All Comments on 'An Hour I Can't Get Back'

Enjoyable, different take. Laughed out loud at the last line!

Excellent!

5

Just left me with the needs for wanting more and more. You may consider to continue with a chain or series of stories. More cases, the background and life of the MC, his wife, brother-in-law, family etc. etc. What an exciting horizon to step in. Anyway 5* with lots of Kudos and respect.

Enjoyed it!

Simple but profound. Good job

5 stars

An intelligent treatment to a (LW) cliché. Charlotte was a bit overstated and unidimensional and, well, …cliche (haha), but that’s the point, right?

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Clichés exist because they portray universal truths, sometimes eloquently, and sometimes boorishly. They’re like the landscape or portrait in the realm of picture painting, or the pizza or burger in the culinary arts. Seemingly boring or uninspired fare until you encounter a great one.

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As is most always the case with your stories, this was a pleasure to read. Thank you.

They may be just words but we enjoy them. Thanks for your tale! A great way to begin the week.

somewhere east of Omaha

I know LW loves court-mandated pre-divorce counseling scenarios, but it looks to me, based on some Google searching, that such counseling happens on this site more than in real life. What is more common, I think, is court-ordered counseling on issues related to children, or mediation when there is a dispute on splitting property. Happy to have a divorce lawyer tell me I’m wrong.

Loved the little surprise at the end.... ;-)

Thanks

I hope you're wearing your flak jacket, JW. Here's a handful of stars to try to increase its resistance.

Well done!

A great example of self entitlement narcissism.

Thank you for writing a therapist that seemed real. None of that new age, permissive nonsense.

Love the twist- made me lol!

I just finished all your stories and fortunately double checked this one posted today. I must say that I’ve enjoyed almost all of them very much. Thank you for sharing your efforts with us! I will continue to look for new works in the future.

An old curmudgeon

Nice!

Wonderful story!

Well done. No right minded husband should accept another person in the marriage. Im not sure why some writers insist on writing about narcissistic wives who tell the husbands to get with the programme and accept the wife is entitled to have a lover and the husband either dies in poverty or becomes a willing cuckold.

Loved this. 5*

Love it! Good one, good ending, made me laugh. 5 BIG ASS FUCKING NOVA STARS! Oh yeah, thanks again and keep them cumming, lol.

It seems kind of absurd, but I'm guessing there are those out there that believe the same as Charlotte does. Thankfully, at least I hope, there aren't that many of those nut cases running around loose. John and Mary, yeah, I could see that happening lol. Liked the story, thanks.

Ta, good look at the problems of relationship breakdown. But [there is always a but!] a Therapist, Psychologist, Psychiatrist are all at differing levels of expertise. Please don't lump them all in the same divide basket of good and bad :-)

More, please! This is good!

5* without question.

Great story! You did make me wonder about incurable. My tablet changed the “un” to an “in” - so it agrees with me - a computer supporting me, however is a point for your side. Making me think gets you several more. Which it is should not be important they’re just words.

As promised there are a lot of clichés. Doesn't matter.

Any good therapist would see during the first session itself, the odds of making it in the future.

So, it's best to be decisive and firm while delivering the verdict.

Would love to see more like these maybe based off of some other stories sorta a crossover idea

This is well-written and seems realistic. Maybe. I've no experience with this service, but it looks too clean and clear-cut a resolution. So what? It's Lit, and the humor seems to float to the top quite well as the doctor resolves the issues.

I had just settled into the story ... and it abruptly ended with a twist. Too bad for that; it was getting to be very entertaining. The LW elements crept in quickly. I hadn't seen that coming. I glanced back to see it was posted in non-erotic and didn't have any tags. That should have been a clue, but I didn't bother to go there first. I was looking forward to the match-making session or another interaction between the last couple before the divorce ended.

Thanks for a pleasant short story.

Four kids and I went through the same thing and could not put it back together. All got married but two get divorced. All because one can not commit to the other.

You are uncurable: adverb. Your disease is incurable: adjective.

An excellent flash story, taken from a fresh angle.

Well done.

I do doubt that in real life a counselor could be so open, but your story is great! I loved the twist at the end.

Neat little story, especially with that little twist at the end. Thank you.

Or perhaps "Charlatan" would be more appropriate? Certainly "Unethical" and "Unprofessional" would apply.

And maybe you should call the Association of Relationship Counsellors and make a report about improper behaviour by one of their members. A suggestion that they have been handing out doctorates to people who send in three box tops from their weeties packets should go down well.

PB

A wonderful story. I agree with WandererSoul2019 about the idea of a series of stories with this MC. 5 stars.

A great story, by a great story teller. Thank you

What a great read. Very entertaining storytelling from a view not written about often. Thanks for sharing.

Great story. 5 Stars.

Craziest counsellor story I ever heard was a marriage guidance therapist who was past retirement age butstill working and was caught by the wife having an affair with the husband who was 30 years older than the husband. The kicker was she was unlicensed because she had been struck off by the state board for having affairs with her male clients. And, sadly, that was a true story.

I forgot to add great story, 5* and very entertaining. A good take on this theme.

Great story and an original take on a familiar theme. Well written as always. You could easily turn this into a series.

Awesome story! I don't believe in honest conscientious people in family so-called "justice" system, but hey, I don't believe in hyperdrive or Jedi and still love Star Wars :P

Great story

Fantastic!

