Carrie Cheats Again, Vacant Self-Esteem & Why Big's "I Want You" Was a Performance of Epic Proportions — S3E10 with Dr. Donna Oriowo

About This Episode

In Season 3 episode ten of And Just Like That… We Found Therapy, host Isabel MV is joined by licensed sex and relationship therapist and author Dr. Donna Oriowo to unpack Sex and the City's "All or Nothing." It's the episode where Carrie sleeps with Big a second time while Aidan is away, lies about walking the dog to go downstairs and meet him, says "I love you" to Aidan in sheets she hasn't changed, and Charlotte signs a prenup she doesn't understand while marrying Bunny MacDougall's son as a side character. Miranda has phone sex with a colleague who turns out to be multi-tasking. Samantha gets sick, calls her entire black book for help with a curtain rod, and has a moment of weakness that reveals everything.

What We Cover

• Why the forbidden feels so good — and what Carrie's second time with Big actually tells us about her self-esteem

• Donna's four types of self-esteem: secure, fragile, damaged and vacant — and which one Carrie has

• Does Carrie actually want Aidan, or is she performing a relationship she thinks she's supposed to want?

• Why Donna doesn't think Carrie wants Big either — she wants to win him, which is not the same thing

• Carrie choosing to confide in Samantha and not Miranda or Charlotte: what that decision reveals

• Charlotte isn't marrying Trey — she's marrying Bunny, and both women have dehumanised the man in the middle

• The prenup conversation: why knowing the end is at the beginning isn't pessimistic, it's honest

• Samantha calling her black book when she's sick and vulnerable: the performance cracking, or the truth leaking out?

• Why "having it all" and "I have nothing without a man" cannot coexist — one of them is a lie

• Miranda's phone sex situation: what commitment exactly did they discuss before phone sex fidelity became an expectation?

• Love is not something you feel, it's something you do — and what Carrie is doing says everything

• Why Carrie is her own worst enemy and has been the whole time

About Our Guest

Dr. Donna Oriowo is a licensed sex and relationship therapist and author whose work explores sexual shame, body politics and reclaiming pleasure. Her latest book is Drink Water & Mind Your Business — a self-esteem guide that, frankly, Carrie Bradshaw needs immediately. Find her at donnaoriowo.com and on Instagram at @Dr.DonnaOriowo. All links in the show notes.

Transcript

Welcome back, Boundary Babes, Season 3, Episode 10, and we are in the thick of it. Carrie's got Aiden at home, Big calling from downstairs, and Pete the dog as her getaway vehicle. It is a mess.

This week, I'm joined by Dr. Donna Oriowo. I cannot begin to describe how much fun she brought into the episode.

Please check how to reach out to her and how to find her on the show notes. She is a licensed sex and relationship therapist and author, and she has absolutely zero patience for any of it.

We get into why The Forbidden feels so good, what a prenup actually tells you about your relationship, and whether Carrie ever actually wanted Aidan in the first place. Spoiler, Donna doesn't think so. Let's get into it.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of And Just Like That We Found Therapy. I am your host, Issa Mambi, and I am so excited to be joined today by Donna Oriowo.

She is a licensed sex and relationship therapist, author of Cocoa Butter and Hair whose work explores sexual shame, body politics, and what it really takes to reclaim pleasure. Welcome, Donna.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here. Today we're here to discuss season three, episode 10 of Sex and the City, All or Nothing.

The episode opens up with Carrie and Aiden in Aiden's apartment, and Carrie's leaving him because she has a great relationship, and that's what's so great about him that she can leave him for an evening to go and hang out with her girls.

They're all going to Samantha's new place in meatpacking to celebrate that they can indeed have it all. That is the theme of the episode, Can We Indeed Have It All or Not?

Carrie briefly mentions, because this is after she famously cheats on Aiden on the previous episode with Big, that she had it all, including a bit of an affair with her married ex-boyfriend.

But they're at Samantha's new place, they're all very giddy and in a celebratory mode, and Samantha's screaming up from her window with champagne, like, you're here then Manhattan, we have it all.

And Charlotte chimes in and she's like, I mean, having it all for me really means just having someone special to share it with. I'm very curious to know what you think about this.

I think what I love about the show is like Charlotte's evolution. Because that statement, I was just like, well, what do you mean, girl? You mean Trey?

Yeah.

Is that what you mean?

Because somebody special to share it with are the people in the room with you at that moment.

Yes.

And I think it's easy to lose sight of that, mostly because so many of us have been taught to look to the romantic relationship for a sense of completion. And we devalue, I think, our friendships as a result.

So we say, oh, no, the first thing has got to be a lover. And then the secondary thing gets to be your friends. And I'm just like, well, sometimes that's not the way it goes.

And it's okay for it to be different from that. So y'all have somebody special to share it with, each other. Yeah, you're winning.

You have it all.

Yeah, she has three special someones to share it with, not one. But after that, I think they're watching an affair to remember.

