Hank Azaria’s Advice for Overcoming Codependency
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What do John Mulaney, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jimmy Fallon, Hank Azaria, and ten more of the funniest people on the planet have in common? They're all in All In, a new comedy now on Broadway. Each night, a rotating cast of four take to the stage to read hilarious short stories by Simon Rich about dating...

Hey everyone, it's Anna. Before we get started today, I just want to ask a quick favor. We're working on our Valentine's Day episode, and we want you to be a part of it.

Can you tell us about the moment you knew you were falling in love? Where were you? What was happening? What did it feel like? It can be about a relationship you're currently in or a relationship from the past. We just want to know about the moment you could tell, hey, I'm falling in love with this person.

Record your answer as a voice memo and email it to modernlovepodcast at nytimes.com, and we may end up featuring it on the show. One more time, tell us about the moment you knew you were falling in love and send it as a voice memo to modernlovepodcast at nytimes.com. We are so excited to hear from you. If you want to be included in the episode, your deadline is February 5th. Okay, let's start the show.

From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Every week, we bring you a story inspired by the Modern Love column. We talk about love, lust, and all the messiness of human relationships.

I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you something. I wonder if you could do, what kind of voice would you use for, let's say, a podcast host of the New York Times about love and relationships? What voice would you put on? It feels mellow.

It feels calming, should be connected and soothing. This is Hank Azaria. He's, of course, a beloved Hollywood and stage actor. He has hundreds of credits on different TV shows and movies. And he's in a new play on Broadway called All In. But you probably know him best as a voice actor, as one of the many, many characters he plays on The Simpsons.

Like Moe, the bartender. I kind of get an angry look on my face when I go, Moe, it's a little different. Or Professor Frank, which is Hank's favorite. I don't know, it just sounds so amusing to me. So I never really get tired of talking this way. Sometimes I get caught in loops and my wife has to tell me to knock it off. Or another one, Hank says he gets stuck on a loop in, Snake the Jailbird. I like to ask my wife really inane questions like,

Hey, sweetie, what's your favorite ancient war? Mine's the Peloponnesian. What's your favorite liquid soap? Mine's ivory. After years of doing that to her, she went, you know what the problem with this guy is? What? Is he's not really interested in what your answer is. He just wants to tell you what he likes. I wonder when you're interacting with people in real life and in your real relationships and you slip into one of these characters, how do you know when it's time to...

to end the character, right? How do you know when it's time to sort of come back to you? Do you know when it's time to come back to you? Well, you know, sometimes I'm better than others. Right. I used, as a young man, I was more like a puppy with it and I was kind of constant. That's so sweet.

And yeah, I was always like switching characters and trying to delight you. And it was like, you know, we've all been with comedians who they don't stop. Yeah. And it kind of gets annoying. You're like, I need to just actually connect with you and have you calm down. But you try to read people. Right. And usually a little goes a long way. Folks, even if they're delighted by it, like that's enough of that.

Today, Hank reads a modern love essay all about putting on a character to make people laugh and what happens when the author finally decides to live as himself. That's after the break. Stick with us.

There are some individuals in here.

I can add Paul Krugman or Jamel Bowie. I like him. The lifestyle tab. The photos are just phenomenal. It's kind of like a collage. I go to games always. Scroll over to the games page. Play Wordle or Connections and then swipe over to read today's headlines. There's an article next to a recipe next to games and it's just easy to get everything in one place. And before you know it, you're going to be late to work. The

The New York Times app. All of the times, all in one place. Download it now at nytimes.com slash app. Okay, Hank, you're reading an essay today all about the difference between our true selves and the version of ourselves we put on for others. Yeah. You want to just tell me really briefly why you chose this essay? It's a beautiful story about trusting that moment of connection that you have with someone, trusting your instinct from your authentic self.

not from your false self. It's about a person who really spent time getting to know themselves and who they really were. And then taking that show on the road instead of trying to fit themselves into who they think somebody else wants them to be. And that really resonates with me. I just like that trusting your authentic self, spending time with yourself, and then seeing who fits into that and not the other way around. Mm-hmm.

