February Sucks - Sessions

This is my take on an ending to GeorgeAnderson's "February Sucks." It starts about a month after the end of the original. As much as possible, I've shewn closely to the story canon and only made additions to the history of the characters where there's a reasonable extrapolation based on my interpretation of their behavior in the original story. Or where I screwed up and missed something. There's some additional commentary about the original and story notes for my ending at the bottom, but read this first; there are spoilers down there.

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Therapy with Tom, Session 4 - Late September

"How are you doing, Jim?" Tom had out his notepad and pen. I knew the sessions were being recorded, but he was still kind of old school. I found it oddly comforting, like writing it down somehow made it more real.

"You know. Doing okay. Just trying to keep on keeping on." I made a little noncommittal shrug.

"Mmmhmm. So, do you want to just pay me to hang out? Because people, especially people with stories like the one you told me, don't come to me because they're 'doing okay.'" He leaned forward. "I'm here to help you, Jim. Help you get past this and figure out what to do next. How are you really doing?"

"... I've been better."

"Okay. Okay." He chewed on the tip of his pen, a gesture that identified him to me as a fellow ex-smoker. "How are you feeling?"

I thought for a long moment, then spoke. "Tired. Sad." I hesitated, and Tom looked at me encouragingly. "Stupid." I lowered my head. "Weak."

"I completely understand feeling tired and sad. Those are normal reactions to a trauma that's as all-encompassing as this one. And I understand why you might feel stupid and weak, but you're not. You need to understand, your story..."

He frowned and put down his pen and notepad.

"Jim, I don't do this very often; maybe a dozen times in the thirty years I've been in practice. But I'm going to take my therapist hat off and tell you this, man to man: it was one of the most capital-F, capital-U Fucked Up things I've ever heard."

I laughed at his unexpected candor. "Yeah. Yeah, it really is."

Tom shook his head. "You are entitled to feel whatever emotions you feel about what Linda, your friends, and L. W. did, not to mention Marc and Ellen. That's the 'appropriately professional' thing I'm supposed to say. Here's the thing I'm not supposed to say, or at least not this directly: you are absolutely justified in feeling betrayed by almost everyone in your life. You are not stupid. I've seen cults that used less effective brainwashing techniques. And the fact that you pushed through it because you want to do what's best for your kids? You're anything but weak. Man, I am in awe of that level of self-sacrifice.

"Thanks, I--"

"Not done yet. 'In awe' isn't necessarily a positive thing, Jim. I'm in awe of a tsunami or a charging rhino, too. But those are dangerous and destructive. Your stoicism in the face of..." He made a face that was both incredulous and angry, his hands gesturing wildly. "...literally everything that's happened to you? It's not healthy. Not for you, not for your relationships, and not for your kids."

He hesitated, as if he wasn't sure he should say something. Then, with a look of resolve, he forged ahead. "I'm going to tell you another thing: your story was so out there that, after our first session, I had it checked into a little bit. I honestly was worried that you might be having paranoid delusions. I thought you might be an undiagnosed schizophrenic; that's how outlandish your claims were. But everything that I could check out did check out. I cannot imagine you having to actually go through this Kafkaesque nightmare for the last seven months."

I frowned. I had spent our first three sessions detailing everything that happened to me as a result of Linda's affair. It was extremely painful to relive it, but it felt good to talk to someone who I could trust to be completely objective. Well, not completely; I was paying him, but I was paying him for his honesty as much as his abilities. I needed to figure out what to do to get past this, one way or another, once and for all.

He took a deep breath. "There's so much here that we need to dive into. But I want to start with this: in the story you've told me, literally every named adult that you had personally known when it began, other than the woman who watched your kids and the waitress at the diner, either lied to, betrayed, or gaslit you. Sometimes all three! That is absolutely fucking bonkers." One other thing I'd liked about Tom, from the moment I met him, is that he usually eschewed clinical language. I didn't know if it was a rhetorical tool or just how he was, but it was comforting. No doublespeak about 'psyche' or 'attachment' or any of that other bullshit unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Your stoicism isn't healthy, and I think you know that. Deep down, I think it's why you're here. My initial impression is that it's a response to the fact that everyone you know tried to prevent you from taking steps to do anything about what was happening to you. You tried to take action but were stymied at every turn. And, because of that, you had to become stoic. It was the only way to cope with the fact that you knew this was all wrong, but were actively discouraged by everyone from actually doing anything about it."

