furniture on the wall that we have to
kind of like work our way around.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Less than you're like that, like shameful painting that like are.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah, she's Charlotte Lucas, babe, she's twenty seven, and she's
a burden on her parents.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yep, yep, yeah, already a burden on my parents.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
So she fucking says, and I'm scared, Lizzie.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
Yeah, but those are the things that you see as
a consequence. For sure. It's like you look at that
and go like, oh see, you thought you were providing
me like a statement in powerment like this is. But
this is just how it is, is how you have
to operate the culture. And in some respects, there are
things about any culture that are bigger than any of
us and that to be accepted we have to follow. However,

(54:16):
that doesn't mean that the children of the next generation
are going to have to find their way the same
way you had to find yours, because you gave them
that life to live. And there's a Hebrew proverb about
that that I discovered that I think I really I
could probably talked about it before, but is don't confine
your children to your own learning, for they are of

(54:40):
a different time. Yeah, and I feel like Mom did
not pass that test with this lesson.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
That is her reality the same way that Tula doesn't
escape it when she says to her daughter at the
end of the film, you still have to go to
Greek school, but you can marry whoever you want. But
she still can only be married. She still can only
have worth in the same fucking way that Tula has worth.
She can't even give her her daughter the flexibility of

(55:09):
not going to Greek school, which she fucking hated, or
even just like you could.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
Be whoever you want.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, gotta go to Greek school, but then you can
do whatever you want, yeah, instead of just you can marry.
Thank you for that, for that millimeter. Yeah, closer to feminism.
Yeah right, but I still get married. But he could
be he could be anybody. He doesn't have to be Greek. Wow, crazy,
Thanks mom? Right.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
You know where I've seen the best example of that ever,
And I'm gonna say this before we take a break here,
because we do is in Bluie Blue. Repeatedly in one episode,
as they're taking out garbage. Bins starts talking about all
the things she wants to do, and she asked her dad, Dad,
do you think one day I could be at astronaut?
And he just looks at her and goes, if you like, dad,

(55:53):
maybe one day I'll be a police officer. What do
you think about that? If you like just that gentle
little reminder, that's how you encourage curiosity, that's how you
override that. You give people the space to you don't
offer an opinion on just if that's what you'd like
to do. Cool, We'll accept you, We'll love you, you

(56:15):
will have all that you need, Your family will not
leave you if you dare go to college. Why don't
we take a break here and we'll move into the
next topic.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
All right, So obviously give this the FLLA nine d
A episode. We wanted to make sure for at least
five minutes to talk about Ian and Tula's relationship, as
that is the reason why I was on this poll
to begin with.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
And so.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
What sticks out to us in terms of everything we've
talked about so far, because we wanted to make sure
to talk about and meshment up top because obviously all
the things we've discussed Trickle into the Ian Tula relationship,
because he isn't just marrying her, he is marrying her
family and.

Speaker 4 (56:59):
The opposite of his yes by a mile by about
every way you could be, every way he could be,
which he seems to be quite happy about.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
Yeah, he doesn't seem to have fetishize it. I think
he just accepts her and all that comes with it.
At least that's the way he's portrayed. I mean, I'm
sure there's more to you know, a real person who's
not a snapshot.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
Yeah, he's astoundingly easygoing.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
He's very easy going, he's very flexible, he's very kind.
He doesn't really buy into the family's enmeshment when the
whole thing happens where they find out about him and
he comes to talk to Gus and get to get

(57:46):
permission to date Tula, and basically the dad says no,
because of course he does, and he just kind of
like okay, walks into thegether room and said I'll see you,
I'll see you tomorrow. Like he doesn't start to a
fight with the dad. He doesn't. He's just like, I'm
not gonna be a part of this. This is unnecessary
I'm gonna go talk to the person that I really

(58:07):
give a shit, who's what they think of me? And
then I'm gonna walk the fuck out of the room. Like,
I think Ian is a much more stable partner in
this relationship than Tula is because I think Ian knows
a little bit more about who he is.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
Well, Ian's a grown up and Tula is a teenager.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Yeah, Like that is the consequence of being a late bloomer. Yeah,
is that she's having her first relationship at thirty, and
the way she's engaging with him because of the enmeshment
nature of her family is very adolescent making out in
the car and for her parents' house, the fact it
doesn't have her own.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
She doesn't even have an apartment. Yeah, she lies with
her parents, you.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Know, so we can't go to his because you know,
they'll know.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah, so it requires her to engage in a lot
of teenagery behavior with him. Mm hmm, which continues the
infantilization of her within her family system.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
But you're right, like Ian kind of comes in, he
almost sort of models for her how to be an
actual adult. Yeah, who just listens to your values and
morals and he can recognize like these rules that Tula
you feel like our laws within your family, they're just
made up. They're just like I don't have to get

(59:23):
your dad's permission to date you if you want to
date me, because I think what he does really well
is sent to her.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
Yeah, as he should.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
Yeah, yeah, he feeds into none of her neuroticisms. He's
just like nah, yeah, whatever, I'll do whatever you need
where everything's fine, We're going to be fine because I'm
gonna I'm just I'll do the things. I don't care.
I'll do the thing. What does it take, I'll do it.