All right, Hank, whenever you're ready, I'm excited to hear this essay. All right, here we go. In defense of my emu tattoo by Jimmy Harney, getting a tattoo during a first date is a risky move. Afterward, my mother said to me, how drunk were you? The best friend of the person I was out with said to her, oh, he's in love with you. And the mutual friend who had introduced us said to me, do you guys sleep together?

Eight years earlier, when I was a freshman in college, I considered getting the word laugh in Gaelic tattooed on my body. I chose laugh because I was 19 and didn't think anyone should take life too seriously. I chose Gaelic because I am of Irish descent and was grasping for some sort of cultural identity. Fortunately, I was still scared of what my parents thought and never mustered the energy to even find out what laugh looks like in Gaelic. But I still wanted a tattoo.

Humor has been my go-to coping mechanism since practically before I could cut my own food. It got my parents' attention, helped me make friends, defined my exterior personality, and gave me a kind of superpower, allowing me to fake an extroverted existence. My high school yearbook is filled with, OMG, you're so funny, and I will miss all your hilarious comments.

Humor was the only way I knew how to make myself feel appreciated. That's what happens when you're too scared to be yourself. When I was 21, I studied in Sydney, Australia for a semester where the whole experience felt like an extension of the extroverted version of myself that I had mastered.

It was a sprint along a path that wasn't really mine, filled with adventure-seeking, bar-hopping, beach time, writing a deeply offensive short story in my creative writing class for the sake of laughter and shock, masking any real thoughts or feelings. On that same sprint, I jumped headfirst into a relationship, my first as the wrong version of me. Then, in the midst of my act, I stumbled into a moment where I didn't have to pretend.

It was at a wildlife sanctuary, of all places. While everyone else was gawking at kangaroos and koalas, I was staring at a caged bird, an emu. It stared at me with its big eyes and kept staring. I stared back for a long time in the silence. I could not relieve the silence with a joke or a selfie, and I felt no need to. I felt clarity for the first time in maybe forever.

But I did not know how to make it last. Three years later, two years too late, the girlfriend I met in Australia and I broke up. The ghost of a broken heart wove in and out of my life for a year, teasing me at bars when I had no one to buy a drink for and no one to walk home with, lingering in my phone as I searched my contacts for someone to share my good and bad news with, staring at me in restaurants from the empty seat across the table.

Until, slowly, the pain started to fade, and I realized that my broken heart was not actually mine, but belonged to the person I had tried to convince myself I was. So, I mourned the loss of my false self and celebrated the possibility of a new beginning. I went on new adventures, going to the movies by myself, walking around the city at night, unconcerned with having any social plans, sitting in cafes alone and reading.

The old me, the broken-hearted me, could not tag along as I leaned into the person she never wanted, my introverted and sensitive self. And then I began yearning for a tattoo again. But it was not this realization of a new beginning or my ability to find the light at the end of the heartbreak tunnel that I wanted to immortalize on my body. So, I continued to wait until I knew which version of myself was worth remembering.

On my 26th birthday, I found myself alone at a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was a special moment because I felt I deserved 20 or so minutes to myself, sipping a beer and observing the crowd without having to engage in pleasantries. I did not start the evening alone, nor did I end it that way. A friend from preschool had come into the city for the night, two high school friends joined, and others from college and adulthood surrounded me.

The love shown by my friends is not, from my experience, the suffocating kind. It exists like a weightless hug. But I'm not a hugger by nature, so I had to sneak out to a nearby bar to steal some time alone. As I sat by myself, I ignored my friends' texts and calls. I just needed a moment to re-energize. Was I being rude? Probably. But it was my birthday, and I did not owe anything to anyone. I was learning the delicate balance of setting boundaries.

