Relationship Therapists Review Ross and Rachel's Relationship in 'Friends' | Vanity Fair

ross and rachel where are you now they're in the suburbs with the baby i think oh they should do a reunion oh that's a that's a new idea yeah nobody's ever thought of a friends reunion before hi i'm laura heck i'm a licensed marriage and family therapist certified gottman therapist and co-host of marriage therapy radio hi i'm zach brittle i'm a certified gottman therapist in private practice in seattle washington i'm also the co-host of marriage therapy radio with laura heck zach and i are back with vanity fair to take a look at the relationship between ross and rachel on friends ross has harbored a secret crush on rachel since the ninth grade they went to the same high school and their families were friends as teens ross was sort of a nerd and rachel was quite popular as an adult ross gets divorced from his wife because she turns out to fall in love with another woman rachel leaves her fiance at the altar and they all connect together in this coffee shop and begin this journey that we watched for 10 years called friends what are you doing here well you said you couldn't go out so you brought a picnic ugh what a boyfriend that's it on monday i start wearing makeup ross honey this is very nice but but i i've got a crisis yeah but i've got couscous if we're just talking like pure relationship dynamic it's pretty bad when you can't pick up on your partner's explicit cues cues like right um and she's doing her best she's trying but i but she's not got much to work with here pepper i think he's also so focused on what he wants and that can be so frustrating in a relationship when you are so focused on what your desires are and what you want rather than paying attention to what your partner is literally saying to you i think that's actually a really good point particularly when you think again about the trajectory that the two of them were on where he's been trying to woo her for decades and she's kind of late to the party so he's actually living into his like dream and he's not going to blow it so i'll give him at least that ross you're not listening to me i don't have time to stop come on rach you don't have what 10 minutes i don't have 10 minutes what sophie did she had 10 minutes ross i told you i don't i have to say when he turns to the first time i watch this when he turns to uh the secretary i think they called him secretaries back then and says hey does she have 10 minutes it that would send me over the edge i mean clearly she's already escalated she's already stayed at feeling like she's internally chaotic and now he's saying hey i don't believe what you're saying about yourself and he turns to her assistant and that that i would yell don't yell at me okay this is the most i've seen you all week look i cannot do this right now okay i've got a deadline i think there's a very important alignment issue here that when you're not aligned um you know you're not going to have effective communication period to me like when you want to know what people's priorities are you follow their time and their money and so what she's basically saying is you're not a priority for me because i don't have 10 minutes for you and that that would be frustrating as well i disagree i think that if if someone says i'm going to be in the middle of a storm right now at work and i need to get this done and then you walk in and you say what you just said you know what i'm more important my desires what i haven't planned for you is more important than this right now setting up a boundary and saying i'm in the middle of something and i know that i'm not going to be able to attune to you or to be present for you so when i get home that's when we can celebrate the anniversary that's when we can talk would you just go home i'll talk to you later yeah but why 100 yeah no i think 100 you're right i think i don't think this is an appropriate way to request your time but yeah you've got to remember this other piece too that he threw in there he said this is the most i've seen you all week so she's made a she's made a more comprehensive decision about where she's putting her time um than just these 10 minutes so i think if couples are going to thrive they need to make sure that they create space for one another certainly within the context of a week maybe not within the context of hey i just barged in on your workplace look um about what happened earlier well i i completely understand you were you were stressed i was gonna give you a chance to apologize to me for what for letting you throw me out of your office you had no right coming down to my office ross you do not bring a picnic basket to somebody's work unless maybe they were a park ranger yeah well excuse me for wanting to be with my girlfriend on our anniversary boy what an ass am i that's defense of this fyi in case you're watching this oh pity me i did something and i not to be at fault so he's just he's being defensive at the moment well and i think the other piece too is this idea that you talk about a lot which is kind of for some reason there she's got on her like dark lenses right you call them covered glasses but i told you i didn't have the time yeah well you never have the time colored glasses it's really just this negative perspective so in the research you can either be in positive sentiment override where you really look at your relationship you scan for the positives you're constantly on the lookout for what you love and appreciate about your partner and about your relationship or you can be in negative sentiment override then the negative sentiment override is where you find yourself really easily interpreting neutral stimuli in your relationship as more negative or you find that you're you're really just like on the lookout for ways that your partner is hurting you or betraying you