TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: How are you?

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: What’s happening?

CLIENT: Let’s see, most immediate, marriage counselor number two this morning at eight o’clock.

THERAPIST: Eight o’clock in the morning?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Ooph. How was that?

CLIENT: Well, I was able to be solidly in my truth.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Which, when you’re posed the hard questions...

THERAPIST: Which hard questions were you posed?

CLIENT: So do you love your wife?

THERAPIST: Oh, wow, right off the bat.

CLIENT: No, not I mean at the end of the session.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And I think that that was probably the most drastic. I was prepared, not that I had rehearsed it, but...

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: ...it was like okay, what’s going on here. And it’s like I really, probably, subconsciously, spent the weekend doing that work. [00:01:07]

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: I had an opportunity I got a text from my brother last week and he says hey and I don’t know if I talked about this dynamic. When I grew up it was me and my three younger brothers.

THERAPIST: That’s right. And they invited you to brothers’ weekend, right? Yes.

CLIENT: So I went and it was great.

THERAPIST: Great.

CLIENT: We sat out in an open air beer garden and got there around, I don’t know, 5:30, 6:00, and just sat there drinking cheap beer til 11:00, 11:30. It was...

THERAPIST: Nice.

CLIENT: It was a great time. I’ve had more beer in the last month than I’ve had in eight years. But it was great therapy, belly laughs, and not too many tears but some pretty solid sharing. [00:02:03] It’s like I can’t believe I’m having this kind of level of conversation with these guys. Turns out that three of the four of us have married adult survivors.

THERAPIST: Oh my goodness, you’re kidding me. Whoa. What do you make of that?

CLIENT: We’re fucked up. We’re all fucked up.

THERAPIST: What sort of how did you guys come to that conclusion? I mean that’s pretty meaningful data. And what do you make of it?

CLIENT: That I think it’s within our family system to have grown up, I think, with a really kind of controlling mother whose love was very conditional. That’s me and my take on it. [00:03:05] So I know that women who are in those kind of what little I know, and I haven’t spent a lot of time studying this, but it’s like control is a really important thing for survivors. And it’s like so if my if the way I operate, and the way I did operate, is my self-esteem is wrapped around pleasing somebody who’s really controlling and conditional in their love. And I’m like I think we all learned how to dance to that tune. And the one brother who didn’t marry, he’s got a voice. He’s confident.

THERAPIST: In his relationship or just in general?

CLIENT: In general. They had problems in their relationship, probably about ten years ago, and he didn’t stand for it then. [00:04:04] Threw the card on the table and it’s like we either fix this or I’m the fuck out of there. It’s like he didn’t my youngest brother is married somebody who’s bipolar and a survivor, and her take on how she deals with her sexuality is 180 degrees to my wife. And I also know that that’s a response too.

THERAPIST: So she wants sex...

CLIENT: All the time.

THERAPIST: All the time, yeah, which could be the mania component as well as...

CLIENT: It could be both of those things. But he’s in as loveless a relationship as I am.

THERAPIST: Wow, even though the physical component is there.

CLIENT: Oh, and he says, when I’ve shared it with the handful of people that I’ve shared it with, it’s like everybody says well what’s wrong with that. I’m like no. I mean when you feel like your wife is berating you and yelling at you all night long and then expects you to have sex on top of that, no. [00:05:06] It’s like no.

THERAPIST: So how, because there’s an interesting dynamic that’s happened as you have found your voice in saying I’m not putting up with this anymore, even starting a few months ago, it’s actually brought you closer to your family, your siblings especially, because I remember you were talking about talking to your brother’s wife, and you had some conversations with your brothers, and lo and behold you discovered these themes; this weekend was a solidification of those themes. How do you think you were able to go from a place of being kind of not connected to your brothers and your family to within a few months being sort of having an affinity with them of similarity of experiences?

CLIENT: How do I think that’s possible?

THERAPIST: Because that’s quick.

CLIENT: It is quick. I think that the initial thing that comes to mind, and I’m just throwing it off the top of my head, so I don’t know, is that I think that there was an element of control about our relationship, and it’s like whether it was her job or the amount of exposure that I got to my family, there was a sense of and whether that was even spoken or not, but it’s like...

THERAPIST: You mean your wife or your mother? [00:06:23]

CLIENT: Wife.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And because she worked on the weekends all the time there’s this expectation that well, you’re going to be here for that. It’s like shit with my family happens on the weekends because everybody else works during the week. So just over time not connecting with these people you just kind of slowly drift out of people’s lives. So I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s that, yeah, I don’t know. That’s just the first thing that comes to mind. [00:07:00]

THERAPIST: What else did you discover in the counsel of brothers?

CLIENT: That I felt like in telling my story, in kind of filling in some of the bits and pieces of where I was at, I think that I’ve come, over the week, to kind of recognize that the revelation of sexual abuse and her history and then finding about it finding out about it in my marriage 12 years in, was a really traumatic moment for me.

THERAPIST: Explain.

CLIENT: That I that it was this freeze frame moment that I’m like didn’t know what to do with. Did I tell you the story about the FBI coming and raiding my business and...

