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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 Mihalla.
Mihalla 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 Mihalla 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 any more fucking ordinary.
You are talentless and useless and a fucking whore.
Oof. That's gotta hurt.
When I met Mihalla, 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, like, 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?
And 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. OK, big shout out to all the moms in the world.
Y 'all are caring. Yeah.
Today, I talked to Mihalla 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.
Mihalla, welcome to Modern Love.
Thank you so much for having me.
So, OK, 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 of from your childhood?
Or like, what is the thing you love the most that you're the most afraid to lose?
OK, dinner parties at your house must be really fun.
But I will say super we are aligned 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 want to 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 like 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 premier and I was totally isolated alone.
And of course, I was going through my requests like on Instagram.
You mean? Yes, my Instagram DMS, 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.
But I went back and looked at his profile and I was like, 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, my holla, 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 five, 10 minute 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 so much.
So we hopped into zoom the next day.
We were meant to be on five, ten 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?
It was he was he cared about me immediately.
Like, what was he asking you?
Do you remember any specific questions?
I couldn't tell you honestly, because I feel like I blacked out to be honest.
Like, I saw him and he was like, hey, my holla, it's 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.
Man 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?
Like, 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 going to sound so annoying.
And me, before I knew this thing, was like, oh, 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.
I know. Yeah, like it might have been him marrying Arvando, not me, you know.
Stay with us. We'll be back in just a moment.
This podcast is supported by Cartier.
I was at a new friend's apartment not too long ago where I told her that I haven't spoken to my father in almost four years.
She turned to me and said, I feel so sorry for him.
I froze naturally because people normally say that they feel sorry for me when I bring up my dad.
Then she said he's missing out on how special you are.
With love from Cartier.
Hey, I'm Robert Vinlow and I'm from New York Times Games and I'm here talking to people about Wertel and the Wertel Archive.
Do you all play Wertel?
Yeah. I have something exciting to show you.
Oh, OK. It's the Wertel Archive.
Oh. And you keep your...
So if I miss it, I can like go back.
One hundred percent.
Oh, that's nice. So now you can play every Wertel that has ever existed.
There's like a thousand puzzles.
Oh my god, I love it.
Amazing. New York Times Games subscribers can now access the entire Wertel Archive.
Find out more at NYTimes .com slash games.
OK, so, Mayhala, you and your fiancee, 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, you know, retreat yourself inward around them.
You'll create resentments with your partner.
And and also like you're with someone who you're 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 diverse, 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 room maintenance, 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.
Dialogue, 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 true ourselves, 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.
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.
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, Mahala 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, Mahala, after hearing you read that modern love essay all about being conflict diverse in a relationship, I want to ask you about your own experience with conflict.
I read this interview you did with W Mag 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, 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've 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 going to say, wait, you haven't had any conflict in your relationship.
So you don't go to the bear burger anymore.
But no, no, no, we're still hashing it out.
But we're taking it, we're taking it to the, 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 like had a crying screaming match on a train.
We've also like 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 like 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, um, sometimes I'm like, how dare you talk to me like that anywhere, everywhere.
Um, 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? Um, 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?
I mean, it's like, I think there's, there's moments where I, I'm emotional about something and I want a fight.
Like I feel like I need, 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.
So whatever you need, I'm just going to 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 because 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, 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.
It's 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 like when you and Armando were in those early days, those bareburger 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 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 10 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 his dream of going pro as a soccer player.
And he just totally pivoted and decided I'm going to go be an actor.
He has no job. He doesn't know anybody.
And he's living with me who's like fully established and also like a tyrant in the household.
I'm like, you left one crumb on the floor, jail immediately.
I'm I'm I'm a lot I'm I have I live I I'm not 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 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 like, hard on you, like the military, for what's best for you.
Like I love you. So I want to support you.
Of course. And, 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 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 we chose 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.
Like it's really, it's really expedited now.
Cause we did the hard work on the front end.
You did the hard work on the front end and the bare burger.
I must add. 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.
Myhala, 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 Myhala 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.
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Modern Love is produced by Riva Goldberg, Davis Land, Emily Lang and Amy Pearl.
It's edited by Lynn Levy, Riva Goldberg, Davis Land and our executive producer, Jen Poiyant.
Production management by Christina Jose.
The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell.
Original music by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Rowan Nemestow, Dan Powell and Diane Wong.
This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez.
Studio support from Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman.
Digital production by Mahima Chaplani and Nell Galloagli.
The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones.
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If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to New York Times, we've got the instructions in our show notes.
I'm Anna Martin, thanks for listening.