or missing the mark and i think in this instance just this one gesture of ross showing up with this picnic basket and offering a kind i think all of us could look at that and go oh that's so sweet i mean we even see that with with the assistant right that's it on monday i start wearing makeup her lenses are more accurate than rachel's at this point because she goes that's so sweet and um the way that rachel looks at it is through negative sentiment override which takes time to creep in for you to get to the place where your relationship is overdrawn and you're you're misinterpreting actions in the relationship they they aren't in a healthy foundational space um because if they were and he shows up with the basket you know which is effectively con it's an interpretable act right am i going to interpret it as an as an intrusion or as a as a as a relief right and i'm more likely to interpret it as a relief when the foundation is intact for a week they haven't connected and if you are feeling like there's been disconnection you think of like this emotional bank account between the two of you and all week long you've just been making all of these withdrawals because you're busy you're stressed out at work you're not able to be with your partner and then all of a sudden ross shows up with this beautiful gesture and the lens that she's looking at that through is interpreting that this is him you know barging in rather than making a sweet gesture and saying i just want to spend time with you rose what do you want from me you want me to want to quit my job so you can feel like you have a girlfriend no but it would be nice if you'd realize that it's just a job just a job yes there's so many things happening here that just make the spiral go down even further because what we know about rachel is that she had been working at the coffee shop and now she's working in a job that is her dream job and he says it's just a job which completely minimizes her dream and her importance ross do you realize this is the first time in my life i'm doing something i actually care about this is the first time in my life i'm doing something that i'm actually good at that to me is her saying you don't know me because if you knew me if you cared about me if you were honoring my dreams then you would recognize that this is a big deal and when i'm stressed out and i need to get something done or want to accomplish something at work it's because it's not just about work it's about the dream oh maybe we should just take a break okay okay fine you're right let's uh let's take a break let's cool off okay let's get some frozen yogurt perfect idea take a break go get some frozen yogurt separately no this is it a break from us do you call that stonewalling he leaves the room yeah i i mean stonewalling is is basically just shutting down from your partner when you become a stone wall you're not engaging you're not speaking your non-verbals aren't present they grab their keys they leave they go for a drive stonewalling is without agreement um taking a break however can be incredibly helpful and that would have been had they followed this and said you know what why don't we take a break and rachel would have bit her tongue rather than saying i mean a break from us my guess is that they would have calmed down because right now they're in they're in sort of diffuse physiological arousal dpa of what we consider fight or flight they're flooded and you just can't have a good conversation with your partner when you're flooded and in order to combat that taking a break would have been a great idea let's calm down and then let's talk about this because whatever happened up until this point has not been effective clear empathetic generous communication between the two of us and kind of what happens next is the result of not effectively ending this argument in a way that would would set you up for success or set you up for repair anyway but i think the moment she says let's take a break and he doesn't understand what she means and then she says no this is what i mean the you know he needs to stay right there and and make sure that they have an agreement about what they mean about the break because that's really the problem with what happens next right they don't have an agreement about what the break means and so if they're going to end that conversation effectively they they have to find agreement about what the break means and i think i think you're i think you're exactly right if they had taken a break and gone to get some yogurt um they may have stayed you know much more connected because it's the arousal that was the problem not the not the argument itself i find that a lot of couples they end up there everything escalates and then they say we need to separate we need to take a break and the whole reason why they want to take a break is because the pain is too great they've gotten to that threshold where it's like it's going to be easier for us to stop cease action and take a break than it is for us to continue forward but that doesn't mean that your job is done at that point now you have a whole lot of things that you need to script out write out come up to some agreement what does a break mean does it mean that we text each other does it mean that we call one another does it mean that we don't see each other does it mean that we don't show up at parties where we know the other person's going to be do we date other people there's a lot of things that you need to establish otherwise there's so many opportunities where you're going to get it wrong and then be hurt you're not setting yourself up for success just get away from it it was a mistake i made a mistake okay a mistake what were you trying to put it in her purse you know what i want you to leave get out of here no i know i want to stay i want to talk about this there's no chance this conversation