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: Okay. A couple of years ago we had a boarder living in the house, a friend of ours living in the house. And a young kid, just got out of violin making school. And I was getting him set up to so one morning I’m sitting there typing away at my computer, and all of a sudden I’ve got three armed deputies from the county holding guns at my head telling me to back away from my computer. [00:08:14] And within 30 seconds me and my employee are handcuffed and standing on the porch of my business and I’m like...

THERAPIST: Goodness!

CLIENT: We’re laughing at each other, it’s like well this is not your typical morning. And it then it became clear within a few minutes they weren’t after us, that they were breaking the door in on my house to go get Eddie who was upstairs and long story, he was involved in child porn stuff.

THERAPIST: And of course you had no idea.

CLIENT: No. And no repercussions came of that. And ultimately but the point being I had absolutely no idea what to do with being handcuffed and having armed deputies holding a gun to my head. And when they were doing that there wasn’t terror, there wasn’t fear. [00:09:03] It was I’ve got nothing for this except is this a joke?

THERAPIST: Right, kind of surreal a bit?

CLIENT: It was kind of surreal, and I was kind of laughing about it. It was like okay, I’ll go outside, whatever. And I’m like so it was this stupid response to some you could have a number of different responses but mine was kind of disbelief and okay. So I think, initially, that initial revelation of sexual abuse, it was like okay.

THERAPIST: So when you got married there was you didn’t know anything. And can you tell me a little bit because we’ve talked about the fact that you found out, but we never really talked about how and what happened.

CLIENT: Really. Really? Are you sure?

THERAPIST: I don’t think how you found out. I knew about the priest but how she ended up sharing this with you. [00:10:01]

CLIENT: Well, I was rubbing her shoulders one night, watching television, and this report comes on the about the sex abuse scandal, a priest sex abuse scandal. And she said well I need you to stop rubbing my shoulders now. And it just kind of was funky, and it was like what’s this all about. And it kind of remained funky for a few days, and I think we finally ended up going out to eat. I remember the restaurant, the booth, everything about that night. And she’s telling me these stories and she’s telling me about the priest and shared some stuff about her brother when she was a kid and hints at potentially this thing that happened between she and a female coach when she was maybe, I don’t know, junior high age. I’m not 100% sure. So I mean it’s like stuff happened and...

THERAPIST: Okay, and she tells you this at dinner.

CLIENT: Yup. But it doesn’t really click in, or maybe it clicks in and I’m just so dumb founded it’s like it’s not just a priest. [00:11:07] It’s the priest that she invited special to come in and marry us.

THERAPIST: That I knew, yes.

CLIENT: So I’m like I think that that piece was so kind of jarring that I’ve I just kind of encapsulated that, I mean that kind of trauma moment or something. It’s like okay, well I can’t feel any of that because she’s the one with dealing that’s with the trauma here. You know what I mean? So...

THERAPIST: I do. What happened so she tells you all this and you’re kind of numb to it except for the loudest piece of data is the fact that you invited your abuser to marry us, of course. Then how do things proceed after that?

CLIENT: She went to counseling for two or three sessions, and I got some books and was starting to read up a little bit on sexual abuse. [00:12:05] And then it became apparent that she wasn’t going to go back to counseling anymore.

THERAPIST: And so you guys didn’t talk about it after that.

CLIENT: We didn’t we talked a little bit about it but it was like the message that eventually became clear is I don’t have a problem, it’s you that has the problem for wanting to have sex all the time.

THERAPIST: So after she told you you’d been having sex up to that point?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Or it was getting...

CLIENT: But here’s the deal. We had three kids and were taking care of three old people.

THERAPIST: Right, I remember.

CLIENT: So we’re juggling a lot of balls and it’s like I don’t really remember what that was like except that it was a hell of a lot of work, and was there time in there for us. The last of them had died, and this is probably, I don’t know, a year or two later, I don’t know, this stuff sort of comes to light. So it’s like we’re on the kind of the backside of that. [00:13:02] And....

THERAPIST: And it was after she told you that...

CLIENT: Then we’re in the slow death spiral of sexual intimacy, eventually getting to the place where it’s like two or three times a year and we have to go out of town and we have to get drunk. And it’s like and clearly it starts to move farther and farther away from intimacy and more and more to just the sex act. And it gets really ugly and I’m feeling like I’m some kind of a sexual predator and...

THERAPIST: But you didn’t feel like that before you knew. You weren’t feeling like you were...

CLIENT: No, but there was always this sense of I’m having that image of Pepe Le Pew. Do you remember that cartoon?

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: And I’m like chasing this cat with the white stripe who keeps finding a way to elude me. [00:14:06] That always felt like that was the nature of it’s like she always had a calendar in hand, and it was always full, and it was...

THERAPIST: It strikes me, and I work a lot with individuals who have been sexually abused a lot and do a lot of trauma work, and it strikes me that because you were not able to talk about it, in some ways the messages that you were given were don’t talk about it; let it go. That’s where the hold on the marriage was. It’s almost as if things stopped from that point or got stuck there, and because she didn’t want to talk about it and you couldn’t access it, the processing of what should have happened, or even your understanding of how to be supportive or to work together, died right there.

