Latest / Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler / Minisode: Secrets in German with Jenny Mollen + Jason Biggs
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to a new segment of Dear Chelsea.
- 0:03Speaker 2: Call it Couple's Counseling with Chelsea, where we do couples
- 0:07Speaker 2: counseling on all sorts of variations of friends, lovers, families.
- 0:12Speaker 2: I'm here with my friends Jenny Mullen and Jason Biggs,
- 0:14Speaker 2: and we are going to do some couples counseling. Welcome
- 0:19Speaker 2: to my office. Okay, Jason, I want to talk to
- 0:23Speaker 2: you about your packing and your neurosis. So you guys
- 0:27Speaker 2: travel a lot. You travel a lot with the kids.
- 0:29Speaker 1: Yeah, is great.
- 0:29Speaker 2: The kids speak German because Jenny speaks German. That's also great. Jason,
- 0:33Speaker 2: are you speaking German yet?
- 0:35Speaker 3: Nine?
- 0:35Speaker 1: Okay, So in.
- 0:37Speaker 4: Little he understands a lot.
- 0:38Speaker 1: It's creepy you would understand a lot. You guys have
- 0:41Speaker 1: been there a lot.
- 0:41Speaker 4: Yeah, he understands way too much. It's no longer the
- 0:44Speaker 4: secret thing I had with the boys. Now he understands
- 0:46Speaker 4: when we're talking about him, which.
- 0:47Speaker 3: But also the context is still kid conversations. I mean,
- 0:50Speaker 3: obviously they are fluent and so it has gotten more
- 0:53Speaker 3: advanced over the years. They can understand pretty much everything.
- 0:56Speaker 4: But sometimes I'll say to Sid, like stop asking him
- 0:59Speaker 4: like I need to go take him aside and bring
- 1:01Speaker 4: it up so that it's his idea, Like stop asking
- 1:04Speaker 4: him right.
- 1:04Speaker 1: Now, you know.
- 1:05Speaker 4: I'll say that in front to Sid and Jason will understand.
- 1:08Speaker 1: What are you triangulating your whole family aied front?
- 1:15Speaker 3: You, Chelsea, you just touched on one of the most
- 1:18Speaker 3: important issues in our relationships.
- 1:20Speaker 4: Sometimes I Sid wants something back from Jason. I'm like,
- 1:23Speaker 4: you can't keep bringing it up right now. I need
- 1:26Speaker 4: to talk to Daddy. Will decide if you can have
- 1:28Speaker 4: fortnite first, and then we can present it in a
- 1:32Speaker 4: different way, Like if you're going to keep asking him
- 1:34Speaker 4: right now, you're not going to get a different answer. Yeah, right,
- 1:36Speaker 4: And so I will kind of say that to Sid
- 1:38Speaker 4: to kind of nudge him, like, shut the fuck up
- 1:41Speaker 4: right now. You're digging a hole.
- 1:43Speaker 2: Right, Okay, But that means you're all you're playing both sides.
- 1:46Speaker 2: You're playing a little You want to be friends with
- 1:49Speaker 2: Sid and you want to be the one trusts sometimes
- 1:52Speaker 2: and then and then you're making him into the bad guy.
- 1:56Speaker 2: And I would expect nothing less.
- 1:57Speaker 4: From you, thank you, Oh my god.
- 2:02Speaker 2: And yeah, I would watch your back Jason, if you
- 2:04Speaker 2: aren't already watching your back watching.
- 2:06Speaker 5: Believe me, this comes up in real couple therapy.
- 2:09Speaker 1: I don't know why you're intimating that this is.
- 2:10Speaker 5: Not really Sorry, Sorry are other couples?
- 2:13Speaker 1: Thank you? It's all I have to say is last night, Jason.
- 2:16Speaker 4: I'm sorry I'm cutting you off, but I just you
- 2:18Speaker 4: have to hear this because you don't know this.
- 2:20Speaker 1: I mean you might have heard this last night. Well
- 2:21Speaker 1: I probably was covered underneath a bunch of pillows, okay.
- 2:24Speaker 4: You. Jason came in because he's like mother hen like again, neurotic,
- 2:28Speaker 4: fixing everything. And he comes in to turn on the
- 2:30Speaker 4: air purifier in our room and Sid.
- 2:33Speaker 3: Because I lower it during the day to a low
- 2:35Speaker 3: level and then at night before they go to bed,
- 2:37Speaker 3: I knock it up one as white noise slash purifications.
