TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I owe you for the session then.

THERAPIST: Out of pocket.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: That's fine. Does that make sense?

CLIENT: Yes. I think so yes. Because the last week you're out anyway. I have to look at my (unclear) but I believe there is one week that doesn't work. But I'll call you and let you know for sure.

THERAPIST: But you don't know if it's next week. We only (unclear) for the next couple of weeks.

CLIENT: Yes. There are only two more.

THERAPIST: (inaudible). What do you want to talk about? It just occurred to me that the things that are hard to talk about in couples therapy are hard to talk about in here too. I don't know if you want to go in there or (inaudible).

CLIENT: No, we need to talk about those things. I guess I've been avoiding them to a great extent. I guess it does matter. I went home for Thanksgiving and Ivan went and he stayed in a separate room but he went and he evidently spent some time talking to my Dad and I guess that was somewhat helpful.

THERAPIST: It felt okay to you as a solution.

CLIENT: It was uncomfortable but I guess it felt like an okay step on top of which Ivan we agreed. I think I said it more than he did. He's not re-renting that apartment for this month. On the one hand it feels the same because he's sleeping on the couch and it feels the same I guess. On the other hand it is scary because it's still really, really, really difficult to talk about those things and it almost sounds bizarre but it almost feels like two different relationships or even two different people. There's the part where it's fine and things are not fine but there's a lot of progress and things are feeling really, really good and a lot of positive time and getting back on track and actually a lot better than they were before and then there's the part where we talk about or I think about those things and I get so disturbed, so worked up, so scared, so hurt that it feels like a completely different situation, a different person, a different discussion a very different feeling about him being in the apartment and that's not to say that after having that discussion the next day that I don't feel like okay again, but it's very upsetting and it's very it's disturbing and it's hard to reconcile the two.

THERAPIST: And I also think one of the things that one of the things we were talking about last time is that he's part of what's allowing you to say that out loud, that's what (unclear). But there's a way you've probably kept those parts of what you know about people who are really (unclear) separate to coping. Do you know what I mean? Coping as a child then if you were to have 4 let her back in and kind of ignore or push away out of your mind that this other stuff is happening (inaudible). So it's a new experience I can imagine, and very disconcerting to start to say, 'wait, how do I let the positive parts of Ivan and the not so positive parts which are very disappointing and upsetting to me, to be all (unclear) like to have them both come in to the same room together and sit on the couch together co-exist? You're used to keeping them separate. [00:04:44]

And something that occurred to me I guess, so with my parents I many, many times confronted them about the big things and that is what led to the arguments more than anything. I wasn't a terrible child. I got in trouble for bringing up their things which is its own situation I guess but I don't feel as though I ever confronted them and said, 'actually, I wish when I wanted to talk about this thing that's upsetting to me that we could do it in a way that or somehow or other express that it's actually very hurtful and upsetting when you retreat to your bedroom and lock your door and don't talk to me for days, or give me the cold shoulder. I feel really panicky when you just slam the door and drive off to work and it makes it difficult. I don't think I ever voiced that. I don't think I ever felt I had the right to. It felt like it was my fault.

THERAPIST: I also think that even if you had voiced it wouldn't (unclear).

CLIENT: Well no. It probably wouldn't have.

THERAPIST: I'm sure you tried a little bit, I mean probably before you can even remember and this would start to happen. I can imagine you trying to say something. It's not an environment where a parent I wouldn't imagine your mother or your father would say, 'oh, I hadn't thought of it impacting that way and now that I realize, I'm sorry and thank you for bringing that to my attention.

CLIENT: It doesn't go well. Even this past weekend I found myself even with my sisters like, 'there was no point to say that, Ramona.' At one point I told my mom, I said, you know it would be nice to talk about something, not the pets. Because I realized that the vast majority of the conversation with her was about the food, the pets or her mom. And she's still deeply mourning the loss of my grandmother which, I mean, it was still many, many years ago but it's still very painful.

THERAPIST: How many years ago?

CLIENT: Let's see, in college. I'm going to say four years almost.

THERAPIST: Four years ago.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And she's still -

CLIENT: Several times a day she still mentions my grandmother. She talks about her. She talks about her family. She gets like it's very intense. It'll come out -

THERAPIST: Is she living in the past like a nostalgia, or something, or crying?

