Transcript of Myha’la’s Relationship Advice? Get in a Fight.

Shane I'm Shane Goldmacher. I'm a national political correspondent for the New York Times, covering the 2024 election. At the New York Times, I get to work with colleagues who have expertise in every nook and cranny of this country and this campaign trail to tell you the full story of what's happening in these critical moments in the last few weeks of the election. If this kind of coverage is important to you, you can support it by subscribing to the New York Times@nytimes.com. subscribe.

From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is modern love. Each week we bring you stories and conversations inspired by the modern love column. We talk about love and sex and all the messiness of relationships. Today, actor Mihala Maihalla stars in the HBO series industry, which has its season three finale on Sunday. The show's about the finance world and a group of people who will say or do pretty much anything to win. The character Michala plays, a banking prodigy named Harper Stern, just might be the most ruthless of them all.

There's no room for you in the modern market. A machine could do your job.

And it seems like she saves her.

Most devastating insults for the people closest to her.

Your arrogance is just you overcompensating for the fact that you could not be anymore fucking ordinary. You are talentless and useless and a fucking whore.

Oof. That's gotta hurt. When I met Michala, she was warm and delightful by contrast. But she did hint that there might.

Be a little bit of Harper in her somewhere.

I think Harper is like an alternate universe version of me, had I not been raised by a Virgo. So I'm an Aries, bossy and fiery. But because my tempered mother was like, you can't be an asshole just because you think you're right. She has taught me the easiest way to get your point across or get what you want is to be kind. Because I could be a tyrant, you know? But I choose not to be. And that's the power of choice, and.

That'S the power of moms as well. So shout out.

Okay, big shout out to all the moms in the world y'all are carrying.

Yeah.

Today I talked to Mahala about what it's like when she does get into an argument with the man she loves.

And she reads an essay about what goes wrong with a couple that never fights. Maihalla, welcome to modern love.

Thank you so much for having me.

So, okay, I read a profile of you in the Times from a little.

While back, where you said you really.

Don'T like small talk. Confirm or deny?

Confirm. Don't like it. Don't love it. Like, I don't want to talk about the weather. And I also don't care what you.

Do, but what do you feel like?

What is your relationship with your mom? Let's start there.

Yes.

I have a bunch of those card things that are, like, conversation starters, but on every page, it's like, what is your deepest, darkest memory from your childhood? Or what is the thing you love the most that you're the most afraid to lose?

Okay. Dinner parties at your house must be really fun, but I will say super fun. We are lined in that desire to go deep immediately, which is why I do this job. And in that spirit of getting very personal very quick, I know you got engaged over the summer to your fiance, Armando Rivera. Congratulations. I wanna know about him. How did you meet?

Yeah, so he had a class, a journalism class that was pass fail. And the whole assignment for the whole year was interview a celebrity. And you're meant to use networking skills to figure out a way to interview a celebrity. And in 2020, industry had just dropped the first season, and because it was deep, Covid, we had no premiere, and I was totally isolated, alone. And of course, I was going through my requests.

Like, on Instagram, you mean?

Yes. My Instagram DM's, my request messages. And he was in there, and he said, congrats on industry. I wish you all the success in the world, or something to that effect. And I just said, thank you. And the next day, I woke up to a string of video messages, which I thought was scary. Yeah. But I went back and looked at his profile, and I was like, ah, he doesn't look that threatening. He's also kind of cute. Maybe I'll just watch it.

Which, like, never happens to reply. Guys, let's just say, yeah.

So I did, and it was literally he was videoing himself, and he said, hi, mahalo.

It's Armando.

I just wanted to say how cool it was that you responded. I wasn't expecting that. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to do, like, a 510 minutes interview with me over Zoom. I couldn't really resist a person who sent a video message to a complete stranger and also someone who they perceived to be a celebrity. I just thought, like, you have no fear. That is crazy.

There's confidence there.

So much. So we hopped into zoom the next day. We were meant to be on 510 minutes. We ended up being on for, like, 40 minutes. The thing that really caught me was that he was asking me questions I hadn't been asked before and asking me questions that let me know he was listening, not just, like, what was it.