- 2:40Speaker 4: Sid was about to go to sleep and he was
- 2:42Speaker 4: literally just like almost out and Jason comes in in.
- 2:45Speaker 5: His not frantic, he was very quiet.
- 2:47Speaker 4: No, he was frustrated, okay, And Jason's like, well, I'm
- 2:50Speaker 4: just turning up the air so that it drowns out
- 2:52Speaker 4: all the sound. And it turns to me.
- 2:54Speaker 1: He goes, Mom, are re.
- 2:55Speaker 5: Okay with this? I did hear? I did hear?
- 3:01Speaker 1: Did you say that in English or in German English.
- 3:03Speaker 2: Have I died? So?
- 3:04Speaker 1: Jason, back to your packing, what do you think is
- 3:07Speaker 1: wrong with you? Do you have to pack?
- 3:08Speaker 4: What?
- 3:08Speaker 2: Two weeks in advance, because otherwise you'll flip your lid
- 3:11Speaker 2: if you're not ready to go?
- 3:12Speaker 5: Not that far.
- 3:14Speaker 3: I've I've shortened the window to be sure, but it's
- 3:17Speaker 3: I need to be prepared, certainly minimum the day before.
- 3:20Speaker 3: I mean everything needs to because also it's not just
- 3:23Speaker 3: myself that I'm packing, it's the boys, and it's basically
- 3:29Speaker 3: repacking Jenny when she's and by the way, she's not
- 3:33Speaker 3: even packing now at this point. She's kind of given
- 3:35Speaker 3: it up and now given up. The nanny packs like
- 3:38Speaker 3: smoking given off, but still she if the nanny hasn't
- 3:42Speaker 3: packed her.
- 3:43Speaker 2: Given up, I also have given up packing.
- 3:48Speaker 3: I'm sure it's control issue, it's OCD, it's all it's
- 3:51Speaker 3: all the things that track for me and my personality.
- 3:53Speaker 3: But it's like I can't. First of all, I need
- 3:56Speaker 3: to take advantage of the space, and I need to
- 3:59Speaker 3: so needs to be.
- 4:01Speaker 4: Space military role.
- 4:03Speaker 1: And it's very true that you can fit a lot more.
- 4:05Speaker 5: In your way more way way unless it's.
- 4:08Speaker 1: A sweater, don't roll your sweaters. That actually takes up more.
- 4:12Speaker 5: Exactly you fold your sweaters. That's exactly right.
- 4:15Speaker 2: Sweatshirts otherwise known as suda there as an Espanol.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Now, so that's controlling or OCD, right, is.
- 4:22Speaker 3: That it's a touch of all of that. I think
- 4:24Speaker 3: it's control issue. I think it's o CD. I don't
- 4:27Speaker 3: know what else that would fall under. But it's also
- 4:30Speaker 3: like there is that mother hen it's not just about me.
- 4:34Speaker 3: There is a sort of need to make sure the
- 4:36Speaker 3: family is so everything needs to go like whatever I
- 4:40Speaker 3: can control in terms of travel, because so much can
- 4:44Speaker 3: go wrong and does go wrong and is out of
- 4:47Speaker 3: your control that whatever is possibly in my control, I
- 4:49Speaker 3: want to make sure it goes smoothly.
- 4:51Speaker 5: And so that means and so that.
- 4:53Speaker 2: Means, yeah, we'd like to say one more time that
- 4:55Speaker 2: Jason is not Jewish.
- 4:58Speaker 3: So that means I'm not walking around with a checklist,
- 5:01Speaker 3: but I am. In my mind, I've got a checklist,
- 5:03Speaker 3: like are the boys medicines's kids tiling?
- 5:05Speaker 5: All kids? This kids too medicated? You know? Are they
- 5:08Speaker 5: drug yes? Traveling? You know?
- 5:10Speaker 3: Do we charge everything downloaded iPhone's charge? Are the movies
- 5:13Speaker 3: downloaded on their iPads are because this is also also
- 5:17Speaker 3: I'll say this, I'll say that not only and Jenny
- 5:19Speaker 3: might have a counterpoint to this, which I'm curious to hear.
