TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Where are you?

CLIENT: I guess okay. I guess I felt more depressed and anxious this past week, or for part of it.

THERAPIST: In some context?

CLIENT: Ivan and I are having our scheduled conversations and I guess we’ve talked a little bit more about the – I don’t know if we talked about it, but it touched on the general thought of the websites and the lists and stuff. In our past session, Ivan wanted to talk about communication. He pretty much just talked about one example with Dr. Farrow and she said it was helpful to her. [00:01:00] I felt like it was very unhelpful to me, but if it was helpful to her then, hopefully, it’s ultimately helpful to me. It was more of a dialog between her and Ivan.

THERAPIST: What was the gist?

CLIENT: He used the example of Thursday when I came home and he had borrowed my iPad and he hadn’t asked, which wouldn’t be a huge deal, although it would be nice if he had asked. He also went to my desk. He got it out of its box. He took the computer into the kitchen and said, “Oh, I just wanted to look up a recipe.” I had made a comment to him that, given what’s happened with you using electronics in general really inappropriately, I don’t know why you would want to put yourself in that position to do something suspicious or less than above board. [00:01:59] And if it were me and I were in Ivan’s shoes, I would want to be over the top transparent because I could see how damaging it was to be just the opposite. Ivan didn’t get that.

THERAPIST: And so “suspicious” meaning using your iPad without telling you, you mean?

CLIENT: Well, yeah. And it looked like it was. He just wanted to pull up a recipe and he didn’t want to use his phone, and that’s fine. He could have sent a quick text message and said, “Mind if I pull up some recipes on your iPad?” What he was actually doing with it wasn’t the problem, it’s just like why would you do that? It’s so easy and his response was, “I have trouble with time management. I didn’t want to waste time by texting you.” And I said, “Well, if the goal was to be super-efficient, when I got home the iPad is out. But you had two vegetables out on the counter. You didn’t make the whole recipe as a result of not texting. That wasn’t going to slow you down with those 30 seconds and that’s just not . . .” [00:03:01]

THERAPIST: And you, typically, because people are very different about this, you guys would not share?

CLIENT: Before, I don’t think it would have been an issue. And before I might have been like, “Just be careful with it.” But now, yeah. Now, to me, it should be more than obvious that he needs to be not borrowing something and using it hours when he’s home alone and he’s not even . . .

THERAPIST: Just because it feels like it’s behind your back?

CLIENT: Well, yeah. I admitted in our session that I was being really cognizant that I was being a jerk, but I said, “Ivan, I feel like this is elementary-school level of courtesy. Just ask before you use something.” I know that that was rude and it’s not okay, but I just felt frustrated because, again, I thought it was glaringly obvious that after everything he has done, why put any doubt out there? [00:04:04] And in general, it would maybe just be nice before you use someone’s . . .

THERAPIST: Unless that isn’t your pattern. Do you know what I mean? That’s what I’m saying. Some couples, if their pattern is what’s yours is mine around some things like that, it wouldn’t. That’s what I’m trying to clarify. Your pattern has been that he would absolutely need to ask. That’s one of those things that feels like it’s sort of your possession. Yes?

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess we did share before. He had his own laptop and then it broke; it crashed. It may or may not have been because of the websites he was on; and so he has just had his phone and he has been pretty dramatic about “I don’t even use the Internet now.” There was no need for him to use my stuff before, which is fine. It’s totally fine. If he wants to look up a recipe, I really don’t care. [00:05:01] It’s just – why? It’s so silly.

THERAPIST: From what’s happened, why not check in with you first?

CLIENT: It would have taken ten seconds to have sent that text and I would have been fine with it. I might have been a little uneasy, like do I really know what he’s doing? But that’ show it’s going to be for a good long time.

THERAPIST: And you really don’t know what he’s doing, thinking that he would be looking at websites on your iPad? Because that would be so dumb of him.

CLIENT: It would.

THERAPIST: (laughs) And traceable.

CLIENT: It would, but we’ve kind of gotten to the point where not a lot is out of the question, so I don’t know. It’s just frustrating because it’s so clear to me and Dr. Farrow said she just doesn’t get it, for whatever reason.

THERAPIST: She was seeing it with you in that way?

CLIENT: That’s what she said to both of us, that it seems really intuitive to me. Ivan just doesn’t get it because it felt like the session was almost – not a waste of time and that it didn’t matter; it wasn’t helpful to him, but to me it was like this is so obvious. Why are we spending time talking about this? [00:06:04]

THERAPIST: It sounds like what may have been helpful to her, though, is that she’s getting the level of what he might not intuitively get; it’s understanding. Do you know what I mean? It’s like an example of that coming alive, where she thinks it’s really obvious, too, and doesn’t get why he doesn’t get it and then your experience around that part of things.

