Pain
March, 1998
It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen Dr. Maria. I cancelled last week because I needed a reprieve from facing the fact that my life is a freaking mess. I’ve been a total wreck since I called Leo and told him I decided to go forward with my big fat fake wedding. I can’t focus on anything, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. Since that phone call, I’ve lost about three pounds and quite frankly, I didn’t have three pounds to lose. As I make my way to Dr. Maria’s office, I try to remember what I ate today. Oh yeah…a bag of ruffles and a stick of gum, same as yesterday. I walk into the office and buzz the thingy to let Dr. Maria know I’m here. I glance over at Sad Frumpy Lady, and I finally see that we have something in common-pain. Pain is so much worse than the guilt I had when I first started this process. The guilt was somewhat tolerable, and I bet with therapy, it would’ve faded with time. But the pain in my heart, although good for the waist-line, is debilitating and gets more intense every day. And I think it’s gonna be around for a while.
I haven’t tried to contact Leo. I came close about a hundred times, but he made himself perfectly clear, and I can’t stand the thought of him rejecting me like that again. Besides, if I did call him, it would have to be for a significant reason, like that I wasn’t getting married anymore, and telling him that would be like falling off the wagon. Instead I’ve immersed myself in work and my new love, jogging. And then when I’m home, I don’t talk. Until Kurt comes with me to therapy, I feel like it’s pointless to say anything. I spend a lot of my quiet time thinking about my girl Francesca from Bridges of Madison County. Now that I’m officially her, I get her choice, I get the obligation. And now I finally know what the hell she did all those years after she watched her love affair drive away. She spent time wondering what her life would’ve been like if she got out of the damn car and ran. She had a miserable, f*cking existence is what she had! This is the declaration I make when I plop down on Dr. Maria’s couch.
“When you put it like that, Chrissy, it sounds like you’re giving yourself a death sentence.”
Dr. Maria’s being facetious, but my heavy sigh lets her know I’m in no mood.
“Bad week? Tell me what’s on your mind, hunny.”
I think I’m finally about to get my seventy-five bucks worth! I feel like I’ve been in detox for the last week and a half and I’m friggin’ pissed that I can’t have the only thing that’s ever made me feel normal IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! Without my Leo drug to keep my mood elevated to super-euphoric-sex-kitten-queen-of-the-I-could-give-a-shit-about-the-world levels, I’ve been freed up to evaluate why my marriage is in shambles. And what I’ve unearthed is maddening.
“I love Kurt.”
“Okayyyyy.”
“I never would’ve married him if there was any doubt about it. I mean, if there was doubt I doubt all of this would be hurting so bad, right!?”
“Right, and you’re not alone there. Few people go through with a marriage they have doubts about. But that doesn’t do much to keep the divorce rate low in this country. Even marriages that start off with the best of intentions sometimes aren’t strong enough to support all of the changes people go through.”
“I NEVER CHANGED!”
“I disagree. Pretending to be someone you’re not so that Kurt would fall in love with you and marry you. Then, deciding all of a sudden that you don’t really want to be that person anymore. That kind of qualifies as a change.”
Rolling my eyes, I think…whatever.
“It might not seem like it to you, but it sure as heck will to him.”
This is exactly what I want to help the two of you with. I want to help you become more authentic with Kurt and help the both of you accept and cherish who you really are as individuals. I want to help the both of you transition and grow in the relationship in a positive and loving way.”
“Easy for him.”
“How so?”
“Kurt’s always known that I love him because I showed him and he has that base to build upon. But I don’t know if I can forgive him or even be in love with him anymore for the things he did, or shall I say didn’t do for me.”
“What are some of those things?”
Here we go.
“For starters, the way he reacts towards his family’s idiotic behavior.”
I thought if I were ever given the opportunity to complain about this stuff, it would feel good. Nothing about this feels good.
“You want to elaborate on that?”