And then I learned what kind of company matters. It went something like this. A few months later, I was at a bar in Harlem drinking margaritas with a few friends, including her, a person I knew only through someone else. Just her presence made something click. I want a tattoo, I said. I wanted more than a tattoo. I wanted connection. No, you don't, a mutual friend said. You're just bored. I regretted saying anything. Of what? She said.

I told her the story of the caged emu. How dumb but beautiful they look. How I had yet to find the calmness I found that day on the other side of the world. I made jokes trying to lighten the moment, but mostly I was scared that my random thoughts would not be received as I intended them. I actually didn't know how I intended them. I just wanted someone to understand. A person, unlike an emu, who could speak back to me. And then she did.

That story actually wasn't as stupid as I expected it to be, she said, smiling from across the table. I say go for it. With that, something shifted at the table, in the air, in the city. By the end of the night, I found myself on the subway with her and then later at another bar. In between, we sat on a stoop in the West Village and I drew a sketch of an emu. Once, twice, even seven times until she bluntly said that she couldn't let me put any of my own drawings on my body.

Still riding the wave of this strange, bold feeling, I walked with her to a tattoo shop, the first one we found open, and had them pull up a photo of an emu on Google Images. "'Uh, that one,' I said to the guy. "'But make it cartoonish.' I was surprised by how calmly I said it. He had no questions. She and I waited as he went downstairs and drew up what I thought would be a terrible picture I would never want to have on my body forever."

He would reappear with this bad drawing. We would laugh. I would back out and we would part ways, letting this be yet another late night story of what might have been. Wow, that's actually really good, she said when he returned with his drawing. And soon I was sitting on a chair in a downtown basement, letting a stranger draw a bird on my arm in permanent ink. Afterwards, sitting with her at the bar, I felt full clarity for only the second time ever that

This person stared at me as we talked. She understood me. I stared back. No jokes, no need to disrupt the moment. Two years later, I was staring at the emu on my arm and talking to her about that night as she sat next to me on the couch in the home we share. "I still can't believe I let you go through with that," she said. "You look so calm in the chair. I was freaking out on the inside." I was never freaking out. Not with her there.

What started as a symbol of solitude that I found in the Australian desert is now a symbol of the best company and best conversations I will ever have. Beautifully done. While it's still very fresh, what thoughts are running through your mind as you finish reading this piece? Jimmy Harney, the author of this piece, he mentioned so many elements of dating and choosing a partner that in my mind,

codependency recovery I had to address very consciously. In that world, you call it fixing your picker. Fixing your picker. Fixing your picker, like you're picking the wrong people. Right, gotcha. You're picking people to have a kind of, let's say, toxic interplay with. Overly enmeshed, perhaps. Yes, that's recreating an unhealthy dynamic from your childhood.

and early life. And there was so much mention of it here, even though it's not really about that, that I was drawn to it. When we come back, Hank tells us how he found his authentic self.

Hi, I'm Josh Hainer, and I'm a staff photographer at The New York Times covering climate change. For years, we've sort of imagined this picture of a polar bear floating on a piece of ice. Those have been the images associated with climate change. My challenge is to find stories that show you how climate change is affecting our world right now. If you want to support the kind of journalism that we're working on here on the Climate and Environment Desk at The New York Times, please subscribe on our website or our app.

So Hank, there's this part of the essay that I really want to drill down with you on. It's this moment where the author is in Australia and he's standing in front of an emu. And he has this moment of clarity about his true self, his authentic self for the very first time. And I'm just really curious, like, have you ever had a moment like that? Have you ever had your own kind of emu moment? Yeah.

Partly what drew me to this story was I had to really construct that like piece by piece over several years. My first marriage ended about 25 years ago and I was very heartbroken and I really needed to address my codependency issues.

I really needed to, you know, I looked back at my relationships up to that point. I had about five pretty serious love relationships up to that point, which is a lot for someone who's only 36 years old. And this marriage was your first marriage to Helen Hunt. That's right. And I started going to the Al-Anon program, which is for the family and friends of alcoholics. I want to make clear that my ex-wife was not an alcoholic.