goes well while they're escalated i mean there's absolutely zero chance so the the idea that he should leave maybe is actually true but i think the thing about stonewalling in particular is the leaving has the promise of a return right like um and so we have to we have to assume that if they're going to find a way to de-escalate it's got to be together you know what i'm i'm not the one that wanted that that break okay you're the one that bailed on us you're the one that that ran the moment things got just a little rough that's that's what the thing about infidelity is that i think there's lots of different profiles they're talking about two different things almost because ross is concerned about this present figure in the relationship that that has been a threat to him for a time um despite rachel's protestations that she hasn't been with him at all um that that that's kind of different than the one night stand you have with the girl that you met at the store um in terms of the profiles are different they're just very different types of infidelity that is neither here nor there okay well here we are now we're in a tough spot again rach what do you want to do how do you know first of all he stands up now he's standing taller than her and he's pointing his finger at her like rachel you stand up girl or just tell them to sit down but that's a really awkward that's not gonna go anywhere just the body language alone is not healthy in this communication i did a terrible stupid stupid thing okay and i'm sorry i wish i could take it back but i can't no ross don't it was a pretty good apology until the kissing and it's really interesting how he can switch i mean it's funny because it's it's actually a pretty accurate portrayal of how people in the moment like they're trying anything they possibly can to feel heard and so he stands up he points his finger he gets frustrated gets intense and then he's like this isn't working so he sits down and gets calm he softens he starts talking about how much he loves her and it's like you are willing to just pull out any anything you can to get to your partner and interestingly i mean the listener is really the one who's going to determine whether or not they're able to hear what you have to say when you said the listener is the one who gets decided i almost thought about me the viewer like i get to decide too right like i get to decide whether or not i'm going to forgive ross like do you do you have that notion do you want to forgive him yeah i do i had a lot of i had a lot of empathy at that moment because all of this started off with him trying to reach across the gap the chasm and bring bring an anniversary celebrate their love together and all within all within a matter of 24 hours he's the one who's saying i haven't seen you i care about you i want to celebrate our love to then going out and feeling like he's in pain and trying to make himself feel better but yeah i do i do want to forgive him and i do have empathy for him i used to think of you as somebody that would never ever hurt me ever scott and now i just can't stop picturing you with her i can't it doesn't matter what you say or what you do ross it's just changed everything when there's been a betrayal like this rachel is exactly right like you aren't the same person or you're certainly aren't in the same relationship um so what's interesting too though is like often i'll say to clients uh who have had an affair of some sort i'll ask them i said if i asked you two years ago if you would ever have an affair what would you say and they'll say no of course i would say no i would never do that and so in that way ross in this case is also not the same person that he was like he um to himself right he used to be a guy who would never have an affair and now he's not that guy and so he has to come to terms with that reality that he's a new person and he has to get to know that person and if their relationship is going to recover it's going to be because they agree to again pivot when something is broken it's it needs to be repaired and the thing that's really cool about uh really good affair work or really good betrayal work is that often the thing that lives on the other side of the break can be stronger than the thing that existed before it and so but that's really what's happening right now is that they don't have a clear path to the post-betrayal agreement could he have done differently i mean i think he could have probably left like six hours ago and given her some space that she needed because this conversation going on until three o'clock in the morning isn't you know it doesn't have a doesn't have a safe landing strip this can't be it then how come it is i wish there was a hard and fast rule that basically said if you haven't solved it in two hours or you haven't come to some sort of resolution or uh decided that you're not going to come to a resolution and it was time to take a break and by break i mean actually like take a break from each other and a pause hit a pause and then come back i wish there was a hard and fast rule because i don't know if there's a whole lot that can be accomplished but there does need to be this conversation seems like it needs to happen there needs to be a this is how this makes me feel this why did this happen they need to have this sort of conversation well i don't know if anything good comes from it after you're exhausted and hungry and tired and lonely and already in that state of just being really flooded boss you didn't tell me you were a doctor well wait a minute you haven't even told her that you are a doctor yet how long have you known her like an hour so since the last scene of them breaking up many years have passed they're not together but surprise surprise they have a baby uh together and they're living together and they're also seeing other people there's an amazing