TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: I got your message. Thanks for letting me know. So this is what?

CLIENT: Second to last.

THERAPIST: Second to last. Not meeting next week. We are meeting the week after that. All right. What you should do is, that last one, just bring in a check so that we can just settle up. It will be for this month, January, and then that one they did in March. [00:01:01]

CLIENT: My social calendar has filled up so fast since we told people we were moving and it's like I don't know when I'm going to find time to pack.

THERAPIST: Will you have the time, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Is there a lot to do?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Tell me. What's the story?

CLIENT: Books lots of books, lots of clothes. I've given tons of stuff away already to Good Will, sports equipment that I don't use, knicky-knackies, boxes and boxes. We have lots of boxes so we don't need any boxes. People brought us some. Big furniture, the stereo, television, two computers, lots of paperwork. [00:02:33]

THERAPIST: Major project. You guys are going to move yourselves or are you going to hire movers?

CLIENT: We're going to hire movers, but I don't know Phil is working on that. The guilt trip dinner at the Omni is happening the night after my bachelorette party and Phil was like, "So they want to do it early, like at 3:00." My mom was in the room and I was like, "Seriously? Mom, cover your ears. If I'm going to be hung over..." and she was like, "Five o'clock, Phil." I was like, "Oh, my God, mom." [00:03:26]

THERAPIST: 3 o'clock? What are they, retirees in south Florida?

CLIENT: Yeah. Trying to get in for the Sizzler special. No, they just have a kid that goes to bed at 7:00 and they go to bed at 8:00 or something stupid like that.

THERAPIST: They are tough. 3:30, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah. Who eats dinner at 3:30?

THERAPIST: Nobody.

CLIENT: Nobody. That's called "suck-up".

THERAPIST: I don't know what it's called snack time? I don't know. [00:04:00]

CLIENT: Snack time. That's exactly what it is. Fine, it's at the Omni. You feel guilty so you're spending a lot of money on us, but you haven't reached out to us at all in the past year; and now you want to spend $300 on dinner? Fine. Whatever. It makes me angry because I just know that baby is going to be born like June 10th or something, you know?

THERAPIST: You mean they could have made it down?

CLIENT: Sure, they could have made it down or at least Gina could have loosened up her ball and chain lock on Dave. Dave didn't return Phil's phone call and I said, "Maybe he went over his phone time allowance for the week." He was like, "You're bitter." I was like, "Yeah, I'm bitter." I'm bitter that my fiancé can't have a normal relationship with his brother. [00:05:08]

THERAPIST: Yeah. That my future brother-in-law isn't going to make it to the wedding.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: So you're pissed.

CLIENT: (pause) I don't know.

THERAPIST: What? What?

CLIENT: They haven't even apologized to me. They haven't even talked to me about it, not that I really expect them to because they're passive-aggressive pussies. (pause) [00:06:05]

THERAPIST: It sounds like you stopped yourself.

CLIENT: She's just so [...] (inaudible at 00:06:13) She just builds up so many walls. I'm a person. I have no filter. I have a pretty small wall. I don't really build walls for people, you know? I don't think I do, so I'm offended because we used to be close; or at least we used to have some sort of relationship. For whatever reason, we didn't have one this year and now it really went to shit. And it's not my fault. I have to remind myself that it's not my fault. (pause) Sometimes I just wish mean things about her babies, which is terrible to think. [00:07:27]

THERAPIST: Mean things? What do you think about?

CLIENT: Like when they told me she was pregnant and that she was due close to the wedding, I was like, "Plenty of time for a miscarriage," which she's had plenty of; at least one or two, if not more. Sometimes I think her daughter is a little bit on the spectrum, but I think it's mostly just a manifestation of not being around other children or other people at all.

THERAPIST: You're saying if she was to have a miscarriage she would be able to go.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: She'd be able to go.

CLIENT: I don't really care if she comes or not because she's a bitch; and I want Dave to be there.

THERAPIST: The other thing is that, since the first baby, there's been this real focus that's been kind of exclusively on this baby and a wall around her, where there used to be more of a sense of a relationship between the two of you. It felt, not perfect, but good. [00:08:53]

CLIENT: Yeah. And they try not to spoil her, but they definitely spoil her and now she's spoiled. Now she's got another baby coming and they're big on the whole sleep-training thing. They were trying to do it on Christmas Day in the Pack-and-Play and she was not having it at all.

THERAPIST: The baby wasn't?

CLIENT: Yeah. And I heard her say to Dave while me and Ellen and Phil were all preparing dinner, "I can't believe we're eating so late." Like get off your ass and chop some vegetables. (pause) Ellen told my mom that she's been feeling blue and she realized that it's because the relationship with me and Phil is so much easier and takes a lot less work and is not as complicated... [00:10:21]

THERAPIST: Than...?