But Al-Anonism is what they call para-alcoholism, where you take on the characteristics of that disease without ever picking up a drink or a drug. It's sort of the same thing, except you're not self-medicating with booze or drugs. But the thought patterns and sort of relationship patterns, that kind of thing? It's the same sort of angst and upset. And your drug of choice is kind of other people.

It's getting overly enmeshed with other folks. And I remember my sponsor in that program, a wonderful guy, said, well, what's the one constant in all those relationships, all those variables? Who was always there was me. So that's why I relate to this piece so much. My false self wasn't introverted.

But it was a humor thing. I think probably why I'm a voice guy and a character actor is not just that my plastic vocal cords that I developed that skill. I also underneath it as a darker, low self-esteem thing of really wanting to be anybody but myself.

You know, that really drives the obsession with being great at these characters and being other people. I really wanted to be an actor so I could be other people. And much to my chagrin, when I got into an acting class, the teacher was like, what are you doing? You got to be yourself up there, which I hated.

He didn't allow me for about four years to do any voices or even be particularly funny. Was that happening at the same time as you were in the Al-Anon treatment? No, that was before. So it's kind of building on itself. That was in my mid-20s. I did start therapy then with a guy you might have heard of, Phil Stotz. Jonah Hill did a documentary, Dr. Stotz, talks like this. He would call me Schmuck. In a nice way? Well, yeah, it was kind of...

he was sort of the loving tough father right i never had schmuck your problem is you're a baby that's what he said really well then he'd come up with a brilliant explanation of how i was being not too mature so i had to trust that

And even as Chief Wiggum, it was funnier and better if I, as Hank, I really, well, how would I act if I were a cop? And what would I do? I wasn't so good at that part of it, trusting. I didn't trust that if I were myself in front of people, they'd find it interesting at all.

So I had to learn to be alone. I had to learn to, what do I like? What's my predilection? Even simple things. What movie do I want to go see? What dinner do I want to have tonight? Let alone how I like to spend my time or who I want to spend it with. And I had to shift my whole worldview into... I had to, like, date myself for, like, a year. Tell me all about that. How do you... I mean, I really resonate with what you're saying. It's like...

there's a deep sort of desire, like you say, to be liked, to be the person that... People-pleasing, you call it. Yeah, exactly. How did you learn to tap into what you wanted, even with those more quotidian things of like a movie or dinner? What did that actually look like in a day-to-day... For example, Helen and I, Helen loves the beach, for example. She loves it. It's her happy place. It's her safe place. Good for her.

I hate the beach. Okay. Say that. And, um...

I don't like it. I don't like sand. Why? Tell me. For plebeian reasons. I just don't like sand everywhere. I don't like the ocean. I'm not a good swimmer. And there's not much for me at the beach. Sunburns, the whole thing. You know, that became a problem. It's like she always wanted to be there on down times and I never wanted to be there. And I told, not that that's the biggest deal in the world, but I completely blew that off early in our relationship. Like, sure, the beach, you know,

You know, people pleasing like, yeah, I love the beach. I don't love the beach. The problem is when you people please like that, when you sublimate your own dislike of the beach and a lot of other things, you're totally with their program. Why wouldn't they enjoy you and what you're doing? Right. But the problem is resentments get built up. Right. And you don't like not being yourself for so long.

And one of the things I learned in this program, I started calling it the contract and the messy room. That's what I started calling it. Love it. The messy room is all the junk you don't want to deal with in yourself. You're like, let me just follow you around. I'm going to go to the beach or wherever else you want. And you pick the movie and you pick what for dinner tonight and other deeper things. And I'll go along with it and I'll be with you. And I won't have to look at my big messy room that has all my junk and emotional baggage in it.

So the contract is we're going to do all the things you want to do and we're going to ignore my stuff. And that's a terrible contract, even if it were spoken out loud. But it's just like unconscious on ESP thing going on. Then maybe about once a month, you kind of want it to be about you. Actually, I have a problem or I have something I want to do or I want to pick dinner tonight or I want to do this or that. And, yeah.