Like being on tv?

You know what I mean? He cared about me immediately.

What was he asking you? Do you remember any specific questions?

I couldn't tell you, honestly. Cause I feel like I blacked out, to be honest. I saw him, and he was like.

Hey, my jalettes, Armando.

And I immediately just was like. I was dead from the get. I was so dead. And we hung up, and I was, like, sweating and very aroused. I was like, wow, you are so nice and cool and hot.

Let's just say it.

And so hot.

Oh, my God.

And when we hung up, I was like, am I in love with a stranger? This is weird. So then I sent him a message a few days later and was like, did you get an a on your project?

You opened the door.

I opened the door, and then we were messaging on Instagram, like, all day, every day for weeks. So I said, do you want to meet in person? He said, yes. I brought a bottle of wine, and we sat on his roof. We social distanced ourselves from each other on his roof.

Wow.

We hand sanitized, and then we held hands, and we made it for life. Like, it just was. It was honestly, like, this might sound so crazy, but it was, like, better than any food and any sex that I've ever had. It was unreal, and this is gonna sound so annoying. And me, before I knew this thing was like, ugh, shut up. But, you know, people say when you know, you know. And my ass just knew. I just knew. I truly feel like it had to have been divine intervention that we met at all, because the only reason he asked me to do this interview is because he had Stephen Colbert lined up, and he, like, dropped out in the last minute. So also, like, big thanks to Stephen Colbert.

Like, he should officiate.

Yeah.

Like, it might have been him marrying Arvando, not me, you know?

Stay with us. We'll be back in just a moment.

I'm Judson Jones. I'm a reporter and meteorologist at the New York Times. For about two decades, I've been covering extreme weather, which is getting worse because of climate change, and it's becoming more important to get timely and accurate weather information. That's why we send these customized newsletters letting you know up to three days in advance about extreme weather that could impact you or a place you care about at the Times. You can be confident that everything we publish is based off the most accurate, scientific and vetted information available to us because we want you to be able to make real time decisions about how to go about your life. This is the kind of work that makes subscribing to the New York Times so valuable, and it's how you can support fact based, independent journalism. So if you'd like to subscribe, go to nytimes.com subscribe.

Okay, so, Mahala, you and your fiance, Armando, are about to start your life together as a married couple, but the essay you chose to read today is actually about the end of a long term marriage. Do you want to say anything about why you chose this essay, why it jumped out to you?

Yeah, I mean, I think this essay is a cautionary tale about what happens when you don't express yourself. If you've got big feelings or opinions about something, especially in relationship, and you just don't address them, they'll fester or you'll retreat yourself inward around them. You'll create resentments with your partner. And also, you're with someone who you, you're assuming loves you. They want to know about you. They want to help you when something's wrong. So if there's some way they can adjust to make you happy, I'm sure that that person would do it. So I think this essay is telling us this is what might happen if you aren't expressing yourself, if you aren't talking with your partner.

Yeah, yeah, totally. I like that. It is a cautionary tale. I would love to hear you read this for us. Whenever you're ready, you can go ahead.

Mm hmm. No sound, no fury, no marriage. By Laura Pritchett three years ago, my husband and I broke up after two decades of marriage. Our path since has been so gentle that we've been the cause of confusion and gossip in our little Colorado mountain town. Both of our cars are often in the driveway, meals are frequently eaten together, and logistics make it easier for us adults to switch houses rather than our children doing so. Neighbors sometimes can't tell the difference from before the split and after, and they need to be assured when they run into me at the post office that, yes, a breakup has indeed occurred. By now, my response has become a well rehearsed murmur. We like each other and always have. We are conflict averse, quiet people. No one was at fault. The relationship, in my opinion, at least, had just run its natural course. I remind them that breakups have a new paradigm. They don't have to be hostile and hate filled. They can be mindful, respectful. Humanity has evolved also, I tell them we're thinking about our children not only for the usual reasons of keeping them foremost in our minds during difficult times, but because in recent years they've already been traumatized by things beyond their control, evacuated for wildfires, cut off by historic flooding, and exposed to loss and devastation.

