Marriage Counseling

This is the first story I have written since a creative writing course in grad school over thirty years ago. This story is meant to shake off the mental cobwebs and to discipline myself to actually start and finish a story rather than write half a story and never get back to it. This story does not advance the genre or break new ground; it's a writing exercise so I can try to finish some of the longer, more creative stories that are percolating in the back of my mind.

I also appreciate any feedback. I will never turn off voting or comments for anything I write nor will I delete any comments. I am amazed that some authors on this site are so thin-skinned that they have to cull through their comments and weed out any that don't praise them for being the second coming of Faulkner. As anyone in the arts knows, if you are going to believe the good reviews, you have to believe the bad reviews. Anyway, end of rant.

Marriage Counseling

"So, Traci...do you mind if I call you Traci?" Dr. Karen asked and then without waiting for an answer continued her question. "So, Traci, what is it that you are hoping to get out of these sessions?"

Based on her initial video consultation she knew generally what the issues were in the Briley's marriage but she wanted Traci to articulate what her goals and objectives were. Making sure that all parties were on the same page was a necessary first step in marriage counseling.

This was her first session with the Briley's; Traci and Jack. Although she had spoken with Traci on a Zoom call, this was her first time seeing Traci's husband. Jack Briley stood a couple of inches over six-feet and was lean, with the body of a runner rather than someone who spent hours in the gym bulking up. Clean shaven with thick blond hair worn a little long on his collar.

Traci Briley was shorter at maybe five-five or -six and Karen guessed her weight to be in the one-hundred-twenty-five-pound range. She too, had blonde hair which today was being worn in a pony-tail that ended between her shoulder blades. Medium sized breasts and fantastic legs that were shown off by the black pencil skirt and heels that. The tanned legs were the legs of an athlete. Muscular calves that her four-inch heels showed off to nice effect.

"Since I went back to work six months ago, my husband has become controlling and emotionally abusive. He is constantly trying to violate my right to privacy. I took off work for a few years to be a stay-at-home mom, and now that our girls are in school, I started working again. Jack has become insanely jealous and his controlling and manipulative behavior has gotten out of hand. My goal in marriage counseling is to assure Jack that he has nothing to worry about and that his controlling behavior needs to end."

Karen watched Jack's face as his wife described the problem from her point of view. His face was expressionless and almost detached as his wife spoke. Karen could very easily see him being a controlling asshole.

"Thank you, Traci. Jack, let's build on what Traci said. Tell me, what do you see as the problem in your marriage?"

Jack Briley locked eyes with Karen and then turned his eyes to watch his wife. He then spoke with a flat, unemotional tone, "My wife is having an emotional affair with her supervisor. I want her to quit her job and never have contact with him again."

Traci rolled her eyes in disgust. "You see what I'm talking about? I get this same nonsense day in and day out and I. Am. Sick. Of. It." Traci spat out the last part in a mix of anger and frustration.

Karen swiveled towards Jack, "That's a very inflammatory accusation, Jack. I do have a couple of questions for you; why do you consider her relationship with her supervisor to be an affair and what evidence do you have?"

Jack sat back in his chair and looked at first Traci and then the marriage counselor. "I'll answer, but first I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind. Traci chose you and met with you, but I never got a chance to speak with you."

Karen gave him an appraising look. "You can ask me a couple of questions. If I think they are inappropriate I will simply refuse to answer them."

"Fair enough." Jack again locked eyes with Karen. "Are you married?"

"No, I am not married," Karen replied.

"Have you ever been married?"

Karen was generally uncomfortable speaking about her personal life, but she also knew that the hallmark of a good counselor was the ability to be open and vulnerable with clients. To an extent.

"Yes, I have been married, however I've been divorced for several years now." Karen was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this line of questioning.

"Why did you get divorced?"

Okay, now the questions were completely inappropriate, Karen thought to herself. Before Karen could respond, Jack asked a follow-up question.

"Was there infidelity involved?"

"My marriage is not relevant to your marriage. Your marriage and my marriage are in no way alike and the breakdown of my marriage is not something we will be discussing further." Karen could tell she was coming off as angry and not compassionate. She had to get a handle on her emotions. Why did Jack Briley have to go to that sore spot?

