Did Our Couples Therapist Just Tell Us Not To Get Married?

“After 10 minutes of knowing us, she told us she does not think that my partner is ready to get married.” That is the opening of a voicemail to the Oversharing hosts, Jordana Abraham and Dr. Naomi Burstein. The couple had gone to a new couples therapist for tools to manage pre-wedding bickering and got a verdict instead. The hosts are staggered. Dr. Naomi calls it “cocky” and “unbelievably unprofessional”; Jordana calls it “crazy.” The therapist’s statement is the most extreme example in an episode built around the tension between moving through life versus stopping everything to fix a problem—whether the problem is fertility treatment, a partner’s marijuana use, or body shame.

Living your life while the hard thing is happening

The episode’s first and longest letter comes from a woman deep in IVF after multiple miscarriages. She has RSVP’d yes to a friend’s October wedding, but her next embryo transfer likely falls right in the window. She is torn between delaying treatment so she can attend or skipping the wedding to stay home and focus on the transfer. The core of her dilemma: “fertility treatment has already forced me to postpone so much of my life.”