CLIENT: And I had an important realization over the weekend, a memory, wrapped around my operation as a kid. [00:15:08] So I’ve got some freeze frame moments. Okay, so this was obviously a traumatic experience because I’m two years old and I have these clear visual memories of being left alone in a hospital after this surgery. So that was traumatic enough, but then I remember, it’s not like an unclaimed memory, I remember having it before, or a repressed memory, it’s just that I haven’t thought about it in a long time. But I remember standing at my grandmother’s dining room table. She’s sitting at the end of the table and I’m thinking that I must’ve been two-ish after this surgery, could be three-ish. I’m not sure how old I was exactly, but of wanting to tell grandma about my operation. And I don’t know if it was, I really don’t, but that’s the dynamic of what’s going on. [00:16:05] And I can see my mom standing in the doorway of the dining room and she’s angry at me. It’s like we don’t talk about that.

THERAPIST: I remember you telling me that last week, which is you did because I remember having a really strong reaction to it, having a two year old thinking my God...

CLIENT: Okay, so we did talk about it.

THERAPIST: Sure, because at this point in time that frames everything going forward. And then of course it makes sense. You marry someone who we don’t talk about sex, we don’t ever talk about sexual things, right. And so when things go bad around sex, sexual abuse, sexual feelings, things die. So in some ways at two you almost lost your you lost your mom because you’re going through this painful experience, right, and if you’re two you need someone to comfort and love you, and now you lost her because you can’t talk about it. To anybody.

CLIENT: So I’m abandoned in the hospital, and then I get this really strong message that there’s something seriously wrong about you and we’re not going to talk about it. [00:17:04]

THERAPIST: Yes, so you’ve always come to learn something’s wrong with you about sex. Something’s wrong with you physically, something’s wrong with you emotionally, you want to talk about it, you want to have it, something’s wrong with you. But really and what a lie that is because there’s something wrong with everybody else surrounding it.

CLIENT: Yeah, so fast forward, here we are.

THERAPIST: Sure, here we are. Interesting that your brothers got the same messages.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, I mean we never talked about sex, period, in the family. And you grow up in a Christian family it’s like sex is bad anyway. [laughter]

THERAPIST: Sure, everything about it.

CLIENT: Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing redeeming about it at all. So yeah, so there...

THERAPIST: Yeah, and I imagine because of the physical condition you are going to be more sensitive, and because of who you are you’re going to be more sensitive to it anyway. [00:18:01] So whereas if you take your brothers have clearly [inaudible] impacted, and I’m sure your sister, too, but if you’re a more emotionally intuitive kid, and you probably were, it’s going to impact you even more. And then you go ahead and add on the surgery and the fact I mean you can’t even tell Grandma. We you can’t talk to us about it but you can’t even tell Grandma either.

CLIENT: Right, right, right, yeah. You can’t talk to anybody about this.

THERAPIST: So you understand why you went into a deep freeze yourself for years.

CLIENT: Oh my God, yes.

THERAPIST: Because everything you’ve learned has said don’t talk about it, don’t mention it. And it’s interesting because it’s always due to somebody else’s discomfort, not your own.

CLIENT: So and I was able to go there. It was like the it’s interesting, having being junior counselor now, coming into these counseling sessions, and it’s like so she sits down and I’m thinking okay, probably a couple of questions, kind of build the alliance a little bit. [00:19:09] So what brings you in today? Okay, well this is kind of just let’s get to work. Here we are. It’s like okay, so she backs up a little bit and just kind of asks some demographic information, but it’s like okay, whatever, I’ll launch into the story. And I’m like so here’s me; this is how we got here. And I’m spelling out the story of the childhood and I’m spelling out the story of working through some of this shit in counseling [inaudible] and I’m a counseling student, blah, blah, blah, and I’ve been working on and trying to lay as much of the detail out there as I can. And it’s like I’ve got some serious issues about shame.

THERAPIST: And what does Mary do?

CLIENT: She’s sitting there; she’s listening. So it’s not like she’s rejecting any of that. It’s kind of like she’s heard it all before. I just don’t think that she gets any of the connection between the fact that I’ve been shut out of a physical and emotional relationship for seven or eight years and that I should just have all of these feelings of affection and love for her. It’s like so I’m just...

THERAPIST: So you say all these things and then tell me a little bit about what happens in the session. [00:20:34]

CLIENT: Well then she gives her an opportunity to talk and it’s like well, what’s your take on all of this. And it’s like well everything basically that Seamus’ been shut down for a really long time. And I’ve been trying to do everything that I can to reach him and he just doesn’t respond. And then, yeah, I may have the chronologic so I’ll just keep throwing stuff out there. [00:21:11] But there’s the sense of then that six weeks ago we go out on this date to Detroit, and I really thought that this would be a great opportunity for us to reconnect. And we got these tickets so that we’d have this opportunity to go see these shows in Detroit all year long. It was a way for us to kind of, now that we’re empty nesters, to reconnect. And so he tells me at dinner that, it was interesting how she put it, that he didn’t want me to kiss him anymore, or to touch him anymore, that it only reminded him of everything that he couldn’t have and he just he didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore. So okay, that’s I can see how she’s interpreting that that way. [00:22:02] So it’s kind of like in her world she’s been doing everything that she can to keep everything going, and then all of a sudden one day, boom, he just said this is crazy, I can’t live like this anymore. So this huge disconnect for her.

