Now, appearing on the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Olivia has looked back on the demise of their relationship and the rift that formed before they ultimately called off their engagement.
Discussing her new movie, The Invite, Olivia said: “It’s no surprise to me that I ended up making a movie about relationships and the complexity of determining whether a relationship is over because it is not an overnight process. It’s very difficult. And the idea that relationships can come to a place where you become strangers.”
Though their split didn’t make headlines until November 2020, Olivia said that she and Jason “had been having a rough time” for a while before that. In fact, she said she knew for sure that the relationship was over on the specific date of March 10, 2020, her 36th birthday, after Jason made a blunt observation about their dynamic.
“We had a real bumpy, bumpy ride, and we were driving home from my birthday party my friends had had, and I said, ‘Did you give me a birthday present?,'” she recalled. “And he said, ‘What would I get you, Olivia? I don’t know you.’ And he wasn’t wrong. We didn’t know each other anymore.”
As well as making her realize they needed to break up, Olivia said that the tense moment inspired the idea for The Invite, which stars her and Seth Rogen as a couple whose marriage is on thin ice.
“You can get to a place in a relationship where you stop engaging in the knowing of each other, in the curiosity about each other, and you find yourself in a place where you’re like, ‘I don’t even know you,'” Olivia said. “And that was a point, that was when we realized it was over. And it was fucking tough, and it brought us to the place of like, OK, this is done. We’re gonna end this.”
Discussing other signs that a romantic relationship isn’t healthy anymore, she added: “There are so many couples who are bickering in a way that becomes kind of a comedy act, but there’s contempt underneath, and we all know contempt is the end. It is this kind of poking and scraping, but you can go a long time with that. And it takes somebody stopping engaging in that to have the real conversation.”
Given how publicly Jason and Olivia’s split and subsequent custody battle played out, her quotes about the relationship are gaining a lot of attention online. One Reddit user wrote that Olivia’s comment about couples “bickering” and “scraping” at one another “hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“The description of couples bickering as a ‘bit’ but there’s contempt underneath is so spot on. Whenever I see couples doing that, I know their days are numbered,” another user wrote.
“That was the biggest thing I took from this,” agreed someone else. “I see it so much in couples, the open contempt over small things, and having nothing good to say about their partners. Yet many of them stick together for money, because they are afraid of being alone, don’t want to split apart for the kids, whatever keeps people in bad relationships.”
Elsewhere in the Reddit thread, people took issue with the fact that Jason (apparently) didn’t even bother to buy Olivia a birthday gift. However, others were quick to highlight that Olivia’s anecdote wasn’t necessarily about the material aspect.
“What’s important, which is what Olivia calls out here, is to constantly evaluate and ‘know’ your partner. When you don’t know them anymore, then you are done,” one user wrote. “I say this as a person with many failed and some ‘successful’ relationships, but my view is that love is lasting and relationships can be impermanent because, as people, we change because the world is turning.”
“I have a lot of respect for how she explained this,” echoed someone else. “It is painfully close to what my divorce was like (COVID co-parenting and all), and I admire her for being both honest about the dynamic and kind to her ex at the same time.”
What are your thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments.