It's Not Me, It's U.S.

What if I could go to couples therapy with the United States of America? What would happen?

I had this thought last August, the day before I premiered a new, work-in-progress show about me breaking up with the United States. The show was written as an autobiographical storytelling piece, but the day before, as I was walking around Edinburgh, this thought popped into my head and it hasn’t left me.

The premise is absurd and at the same time one hundred percent necessary. Obviously, no one can actually take their country to therapy—but what if they could? The show, as written, was completely true to life, and yet this new framing, while unrealistic, could reveal more truth than sticking to reality.

And it’s not like one couldn’t, in theory, take their country to therapy. It’s just not something we do.

Solvable vs. Perpetual Problems

If I took America to therapy, one of the first things I’d bring up is something from the Gottman Institute, which studies couples. (By the way, I read books and listen to podcasts about relationships for fun.)

The Gottmans say that all couples have two kinds of problems: solvable and perpetual.

Solvable problems are situational—you can talk them through, find a compromise, and move on. An example might be bickering about dirty dishes. The solution could be as simple as a chore chart.

Perpetual problems, on the other hand, stem from deep differences in personality, values, or dreams. They don’t get “solved.” You just learn how to manage them (respectfully, ideally) over time. For example, one partner likes to travel and the other likes to stay home. Instead of forcing each other to change, they accept their differences and give each other space.

In a healthy relationship, both types of problems exist. But trouble comes when one partner insists on turning every solvable problem into a perpetual one by refusing to cooperate.

And if you ask me, that’s the United States in a nutshell.

The Politics of Perpetual Problems

Personally, I’m beyond tired of talking about issues like abortion, healthcare, education, gun control, and climate change and seeing no progress. Or worse, backsliding.

The whole premise of the first version of my show about breaking up with the US came from having lived abroad and seeing these problems solved elsewhere. Far less wealthy nations have found workable solutions. And yet somehow, we can’t?

It’s not about a lack of answers. There are plenty of them. Take your pick. The issue is will.

Because if we solve the problem, then what?

People are so attached to the fight they can’t imagine a future without it. The argument is the relationship. The outrage is the intimacy.

Meanwhile, I look at these same problems and think: What if we just fixed them? What if we stopped defining ourselves by how impossible everything is?

We can go to space, but affordable healthcare? That’s apparently too far-fetched.

I can imagine what’s on the other side: calm, stability, and the emotional bandwidth to move on to new problems. And there are always new problems.

If the Therapist Were Taking Notes

If America and I were in couples therapy, I think the therapist would say something like:

“You have a lot of solvable problems that you’ve decided are perpetual because you get off on fighting about them. The solution isn’t more arguing—it’s more imagination. Try picturing what it would feel like to stop.”

And I’d say, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them!”
And America would say, “You see how superior she thinks she is to me?”
And then the therapist would sigh.

The Bigger Picture

Many relationships reach a point where one person realizes the other isn’t trying to grow anymore. That’s what this feels like.

We’ve been together a long time—almost 250 years—and we’re stuck in the same arguments, using the same tactics, telling the same stories about who we are.

Look, I don’t actually want to break up with the United States. I just want it to evolve. To stop turning solvable problems into perpetual ones. To stop confusing stubbornness with principle.

So, would couples therapy fix America? Probably not. Because America would have to want to change.

But at least it would get us in the same room, saying the truth out loud.

And maybe that’s where healing could start: admitting that the problems don’t have to be eternal, even if they are very well rehearsed.