February Sucks - Sessions

He was on a roll now. "After the first time you have sex together, she actually brings him up again, by name-- by name!-- in her note to you, about how the sex wasn't as good as it was with him; she's trying to say how she still would prefer you, but that's about the most insulting way she could have gone about it. She tries to wear the dress, again, even though she knows it gave you a panic attack the last time she did; doesn't even try it on for you in private first, just throws it on for the date, and you have another panic attack. She has a full on meltdown when you dance, just dance, with Ellen-- "

I interrupted, "I would have done more with her."

He threw his hands in the air. "Yeah, after your wife had already fucked another man!" He was getting worked up pretty good now. "We're getting off topic about Linda, but, yeah, let's have this little aside. Pretending that you know what you'd have done with Ellen before your wife hurt you like that and after she hurt you like that, it's a fool's errand. Maybe you still would have gone with Ellen before; you can't know. I suspect no, but like I said: a fool's errand. What I do know is that you had a ton of unresolved trauma, and still do, for that matter. And she had just worn a dress that triggered a panic attack in you. She's the one that insisted you dance with Ellen.

"And then, when you saw your wife, distraught, you ran to her. Linda, on the other hand, knew how much pain you'd be in when she left, she saw you right after she danced with him, and she still did it. You could see on her face that she was afraid, that she knew she was doing the wrong thing. She still conspired with others to not only get away but to run interference for her. Let's also not ignore the fact that Ellen's literally a high class escort whose whole job that night was to seduce you; Marc might be a ladies man, and he might be a pro, but he's not that kind of pro. He doesn't know seduction the way she would."

He made a dismissive wave with his hand. "But we'll talk about that later; there's a lot to mine there. The point I was trying to get to is this: the only time where Linda actually took accountability for her actions, said what she had done was wrong, said she truly understood how she hurt you, and actually apologized for running off with Asshole-- " I smiled at his usage of my name for, well, Asshole. " -- is once she found out that you might actually leave her. Until she saw you with Ellen, she doubted that you ever would; it was only when she finally believed that there was a chance she might lose you that she actually took full responsibility for her actions and apologized for them, rather than just for how hurt you were. That's key: not how much she'd hurt you, how hurt you were. As if that was your fault, as if your pain was almost wholly independent of her actions."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you remember when I told you that when you first came to me with the story, I was worried you might be delusional to the point of schizophrenia? Well, I'll say this: Linda being delusional would be one of the nicest possible options here. Because the rest range from being a narcissist to a borderline sociopath."

"Has she ever volunteered to do things to earn your trust again? Not just try to be 'a better wife,' which is about as vague a term as one could hope for. I'm talking about the very basics for accountability after an affair: open phone and email policies, immediately answering calls and texts, allowing tracking of her, any of that kind of thing?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Do you think she'd do it if you asked?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Probably? She said she'd do anything, but she wouldn't even stop talking about Asshole in favorable terms, so what do I know?"

Tom sighed. "Let's talk about something that we haven't touched on yet. After L. W. revealed his involvement-- and we'll get back to that in a later conversation-- Linda's response was that she wasn't surprised that Ellen wasn't actually interested in you. How did that make you feel?"

Like shit. "Not great. That whole thing... I know you said we'd talk about it later, but that was, more than anything, what got me to come here. It wasn't the biggest betrayal, but it felt like the one that solidified things for me: everything in my life is fucked. It turned out that literally no one was really on my side, they were all just manipulating me. Even L. W., even if he thought it was for our own good, he still did it. And then he bragged about it! Like... Jesus, what was the point of that? Just to show how fucking clever he was, how he was yet another person able to pull the fucking wool over my eyes?

"Did he think that would somehow improve our situation? At that point, I believed it had been real, and I think Linda did, too. But now we both know it wasn't, and there was no way that I'd have pulled someone like Ellen; it put us back on uneven footing again. But he got a laugh about it; I guess that's what really counts."