Every once in a while, you're like, oh, my messy room needs some cleaning out. Can we go in there? I'm like, no, because that's not what we do. And so eventually you get very, I got very upset and I'm now sponsored enough people through this and know that they do too. And you kind of explode. God damn it. I want it to be about me right now. And now all of a sudden you're this kind of lunatic raging in the relationship and that's not good. And I really had to learn to actually, um,

No, I don't. First of all, realize what it is that I wanted and liked, whether it's the beach or other deeper things, express them in calm, connected ways and advocate for myself and speak up for myself, not just in the relationship, but everywhere at work and in life and with friends.

And I really had to look at that. I mean, you lay it out in this way that makes complete sort of logical and emotional sense, but that's really tough to do. I assume that was work that occurred over years. It's not something that happens quickly. You're married, you remarried. Yeah. Can you tell me like about some moments perhaps where...

you struggled against those people pleasing impulses in your current marriage? By the time I met my wife, Kate, I was well into this recovery. And you actually, that sponsor I mentioned, his name is Roger, lovely guy. Part of the whole program in the recovery is you make a list of the qualities you want in someone and you divide up what are wants, what are needs, what are deal breakers, what aren't.

Big and little things like I don't like the beach, for example. I'm not gonna make that mistake again. I don't want to take on someone's jealous rage. No active alcoholics or addicts. That's kind of a good one. And more subtle things. You know, obviously there needs to be chemistry and.

You know, for me, I love New York. I don't think I could be with anyone who just couldn't take it here. Right. I love movies and TV and theater so much, I don't think I could be with someone who didn't want to go to those and discuss them afterwards.

I love playing poker. I've been through relationships where my partner didn't like that I played and got annoyed at poker night. No good for me. This is like a long, it sounds like a long list. It's a very long list. Yeah. And you change it over time and they can get deeper too. Like, um,

Full disclosure, not on date three, but eventually if you're going to really be with someone, you need to know their whole past. There can't be like, you never told me that. Yeah. That's kind of important. You know what I mean? Yeah. Eventually it's got to all go out on the table. So on and on and on. Right.

And you work the list. I mean, I'd have a date, even if it was a coffee and I'd call my sponsor and he'd say, okay, so how was it? Would you literally be going through the list? A real list, a written out list. Paper list with like a pen saying yes, yes, no. No way. Well, no. I think, you know, she might be a little jealous or whatever it was, right? I think she might have been. It's like, okay, well, and the whole point was he would always say to me, you can love the wrong person dearly.

Okay. You can really fall in love and it doesn't mean you love them, but they're not, it's not going to be good. And he would say, love is not enough. Like when the shit hits the fan, when these things don't work out, your, your genuine love of the person isn't going to fix the situation. And it's just going to break your heart. So, and I, at that point I was literally in the same way that an addict feels like I can't

uh go through another binge again it could kill me i swear to you that's how i felt i can't go through another heartbreak like i can't it took me like a solid year year and a half to get over my marriage and feel like i could kind of join the land of the living again and that was like the fifth time i had gone through something like that so i had to spend about a year

That's another reason why this piece resonated for me. Just kind of dating myself. Just like no heat, we called it. No flirting, no first dates, no nothing. Just what do you like to do? No heat. It isn't drinking, drugging, dating, overworking, anything.

binging on food and I qualify for all these programs, by the way, and I've been to most of them and had recovery in most of them. What do you like that isn't all that unhealthy stuff? And I had to discover what that was. And then when I did, then it's like, okay, now who wants to be invited into that world with me? That's the difference. That's not people pleasing. And fortunately for me, my wife, my current wife fit into that whole world. Yeah.

Tell me when you went on your first date with Kate, did something register? Was it the first time ever that you felt like so many of these boxes were being checked? Or when did that sort of moment hit for you? Like after my year of no heat, after these years of work, this is it. I mean, as you said, this felt like life or death to you, which I really resonate with. Like love can feel like that. Well, Kate and I had a bit of a journey. I was very, very drawn to her.