CLIENT: No, she's not crying. It's like a very top of her mind, any connection like she was talking about a store that went out of business. And I don't know why we didn't ask about the store. She brought up that the store went out of business and she said, I used to get your grandmother these really nice dresses and they would let me borrow them over the weekend so she could try them on and she got some really nice things from there and it's so sad that they closed. And she really liked that. It's mostly a I don't know

THERAPIST: So lots of things get put in reference to her.

CLIENT: So I feel like the vast majority of the conversation is the pets and my grandmother and it's not -

THERAPIST: And not you.

CLIENT: No and I -

THERAPIST: (Unclear). [0:08:44]

CLIENT: Because we do but it's over early and it's such a long drive and it is kind of disappointing when so we talked about 10 minutes about my new job. I was pretty much there for the weekend and it was really hard because the dogs were like playing, but really loudly. So I would literally, like stop very often because I couldn't be heard and at no point would my mom say, 'this is crazy. I'm going to put the dogs outside.' Like it just hurts my feelings and it's not and my sister said to me later, she said, 'you know there was no point to say let's talk about something other than pets because she's just going to get annoyed. It's not going to change anything.'

THERAPIST: What happened when you said it?

CLIENT: She was annoyed. And then like the next thing she said was about pets. And she said, 'oh, that was about the pets again.' So I guess in that moment she was conscientious again. And the rest of the weekend it was back to mostly talking about the pets. It hurts me that she doesn't want to talk about what's going on with me but she also like at no point -

THERAPIST: Did she ask you like, 'how's your job? How's Ivan?

CLIENT: Yes. She asked once and we talked about 10 minutes and that was like it. And she didn't ask my sister at all, at least not that I was aware of. Nor did she say to me like, 'I know things have been really tough with Ivan. I just want to let you know that I'm here.' Just any kind of vague acknowledgement even if she didn't want to pry if that was like so it's really hard because it's very much the same situation. It's just really hard and I ended up helping her with Barley and that was hard.

THERAPIST: Ramona, when you started to say that as a kid when you would confront your parents it wouldn't be around stuff like, 'you know it's really hurtful when you close the door to shut me out for a long period of time.' What would it be about when you said that? Would it be about the house?

CLIENT: It would be about the house. It would be about the pets. It would be about my dad never being at home or his clients not paying or him not doing bills.

THERAPIST: And what would it look like when you finally confronted them? Was it yelling? (inaudible) down? [00:10:57]

CLIENT: I would say it's very safe to say over the years that it took the form like not mentioning it at all, and retreating, yelling and being furious and angry. Describing it in not graphic terms but I would say like, the house is really filthy which it kind of was but my mom was angry that I didn't say like, it's not clean.

THERAPIST: How would they respond if like you yelled? Sorry.

CLIENT: No, but there was more. Like rational conversations?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Where I would say like, I don't know, I don't know, I felt like I would confront it very rationally. We would have like a calm discussion. I mean it didn't go anywhere and it wouldn't end well, but even to say, and then there was a lot of bargaining. There would be a lot of bargaining like if I clean the whole house, Mom, will you vacuum the stairs? I just don't want to do it. It would just be a nightmare. Or with my dad oh I see that you're so many years behind on bills but if you handed your clients bills every time you went and he would always say no and we would always go back and forth and would take the shape of many different styles of confrontation but in the end -

THERAPIST: And would they respond to like what would happen when you would say -

CLIENT: There would be anger. Very, very, very, very rarely my mom would say like, it would be almost a depressive, self-deprecating response which would be like the most positive response you could get like, 'I know it's such a mess. I can't believe I've let it go. Like it's just terrible.' Or my dad, 'I know I'm so behind, I know I'm not really home, but I really do care and I really want to be there and you're so important to me and -'

THERAPIST: And no follow through.

CLIENT: Right. And the comments were what they were and you could take them for what they're at.

THERAPIST: Ordinarily, what would be the more typical response?

