Love, Betrayal, Love Ch. 03

"Yeah, quite a lot actually."

"Okay, I will let you know that Katie has explained to me why her friends arranged for her to meet with Jake. What she had told her friends before they did this. Did the conversation or argument as you say, did it explain this for you?"

"Yes, pretty graphically."

"Oh really, how so?"

"Well Rachel and Simone didn't take too kindly to being blamed for Katie's actions and they let her know it, and then some."

"Okay, do you remember what they said to Katie?"

"Pretty clearly, this conversation used to play on repeat in my head when I was first dealing with the breakup."

"Well, if you don't mind I would like to hear, to see if it aligns with what Katie states the reasons for them were."

At this point I looked down at the floor, sucking in a breath for what was going to be embarrassing and damaging to my male ego to say the words out aloud and to another woman.

"Remember Greg, when I said there would be uncomfortable moments, I wasn't lying right?"

I looked back up to Dr Forsyth, her expression was that of a mother's who was consoling their child after scraping their knee. She gave me the belief to continue.

"Well for a start they told Katie that they did not force her to fuck Jake that night or every other night, that it was Katie who wanted that, that is was not on them."

Dr Forsyth just nodded, waiting for me to continue.

"That Katie even used to make sure that the one Friday night that she would take me with her was when it was her time of the month, because she couldn't fuck Jake on that night anyway."

Dr Forsyth was checking her notes as I spoke, then looked back up at me. When I remained silent for a few seconds she spoke up.

"Are you leaving out the other parts on purpose or because it hurts to say them out aloud?"

I nodded and then continued.

"They basically said that Katie had wanted to fuck Jake all along, and she had told them that I could not fuck her as well as Jake could, I could not give her the orgasms that he could, that I had a small dick and she missed his big cock. They said Katie had told them all this and then they arranged for her to meet and fuck Jake because of that."

"I know that wasn't easy Greg, but it's about to get a whole lot harder. At least now we are to the heart of the issues that you will need to deal with if you are to move forward."

"That I need to deal with? Wouldn't Katie need to deal with this too?"

"Yes, she has been through her sessions. Katie is also having to deal with a whole range of other things though that you will not have to."

"Like what? The guilt she feels I guess?"

"Amongst others, yes."

"Okay, are you ready? This will be difficult for you but it is essential that you answer honestly and thoughtfully. You can take a bit of time to answer each one."

Dr Forsyth then looked down at her notes to read from them.

"First one is that Katie had said that you could not fuck her as well as Jake could. Do you believe that to be true?"

"I would assume so, or why else would she have bothered with all this?"

"How did that make you feel to know another man could fuck the woman you love better than you could?"

"I felt hurt and betrayed that she thought so little our relationship that it came down to whether or not I could fuck her as well as he did. That she was prepared to destroy what we had because she enjoyed fucking him more. It hurt."

Dr Forsyth wrote down some notes, then looked back up to me.

"I will tell you that this took quite some time to work through with Katie in her sessions. However, I do think there may be a disconnect here between how you think Katie felt and with what Katie actually felt."

"Both you and Katie have told me previously that throughout your relationship you enjoyed sex daily, sometimes more. And I used the word 'enjoyed' Greg because do you honestly think that Katie would have had sex with you so often if it was something she did not enjoy?"

"I could never get my head around why we had sex so much when it was another guy she wanted. I wondered if it was because she felt guilty, but we had sex just as much before she started seeing him as well. I just honestly don't know."

"Well I will lay your mind to rest, Katie did enjoy having sex with you Greg, very much so. We will get into why Katie wanted to have sex with Jake, and why she told her friends that as well."

I let out a big breath, this was getting more difficult.

"Next is that you could not provide her with the orgasms that he could. Were you able to make Katie have orgasms?"

"Not during intercourse. It was something that bugged me for a while, we tried so hard to get her to have vaginal orgasms but she could never manage to have them."