And she actually, not too far into our first go-round, did not check out on the list. I recognized that she had some codependent tendencies. And she actually broke up with me. I kind of started pulling away a little bit because I was noticing that I wasn't like a good recovery guy. I wasn't really letting my heart fall in because I was unsure still.

And, um, when we first had met, I wasn't working. And then I got this job. I was doing a show called Huff, uh, for Showtime where I was producing and starring in it. So all of a sudden I got wildly busy, which she didn't like at all. And, um, she broke up with me and I said, uh, you know, that feels like a bit of an overreaction. We definitely have some things to work through, but

Breaking up with me isn't a great way to like I think we can try to work through it. Right. But she did. Were you devastated? Not at that point because I was being very careful with my heart. You were a list guy. Yeah. And long story short, I introduced her to the Al-Anon program. I said, you might want to check this out because you're just you're kind of overreacting here. And and she did. She started going.

And she circled back to me not long after that. And I said, you know, I think you need to go attend to yourself. Game recognize game. Right. I was like, I said, you know, that was a little bit extreme. And I think you might want to attend to this. And then let's see where, you know, if we're still both free down the road, let's circle back to each other. Yeah.

Long story short, when Kate and I circled back to each other at the time we did, she really had. And she started recognizing these things in herself. And it turns out that

Her authentic self and my authentic self really did match up. How long was it between the sort of first go and the second go? A couple of years. Oh, wow. Yeah. And you were dating other people in that time? She almost got married to somebody else in that time. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. We both got sober unbeknownst to each other in that time. Wow. And had also this codependency recovery going. Yeah, we had, you know, we went on this big journey and totally kind of fell back to each other.

It's true what they say. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. That's really beautiful. I appreciate you sharing that. I want to return to this image that I loved, the sort of messy room of it all. When you and Kate reconnected, was it like, had you cleaned your rooms or was it like they were still messy but you were cleaning them clean?

I know I'm plumbing the depths of that. It's a never-ending process. I'm still cleaning. As I'm speaking to you right now, I'm cleaning. There's things in the messy room I'm working on. It's a lot neater than it used to be. It sort of looks like a hoarder room when you start out. And then you're kind of like, wow, okay. It makes me think somewhat, just sort of back to this episode,

the sort of integrating of different parts of yourself, the parts of yourself that feel good and the parts of yourself that don't feel so good. Like the author does this work in his own way of integrating the sort of humorous, extroverted part of him that is real, but then also the more sensitive, introspective self that feels very authentic to him as well. I guess I wonder, like, you've done so much work over the years in terms of your relationship to self, your relationship to others, etc.

Do you have any advice on how to integrate all of these different pieces of ourself into a cohesive whole? That is a big question, but I feel like you could be prepared. You know, one of the...

things on my list was um and my sponsor made me put it on he said what about spiritual program they have to have a spiritual program i was like do you mean like they have to go to aa or they have to go to allen it goes no doesn't have to be a 12-step program but they have to have some relationship to themselves where they're honest with themselves and can process and take responsibility and accountability and be transparent and work through stuff um

And to me, it felt a little cultish when he said it. So I'm like, ah, what are they? They got to be in a cult? Like, what do you mean? But over the years, I've come to realize it means that. It means do you honestly look at yourself and do you share that with your loved ones? And are you accountable for what your part is in things? And is that measurable? Whatever version of that is,

anyone can see doing, I don't know anyone who shouldn't do it. Find what's ever comfortable for you, whether it's a therapist or whatever group it is. It has to be relational. You cannot do it alone. You can't read a book and go, oh, I got it. I mean, you can read a book that helps you, but you have to talk it through with someone. You have to have someone you love and trust. However you go on that journey, I suggest doing

You go on it. Because I don't know anyone who doesn't need it. Can you describe then, what does it feel like to sort of live on that other side? Like, what does it feel like for you now? I feel like I can... I didn't even know I was missing this. I can genuinely connect with other people. I'm genuinely connecting with you right now. Right? I can really feel that. And to me...