Carrie stays back to help Sam clean up after the dinner. And Carrie confesses to Samantha, I slept with Big. And I love their friendship for this.

And I love Samantha for this, because Samantha is a really good friend to Carrie and just gives her room to talk about it. And she asks, like, okay, when has it, like, is this still going on? She was like, no, it was one time.

She's like, was it good? And Carrie says, it was great, but it was one time and never again. And how could it feel so good when it's so bad?

And Samantha says, they design it that way, honey. And my question to you, because I know that you've done a lot of work around, you know, reclaiming pleasure, the shame around pleasure.

What do you think about this statement that it feels so good because it's so bad?

I think for me, I divided it into multiple statements, right? Like, why does it feel so good? I'm like, well, because in many ways we've been taught how the proscribed way to behave.

So when we do something that is outside of that, it's like, ooh, you get like this little grill.

But also, I mean, sex in many ways is designed to be quite delicious, particularly when it's done properly, when you know your body, when you know your lover's body, and when you're both working for mutual pleasure, as opposed to one person having

pleasure and the other person being the pleasure giver, unless that's what you're into. So it's like, it's designed that way.

A lot of things are, some of it is biologically designed that way, as in sex is intended to, in many ways, just feel really good. But socially we have designed it so that people kind of want the forbidden, the thing that they're not supposed to have.

And even the titillation and the sort of secret joy at having a secret, especially secret of that nature.

And I think with Carrie and Big's history specifically, the idea that this man who seemed to only somewhat desire her, desiring her enough to cheat on his wife in that moment, could also for her feel like another boon.

It could be like the ultimate validation.

It could be a way to uplift her self-esteem, which I would say is fragile at best, but vacant at worst.

Yeah. I'm very curious to know what you'll say to my next question, because Carrie just looks at Samantha and says, come on, don't you want to just judge me a little bit? And Samantha says, not my style.

I am curious because watching this season of Sex and the City, I find myself judging Carrie a lot and I hate judgey people. What do you think of women that judge Carrie? And I never judged Big, I just judged Carrie.

I think that judgment in many ways gets a bad rap.

All of us are casting judgment all the time. Whether or not we want to call it that, that's something else to be seen.

But there's something to be said about the way that we look at, analyze, try to understand and then pass judgment on someone or something. I think that the true trick is knowing why you're casting the judgment that you're casting, right?

Like, is it your opinion or is it someone else's opinion that has been manufactured for you? And I think that in many ways the show manufactured it so that Carrie was almost sympathetic. We knew about her the most.

We get the story through her eyes, through her lens, through her view. So I think that it's on the rewatch. It's in the growing up.

It's in the looking back that we look at her and we're just like, actually, you were the cause of a lot of your own problems, my guy.

Yes, she's the problem.

Exactly. I'm looking like, oh, you are indeed the problem. And I think it's okay that she gets to be the problem.

She's almost like the titular character, despite the fact that her name is not in it. It's not named in there, but it's sort of like sex in Carrie's city. Right?

It's Carrie's sex life in Carrie's city. It's more like that than it is like anything else. Everyone else is sort of like a secondary character.

And my understanding is she was first on the call sheet, which means that it is really about Carrie and then everybody else next. So you're going to judge her.

And I think that part of what we also judge, well, when we see her is also what we see in her that reminds us of ourselves, that reminds us of our friends, that reminds us of experiences that we've had.

I think that there's something to be said about that sort of judgment. And I guess the question is, what is our connection to the way that we have cast judgment?

Yeah. I think I read somewhere that you love to flip the question, what's wrong with you with who taught you that, which I think it's very much. That would have worked wonders with Carrie.

But Carrie goes back to Aiden and she says, I'm safe again. I'm back home and I'm back to being the good girl and choosing the right thing.

And I love how the writers and the show produce this episode to show us how torn Carrie is inside, by this two men, her decision, her mistake. But after that, we are with Charlotte and Trey shopping. And they're shopping for China.

And Charlotte is looking at this super expensive set of plates. And Trey's just like, oh, come on, like it's too expensive. And Charlotte just pouts and is like, but I really like it.

And like, can we have it? And he's like, oh, I can't say no to you. And he's like, oh, by the way, here's my guest list and whatever.

And then, yeah, and a preen up at the end. And Trey's just like, oh, it's super standard. Everybody in the family has one.

Have your lawyer look at it and then circle back, if anything, but it should be fine. And leaves. I think he doesn't say to the loop, but like it wouldn't be past him.

I have a question here. What do you think about their relationship dynamic about how they go shopping, how they make important decisions, how they have tough conversations? What's your read on this?

I don't think they have tough conversations.

I think that Trey is avoidant and he doesn't have tough conversations. I think that in some ways, Charlotte wants to be in a very specific world, but she doesn't understand what it means to be in that sort of upper echelon sort of world.

I know that she has the desire, but she doesn't get it. For her, it's, but we love each other, why would we have, why would we even be talking about divorce when we're just getting married and we want to be married?