"How did you feel to know that she could have those orgasms with Jake, that he could give her those when you could not?"

"For a long while I felt like I was a poor lover, that it was my fault. I had a complete lack of self-confidence for quite a while."

"What changed that?"

"When I eventually had another relationship, I was able to get her to consistently orgasm during intercourse. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders. It wasn't that I was not good enough to give Katie an orgasm, it was just that she needed something different to me to provide those for her."

"You have given this some thought, haven't you?"

"Far too much unfortunately."

"Okay Greg you're doing really well. Just one more. This one is that Katie had said you have a small dick and that she had missed Jake's big cock. How does that make you feel to be compared to her lover and found wanting?"

"Inadequate, Emasculated. My self-esteem, my male pride or ego or whatever, they were pretty much destroyed to know that Katie thought that my dick was small, that it was pathetic."

"Was it Katie that used the word 'pathetic' to describe your dick, or is that how you think she feels about the size of your dick?"

"How I think she feels about it, I guess. I think her friends said Katie told them she wasn't happy with my small dick."

"Not happy with it or just that it was small?"

"Why would Katie talk about my dick being small to her friends if she wasn't happy with it?"

"I will get to that shortly, let's move on."

"Alright, what about the fact Katie had told her friends about your small dick, did being exposed like that by the person you loved and trusted the most, did that have an effect on you?"

"Yes, I felt like Katie and her friends were ridiculing me, mocking and belittling me. But what hurt the most was that Katie showed so little respect for me. That she would tell her friends these things. No, she didn't just tell them, they said she was complaining to them about these things. That made it even worse to know that Katie was that disappointed with me sexually, that it was enough for her to start complaining to her friends about it."

"Okay, well done Greg. Just take a moment to gather your thoughts."

Dr Forsyth continued to add notes for the next two minutes, then looked back up to me before talking.

"Greg, the sessions I had with Katie, we spent a lot of time just trying to get to the point where Katie could be honest with herself and with me about why she was fucking Jake. It will explain why she told or 'complained' I think is the term you said they used, to her friends about what were her sexual frustrations at the time."

"First off Greg, did you ever get a reason from Katie as to why she was having sex outside your relationship?"

"No, not really. Katie said they were just sexually good together, that she could not deny him or some bullshit at the time."

"Understandable, I don't think Katie really knew the reasons why when she told you those things. I don't think she understood what her motives were, just that she had them."

"It took Katie almost two complete sessions for her to understand the nature of her relationship with Jake, how it evolved from when they first started having sex, to why she craved it again during your marriage. Hopefully it will clear a few things up for you."

"First thing is yes, Jake is according to Katie, very well endowed. Now I'm not stating this to make you feel bad Greg, just bear with me. When they first started having sex Katie said it was extremely painful, also that she felt like she was bad at sex, that she was letting Jake down because she struggled greatly to only be able to take some of his penis inside of her."

"Katie said she then slowly learned that she could relax her vagina to allow more of his penis to penetrate her. Katie said she could achieve this by allowing herself to want this, to want more of him by submitting to it. To him. She explained that when she did this she was able to take him in much deeper, but that in doing so also allowed her to get a great deal of pleasure from it."

"She explained it as having to be in a particular mindset so she could enjoy it, and when she did the pleasure she got from it was like nothing she had experienced via masturbation. Katie said that she could orgasm repeatedly during sex. But that it was not the size of his penis that provided all that pleasure, or not only the size, but rather the fact she had to allow herself to submit to him to get her pleasure."

I was a little stunned by all this, did Katie have a submissive side to her sexuality that I had no clue about?

"Then there was the risk aspect, Katie in her sessions divulged that she did very much enjoy talking risks with you to have sex when you were both living in dorm accommodation. She explained that it was something she learned to crave, that she would purposefully pick spots to engage in sex with you that carried even higher risks of getting caught."