CLIENT: And it’s not like it was that big of a deal, but Ivan used it as an example of communication or miscommunication.

THERAPIST: Which is not what it is.

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m not even sure if that’s what it is.

THERAPIST: It’s not like I said something and you misunderstood what I said, so you reacted this way; and then I misunderstood what you said. That’s not what you’re talking about.

CLIENT: No. Nope.

THERAPIST: It’s not a communication issue.

CLIENT: It’s like all that he wanted to talk about and I did feel a little bit frustrated because I wanted to talk about what happened the time he tried sleeping in the bed. [00:07:03]

THERAPIST: Ahh. [00:07:04]

CLIENT: So that got put off another week. And, honestly, I don’t know if Ivan even goes into the session with almost like a mental post-it, like these are topics from the week that we should really digest or think about or consider bringing up. I don’t mean this to sound rude, but I don’t think his thoughts are that organized. That’s part of what we struggled with.

THERAPIST: And yet, his thoughts can still be unconsciously defensive, like that might be easier to talk about than what happened in the bed.

CLIENT: I’m sure. But it’s frustrating.

THERAPIST: That’s the way he’s sort of trying to fill up the space.

CLIENT: Yeah, and I wonder about that.

THERAPIST: Again, not on purpose. I don’t think consciously.

CLIENT: Nope. I don’t think it is, but it’s still glaringly obvious to me, so I just said, “Next week I would really like to talk about that.” And, in fact, we had another – I think it was since my last session with you. It was another night where he tried to sleep in the bed. We agreed on that. I said, “How do you feel about that? Let’s try it, just as long as you understand that you stay on your side. We need to take it very, very slow.” [00:08:05] And we did and it was okay. Ivan didn’t do anything, but I just woke up at 2:00 in the morning. I had to go to the bathroom and I was kind of scared. I just woke up and I was kind of scared; and Ivan was rolling around and tossing and turning a little bit. He was breathing heavily and I’m not sure why, exactly. I was really scared and I didn’t want to move and I was worried what was going to happen. And I didn’t want to get up to go to the bathroom because I didn’t want to wake him up because I was afraid that if I woke him even a little, that could lead to . . .

THERAPIST: To what?

CLIENT: I mean, when he is obviously awake and I’m not, that bad things have happened.

THERAPIST: It’s not like you’re waking up and finding him tossing and turning and get anxious that he’s been more awake than you had. Is that what you mean?

CLIENT: I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: That’s not what got triggered?

CLIENT: And I just don’t want to wake him more. [00:08:59] It’s not like he did anything in that night that made me . . . I just felt that way.

THERAPIST: It’s a kind of PTSD reaction, a hyper vigilance for that happening again, even when it’s not happening or even when there is a sign of something that was similar but that could be totally innocent – like simply tossing and turning meaning that he is more awake than you are and could trigger the fear of wait, was he really awake? Was he doing something while I was asleep?

CLIENT: Yeah, and I don’t know. I don’t know. Ivan seemed to be pretty asleep and I eventually went to the bathroom and I came back and I thought this is ridiculous. I’ve been awake for over a half hour. I can’t sleep. I’m going to go sleep on the couch. So I just said, “Ivan, I’m going out to the living room. I don’t know why, but I’m just really scared.” And he was like, “No. I’ll go sleep on the couch. It’s not a problem.” So he was very understanding about it. He didn’t complain to me about it at all, and I felt bed. But I also felt relieved, in a way, because at least nothing happened. [00:10:01] I could have been scared for no reason or I could have been scared because . . . But either way, nothing happened. (sighs) So last night I tried it again. He tried to sleep in the bed again and it was fine. I woke up at like 3:00 or something in the morning because I felt something across my lap and I freaked out. I looked over and I couldn’t tell – it was too dark to tell where he was and what was going on, and then I felt horrible because it was Eloise who ran across my lap in the night. I felt so horrible. And he actually wasn’t even in the bed, so I went out to the living room and there he was. He was like, “I didn’t want to wake you. My alarm is going to go off at 4:00 and I didn’t want to wake you.” Even that, I’m noticing I’m really worked up and scared. But I’m also noticing that even if I’m really upset about some things still, which I will be, I’m going to be upset about those things for a while, probably, he can’t sleep on the couch indefinitely because of that. [00:11:06] Nor can he sleep on the couch indefinitely because I won’t know that it’s not going to happen again because there is no way to know.