She doesn't even imagine a life where they might divorce each other, where there is no love there, where the thing does not work. I think there's something that made me sad about the way he presented the print up papers.

I'm like, why would you present it this way at this moment at a store? Like, I get that it's normal for him and in his life, but it's like he had no consideration, which makes me wonder, how well do you know Charlotte?

Yeah.

Like, how well do you know this woman that you say you love if you don't know that she wouldn't want to receive this this way and that this could have been a conversation up front or even before y'all got engaged in the first place?

That's a great point. Because I always knew that Trey was kind of like this key to the magic world and fairy tale that Charlotte thought she was getting into. But I guess Charlotte was that to Trey too.

But then Charlotte wastes no time in taking the prenup to her lawyer, aka Miranda. And they're having a look at it. And Miranda's like, yeah, this is all pretty standard.

Like, that's fine. And da da da da. And I think this is where we start talking about how a prenup is basically saying, like, we think we're going to fail as a marriage.

I'm curious to know what it is that you would say to someone that thinks that way, that just because you have a prenup in place, you think that your marriage is going to fail.

I mean, I felt like in some ways I used to be that person. Like, why are you thinking about the end at the beginning? That's crazy work.

Except, you know, as you grow up, right? And because I'm a therapist, I talk about the end of therapy at the beginning of therapy. I have no expectation that we're going to stay in therapy together forever.

As a matter of fact, I don't plan on it.

So in the beginning, I talk about how I intend that we will end, that this is the beginning of the end for us, that there will be multiple reasons why we could end, including we find that we're not a good fit for each other.

I could meet my untimely demise or that you'll just be done with therapy before you before you know it and that I'm beginning our relationship knowing that one day it will have it has an expiration date.

How fresh it stays is up to us and whether or not we work well together and how long and what type of work it is that we're doing together. But the end is at the beginning. And it's the same thing with birth.

There are no births that do not also require some sort of death, right? Like nothing is born that doesn't die. And yet we don't want to talk about the end.

And I think that that's more about the culture of people than it is anything else. And I'm just like, well, all relationships end. The question is, how did they end?

Yeah.

Right?

Like all of them will end. Sometimes they end in death. Sometimes they end in divorce.

I think that it's perfectly appropriate to have a conversation, but I also believe that it's beautifully whimsical to believe that this thing will literally last forever when, I mean, isn't the saying that nothing lasts forever?

Yeah, it is. I used to also think that way, like, no, no thanks. But like, I think, yes, as you grow up and you know that no matter how many couples you've seen through the years that seem to be indestructible, something may happen.

And if you're lucky enough to be in charge of your own business like you are or I am, you've got to protect that.

But the weird thing about this prenup Miranda mentions, she's like, oh, you are entitled to 500k after like 30 years, like, percentually up to 30 years, and then you'll get 100k all clear if you get any boys, like if you give birth to any boys.

And they just start talking about it. I love that Charlotte said something like, oh, because she says like, this is fair, you know, like this is the first offer. Now, will you go back and negotiate?

And Charlotte's like, negotiate? I don't even shop on sale, which tells us a lot about how she makes decisions.

So Carrie is then left alone to her own devices because Aidan needs to deliver a table or a chair or something somewhere else. Yeah.

To Pennsylvania.

And they're having this beautiful goodbye as the sun's rising. And Aidan's like, come on, I'll be back in a day. And like, there must be something that you want to do.

And Carrie is going crazy trying to stay busy. And like, mind you, this is 24 hours. You should be writing your column.

No, it was like three days.

Was it three days?

I thought it was like one day.

Yeah, he was going away for like three days. She said she slept in those sex sheets for two days. Oh, God.

Because I was thinking like, girl, your best friend's sick.

Another one's signing up her death certificate through a prenup. You are a writer. Like, get busy.

Go find something to do.

Yeah.

But basically, she's like, I sorted my entire, like, cardigan collection, whatever it is. I went through all my articles. And like, the only thing that I couldn't file away was big.

And she's basically smoking her secret stash of cigarettes and decides to call him because she needs to, like, put him in his place. And they end up sleeping together. What do you think?

She did it twice over.

By way of her secrets and Big.

Exactly. So I'm very curious, like from a therapist's perspective, what do you think about this scene?

Like, she is trying so hard to do the right things, like organize her space and organize her articles and work and not call Big and not smoke, but like she ends up smoking, calling Big and winding up in bed with him.

Is she trying to do the right thing?

I think she is.

I don't know. I don't give her that much credit. I think that what she's trying to avoid is the part of her that wanted to sleep with Big again.

I don't know that she was trying to do the right thing, because the right thing also would have been not to steal Aidan's choice about whether or not he wanted to remain with her, knowing that she'd already messed around on him.

I think that that would have been the right thing. The right thing would have been telling Aidan so he can make a decision. The right thing would have been maybe not sleeping with Big in the first place.