"When you both moved into apartments, she said you did not want to take those risks anymore, and that she tried to coerce you to continue but could tell you did not enjoy it like she had, so she stopped. When Jake turned up at the club, apart from her desire to submit to him for her own pleasure, she also got the thrill back of taking a risk, the risk of being caught."

"So maybe now you can see why Katie would have difficulty explaining why she was cheating on you, there was no single reason but a combination that she herself did not fully understand at the time. Once she was able to get her sexual gratification, she was left craving more. Not all the time but occasionally, and it was something you were not able to provide her. In fact part of it relied on that you were not the one providing her that."

"Now I will remind you that Katie was adamant that this in no way meant that she enjoyed sex with you any less. She said that sex with you was terrific, it was with the man she loved, that she craved having sex with you far more than she craved for her encounters with Jake."

"But the fact she sometimes wanted those encounters with Jake and could not stop wanting them is a big part of her depression. She felt guilty every time she did it, but even more so she hated herself for wanting or needing it, for not being strong enough to stop it knowing how much it would and then did hurt you."

I sat there quiet, then I slowly rubbed my face. After all this time I am only now just getting to understand why all this shit happened, why she cheated on me.

"So, her complaining to her friends about Jake being better than me, dick sizes and orgasms, are you saying that she was just getting frustrated because she wasn't just missing the sex with Jake, but the mindfuck she had with him, and the risk taking she had with me?"

"Well, that is one way of summarizing it, but yes. I think you have stated it quite well."

Again, I looked out of the window, thinking about how it took so long to get to this point. If Katie had been able to explain this when we were together maybe things could have gone way differently.

"Okay Greg, we need to get back on to resolving your outstanding feelings about all this. These feelings will not resolve themselves just because you now have a better idea of what caused this to begin with, we still need to work our way through alright?"

I looked back at Dr Forsyth and nodded, ready to continue.

"Greg, in describing how you felt about why Katie cheated on you, the words you have used included hurt, betrayed, lack of self-confidence, inadequate, emasculated, low self-esteem, pathetic, ridiculed, mocked, belittled, little respect, and disappointed sexually. Would you agree with those and are there any other words you want to add to describe how you felt about why Katie cheated on you?"

"No nothing further. I could add a large range of emotional words to express my response at the time to why Katie cheated, but I'm not sure how that would help right now. Words like anger, fury, slut, whore, just to name a few."

"No they won't, your emotional responses are completely natural though. We all respond with those type of emotions in response to being hurt, they can help us to cope with it in the moment. However, what rehashing those emotions won't do is help you to move forward."

"Tell me Greg, the words describing how you felt about why Katie cheated on you, do you still feel that way now, three years later?"

"My confidence and self-esteem are no longer in the gutter, the two relationships I've had since greatly helped to restore those."

"The feeling of being sexually inadequate I guess is all relative. To most men I would not, to guys with trunks for a penis perhaps so. But it's not like a can grow a bigger penis so you just have to shrug that one off."

"As for being mocked, belittled and so on with her friends. That doesn't bother me anymore, The two friends in question are no longer Katie's friends anyway and I don't really care what they think."

"The feelings that are still there however, that I still think about, is the lack of respect Katie showed me, it's her betrayal and the breaking of the trust between us which ties back to the lack of respect. But also, that I felt that she thought of me as being sexually pathetic or at least inferior, not that she admitted that to me. They are the two main ones."

"Well done Greg, today has not been easy for you I'm sure, but we have made some terrific progress. Today was all about laying the details of your breakup with your feelings on the table, and then identifying what was actually important for you."

"The next session is to work on those two issues identified to understand if they can be addressed by yourself, or if they require Katie's involvement."

"I want to book another session for you later this week, will you be able to attend another so soon? I think you will only need the one more session."

"Yes, my hours at work can be flexible so I should be able to rearrange accordingly."

"Please take this note with you to reception and see what they can do for you. Well, until later this week Greg."

"Thanks Ana."

------------------------

That evening I got home from work when Katie called.