“His dad’s a drunk jerk, and his mom is the classic submissive co-dependent spouse. He has four older siblings and every one of them is a wreck. They’re all divorced, a couple of ‘em are really bad single parents, one’s an out-of-work piece of crap, blah, blah, blah. If you ask the mom about any one of them, she’ll say they’re perfect and when they’re clearly not perfect, it’s someone else’s fault. God forbid any of them are held accountable for how screwed up they are.”
“What’s this got to do with what he didn’t do for you?”
“Kurt’s a lot like his mom. If you ask him how his siblings are, well… everyone’s always GREAT! Never a negative thing to say about any one of them! Everyone in that family says great, great, great all the damn time. No one acknowledges the dysfunction, and no one EVER has a negative thought. It’s disturbing.”
“How is not being negative an unforgivable thing to you?”
“Because to me, not being negative about some things is the same as accepting them. And some things that Kurt’s not been negative about have been pretty disturbing.”
“You want to give me some examples?”
“Kurt’s dad gets vulgar and intimidating when he drinks. I’ve voiced my concern to Kurt…told him it scares the crap outta me.”
“What did he do?”
“He made excuses for his dad; told me to mind my own business.”
“Did it make you mad?”
“Quite the opposite. I became very concerned for him.”
“For him?”
“Yeah, it seemed so strange to me that we weren’t on the same side of such an obvious issue. I felt like I needed to protect him from his family, like he needed my help or something.”
“And it would seem strange to anyone who’s not the child of an alcoholic.”
“Okay fine, but how much is someone who’s not the child of an alcoholic supposed to pretend she doesn’t see?! And look, it’s not like he just ignores his dad’s inappropriate behavior. He ignores his whole family’s! Kurt was the first person in his family to graduate from college and not one of those people showed up to the graduation ceremony!”
“That’s horrible.”
“My heart ached for Kurt that day. But you know who he got mad at? Me. He told me that my expectations are always too high and if I wasn’t so narcissistic, I would realize that sometimes people have more important things going on in their lives. You’d think the guy would’ve clung to me for dear life after being treated like that. But that wasn’t the first time his family acted inappropriately, and it wasn’t the last time Kurt reprimanded me for telling him so.”
Sad just officially turned into mad. I pound my fists on the couch and let it rip.
“Damn it, I’ve hurt for that man since the day I met him. From the start, I wanted to show him unconditional love and protect him from those people. I thought, no I still think, I’m the only one who can help him when the anger and pain about his dysfunctional family surfaces. But you know what? It’s not gonna surface. Trust me, it’s had plenty of opportunity to. I’ve tried and tried to talk to him about the dysfunction, hold him, be his confidant. But the more I tried, the more he pushed me away and made me feel like I was the crazy person. Eventually I stopped questioning everything I thought was right and wrong and he thought was wrong and right and, like a dumbass, I stopped doing it long before we got married.”
I’m on a roll now. Inhale. Continue.
“You know, I thought Kurt and I were happy together, but after our last session, it occurred to me that the only one that’s been truly happy in the relationship is him. Whatever ounce of happiness I’ve experienced since knowing him was derived from doing things that made him happy.”
“How so?”
“Like when I hike to the top of a stupid mountain because he wants me to or when I camp at places without bathrooms. He’s proud of me when I do things outside of my comfort zone and, for a long time, I thought it made me happy too. But it didn’t. Over time it just pissed me off.”
“I can see that happening.”
“And I stopped wondering a long time ago if the reciprocal of all my ridiculous effort was ever gonna show up. Ya know, like if he would go to a wedding or birthday party with me without complaining…but it didn’t.”
I take a deep breath as I stare out of the window for a moment. “I suppose I could deal with all of that garbage if he would stop controlling what little I do to make myself happy.”
“What are you talking about?”
My head is now aimed at the floor because what I’m about to admit is so humiliating that I can’t bear to look her in the eye. It’s everything I’ve tried to hide from family and friends and up until now, has never been mentioned to a single soul.