THERAPIST: It is a PTSD reaction, Ramona. Do you know that?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Do you know what that means?

CLIENT: No. I don’t, really, because when I hear that phrase, and I know you’ve applied it to me before in other aspects, that I have a lot of symptoms. It sounds so extreme. Again, I always think of someone coming home from war and they wake up in the middle of the night and they’re yelling or screaming or even hurting their wife in bed because they just have PTSD. [00:12:01] And it sounds very dramatic for me to have that applied, even if it’s true, so I just sometimes feel bad about that.

THERAPIST: Of course there are greater and lesser degrees of symptomatology in that range. I don’t even know if I took out DSM, do you meet full criteria, necessarily. It’s less important, as much as just trying to convey the concept of when people have a traumatic-based reaction. Basically, what we consider trauma is when the body, the self, is exposed to something that threatens bodily integrity or safety or threatens life of the self or of another person. So, for example, if you witness a murder or witness somebody getting beat up, it’s something that is so frightening that it’s overwhelming to the system to kind of really metabolize and integrate because there is so much frightening feeling associated with it. [00:13:04] One of the things that can happen when you’ve borne witness to something like that to yourself or another person is you then become hyper-vigilantly watchful for the same thing happening again. This is what’s funny about PTSD: in some ways, it’s an adaptive mechanism that kicks in, where, when you’ve been in a situation of danger, your body is now preparing itself more to make sure the dangerous situation doesn’t happen again. But as a consequence, one of the things that can happen is then you can read danger signs when there aren’t actually danger signs because you’re that much more hyper-vigilant. That’s all I mean. I think that degree of hyper-vigilance and fear, when you’re describing waking up in the middle of the night and feeling scared, a kind of panic reaction going on, then I think one of the basic things that helps is repeated exposure to something and the experience that it doesn’t happen this time around; it starts to break the association that’s causing the fear reaction. [00:14:16] So you’re trying it again and trying it again and sort of, hopefully, building upon new learning experiences that it gets safer and safer to do that. It’s hard. It is one of those hard things because you’re not conscious the whole time to know exactly that it’s not happening.

CLIENT: Yeah, and I’m afraid I won’t wake up. And I know I’m kind of setting myself up or Ivan up for failure, but I’m kind of afraid that if he starts sleeping in the bed consistently and this goes on for a long time, how do I know in six months, in a year, in two years, that it won’t happen again? How do I know that it’s ever . . ? [00:15:00] So I did; I had the conversation you suggested with him about what happened that night and he said, “I wasn’t really awake. All I remember was pulling my hand away. When I was tossing and turning I was just thinking about what a big deal it was that you were letting me sleep in the bed and how I felt like I really wanted to make sure it went well and that you felt safe. And I was feeling bad about what I had done before.” And so he was pretty clear it wasn’t temptation or a thought thinking about that, so I felt good about that.

THERAPIST: That’s helpful to know.

CLIENT: And he went over the steps he and Dr. Bourd kind of established. I think there are three questions he’s supposed to ask himself to bring himself into reality.

THERAPIST: So he has a real system in place if it does come up.

CLIENT: And he didn’t clarify. I don’t know if he’s supposed to get out of bed, if he has that thought at all, but he has questions he’s supposed to ask himself. I mean, that feels helpful, but I’m just scared. [00:16:01]

THERAPIST: Maybe it would be helpful to you to clarify that if he has that thought, he’ll get out of bed, for you to say that. (pause)

CLIENT: I guess we talked about some of it more. Friday night we had a scheduled conversation. We got into the websites a little bit more because every time I think about them, I’m still so upset. Ivan described something he hadn’t before. Dr. Bourd had told him it could be, and I don’t really understand it completely, but if Ivan is under a lot of stress for whatever reason – if it’s internal stress, if it’s about his job, if it’s about working on the marriage – that sometimes that can push people into depersonalization; and that maybe when he was making some of these websites and fantasizing, it was actually a way to think about me or be closer to me or, ultimately, achieve that; that it was almost like watching someone else do it. [00:17:13] It sounds bizarre to me and I don’t understand it or know if it’s valid. I guess Dr. Bourd brought it up so it has some validity. He said they didn’t talk about it a lot and he said Ivan never asked about it again because it freaked him out, but that it’s bad and a delusional state. And now these questions that he’s supposed to ask himself are designed to bring him back into reality.