She's not doing the right thing. She's doing the thing that Carrie wants to do because Carrie wants to do it. She's calling this call closure, knowing that it's going to close with him inside her.

Yes.

Do you call bullshit on Samantha's line that nothing is cheating until somebody says, I love you? Yeah.

I think that Samantha is really great for an excuse, but there's a reason that she didn't want Miranda or Charlotte to know. We have to discuss why did she ask Samantha to maintain the secret.

You've got fairy tale Charlotte and you've got ballbuster Miranda. Both of them would have given her different perspectives that also told her how it was and she didn't want their perspectives.

She didn't want what Charlotte would have been like, should I expect a man to just cheat on me in my marriage? Like would that be okay? How dare you do that?

That's not okay because you know that's what Charlotte would say. And Miranda would have I think also been looking at her side-eyed. Like what possessed you to go?

Why would you even go back to this man that hurt you this way in the first place and cheat on a good man to be with this guy? Like what is your problem? She didn't want feedback.

She didn't want the right thing. She wanted the easy thing. The easy thing in this case is Samantha, who is going to be non-judgmental, who is going to offer her assurances and a way out.

So yeah, you get to say that nothing counts before I love you, but if the both of you have discussed exclusivity and have been acting as such, you're a cheater. Doesn't matter whether or not you said there was love.

What matters is that you said that y'all only go with each other.

Yeah. And I think she knows it's like that's bullshit. Like she knows Aidan is such a good guy.

But OK, Aidan's back.

She's a serial cheater. I would like to point out. This is not the first time she cheated.

When did she cheat?

Are you talking about that little big?

She didn't even give him fidelity for a night. She went home with a model.

Now they're not together. There she kissed the catering boy, the catering boy. Yes.

And she touched his mouth while she's on the phone with Big.

I'm just like, I'm saying that this is her MO. This is just what Carrie does.

Yes. But I think in that scene, she was pushed to kiss Jeremiah or whatever his name was because Big wasn't telling her, I love you. And then he said it when he called her and the catering boy was still there.

And here she's getting everything from Aidan and she still does it. She's a very insecure woman.

I think because she wants to win. I don't even know if she likes Big. What I know is that she wants to win against Big.

She felt like she wasn't good enough and it felt like a competition ever since then.

Fuck, yeah. I think that's very, very true. But once Aidan comes back, he's talking about the delivery and he's like, Listen, I want to tell you something.

I love you. And Sarah Jessica Parker's face during this scene is like gold because she's just like so uncomfortable. You can tell that she feels unworthy and she says it back.

What do you think about this scene? Because I am pissed. I'm like, I could not, I could not go through with my I Love You, having slept with my ex-boyfriend twice.

And slept in the sheets.

She wasn't even ashamed enough to change the damn sheets. Honestly, I was just like, you love him or you love that he loves you?

Yeah.

What kind of love do you have for this person? You clearly don't have the love of fidelity. You don't have the love of truthfulness.

What kind of love do you have for him? And so when she said it back, it felt for me more perfunctory than anything. And maybe she does feel something for him.

I think maybe she feels a desire for him, the type of life that they can lead. But more times than not, it's this girl wants to win because she doesn't feel like she's winning at life.

Yeah, like I'm even thinking about how they got together in the first place. How she got with Aiden. She thought he was cute, saw that other people were interested and wanted to win.

Yeah.

Do you think that's all based on insecurity or do you think that there is a deeper part of her that just wants to be loved? Well, I guess both are one and the same.

But I think that both can be true at the same time. I don't know that it needs to be one or the other. But with her, what I see is the...

So in my book, I talk about four types of self-esteem. You have your secure self-esteem, fragile, damaged and vacant. She's more in vacant than anything else, right?

Fragile self-esteem is I need other people to validate me in order to feel like I am somebody. She gets that and it's never really enough.

Damaged self-esteem is low key, like inside you feel your high self-esteem, but outside you may not behave in that way. She behaves as someone that doesn't have any, that it is vacant, that she doesn't know how to build it.

She doesn't know how to have it. She doesn't know how to guard it. She doesn't know how to keep it.

Her friends pour into her constantly and she's still in competition.

Yeah.

Sometimes she's in competition with them.

You think?

Whose life does Carrie actually want? Samantha makes her feel like she's better because at least she's not sleeping around with everybody. They all are very piss poor friends to Miranda.

The life of the person she wants is Charlotte. Charlotte is who Carrie thinks she is.

Yeah.

Someone who could get into that life with that upper crust male, except that she had that upper crust male who treated her like a dirty secret and didn't want to take her to church.

Huh. I never thought about it like that.

She's that upper crust man. I'm like, why would you want to tell Charlotte that you are sleeping with this guy who is married? You wouldn't want to tell her of all people.

Interesting because they always treat Charlotte like she is kind of like a toddler with a bank account.

Yeah.

They treat her like, oh, she's so naive. But I would say that within that naivete, she tends to see very clearly to the problem.

