"Amy's been trying to reach out to me this week and make it all OK, the whole Ben thing, but how can you make up for something like that?" "I don't have that many people to talk to right now." "I'm scared shitless of losing Lenny in some custody battle." "Amy's..." "She's damaged, Paul." "She's fucked up." "The last time you were here, you implied that you had fallen out of love with Amy." "Would you still say that's true?" "I don't know." "How would I know?" "What does it feel like?" "I've only ever been in love with one girl... her." "I've never fallen out of love." "Tell me what it feels like and I'll tell you if I'm feeling it." " Hello, Amy." " Hey, Paul." "Hi, Jake." "Come on in." " You're looking well." " Thank you." "You know, I'm actually gonna miss this office." "I like the feel of it." " I like the clutter." " Really?" "What do you mean, you're gonna miss it?" "It's our last session." "We're getting a divorce..." "For real this time." "I am sorry to hear that." "It's because of you, actually." "Well, not really you." "It's because of therapy." "Therapy did us good." "Would you agree with that, Amy?" "Sure, if by "good," he means it was a disaster." "Sync by Anyone, michvanilly, salomon." "You ever been through a divorce, Paul?" " No, I haven't." " It's not for sissies." "Even when you want it more than anything, it turns into this spiral of uncertainty and pain and you bury a part of yourself." "Maybe we should begin with just..." "Recapping the last week." "How's it been?" "We barely saw each other all week." "That was Jake's idea." "He wanted to see how it would feel." "And?" "It felt okay." "Better than I expected." "Amy?" "Sure!" "My week was light and breezy." "Would you mind talking about it?" "Yes, I do mind talking about it because every time I came here" "I tell you about my week, you find a way to make me feel miserable, to make my childhood seem like a nightmare, to make my marriage look like a sham, so sorry, forgive me, but I'm actually through talking about my week." " Come on, it's not what happened here." " Maybe not for you." "We came in miserable." "We couldn't talk to each other." "All we could do was fuck." "You know?" "Fuck and fight." "And now, I..." "I don't know." "I'm feeling..." " What?" " What Paul says he's seeing..." "What we do to each other, how we bring out the worst in each other." "I can't speak for you, but I..." "I'm feeling better this week." " Better than I've felt in a long time." " Why can't you speak for me?" "Because we haven't seen each other all week." "Whose idea was that?" " We both agreed that..." " No, I didn't." " I thought you said it was a good idea." " I was trying to be accommodating." "And wait, you can't speak for me?" "There was a time when you would've spoken for me in a heartbeat, a time when you knew every thought in my head." "I wanted it to be true, but it never was." "And how would you know that?" "It's my head." "Did you know I heard you play this week?" " What are you talking about?" "Where?" " At Elliot's house on Friday night." "You were at Elliot's?" "When?" "Well, not exactly." "I was on Elliot's street." "I could hear you playing from my car." "You were actually quite good." "That's insane." "This was Friday night?" " Where was Lenny?" " Home with a sitter." "I was gonna surprise you." "I was gonna ring the doorbell and come inside and say..." "Actually I was hoping I wouldn't have to say anything." "That you'd just grab me before I got to that part." " You never came in." " No." "Why not?" "Because of Paul." "Because of everything that we've said to each other here." "Because I couldn't remember how we used to make up before we came to Paul." "We used to have sex." "That's how we used to make up." "I'm so sorry I ever suggested coming here." "I just wish we'd never done it." "Amy, you said that you see our work here as being a failure." " Why do you think that?" " Because it is." "Been coming to you for months and it's only gotten worse between us." "Jake, how do you see the therapy?" "Do you see it as a success?" "I think it's a little bit more complicated than that." "In what way?" "I'm just..." "I don't know." "I think I'm getting it more now..." "Why... we can't control our dynamic, why we trigger each other's worst instincts." "And, I don't know, it feels good to me." "I mean, it feels awful, of course, but it feels good that it's making more sense." "You know?" "Like, it's not me, it's not her, it's us." "It seems to me it's finally clear that you both have radically different ideas of what a relationship fundamentally is." "Amy, you think things are falling apart, yet the worst is gonna come." "Jake, you see things as coming together, that the future is brighter than the past." "You're evaluating our entire beings based on the way that we behave at the moment we're getting divorced?" " That's ridiculous." " There is a theory that says the way a person handles one thing is the way they handle everything." "And I guess what I'm trying to do is take into account the whole history of your relationship." "I do remember, Amy, that it was sex that first attracted you to each other." "And your first encounters you described as "messy," ""but really really powerful."" "And then you got pregnant, which you hadn't planned, and then you got married." "By then you'd begun to fall into the patterns of provoking each other." "Amy, you mentioned how depressed you were when Lenny was born." "Do you remember that?" "Do you remember why?" "I felt like the world was a terrible place and it was wrong to bring a child into it." "And what about you, Jake?" "What do you remember feeling when Lenny was born?" "I felt pure..." "Unadulterated relation." "I still don't understand." "I'm a pessimist and he's an optimist and opposites attract." "And that happens all the time, so why can't we fix this?" "Why doesn't this relationship work?" "You know, I think that what we've tried to do here in these sessions is to illuminate the patterns of behavior that have kept the two of you kind of..." "Coiled around each other..." "The cycles that you've embraced, the way you've hidden behind them." "So you can't really act out these patterns anymore because everything is now out in the open." "Now they're in the conscious mind." "The two of you are, in a way, emotionally naked before each other." "I remember when it all started." "After Lenny was born, I just sort of lost it." "There were nights I'd sit there holding him watching television, just crying." "And then of course, he'd start to cry." "Jake would come home from work and take Lenny and... take him into another room." "I