CLIENT: Anger. Walk away. It would be critical. Or there was the time I came home when my mom was actually doing some cleaning and I would say like, 'wow, it looks great' and that stuff. And then she'd be angry like, 'you're so positive when I do clean and when I'm not you're not happy with me.' Like, it was just really difficult. Of course, they would try to remind me that no matter how much I wanted it to change, they had to want it to change and until they did, it wouldn't happen.

THERAPIST: And where was your sister in this kind of debate?

CLIENT: She was like five years older four and a half. She wouldn't be there when I was in high school.

THERAPIST: So this was in high school.

CLIENT: No, I mean middle school, not high school. And I was helping with the pets even younger than that.

THERAPIST: And did she take on some of this kind of It's very unusual in other words for some I'm impressed, for example by what you were even able to be on top of yourself at that age to know your father's not doing his billing and then to like take it up with him.

CLIENT: It wasn't just, it wasn't like I just caught on to everything. My mom was just very explicit on my dad's faults and to make sure that we (cross talk) first. Yes. She was always very openly critical of him. And there was that but there was also coming home and finding a notice on the door 'your phone will be shut off if you don't pay your bill.' And then my mom would always be, 'I guess your dad forgot about it.' Or he lost the bill. Which was true, sadly.

THERAPIST: But then you were really getting pulled into stuff.

CLIENT: No. It was always, I mean like that's not the question. Getting very pulled in answering the phone and knowing it was like a creditor asking about or my mom going I mean she would go into a lot, a lot of detail that was never okay and we were exposed to so much that we ever needed to know and the worst part is, 'my mom would always say, 'you don't know the half of it.' We would get so drug in and then be like almost guilted for not knowing more.

THERAPIST: You shouldn't have known any of that stuff. Even if that stuff were going on it would be so much better had you been protected from it. Do you know what I mean? So (unclear) between your mother and your father even if the electricity got shut off, the kid who really doesn't understand why is in some ways at that point is in a better place than the kid who is being pulled in and vented to about the other parent.

CLIENT: It almost like better but worse that it was true that when he sent out bills and his clients paid which were two things that he didn't always do the billing. He didn't always have an office so he would do the entire practice and all the paperwork which he was not trained to do the business stuff but not at all. Which wasn't his fault but which is why people have practice managers. But he would not do that most of the time so he would not necessarily do all the bills and then even for a lot of the clients when they did get bills they wouldn't necessarily pay and so we had one client who had tens of thousands of dollars in outstanding bills and my dad would still go into work for him for a very long time. So I guess the point was when something happened like that, when someone called or a bill was overdue, it was better knowing that he forgot or he didn't cash a check or he didn't collect a bill, than thinking my dad doesn't have the ability to support us, but it was worse because it was like my dad actually had a lot of potential to make an above average living, that would more than cover our needs especially since my mom never supported the house and was like too disorganized to take care of our phone bill, things like that. So it was just really hard getting drug into it. Going home is really hard. My mom has turned my bedroom into her bedroom which is really, really, really upsetting and I'm not allowed to tell her that it's upsetting because she goes into well your dad doesn't get home until midnight and he wakes me up and actually I bought a queen sized bed for your room and moved your old bed out because I like to have the pets with me and now there's more room for the pets and your room has always been my favorite room in the house. It's so quiet. The whole house is quiet. It's in the middle of nowhere. And it's hurtful to me because she's very unkind to my dad, very unkind but then complains that he's not home but I don't think she wants to spend any positive time with him. But it's hard to be critical of that because I know very well from growing up I would so often say, 'like you're never home and this is terrible,' and then when he would like come home at 10 o'clock which would be early for him sometimes and knock on my door and be like -

THERAPIST: Ten?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, no I'm not exaggerating when I say that my dad is a workaholic. People don't understand. This doesn't mean like a 50 or 60 or 70 hour week. It's much more than that. He works seven days a week.

THERAPIST: Very, very extreme.

CLIENT: It is very extreme.

THERAPIST: People use the term workaholic and colloquially they talk about people who have a hard time leaving work at the door. Really extreme.

CLIENT: No, it's his whole life. We grew up watching that but very, very extreme examples of that. He's probably better than his dad was but it's just hard hearing about all of it, it's hard -

THERAPIST: You said he'd come home at 10 o'clock at night sometimes -

CLIENT: Right. And then he'd be like, 'how was your day? How's it going?'

