Dr. Orna Has Some Advice for the Obamas
Have you ever gazed upon Dr. Orna’s collection of tasteful Proenza Schouler knits and thought, Hmmm, what would she say to me and my partner? Well, Michelle Obama now knows the answer to that question. On Wednesday, Orna Guralnik — psychologist and star of the Showtime docuseries Couples Therapy — appeared on Michelle’s podcast, where she doled out some advice on how she and Barack can keep things fresh now that they’re empty-nesters.
On the episode, Michelle shared that she and Barack used to spend a lot of time talking about their kids but have less to discuss now that Sasha and Malia aren’t living at home anymore. “We’ve noticed how much of our time we’ve spent talking about them, right? So now that we’re empty-nesters, it’s like, ‘Well, what are we going to talk about?’” she said. Because they spend so much of their time together, Michelle joked that she sometimes wants to hold off on asking what her husband been up to that day. “It’s like, ‘Oh, don’t tell me until dinner, because we’ve got to have something to talk about at dinner,’” she said.
Of course, Dr. Orna had words of wisdom to share. “There’s a way to be next to another person, even in silence, that can be very alive,” Guralnik said. She suggested using the silence as an opportunity to focus on your own feelings and express them to your partner — a tip Michelle pointed out might actually be a problem.
“Because how many times does somebody ask, ‘What are you thinking about?’ And you’re like, well, let me make up a thing because I don’t actually want to tell you what I was thinking about, which is like, ‘The way you’re chewing makes me want to smack you upside the head.’”
Apparently, this has been a major point of discussion in the Obama household — Michelle said she and their daughters get “very irritated with the way Barack chews.” She wondered out loud what it would be like to open up about this at dinnertime. “Why does your chewing annoy me so much? Let’s discuss. Yeah, I don’t know if I’d bring that up,” Michelle concluded.
Dr. Orna, bless her, suggested that telling the former president he needs to close his mouth when chomping his dinner could be “really interesting” for them as a couple. “Hearing another person chewing is you’re hearing the essence of who they are, their otherness, their bodily functions,” she said. I’m literally always saying that.
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