THERAPIST: And how did the counselor make sense of the data? Because I’m trying to get a sense of how we got to do you still love your wife, which is kind of a provocative question in a first session, or can be. So how did she make sense of your mutual stories and...

CLIENT: I’m thinking, now this is just me being a little intuitive, like what’s going on because I saw it. I felt like the same thing was happening with the other counselor. And it’s like I’m throwing this information out there, that hey we’ve got an issue with sexual childhood abuse here, and this is what I’m reacting to and why I’ve shut down. And I’m just thinking. [00:23:03] I could be completely wrong about this, but she’s like I think that she sees that there’s a serious fucking problem here. And it’s like we need to know what are we even interested in trying to fix this fucking mess.

THERAPIST: Yes, which is more intuitive than counselor one, who wants to do solution focused let’s get in touch with your memories.

CLIENT: Well she’s an LCW.

THERAPIST: Yeah, okay.

CLIENT: Licensed clinical social worker. And the yeah, counselor one, who’s like but counselor one, after I got through my story he’s like I could feel him going holy shit. That was my take on that, especially after her reaction in kind of losing it in there. So...

THERAPIST: How did you answer the question do you still love your wife?

CLIENT: Then I said well, I’m going to have to answer from a place of complete honesty here, and this is not a comfortable place for me to be. [00:24:07] But I said my experience of having lived for seven or eight years in a relationship where and I spelled it out in terms of hey, not only has it been no physical relationship, but because when my daughter went off to school she transferred all of her emotional relationship to her friend. So I’ve been living in this place of no emotional relationship and no physical relationship for eight years. And it’s like my experience is I feel like I’m just crawling out of the desert at this point. And I’m operating at a place I’m operating in a deficit place. And this isn’t anything that I haven’t said to Mary two or three times. And it’s like this is where I’m at. So did I say the words I don’t love her anymore, no, I didn’t, but I just said this is where it’s at. And I said and that’s all I’ve got to be able to bring to this right now. [00:25:05]

THERAPIST: And how did things end in the session?

CLIENT: We did end up making another session for a couple of weeks down the road. She’s on vacation next week, so it’s two weeks to let this kind of marinate and see where it goes. But the question’s out there. It’s like so, do you think that you two ought to separate for awhile.

THERAPIST: She asked that.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. And?

CLIENT: And she asked Mary do you love your husband, and she’s like oh, yes. I deeply, and I’m and all that kind of thing. And then it’s like so I see this, she’s saying those words, but then it’s like just beneath the veneer of that there’s so much anger, and it’s like but I’m not willing I mean if he’s not on board with any of this stuff, then I want him out of the house right now. [00:26:03]

THERAPIST: This is what she’s saying.

CLIENT: Yeah, which is understandable to a certain degree but I’m like, again, I’m back in that place of and maybe that’s completely fair but it’s just like okay, I’m in this place of really conditional, a conditional understanding of this relationship. It’s like this is these are the conditions. It’s like...

THERAPIST: It seems, though, that things the ante has been upped a bit, right, so we’re not there’s movement, you may not know the direction, but if she’s saying I mean what would it be like for you to move out of the house if that’s what the two of you decide?

CLIENT: Part of me, I just wandered around the sculpture park for an hour and I’m just like what does all that feel like to me. What does that really feel like? What am I feeling now after this session? And I’m just wandering around; it’s like I’m not feeling all knotted up inside. [00:27:08]

THERAPIST: You’re not, I can tell. I was going to say, from where you were a few weeks ago and of course where you go to is never static. So you could be in a really bad place next week or whatever but you don’t seem to be knotted up inside.

CLIENT: And I knew, I knew because I was kind of there was this knot.

THERAPIST: Yeah, we talked about that.

CLIENT: And I knew what that knot was.

THERAPIST: Are you setting this up, you think, Seamus?

CLIENT: Am I setting it up?

THERAPIST: Setting it up so you can setting it up, taking steps to say the end truth about what you want. You don’t want this anymore. Is that where...

CLIENT: I don’t know. I mean yes. I mean yes. There’s a part of me that knows definitely that this relationship, the relationship the way it has been, is not healthy for me anymore. [00:28:05] It hasn’t been healthy for me for a long time. And it’s not going to be a growth producing relationship for me. Do I see any possibility of her changing? I don’t hold out a hell of a lot of hope of that ever happening. And I’m like I don’t think that I have the energy to sit around and wait for that to happen. She asked her, so Mary, what do you vision this relationship looking like if you go forward. What would you like? Well, I’d like to have companionship and I’d like to have the relationship that we had so we can kind of continue on the path, and it’s kind of that grow old together. It’s like and she goes what about sex. [00:29:01] Well I I’m starting to hear what he’s saying, and I get that this is some piece that’s really, really important to him, and I told him that I would be willing to work on that. And so me, hearing those words and the way that I’m interpreting that, it’s like I get to be the caretaker. I get to be I get to continue that role as caretaker. I’ve taken care of the elder members of her family, I’ve gotten to take care of her brother. And of course that’s what it should be if you were in this relationship where you felt like there was some mutuality.