THERAPIST: Depersonalization is a feature of trauma, too. It’s a kind of state one goes into where you’re a little bit disowned from your own personal stuff. [00:18:02] Do you know what I mean? There’s not a sense of me inside my body, inside my life, inside my experience; but sort of standing upside yourself almost. It’s in the spectrum of dissociation. It’s the self getting broken up into pieces. In the experience of doing it, it cannot feel like it’s a wrong thing to do because he’s not attached to his waking reality-based self of the forest, of his life. It’s sort of like if you think of being caught in the trees, one part of you, but not having all the rest of you there in mind. I think some of what matters is that you greet it with there is something in his own experience that’s kind of led to that separating parts of himself out so that he could get into a kind of bubble state where he’s not thinking about reality. [00:19:12] Did he resonate with it?

CLIENT: That’s the thing, I’m not sure if I know. I’m not sure if he knows. He does say it’s not something he thought through. He used the phrase “the thinking part of me was completely disgusted by this” because I did bring up what you had raised, that he could be very disgusted with it; but there also could be a part of it that was appealing to him and that could drive him to do more. He said Dr. Bourd described it as a subconscious compulsion. Again, I’m kind of getting lost in these phrases, the technical terminology, and I don’t know how scared to be or not be. [00:20:04] I just know from my perspective, I guess it got boiled down in our conversation to (sighs) I’m still so worked up when I think about those lists and those profiles. I think they haunt me. And then when I come back to the whole asking him a few times, “I would really like to hear something positive from you,” I feel like in the past year these really loud things have been rejections or kind of angry confrontations that weren’t confrontations, but were really aggressive, even if Ivan didn’t consciously – and I feel very confident that he didn’t consciously – think of it is as an aggressive thing towards me or a rejection necessarily. So I basically said that the absence of that now, it’s not continuing to happen, that’s good, but I would also like there to be the presence of something positive. [00:21:03] I would really feel good about hearing that. And Ivan consistently doesn’t and eventually I said, “Why is it so hard to write something?” He’s like, “It’s so difficult and now that I’ve written all of these really horrible things, writing itself feels like it’s bad and I can’t and it’s just difficult. I feel like now that you’re asking me or telling me that you would like it, then it’s not my idea so I can’t do it right.” And I felt fed up and super frustrated; and maybe that is or isn’t fair to Ivan, but I just felt like (sighs) the explanations are feeling obscure and abstract and bizarre. To have you make all those profiles and the list, how do you do all that and then say, “But I never, ever thought about even thinking about having an affair. It’s not what it looks like. I’m just having trouble writing something nice to you because it’s difficult.” [00:22:04] And I started to really feel down and depressed and not feeling good about myself and thinking that maybe I’m just a pretty big fool because I can’t imagine many people scratching their heads over the pattern. It could be really obvious. And I don’t know Dr. Bourd, but I’m guessing he wouldn’t lead Ivan to believe that some of these explanations are really valid if, in reality, he was just planning to have an affair for a few months. But it still feels horrible. (pause)

THERAPIST: It would be easier, I ‘m guessing as you were talking about this, if it were just really clear that he was planning on having an affair, in a way. Do you know what I mean? [00:22:58]

CLIENT: Yeah. I’ve even said to him, “Ivan, if everything is what it looks like – which it’s getting harder and harder to believe that it wasn’t – fine. Go. Do your thing. Do whatever and just let me have some peace,” because it’s so difficult to try to keep up with all the really intricate explanations and trying to cope with that and hold in mind that my husband really did create this profile and he also says he can’t write something positive because it’s difficult – but he really loves me. It feels very bizarre.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. What if, just as an exercise for a second, what if he did come in and say, “All right. I need to come clean with you. The whole thing really was about me getting tired in this marriage and I really was thinking about having an affair. I was so unhappy.” What if that’s what it was? Would that be the end for you? [00:24:01]

CLIENT: I think I would need some time to process that before I could decide.

THERAPIST: Figure it out. I ask that more because, as much as the fantasy that if it were that, it sounds more straightforward, I don’t know if it would be. People come into couple’s therapy, for example, all the time actually after someone has just had an affair even. There are a lot of feelings, but it doesn’t actually always – or even in the majority of times – mean that they’re going to end the relationship. It means they have a lot to work on to figure out why the affair happened and what was going wrong and what wasn’t getting communicated and the accountability to be taken. I don’t know if, for you, it would mean not being together.