CLIENT: Than the relationship with Dave and Gina.

THERAPIST: Ellen said that?

CLIENT: Ellen, Phil's mom.

THERAPIST: She notices that Phil and you have a much more...

CLIENT: An easier relationship with her and Alex (sp?).

THERAPIST: I get it. So what about that?

CLIENT: I feel like I'm abandoning them.

THERAPIST: Who?

CLIENT: Ellen and Alex, not that it's my responsibility or anything. [00:11:02]

THERAPIST: Abandoning them, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah. Alex was driving us back to make a plane and was, "I don't know if I'll miss driving this way much anymore. I won't be driving this way again. Oh, well, maybe if I drive to the neighborhood." I stopped myself from saying, "Unless you become the scapegoat again," because for a while Gina and Alex had this terrible relationship and they couldn't communicate. (pause) Awful, but I didn't say anything. We were all squeezed into the Prius; six of us. After not saying anything the car goes silent and Alex said something like, "You guys are very quiet back there. What's going on?" I'm like, "I just had to stop myself from saying something mean." [00:12:06] I think if my parents had not been in the car, Alex probably would have sussed it out of me. (pause) I'm not even that sad to be moving away from here and Gina at all. Yeah, another baby might have made things different, but she's still a frigid bitch who hates me so whatever. (pause) [00:13:11]

THERAPIST: It sounds like the relationship really unraveled after the baby. It sounds like it leaves you feeling very sour to her, not just all this business with the baby, but there's also the wedding and that she hasn't reached out and conveyed that she's going to miss and wishes she could be there and feel very earnest.

CLIENT: I helped her a lot with her wedding, not a lot, a lot; but she called me one day and she was like, "I have to cut every single word of these invitations by hand with a paper cutter." I was like, "Can't you layer them and cut them with the paper cutter?" I had imagined that she had this guillotine, but she had this slicing one with slots in it. Whatever. But apparently I cut her time in a third or half. And then for her rehearsal I drove to the pizza place, picked up all the food and set it all up for the rehearsal dinner. I watched Gina struggle to plan a rehearsal dinner instead of saying to Alex and Ellen, "This is what you guys need to take care of." Alex and Ellen were like, "We'll just write you a check. Whatever you want." I watched that happen and I was like, "Alex and Ellen need to take care of this. [00:14:46] I'm not going to do that," because then Alex and Ellen were going to say to me, "We know we paid for the rehearsal dinner, just send us a bill." My mom took me to a place that she liked and they decided on it, and now I'm doing it. I would have appreciated help, but the baby was born and I wasn't going to ask her to come wedding-dress shopping or shoe shopping.

THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:15:28)

CLIENT: No, but I think she would have gone before.

THERAPIST: She would have gone before, yeah. The baby has really come between you guys.

CLIENT: And it's not even that I'm jealous, I just think it's done. Because I'm so good with babies it should bring us closer together, but I guess she's intimidated by it all.

THERAPIST: There's some curious kind of over-protectiveness and almost like she wants it to just be her and this baby. [00:16:16]

CLIENT: Honestly, I think they're going to get a divorce. Not any time soon, but like six or seven years from now. She's way too Catholic.

THERAPIST: How so? How does that play out?

CLIENT: I don't know if they go to church or not, but religion is not really Dave's thing at all organized religion. I don't know. (pause) [00:17:15] I see her alienating him so much, the way she alienates everybody, she'll be alienating him, too. Unless he's really into that, I see a really big problem. I was thinking in October that baby will be five or six months old and Phil will be turning 30. I could throw him a big 30th birthday party and invite his brother, and it will be a test. Like are you going to come down for this or no? [00:18:19]

THERAPIST: What would...?

CLIENT: I don't know if he would. (pause) I hate that we spend so much time talking about this because it shouldn't even bother me that much.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: It really does.

THERAPIST: Yeah, sure. It really gets at something. It's really deep.

CLIENT: A $300 dinner at the Omni is supposed to heal the wounds before I leave? Come on. Let me hold your baby for an hour. Trust me to babysit her for three hours while you go to dinner and go to a movie. Sorry $14 cocktails sure are yummy, but they don't heal all wounds. [00:19:27]

THERAPIST: Yeah, as you say, "Throw money at the problem," right? I guess I'm thinking, too, about that there is something very important here about you really, as you were pointing out with Gina, put your heart out to her. You guys were friends and then this baby comes and you really kind of go, "This is a chance to deepen our relationship and make more of a family." I think their rebuff is really, really, really terribly disappointing, insane. And the manner in which you felt just coldly treated. [00:20:31]

CLIENT: And Gina is working really hard on her relationship with her sister because her sister had a baby four days after Gina's was born, so she's working on the relationship, working on the relationship. We didn't hear from her and didn't really I mean, we saw her maybe once in July and once in May....