Yeah. And she has her fun.

She also tends to learn from her mistakes. She applies new lessons.

Yeah.

Does Carrie apply new lessons?

Never.

No.

Not even in the spinoff.

Carrie is a beautifully hot mess. I love that for her.

Yes.

Truly, I do. Because I mean, it makes the show, I think, that much more enjoyable, especially even on a rewatch and just seeing how she sort of destroys her own dad on life. Like she is, she is the enemy that she has been looking for.

Like, why can't I have progress? Girl, it's you. It's you.

You are the only enemy of progress here.

Yeah.

She's trying to build herself up by any means necessary, taking what she can from her friends.

And that's not to say she doesn't pour back or doesn't give back, because, I mean, certainly she's she'll be there when you're sick and make that nasty looking, what was it? Robotussin, Fanta sort of mix.

Oh my God. Yes.

But also, disgusting.

When she goes to tend to Samantha and like she keeps smoking in front of her, I'm like, try, try just one little bit. Your friend is sick and you think that smoking in her presence, in her apartment will make her better.

Like she doesn't even pretend to care about her friends.

I think that she cares, but I think that it's limited. I think that-

As long as it doesn't intercept with her own storyline in her brain.

Yeah. For her, she is the main character and she is the main character. They revolve around her.

I would even go as far as to say that for all of them, she is their best friend.

Yeah.

I think that that gives something to her. I think it gives something to her, but I don't know that she gives back an equal measure.

No. No, she doesn't. But we are at Trace and Charlotte's engagement party after Samantha finally recovers from that nasty cold.

This is where Charlotte famously negotiates with Bunny for a million and not 500K. Do you really think that this is the big win, especially for Charlotte, who I think both you and I probably agree that she's very smart?

Do you think that this is such a big win for her in her marriage and what it means for her and her freedom?

I do not think that this is a big win. I think that it is it is given to us as though it is a this grand win. I think that it's a win against Bunny.

But I think that she fails to see that the middle of her marriage has Bunny.

Yeah.

That there is no Charlotte and Trey. There's Charlotte, Trey and Bunny.

And if she could but see that piece, that he has decided to excuse himself from any difficult conversation, any conversation that would, you know, require him to make a stand, to make a choice, to be uncomfortable, she would have seen that that is

I would have loved for you.

Okay, maybe that's the reddest flag. But a very big red flag. Definitely if you're marrying the guy.

Because she's not marrying Trey.

She's marrying his mother.

Yes, even when they're sleeping together later on, she comes in. Yeah, she goes real mad with money. I would have loved for you to be their therapist.

But after that, they all go home. They're talking about how they're going to miss being the four of them. And then Carrie's with Aiden.

And she says that she has spent an entire week with him and without cigarettes. So she's knocked her addiction out. And like, that's it, no more Big.

She's committing to her good girl Bit until Bit calls. And Big is like, I'm downstairs. If you're not coming down, I'm coming up.

And then Carrie lies, says, I'll call you back Miranda. And then tells Aiden she's going to take Pete out for a walk. That pisses me off because I'm a dog owner.

Like, if you're going to take my dog out, you better, you better. That better be all you're doing. Yeah.

And then she calms down and Big is there and he's just, he's wearing a weigh-in shirt that is like the least believable part of this episode as a story arc for him. And he's just like, I can't do it. I just want you.

I'm going to tell her tonight because I cannot continue to sleep with two people. You is all I want. Do you believe him or do you think that this is a narcissistic, unavailable man trying to get what he cannot have?

I believe that this was a performance of epic proportions.

That man does not want to be with Carrie. If he really wanted to just be with Carrie, he would have divorced his wife. He would have told his wife first, I had a conversation with my wife.

I'm leaving her. I'm filing for divorce on Monday, if it's a weekend or whatever. Like I've already contacted my lawyer.

I want to be with you. That's how that conversation would have gone. If he was really standing ten toes down, I think more what he was looking for was the anguished performance with her, where he gets to declare his love.

Maybe she declares it back in his mind. And then he leaves her high and dry again. And goes back to his wife because he got his full fix.

Because he knows that he can continue to pull that girl's strings. I think that that's probably the most of what he wanted. Her saying that she does not want him, I'm just like, that was probably the true statement that I've ever seen.

She wants to win. I don't think that she wants to be with him. She wants to win him.

She wants to be seen with him. She wants to know that she's worthy of someone like him. That someone like him would see value in her.

And I think for her, she may have gotten a little bit of her fix with his threat to leave his wife. But, I'm just like, it was a lie. If you really want to leave your wife, then you'll leave your wife.

We're not having a conversation about you being with me. You're ready to leave your wife, leave her, and then have a conversation with me. And if you really wanted to leave your wife, you also wouldn't have slept with me the second time.

The first time, you can call it hormones if you want to. I think it's still BS, but whatever, call it hormones. Like the first time was a mistake, the second time was on purpose.