That's the high I was always chasing. That's what I wanted out of the bottle or the drug. That's what I wanted in the relationship. Didn't know how to get it. That's what I wanted in all of it was just that fee. I didn't know what it was. We call it in recovery the God-sized hole that no matter how much booze or food or drugs or relationship or sex or whatever you pour into it,

You could feel it sort of, but it empties out. To me, what higher power really is, it's actual human connection based on authenticity, based on here's the stuff I'm ashamed of. Here's what I really feel. Here's how at first really what's honest is how bad I feel about all manner of things. And then eventually it can be about how good you feel too. But either way, I'll take...

That connection is to me that dragon I was always chasing. And that to me is higher power. You know, that is genuine connection with other folks. In your marriage currently, how do you put all of this work you've done into practice to make the relationship work?

Well, we each, you know, keep up our own programs. Meaning we go to meetings, we have sponsees, we... Oh, she does too. Oh, yeah. Wow. Okay. We, you know, continue to work it. It works if you work it, so work it, you're worth it, we say at the end of meetings. No way.

No way. Do that one more time. It works if you work it, so work it, you're worth it. It works if you work it, so work it, you're worth it. Okay, you're cheerleaders. So that's kind of the main thing. You can imagine in a marriage how somebody having a spiritual program comes in handy. Of course. Like, she'll come to me or I'll come to her and say, sweetie, um...

You seem a little edgy around this particular topic these days. We have a 15-year-old son. So you seem to be a little impatient with him. It could be about something really mundane, like, you know, around his coat being on the floor. Is something up for you? I don't think so. Well, can you think about it and maybe ask your sponsor or see if anything's up? And then...

Day or so later, circle back, anything? And sometimes you say, no, he's just annoying with the coat thing. Yeah, the coat's annoying, right. Or actually, yeah. I triggered a thing about my mom and I need to, and I addressed it. And you're right, I need to be more patient with him around that stuff and vice versa, you know. And it really takes, like one of the things I'm grateful for is, yeah,

We've mined a lot of our own teen years and childhoods. And so we talk a lot about how do we respond, not react to the teen stuff going on in our house and, you know, come back with a measured loving, whether it's a boundary or an ignoring or whatever it is, and not looking for him to validate us. Yeah, I was going to say, it strikes me that this kind of spiritual program would not only make you

a great and in tune, you know, husband, but also certainly a parent. I mean, I'm thinking about how different my teenage years would be if my, I love my parents, but if they had had that kind of training or whatever experience, I think it would have been different. I was still a pill. You know what I mean? I was still like,

That's a whole, we could talk for hours about that. But yeah, you know, we're trying to create a different environment for him than we were raised in. And that requires a lot of attention, a lot of communication between the two of us. So we do spend a lot of time on that particular reverse engineering from how are we going to respond to the boy? And every day it's kind of a new thing. It's like whack-a-mole. That's another...

program thing. Listen, I love these slogans. The slogans are a big part of recovery. You go into a room and they're laid out in cars. Well, they work, right? It's not just you remember them and so they're like, you know, dogged in your mind and it works. You hear them at first and it's like kindergarten ridiculousness. Oh, I'm all in. They kind of are. But then you live them and like, oh, that's what they mean by say what you mean but don't say it mean. I get it. Work it. It works if you work it.

It works if you work it. So work it. So work it. You're worth it. Hank, thank you so much for this conversation. It went places I could never have expected. And I'm really grateful. Thank you. Sure. Thanks for having me. This episode of Modern Love was produced by Davis Land. It was edited by our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Josa.

The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music by Amin Sahota, Rowan Nemisto, Diane Wong, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell. This episode was mixed by Sophia Landman. Studio support from Maddie Macielo and Nick Pittman. Special thanks to Mahima Chablani, Nelga Logli, Jeffrey Miranda, and Paula Schumann. 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. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.