THERAPIST: This year?

CLIENT: This year. But throughout the early fall, we didn't hear from them at all. Then October and November comes and we find out that her sister is separating from her husband because they got in a fight and he tried to strangle her. Gina's sister was really mean to Gina at Thanksgiving or something or at Halloween I don't know what and it just feels to me like, "So now that you're not talking to your sister you have time to develop the relationship between you and me; and me and Phil; and Phil and the baby; and Phil and Dave? Your family gets the priority all the time?" [00:21:50] That's another reason why I think they're going to get divorced because her family is A-one important and she treats everybody in his family like shit and she doesn't treat his family the way she would want us to treat her family.

THERAPIST: Expects to be treated. (pause) [00:22:56] My thought about it, too, is that one thing that we've been talking about throughout you and I working together is this kind of feeling you've had of really trying to put yourself out there to people and it being a very vulnerable thing. You kind of try to share yourself, give yourself to somebody, and I hear you sort of saying you've been able to make friends through work and various ways, but you've wanted that deeper relationship with another woman that's like a best friend or something. I don't know that you felt like Gina had that potential, but it's been a confusing and disappointing struggle for you in life to have a really close connection with a female friend, like a best friend. I guess I'm just reflecting on our work together and that's something that you're still wanting to find, you know? [00:24:34]

CLIENT: I had a very, very good friend in middle school who I grew up with. She moved to Indiana and then she moved back, but she's actually living in Indiana again and so I hope to rekindle that friendship but she is going to be like three hours away, so I don't know.

THERAPIST: What city is she in?

CLIENT: She's in Indianapolis. (pause)

THERAPIST: I think I was thinking of Gina, in a way. This isn't just the first time of this feeling of a wall being built up between you and somebody else. You're trying to connect. [00:25:28]

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know. It's really hard, but it's like what am I going to do about it now? Nothing. You look at our Christmas cards and you can "Like" my posts on Facebook, which she does sometimes...

THERAPIST: But it's very, very limited?

CLIENT: Right. If you're going to actually be my friend and interact with me...

THERAPIST: I was wondering how you feel about what happens between us when you leave.

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: Have you thought...? Any thoughts? [00:26:22]

CLIENT: Do you Skype your people that move away?

THERAPIST: Did you have any thoughts about it?

CLIENT: (chuckles) No, I just thought it was done.

THERAPIST: What did you think? You just thought that's it and it's over, that kind of thing? Not that it certainly happens that way.

CLIENT: That's what I thought happens. (pause)

THERAPIST: What would that mean to you?

CLIENT: I hope that I'll be able to get into some activities and some sort of routine so that I don't feel so alone, but I'm afraid of feeling alone down there. And, again, I don't get a lot of time alone, so that might be a relief.

THERAPIST: I think, too, we've been working together for a while now and it's come to be one place where you've been able to really talk from this place, share your stuff really, and open up all of that stuff that you've been wanting to do in your life; to have a relationship where you can open. (pause) [00:28:03]

CLIENT: Our landlord hasn't e-mailed us back yet. He was in China. Our February rent check hasn't gone through yet. He was stopping payment on one of our checks and the other check will be for because we already paid last month's rent and we'll be gone by the 15th.

THERAPIST: When does your lease end?

CLIENT: Like June or something June or July.

THERAPIST: But you told him you got this job?

CLIENT: Yeah, he's always been willing to be flexible, so... (pause) [00:29:17] My parents were in town this weekend. That was good. My mom helped me start cleaning out my clothes. (pause) I'm still really overwhelmed at the thought of all of what I have to do between now and then and part of the time next week I'm going down to Indiana Monday night. We're flying to Virginia on Friday night and having an engagement party, stay in Virginia on Saturday, driving back again on Sunday... [00:30:27]

THERAPIST: When are you stopping work?

CLIENT: That week, I'm not working. I'm taking vacation; and then I'm working until the 8th.

THERAPIST: That first week in March?

CLIENT: The first week in March so I get health insurance.

THERAPIST: Then the following week not working? But that's the week of moving?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: I was thinking about packing up and everything, packing up from here, too. I was kind of wondering is it heavy for you? Does it feel onerous? Does it feel...? [00:31:21]

CLIENT: [...] (inaudible at 00:31:22)

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, a little bit. Mostly it's like this has to be quick and dirty because we could debate forever if Phil should keep this movie that I've never seen and watched and I've never seen him pull off the shelf and I didn't know we had; but he said it's a good movie and I'm just like we can't fight over all these things. It's too long, so just have to do it fast.