I shook my head with disgust, thinking about what a so-called family friend had done to me. "And, of course, Linda's brought up the fact that Ellen wasn't 'real' a couple of times as a joke. But, like, a not-a-joke joke. Same kind of thing as when you catch some guy being racist and he tries to play it off as though he's just kidding around, that he wasn't actually being racist, and you need to have a sense of humor about it. That's how she is about Ellen. 'Oh, I think we both should have known she wasn't interested. Hahah, I'm kidding, my big silly man, you're wonderful.' Sure, Linda. Sure."

I was pissed now. Really pissed. I was starting to realize something: the problem wasn't the cheating. Not really. It wasn't even all of the people that had manipulated me. It was Linda. She surrounded us with those people, other than L. W. She tried to manipulate me until it was clear it wasn't working anymore. She asked them to manipulate me, tried to get us to keep hanging out with them.

Tom could see the wheels turning. "Yeah. Yeah. Tell me, what are you thinking now?"

"Something my trainer told me. 'You'd be amazed how often we mistake where pain is happening for why pain is happening.' He was talking about my knee. It hurt, but the reason it hurt was because of muscles near it, trying to tear it apart because of an imbalance. But now I'm thinking that, yeah, the affair hurt, but Linda is the one that's actually causing almost all of my pain; not just because she cheated, but everything before and after, too."

Tom nodded. "We're almost done for the day, but I want you to think about this before our next session: if your son, in twenty five years, came to you and said his wife was acting like Linda does, what would your advice be to him? If your daughter, in twenty five years, acted like Linda does, would you be proud of the girl you raised? Because the two of you are the examples for your kids. Your response to how Linda treats you, whether you stay with her and put up with it or leave and show you won't, that will influence them far into the future."

Personal Training with Dewan, Session 10 - Middle of November

"Yeah, bro, keep it up!" I was sweating my ass off, trying my best to keep up the pace Dewan was setting for me. But I was managing it, just barely.

What had started off as three times a week for thirty minutes at the gym quickly turned into six times for an hour. I got up early or I left after the kids went to bed. I tried to keep my distance from Linda these days, and the gym gave me an excuse to. I didn't want to screw up Christmas for the kids, but I was getting my ducks in a row. Even if I ended up getting screwed in the settlement, I was getting out.

Dewan ended up being very easy to talk to; I suppose he had, in his own way, seen as many people through their divorces as Tom. When he asked me a few weeks before why I was suddenly going so hard at the gym, I told him the whole thing: the affair, the aftermath, the manipulations by my friends and associates, all of it. His response? "That is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard, man."

"Okay, let's go into cooldown now." Thank god. "How's the knee feeling?"

I puffed, "Great, great. The foam roller stuff is doing wonders for it."

"And how're things, y'know. At home?"

"Honestly? A lot better. It's like... I know this is all fucked up. People aren't telling me it's normal now, or at least no one I'm listening to. I've cut those assholes out of my life. I know why I've been hurting, and I'm working on dealing with the cause, rather than the symptoms. And Linda is... how to put this delicately..."

He laughed knowingly, "I have an idea. You're looking better, got more stamina, stronger. She's wanting a lot more bedroom time, yeah?" A lot of divorces, like I said.

I stepped off the treadmill, because if I started laughing I'd probably fall off. "Yeah, something like that. It might be petty, but it feels good to turn her down. Or to not turn her down, but be selfish about it. Hatefuck her, I guess is what it's called." I shook my head. "The most frustrating thing is that it seems like she's enjoying sex with me now more than she was before. Guess it's just one more thing she's lied about."

He slapped me on the back. "You'll get through it, man. For as fucked up as everything you told me is, you're handling it like a champ." He looked up at the clock. "Ah, I gotta get to my next client. Finish up your cooldown, and I'll see you beginning of December. Happy Thanksgiving, Jim."

"You too, Dewan."

Therapy with Tom, Session 15 - Middle of December

Tom smirked. "Well, you're in a chipper mood today. Can't imagine why."

I laughed loudly. "Oh, I think you can."

"You're probably one of the only men in our fair city to be happy about what happened last night."