So if the first time is the mistake, that is when you should have been re-evaluating whether or not you wanted to be with your wife or you wanted to be with Carrie, which means you all... And Carrie said, don't put me in this position.

I don't like being in this position. You did it again anyway. You joined her in that position anyway, which means either you don't respect yourself or you don't respect her.

And I think that he doesn't respect either one of them.

No, no, he doesn't. I also found him less attractive in this scene, which honestly, I think I'm also the problem. But Carrie loses Pete and like, let me tell you, I would have dumped her then and there.

If you arrive and tell me like, sorry, I lost your dog, I would have been like, well, fuck you. What am I gonna do with you? Like, are we supposed to build a life together and have children?

But Aiden is super patient and takes her in. Pete is there. Pete doesn't register her at all.

Another red flag if you ask me, the fact that a dog does not care about Carrie. Aiden is like, hey, I need to confront you about something like, are you cheating?

This whole dialogue is supposed to make us think that maybe Aiden is confronting her about cheating with Big, but it's all about cigarettes.

And you can see that Carrie is having this double entendre play out in her mind being like, I really want to quit. I promise you I'll try. And they basically agree that she's going to try her hardest to quit smoking, also Big, and that's it.

But I can see that she's so torn, like she really wants to be done with Big, but she's not.

So maybe we can jump into the last bit of my episodes where I ask you for advice for the girls.

For Carrie, how would you help a client who would come to your office and honestly look you in the eye and say like, I want to choose what's right for me, but my inside devil, whatever, my body keeps choosing my poison, my addiction.

What would you tell a client that is trying so hard to be the good girl in the right lane, but keeps erring into the other one?

I think I would establish that you're not actually trying. Carrie is not trying. She wasn't trying.

I think that's a misnomer. So I think for me it'd be like, let's lay out the evidence of what your relationship histories have been, how you find yourself in the positions that you find yourself with. Do you actually want Aiden?

Do you actually want Big? Like, you're saying that you're trying but what are you trying to do? What is the result that you are looking for?

Yeah.

I would be most interested in that because I think some of it is like, well, I'm supposed to want to be in a relationship and not necessarily I want to be in this relationship with this person.

Those are not the same thing.

Yeah.

So I think that it's easy to get into a space of performing the wrong part because you feel like that's what you're supposed to do. And that's the danger with not having, with having vacant self-esteem, right?

Yeah.

It's because you need to have self-concept in order to have self-esteem, which means you have to know yourself so that you can esteem yourself. And then you can have aligned behavior.

If the behavior is misaligned, then I'm wondering what's the performance? Do you know who you are? Do you know what you want?

Or do you know what you're supposed to want? You're not supposed to want the married guy. You're supposed to want the other guy because the other guy is sweet and nice and whatever.

And I'm just like, but that doesn't mean you want that guy. Do you want him? Do you want a relationship with them?

Or are you performing a relationship with them because you feel like that is what society told you you're supposed to want?

Yeah.

So I would be more interested in let's talk about the difference between true desire and the performance so that it looks like you're going for the thing that you're supposed to desire.

Yeah.

Her behaviors are certainly saying something and none of them are saying I want to be with Aiden.

Totally. No, I agree with you, but I have a question here for you because I think that the worst thing that could happen to Carrie is the best thing because she says like I had this two fabulous men fighting for me.

I should have been over the moon, but I didn't enjoy it at all. Like that is the best excuse you could have ever gotten to not do any kind of self-development and be like, what do I actually want? It's like, oh, distractions.

But I have been guilty of liking the bad boy. And a bunch of my girlfriends will say like, of course, because like you don't have anybody else in your life, you keep like clinging on to the last reference.

Do you think that there's something true about maybe jumping on the next boat before you're fully, fully confident that you're done and dusted with a bad boy? Because maybe that's what she was trying to do.

I think there's something to be said about the bad boy, right? Specifically, why we desire the bad boy. We desire to tame the bad boy, which sounds a lot like winning.

We want to win the bad boy. We want to make the bad boy be good or put the bad boy on a leash so that he performs for us.

Yes.

Right?

And we were the ones who got that.

So I look like in the end of the day, we still kind of want to win.

Yes.

Which is not, again, not necessarily a problem. But the other piece is that while we're wanting to win the bad boy, we have to make sure that the bad boy is still the right type of bad boy for us. Do you want him or do you want a bad boy?

Will any bad boy do? Is this person replaceable in your eyes ends up being my question. Like, is it about them or is it about the title of bad boy?

I think that, I'm like, the idea that Carrie has these two guys fighting over her, I'm like, no, they're not fighting over you. You have two people who are interested in you.

You have one that wants to win you and one that believes he already has you. And he is just trying to maintain his good standing and a good relationship with you. One thinks he's building with you.

One thinks he can take you. Which makes sense because isn't Big supposed to be like a millionaire, billionaire type. So he's used to buying and selling people and very likely getting people to compromise themselves in order for him to win.