"I'm going to take that as yes," Jack replied.

"Yes, there was infidelity involved," Karen said, her lips compressed into a pale, thin, hard line.

"Thank you for your honesty," Jack replied. "The reason I say that this is an emotional affair is because not only do they see each other all day at work, but they're constantly texting each other at night and on the weekend. Every time we're out, she spends most of her time on her phone with her boss. She refuses to show me her texts and turns her phone away from me so that I cannot see what she is doing. She sleeps with her phone under her pillow and takes it into the bathroom with her. We haven't had sex in three months and if she is not sleeping with her boss now, I know she'll be in bed with him soon."

Karen looked appraisingly at Traci. This was a much different spin on the story than what Traci had related to her over Zoom. "Traci, is Jack accurate is what he is saying?"

Traci again had an angry, disgusted look on her face. "No! I text with a lot of people. I have family and friends that I trade messages with. He is just being sad and pathetic. He wants to control me and not let me have any friends."

"Jack, do you have any evidence to support what you are accusing Traci of?

Jack reached into the backpack that he had placed on the floor as he had taken his seat at the beginning of the session. He extracted several pages and handed them to Karen.

"What am I looking at?" Karen asked.

"That's our phone bill from four months ago. If you look at page four, that's where Traci's cell phone details begin. It ends on page five. You can count them if you want, but she has a little over three hundred total texts that month. Mostly to me, her sisters and her mom."

"What are you doing Jack? You're proving my point for me" Traci said. She had sat silently so far, but Jack was really starting to piss her off with this BS.

Jack reached into his backpack and pulled out another document; this one noticeably thicker. "This is our last month's phone bill." Jack handed the pages to Karen. "Traci's cell phone detail begins on page four, just like the other one. Tell me what page it ends on?"

Karen thumbed through the pages and looked up in surprise, "Page twelve. There are seven more pages of texts on this bill than the other bill you showed me."

"Correct," Jack said. "Now look at the phone numbers."

"It's almost all the same number," Karen replied. "It looks like thousands of texts to the same number." Karen turned towards Traci. "Traci?"

"I text my boss! So fucking what? We have a really good relationship and he gets me! But I am not cheating on you! I am not having an affair!" Traci shouted at Jack.

Karen looked at Jack whose expression was the opposite of Traci's. While she was agitated and emotional, he was calm and almost placid in his demeanor.

"Prove it," Jack said.

That statement brought both Traci and Karen up short. It wasn't up to Traci to prove she wasn't having an affair; it was up to Jack to prove she was having an affair.

"How can I prove I'm not doing something?" Traci asked. "You can't prove a negative. Asking me to do that is as ridiculous as you thinking I am having an affair."

"You can prove it to my satisfaction," Jack said sticking out his hand. "All you have to do is let me read your texts."

Traci looked towards Karen. "Can you believe what I have to deal with? This is what I meant when I said I have no privacy." She rolled her eyes at Jack. "Fine. You want to read my texts?" Traci reached into her purse and pulled out her iPhone.

"Go for it. Afterwards you can apologize to me and drop this whole ridiculous topic." She handed her phone to Jack after unlocking the screen.

Jack reached into his backpack and pulled out a laptop and a cable. He plugged one end of the cable into Traci's iPhone and the other end into the laptop. He then opened the laptop.

"What are you doing?" Traci asked. She had a panicked look on her face.

"I purchased recovery software for iPhones. This will restore all deleted texts, photos and videos." Jack punched a couple of buttons on his laptop and watched the screen.

"No!!" Traci shrieked and lunged for her phone, grabbing it from Jack. She ripped her phone out of his hand and the sync cable with along with it."

Karen was startled by Traci's sudden reaction. Jack seemed to expect it.

"I am not going to let you violate my privacy!" Traci shouted.

"Traci," Karen said gently, "This doesn't look good for you. It makes it seem like you are hiding things."

"I have a right to privacy." She looked at Jack. "I'm your wife. You have to trust me."

Karen looked at Jack. "She is right about that. If you don't trust her, you don't have a marriage. Everyone deserves privacy."