Speaker 4 (59:53):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Like that's a big energy from him, is like whatever
it's going to take, I'll do.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
He just wants to help her and make her happy.
And so if like she doesn't care about getting dad'spproval,
like like i'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, that scene like
that is him just saying like, well, it doesn't matter
if you want me to date your daughter. She's the
only person who's allowed to have an opinion about me

(01:00:23):
dating her or not. And as long as I'm in
her good graces, it's good. And he only gets like
converts all the stuff because she needs that and she's
asking that of him. Yeah, because of what's important to
her with her family. He does a good job, like
they do do a good job this movie of demonstrating
that the nuance ironically with what we've been talking about

(01:00:45):
I kind of said ironically eight hundred times this episode,
but that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
I'm gonna call you Alanas.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
She does fine. I love that city.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
She does find this middle ground of picking your battles
with her family. Yeah, and like I don't want to
reject them, I don't want to not be a part
of them. I literally just want the house next to them,
Like I want to be a part of this culture.
She doesn't with my own space. Well, she doesn't pick
the house. The dad buys the house next That's a

(01:01:15):
great point. That's actually a great point. She does not
choose that house.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Do you feeling about that, Hannah, You have a lot
of feelings about that, A lot of feelings about it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
I want to have them starting in with Nope.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Yeah exactly, and get the fuck out of here. And I
want a house. I don't want to live next to you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Fuck you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Also, you're trying to buy my affection after you were
a fucking asshole this whole time.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
Get fucked.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Tell us how you really feel, Hannah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
But yeah, but I think they're so.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
I think you're absolutely right in talking about how Tula
is an adolescent compared to Ian. For sure, there are
some things about their relationship that I like. In terms
of the other Valentine's Day movies that we've done, I
think Ian might be the most the nicest, genuinely kind,

(01:02:06):
genuinely kind male role that we have had in a
romantic movie that we have done. He is the most
likable by far. Yeah, oh yeah, and that's nice to see.
That was nice to see somebody like that. And I
think with Tula, her kind of responding as an adolescent,

(01:02:31):
kind of gatekeeping her family, almost of not really answering
his questions, not really telling saying anything about herself to him,
until he finally is like, hey, like I want to
I really do want to know. I really do want
to know this about you, and then she's able to
kind of talk about it a little bit, but still
doesn't have much insight into why she feels the way

(01:02:55):
she does about her family other than they're crazy. Other
than they're crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
No, I agree that he is very kind. He's very thoughtful,
and I think, yeah, she's doing that thing that teenagers do,
and there's people who aren't very confident. Yeah, where I
can't let you see all of me because you won't
like me if you see all of me, Like if

(01:03:21):
I let you see the garbage fest that is my family,
m you'll reject me, which I understan makes sense that
she feels that way because she's been told by her
whole family, her whole life.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
That she's like ugh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
So I could also see her being like, oh my god,
this tall, cute man who's really put has a shit
together is interested in me, which is a you know,
a novel experience for her, and then feeling really precious
about it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
I could see.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Why she wants to keep him for herself. It's going
back to like it's like I want to keep this
good thing good, and I don't trust my family and
that they will not ruin it by getting their hands all.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Over it because it's what they do.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Because it's what they do, And so I can't just
let this thing be something I love that I enjoy
and so being super protective of it, but then not
knowing how to navigate that well with Ian, Yeah, because
all she knows is I either tell you everything or
I keep secrets. Once again, like they're not being this
middle ground because there isn't any instruction or modeling on

(01:04:24):
how to have like a nuanced conversation about anything. And
I think he does try to teach her that, And
I think what is cool about their dynamic is that
once they get through that moment, what I really like
is the scene in the limo after the wedding. Yeah,
and she obviously looks bonkers with her outfit and her
hair and her makeup, and he acknowledges that she looks bonkers.

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
Like they feel like friends. Yeah, you know what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Yeah, We've watched so many few rom coms or romantic
movies where the two people feel like fucking friends that
also are in love with each other.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
And so the fact that she even talks about like
I had this really horrible pimple, Like she isn't feeling
self conscious about constructing herself like this beautiful woman so
that this man will like her.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Yeah, and she can be as in the sheets, which she.

Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
Clearly is by the way she attacks him on the
couch in.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
His apartment, has a lot of pent up horniness. Yes
she does, it's in that hair, she's coming out with it.
But oh, I know, I'm pretty sure he was her
first time, right, Yeah, I would imagine's a virgin Bob
doesn't know anything about touching herself sexuality, so it's.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
All pent up shit, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
And I do love that she doesn't feel like she
has to put on this persona to keep him. That
actually she feels like she can be very open with him,
and she doesn't have to play fucking games with him
the way that her that's also part of the whole.
Like the woman is the neck of the head is
basically saying, like a certain a certain degree of your
relationship is playing games, yeah, and gaming each other and

(01:06:06):
never letting your husband know what the right hand's doing,
and not being able to have clear direct communication ever
that you can't, Yeah, you can't talk clearly to a
guy because he will get offended. Yeah, you know, like
you can't have honest So I love the fact that
with Ian she does have to. She actually gets this
very The most wrong comming thing about this is how

(01:06:29):
like magical and miraculous their relationship is that he's able
to model all these really healthy relationship, even not even romantic,
like just relationship stuff with her, and that she has
such a good, positive experience in her first relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Yeah, it's what makes this such a compelling fantasy is
that a guy like Ian exists, a.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Guy like Ian exists, a guy like he and could
see her before she could see herself. That he goes
for one hundred once she's able to go in with him.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
And he is willing to do whatever it takes to
meet all of the conditions of her family. And that
he just happens to come from potato people.

Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
Like he is.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
He doesn't really have a strong cultural connection connection himself,
because it'd be one thing, yeah, if he was like
Jewish or Catholic, you know, or he had his own
strong cultural background, Yeah, that he had to walk away
from yeah, to be with her.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
But instead he comes from generic wasp people who have
no culture.

Speaker 4 (01:07:46):
It's a blank kindness they have.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
They have internalized epluribus unum to the point that they
have no identity they have.