The neighbors nod, knowing all too well the various natural disasters our area has endured. Those sirens and helicopters and newscasts still seem to blare loudly in our ears, which is another reason for us to go quietly about the dissolution of our marriage. I smile at these neighbors and wave as they get into their cars. I do not speak about the sting of all this. I don't tell them how I recently sank to my knees and laughed in half sorrow, half relief. Only because of this, my marriage had long ago turned into the cliche of roommateness, and that it could suffer such a change without any emotional upheaval was revealing. In fact, the silence said it all. The words I don't say to my neighbors, the words that get held on my tongue are, I wish you had heard a fight. I wish our voices had been loud enough to carry across the valley. He and I may have free speech, but we're not so good at frank speech. Shakespeare had it right. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart, concealing it, will break. I never spoke of the anger in my heart, the mounting resentments and hurts, and neither did he.

I never demanded attention or care, and neither did he. And that's why we broke. What hurts most is not the loss of the marriage. What hurts most is that our relationship had never evidently been the kind worth raising one's voice about. But I'm getting louder now. I watch couples all the time, in movies, in novels, and in real life, paying attention to the way they have conflict. I lean over in restaurants. I sit on a bench near the river where two people are talking. My favorite overheard conversations include lines like, really? That's all you're going to say? Or that's not enough for me? Or that's just not so, honey dialog. Basically, that pushes. I want to hug such couples, tell them to keep it up. The last time I tried to do that conversational push with my husband, I failed, and thus it was also the moment I decided to leave him. It was an ordinary day. The house was quiet, and I was reading on the couch. He was reading a magazine while standing in the kitchen. He always did that, happy to stand after a long day of sitting in meetings, and I suddenly realized it had been a decade since he and I sat on the same couch at the same time.

Perhaps we had sat together for a moment while one of us tied shoes, or to discuss a calendar, but to actually watch a movie, talk, have sex, fight, raise our voices. A roaring anger flew into my body, and I wanted to push him with words. Why hadn't he ever learned to sit on the couch with me? Why hadn't I ever asked him to? But most important, why hadn't we had a big damn fight about it? After therapy, we had made no progress in solving our differences, in how we experienced or received love. We had identified them, or at least I had. He disliked touching or snuggling. I did not. He wanted to stay at home on evenings and weekends. I wanted to go out. He disliked the sensation of two bodies being in proximity. I did not. All these differences expanded over the years as we became our truer selves. Quietly. Sometimes I would open my mouth to say something about the growing distance. Probably he did, too. But no. My mind would run through the list of reasons to keep quiet. I would come across as unreasonable, nagging, or needy. He was tired. The children were in the house.

They should not hear us fighting.

On.

The couch that day, I watched him flip through the pages of his magazine. He glanced up, met my eyes, and went back to reading. I let out a quiet sigh. I watched my breath expel the anger from my body, let any fight I had left in me dissipate. I could nearly see my exhaled stew of emotions. It looked like glitter floating around, drifting to the floor. I wasn't high, but I felt like it. The patterns in the sunlight suddenly struck me as the most painfully beautiful things I had ever seen. Silent sparkles swirling around, making a decision. A few days later, I got the words out I was leaving. While our friendship had sustained us for 20 years and we were both the better for it, I wanted more. I was sure we could manage the coming split with respect and dignity. I was sure we could guide our children through it with love and devotion. He sat on the couch with me. As I told him, my voice shook with the words I was trying to say. Speaking my mind felt awkward and new, but I got them out of I looked at him and awaited a response.

Are you sure? He said. I nodded. I waited. I was not sure. I was waiting for his big reaction or mine. I was waiting to see how this discussion would go. It went, as always, quietly, reasonably, without obvious anger or raised voices. It has been quiet ever since. We are simply not capable of sound and fury. I've decided I sometimes wonder if our inability to strike out is heartbreakingly rooted in our love for one another, because we did and do love each other, and we both had been so injured by our violent and loud childhoods that we found refuge and joy in the quiet. But that kind of love often doesn't survive life. And in the end, our silence was less about respect or affection or love than it was about cowardice. He and I were equal partners in that, turning inward instead of speaking out of. So we have gently floated on the children stay put in the same house, and he and I amicably rotate back and forth. The mountains have greened up again. There hasn't been a major fire in years. My current boyfriend loves banter. He chats all the time about ideas, movies, songs, his day, bad drivers, and the fact that he loves the look of horses standing in a field.