THERAPIST: At 10 o'clock?

CLIENT: Right. And I would be so ticked off and like, 'you know what? I know I said when I want to talk to you and you're never home at 10 o'clock, like I'm ticked off and I don't want to talk and I want to be left alone.' Or if he did come home at a more reasonable hour I was still angry at him for so many things, it was like 'no, it's not a switch that I can turn off.' So I understand to some extent but it just hurts me that with my mom her response hurts me and now she's moving to a different bedroom and that's like even more extreme and it's just hard and I don't want to hear about it.

THERAPIST: What were you feeling? I mean it's just so much.

CLIENT: It was really, really difficult.

THERAPIST: And like what can you kind of ground me in what you're there and what is it like inside what are you feeling?

CLIENT: Probably a lot of anxiety and a lot of anger and hurt and so like so hurt and so darn angry that we had to talk about the pets so much like I could barely talk over the dogs and that didn't bother her. I offered and this is how it goes I offered to help her go through some of her books. My mom has a couple of thousand books. She really has a ton of books. So many. She has a huge den and it's been no one's been in it for over 10 years. It's a total disaster area and it's mostly a couple of thousand books. So I offered to help her go through some because I said at Christmas we could take some there's a place that I like secondhand books that gives you money back. I said that I would do that. So I like worked really hard to do it quickly because she'll only like give so much of her time at a time and she told me at least three different times, 'this is really painful for me, Ramona. This is really difficult for me to go through these.'

And I was like, I just wanted to punch something, I was so angry like, are you kidding me? I am lifting all these heavy books and going through like you're nursing books like from when I was in second grade that aren't even nice enough to be donated to a library because they're so old. You're telling me how tough it is for you. Like this is your job. You should be doing this. It's so unhelpful to say that and my sister always reminds me that that does no good. But it's just so rotten. There was an old TV my parents desperately needed to get rid of. It doesn't work and it needed to be recycled. So Ivan helped me get it into the car and we took it over to a donation center where they take appliances to be recycled. And my dad said, 'well, are you happy now?' Like for that was hard for him to let go of that. And I was just like I felt the same anger inside of me and I was like, 'yeah,' and I was like, 'are you kidding me? This is your responsibility. Do you think I personally enjoy spending my Thanksgiving break hauling your TV to a donation center because if we didn't it would sit outside until Christmas when we would do it?' You know, that's why I did it for Thanksgiving.'

THERAPIST: Something feels important for you inside about taking it up. And I'm not saying actually you know, I'm not saying you shouldn't, but I sort of trying to what happens inside you that you don't just say, 'okay, if this is the way you all want to live, the TV can sit out here for the next five years.' Like it's their property at this point, you don't have to deal with it most of the time.' Do you know what I mean? [00:22:46]

CLIENT: Yeah, and that's what my sisters always ask me about. And there is a balance. I didn't spend the whole time like going to the house. I didn't spend the whole time but there is also it's really hard to explain and I'm not saying that it's not necessarily healthy or right but so in all honesty if we did what a lot of my friends did which was I feel like they go home, they have a meal, they relax, they like play games, they do fun things, they don't have to help, like they don't have to do major projects around the house, especially ones that are above and beyond what a normal household project would be. It would like us sitting in my room because my mom retreats to her room -

THERAPIST: Sitting in your room.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's her room now. I mean, yes, because she like has -

THERAPIST: Or do you mean you and Ivan sitting in your room.

CLIENT: Me and my sister even. So my mom has agreed, like she will sleep in the master bedroom which is huge and which she refuses to clean up, that she will stay there when I get home.

THERAPIST: So what is that -?