Speaker 4 (01:07:54):
Yeah, they have assimilated to nothingness, which.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Is what Gus is afraid of. True, which is fair,
but the Yeah, it's what makes this I think, as
with any I ran comm It makes it a examination
of a fun reality to imagine that there is such
a human out there that is so completely into you

(01:08:19):
that they're willing to just be like, yeah, I don't
have anything I feel strongly about anyway, so whatever you want,
or even just.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
That this is her first relationship, because the other part
of this, the other outcome of enmeshment, is that it
would be much more likely that she would end up
in a relationship where there's someone who exhibits a lot
of control.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
She would be way more fucking likely to end up
in that kind of relationship because that is the kind
of relationship that has been glorified in her family yep.
Versus being able to accept Ian's love and Ian's thoughtfulness
and Ian's kindness. That is, that is the miraculous part

(01:09:00):
of this fucking movie, which is the fact that she
is able to accept openly and lovingly everything for me Ian,
instead of her feeling so self conscious that she can't
even yes, consider that Ian would be in love with
her and actually mean it. Yeah, Like in a more

(01:09:21):
realistic version of the story, she would self sabotage with
him probably yeah, or really want to or do a
lot of like reassurance seeking stuff of like, but you
really like me.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
You do think I'm attractive, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Yeah, and and yeah, you're exactly right, Like I think.

Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
What is so.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Like the dark, dark, dark underbelly of this kind of
family system is that what you are encouraging without really
realizing it, is like obedience and loyalty for good or
her bad. Yeah, and you just are assuming that that
will always be a positive thing when in actuality, someone

(01:10:06):
like Tula is more ripe to be sought after by
someone who will take advantage of that obedience and that loyalty.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
You mean, like all those guys that her family brought
in as acceptable Greek men for her to date.

Speaker 4 (01:10:19):
Oh my god, what a nightmare.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Yeah, just like people that will take advantage of her.
They were all so much older than her, which is
so gross. And there's only one that was maybe age appropriate.
He was a fucking slime ball.

Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
I would like to see that six figure a pathological
slime ball as defined by the following criteria.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Yeah, yeah, because that's what happens when you raise a
child to not think for themselves. Is that than anyone
can be their leader, anyone can be their star.

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
If you will.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
And what is like really just also miraculous about Tula
is she has enough like a little spark of resilience
within her, an actual confidence within her of like I
can sort of do my own thing, like even though
no one's encouraging me to, even if it's doing my
own thing in the travel agency.

Speaker 4 (01:11:19):
She's doing her own thing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
When Ian comes across her as much as she thinks
she can do her own thing, and they're very She's
very lucky. The family is also very lucky that Ian
is so nice, you know, because I feel like with
if I work with someone like Tula in real life,
which I'll talk about treatment, like she would need a
lot of help navigating like the red flags. Like it's

(01:11:42):
just a lot of like normalizing red flags in relationships. Yes, romantically, yes,
like it's okay for your husband to tell you what
to do or your boyfriend tell you what to do.
You know, you just need to look cute and you
just need.

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
To figure out how to like work him if you can,
or you should just be really grateful of that he
wants anything to do with you, And what a relief
that you're getting married? Who cares? Who would say anything.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
As long as it's a nice Greek boy, even if
he even sees like a piece of shit, And so
those messages that said sense of Tula is so dangerous
and there is a horror movie version of this story.
Absolutely you should write it. I'm sure it probably exists. Actually, well,
it's like how people in these kind of like people

(01:12:29):
who leave cults and stuff like that, like people who
go from like one situation like this right to another,
which I'm sure has happened a lot in this family system,
which is you know, you go from your parents to
your spouse's house with no one between, to be an
actualized person and to practice boundaries because then for someone
like Tula, you don't build any like specific as a woman,

(01:12:52):
you don't build any agency. So that if Ian ended
up being like a bad guy abusive, how should.

Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
I know what ther story version of this is? And
you're gonna get mad at me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:02):
Is it a Batman reference? No, you gotta try to
make it one right now, like Harley Quinn.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
It's Harley Quinn. Yes, I guess at first, and it's
it is scary and it is dangerous. And you look
at the the way that this story plays out as
such a fantasy.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
But I think with Tula situation is you know, she's
rife to be financially abused, Yeah, to be abused period.
And then depending on how their family feels about divorce,
if she needed to leave him, what her family take
her back? I think this family would, especially if something
really bad was happening to her.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
No no, no, no, no, no believe you're talking about like
foundationally against God too far, too far? Nope.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Probably get encouraged to stay with your husband, Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Yet no, people people get cast st out of families
for for divorce sometimes yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
No, no, no.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
No, nope, yeah, too far. We don't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Well, I guess I'm I. I'm sticking with the tone
of this movie, which is very disney Ish, So you
wouldn't want to think that would happen with this family,
but who knows.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Yeah, some my friends who are of this culture of
no no no, no, yeah no no, but things, things
against the church are bigger than you, like, yeah, god, God,
that's a you know kind of a thing that it's
in this movie pretty pretty clearly laid out that the

(01:14:42):
family is not going to tolerate what is against what
they're supposed to do. In the eyes of the religion.
So no, but the like the difficult spots that that
puts her in, and like the lack of actually arming
your child against the world and selling them on this
idea that well, the truth we've been telling you is

(01:15:04):
the whole truth. That is the danger The truth we've
been telling you is the whole truth, even though it's
not and we all know it's not. But if you
do it correctly, you'll be living in the whole truth
we've told you exists, even though we know it doesn't exist. Yeah,
it's dangerous.

