Danielle contributed the following to a Huffington Post article about TV couples that would never make it in real life:
“1. Ross and Rachel on ‘Friends’
We have Ross Geller and Rachel Green to thank for our modern concept of “the break” (though hopefully your relationship timeouts are less messy and more clearly defined).
By the series end, the on-again, off-again couple had a baby and were back together. Old relationship habits die hard, and Danielle Forshee, a licensed clinical social worker in Red Bank, New Jersey, sees them falling back into their familiar relationship patterns in the future.
‘The relationship was created upon a foundation that was tarnished from years of questionable actions,’ Forshee told HuffPost. ‘They were both engaged to other people, there were communication problems with expressing and articulating how they really felt about each other, and then there was that moment of impulsively getting married in Vegas in a drunken stupor.’
Danielle Kepler, a therapist in Chicago, noted that the pair only seemed to be honest with each other after hurting each other. Plus, when they were going through a rough patch, they’d overshare with their friends instead of directly addressing the issue with each other.
‘They did what most people do when they were having issues: ask their friends for advice or complained rather than talking to one another,’ Kepler said. ‘While I think they could have happily co-parented their daughter, unless they learn to be more honest and trust one another, they probably would not stay together in the real world.'”
Read the entire article here.