mean, I came out of it eventually, but Jake... didn't look at me the same way again." " That's not exactly what happened." " It is." "When I got depressed, it was like you took it personally or something." " You acted as if I'd betrayed you." " You had." "When I met you, you seemed like this person who was unhappy in a relationship." "So I thought:" ""Take the woman out of the relationship and you'll take away her pain."" "But I got you out of the relationship and you were still unhappy." "And then we had a kid, a beautiful kid, and you were still unhappy, so..." "I felt like I'd been tricked." "Sorry." "I wasn't trying to trick you." "I'm sorry too." "You don't have anything to be sorry about." "No, I do." "I'm sorry." "I really have screwed a lot of things up and..." "I'm really sorry that I..." "Got angry." "I knew you were having a hard time and I shouldn't have done that." "I don't know." "I just..." "I got scared." "We both did." "I'm gonna miss our family." "This is what I see in front of me:" "two people who have really loved each other deeply." "And even though you're not bringing each other happiness right now, the truth is you've gotten to this place together." "And though you're looking at it from different perspectives, it is the same place." "And I guess what I'm asking you to do is to think about not turning away." "Even at this difficult time when you're... contemplating the notion of separation, you can still draw strength from..." "From each other." "What are you saying?" "You think we shouldn't get divorced?" "Couples therapy either helps people heal or it shows them how they can separate." "The therapist's job in the end, I suppose, is to let the couple decide." "But we've been coming here for weeks." "We've told you so much." "You must have an opinion." "All I can say is that you are a unique couple." "I know couples who use less energy to make love than you two use in casual conversation." "And passion like that is a rare commodity." "But passion itself isn't enough to sustain a relationship for a lifetime." "What is?" "What is enough to keep two people together for a lifetime?" "I wish I knew the answer to that." "I'm so worried about Lenny." "Yeah, he's gonna have a whole different life." "So you're gonna share custody then." "I assume we would." "Joint custody." "You understand what that means." "It means he moves back and forth, right?" "Yes, but I think it's a little bit more specific than that." "But you know what?" "This isn't my area of expertise." "You both need to sit down and discuss this in detail with a lawyer." "Jesus." "We can barely get him to school on time as it is between the two of us." "Amy's working as much as she does..." "So I guess, what?" "I should take him during the week?" "Actually, I'm not working anymore." "What, did you quit?" " What happened?" " I slept with my boss." "And he has a wife." "He didn't want me around anymore." "So you were fired." "That fucking asshole." "I'm relieved, actually." "We've got a bit of a cushion with the severance package, so..." "And I got a producer who's still really interested in a few songs of mine." "I think it might be helpful to talk through some of the more complicated questions that arise as a result." "For example, have you thought about where you're going to live?" "I was thinking of getting a place in the city." "I know a guy, he's a friend of Elliot." "He's got a loft." "It's rough, but it's cheap." "There's enough space for me," "Lenny, and maybe a little recording studio." " Is it safe?" " Sure." " Is there a doorman?" " I just told you it was cheap." "I don't want him staying in a bad place." "What do you want me to do?" "Stay in the house, build a little wall through the bedroom?" "I thought about moving away, starting over in another place, but I want him to be close to you." "It'll be fine." "It'll be good for him to get out of the suburbs anyway." "And you know I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to him." "If worse comes to worse, you could always get your parents to help out with Lenny." "I'd live on the streets before I ever ask my parents for help." "Have you told them about this, about us?" " What'd they say?" " My dad cried." " Really?" " No, but I think he wanted to." "I could tell." "Probably invite you for Christmas, tell you to bring a date." "We'll figure this custody thing out." "People do it every year, right?" "Have either of you talked to Lenny about what's been going on between you?" "Not really, but he knows." "Kids pick up on everything." "They certainly do." "He thinks we're crazy, I can tell." "He's only 9 but he already realizes he's got crazy parents." "He's not entirely wrong there, is he?" "Remember that time we tried to teach him where babies come from?" "Amy had gotten him this book called" ""Where do I come from?" It was one of those cartoon books that they write to teach kids about sex." "It was a pretty good book, except..." "Except that it left out this really significant part, that sex is pleasurable." "Which Amy felt like Lenny really needed to know." "They made it sound like sex was something adults did 'cause they had to, like brushing your teeth." "I'm reading the book and Amy keeps interrupting trying to explain to him what sex feels like using these ridiculous metaphors to describe how sex feels for a woman." "It was my only frame of reference." "Meanwhile, Jake keeps correcting me with contradictory metaphors from the male perspective, saying it's like hitting a home run naked inside of someone else." "And this poor kid is just looking at us just more and more confused," " until finally he just..." " Got up and walked away." "Just walked right out the door." "Shaking his head like a little old man." "Yeah he'll be okay." "My father used to say there's no greater distance than the space between two heads." "We're over, aren't we?" "Damn it." "Oh, God!" "We should get going." "Lenny's piano lesson is gonna be over pretty soon." "Sorry." "And I need to go." "I can't be here any longer." "We're gonna talk to him now?" " No, later." " When?" " I don't know, OK?" " I think you'll find the right time." "We're gonna be late." "Let's go." "You wanna stay and talk to Paul for a few more minutes and I can" " go pick Lenny up myself?" " No, I want this to be harder for you." "It is hard for me." "No, it's not." "You can't wait to get out of here." "No, I'm just done with this room." "Okay?" "I wanna go to a bar, get drunk, and cry like a baby." "I wanna feel all those things." "I just don't want to do it here, OK?" "Come on, Ame." "Who's that?" "My next patients." "Let's go." "Amy." "Jake."