He grows annoyed when I don't push him back with words or ideas. That's what conversation is for, he argues. I laugh and engage. We also have big, complicated disagreements. I am no longer interested in silence. My ex and I still take walks to catch up on things, to discuss logistical or parental matters. On these walks, I sometimes start a conversation of substance just to see if we can do it better. We can't. We retreat swiftly to talk of holidays and events and plans. Thanksgiving, our daughter's violin concert, the meeting at the town hall. On these walks, the neighbors will sometimes stop us to ask cautious questions. Our demeanor is so calm and quiet, they must feel a need to have us once again confirm our split. They will congratulate us on a separation. So well done. And I will nod in silence.

Thank you so much for that. So beautifully done.

I want to know, just while it's.

Fresh in your brain, what was going through your head as you read that.

I was just like, damn. I recognize this type of relationship where, like, you know what you want from it, you know, what would be best.

For the both of you.

And there's something about this pairing that you just can't do it. Armando and I always say to each other, we wouldn't be the people we are for each other today had we not been the people we were with other people before. So, like, clearly, this person needed this relationship to understand that she wanted to be able to engage in discord and to be able to raise her voice or to be passionate, you know, and express herself. She wouldn't have known that she needed that had she not been in a relationship where she couldn't be it.

When we come back, Majala talks about.

How conflict works in her own relationship and why her fights with Armando sometimes come with a side of fries. Stay with us.

Okay? Majala, after hearing you read that modern love essay all about being conflict averse in a relationship, I want to ask you about your own experience with conflict. I read this interview you did with WMaag, where you said that when you and Armando first moved in together a few years ago, you had to hash out some serious shit. That's a direct quote. And that tears were shed. That's another direct quote. And the thing I love is that for some reason that I hope you'll tell me, many of these tough conversations happened in a bear burger.

Oh, we wore that bear burger out, bro.

Wait, why bear Burger? Like, what is it about bear Burger that allows you to have these emotional talks?

I don't know why that happened. I don't know if it was just like we were hungry and it just happened to be the place in which we were nourishing ourselves both physically and emotionally. I don't know. It might have been coincidence. We haven't been to the bear burger in a minute.

No way.

No shade to bear burger. But I think that's honestly mostly just because I stopped eating red meat. I don't really think it has anything.

To do with it.

I was gonna say, wait, you haven't had any conflict in your relationship, so you don't need to go to the bear burger anymore? But, no, it's nothing dietary.

Yeah, no, no. We're still hashing it out, but we're taking it. We're taking it to the chopped. To the sweet green instead.

Yes. Okay. Interesting. Having a fight in chopped. Creative salad company.

Yeah.

Imagine. I mean, we live in New York. We've also had a crying, screaming match on a train. We've also been walking in the street, and passers by have heard us in discussion like, it's happened damn near everywhere. In a taxi, in a cat. You know what I mean? It happens wherever it needs to happen. Although both of us are pretty keen on, like, making sure we have. He is really good about this. I'm not as good about it, but he's really good at letting a moment pass and then coming to me later in private and saying, hey, babe, I didn't really like how this went.

It made me feel such and such.

A way, and I'm like, oh, sometimes I'm like, how dare you talk to me like that? Anywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. It's like as soon as something happens, I'm like, how do we fix this? How do we talk? It how do we get it done, you know? But he has given me permission to just allow my feelings to live inside me, and I can talk about them and express them to him. Or he's always like, yeah, you want to get your. You want to talk about whatever, and I'm like, yeah, but actually, now that you're giving me permission to, I think it makes no sense that I'm making myself more hurt than I need to be.

That's so interesting. It's like he's not saying, don't feel the feelings. He's like, but sit in them, and then maybe, of course, we can talk it out if you want. Is that sort of his vibe?

Yeah, I mean, it's like, I think.