CLIENT: I don’t know if it would; and I don’t think I would buy it. I would be very surprised and I don’t mean to be the complete fool, but when I say, “Ivan, look at this. All of this adds up and now you can’t say something positive about me.” [00:25:06] I don’t really believe that. I actually, as bizarre as it sounds, knowing Ivan, (scoffs) I actually do believe that it’s very complicated and very (sighs) bizarre.

THERAPIST: So, Ramona, that’s so important that you’re saying that right now because, in a way, you’re finding your own opinion about this is that it isn’t as straightforward as he was just having an affair. There is a side of you, in other words, as I’m using this language and you’re hearing Dr. Bourd’s language and all this terminology around this stuff, is that part of you is getting frustrated with that because it feels so confusing and maybe even abstract and “I really just want to know what’s happening.” But there is another side of you that, when I say “what if it were just this?” you’re kind of clear. I kind of know Ivan. I don’t think that’s what it is. I think it is complicated. [00:26:02]

CLIENT: It’s just weird for me because from the very beginning, Ivan was always just very, very devoted, very committed to me, and so that’s why discovering the profiles are very bizarre and not at all like Ivan; and further upsetting because it happened, actually, after we had gotten into couple’s counselling, so it feels like why are we even going?

THERAPIST: When you say “very devoted to me all along,” what are you thinking of?

CLIENT: Maybe it doesn’t matter. Ivan was very persistent in getting me to date him. Ivan had never asked anyone else out before. He had dated some people, but not because he had asked them. He was very, very persistent. Ivan took Chemistry as his basic science class because I was taking Chemistry that semester and he wanted to be my lab partner. He wasn’t, but he just really wanted to get to know me.

THERAPIST: Really into you. [00:27:00]

CLIENT: He wanted to get to know me, even if we were just going to be friends. And every time I told him, “I just want to be friends for now,” he didn’t give up. He would be like, “Let’s still hang out sometimes.” He’s just very much like that.

THERAPIST: And then how about after you were married? Did that last in the first – that feeling of being devoted to you, was that there?

CLIENT: That’s the thing, I don’t think I ever viewed Ivan as someone who would ever be unfaithful, but I didn’t, I guess, feel as . . . In the beginning my friends were almost like, “I feel like he’s just putting you on a pedestal. You need to go out with him for a little bit or hang out with him so he gets to know you as a person and you can have a real relationship where he’s not idealizing you.” And so that was good. [00:28:00] I don’t think Ivan ever got to amazing at characterizing my faults, but he got to know that I am just human and normal and anything like what he thought. But then when we started out, I guess I felt like it almost went to the other extreme. Instead of him thinking, “She’s just the best thing ever. I’ve got to find a way to date her. I want to bring her flowers all the time,” it went to him having trouble even getting a job, having trouble helping with the apartment. But I don’t know that that was a reflection on me. I don’t know, but that’s where he was at because (sighs) he was so depressed. He was sleeping 15 hours of the day at school and it had nothing to do with me. He was just very depressed and hadn’t been forced to take on a lot of responsibility before then, so I guess I felt less respected or loved. [00:29:00] But I don’t know, again, that that’s Ivan’s intention.

THERAPIST: You know, I think one of the things that is so complicated about these sets of experiences is that I think there is a way, Ramona, so much of what’s happening inside him has so little to do with you, actually, even when he’s writing his list, the websites. And I mean this in a way, not that it has to do with someone else, like actually wanting to have an affair, I just don’t think that’s where he was. That would mean really being in reality; and there is so much of what you describe that doesn’t sound like he’s in reality as he’s thinking about all of this. But I think the idea that it really has to do with wanting to be closer to you doesn’t make sense. That’s not in reality. That’s not how you get closer to people, right? [00:30:06] That’s kind of a crazy thing to think. There is something that feels like his own early stuff getting played out, in some way, that actually does have little to do with you and, unfortunately, you’re the one who bears the brunt of it. For example, he strikes me – I remember the one session where I met him – as someone who has a tremendous amount of rage, deeply, deeply, deeply unconsciously; and probably connected to his relationship with his parents and some aspects of what happened there and what didn’t happen and neglect. Various things that have to do with his early life, including the fact that what got constructed in his family was that there was no room to get angry, right? So what happens when one is not allowed to have any anger at anything, is all of this anger, then, of the actual insults that happened that could have been ordinary. [00:31:05] No families are perfect. And being able to say, “This really hurt my feelings when you did this, dad,” and work it out and feel like you’ve been heard, rather than getting stuffed under the rug, the insults get expressed and then they go away because you’ve addressed them. He has probably a mound of things he’s actually unconsciously angry about, furious about, but it’s not allowed in his character to get expressed. So I can imagine the perfect woman is a kind of displaced, very dissociated bubble place where he starts to express some of the angry feelings that I think are actually not meant for you. A few are, right? The level of him feeling like “you’re criticizing me,” for example. He could feel like that is humiliating. “I don’t like the way that you talk to me,” and some of that is for you. [00:32:00] But I think most of it or the deeper and deeper layers of how he never got to have help at managing his internal emotional life, including his being angry, so he doesn’t get to talk to you in a way that actually is helpful and communicative and effective for you as a listener. Imagine somebody who goes and becomes an avid boxer as a kind of displacement way of taking out all of this aggression and then going into your relationships and saying, “No, I’m not angry.” Right? It’s kind of like a place where a lot of these bad feelings came up and I think are still unconscious for him. Does that make any sense?