Speaker 4 (01:15:19):
And it's the way.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Also, they think that the older generation projects wisdom onto
the younger generation, like you don't know, like you don't
know what they don't know about life, especially in these
situations where maybe you immigrant from other country. There might
be like street smarts, common sense stuff like things that
you've learned through trauma. Unfortunately that your kid doesn't have necessarily.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
And doesn't pertain to their reality because the factors that
made that relevant information for you don't exist, don't exist anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
M hm.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
And the other thing that ignores is one of my
professors here to put it this way, in my think
psychology of learning, classroom development something in undergrad of like,
have you ever asked yourself why you yell like your
dad when you get mad and you sit there andre like, fuck,
where's this going on? Like this, and it's you haven't

(01:16:18):
just learned good things? Yeah, he learned everything from your parents.
You learned everything. You learned how to win when you
have the power and lo and behold, you will mimic
that shit when you have the power and need to
win and don't feel like explaining yourself because it's exhausting,
and you will use that power in a negative way

(01:16:38):
to win the same way you saw it demonstrated, whether
it was used against you or used against your siblings
or your mom or whoever, but you will have seen
it and internalized it. And people who are holding people
to the standards of a culture like this, not like
of Greek but like it's being shown in this movie,
we see it generally work out. But there are lots

(01:17:00):
of examples that I think we're like alluding to where
trying to hold someone to standards that aren't exist, that
don't exist, that aren't real, create a narrative inside of
them that they have to do it that way in
order to be good enough, but they also realize that
they can't, and that creates traps for them because now
they can't be good enough and they can't be accepted

(01:17:23):
if they aren't, so then they have to keep secrets
and they have to hide things. Fortunately, in this movie
we see the other side of it, where oh no,
the person who I chose is actually just genuinely like
the nicest human that exists.

Speaker 4 (01:17:36):
The nice understanding, rolls with it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
And it has like no qualms about nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
And he's I mean, even when his friend brings it
up to him, like wow, like you're really like all
in with this girl. And he's like, she asks how
high for you to jump in me? And in his response,
Ian literally jumps. He's like yeah, and that's it, And
that's a whole conversation. They don't talk about it anymore.

(01:18:04):
He's just like, Yep, that's what I'm doing. No, no
big deal, no sweat.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
And she's like I said, she's very very lucky. Going
back to what you're saying, Ben about learning that he
can teach her these things that she did not learn
from her parents, and he like is teaching her about
communication and about like all these adult relationship things and
he's willing to take the time to teach it to

(01:18:30):
her too, and he doesn't judge her for not knowing either.

Speaker 3 (01:18:34):
He is a teacher, so that's probably.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
True.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
So he probably does have more patience and like understanding
and like flexibility around these things.

Speaker 3 (01:18:45):
And he seems quite intellectual and worldly, and so he's
probably aware of what it takes to because he'sn't a
history teacher or English teacher.

Speaker 4 (01:18:55):
I can't remember.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
He's something one of the history teachers.

Speaker 4 (01:18:59):
He's a high school each other.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
Right, He's just he's like English, he was teaching about books.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Does he show up at his job, Yes, yes, she does.
She shows up at his job and wants to elope and.

Speaker 3 (01:19:11):
Is making out with him pretty much in the hallway
of a high school. Mm. Which you know, it's always
a good idea.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
Yeah, yeah, because she's a teenager.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
M M.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
Because she's a teenager. But the the thing of recognizing
that he is an adult who's coming from a standpoint
of adaptive, comfortable learning that's not in a position of
taking advantage of these things, because he's seeing that I'm
secure in what I'm going to do and who I'm
going to be, and we're going to be okay, and

(01:19:41):
I'll do if that's what your family needs me to do,
that's cool. I'll go to the i'll convert, I'll do
whatever it takes to make it easy for us to
have our life. I will pave the way. But not
every human will do that. Some people will be bound
by their own cultural needs to say, like I can
marry you, but we are not Catholic. Well you are
not going to be Greek Orthodox.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
Yeah, he's a great demonstration of non toxic masculinity. He
does not get caught up in his ego. But he's
also not like I guess what you'd call a pussy.
Like we said, like with the scene with the dad,
he doesn't let the dad rail rode him. He says,
you know what, I'm not going to do this anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
So I think he says.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
I think he says to the dad, you're but she's
thirty years old. I think that's what he says. And
then he walks by him, Yeah, and goes into the
room and says that to Tula.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
But so, like what I mean is like he is
a strong person. He is, you know, very confident, assured
of himself. Like he's all these very positive qualities without
getting caught up in the ego shit that would make
this relationship really difficult too.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think from the relationship with his
parents that he has and who they are portrayed to be,
it's real clear that he doesn't have anything and he's
particularly strongly tied to or required to do than like Satan.

Speaker 4 (01:21:03):
He's a classic wasp.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
Well, let's take another break here and be back with treatment.
So who would like to take it first? With treatment?
Should we go to you?

Speaker 4 (01:21:12):
Hannah? Sure, I'd love to go first. That sounds the
most true clenching or a butthole so hard I'm not
at all has never been there. Yeah, okay, sure, are
we recording right now?

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
Yes, that's great.

Speaker 4 (01:21:34):
Anyway, I'll talk about treatment. That's cool. So I would treat.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
I thought about Tula and Ian in terms of the
longevity of their relationship, and there were some things that
I think would pop up with them that as a
couple's therapists, I think I would be able to help
them with. And so some of the things that I
thought that they might struggle with.

Speaker 4 (01:21:56):
One is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
Actual compromises that they'll have to make, you know, something
that something that I tell clients about compromises, is that
we compromise about what kind of food to eat or
what movie to watch. We don't compromise ourselves in any

(01:22:18):
kind of way. And I think that because Ian in
this first experience that we've been shown, has been so
flexible and so accepting and just all of the good things,
that when there is something that he actually cares about

(01:22:40):
or has some feelings about, that, I wonder if compromise
would be trickier because Tula is kind of used to
him just accepting something, So I feel like compromise because
compromise is a part of a relationship's longevity period.