connection between us you feel that too oh i thought that that was just me are you kidding me so ross is playing a game right this is this is uh this is pretty classic ross like i'm gonna i'm gonna indirectly get the thing that i want um which is always rachel's attention right he always wants rachel's attention okay ross what's going on here are we just bringing strange women back to the apartment now i don't know are we just kissing guys on balconies how do you know about that through the magic of sight does she owe him the conversation to say i'm seeing other people i guess it kind of depends on what their agreement is right you've been out there in in bars and on balconies for over a month now and you don't even have the courtesy to tell me it's one thing to say um i'm very uncomfortable with you having men over here and sleeping with them while our baby's in the next room that's okay maybe that's a legit boundary for this style of relationship but i don't want you to like meet people at a bar i don't understand the basis of that right now who do you think you are who are you to decide what messages i should or should not get who am i yes i'm the guy who's taking care of our baby while you're out at bars meeting guys oh my god i cannot believe you you know i actually came in here hoping to have a mature conversation with you about us so you try something you say hey we have a kid let's live together let's do this and i think that the agreement should always be let's reevaluate the situation if you come up with some sort of an agreement then say well let's reevaluate this in like three months and see what's working what's not working because the way that they're doing this like they are having the uncrumble conversation of this doesn't work anymore and it's okay to change midstream you know what this doesn't work in fact this is the the opposite of working uh clearly maybe this you know just doesn't make sense anymore yeah maybe not friends ran for 10 seasons and you got to figure that ross was with rachel or into rachel for i don't know 20 years before it started or maybe maybe 10 15 or so so their story is pretty long their story is about 25 years long and anthropologically like relationships only have about a three year life cycle and so if they were in you know let's call it 18 years of relationship that's six different versions of their relationship and i think what we just watched was something that well we actually did see the end of one of them perhaps and i think couples do this sometimes where they go i can't do this anymore and i think what they really mean is i can't do this like this and so there needs to be a renegotiation of terms there's this constant evolution almost like a shedding of a skin and if couples are willing to stay flexible and say okay we're changing we're growing we're evolving there's going to be a shedding of the skin and then they can evolve into their next three years they weren't married when they had their child but that's that's actually like relatively new for the 90s i would say it's much more of a the option now for couples that have had babies together to look at these untraditional or non-traditional ways of living together and having family together that doesn't that includes loved ones includes like the baby mama or baby daddy but not necessarily in a in a romantic role but what we're seeing is the reason why this doesn't work is because they both have feelings for each other that part is obvious in how they're talking about these other people rachel actually does get jealous about this other woman because she does have feelings for ross but just because you have feelings for someone doesn't necessarily mean you want to be in a relationship with them or that you know you should be in a relationship with them and i think that that's the constant tension that they're pulling on is i have feelings for you you are family to me but i don't know if we should be in a relationship if we do if we are good in a relationship thank you for coming with me today oh of course rachel green is very happy you're in her room oh me too come here well i just don't want to be alone tonight okay well um i can maybe grab a sleeping bag or well it's interesting to see the dynamic shift right for a couple of episodes we've seen him be the primary sort of pursuer and uh and now she's you know she's gone into the pursuer space which is i mean certainly given the trauma that she's experiencing that makes sense um but good on ross for you know maintaining a boundary you are upset about your father and you're feeling vulnerable and i i just don't feel it would be right i feel like i'd be you know taking advantage of you but taking advantage i am giving you the advantage enjoy look i'm sure it would be great but i i think one of us has to be thinking clearly so i'm gonna go terry real talks about how couples quite often will sort of vacillate between being like the adult and then being the wounded child and in this moment like she's quite literally the wounded child while her father is in the hospital and and the thing that i love is he says you can be wounded and there's certainly moments where we need to be able to show up and be the wounded child but only one of you gets to be the wounded child at any given time which means that he recognized like you're hurting you're in pain and that's a space that you need to be in in this moment but that doesn't mean that i also get to get swept off and and be in the moment like this and make mistakes where it probably isn't going to serve our relationship but i need to stand my ground as the adult to make adult decisions which is quite often being able to resist your urges that come up in the future when a girl asks for some ill-advised sympathy sex just do it i can't believe this i'm just being a good guy oh that is so hot you know what to avoid this