CLIENT: I guess maybe.

THERAPIST: What is your reaction?

CLIENT: Part of it does. In the list, when he’s like, “Someone who doesn’t think that a gathering of 12 family members is large and I’ve been overwhelmed.” “‘We’re just going to have a couple of family members over’ and it’s like at least a dozen people and I feel overwhelmed.” [00:33:10] He never told me he was that angry about it. I wish he would have, so I guess for that, it’s like the typical Ivan doesn’t confront, so he sits down and is like, “I really wish . . .” because he’s angry that I don’t. That makes sense to me.

THERAPIST: But?

CLIENT: But there are a lot of things on the list that I am; characteristics that I do meet. And then there are things on the list that are like (sighs) sometimes he will describe some of what he wrote as self-punishing or he wanted to make himself realize how good he had it or he was trying to remind himself that he was being really stupid about being mad at me, which I think it would be stupid if he got super mad at me over me being overwhelmed about a large family gathering. But it wouldn’t be stupid for him to be like, “Hey, I wish you didn’t complain if it’s a really big family gathering.” [00:34:03] Just voice how that feels for him. One of the things on the list was “wants to have children.” That was particularly hurtful, obviously, to me. He was like, “Every time I read that on the list, I would just sob because I only ever want to have children with you and that’s so . . .”

THERAPIST: Can you describe it for me? He wrote, “I want to be with a woman that wants to have children?”

CLIENT: Just on the list of children, looking for a woman or whatever.

THERAPIST: A woman that wants to have children, which you do.

CLIENT: In theory, yes.

THERAPIST: But you’ve never talked about not wanting to have children?

CLIENT: Right. That’s the thing, there are a lot of things on that list, like “knows how to play a musical instrument.”

THERAPIST: That you do have.

CLIENT: Yes, and so it’s like a mix. There are some things that I can see he’s very angry about. There are some things that he likes about me, like the weird height thing. He’s like, “I don’t want to be reminded of you, but I also never wanted to have it.” His list of what he was going to do after I left him or whatever and how he was going to move to New Orleans and have a house with two dogs. [00:35:07] He was like, “I wrote that to punish myself, to realize that I would be so alone and I would have nothing and it would be empty and I just want to spend my life with you.” It’s very hard to wrap . . .

THERAPIST: It doesn’t make sense.

CLIENT: It’s very hard to wrap my head around all of it and I can’t figure out what is or isn’t (sighs), especially with the profiles because he always does, and it sounds like . . . “I just wanted to fantasize about having a physical relationship with you” is what he says. And I think, to a large extent, he’s very angry that that wasn’t part of our relationship, like he never felt like he had the way to say that because he always comes back with “I didn’t deserve to bring it up. I knew why it wasn’t happening. I lied to you so many times that of course it’s not happening, but I’m still really angry that it’s not and I still really want that; but I feel ashamed and guilty that I even want that because it must be horrible.” [00:36:03] So it’s just like . . . (sighs) It’s really hard and I always come back to, “Ivan, how did you not think about thinking about having an affair when you’re literally on a website clicking ‘looking for a discrete relationship?’” He’s like, “I didn’t think about it. I just had to click a few things to get done with it and it was only a few minutes. I wanted to have something exciting with you. It wasn’t until that picture popped up that I was brought into the reality of what I was doing and then I was disgusted and shut it down.” It’s just really hard. I don’t know how to get to a place where I really understand what happened and he really understand what happens and I can feel secure.