There'S moments where I'm emotional about something and I want a fight. Like, I feel like I need the energy to be raised in the room so that I can get something out. Yeah, but he doesn't give me that. You know what I mean? He's like, I'm here, whatever you need. And I'm like, no, but I want you to push on me so I can push on you and get this little scratch, this itch. But he's like, but I don't want to fight with you. I'm just gonna be here.

It's so interesting. I've also been in relationships with that kind of person, and at first, it can be very. It can make me even more angry. Cause I'm like, come on, let's go. Like, I'm like a cat. My back is arched. You know what I mean? Like, let's get into it. And if this person is like, I'm coming to you with this kind of calm, communicative energy, it totally. It, like, completely just. It, like, blows out the flame immediately.

Right. Very disarming.

It is such a. Disarming is a great word, and it is obviously the more sustainable way to go. It's just kind of like, sometimes you do want to fight, right? And I feel like that kind of is one of the big ideas behind Laura Pritchett's essay that you fight when a relationship is worth fighting for. Can I ask, when you and Armando were in those early days, those bear Burger days, what were you clashing so hard about?

Well, we had lived in places for extended periods of time together before we moved in officially, but when we finally moved in, he had moved from California. It was the first time he'd been out of the state to live. It had been the furthest he'd ever been away from his family.

Wow. That's big.

I'd been away from my family for damn near ten years, you know, so I understand the, like, lonely hustle of New York. But he was doing it for the first time, moving into my space, and he had just given up his dream of going pro as a soccer player, and he just totally pivoted and decided, I'm gonna go be an actor.

He has no job.

He doesn't know anybody, and he's living with me, who's fully established and also a tyrant in the household. I'm like, you left one crumb on the floor jail immediately. I'm a lot, and I'm not gonna cap on myself. Like, I run my life like the military. I love routine. I love cleanliness. So he sacrificed so much, and the expectations from me were really high, and I wanted to live a certain way really quickly, and he. And he wanted it for himself as well. Not. Let me not be too crazy on myself. I am the person who's hard on you, like, the military for what's best for you. I love you, so I want to support you, of course. And I go hard for the people that I love, and I was hard on him, and he made it work. This man loves me, bro. He just loves me. I won. I really won.

It does sound like, though, what you're describing is this sort of. This really interesting dynamic that y'all had to navigate quite early in. In your relationship. So I can see why that would. There'd be a lot of negotiation and discussion of priorities, and I feel like that is also very emotional territory. Right?

Very.

And I think mostly that first year was really us building a language so that now, like, all of this stuff is expedited. We know each other so well, and we understand what we mean when we say certain things that we can be like, here's how I feel. This is what I need. Here's what I want from you. I would like an apology for this thing, or I would just like to be acknowledged for this thing. It's really expedited now. Cause we did the hard work on the front end.

You did the hard work on the front end in the bear burger, I must add.

Oh, yeah, we did.

We really did.

When you just.

I'm gonna. This is my mother speaking.

When you just keep talking, keep talking, just keep talking.

There is no limit to what you can know about the other person, and that's ever evolving.

My hallah. Thank you so much for this conversation. It was so much fun. What a treat. Thank you.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

You can see my challah in the season three finale of industry on Sunday. And today's essayist, Laura Pritchett, is a novelist who has published seven books. Her latest is called Three Keys. It came out this year, and if this episode got you thinking about a love story or a relationship story in your own life, we want to hear about it. Leave us a message at the modern love hotline. The number is 212-589-8962 I'll say that again. It'll also be in the show notes 212-589-8962 tell us about a messy, complicated love in your own life and you might just hear yourself on a future episode. Don't forget to leave your name and number so we can get in touch. Modern Love is produced by Reva Goldberg, Davis Land, Emily Lang, and Amy Pearl. It's edited by Lynn Levy, Reva Goldberg, Davis Land and our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Josa.

The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell.

Original music by Marian Lozano, Pat McCuskertain, Rowan Nimestowe, Dan Powell and Diane Wong. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Studio support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pitman Digital production by Mahima Czablani and Nell Galoakli. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of modern love projects. If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes notes I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.