little thing in the future let's just say you and me never having sex again what that's right sex is off the table i am never having sex with you again it's not fair that she said you know that she blames him for how she's feeling um because she he did operate as the functional adult in that in that scenario she wanted to feel comforted and she's reaching out for ross in a way where she knows that he is someone that she can trust and so she's reaching for him and i think that there is a graceful exit which is exactly what he did so i think he did everything right saying i think that we need to take a moment i think i need to go away i will see you in the morning i mean he's showing up for her in all of the ways that she needs except for drawing a boundary and saying no to sex which i think is a perfectly fine boundary and notably this scene plays really differently if the genders are switched i think we just have to acknowledge that it's okay to set a boundary and say no like and we would absolutely say that if it was ross making his move on rachel and then trying to shame her for not sleeping with him 100 it's kind of hard though you know when two people have have a connection you know that's just seems like such a waste i was just thinking about how these two have been like breaking up for 10 years now that just they've never quite figured it out which is tough because it it's like a wound that they keep scratching at and it never really heals and they just are like i'm just gonna scratch it a little bit more today and i thought maybe just maybe they were getting somewhere with this uh being able to say we're not ever gonna have sex again but nope rachel just went in there and she gave it a good scratch ross yes just so you know with us it's never off the table i don't think it's a choice i don't think that they made a choice to have it always on the table i just think it's true and you know what i mean different rules exist for different couples i mean that's just the deal um and for these guys they have a very intimate relationship that includes being able to be there for one another at like their most vulnerable it includes being able to yell at each other um and apparently it includes being able to have sex for ever and anytime whenever it's not off the table then that work i mean that works for them i'm wanting to disagree whether or not it works for them i think it works well enough but do i think that their relationship could be better stronger if there were clearer boundaries between ross and rachel probably i think that we need to be able to know where the boundary is that we can take it right up to the boundary and then back off but anytime the two of them get into a place where all of a sudden they notice like one person starting to cross the boundary i think that's when they get squirrely the relationship gets more complicated more stressful and like we saw in the hospital room like there that was an unnecessary blow up between the two of them because it was an open-ended boundary between the two of them i would hate to be the other person so if ross gets a girlfriend or fiance or i don't know where you know but i would hate to be the other person in this triad because there is always going to be that third party there can't be a full connection between ross and another person or rachel another person as long as you still continue to have this weird boundary between you and your baby mama or your baby data i think most of us do most of our growing from making mistakes and um and clearly rachel and ross have had many mistakes along the way and you can't help but just grow from those opportunities of learning what works what doesn't work they still have it on the table it continues to be on the table for the two of them because maybe along the way they have learned that even though it does hurt sometimes it's worth it for the two of them to be together there's something really really powerful frankly about relationships that are formed in your youth that you that you continue into your adulthood and you know again these guys were inevitable and they were inevitable because they were written characters on a sitcom but i think there is um i i'm glad that we ended here because there's there's the reminder that they have a secure attachment and that they they really do have each other's best interests at heart ultimately ross and rachel end up together and it's because of their friendship it's because they show up for each other it's because they are deeply familiar with one another it's because they they're attracted to one another and they and they let each other know the long-term success of their relationship is really based on a foundation of really solid i mean they're friends they're friends i mean it's right there in the title yeah so that was ross and rachel from friends um they've come a long way over the last 10 years or the 10 years that they were on tv and it was fun hanging out with them thanks vanity fair for having us as we had an opportunity to take a look at just how much relationships evolve over time this show has a warm spot in my heart great way to waste the 90s you

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 603,514

Rating: 4.9285893 out of 5

Keywords: relationship therapists, relationship therapists review, reviews, relationship therapists review friends, friends review, ross and rachel, ross and rachel vanity fair, friends vanity fair, relationship therapist, relationship therapist review friends, relationship therapists review ross and rachel, relationship therapists ross and rachel, ross and rachel friends, ross and rachel relationship, friends the break, the one with the break, ross rachel friends, friends, vanity fair

Id: u82AUmVTauo

Length: 29min 43sec (1783 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/FriendsMagic94]

Should we be surprised?