THERAPIST: What you’re saying, Ramona, is you’re struggling right now – and probably for a while – with how do you wrap your mind around how complicated it actually is? [00:37:03] Not only is it not straightforward, but it’s really, really complicated, what was happening inside of him. That’s really hard.

CLIENT: I just want to get to the place where I understood what happened and it doesn’t just come from Ivan, that it’s actually kind of validated by you maybe or Dr. Bourd, because at this point I don’t really trust him to . . .

THERAPIST: What he’s saying.

CLIENT: When he says that he did it as a way, like it was a pop-up and then he followed it and he just really wanted to fantasize and really wanted to think about that because he feels like he can’t talk about it and he doesn’t deserve it – all those things – that’s not legitimate.

THERAPIST: I think a lot of what he’s saying is legitimate. I think when he says it like, “I was really just wanting that with you,” there is a layer of that that’s not legitimate because he is still defending against something. [00:38:01] Here is how it goes or, at least, how I’m imagining it. I don’t know that I have all the right answers yet either; we’re still trying to figure this all out together. Forget all the lingo. The best way of describing it is Ivan can very easily get into bubble pockets where he can eliminate a lot of reality. Again, we talk about being the ostrich sticking its head in the sand. That’s its own form of pocket, basically just going here, and I can ignore that I have to pay my taxes and this bill is overdue. I don’t even have to pay attention to any of that. So as a defense mechanism, he uses that a lot – moving into a bubble where he can push a lot of reality outside. So the website, for example, I think he has the capacity to do that, to get into a bubble without actually thinking about it. He’s not actually looking like, “Oh, I’m married. I’m going on a website that says . . .” He’s not thinking about the reality of that. [00:39:04] It’s kind of an impulse and it gets into a place where he’s into thinking about reality. I think as soon as he thinks about reality, he’s filled with shame and self-loathing and disgusted in himself. I think that’s very real. The problem is that what he wants in that bubble is still dissociated some, although hopefully, less so over time because he’s talking about it now, from reality. What we would want is that what he wants in that bubble is sort of getting to be part of reality, like all of that to be part of his waking self, and the things that he brings to the relationship with you.

Two things, at least in his history, sound like they got put into bubble compartments: sex and aggression. I think of aggression sort of broadly speaking – getting angry, even self-assertion, confronting someone about something. Sexual things: there was a taboo – I’m pasting broad language on this – in his family, against either one of those two being a healthy, ordinary part of human relatedness. [00:40:08] So they had to go underground and the only place they could exist – because they do exist in people. People have sexual feelings. People get angry at people. You can’t just erase that part of us. It has to get repressed deeply underground and it continues to exist. It doesn’t stop existing just because your family thinks it’s not okay. It’s not practiced inside him to be a part of his waking reality itself, so it can come out in these bubble pockets. I think the list became, in this way, a kind of bubble place where he gets to have both sex and aggression; and it also has a kind of idealization of sorts. I don’t think, in the moment, he’s saying “have two dogs and be alone.” I don’t buy that part, that that fantasy was about self-punishing. There could be a layer of it that’s self-punishing. [00:41:03] I don’t want to eliminate that part because I think it’s complicated, but there can be a way that he could still be living in idealizations of people because he didn’t get to deal with disappointments, frustrations, angers at other people, in loving, good, healthy relationships as a child. It’s not integrated. People can remain in idealizations and devaluations of you and of himself. There is a moment, there is a way he is devaluing parts of you because it’s not integrated inside himself to manage his own disappointments in himself. There is so much shame that is intolerable. He sticks his head in the sand. So part of what I think you’re trying to do is kind of be more and more healthy, ordinary people who are disappointed in each other sometimes – both of you – and who get angry at each other sometimes and have sexual feelings for each other sometimes. [00:42:02] These are all part of having a full adult relationship. I think he’s getting less and less vulnerable to those bubble pockets because of the things that you’re talking about now directly. These parts of himself are coming into conscious waking life. The more that happens, it doesn’t remain a bubble pocket anymore, hidden underground. It just doesn’t. It’s part of his life so he will be thinking about these feelings in the context of reality more. (pause)

CLIENT: So the bubble pocket you talk about around the website, where he said he was looking to have sex, when he says, “I was in a delusional state where I thought I could fantasize about having sex with you and having that in our relationship,” and he acknowledges that it’s delusional because, clearly, that website has nothing to do with me, is that . . ? [00:43:01]