Jack looked from Karen to Traci and then back towards Karen. "Do you know the difference between privacy and secrecy?"

"I don't know Jack, why don't you explain it to us," Traci said with a vaguely aggressive tone.

"Everyone's entitled to privacy in a marriage. You want to use the bathroom behind a closed door? That's privacy. You want to keep a diary or journal? That's privacy. You see, privacy doesn't affect the marriage. It doesn't help the marriage nor does it hurt the marriage. Privacy has a completely neutral effect on a marriage.

You can't say the same thing about secrecy. When you have relationships and conversations with members of the opposite sex and you exclude your spouse, then you have gone beyond privacy and are now leading a secret life. Secrecy is harmful to a marriage. You know as well as I do, that the texts you have exchanged with your boss will hurt me and will hurt our marriage. That is why you will not let me see them. You know that if I see what the two of you are saying and doing that I will file for divorce."

Traci had tears running down her face. "That's not true! Some of our texts may have crossed the line a little but I have not cheated on you! I am not going to cheat on you!" Traci sobbed softly.

"Where does that leave us, Jack" Karen asked. "The counseling goals that you stated at the beginning of our session left little room for compromise. Are you going to forbid Traci from working."

"You mean make rules?" Jack shook his head. "She's an adult."

Just as he had asked about privacy versus secrecy, Jack had another question for the counselor. "Do you know the difference between rules and boundaries?"

Karen nodded. "I do, but why don't you tell us what you are thinking?"

"Rules are what you make for other people. 'You must do this' or "You can't do that.' Making rules for children is one thing, but you can't make rules for adults. What you can do is set boundaries for yourself and create consequences when someone crosses those boundaries. For example, 'I am not comfortable when you do that. If you continue to make me uncomfortable, then there will be consequences.' You see, boundaries are for your own protection."

"What are you saying Jack?" Traci had stopped crying but her face was still wet from her tears.

"The same thing I said at the beginning. Your continued employment at this job and your relationship with your supervisor make me feel unsafe in our marriage and uncomfortable in our relationship. If you continue to make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable then there will be consequences."

Traci and Karen looked at each other and then looked at Jack.

"You can't make me quit my job," Traci said.

"Wouldn't even try," Jack said. "That would be making a rule. I'm not making any rules for you."

"But if I don't quit, there will be consequences you said."

"Correct," Jack replied.

"How is that not making a rule? You are forcing a decision upon me that you made!" Traci cried out in frustration.

"I don't see it that way. You have a choice; continue actions that make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable or end those actions in order to make me feel safe and comfortable. The choice is entirely yours."

"What are the consequences?" Karen asked.

"Excuse me?" Jack responded.

"You laid out what your boundaries were and said there would be consequences for crossing those boundaries. I think it's reasonable for Traci to know about the consequences of her crossing your boundaries."

"Why, so she can do a cost-benefit analysis of crossing my boundaries? So, she can decide if the juice is worth the squeeze?" Jack shook his head. "That's not the way this works. She just needs to know that there will be consequences. Besides, even if she knew in advance what the consequences were, do you think that would stop her."

"Yes, they would," Traci said. She had stopped crying and wiped her face.

"What's the most severe legal penalty that can be given for a crime?" Jack asked.

"The death penalty? I don't think you can kill me for crossing a so-called boundary," Traci laughed.

Jack gave a mirthless smile. "I wouldn't even if you deserved it. But you're correct about the death penalty. For several crimes, the death penalty is on the table. And yet people still commit those crimes. Knowing in advance what the consequences are for those crimes, does not seem to prevent criminals from committing those crimes. They just try to do a better job of hiding the crime. So no, I'm not telling you what the consequences of crossing my boundaries are. What is that internet acronym? FAFO?"

"Fuck around; find out," Traci mumbled.

"That's all the time we have for today, so on that pleasant note, we'll stop today's session. We have another session scheduled two weeks from today. I have a really good feeling about what we accomplished today." This was Karen's go-to session wrap up line. Truthfully, she had no idea what Jack was thinking.

Traci stood up smiling at her husband but Jack just looked at her sadly and shook his head.