He started to tick items off on his fingers. "You tried to stop Marc and Linda from dancing, and then slow dancing, but your friends stopped you. You tried to get Linda to leave with you right after the dance, and she left with Marc instead, lying to you in order to do so. Your initial response to your wife leaving with Marc was to try to follow her, but you were blocked by Dee. Then your other friends tried to tell you it was really no big deal. You knew that it was, and you were right, but they made it impossible to actually stop Linda. Then, they kept trying to convince you for weeks afterwards that this was perfectly normal, and you just needed to get over it. Linda came home and told you all of that, pardon my language, complete and utter bullshit that you knew was complete and utter bullshit, but she and your friends just kept hammering on it."

Tom was on a roll. This session was the first time he'd strung more than two sentences together in a row since I'd started coming to see him. He had already run out of fingers to tick on one hand, and we weren't even a third of the way through my story.

"You go to see your lawyer-- your lawyer!-- an old family friend, and he tells you that this is a normal thing that women do, that it's to be expected. Even sort of, kind of, acceptable. Then he gives you the spiel, which is completely inaccurate, about how important it is that kids have two parent households.

"Don't get me wrong, that's definitely preferred, but a household where..." he made the 'all of this' gesture "... happened is not going to be a healthy place to raise kids unless the people involved are willing to pay for a couples counselor's vacation home. I love my profession, but there are limits to what we can do."

I frowned. "I don't want my kids to have to deal with the stuff that goes on in a broken home, Tom."

Tom sighed. "You already are, Jim. Your home is broken. And, honestly? It seems like it's broken you. I'm sorry, but there's a lot of trauma here that we're going to have to work through. At the very least, it sounds like you have depression, PTSD-- "

I scoffed, "Oh, come on, it's not like I was in combat."

"You don't have to be in combat to get PTSD, Jim. A car crash, abuse, a violent incident..." he fixed me with a firm stare "... or a particularly unexpected betrayal can cause it. Think about it, Jim: what's your response to seeing Linda in that blue dress? Panic, being overcome by memory, unable to function. Those are classic PTSD symptoms."

He stopped and shook his head in disgust. "And then she wears it, wears it in front of you not even a week after it all happens. And then later wants you to take her out dancing in it! That's... that's not the act of a loving wife, Jim. Or at least not the act of a wife who's in touch with how much she's hurt her husband."

I nodded. That had hurt. A lot. I don't know what she was thinking wearing it that night at dinner with the kids. And I had to just grin and bear it so the kids wouldn't suspect anything. When she insisted on trying to wear it dancing... what the hell was that about? She wanted to wear it so that SHE could have better memories of wearing it?

He saw me thinking it through and nodded. "Pretty messed up, right?"

I looked down at the ground. "Yeah. When you lay it all out like that, yeah." And we weren't even halfway through everything that had happened in the last seven months.

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Look, we're going to get you through all of this, or at least as much as we can. And I'm going to keep my therapist hat off through a lot of it. I think..." He sighed in sympathy for me. "I think you need someone who isn't trying to be clinical and tell you stuff like, 'oh, well, this incident has damaged your sense of self,' or at least not most of this time. There'll be some of that, because sometimes it's the best way to communicate things. But you've had a bunch of 'normal' people in your life telling you that the Emperor wasn't naked, and I think you need someone telling you that, no, he was absolutely, 100% naked and he's been flopping his dick in your face. And you need it to come from someone who's not trying to act like a headshrinker while doing it. We need to start by... Hmm..."

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "Your reality was shattered. And then no one actually tried to help you fix it, they just told you that this was always what your reality had been, and you just needed to accept that. We need to get you back to the place where you understand not just that things are messed up, but it's okay to say 'this was messed up, and people I trusted did this to me.' And me being detached and clinical isn't going to help with that. You need someone to say to you, in a way that is clear and unequivocal, 'This is not right.' And not just me. You need to hear it from others, too."