THERAPIST: Sure, although caretaking should switch back and forth. It shouldn’t be a one person, which you sounds like you feel like it has. It strikes me as interesting in some ways because you guys are clearly in two different places, where nobody wants to really have sex with somebody who doesn’t want it back. [00:30:07] So I’m hearing now it’s important to you so I’ll work on it, but I don’t really want it too, which doesn’t make you so you’re in this place of kind of deep honesty and truth, and she wants to go back to the way things were which is a place that’s intolerable for you. And for her to really kind of go bring what you might need to the relationship would be such deep emotional work because the sexual abuse and your marriage are interrelated, and she’d really have to do that you can’t work on one without the other. So she would have to do both, and from what you’re saying it doesn’t sound like you think she wants to or is willing or ready to do that kind of work.

CLIENT: She may want to but it’s like I don’t think that she wants to for so it’s like okay, I don’t know how to put this. [00:31:02] It’s like I don’t want to be in a relationship with somebody who feels like well, okay, I’ll work really hard at doing all of this hard work that I need to do around sexuality if it’s so important to you. And I’m just well how cheap and dirty does that make me feel. And I’m just like and then I’m supposed to tell you that I love you.

THERAPIST: Sure. Do you feel like you are supposed to tell her that you love her?

CLIENT: No. Well I mean that’s what she’d like to hear but I’m not in that place of being able to say that. I was able to yell it out loud in this beer garden after who knows how many cheap beers.

THERAPIST: Yell what?

CLIENT: It’s like Jesus Christ guys, I’m telling you, I didn’t want to be this guy.

THERAPIST: Which guy?

CLIENT: Who’s going to sit here at the table and tell you it’s like I don’t even fucking like her anymore. [00:32:04]

THERAPIST: Right, you didn’t want to be the person to say those words.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t want to be in that place, but that’s where I’m at.

THERAPIST: Well, but again, here’s another theme here. Why is it that guy? That guy always has these negative connotations about you’re a bad person. And what guy are you except the guy who’s unhappy in this marriage? Why do you have to be that guy? That goes back to all the shit with perfection that we talked about. You’re not any guy. You’re Seamus, who’s unhappy in this marriage, who refuses to kind of go along to get along and not be honest about the fact that he’s not unhappy. That doesn’t mean that you’re that guy. It just means you’re Seamus who’s fucking unhappy. But we always go back to that Seamus.

CLIENT: Yeah, I know. It’s words. I just yeah. And I used them again in the session this morning. It’s like I don’t want to be...

THERAPIST: Are those your words, Mary’s words, or both? [00:33:00]

CLIENT: Probably both. It’s like that sense of this is not where I wanted this to be. This is not where I wanted this to be. This is not where I thought this relationship was going to be 26 years ago. But here we are.

THERAPIST: But that’s the grief piece, okay, and that is a very valid, sensitive, painful place. But why does being in that place make you a bad person? Because that guy is synonymous with bad guy.

CLIENT: Right, and it’s because in her world...

THERAPIST: What about yours?

CLIENT: Yeah, in my world I’m just unhappy.

THERAPIST: Right, but why do you continue to frame it as that guy? I understand you can frame it as I didn’t want to be in this place or that place, but it always has to do with your personhood or your character. [00:34:01]

CLIENT: Well I think it’s just too long of living in that schema. Too long of my worth or my existence or whatever is going to revolve around what you think of me, what you think of me, what you think of me.

THERAPIST: I’m going to call you on it every time I hear it because if you are going to be truthful, that’s not the truth. Again, and I remember when my parents split up, both of them said I didn’t think we’d be in this place; this is not how we thought this would go. It was painful for both of them. And I know as couples break up, there’s guilt, there’s shame, there’s a whole lot of things. But you are not a bad person because you’re admitting to being unhappy and refusing to be unhappy. You’re not that guy. You’re just Seamus who’s unhappy, who refuses and it’s intolerable to remain unhappy and silent about it. That doesn’t make you that guy, it actually makes you a brave guy, because quite frankly, if you had shut the fuck up you could do this for 25 more years, right, and then you’d look back and be like really? [00:35:09]

CLIENT: Yeah, or I’d probably just end up shutting down so much I’d just be drooling in my oatmeal some place.

THERAPIST: Could be. Tell me what you’re feeling as we’re talking about these things.

CLIENT: I feel a sense of yeah, more of a sense of owning that, more of a sense of empowerment about that. It’s like yes, yes, yes, you’re 100% right. And yes, I need to stop using that language because it is clearly powerful. Language is clearly powerful, and as long as I continue to use that I’m going to be continuing to frame myself that way.