'Oh, great! Another woman who thinks she has a magical pussy that no man can refuse."

Five stars for mentioning the "magical pussy" or "golden pussy" delusion held by so many women.

" I spent some considerable time with the dictionary checking uncurable vs incurable. "

I believe you got it right. Narcissistic personality disorder is classified by the DSM-5 as one of the Cluster B Personality Disorders. An interesting study carried out by researchers at the University of Germany found that people with narcissistic personality disorder have problems with the right anterior insular cortex in the brain. This is the part of the brain that is responsible for empathy.

By far the most obvious narcissistic traits are arrogance and entitlement. The narcissist woman believes that she deserves the best treatment, favoritism, and that she should be “worshipped” by others.

Narcissistic personality disorder has no "cure". There's only therapy.

I am so glad I favorited some of the site's best authors. When things get slow in my favorite categories, I look to my favs for "something else" and rarely get disappointed. I read so many stories in the LW genre, I lose track of who wrote what, but this story could be a perfect complement to a main story featuring Charlotte and John. Outstanding work JW - 5*

If this were only true.

Usually, the wife seems to think she can see the therapist, lie to him and get the divorce off track. This story comes right to the point. The cheater is arrogant beyond words. Cake and eat it too...Great story...

So he would have taken her back if she gave up the boyfriend?!? Disgusting. No real man would ever touch her again. She has slut cooties!!!

ZK

wives seem to think therapy is to fix the husband because nothing is ever wrong with them.....its him that's problem

Great Story!! I loved it!!

Great story, but the last line cracked me up. So the judge who sent the divorce case to the therapist was the therapist’s brother-in-law? Yep, the fix was definitely in. Five ⭐️s, for sure.

Preposterous. I am not a marriage and family counselor but my business partner is. I have also worked with my fair share of couples. There isn't a family court judge in the country that would force marriage counseling where one half is entirely unapologetic and wants an open marriage while the other doesn't.

I loved this. It just felt real. Why? You ask. Well I’m not a therapist but I lived basically that same scene.

Excellent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow. Writer actually describes a professional who listen and did not spend ten sessions of brow beating the offended spouse. Only aspect missing was a BTB ending. Loved it…

Nicely done

In my last relationship we had 4 different couples councilors. The first one was female connected with Catholic Services. The point she kept making was that we were living in sin and should get married now. I can't remember the second, but we only had one session with him. The third (BTW these were all booked by her) said, that the only way a man could have a happy relationship was to repeat back to her any thing she said. And that I had to be more accommodating. The 4th I found and booked. He was a relatively young man, but had received a PHD and was a research Fellow for a major teaching hospital. In our first meeting he went over the ground rules for him to continue. The first ground rule we were limited to 10 sessions. The second was that he wouldn't allow yelling or name calling. The next hour session was with her, the following with me. We then had two joint sessions. On the 6th session he asked her to have a talk with his colleague. while he had a discussion with me. He said that he didn't think that I could have a long and fruitful relationship with her. While he wouldn't ever advise me to leave her, he just couldn't see how it was going to work. Dummy here, thought that he could fix anything with enough effort. The lady died 9 years ago Valentines Day. A month after her death, I went to clean out her car, and found a burner phone, two different sizes of rubbers, a complete makeup kit, and a bra and panty set.

@DaddyWarBucks - I write stories for the challenge and the fun of it, and I suppose to exorcise a few of my own demons. Almost all are fiction to a large degree. Then I read life stories like yours and I am speechless. I can only imagine what you went through, and I hope and wish that neither you nor anyone else would live a story like that. I wish you a good life and years of joy.

This therapist may have seen it all, but there are probably a dozen or more variations on divorces that could use a similar injection of common-sense therapy.

And the therapist's brother-in-law the judge could be the anchor of a similar series of courtroom tales that take various LW divorce tropes apart with a dose legal reality.

Generally I don't think a judge would make couples counseling mandatory where the parties weren't on the same page regarding fidelity. However, the offending party would generally not tell the truth about the infidelity. They would argue friendship, history, compatibility, and respect while either lying about the sexual nature or minimizing its importance. I know this from experience. It takes a really astute counselor to pick through the muck.

JW, I can confirm that you chose the wrong option; you should have used 'incurable'. That said, it was an excellent short story fully deserving of the five stars I awarded it. Keep up the good work.

Short and sweet. 5

Read it again. Still 5 stars.

A good start but it needs more.

Nice one

Neat story, would love for this to be a series. Also wouldn't hurt to have some tags to make it easier to search for with that method.

I don't know what dictionary the commenter further down was looking at but he and the author both got it wrong. the word is 'incurable'.

Ignoring the "egregious" misspelling of "incurable" as pointed out by the previous commenter associated with the Spellcheck Gestapo, this was a very well executed story from the perspective of the counselor. The master sentence makes this a solid 5 stars. Thank you!

Loved it.

Liked it all the way to the last sentence. Now I LOVE it!!!

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I really like this story, as taken from everyday life

Damn fine piece of writing. Thank you.

Short and sweet, and all the regular stuff out the window. 5 stars.

Third story I've read from this author. Witty and well done so far. Thank you!

Very witty. Unfortunately unlikely to ever happen that a therapist would talk that way. Not because they don't want to but because they would get sued by the people who are like the wife in this story. Living in their own dream world where the only thing that matters is themselves. Pity as what he said was 100% truth and accurate. Still a very entertaining story. BardnotBard