THERAPIST: Plan B.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:33:31]

THERAPIST: What are you thinking?

CLIENT: I'm thinking about the way they choose to parent Janie; and how I guess I'm still bent out of shape about them the tutu that I bought her for her christening because I've never been to a christening and I don't know what people buy for a christening. I'm not going to buy you a silver frame with Psalms written on it or something. I got her a bonnet and a hot pink tutu, and they told me that the tutu went to Florida for her nieces. I told my friend, Joane, this and she was like, "So, basically, they don't want her to have freedom of choice?" I can't believe this. I bought the tutu to fit for 18 months so, basically when she's two and they're driving her to church, she can pick out what she wants to wear. That was my thinking. [00:34:31]

THERAPIST: Was the hot pink tutu too racy?

CLIENT: It was too girly.

THERAPIST: Too girly?

CLIENT: Yes. They didn't want to raise a pink girly-girl, I guess which I totally get. But they don't want to give her even the option of being a pink girly-girl. Controlling. It's one thing being a ball-and-chain wife, it's another thing being a ball-and-chain [mom] (ph?).

THERAPIST: Thanks for the gift. It's going to Florida.

CLIENT: I like the bonnet. I haven't seen her in it yet.

THERAPIST: The bonnet made it. It wasn't hot pink or anything?

CLIENT: It was white.

THERAPIST: Neutral.

CLIENT: Neutral. When was the last time you saw a white-on-white bonnet, though?

THERAPIST: It's been a while. I've got to be honest with you.

CLIENT: If it's white, it has sailboats on it or something.

THERAPIST: Guns. Army men.

CLIENT: Guns. Pistols. Yeah, I wonder if I bought the baby boy some Army fatigue cargo pants they would disappear, too. They might go to Florida.

THERAPIST: There's always a good place for it in Florida.

CLIENT: (giggles) Florida, yeah. All unwanted clothes. At least if our relationship gets repaired, my future children, whether they are boy or girl, will have hand-me-downs from Dave and Gina. I might have to bless them first shake some holy water on them. [00:36:21]

THERAPIST: Have prayers on them. Cross them. (pause) You got a gift today?

CLIENT: I got a cupcake from a kid at work.

THERAPIST: Is it a farewell cupcake or something?

CLIENT: No, it's a Valentine. I have jam for you, but I forgot to put it in my purse last night so it will have to come next time.

THERAPIST: Is that from the Bakery?

CLIENT: This is from the Bakery. I've never been there. Where is that?

THERAPIST: Wow. I don't know if there are any up here. There are just some in New York.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Or here. There are some in here.

CLIENT: They said maybe they were going to New York. They did say she bought some over the weekend, but they ate them all. So maybe these were the ones that were left over or something. Most of the parents who buy cupcakes go to Sweetcakes.

THERAPIST: No, it is the real deal. [00:37:40]

CLIENT: Okay. Good to know.

THERAPIST: So next week will be the last...

CLIENT: Not next week, the week after.

THERAPIST: Two weeks will be the last time.

CLIENT: Will you send me an invoice? We bought wedding rings yesterday; we put a deposit on wedding rings all for under $1,000. His is white gold; mine is white gold with a little bit of diamonds.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. It's really all happening.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:38:52]

THERAPIST: Just to say about the ending is that it certainly I'm more than willing to help you try to find somebody down there if you can. If you want to talk to me you can, first of all, call me anytime you want if something comes up and you want to talk. The other thing is, if you're meeting with therapists and you're kind of trying to sort it all out and wanted to talk about it, I could help you that way. Any way you want me to be of help to you is fine. People will contact me and want to talk, just to catch me up on what's going on with their life. I do that all the time with people, so you should feel free to do that. [00:39:46]

CLIENT: Give me a one-word reaction to the fact that, after I get married, I'm going to be on United Health Care.

THERAPIST: What kind of reaction?

CLIENT: Like "meh" or "terrible, terrible, terrible" or "huzzah"; "terrible, terrible, terrible." (laughs)

THERAPIST: Well, they get sued a lot.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (chuckles) Yeah. They don't have the good reputation I mean, I think the people that I've dealt with with United Health care can be cagy and tricky and try not to pay clients. Are they worse than any other insurance company? I don't know; maybe a little bit worse. [00:40:42]

CLIENT: Yeah. They don't cover a $42 treatment, not that I need a referral, but the really good health-care companies will do preimplantation gene diagnosis on the gene sorting for the [MS] (ph?)

THERAPIST: Yeah, watch your back is my...

CLIENT: Yeah, are you serious? Literally.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I've had some run-ins with them, to tell you the truth.

CLIENT: I'm not excited about them. I've not ever heard good things about them.

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