THERAPIST: Is Mary a bad person?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Is she that woman?

CLIENT: No, she has some issues.

THERAPIST: She’s got some deep issues, right, that may be too painful for her to look at. And if she’s not that woman, and I haven’t heard you describe her even in your anger as that woman or but she when she says I didn’t think you were that guy who would want sex or whatever, that you cannot ingest that. [00:36:18] You cannot ingest you have to take it out of yourself because you can’t have I’m going to live in truth in one part and lie to myself on the other about being a bad person.

CLIENT: And listening yeah, listening to the crap on the other side.

THERAPIST: You can listen to it but you don’t have to take it in yourself. You’re just and you’re not the only one who’s unhappy, your brothers are. That doesn’t make...

CLIENT: And if she owns it she’s unhappy too.

THERAPIST: Who, Mary?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, I’m sure, especially now.

CLIENT: And she has been unhappy. She has to have had to be unhappy because I have not responded to her in a long damn time.

THERAPIST: Tell me about that piece. That’s come up a couple of times where she says I’ve done all these things and you’re just shut down. What do you make of that? [00:37:05]

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, I am shut down.

THERAPIST: Do you see in your kind of recent past that she has reached out to you and you haven’t responded?

CLIENT: Yeah, and it’s always these in my interpretation it’s always these reaching out over the top of the wall...

THERAPIST: For a pat on the head.

CLIENT: Yeah, or I’ll give you a kiss on the cheek in the morning on the way out the door or whatever.

THERAPIST: Yeah. So in some ways you guys have gotten to a place where you can’t really reach each other anymore, not in the ways that you need it. And maybe you want two different things out of the relationship.

CLIENT: Clearly. Clearly. I want an incredibly deep, meaningful relationship. Two people all in, no holds barred intimacy.

THERAPIST: Did you describe that for her?

CLIENT: I’ve tried, and what I get back from that’s what I want too. [00:38:01]

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: And it’s like okay, are you hearing me here. That’s the sexual component piece. That’s the physical and the emotional, boom, everything’s in vulnerability. And...

THERAPIST: But it is what she wants. It just doesn’t look like what you want or need it to look like.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean she does want it. And but it’s...

THERAPIST: Sure, and like this, and you want it like this.

CLIENT: Yeah, and as long as I can hold her hand and I can take her out to a show once a month and have coffee with her for five minutes in the morning and I listen to her tell stories, the same stories about whatever, everything’s all good. And that’s intimacy. That’s what she wants. And I’m like it’s got nothing for me. And maybe she wants something deeper than that. But I’m like it doesn’t feel like that to me. [00:39:06]

THERAPIST: How do you feel about going to counseling, couples counseling, and talking this out with a counselor?

CLIENT: Are you asking me are you just wasting your time Seamus.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: No, okay.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: How do I feel about doing it in front of her or with her?

THERAPIST: Yeah, unless you feel like you’re wasting your time.

CLIENT: I’ve got to I feel like other people have questioned me on that. It’s like so do you know what you want. What are you really hoping to get out of couples counseling at this point? And I’ve thought about that. So part of me is like I know part of me just wants to be heard. Part of me wants to be heard and validated by somebody, maybe in her presence, that I’m not fucking crazy. [00:40:02] And is that a revenge thing? I don’t think so. It’s just, I don’t know. I really feel like do I have a lot of hope of this thing, being able to pull this thing out? Not really. Because I know that one of the big components is going to be me being all in in trying to work and make this thing happen. Today, where I’m sitting, I can’t do that.

THERAPIST: It’s almost like this is part of the process, so if you view it as a process that leads to whatever end result, it’s not only kind of about being heard but being seen, right, and coming to some resolution, even if it’s to clarify you both want different things or to clarify the fact that you’re done or to clarify the fact that you want to try whatever it is, right. It’s not that your doubts are valid and it’s not that I wonder if this is a waste of your time because this is the first time in a long time the two of you have come together to talk about the deeper issues. [00:41:10] And so in some ways I think when you have been married as long as you have been married, you have to do due diligence on the relationship, even if you think it’s going to go a certain way so that when all is said and done you look back and you said look, right, I’m at peace with this because I did due diligence. If you packed up, left, and filled divorce papers out tomorrow, my sense is that you might be really uncomfortable with that because even though this may be where this thing ends up, you’re not ready for that piece yet.

CLIENT: No, and I feel like yeah, irregardless of what happens, I’m always going to be connected to this person, in one way or another. I mean we’re going to have we’ve shared three kids together. We are parents together. And it’s...

THERAPIST: Have a history together.

CLIENT: We have a history together. And ultimately I think that she’s a really good person, and she’s got some really deep issues, and I’m not sure that I can be the guy that’s going to help her get through those issues. [00:42:18]

THERAPIST: Right. I don’t know if you can be. I don’t think you can be. First of all I don’t know if at this point it’s necessarily your job to do that because that would’ve happened at the 12 year mark. That’s what I’m saying, that...

CLIENT: I tried to do it then.

THERAPIST: Sure, but it’s hard to do it when someone won’t let you in to do it, and she’s not ready to face that.