+++

"You missed a really good session two weeks ago," Karen said. "Traci said that you had to suddenly go out of town on business."

"I told him that we had a really productive meeting," Traci said to Karen. "I feel much better about our marriage going forward."

Jack seemed even more relaxed this session than he had the last session. That session he seemed sad and resigned. This session he was almost cheerful. This session would be a good one, Karen thought.

Traci began, "One of the things Dr. Karen and i talked about was transparency and how important that is in a marriage." Traci pushed her cell phone towards Jack. "You can go through it and recover my texts," Traci said.

"Thank you, Traci," Jack said with a grin. "That's not necessary. I'm pretty sure that by now you've done a factory reset on your phone."

"You certainly seem much happier than at our last session," Karen said. "The way that the session ended had me very concerned for you."

Jacked waved off her concerns. "I'm in a much better state of mind now than I was then."

"Ever since he got home from his out-of-town business trip, he's been much more relaxed and happier," Traci said. "I think the trip was good for him. And me," Traci said cheefully.

"You both seem much happier today. I don't believe either one of you smiled during our last joint session," Karen said.

"She does have a beautiful smile, doesn't she?" Jack asked. "Her smile just lights up the room."

Karen nodded at Traci's happily smiling face. Her blinding smile gave proof to Jack's compliment.

"I always loved making her smile. I must have a thousand photos on my phone of Traci smiling. Let me show you my favorite picture of her. This is Traci's smile at her happiest." Jack pulled out his cell phone and held it up so they could see the photo. It was a photo of a smiling Traci. She looked radiant. Her shining eyes expressed the joy that she felt in life and her laughing eyes let you know that this was a person completely and totally happy with their life.

Jack looked up at Traci. "Do you remember this one hon? You look so happy in this picture."

"I don't remember exactly where that was taken," Traci replied as she made a pinching gesture with her thumb and forefinger. "Can you shrink it down?"

"You bet," Jack said. Still holding his cell phone so that it faced Traci and Karen, Jack slowly made the pinching gesture on the screen.

As Karen and Traci watched, the photo of Traci started shrinking as the background took shape. As Traci got smaller, you could tell that she was a few feet in front of a door. As Traci continued to shrink, an arm came into view with its hand on the doorknob, As Traci continued to shrink down, the full image of the person behind her took form.

"Baby, let me explain..." Traci said. Her sobs soon turned to hyperventilation as she began to understand what she was seeing.

Jack ignored her as he continued to pinch his phone screen. It was obviously Traci exiting a motel room with a man. Traci started wailing.

"Her supervisor?" Karen asked sadly.

"You got it in one," Jack said. "And look at that time stamp. Four hours after her session with you." Jack made a flicking gesture across the phone's screen. It was another photo of Traci in front of the motel door, this time entering.

"Look at that time stamp," Jack said. "Less than an hour after your session with her ended, she is in a motel room with the person that she said she would never cheat on me with. Nice job of marriage counseling. I don't think you get credit for the save."

Traci wailed even louder at hearing this. "I am so sorry, baby. We can fix this. It meant nothing. I will quit my job. We can work on saving our marriage."

Jack smiled and shook his head. "Those consequences you wanted to know about? Well guess what they are? I am going to divorce you. That's a given. I no longer want you to quit your job. You're going to need the income." Jack handed Traci a business card. "This is my attorneys' contact information. You need to find yourself an attorney and give him my guy's information.

Before coming here, I had all your belongings packed up and dropped off at your parent's house. They are not happy with you but they have agreed that you can stay with them. The house was mine before we were married so it will not be part of the settlement. And I don't want you there. After today, I never want to see you again."

At this, Traci went into a full-blown meltdown as Jack stood and walked to the door.

Karen looked like she was in shock. "Are you going to do anything about your wife?"

Jack shook his head. "You mean my soon to be ex-wife? No, she's your problem You had the chance to hold her accountable and you didn't take it. You made such a great impression on her last session, that she immediately went out and cheated on me after leaving you. By the way, I found out that when you said that your marriage ended due to infidelity, it was actually your infidelity, not your husband's.