CLIENT: I'm just so angry because my mom has like over the years has slept on the couch and I used to clean up the living room which she like turned into her bedroom and that was wrong, like I shouldn't have had to do that. She used to sleep in the den which was 40 feet long by I don't know it was just a huge room. She had a big bed in there. She used to do that for many years when she and my dad weren't getting along, which they still don't get along. And it's totally trashed. And her bedroom, their the master bedroom it has like never been like cleaned up, like consistently clean and she takes so may pets in there, like four dogs and then a bunch of cats on top of that and then there's a canary in there and it's just insane and then she complains that my dad's not very clean. And so I feel like she has trashed all these areas and now she's taking over my room and it's like the one like, I'm sorry like there are 16 rooms in that house. It is a huge house. Maybe Emma's room and my room could just be left like untouched like because there are that many other rooms. But she won't clean up the den so she is now moving to my room which is clean but she's already moved a ton of furniture I there and she's already started moving her stuff in there and I went home and I found something I found that was breakable like an antique teacup that she gave me many years ago that was hers and it was about to fall on the floor and break because she had it piled on top of stuff that she like had put in I just want one tiny little space that's mine when I go home so I can -

THERAPIST: That's very reasonable.

CLIENT: And I was so upset because it's not just like her destroying my old room like if that happens and she takes four dogs and a lot of cats in there every day and there's nothing I can do about it I guess except it doesn't feel fair, like the one area that I have done to -

THERAPIST: There might be something that you could do because that seems like that's not just you taking on projects that aren't your responsibility. Like remember last time you were home they were talking about how do we help Ramona get protected? How do we help you? What protects you? And when I asked you why you have to take up some of these things, I don't do it thinking for sure that you shouldn't. I'm interested in like what it does for you, what it doesn't, what it gives you, what it takes away from you. What matters to me in this space is what protects Ramona. You started to say and I'm interested in what the end of the sentence was 'if we weren't to be doing all of these projects in this weird way that most people don't do when they're home (unclear) then we'd be sitting in our room by ourselves?

CLIENT: Right. Because my mom retreats to her room and does her own thing and she's very like -

THERAPIST: Retreats to her room when you're home? Even now?

CLIENT: Yeah. She goes to the bedroom. I mean she'll be in her bedroom, their bedroom most of the time.

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: Yeah. Most of the time my mom yes. And most of the time now she says it's because her calcium is low because of the surgery but it's frustrating because we're home and in the morning she's like, 'oh, my calcium's low, I don't feel so great.' And I'm like, 'did you take your calcium?' 'No, and I guess I should do that.' So she retreats to her room a lot and my dad is you know, the first thing the day after Thanksgiving he has calls. So it's not -

THERAPIST: So what does Thanksgiving Day look like? Like when you're forced to be together.

CLIENT: We drove until we got home I guess a little before 1 o'clock.

THERAPIST: Oh you left that morning.

CLIENT: We did, because Emma had to work until 3 on Wednesday so it was crazy. And we had dinner and I was surprised because the house was relatively decent for them and she said, 'your dad helped me this morning.' And I have a feeling he did a ton but she was like, she just had to critique that wasn't until that morning which he works and she does nothing. No, we all had dinner. She talked mostly about the pets and the food and I felt like going crazy. And Emma and I were pretty tired and we started driving at 5 a.m. and we just like went and we were just so overwhelmed, she and I just hung out in my room for a while because it was just so overwhelming. [00:28:23]

THERAPIST: So you guys even went into retreat.

CLIENT: A little bit because like my mom was already in her room. My dad was trying to fix the TV because he never gets a chance to watch football.

THERAPIST: What time did you eat, 2 maybe? So you eat, have a meal for an hour or so and then your mom goes to her room.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Under the guise of what? Taking my calcium at that point or -

CLIENT: Or just because she does.

THERAPIST: What does she do in there?

CLIENT: She watches TV. She naps. She reads. She's with her pets.

THERAPIST: And with her door open?

CLIENT: It's usually closed. Sometimes it's open if there are pets that are allowed to come out.

THERAPIST: Does she let you in?

CLIENT: No. This is normal. I know it's not normal, but this is the norm.

THERAPIST: And I'm just stunned, Ramona, about the way you talk about it, I'm not even you understand how abnormal -

CLIENT: No. I think my mom's very depressed and she's been very depressed for many years and I think that the isolation and the I think that's a big part of it, but I think that to her it's pretty normal. My dad spent the evening trying to get the TV to work because he wanted to watch football. Eventually we came down and we all played a game.

THERAPIST: What did you play?