CLIENT: And I’m not sure that I’m ready to face that now.

THERAPIST: Sure, right, because again, the freeze, the hold, happened at the 12 year mark, where you found all this stuff out. There were a few conversations, a few counseling sessions, and then after that everything kind of went downhill.

CLIENT: I got the message. I got the message back then and it’s like wait a minute, you’re going to tell me that none of this matters anymore and that now we’re going to fix it. And it’s like yeah, I’m not buying any of that. [00:43:13]

THERAPIST: I wonder if you will take from this whole thing I mean there are some pretty the moments that you described in your life that are kind of monumental, where you’ve been absolutely silenced, right. At two, told we don’t talk about this, your wife’s sexual abuse, basically the same message. And it stuck each time for years, right. I wonder and I hope that if you whatever you take from this, it’s to never be silenced again.

CLIENT: Yeah, and I think that there’s really a part of me that no, it’s I feel like I’ve really I have this image of holding on to that two year old child and it’s like yeah, you know what, I’ve got you and you ain’t fucking going to get hurt again. I’ve got you on this. So there’s sort of that sense of like yeah, I can speak. [00:44:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah, clearly, because you keep doing it consistently. It’s almost and when you turn a corner, sometimes you just can’t go back to the place...

CLIENT: I can’t go back.

THERAPIST: But not only in this relationship, but forevermore, to not be silenced to the point where shame and guilt and doubt back you into a corner and you can’t get out of the corner because of all these old messages because the messages are might be true to the person who provides the message but not for you. We don’t talk about sex in this house because I, the parent, am uncomfortable with it. Not because it’s wrong or bad or you shouldn’t talk about it, right. Because I don’t want to hear about it, you shouldn’t talk about it. And that’s a terrible message to send to a child. Like you’ve imprisoned this poor two year old because you’re uncomfortable with the topic. [00:45:05] Therefore his feelings and issues with it means there’s something wrong with him, which is the message that the two year old got. None of that is true. It’s never been true.

CLIENT: No, and I get that, and you’re and I really do feel that. And it’s like but I recognize that in our relationship, that marriage relationship, that the communication system is so fucked up that I don’t even know how to begin. And it’s not like we can come at this from a place of okay, let’s go have dinner together and try to sort this out. It’s like...

THERAPIST: Which may be what she’s thinking.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: Why is it this deep at this point when it hasn’t been for this long.

CLIENT: Right, and her take on all of this is that I’ve gone crazy. It’s like she said I hear what Seamus is saying and I hear that he’s saying that he’s being honest right now, but that’s not what I believe. [00:46:06] I believe that he’s not being true to himself. He’s not being authentic. He is he’s not being the person that he’s been all of his life and...

THERAPIST: Sure, well, and who she’s known you to be because that’s been the investment.

CLIENT: And I get that. I get that. But that’s yeah, so that’s where we’re at.

THERAPIST: Where are you I don’t want to forget to ask you this with last week we started talking about some crushes, some fantasies, that you were having.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, well I think where I’m at with that is recognizing that is it a crush so much as it’s recognizing that there’s potential here for relationships and there’s potential here and there’s wow, here’s somebody who’s mature and got their head on straight. And it’s like I recognize and it’s recognizing that okay, clearly I need to be I don’t need these things to be overlapping right now. [00:47:18] But it’s recognizing okay, you know what, I’ve got a friend here now, and a friend that I can talk to, and I’m not really wanting to stop that. I can put some pretty clear boundaries on this and I can be okay with this but it’s like oh my God, this is what this could’ve been a long time ago. It’s like oh my God, I can talk to somebody.

THERAPIST: And what’s that like for you to have the realization of having emotional intimacy with a female friend?

CLIENT: What is that like for me? That’s like a drink of water after being in the desert for so damn long. It’s just like just to have a 15 or 20 minute conversation with somebody who’s willing to sit there and listen to me and just take it in. [00:48:16] And I recognize okay, this person over here, she doesn’t have 26 years’ worth of my baggage. And it’s like and I don’t want to go down the road of oh, this is all new and shiny and this is...

THERAPIST: Absolutely. It is nice to recognize that there’s a possibility some day of something else.

CLIENT: Oh clearly. I mean it’s like and I recognize that there are so many old bad stories about myself that I’m pretty much sure that I can let down. I can let go of those now. It’s like not lovable, [buzzer sound]. Not a good looking guy, [buzzer sound]. I get all of that.

THERAPIST: Well how did you get that so fast?

CLIENT: I don’t know, but this is like the turning on the switch. It’s like I really can’t, I don’t know, maybe I maybe I’ve just never talked to anybody else that’s had this experience, of just like night and day. It’s like the switch came on one day. [00:49:15]

THERAPIST: You remember we talked about how you get all these positive messages about yourself from the environment, from here, from professors, from other students, and you weren’t able to, one, pay that much attention to them or two, internalize them because of you being entrenched in your own narrative of negativity. And then it is like turning on a light because you’re not anymore. And so now you’re able to go oh wow, look at all of this; I didn’t even see this. But it’s been there more consistently than you think it has.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, of course. But it’s like that moment of the switch coming on. It’s like just such a huge watershed of everything. And it’s like oh my God, I have been so wrong about so much stuff for so long. [00:50:04]

THERAPIST: Well you’ve been told a lot of things. It’s amazing what we get told through other people’s issues or discomfort about ourselves, right, so if you can you imagine, if you are not an emotionally healthy person, what is the message you pass on to your children about life, about themselves, that they learn from the parents. And you got some of that from yours. I mean we all get it from our parents.