Speaker 4 (01:22:55):
So I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
That would be something that might be tricky for them.
I also think continuing with family involvement, I would imagine
the family involvement and I have seen the second movie,
but I barely remember it, and I haven't seen the
third one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
I don't think it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Just came out like two years ago. I don't know,
I don't remember. But I think that would be something
that they would struggle with once they have a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Once they have a kid, Once they have a kid,
the expectations and obligations in the family change would change again. Right,
and so clearly at the end of the film we
see that her little girl has to go to Greek school,
and so I feel like, even in that, I wonder
if that's just something that Ian's just going along with,

(01:23:42):
or is that's something that they discussed about why they
wanted her to go. So I think that they might
have to learn how to have our successful arguments and
be able to have compromises that feel equable. And then

(01:24:03):
I also think, and like I said already, the family
involvement and so them really having to continue to talk
about how much do we want to let your family
into your family, into our starting our own family traditions.
A lot of times when you have children, people want
to have their own family traditions with their new little
family for lots of different reasons, and it makes a

(01:24:25):
lot of sense. They want to have something that's theirs,
they want to have a certain way that they do something,
and so again there would have to be compromised there,
and that would be really interesting to see how the
family involvement feels when they have a child.

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
So I feel like those would be the two things
that they would struggle with.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
I feel like the way that I would help them
is to really just talk about how important communication is,
how important it is to really share how you're feeling,
to not hold on to something and wait until it
blows up, because when it blows up, then nobody's gonna
hear shit and you're not going to be able to
get a solution because it's all going to be about

(01:25:10):
how you make each other feel, because they're going to
be so in your feelings when you blow up. I
feel like I would also want to talk to them
about and also just talking about family involvement, talking to
them about boundaries. What are good boundaries you want to
set with the family, What are boundaries you want to
have for your own family, What are boundaries you each

(01:25:31):
need to have individually, right, Because again I think Tula
is pretty new to all of this, and so she
would really have to learn how to have boundaries with
her family. And this is something that I see couples
about in a regular basis. It is a regular thing
to see a couple because they are not getting along
with the in laws. That is a regular reason to
see people. And so I do a lot of work

(01:25:54):
with people about how do we create this, how do
we create your family? And what are the boundaries your
family wants to have, and so that's how I think
I would help them. Those are the problems I think
they would have.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
Yeah, Like, how are your parents able to just come
into our house without knocking?

Speaker 4 (01:26:15):
I mean they live right next door. I mean that's
a boundary. That's a boundary we'd have to talk about.
Are we never allowed to move from this house? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
This tiny little house, which is an excellent starter house gift, however,
might not be suitable once we have more than a toddler.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
Yeah, and how is that going to impact the family
when that was the wedding gift that they got? So again,
is that gonna be something where Gus is like, why
are you disrespecting me? Right, there's all kinds of different
things could happen.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
I mean, you just need to build it up, like.

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
You know, keep building additions to it like the Burrow
and Harry Potter exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
Anything else, Hannah, No, No, that's all I got. All right,
I can go next then and just piggyback on you.
In that, I was thinking about working with Tula more
irl version of Tula, maybe even like meeting Ian or
starting to meet Ian, like starting to date Ian. In

(01:27:23):
that this assumption that she'll know how to do everything.
And sometimes my job as a therapist when I work
with someone who is maybe like a late bloomer or
has a lot of confidence issues, or someone in Mesh
family is that part of my job one you have
to be very careful as a therapist that you don't
become a replacement for that dynamic.

Speaker 4 (01:27:43):
Like I have to be very.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Careful with clients I work with that have in Mesh
family systems that I don't give them that they don't
think I'm giving them directive advice that I'm telling them
what to do. Basically, these are clients where I'm have
my foot off the pedal a lot more in terms
of like direct feedback about that kind of thing, because
I want them to learn how to listen to themselves,

(01:28:07):
and I don't want to be just another authority figure
in their mind that they go to to know what
to do. Like I have to tweak my style a
little bit with clients who come from this family system,
And I think part of what my job too is
trying to find that fine line between respecting their family

(01:28:28):
and the culture of their family, if that's a component
of it, and then also naming because that's a lot
of our job as therapists is like having that sort
of bird's eye view of like naming dynamics, situations, boundaries,
lack of boundaries that aren't quote unquote normal, that aren't healthy,

(01:28:50):
and how I determine that is how my client feels. So,
like I said, if my client was really close to
their family and it was all gravy and they genuinely
seemed very happy enough lifted by that or satisfied with it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
I got no problems.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
You want to be up under your mom all day,
every day, and that makes you happy, godspeed. But if
you're saying like I can't tell my mom this because
if I tell her this, she'll have a heart attack,
and then I am so stressed out about that, or
I don't know how to have like how to say something,
how to like say I want something, And so then

(01:29:25):
my job as a therapist to be like, I understand
your family is a very close and it sounds like
you are engaging in more codependent behaviors, which is that
I can't have an independent persona and or if I
say something that makes you feel bad, I'm responsible for
you not feeling bad that like I can't have emotional

(01:29:45):
and emotional experience that is disconnected from your emotional experience,
like healthy detachment of like I can be upset, and
I can be upset at you for like a very
understandable reason, but I'm so responsible for managing my upsetness.
I don't want you to feel like you can't tell
me something because I'll be so upset and so like

(01:30:07):
and so a lot of times, what I'm teaching is
the difference between like enmeshed codependence versus interdependence, that you
can rely on other people, you can have a support system,
you can want to be close to people. You can
be close to people, and you can feel for them
as well, Like if my loved ones having a bad day,
I'll feel that I'll be like oof, like I'm worried

(01:30:28):
about them, or I'm really thinking about them, like I'll
feel I'll have a stress, I'll have a level of
stress because I love them, versus I can't feel better
until you feel better about whatever is upsetting you, And
so ironically, I will make your stress my problem.