"Hi Greg, just wanted to know how your first session went with Ana?"

"It went okay Katie, I'm not sure we're meant to be discussing it just yet though, I have another session on Thursday."

"Oh, I didn't want any of the details, just wanted to know that you were okay."

"Yeah, I am. It is tough confronting all this stuff though. And that was only one session, I'm hoping you're okay after five of them."

"Yeah it's been hard. But good, I've learned a few things about myself during these sessions."

"Has it been different to the sessions you had before, the two shrinks you went to see about your depression?"

"Oh yeah for sure. They kind of ignored my relationship with you because break-ups happen, get over it you know. They focused on my feeling of despair without really going back to why I felt that way. I think they thought that my emotions from our break-up would go away over time. They gave me medications to take and sent me on my way."

"This time we are going into the reasons for my depression. And I am having to confront them step by step."

"And that has taken five sessions, that's a lot of reasons?"

"We probably could have got it all done in maybe three sessions if I'm being honest. I spent a lot of time avoiding the truth with Ana, not wanting to admit things about myself or with you. It's been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I got there in the end though."

"That's good. Look Ana thinks that I will only need the one more session before we wrap up with our joint sessions next week."

"Good, look Greg a big part of why I'm calling is also I wanted to know what you are doing on Saturday night? If you would like to go to a movie with me?"

I was silent, this would be us having an actual 'date' for the first time since our divorce. Katie I'm sure could sense my apprehension.

"It doesn't have to be a date Greg, just us being friends going to see a movie like we used to."

"No, it's alright Katie, it can be a date if you would like it to be. I will pick you up at 7pm and we can share a large popcorn and soda like we used to."

"Thanks Greg, I would love that."

"See you Saturday then, bye Katie."

"Bye Greg."

-------------------

I sat down in Dr Forsyth's office to begin my second session, Ana was again quickly reviewing her notes before starting the conversation.

"So today Greg, we are going to work on the outstanding issues to overcome for you to be in a place where you could move forward either with or without Katie.

Those issues mainly boil down to the two main items."

"First the lack of respect you felt from Katie which also ties together with her breaking of trust between you and her betrayal of your relationship. These I think can be tackled as one single item."

"The second is that you feel you cannot fulfill Katie's sexual needs, that you are sexually inadequate for her."

Ouch. Just hearing Ana boil it down to that and say it aloud hurt.

"Okay Greg, you are a smart guy and I know you have given your relationship break-up with Katie a lot of thought. So can you answer me this question, did you ever come to a conclusion after the break-up on why Katie showed you such little respect in taking a lover, in betraying your love for her?"

"Only that her sexual gratification outweighed the risk of losing me. That she didn't love me as deeply as I loved her."

"Okay but that's two different conclusions. Do you still believe that Katie's love for you did not match your love for her?"

I thought about that for a moment, knowing how we were together, knowing all that Katie has gone through since, how she has waited for me. It was clear to me she always loved me like I loved her.

"No, I think she does love me. I think it was easier for me to accept what happened if I could simply think that her love for me was not the same or less than what I had for her."

"So do you want to retract or change your second conclusion?"

"Yes, remove it."

"That leaves us with you feeling that she was placing her sexual gratification over your relationship together. Would you agree?"

"Yes."

Ana went back to her notes, added a few then looked back up to me.

"So you do realize then that our two items are basically now just one?"

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"So, what we have to address Greg, is how can you overcome your feelings that you are not good enough sexually for Katie, and her need for sexual gratification that you cannot provide her."

"And I want to be clear Greg, this is not about whether you are actually good or not performing sexually. Both Katie and I'm sure your girlfriends since Katie would attest to you being good enough to be able to please them sexually. This part is about is your belief that you are not good enough for Katie sexually, for you to be able to find ways to overcome that."

"Well, I'm not sure I will ever be able to satisfy Katie the way she needs, the way Jake did, so I don't know how we progress past that."