"Oh, that's almost certainly true. But I belong to a very exclusive, very unfortunate fraternity of men who hate that Asshole." I paused, contemplating. Ugh, this was going to suck to admit. "Although, in some ways, I suppose he kind of did me a favor. I look back at how Linda treated me, and it really was shitty for a long time. Yeah, him picking her out of a crowd and fucking her is... well, let's just say he absolutely deserved what he got. But I also probably would have lived out the rest of my life with that bitch." I smiled to myself. Tom had noted a few sessions back how much more "colorful" my language was now; something else I'd mostly given up because of Linda that was returning as her hold on me diminished. I used to cuss like a sailor; I was finding a new happy medium now.

I had missed the excitement when it happened; there was no way I was going to watch any football this year, if ever again. Especially not the home team. But one of my gym buddies that knew the story called me up chortling and told me to put on the game. And there, in glorious replay after glorious replay was Marc LaValliere's comeuppance. Karma. Divine justice. Whatever you want to call it.

An unblocked defensive lineman ended up hitting Marc juuuust right as he was coming down from catching the ball, and the American viewing public got to watch what happens when a man has his leg shattered in three places as he lands from a jump. Spoiler alert: it looked really painful. He'd never play again, never steal anyone else's wife on the dance floor again, and might never walk without a cane. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Tom asked. "How did it make you feel?"

"Honestly? I just laughed my ass off at first. It was great." I shook my head sadly. "But then I realized it didn't really fix anything. Yeah, I'm glad he won't be doing it to anyone else again, but..." I shrugged. "It didn't fix anything for me. Still, emotionally, just on a visceral level? Fucking amazing. I ended up grabbing my backup pack of smokes, the one that's been sitting unopened in my desk since I quit a year ago. Popped the seal, grabbed a couple and a lighter and went outside to smoke." Tom frowned at me. "I haven't touched them since; I tossed the pack afterwards." He nodded in begrudging approval. "But this felt like something I had to celebrate, at least a little."

I looked up at the ceiling. "Of course, within a couple of minutes, Linda was out there, asking why I was smoking again. I just started laughing like a lunatic and told her, and she looked at me like I was the devil incarnate." I cracked my neck, remembering how frustrated I'd been, then how cold I became. "She had the temerity to defend him. 'That's awful. Why are you celebrating something like that? I know he hurt you, but he was a perfect gentleman to me and does a lot for our city.'"

Tom raised an eyebrow. "And what did you say?"

"I blew a smoke ring in her face and said, 'Shut the fuck up, you cheating whore.' Not the most elegant choice of words, but I thought it got the point across."

"I assume things went poorly from there?"

I chuckled. "Not as immediately as you might think. She was dumbstruck for a moment; I think she wasn't expecting me to say anything like that; I've been her passive, loveydovey husband, her punching bag for so long without realizing it, that she had no frame of reference for my sudden display of spine. She tried to tell me, 'Well, what about the kids? Do you want them to see you smoking again? Doesn't it seem like a bad choice to you to pick that filthy habit again?'"

He tilted his head. "And?"

"I took another drag off of the cigarette and pointed it at her." I mimicked the motion from the night before. "'You don't get to talk to me about bad choices. Ever.' She started to argue, and I just laid into her. Listed out for her all the ways she's been an awful wife for at least the last five years, how she took me for granted, cheated on me, belittled me, tried to walk all over me, gaslit me, all of it. I'd planned to let this go until after the holidays, but I was just done with her. It was like a cork popping out of a bottle. Told her we were getting a divorce, and if she tried to take the kids from me, I'd use every single trick at my disposal to bury her, starting with the letters she'd so kindly written for me, as well as the therapy session tapes you've been recording for me, if they were useful."

Tom leaned forward, concerned. "Was that wise?"

With a snort, I said, "Probably not. But I had just seen Asshole's leg get broken in slow motion from multiple angles over and over again, I was having my first cigarette in a year, and Linda decided that would be the best time to try to lecture me." I shrugged. "If I had it to do all over again, I probably would have kept my mouth shut, but I'm glad I didn't. It feels good to have all of my cards on the table."

"So, what do you plan to do now?"