- 5:24Speaker 3: But I think it's not just that I feel I
- 5:27Speaker 3: need to do it because of my own personal impulses
- 5:29Speaker 3: and my own personal deficiencies mentally, but I also feel
- 5:34Speaker 3: like it's a reaction to the fact that I'm getting
- 5:38Speaker 3: no help on this side. There is zero Like if
- 5:41Speaker 3: I had a partner who was also like, there's not
- 5:44Speaker 3: room for.
- 5:44Speaker 4: Two of us. I've actually like he's enabled me to
- 5:47Speaker 4: be we don't know that.
- 5:48Speaker 5: We don't know that. You like he's your assistant, Well,
- 5:51Speaker 5: never know that because there aren't you.
- 5:53Speaker 4: Yes, because because during the pandemic, he's like, I've never
- 5:56Speaker 4: seen you use a broom, I've never seen you do
- 5:58Speaker 4: these I've never seen you loaded dishrush shore. And I
- 6:00Speaker 4: said to him, when I lived alone, who do you
- 6:01Speaker 4: think did all this stuff? But now when I when
- 6:03Speaker 4: I we paired up, it's like he's enabled me to
- 6:06Speaker 4: like not like put.
- 6:07Speaker 5: A paper on the rack. My belief that there was
- 6:13Speaker 5: never mother.
- 6:13Speaker 2: Hands, you were always looking for someone to offload your packing,
- 6:17Speaker 2: Isn't that true? You were always looking for some sort
- 6:20Speaker 2: of dynamic, whether it was Jason or nanny or maybe
- 6:25Speaker 2: even your own children. Like if someone else could do
- 6:28Speaker 2: it for you.
- 6:29Speaker 5: A hundred could delegate things.
- 6:30Speaker 4: I mean, when I first got said from the store,
- 6:33Speaker 4: from the store and I had I had a nanny,
- 6:37Speaker 4: I realized, whoa, this is ideal. This is what I've
- 6:39Speaker 4: always knew, of course, but I think before, before I
- 6:42Speaker 4: was with you, I mean, I did all these things.
- 6:44Speaker 4: I mean sometimes, yes, like instead of washing the dishes
- 6:46Speaker 4: and just throw them away exactly exactly most of the
- 6:49Speaker 4: time I had to.
- 6:50Speaker 5: And you had roommates that took the trash out, like
- 6:52Speaker 5: you know, I.
- 6:52Speaker 4: Lived alone, Jason, I lived alone.
- 6:55Speaker 5: She did take the trash out the other night, first
- 6:57Speaker 5: time I've ever seen her do it.
- 6:59Speaker 3: Trash downs, no, of course not no. We have a
- 7:01Speaker 3: trash shoot in the hallway right across. But hold on,
- 7:05Speaker 3: but here's the best there. It couldn't be an easier
- 7:08Speaker 3: task given our building and the trash shooting across the
- 7:10Speaker 3: hall like it is so so easy.
- 7:12Speaker 5: You're really getting on me now, and I come back
- 7:14Speaker 5: in the apartment.
- 7:15Speaker 1: We're here for.
- 7:16Speaker 4: The one thing that I did something great, and you're
- 7:18Speaker 4: gonna talk about it.
- 7:19Speaker 5: Well, I think this is funny.
- 7:20Speaker 1: Hold on, you did not do something great?
- 7:22Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
- 7:23Speaker 1: The throwing trash out into a shoot is like what
- 7:26Speaker 1: I would say to someone if they But she's gonna,
- 7:29Speaker 1: did you do anything today? I like, you, bet?
- 7:31Speaker 2: I did?
- 7:32Speaker 1: You fucking bet I did.
- 7:33Speaker 5: But that's her.
- 7:33Speaker 3: She's like, what do you mean I took out the
- 7:35Speaker 3: trash today? Don't even get on me about this, this, this,
- 7:37Speaker 3: and this. It's like, uh, okay anyway. But she didn't
- 7:40Speaker 3: even complete the task because I came back in. I like,
- 7:43Speaker 3: had some trash and I go, I opened the trash
- 7:46Speaker 3: can and I throw it in the trash and I realized,
- 7:48Speaker 3: I go.
- 7:48Speaker 5: There's a fucking bag in the trash.
- 7:50Speaker 3: I go, Jenny, You know when you take the trash out,
- 7:54Speaker 3: there is another step in the process. You have to
- 7:56Speaker 3: put a new bag in the cant Oh okay, she
- 7:59Speaker 3: was a lost gone into space something else.