So does Big want you? No, he would have already told Natasha that he wanted a divorce. He didn't.

He doesn't want you. You also don't want him. You told this man to go home.

And maybe what she wanted was the power of feeling like this person that wants me to being able to say I don't want you and get out of my face and whatever. Maybe she wants that power in that way.

And I think that that is more likely than she actually wants to be with Big. But in the end of the day, I'm looking like two men want you, but do you want you? Do you desire you?

What do you want from yourself? What do you want for your life? What do you want for your future?

So for me, I would be taking the conversation away from these men, from these options. And I'm more wondering, well, what is the relationship that you are having with yourself right now, baby girl?

Like what is it that you're wanting from yourself and for yourself? Because right now you're giving us, I don't have any self-control. And I'm like, passive lying, okay, like lying by omission is one thing.

But the second she picked up the phone and said Miranda, when it was big on the phone, I'm just like, well, now you're actively lying. I'm going to take the dog for a walk. You don't even like this dog.

Why are you taking the dog for a walk? So I'm just like, look, now you're manufacturing reasons to see this person. And you're manufacturing these reasons in front of the man you say you love's face.

You don't love that man. I'm like, do you even know what that word means? Because love is not something that you feel it's something that you do.

Yeah.

So what are you doing?

Interesting.

Okay. What about Charlotte? What would you tell someone that is going into marriage as she is?

Like, how's your relationship with Bunny Girl?

Cause that's who you're marrying. Just like, you're not with Trey. You're with Bunny.

Because even the way they got engaged, eventually he came around to redo the proposal thing when they went to go buy their little ring. But in the end of the day, Charlotte proposed to herself.

Yeah.

He was just like, okay.

I mean, yeah, the whole thing is just like such a limb dick effort to do things, which is unfortunate because that's his whole thing. But could have told you that was coming, girl.

It's like minimal effort at best. He doesn't do the things that are difficult. The person that does the difficult things, has the difficult conversations, is formidable, speaks their mind.

It's Bunny. It's not Trey. And I think that for her, in many ways, Trey was like a copy paste.

This is the type of thing I want for my life. And she was able to take him and paste him here. Paste him into the position of fiancee.

Paste him into the position of husband. And she didn't have to fully know, engage with, and be with him. And I don't even think that she knows what it would be to be with him.

Because she is with Bunny. And quite frankly, he sounds and feels more like a pawn in this game between her and Bunny.

Yeah, and for that, I think that Charlotte rises to the occasion. But boy, was that not what she signed up for.

But she had to use Trey as a pawn in order to rise to the occasion. You remember that conversation? She's like, yeah, and Trey would be disappointed if I backed out.

And I'm just like, my goodness, you're using Trey the same way Bunny does.

Yes.

The both of you have dehumanized this man.

Yes. Strip them of any opinion or responsibility.

Yeah. He's almost childlike.

Yeah.

And it makes me wonder what exactly about him is attractive? What's attractive about a passive man? A man who is, who is not even present?

What is it that you're finding so delicious about this person that you would want to tie your life to theirs?

Yeah. I think he's gentle enough to be an easy vessel for Charlotte to put everything that she thinks that a Waspie, like a man from a Waspie family can provide.

Like he was gentle enough to not like fight that label and everything that Charlotte put onto him. But I think she knew that she didn't want to scratch too hard, not by sleeping with him, not by asking questions. So she probably knew.

Okay, Miranda, I haven't talked about her storyline, but she basically has this Torrid phone sex affair with a coworker who works at the Chicago office.

And they have like this really hot and steamy phone sex until she finds out that he was on another line having phone sex with somebody else, which like I know it's for the storyline because it sounds impossible.

But what do you think about maybe the do's and don'ts of falling into a relationship that might be like, you know what, you're horny, you cannot be bothered to date, but you end up having like a phone sex buddy or a sexting buddy.

And do you think that Miranda had the right to take it as personally as she did when she found out that he was having phone sex with other women?

I actually found myself wondering what commitment, if any, have y'all made to each other for you to be expecting phone sex fidelity?

I was confused because I think that when you think of Miranda's storyline and juxtapose it against Carrie's storyline, it's like, well, Carrie is very, very much in a relationship with Aiden.

We did not get the impression that Miranda was in a relationship with this guy. Just that he took a few of her recommendations for places to eat in New York, and then that they went to dinner, but he couldn't come inside because he needed to leave.

He had an early flight. So I'm just like, I am not seeing the part where they talked anywhere about some sort of intention to date exclusively. So I was actually, I was like, wait, what's going on here?

But I will say that for me, the flag, if there was like maybe a yellow flag or red flag, would have been his insistence that, well, now I'm slamming into you, right? Like he is unable to take correction or feedback about where they were.

He wants to be where he wants to be. And he just wants to be thrusting and thrusting. And I'm just like, my guy, that's not where you were.

She's correcting you on where you were. And you refuse to be corrected. The question for me is why?

