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The Break” is one of the longest-running gags of the series. It begins in season 3, episode 15, “The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break.” The title of the episode is kind of an answer—but what does that really mean? With the 25th anniversary of the Friends pilot coming up on September 22, it’s time to find out once and for all. Since the internet can’t come to a conclusion, I asked three couples therapists to weigh in.
To psychotherapist Yoon Kane, LCSW, founder and CEO at Mindful Psychotherapy, Ross and Rachel shouldn’t have been fighting over who was right and who was wrong. There’s no “winner” in their argument because neither of them fought fairly.Another major misstep? The duo talks about this when neither one of them is in the right frame of mind—Rachel is stressed from work and Ross is feeling rejected. BUT WERE THEY ON A BREAK? I hate to defend Ross, but I have to... They were 100 percent on a break,” our executive producer declared. “Rachel suggests it, and then when Mark comes over, she tells him, ‘I said we should take a break.’ She is totally aware of what she said! Should he have slept with the weird girl hours after the breakup? No. But I sort of get it. We just broke up and your boss is the person who’s consoling you? Where’s Monica? Where’s Phoebe? I get that Ross has a lot of trust and jealousy issues, but I also feel like that’s a bit odd.” She makes a good point; it does seem strange that the Friends crew are always at the apartment…except when you need them to be. Couldn’t Rachel have found someone else’s shoulder to lean on? Yeah, they were on a break. Rachel said they should take a break. The entire cast still says they were on a break, as they did when James Corden asked during the reunion. They were, unequivocally, on a break, but that's not actually the important question here! The actual age old question is less about whether they were on a break and more about what that break actually meant, especially when you consider why everyone's spent years arguing over the break. Ross, as usual, messed up, and has basically spent 24 years convincing us all that he didn't actually mess up at all.
But for others, it was a matter of semantics. “I’m in the ‘no’ camp, because Rachel simply suggested the break. She even used the word mayb e!” another editor argued. Sleeping with Chloe, while understandably hurtful to Rachel, is really incidental here and symptomatic of their poor communication,” he says. I see this in couples all the time: They end up fighting about some transgression that’s actually beside the point.”
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Another reason McNeil argues the duo wasn’t on a break? Ross’s actions at the bar. “I don’t think his heart told him that he was on a break,” she says. “When you watch his mannerisms and how he’s just kind of responding and reacting to stimulus coming at him (an attractive girl, music, alcohol, etc.), I don’t think his heart thought he was on a break.” It’s true, Ross does initially reject Chloe’s advances, which could be interpreted as him knowing that hooking up with another woman would be cheating. Doormats are the perfect way to decorate your porch. They also make great gifts for Weddings, Housewarming, Birthdays, and more! But first, here’s a bit of a refresher. In the episode, Ross and Rachel get into a fight when she bails on their anniversary dinner to stay late at work. They both have valid reasons to be upset: Ross thinks she’s prioritizing work over their relationship, while Rachel thinks he’s disrespecting her newfound career independence. There’s also the fact that Ross is jealous of Mark, Rachel’s handsome male coworker, and constantly questioning his motives. This happens a lot. People take the word ‘break’ and they’re not intentional about what they mean about a break. Rachel was not specific; therefore, she did leave room for interpretation for Ross to believe that they were broken up,” Douglas tells Cosmo.“She should have said, ‘Let’s take a time-out.’ That’s the word that we use in couples therapy and anger management. She used the wrong word.” I think they were on a break, but I think Ross was in the wrong for going out and having a random hook-up that soon—poor form from someone who is supposed to be your lobster,” one colleague shared.
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