Speaker 4 (01:30:44):
That becomes your problem, which I think it was more
of what happens in enmeshed relationships, codependent relationships and so
interdependent is trying to trying to like find that nuance
for the client, And sometimes I'll have to do like
a bit more self disclosure with those clients that I
might with other clients in terms of like this is
how my dynamic works with my close friends or with

(01:31:05):
my parents, or like I've had those kind of arguments
before and it went okay, you know you cause, like
you were saying, Ben, like they don't people don't know anything.
When we come into this world. Everything we learn we've
been taught.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
And so sometimes my job is to be a bit
more teachery with like examples like real life examples, which
is what self disclosure can be appropriately and guiding them
through the experiential experience that they're having with being an adult,
like finding your first relationship, are you going to tell
everybody in your family about it? So I think with Tula,

(01:31:39):
if she'd had a therapist and the secret keeping dating
Ian part of the movie, I think my job as
a therapist would be, like, let's find the nuance with this?
Do you have to keep them a secret? What would
it look like to tell your family a little bit
if they push on your boundy? Do you feel like
you can handle that, like trying to get her to
understand like there's a nuance to it versus like I

(01:32:00):
told them everything or I told them nothing. And then also,
which is son As my job is telling someone like Tula,
So if you want to try this out, you have
to sit in the discomfort of whatever reaction you get
from your parents, like I'll teach you, dear woman, dear man,
I'll teach you, I feel statements like I'll teach you
inter personal techniques that should help convey you clearly to

(01:32:21):
the person. But as they say, you can't communicate better
to someone who is committed to misunderstanding you. So if
your parents don't want to hear the message you're giving them,
there's no way you can send that message in a
way that will appease them. And so a lot of
times when I work in real life with these kind
of dynamics, I do have to also warn my client
that as you continue to try to self actualize, there

(01:32:45):
is the possibility that your family won't want to follow
with you, or they won't evolve with you or adapt
to you, and son As my job is to like
kind of hold their hand through that process too. If
that's what happens with Tula. If you were to share,
have you ever asked your mom to keep a secret,

(01:33:05):
not keep a secret, but to not tell dad? You know,
have you ever said, like lead with like this is
really important to me and it means a lot to
me if you would let me do if you would
accept this, Like, have you ever been concrete with him
about what you need? Because, like we've talked about, there's
so much passive communication in this family, so much game
playing too, feel like the men and the women that

(01:33:27):
I don't know if she's even knows how to, like forthrightly,
clearly assertively say to someone this is what's important to me,
this is how it makes me feel. This is what
I'm asking of you, and this is how you Adhering
to this ask would help us both, which is a
deer from deer man, and so I would really want
to encourage her to be able to like, how do

(01:33:48):
we communicate in a way that's appropriate and more middle
ground and defining the difference between interdependent and codependent, especially
as she's dating someone like ian Ord period, it's very
important for her to understand those differences. So that's what
I would do with Tula, just really trying to build
her up and give her a lot of skills. Should

(01:34:10):
be someone that would give a lot of skills to
and really be encouraging to her of doing a lot
of like pep talkie stuff too, because I think she
would need that.

Speaker 4 (01:34:20):
My job.

Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
My job would be kind of like a coach in
some ways, Benjamin.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
So, when I watched this movie, I was noticing how
many times Nick kept trying to get positive attention for
being himself for exactly the same things that Tula is
trying to do, and noticing how close those two actually were.

(01:34:48):
So I'm thinking that once the dynamic changed where she
started dating in some of their closeness started to naturally change.
Though they remain close and remains their supports for each other.
I think that Nick is going to start struggling a

(01:35:09):
lot because the family focus is going to turn from
Tula to him, and I think that him having some
opportunity to ride this wave of change, to find a
way to be validated for who he is and to
be seen as more than just the cook yeah yeah,

(01:35:29):
or whatever role it is that he does in the
kitchen of the family, because he just kind of like
he and the brother in law just kind of pop
their heads out of the kitchen and like, oh, hey,
I'm doing the thing, and then they're around. They're around,
and I know, like you said, it's not his story,
so he wasn't there to be a main character. But
they took enough care in the times we saw him

(01:35:49):
to see that there are things he wants that are
much more than this, and seeing Tula do those things
inspired him. It was a positive shift to the dynamic.
It's a paradigm shift, and every time that happens in
a family sometimes you have to continue to ride that

(01:36:13):
wave and move yourself forward once you've got any flexibility
with the conveyor belt that is the family system being
run by each of the cogs. Because now one cog
has been taken out, Tula is no longer functioning in
the system the way she used to. She is going
to be doing her own thing and forging her own family,

(01:36:34):
And while she will still be part of the family,
it's going to be different. Nick is going to struggle
with that. Nick is already struggling with his identity, so
I think working with him on having similar kind of
work that Brittany's going to work on with Tula, of
understanding Hey, at some point, we need to talk about
how you step into you, helping you become the you

(01:36:57):
you want to be, what is meaning full to you,
what helps you feel like you're living your purpose. And
it seems like he gets that encouragement, and the second
he gets it, he tells too that you know, I think,
I think I'm going to go to art school at night.
Maybe I won't tell Pap about it just yet, but

(01:37:19):
I think I think I'm going to do that too.
And he rides this transformative wave. But I think him
having an opportunity to process through whatever guilty has about that,
whatever in excitement he has about that, I think with him,
I would want to use motivational interviewing techniques more than
anything else, which are a really powerful way to help

(01:37:43):
people create change. Its specifically for substance abuse, but when
you examine change with people, you can recognize that they
get stuck on barriers all the time. Well, like, I
really want to do this, but I can't because of
like a thousand things, of which nine hundred and ninety