CLIENT: Categories? So I mean that was okay but Emma and I were just overwhelmed. But we got through it. Saturday we spent most of the day we went to a memorial for one of my dad's uncles. That was a lot. Friday we did go with my dad to get a tree. My mom did not go. She does not go. But that was at least nice.

THERAPIST: One of the things I think that's really important when I ask clients for details of 'what does that look like,' is that I don't think I understood that she still retreats as much as she does now. I just was sort of thinking of that as a child but this is still messing with your adulthood.

CLIENT: No this has been very like she's thinking about next trying to go to church again. That's like a huge, huge, huge like -

THERAPIST: She hasn't even been going to church?

CLIENT: No. Like she doesn't no. I've been trying to encourage her in a very delicate way to like maybe see someone about her depression especially in the wake of her cancer treatment. That doesn't go well. I've encouraged her to volunteer. She used to, when we were really little, she used to read in the elementary school. They would have volunteers to do reading time. She made a really inappropriate comment about that and -

THERAPIST: She is very sick, emotionally.

CLIENT: I mean this has been like -

THERAPIST: Forever, I know.

CLIENT: A very, very yeah.

THERAPIST: For some reason I was thinking that it sounded like she was getting better as you guys were out of the house, but I guess not.

CLIENT: No. Like if she gets dressed and she makes dinner, like she made dinner even if it was like frozen things that's like huge, really huge. But it's just hard because I would not stop going home because of the pets or the mess or projects or my dad's crazy business. Like I wouldn't stop going home because of all of it. It's just really hard to navigate and it felt especially hard like Ivan, like but I was really impressed because he helped. It's not something I would expect. He like mowed the lawn which is like two and a half acres.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: He mowed it. And I was like, you don't have to do that. And he did and that was something that my parents really appreciated because my dad doesn't have time to do it and my mom won't do it and so it was nice. [00:32:03]

THERAPIST: One of the things you were describing getting back to this point that you were thinking of maybe you didn't know you were making is that if you weren't to have these kinds of projects or kind of demanding, 'let's get this thing done together, come out here and let's bring books in' your mother wouldn't be there. Like, in a way, Ramona, I know this isn't at the conscious level, but there may be an unconscious motivation of why you continue to do it is at least gives you something that you're doing together. If the alternative is you go home and she's sitting in her room with her pets instead of her daughters, watching television, I mean, it's your effort in order to make contact with her, to at least have something that is engaging with you.

CLIENT: It's hard because otherwise she won't play a game. I'll play a game with my dad and sometimes it's almost better because she won't be very nice to him. Like she won't go cut down the tree. She won't help decorate the tree. She won't help like its just so maybe it is a way to do something together but it's not the most pleasant activity.

THERAPIST: It's horrible for you but I think just even identifying that that like in some ways for people, sometimes some contact is better than no contact, even if it's bad contact. Human beings thrive on like connection and contact with each other. The idea of an absent, withdrawn, door shut mother is terrifying and horrifying on multiple levels. So if one of the ways to get her to come out is to say, 'come here, I'm going to make you do this project with me.' I'm not saying that you should be doing it that way because I think it does hurt you over time, but I think it's the start of understanding one of the unconscious strands that is trying to kind of keep something in touch with her.

And that comes into play with Ivan. What has that kind of more desperate kind of trying to keep in contact because now there are good things here that you want to hold onto desperately? What is a healthier place of kind of taking the good, not forgetting about the things that aren't so good and keeping his whole self and your whole self right next to each other on the couch having a conversation? There may have been times as a kid that you were so angry at your parents, or even now, that you were sort of like seeing red about it. So the idea of actually having loving feelings alongside angry feelings is just very unfamiliar at least at a conscious level and that's the task in front of you with Ivan. How do you honor your own anger and hurt, the tremendous hurt at the betrayals? And have that be a part of your experience that gets known to you and to him and not have that be what squashes the good and the living things because those are real too.

CLIENT: I am, I felt a little concerned with maybe even last week when you said, like when my mom would finally open the door, my dad would finally come back, that whatever it was, I just wanted it because it was anything would have been better than what I was getting and I don't want to do that with Ivan. I don't want to settle.