THERAPIST: That makes sense to me. In other words, I think in his reality waking life, it is his hope, in one way, to have all of that, to share all of that with you – including even getting angry at you. That’s a healthy thing that he wants to bring that into the relationship. I think he’s terrified of bringing both realms into the relationship. I think the idea of sexual feeling in you is terrifying and it also brings shame because of the judgments of his family. There may be ways what he was doing was projecting onto you that the problem is you that you don’t want to have sex, and I don’t think that’s true, actually. I think part of it is true, but as much, he has his own inhibitions. Look at what happened, for example, when you actually are starting to get closer and closer and closer? [00:44:01] He goes and destroys it because of his inhibitions – not yours. I think the more he is coming into a place of owning “wait, I have just as many issues around sexuality as you do.” It’s not actually your fault. You have your issues, too, but these kind of play off each other. So what’s deluded about the state you’re asking about on the website is that it’s as though in this state he can convince himself this is somehow a way of bringing both worlds together. He is actually having a kind of sexual experience with you, sort of trying, thinking that these are coming together, instead of knowing actually you’re totally keeping them separate. You’re not doing this with Ramona. You’re not talking to her about it. Do you know what I mean?

CLIENT: I do. I get confused because the way in which he did it, it obviously looks like it’s completely about other people. [00:45:01] It actually looks like he’s completely rejecting me and wants nothing to do with me, let alone a physical relationship. It actually looks like he would rather have an intimate relationship or part of a relationship with a complete and total stranger; so it feels very rejecting and just the opposite of what he’s saying he wants. I want to make sure that I’m not buying into that if I’m a fool to think that any man who gets on a website and clicks that he’s looking for casual sex in a discreet relationship, that there isn’t a part of him that is attracted to that. And that’s what terrifies me because, for me – and maybe this is something that I would need to work on; I don’t know – but I feel that in order to continue to move forward, I have to believe that when Ivan says he never wanted to have an affair, he just has a lot of issues with confronting aggression and sex, but that he wants to have a way to get angry with me and have a way to have physical relationships with me, I want to know that that’s what that is. [00:46:06]

THERAPIST: Yes. And what I think it is, is somewhere in the middle of what your worst fear is and what you’re describing, so here is where I put it: when you say it could look like he is really attracted to someone else, I don’t think he’s really attracted to actually wanting another relationship with someone else. I think he was, at least at that time, terrified of having the woman I love, who is my friend and my life partner and the woman I have sexual experience with, being the same person.

CLIENT: But does that mean pursing someone else?

THERAPIST: I don’t think it necessarily does in his case, in that he’s only sort of incorporating the sexual feelings in a bubble fantasy. [00:46:58] It’s hard for me to see Ivan actually going through with it.

CLIENT: No, I don’t. I don’t believe that Ivan would ever do that to me. I actually think he couldn’t live with himself if he did.

THERAPIST: I think he would come into reality. Even as you start to make a phone call or something, it’s not about reality to him. It’s a bubble.

CLIENT: But then my question is: I can’t believe that Ivan, for him, that would be the worst self-punishment. But then I wonder if it’s a fantasy of what if I could have this? No judgment, no problems, no responsibility. If the idea of it is appealing because he insists, “Even the idea of thinking about having an affair is disgusting to me. All I wanted was an outlet. It popped up and I just really thought wow, I really want to fantasize about having this with you because I can’t even talk about it with you, let alone have it;” if I am a fool to buy into that; if any other woman would be like (sniggers) “I caught you making a profile. You even put your right age.” [00:48:03] I don’t want to be a fool.

THERAPIST: It’s complicated. We have to stop for today. (inaudible at 00:48:16)

CLIENT: Would it ever be a good idea to have – I don’t know. That was a very long time ago that Ivan came in. Would that be a good idea or a bad idea?

THERAPIST: You know, I think it’s an idea to talk about, to figure out whether it would or wouldn’t. I can’t say that I immediately have a judgment about it without understanding more about what you hope for or want. One of the really important things if you ever consider doing that in your mind – and this is something to think about before next session if you want to talk about that more – is what your hope would be, what the aim would be here, in a way that’s different than the aim of couple’s therapy. [00:48:57] Here, at this point, I am your individual therapist.

CLIENT: Right. And I’m not looking to have couple’s sessions with you at all whatsoever in any way, shape or form. But my thought is that you know me because you are my individual and I value – I don’t hear what Dr. Bourd says through you or Dr. Farrow at all whatsoever. I hear very, very small tidbits from Ivan and I would like someone, your thoughts about what’s going on with him are “here is something in between.”

THERAPIST: Let’s come back to it, if you want to do that, because we have a lot to talk about if that would be helpful in some way.

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