(01:38:04):
eight are not real, but the two that are really real,
and I mean, I can't deal with those. So I'm
gonna name nine hundred and ninety eight other things and
just call it a thousand, But it's only two things
really that are stopping me, and of those two, maybe
only one. But to successfully get someone to buy into

(01:38:26):
their own ability to change, you have to be able
to encourage them to navigate those barriers without looking at
them going Ooh, I see that barrier. It's really tall
and like nah, Whereas someone like Ian we see in
this movie is really well adjusted and he looks at barriers,
he goes, all right, there's a barrier. We're either gonna

(01:38:48):
jump over it, we're gonna go around it, we're gonna
go under it, We're gonna run smack through it. I
don't but I am committed to this. I'm committed to you,
and we're gonna go forward and boom and helping people
see that is how you create change. And I think
Nick really needs that. Nick needs to learn that that
you're trapped in a system that doesn't want to change,

(01:39:09):
but change has found it. Anyway, Dad can't do the
math anymore. His artwork and stuff are outdated. Restaurants need
to refresh their brand every so often. People need to
see new things, new looks, new things new. Uh, art,
new anything. You got to keep it fresh and modern

(01:39:30):
to keep people coming, or you'll have the same people
and they'll die out and they won't come anymore. They'll
move away attrition, but it we'll set in. Well. The
same thing happens in life all over and at some
point this generation that Nick and Tuller are part of
are going to have to step up and out into
control of the family system because the elders will age
out of being in touch with the world enough that

(01:39:52):
anyone believes what they say. Yeah, and it's already starting
to help Nick kind of actualize and be able to
be the person he wants to be. I would work
with him through understanding these are all barriers are going
to come up with. Dad's going to say no. Dad's
going to be on bullshit. Dad's going to base level
say no. But you can't take that first no. What

(01:40:13):
are you going to do when he says that first no?
What did you see Ian do? How did that change
the system? What a dula do? What would you like
to learn from that and kind of do in your way?
What would your way look like to respond to Dad's
no with a no, Dad, this needs to change. That
doesn't offend him that doesn't step outside of your cultural bounds.

(01:40:33):
Because of those thousand things, that is one of those
two that are real. That is the nine hundred and
ninety eight not so much, but that's one of the
two that's real. You're not going to do it, So
we have to respect that as the therapist, not push
him to go beyond what he can't do, but help him.
See what can you do to get somewhere closer to

(01:40:54):
where you want to go so you can generate enough
momentum that you don't need to push anymore. Your snowball
will just be rolling. That's what Tula did. Hell, that's
what your dad did when he left Greece. Yeah, I'm
sure he had somebody standing there frowning at him, going.

Speaker 4 (01:41:11):
You're gonna give up on grease?

Speaker 3 (01:41:13):
You're not in America? Yeah, what about the family?

Speaker 4 (01:41:17):
Mm hm.

Speaker 3 (01:41:18):
But at some point people need that encouragement, They need
some degree of game planning to overcome the real bearers
because the fear they have that they can't or the
messaging that they've gotten that becomes those core beliefs, becomes
so strong that they tell themselves no before the world does.
And it takes a lot of work with people understanding

(01:41:40):
the world's gonna tell you no plenty, don't be the
first one to do it. Let the world tell you.
And sometimes even when it does stick, one of those
big middle fingers up and say, nah, I'm just gonna
find another way. That's how I would work with Nick.
I think that's what he needs. He needs to feel seen, validated, heard,
and then empowered. And I think that would there was

(01:42:00):
a lot of positive change for him, and maybe he'd
be the next one getting married in a big fat
Greek wedding.

Speaker 1 (01:42:08):
I think with Tula and her brother need our friends
outside of the family as well. Yeah, yeah, anyway, we'll
take our last break care and me back with final thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:42:22):
All right, Hannah, I'll put you on the spot. Sounds great.
I am never gonna watch this movie again.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:42:32):
I hated it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
I hated rewatching it, even though I probably watched this
movie enough times to know the dialogue. Wow, I currently
have no interest in ever watching it again. It was
upsetting how much the just how much I just don't
need more any more reinforcement that women are less than

(01:42:54):
men in any kind of fucking way, and this movie
really had that in it. And it was very heavy
handed in a lot of different ways, and they Yeah,
So I don't like it, and I'm not gonna watch
it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:43:12):
I think I have a more tepid final thought, which
is I have this is only the second time I
ever watched it. I think I saw it when I
first came out, and it was a phenomenon, So you
kind of had to watch this movie when I first
came out, and then this is the second time, so
like twenty years later, and it definitely has aged not
great in the in the stuff that you're talking about, Hannah,

(01:43:35):
Like all the really outrageous misogynistic parts are just so
loud now in a way that in a way that
they were cuter cuter quote unquote before, they're just like
very like hardcore now. And it made me feel so
bad for Tula, like it was hard to like her

(01:43:55):
and not hate her family. Yeah, and you're supposed to
love them all, and I think that worked in two
thousand and two.

Speaker 4 (01:44:02):
I don't think it works as well now.

Speaker 1 (01:44:04):
The way they're telling the story, which is very like
the tone of it I wasn't a big fan of
is very comedy, sit comedy kind of thing, and you
know spoiler for a future episode this season. The whole
time we were watching it, I just kept saying to Hannah, Oh,
Moonstruck does this better? Moonstruck does it better? Because Moonstruck

(01:44:24):
is a movie that touches a lot of these same ideas.
It's like a lot of ways, a very similar story
told in a very different way, in a very different tone.
And I'm excited for us to talk about that soon.
But I'll probably never watch this movie again. It just
it was very refreshing though that Ian and Tula's relationship
aged very well, So I won't revisit this movie again.