Why is it that you are insisting that y'all have jumped all these spaces?

I don't know.

And all that's okay going on the phone, they ain't talk about no exclusivity?

No.

But this again, like there's so many holes in this plot because I'm like, okay, Miranda, if you find it disrespectful for this man to be having phone sex with other women, I think that you also would have asked some questions like, what does this

relationship bring to me? And how important is it for me to protect it? He's a phone sex buddy. Like, I don't know, I would have called HR if I, but what about Samantha?

Cause also like she does have this miserable cold. And like, I hate that her first calls is like going into her black book and calling all the men that she's along the years to be like, hey, can you come and fix the rod of my carton?

Cause like, I can't sleep and like all of them are like, no, I wouldn't want to get sick. And like, who are you again? And da da da da.

Until Carrie goes, smokes in her face, makes the medicine that the Samantha's mom used to make for her. And Carrie says like three days of sleep deprivation and this cold had turned Samantha into a whole other woman.

They had turned her into Charlotte.

What would you say to somebody who's like 99 percent of the time, happy, has it all, that suddenly is in a vulnerable state, calls a few men, that let her down, and says like, we're all alone, Carrie, we have nobody, Carrie, we're nothing unless we

I think that that was, for me, it was sad to watch and it's certainly sad to rewatch.

I think because it reminds me that Samantha's putting on a performance. She doesn't believe what she's saying, because even in a vulnerable moment, it wouldn't change your mind like that, right?

And she's saying that, oh, it was just a moment of weakness. I'm thinking it's more like a voice that she has inside that speaks to her on a pretty regular basis. And that it came out because why are you calling these one night stands?

Yeah.

Like, why?

You said that they don't have anything to offer you other than sex. That's all you want from them. And now, you're wanting something more than what you have ever expressed to them.

Why did you call them? Why didn't you call a service? Right?

You talked about having the food delivered. You could have your baby Keisha and eat it too. So you couldn't call a service to come put up these curtain rods?

You didn't call a friend to come put up the curtain rod? I mean, eventually Carrie was there. I have to believe that she called Carrie.

I'm hoping that that's what she eventually did when she went through her entire black book. But I'm just like, you're a person who believes that you can have it all except that you also believe that you have nothing if you don't have a man.

These two things do not necessarily live side by side. It means that one of these things must be pretend. And given that she has, there have been multiple times where she's sort of fallen into this trap of, I gotta have a man.

It leads me to believe that that's the part, that's the farce, that she's putting on airs because she feels like that's the only way for her to have power. And I think that it's good for her.

And I think it's useful for her in some ways to have this sort of performative power, but it is a performance. I don't know that it is hers. So I think it's a way for her to avoid being hurt more than anything.

To avoid feeling less than, but not necessarily the true, sort of like the truth of how she actually feels deep inside. I think that she wants partnership at this stage.

I think that she eventually learns that that type of partnership does not work for her. But I think that she likes to be a contrarian because she doesn't want to seem so dang pedestrian.

Yeah, I mean, she's a publicist through and through. She's getting ahead of the narrative by rejecting everyone before anyone rejects her.

And yet those people that she has already pre-rejected are her first call.

Why? Yeah.

She's trying to prove to herself that she too is worthy, that she can have it all, that she can have her sex partner and that she can have one of those people, one of those sex partners come by her place and help her out with something else.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think she wanted to be rescued just that one time.

She was like, I am tired of having it all, including all the responsibilities. It's a burden. So let me call a rescuer.

I'm the only rescuer that I can imagine has a male face.

Because I'm like, why? Why? Your first call should be to your friends.

Totally.

Or to your assistant. Yes. Give your assistant a job.

Find a service with your baby quiche.

But anyway, Donna, that's the episode.

Thank you so much for coming on. I would love for you to tell our listeners, where can people find you? What are you working on?

Anything exciting that you want to share with them?

Absolutely. You can find me on Instagram and online at DrDonnaOriowo. My website is donnaoriowo.com, O-R-I-O-W-O.

My book is out, so please do feel free to support. It's Drink Water & Mind Your Business. It is a self-esteem guide specifically, so yes, on that.

We all need it.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time for being here today.

I'll plug all that in the show notes and I'll invite everybody to check you out and follow you on your travels because I do hope that you at least come to London to share more on the new book.

Look, if somebody invites me to London, I'm coming to London. That's all I need. I just threw it out there.

Come, please, come.

We need it.

Thank you so much, Donna.

We'll talk to you soon. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of On Just Like That We Found Therapy. If you loved it, follow the podcast, give a five-star review and send this episode to someone who needs it.

It really helps the show. And don't forget our new segment this season. He's not you, Mr.

Big. If you have a love dilemma you won't answer by one of our in-house experts, you can now submit directly through the form on my website. Link is in the show notes.

Or if you prefer to keep it personal, slide into my DMs on Instagram at wefoundtherapypod. See you at our next therapy session. I love y'all.

Bye.