CLIENT: Yeah, and how much did I pass on to my kids. It’s like...

THERAPIST: Maybe.

CLIENT: It had to be there. We had to do that. We’re two people that didn’t deal with our issues for 26 years. And some of that stuff’s going to be job security for some counselor down the road. But yeah, so what do I think about that relationship? [00:51:01] I think that trying to hold some healthy boundaries on that, but you know what, I’m okay with having friends. And it’s like I’ve got a special friend and I’ve got other people that are close friends, and it’s like these people are my network. And I’m like I’m okay with it.

THERAPIST: That’s not a network you recognized or spoke about four months ago.

CLIENT: Oh no.

THERAPIST: Right, but as you live in your own truth, speak it, live in it, it’s opened up all these other relationships. Six months ago I remember you saying there’s nobody except for your male friend, who is male to female, transsexual friend.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah.

THERAPIST: But now you’ve got more family relationships, friend relationships, that you are open to you because of your truth. Isn’t that pretty incredible?

CLIENT: It is pretty incredible.

THERAPIST: Because it’s pretty quick.

CLIENT: It is pretty quick, and it’s like recognizing well yeah, you know what? Those relationships were really always potentially there. [00:52:06] It’s just me not being open to them. And what’s changed is that this relationship over here, which has been really pretty unhealthy for me, and I’m dancing around trying to stay in orbit around this thing, it’s like if I’m going to recognize that I’m not stuck in that orbit, then it’s like okay, then everything else is opened up. So it’s like all right, I’m no longer focusing on that; now I can focus on I’ve got all this other energy now to focus on all of these other things.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s a different pain, too, the pain of being stuck. But now you’re in the pain of processing. But there’s forward movement in the processing.

CLIENT: Yeah, and I had to trust. I mean I think the only thing at his point that I feel some anxiety about, and I that’s today. [00:53:05] Tomorrow’s going to be a little bit [inaudible] I get that. And I may have completely different feelings tomorrow, but it’s like yeah, if we got to separate, if we got a divorce, for me it’s about the kids now. I but I don’t have any control over that either.

THERAPIST: And your concerns would be?

CLIENT: That I’m going to have strained relationships with my daughter probably, who maybe isn’t going to understand or, I don’t know. I’m probably catastrophizing, but I’m that’s more my concern then. And really the financial reality. I’m in a completely financially vulnerable place. I’m like oh, I’m in grad school, I’m counting on our relationships and that fact that I’ve got an assistantship to kind of get me through, and what am I going to do if this really ends? [00:54:14] It’s like I haven’t even thought about that yet. I’m like I’ve been dealing with all this existential shit and I’m like I haven’t even thought about...

THERAPIST: The practicalities.

CLIENT: I mean that’s so clearly my goofy ENFP personality type who oh, let’s be all concerned about...

THERAPIST: But you will think about those things.

CLIENT: When it’s time.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: Yeah, I know. I know I will but I’m just like oh God.

THERAPIST: Well one reality at a time, huh.

CLIENT: I guess. I guess. And it’s like but part of me is like I’m not so much interested in peeling the band aid off one hair at a time.

THERAPIST: Well no, you didn’t peel it off, you ripped the damn thing off. Exactly.

CLIENT: When you’re this hairy...

THERAPIST: It’s definitely ripped off. [00:55:03]

CLIENT: ...you learn how to pull it off fast. And it’s like it really doesn’t hurt that much. There’s an initial shock. I was walking through the sculpture park out here, and the first sculpture I encounter is entitled The Phoenix. And it’s like and they’re telling the story of the phoenix.

THERAPIST: Is that the green and white one?

CLIENT: No, it’s the orange one. It kind of just looks and it’s out; you have to walk to it just a little ways. And the phoenix lines a nest with cinnamon twigs and sits in the nest and burns itself up, and it rises out of the ashes. It’s like it clearly feels like that right now. It’s like...

THERAPIST: The rising part, not the burning part.

CLIENT: It’s kind of like burning up a lot of old shit. [00:56:02] And it’s kind of that sense of this is kind of the ring of fire kind of thing. And it’s, yeah, some old stuff that needs to be burned away. And it may be there’s a sense of new arising that’s coming out of that at the same time, but it’s like...

THERAPIST: It’s hard work.

CLIENT: It’s really hard work.

THERAPIST: But you’re doing it.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You’re doing it. So we are on for next week.

CLIENT: Yeah, thanks. I’m sorry.

THERAPIST: No, we’re fine. We’re fine. We’ll keep at it. You’re doing a great job even though it’s difficult.

END TRANSCRIPT