(01:44:47):
I don't think this movie's cute the way that it
was cute when this movie first came out, And yeah,
so that's how I feel about it. I feel meh
about this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:45:01):
I think this movie took off the way it did
for a lot of reasons. I think it showed a
really like fun way to poke fun at you know,
a culture, and anytime a movie can bring you inside
a culture, whether it's yours or not yours, and make
you feel like you have a little more understanding of

(01:45:21):
it can be a really good recipe for success. And
I think this movie did that. Of like like, let's
bring you all into our big Greek family here. And
I have DJ'ed a couple big, fat Greek weddings when
I was in the DJ business, including one for my friend,
and it was there were a few moments where like

(01:45:44):
I knew I had to play Zorba's dance, like I
just knew I did, and then like the way the
whole place became Greek at that moment was kind of
awesome and like it legit did, and like an eighty
year old man became like twenty immediately and was like
passing bills out and it was it was awesome. But

(01:46:07):
where this movie also like it came out in two
thousand and two. Yeah, and a lot of things that
we're very different and or true for you know, Generation X,
that aren't true now for us. I get the criticism
where it's like, ooh, see, we almost landed on the Yeah,

(01:46:32):
your dad's always gonna kind of be that way, but
we don't have to be that way, Like no, you
like you be the neck that turns ahead of going
like or we could be two heads that sit in
equal relation to each other and make life work because
it's hard out here. I don't know, maybe we try
that instead of like just be subservient, but not all

(01:46:54):
the way. What yeah, yep, I mean, And well that
makes sense from her that the tone of that message
would hit different in two thousand and two than does.

Speaker 4 (01:47:04):
Now for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:47:05):
For sure, Yeah, and I get that. I think I
probably won't seek it out. I don't know how long
this will persevere from this point further in culture, really,
but it's a fun movie. It is nice to see
like a relationship developed kind of from a person who's
recognizing I need to change and I need to grow

(01:47:29):
beyond what I'm being told I am, and I have
to do things and finding success in exactly that, and
recognizing that she didn't have to give up all of
herself to get that. Though. The major criticism I look
at with it is like Ian is almost a pretend person.
He's completely like whatever, I'll just I don't care about anything.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):
Well, in real life, the guy who plays his friend
in the movie is the really Ian, So he is
the real husband of the writer and the lead of
this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:48:06):
But I think they're not divorced.

Speaker 3 (01:48:08):
They too.

Speaker 4 (01:48:09):
Take that for what you will.

Speaker 3 (01:48:10):
He's an interesting character in Cougar Town.

Speaker 4 (01:48:13):
I love Cougar Town.

Speaker 3 (01:48:15):
Yes, so've forgotten Jem, but you.

Speaker 4 (01:48:19):
Know, yeah, but his real name is Ian.

Speaker 3 (01:48:22):
Is really yeah, Ian is such like a pretend person.
Is something that felt a little off the mark to me,
that there's basically like no pushback other than kind of
like standing after dad and be like I'm a grown
ass man and I don't give a fuck what you
think about that. But you know, you do see people
convert religions for their partners and things, but usually that's

(01:48:42):
more of a nuanced, difficult discussion, and I don't like that.
It creates this thing of like, well, I mean someone,
if they love you enough, they'll just change everything about
themselves and their family isn't really like that important, and
you know we can just like kind of mention them
as like Ann the Miller's it is very all or nothing.

(01:49:04):
And well, I do get that sometimes cultures are that way.
We were like well, i mean we're all Greek now,
or like, well, I mean you join our family and
everybody's whatever we are. But that's not the way a
wedding works. You got to incorporate both sides of the
family and make efforts to incorporate traditions of everything and

(01:49:25):
for this to actually be successful, either people have no
identity for real and are looking to escape something, which
is okay, what was going to need therapy f yi,
or we're telling a fairy tale and I think this
one tells a fairy tale, which it's rom com so
it's fun, but it still makes me lament a little
bit that you guys could have picked a Knight's Tale

(01:49:46):
when you had the chance, and you would have seen
a strong female character demand feminist and say to the audience,
I know it was God. And if we didn't want
to talk about feminism so much, pick a movie they
have so minute, Well, we almost.

Speaker 4 (01:50:04):
Got How to Be Single?

Speaker 1 (01:50:06):
That was the second that was the first runner up,
and that movie is how it sounds.

Speaker 4 (01:50:12):
Unfortunately, well that's the pick. So audience, you reckon with that, audience?
Wreckon audience. Why don't you want us to talk about
how to be single? Okay? Anyway, on that note, we'll
wrap it up.

Speaker 1 (01:50:24):
So as always, if you would like to leave us
a rating and review, it is the best way for
new people to find us. It's also the cheapest way
to support us if you want to put a little
dough into it. Though, Happy Valentine's Day to us. You
can support us via Patreon. You can be a patron.
If you are five dollars or more, you get.

Speaker 4 (01:50:42):
Our ten dollars or more.

Speaker 1 (01:50:43):
Five dollars or more ten dollars more, five dollars are more.
You can get early access to episodes that are also unedited,
so you get a little behind the scenes kind of
stuff here and there. If you are a fifty dollars
or more patron, you can pick the topic of an episode.
So Ben, why don't you give us fifty bucks and
we'll talk about Nightsdale.

Speaker 3 (01:51:01):
I am a third co owner of this podcast if
I want anyway, but if the audience wants to push it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:09):
And then also if you want to go on Tea Public,
you can find us there. If you want to get
like mugs, coasters, things like that to support us, we'd
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for now, popcorn Psychology. You can also email us at
popcorn Psychology at gmail dot com. Have a lovely day, everybody,

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