"Well, she begged me to stay together. Wants to do couples counseling. There's no chance it's going to work, but since we have kids, and I made the mistake of staying together with her after what happened with Asshole, the court will probably order us to attend sessions. I've looked into it, and we can get the jump on getting that out of the way by doing it ourselves. So it basically plays into my plans anyways; and as a bonus, she'll likely be walking on eggshells around me for a while." I laughed. "I guess sometimes things do work themselves out. So, can you recommend someone?"

Couples counseling with Liz, Solo Session 2 - End of January

Liz was an older woman, almost matronly. She was on her second marriage; the first one had ended after she'd cheated on her husband of five years. I was not thrilled about this when I found out, but Tom swore up and down that she was the best couples counselor in the city. She'd agreed to take Linda and me on as clients as a favor to him. After she reviewed the recordings of my first three sessions with Tom that went through our history, she said, "Well. This is one of the most unusual things I've ever heard." I don't think the words "fucked up" existed in her vocabulary.

"Jim, I understand that you still plan to go through with the divorce?" I nodded. Linda had done her whole song and dance again for Liz in our early sessions, about how awful she felt and she'd do anything to fix our marriage, if only I'd just learn how to let it go. Liz, being the shrewd counselor she was, recognized how little of what Linda was saying actually held water.

"I don't see any reason why not to. She's not going to change; she's barely willing to admit to wrongdoing in the first place, and she still makes little jabs at me about how much better he was in bed, about how Ellen was a prostitute, how a real man would stay together for his family, all of it."

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, then nodded. "I agree. People can only change if they're willing to, and she's not. I'm going to write up the documentation that will let you skip court-mandated counseling; or rather, that shows you've already been attending sessions with me, and that I agree there's no chance of reconciliation here."

I nodded slowly, a bit confused. "Okay, that sounds great, but why did I need to come in for a session to hear that? You could have just called me."

"The couple, or its constituent parts, has to attend a minimum number of sessions before I can sign off. This session will count as the final necessary one." She seemed hesitant. "But there is something else. Because you're both my clients, and because this is couples counseling, I can share some things I've learned with you. I don't have a definitive answer for why Linda did what she did. But I do have some insight, and I think, based on what she's told me, that I'm at least within the ballpark. Do you want to hear what I think, or would you prefer to not know?"

I thought. There was a point where I'd have given just about anything to know why she did what she did. Now? I only wanted to be done with her. But there was a little nagging curiosity there. "Do you think I want to know? Is this something where you're going to tell me that she's been cheating on me for our whole marriage or something?"

"Mmmm no, nothing that drastic. I do think it might give you some context. Her reasoning is still very flimsy, very self-serving. But it might help you understand that there was nothing you could have done to prevent this, other than not being there that night. Or, alternately, if you'd been a much worse husband, you might also have avoided it."

Well, that perked my ears up. "Okay, sure. Now I have to know."

"Before the affair, when was the last time you got angry at her? I mean really angry, slamming doors and people crying angry?"

I had to think. "It's been years. Since before Emma was born, so call it eight years now? I don't even remember what it was about exactly; she had done something relatively minor, but thoughtless. Careless. I think she had overdrafted our account buying some minor luxury, and we were going to miss paying a couple of bills. I flew off the handle shouting at her, I admit, and she ended up crying. I slept on the couch. We reconciled the next day, and I decided I wasn't ever going to make her cry like that again. And I didn't, until..." I sighed. "So, yeah. Not for a long time until she cheated on me."

"Do you do repairs around the house?" She held her hand up when she saw the confusion on my face. "I know it sounds like a nonsequitur, but indulge me. I assure you, it's perfectly on point for our discussion."

"Yeah, I do some. Most of them, actually. My general rule is that if it involves shutting off the water or the power to the house, I leave it to a professional."

She nodded. "And the same with car repair?"

"I change the oil, do the basic maintenance, all of that. But any major repairs, I'd take it into a shop."

She nodded. "Linda mentioned that she had a big car accident due to her carelessness. It cost you guys a bunch of money after the deductible, rentals, lost wages, and everything else. But you handled it with great grace and compassion towards her. She was quite appreciative of that."