THERAPIST: So far I don't think you have been, Ramona, but I think it's because you've been very thoughtful about this very issue and that it does take a holding onto this issue consciously it's at work in a way to try to say, do like where you started the session today you've been having these difficult conversations and they've been really, really difficult and it almost feels like a different relationship than this relationship. But how do you let yourself slowly know that both of these parts of your relationship are true. It isn't just that this one's true and this one disappears when you're in this place. But even when you're fighting or furious or so hurt that there is also a lot of good that is happening. That is still true. And just that when there is a lot of good happening how you still hold onto the things that have registered that won't do away and they need to be understood in the process before you can feel ever more trusting again. How can your conversations go like what is -?

CLIENT: When Ivan schedules them, he tries to set a time and sometimes I find myself reminding him to try to schedule them so it's like a hot button, but when they happen he's very open to what I want to talk about which feels kind of scary but he says, whatever you want to talk about is fine and it seems like he tries to answer questions or sometimes I find myself just needing to tell him what it's like, how it's all together. And he's like he's listening. I find sometimes he's actively telling me, 'I'm trying not to withdraw, Ramona, I'm trying to stay engaged.'

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Which can be hard because like there's still a part of me that's annoyed that he could ever withdraw because it's just such a sensitive thing for me to have someone and the fact that he has something in him that he's withdrawing and it feels the same to me as what my parents did. But I don't think it's the same from him.

THERAPIST: Right. I think that's totally true.

CLIENT: But it's so hard in the moment because it's around so sensitive a topic to not feel the same thing. But it feels productive. It just feels really difficult and at the end of it I'm just reminded of how hurt and angry and how horrified I was when I found out about some of these things that it leaves me in a very different place. Like before the conversation we had a nice dinner, we talked, we were like enjoying each other's company. I feel like the rest of the evening it's hard to like I need time to myself after the conversation because it would be hard to like go back to having a nice evening together, like it's just hard to digest it all.

THERAPIST: I just want to say to you maybe as reassurance that maybe that's okay. In fact, if you were able to get back to exactly where you were before the conversation started that night, it would be weird. It would mean that something was getting dissociated and displaced as awful to hear. When you bring in hard things into a relationship it does affect you. If it's not affecting you in a way that you need a little bit of time to lay low a little bit or metabolize or go in the other room or just think about it some, then you're not really getting affected by it in a way that means it's getting integrated. Do you know what I mean?

CLIENT: I do. I wonder if it's okay, so like we'll have the conversation and in the evening I'll feel like, oh I need some space and really feeling like a flood of all this and then the next day, at the end of the work day Ivan will make dinner. And again I'll feel back to like I'm really glad he's here and I'm glad we're having time together. I look forward to seeing him again. Like maybe it's not as unbearable as it felt last night. Is that normal?

THERAPIST: Totally normal. That sounds like a really healthy (unclear) actually. If you were sealed into rage about it, even 24 hours later, then I would be saying one of the things that would be happening then is that you'd be getting into lockdown with the rage and disappointed part and forgetting about the loving, positive changes loving feelings to begin with and all along in addition to the positive changes. Do you know what I mean? But that seems like a kind of normal pacing for getting used to new feelings getting integrated into (unclear) to a person so that the next day their space begins taking in the positive parts. Yet too quickly only positive is kind of too extreme in that direction; long times sticking to negative feelings is too much for that side, forgetting about the positive. So this what you're describing to me sounds like something I would trust in yourself. It seems reasonable. What you're not wanting is parts of your experience getting so much locked in a cabinet and throwing away the key so that you're only feeling one thing towards it because I don't think that's actually true. [00:41:28]

CLIENT: It's just really hard to like take it all and be okay with it and I really do like dread the conversations as much as I ultimately want to work through it and not just -

THERAPIST: What do you dread? I know that seems maybe obvious but I'm curious like what if you were to try to put that into words what -

CLIENT: I dread thinking about it. I dread like bringing it up. I dread sacrificing like that positive time to go back and relive something so painful. It's like that already happened not that long ago but it feels long ago. Like I want to have already dealt with this and of course putting it off won't make that happen any sooner, it's irrational. But it's like, this is crazy I can't keep going over this and I dread finally having the space to really deal with it because what if it doesn't resolve as quickly or as cleanly as I hope? Or what if he's not going to respond positively to it or what if there is something else he was hiding or what if I get an answer to one of my questions that's actually very deeply hurtful?