He leaned back. "Other than your dancing friends, do you have other folks you can spend time with? Golf buddies, bowling, work friends, anything?"

I shook my head sadly. "No. They were pretty much all the same thing. We went dancing, I golfed with them, all of it. I have some work friends, but they're just that, work friends. We might grab a beer after work, but that's about it. I had a fantasy football league, but..." I trailed off.

Tom nodded sympathetically. "Yeah. Yeah. And I know football season has started up. How are you dealing with that?"

I chuckled mirthlessly. "Not great. Asshole is all over the TV right now. Lots of Netflix at home for me. Trying to avoid going anywhere where the news or the game is going to be on, so not much eating out or going to bars." I shook my head. "God, I'm so pathetic."

"Hey. No." Tom's voice was sharp. Not mean or harsh, but the voice of a friend who's trying to get through to a person beating himself up. "You are not pathetic. There is a reminder of the worst night of your life showing up, at random, on every screen out in the world that you don't have control of. I mean, imagine you had gotten mugged instead, and videos of the guy just showed up everywhere you went. That would be pretty traumatic, right?"

I nodded.

"You need to find something to do. Preferably something where you can meet people, where you can get away from Linda and your old circle of friends and just be 'Jim.' Not the Jim that's being told that he needs to be part of this madness. Just Jim."

"Any suggestions?"

"Oh, there's lots of stuff to do out there. A book club, art classes, join a gym, pick up a new hobby, any number of things."

I looked down at myself and sighed. "I have been getting a little soft in the middle. It's been hard to care about..." I shook my head, trying to keep control of my emotions. "I'm never going to match up to him, you know? Never going to be Asshole. Even if I was his age, there's no way I could be anything but me, this pathetic-- "

Tom growled, "Shut the fuck up."

"What?"

He seemed angry; not at me, but for me. "Listen to me. You are incredibly strong. You love your kids. You doted on a wife that, frankly, does not fucking deserve it based on her actions thus far. You have done everything you can to put your life back together after what is both the most spectacular and spectacularly public betrayal I have seen in my entire career. You. Are. Not. Pathetic. I want you to say it."

"I'm... I'm not pathetic."

"Again."

"I'm not pathetic."

"Louder."

"I'm not pathetic!" It was dumb, I know. But it felt really good to say. So maybe it wasn't that dumb after all.

Tom looked at his watch and said, "We're getting to the end of our time. There are a couple of things I want you to do this week. The first is to find something to do that gets you out of the house and around new people.The other is sort of twofold. I want you to start doing five daily affirmations. Just things that are positive about you; I'll let you pick them, but I want to go over them in your next session. Coupled with that, I want you to try to cut any negative self-talk. No more 'I am pathetic' or the like. That includes thinking it and dwelling on it; it's okay if an intrusive thought slips in, but I want you to immediately correct it, and I want you to do it out loud. Sound good?"

"Yeah. Okay." I wasn't convinced, but I was paying him for his expertise, so I'd do what the man said.

"Great. Listen, Jim. You're at the beginning of a really difficult journey, and I'm proud of you. I want you to know that. A lot of guys would just roll over at this kind of a challenge, but you're taking it head on. That takes a lot of guts. Now, I'll see you next week. Work on those things we talked about."

Initial Personal Training Evaluation with Dewan - Late September

"So what is it you're here for, Jim? Lose weight, get in shape, correct some aches and pains?" Dewan was not at all what I had expected. I thought he'd be one of those huge roided out guys I saw in the squat racks. Guys like... Anyways.

Dewan wasn't like that at all. He was fit, of course, but more like a martial artist or a dancer than a bodybuilder. When he told me that he was 52, I was floored; he didn't look like he was much over 30. He was a physical therapist that also did some personal training on the side; according to one of the girls at the front desk, I had been very lucky to pull him as my trainer.

"Uh. Bit of each? I... I don't actually know." I picked the gym out of the options that Tom suggested because, if I'm being honest, I wasn't entirely sold on the idea that I needed to go be social. I was hoping I could just work with Tom on it. Talking about it with other people just seemed so embarrassing. I wanted to put it all behind me. And it seemed unnecessary to do so. I was already coming around to the idea he was presenting, that I'd been gaslit by everyone. And it was making me very angry. Linda had noticed, I know.

And I suppose that was another part of it. Yeah, I'd never be Asshole. Just wasn't physically possible for me to be that big or that athletic. But I needed to be a better me if I did end things with Linda. I don't know if I was ever going to trust a woman again, or, hell, anyone for that matter, but I didn't want to let my body completely go. Just in case. And if I did resolve things with her, maybe I could... maybe I'd worry less about her fantasizing about Marc whenever we were together. God, I was pathetic.

Shit.

I mumbled under my breath, "I'm not pathetic." Dewan raised his eyebrow. "It's just a... my therapist says I have to stop negative self talk, even just thoughts."

"Sounds like a smart man." He regarded me. "Okay, so lose weight, get in shape. That's reasonable. You could probably do with losing 30 or so pounds of fat. We can definitely make a dent in that with diet. What do you do for a living?"

"Desk job. Just general business bullshit, really." I used to care so much more about my job. I'd found it hard to give a damn about it lately. Found it hard to give a damn about much of anything, really.

"Seated most of the day?" I nodded.

"I see you're favoring one of your legs. Knee pain, right?"

"Yeah, that's right. Last few months. I thought it was just the weight I've put on, but I'm worried it's something more serious."

"Well, let's see." He began to manipulate my leg, seeing how I reacted at various points. I hissed with pain a couple of times and he nodded. "Good news is, it doesn't look like there's any structural damage there. Stand up for me a moment." I did as he requested, and he prodded at my leg. "Yeah, yeah. There it is. Your muscles are imbalanced. Too much strength on one side, not enough on the other, so you're creating tension in your muscles just by, well, existing. Pretty common if you stay in one position for most of the day." He poked at a spot on my leg and I felt a sudden pain in my knee. "Okay, good. Sit down. We can take care of a bunch of this right now."

Dewan pulled out a thing that looked like a mix between a vibrator and a gun. He switched it on and started running it all over my thigh. It hurt like a bitch at first, but five minutes later, the pain in my knee was all but gone. "Massage gun. You can get one of these off of Amazon for like a hundred bucks, and you can use it every day. It won't fix the problem, but it can make it better for a while, long enough for us to correct the cause." He grinned. "You'd be amazed how often we mistake where pain is happening for why pain is happening. Human beings are pretty amazing, but damned hard to troubleshoot sometimes."

Well, if I had been a bit dubious about this before, I was all in now. That had been bugging me for months and the idea that it could be fixed so easily by just talking to the right person was, unsurprisingly, pretty attractive. "So, where do we begin?"

Therapy with Tom, Session 7 - Middle of October

"I just... I still don't know why Linda did it. I mean, I know why she said she did, but it was all contradictory. 'I couldn't help myself' and 'I wasn't in control,' but then she actively worked with Dee to distract me. It was the greatest sex she'd ever had, but not as great as with me. 'It didn't mean anything' and 'it was an experience I'd never forgive myself for missing out on.' And that stupid, insulting Maserati/minivan thing." I rolled my eyes. "Honestly, fuck you, Linda." I don't think I'd ever said that out loud before. I shook my head. "I just... I don't get it. I don't know I'm ever going to get past it without understanding that."

Tom nodded sympathetically. "I don't... you're not going to want to hear this, but I think there's a pretty good chance you're never going to know, because I think it's possible Linda doesn't actually know. The alternative is that she does know, but the answer is so awful... To her, the idea of telling you the truth about 'why' would mean the end of your marriage for sure. So she doesn't."

He sighed. "I will say this. She's... the picture you paint of her is a very self-serving woman. Very needy. She cheats on you with someone else. Then she just tries to bull through and pretend nothing is wrong. When that doesn't work, she makes excuses about why it isn't her fault, about how he's so magnetic and dominating. She wears that dress again for... whatever reason, to try to show you that nothing had changed; that's either an incredible level of self-delusion or flat out cruelty, and I'm not sure which. Then she explodes at you when you tell her how much you're hurting and how hard it is to trust her. Because she's feeling bad about herself, which... yeah, she should. Then she turns it around and guilts you into apologizing to her for not understanding how she's feeling!"