- 8:01Speaker 2: You was thinking, right, what about the cooking at your house?
- 8:08Speaker 2: Who's in charge of that?
- 8:09Speaker 1: You do a lot of cooking, Yeah, because you do
- 8:11Speaker 1: your dictator lunch.
- 8:12Speaker 2: Yes, And what about you cook too, though, Jason, don't
- 8:14Speaker 2: you who's who's holding the fort down?
- 8:17Speaker 1: On that.
- 8:17Speaker 4: I usually do the cooking for the kids, and then
- 8:20Speaker 4: Jason will do like a weekend pasta and.
- 8:23Speaker 5: Roast a chicken.
- 8:24Speaker 2: Right, because you can only eat like two things, right
- 8:27Speaker 2: because of your situation?
- 8:29Speaker 1: Or have you been able to eat more nuts?
- 8:31Speaker 4: I mean I don't. Yeah, I eat more things. I
- 8:35Speaker 4: guess you love you really just love I love a
- 8:37Speaker 4: fucking nuts.
- 8:38Speaker 1: I've never seen anyone eat nuts.
- 8:40Speaker 2: You actually turn into a squirrel when I squirrel out
- 8:43Speaker 2: Sophie my friend also you you guys know she fucking
- 8:46Speaker 2: loves nuts too.
- 8:47Speaker 1: What kind of you guys have made me so turned
- 8:49Speaker 1: off by nuts that I can't even eat them anymore.
- 8:52Speaker 5: But it's not even like good nuts, like a roasted peanuts.
- 8:55Speaker 5: It's like a tiger nut with me.
- 8:56Speaker 2: And then Jenny eats it and she can somehow take
- 8:58Speaker 2: like fourteen bites have one.
- 9:00Speaker 3: Peanut, and then and then because this is yeah, and
- 9:06Speaker 3: then yeah, and then because this is healthy, she'll leave
- 9:09Speaker 3: like a half a bite and then put that aside
- 9:11Speaker 3: and be like, Okay, that's I didn't eat the whole thing.
- 9:14Speaker 1: So and then who cleans up after you? Guys?
- 9:16Speaker 5: Oh my god, are you kidding me to? This is
- 9:19Speaker 5: fucking this bad.
- 9:19Speaker 1: I knew the answer to before I asked him.
- 9:21Speaker 5: This is truly for me.
- 9:24Speaker 4: I can't wait for Jason to listen to this back
- 9:26Speaker 4: and be like, WHOA.
- 9:26Speaker 3: I really really was hard on her.
- 9:29Speaker 2: So I think he's just exposing you, you know what,
- 9:32Speaker 2: for what we all know to be true. I mean,
- 9:34Speaker 2: some people are very good at a certain group of things.
- 9:37Speaker 1: I'm with you. I can't do anything.
- 9:40Speaker 2: My dog Pete in the house the other day and
- 9:41Speaker 2: I waited for someone to arrive because.
- 9:43Speaker 1: I didn't know what what. I was like, these are
- 9:46Speaker 1: wood floors.
- 9:47Speaker 2: I don't know what to use is it's just regular
- 9:49Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, it's better just
- 9:52Speaker 2: back away.
- 9:52Speaker 5: Someone's I will make this worse. Yeah, ROLLI.
- 10:01Speaker 2: He's like, you know, you can just use paper towel,
- 10:03Speaker 2: and I'm like, I don't think that's right.
- 10:07Speaker 1: So you're doing all the cleaning.
- 10:09Speaker 2: And then when you guys argue, do you have is
- 10:12Speaker 2: it okay for you to argue in front of the
- 10:13Speaker 2: kids or do you try to keep it away from
- 10:15Speaker 2: the kids.
- 10:16Speaker 1: I feel like you guys probably just argue in front
- 10:18Speaker 1: of the kids.
- 10:19Speaker 4: We bicker in front of the kids. I don't know,
- 10:22Speaker 4: do we argue in front of the kids. Some sid
- 10:24Speaker 4: would be like, oh, my parents are always fighting. You know.
- 10:26Speaker 4: It's like, but he has an idea. He's so fucking
- 10:29Speaker 4: like privileged and like, you know, I said him one night,
- 10:32Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I'm putting in your room and
- 10:34Speaker 4: you're going to sleep by yourself, and he screams into
- 10:36Speaker 4: the hallway. You would do that to an innocent child,
- 10:39Speaker 4: you know. So it's like his version of reality, yes,
- 10:42Speaker 4: is just so far off, Like he doesn't understand when
- 10:45Speaker 4: we bicker even you know, he's like, oh.
- 10:47Speaker 5: Here they go again.
- 10:48Speaker 4: It's right, you have no idea, but it lands.
- 10:51Speaker 3: I guess it's a good sign because we don't. I mean,
- 10:53Speaker 3: the house I grew up in was constant fighting, operatic, loud,
- 10:58Speaker 3: always screaming and stuff.
- 11:00Speaker 5: So that was the one. And Jenny grew up in
- 11:01Speaker 5: a house where they just didn't they ran.
- 11:04Speaker 3: Right, which is also not new people always new people, Yeah, exactly,
- 11:08Speaker 3: they flee and start a new thing, like there wasn't
- 11:10Speaker 3: fighting because they wasn't around long enough to fight, which
- 11:12Speaker 3: is also not healthy. We grew up in the opposite end.
- 11:15Speaker 3: The healthy thing is like, yeah, couples that love each
- 11:17Speaker 3: other get into disagreements, there is bickering, there are fights.
- 11:20Speaker 3: Sometimes we do our best. We do maybe and maybe
- 11:24Speaker 3: I can do better. Maybe we can do better. I
- 11:27Speaker 3: know I can do better. Because of the two of us,
- 11:29Speaker 3: I will be the one that will get louder, quicker
- 11:31Speaker 3: for sure, and I have a harder time. Jenny, because
- 11:35Speaker 3: of her family of origin, can be like, all right,
- 11:37Speaker 3: I'm out, Like can leave and just be like we're
- 11:39Speaker 3: not doing this now, whereas I'm like, what, no, I
- 11:41Speaker 3: need resolution.
- 11:42Speaker 5: This feels like abandonment. I can't. I need to fix this.
- 11:46Speaker 5: Stay in a fight.
- 11:48Speaker 3: I'll stay in a fight, ironically in the hopes of
- 11:50Speaker 3: ending the fight, whereas Jenny will just leave the fight
- 11:53Speaker 3: in the hopes of ending the fight.
- 11:54Speaker 5: But that actually triggers me more.
- 11:55Speaker 3: It's it's that's part of our many dances that we
- 11:58Speaker 3: do where we do trigger each other, but we do
- 12:01Speaker 3: our best to not do it in front of the kids. Jenny,
- 12:04Speaker 3: for a long time, even the bickering, because again she
- 12:08Speaker 3: did not grow up with bickering or any any type
- 12:11Speaker 3: of fighting, was like we you know, we'd be in
- 12:14Speaker 3: couples therapy and she'd be like and he just we
- 12:16Speaker 3: were fighting, screaming in front and I was like, well, Jenny,
- 12:19Speaker 3: hold on, we have done that. But the fight you're
- 12:21Speaker 3: referring to was literally us just disagreeing in like her
- 12:25Speaker 3: definition of what a fight was in front of the
- 12:27Speaker 3: kids has changed as her as like she's I believe
- 12:30Speaker 3: in my speaking out of turn. You've realize like, oh, yeah,
- 12:33Speaker 3: this happens, this is okay, and some of it is
- 12:35Speaker 3: okay to happen in front of the kids.
- 12:37Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 12:37Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think that's right.
- 12:38Speaker 2: Like, who doesn't have disagreement, it's scarier if there isn't anything,
- 12:41Speaker 2: well then yeah, then it's like you're describing your childhood right,
- 12:44Speaker 2: your family dynamic. But the good thing is that Jason
- 12:46Speaker 2: has been to so much therapy so that he's a
- 12:48Speaker 2: willing participant in actually resolution and conflict, like dealing with conflict,
- 12:54Speaker 2: not conflict avoidant, because conflict avoiding doesn't get anybody anywhere.
- 12:58Speaker 2: And we'll be back with this worry about when Jenny
- 13:01Speaker 2: and Jason went scuba diving and she left Jason for dead.
- 13:04Speaker 2: You can check out Jenny mull and substack The Best
- 13:06Speaker 2: Friend Experience and her new side hustle The Shirts Off
- 13:10Speaker 2: My Back, where you can buy fabulous vintage clothes, and
- 13:12Speaker 2: you can also check out Jenny and Jason co hosting
- 13:15Speaker 2: Dinner in a Movie on TBS