THERAPIST: So you're trying to hold off the negative feelings that come up in facing them together.

CLIENT: I was very panicky.

THERAPIST: (inaudible) and particularly fear of what will happen if you get through this together. I just want to say that dread I think is really important to know in yourself because I think that might help you understand and continue with Ivan's withdrawal. I think it is wonderful that he's saying to you, 'I'm trying not to withdraw because that means he's developing a little bit of the (unclear) of observing people he's able to watch himself now and know what he's doing and feel (unclear) as it's happening which is a huge start in not doing it as much. It's not just automatic he's withdrawn. Right now he's able to say, 'I can feel the tendency and I might want to withdraw right now.' That's huge. I think when he's in that place he's feeling the dread that you're feeling in anticipation you both know how hard this conversation is and for different reasons you feel hurt and it sounds like he feels so much guilt that it's hard for him to (unclear). When you were able to recognize last week that, wow this finally came up and we had this opportunity to talk about it (unclear) I changed the topic. That's your own kind of minor, that's not what Ivan does, but it's a minor withdrawal where there's a moment where you can see in yourself that the feelings are so scary that you really would rather avoid them. [00:42:54]

CLIENT: It even feels like something that Ivan keeps reiterating with the websites and the assaults that he didn't want an affair. He really wanted a physical intimacy with me and he wanted to fantasize about that and indulge in it as much as he could mentally and emotionally and that's hurtful and disturbing and he acknowledged that it was unhealthy and not okay, but he reframes it and then part of me is scared that if we deal with it to trust it but if that's the truth and if we deal with it and move forward there would come a point where I would have to trust him and be physically intimate with him and it's really scary for me and now it's become such a negative topic it feels unfair and it feels terrifying to do anything but avoid it.

CLIENT: It's finding what lies ahead in a way and yet I might say to you, 'you don't have to do that Ramona until you want to, until you feel like you are ready to trust and you know it's the right thing to do.'

THERAPIST: It's just difficult because I get the feeling that if I'm willing to continue to give Ivan the chance, if I'm willing to go down this road, at some point I have to trust him and know that it might I might be hurt ten times more, that there is no guarantee and that doesn't feel very good.

CLIENT: Yeah, and there isn't a guarantee. And I think probably ever in a marriage even when it's half and half and no one has a guarantee when they say I do. And so there's a lot of leaping of faith when trust has been broken to trust again. I also think, though, Ramona, that I trust in and maybe it's hard for you to trust in is that I think you're doing the work to get to know what your own gut sense about what there is to trust more than you think. In other words, I think when you feel like it's safer, sure there's no guarantee but it will feel safer to do that. You'll feel like my hope is that you and Ivan will get to a point where you feel like you actually feel like you do want to trust him again and that is why you want to be physically intimate. It doesn't mean guarantee, but it can feel like my gut is really telling me, he's here now and we've worked on this in a way that I don't think that would happen again. It isn't that I don't have to trust, I don't have to trust, right? Because that sounds like I don't trust and I have to sort of muscle my way through it and I think that would be destructive to you. Rather than really feeling like wow, we've talked about this enough, Ivan gets it enough and I think I get it enough, then it might be something else happens but I don't think this same thing is going to happen again. I keep saying I don't think because, of course, there are no guarantees. That's what you're working through right now. I don't think you're there yet. But every time you have one of these conversations, every time you're in couples therapy, you're working on it. You're working through what happened to get to a new platform where you can really believe inside yourself that this is really going to be different. Or that you don't. Maybe you'll reach a point where you don't believe that and you'll know that too. But I have faith I guess that there's going to be a sense inside you that you'll trust, you'll trust in yourself more. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Um hmm.

CLIENT: We've got to stop.

THERAPIST: Let me know I'll understand if you want to do just one of the, for financial reasons, like and then we'll pick up in January for the new insurance at that point.

CLIENT: Oh no. I have the new plan all set.

THERAPIST: Okay. Great.

CLIENT: I'll let you know too as soon as I get a 2014 schedule for my extra (unclear).

THERAPIST: Thank you.

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