“You have to understand that no one would believe the stuff I’m about to tell you. I’ve even convinced myself that none of it is as bad as I think it is. But after meeting Leo and coming here a few times, I don’t think the stuff I’ve put up with is normal. But maybe I’m just crazy. My God, I’m so tired of thinking I’m crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Chrissy. Tell me how you think Kurt controls you. Just start with the first thing that comes to your mind.”
“Okay, whenever I take a much needed day off of work, he pesters me about how I should spend my free time. If I’m not doing something he deems relaxing, like bike riding or hiking, which I loathe, he lays in on me and calls me lazy for wasting a perfectly good day doing nothing.
I guess it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is to me.”
“It’s a very big deal. You work hard and deserve to spend your downtime however you see fit.”
“I can also forget about sleeping in late on the weekends. If I’m not raring to go by 8am, he’ll open the shades and make comments like, ‘I can’t believe you’re wasting the day away like this.’ He acts like I’m ruining his weekend. I work sixty hours a week, and I’m on a plane every other f*cking day. I’m tired! Shouldn’t he be content with my much needed rest? Shouldn’t he want to take care of me like that?”
“Why, yes he-”
“Oh! And he expects me to become an expert at whatever type of exercise I pursue. Now that I’m jogging, he encourages me to bring a stop watch so I know if I’m improving my time, and he’ll even ride his bike along side of me and cheer me on. I don’t want to get faster! I run to escape, not win a medal. I want to burn my bike, my roller blades, my TWO goose down sleeping bags, hiking shoes, and all of the other bullshit gear he’s pushed on me. None of that stuff is enjoyable to me because I have to be all extreme ALL THE TIME!”
I can’t tell if Dr. Maria’s looking at me like I should’ve known what I was signing up for or if she feels sorry for me. But if she doesn’t think I’m a stupid ass idiot yet, she will after I tell her this one.
“Here’s a good one. If Kurt cooks a meal and I don’t eat it because I’m simply not hungry, he gets mad that he went to all that work to do something nice for me. Worse even, he requests that I eat a certain amount of bites of each food group before I can-”
“Whoa, Chrissy, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not kidding. ‘Two more bites of broccoli and one more bite of fish, then you can be done Chrissy.’ Like I’m a three-year-old.”
“How do you react when he does that?”
“I eat it all up so he’ll stop scolding me.”
“Do you think that’s the right thing to do?”
“Of course not! It’s just easier. Do you know how f*cked in the head it is for an adult to argue with another adult about how many bites of food she should eat? IT’S PSYCHOTIC! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to--”
“No, no, go ahead.”
“Since we’re on the subject of food; I love cooking and I think I’m pretty good at it. But whenever I cook a meal, he has the audacity to suggest ways that I can make it better next time…even when he likes it! Don’t you think it’s clever that he finds a way to insult me when he’s complimenting me?! I don’t even want to cook anymore. I’m not inspired to do a Goddamn thing because nothing’s ever good enough.
Okay, here’s a sick one…ready to hear this?”
“I am, Chrissy, but are you okay? Do you want to take a break?”
“Are you kidding me? Isn’t this what you people call a break-through?”
“Does it feel like a break through?”
“More like a break down, if you ask me.”
“Well, I’m ready whenever you are.”
“He hassles me to give birth naturally.”
She’s truly shocked.
“I mean, he doesn’t preach it from the hilltops, but the few times we’ve had the conversation about childbirth, he gets appalled that I would even consider having drugs. He tells me I should tough it out like women did in the old days. What the friggin’ hell does that mean? Am I supposed to forget about all the modern day medical advances that are available and suffer through labor and delivery like a pilgrim? Christ, he’s already made me feel like a failure over something I haven’t even attempted yet!”
“I should say so.”
“I’m so frustrated! I can’t complain about work because then I’m a grouch. I can’t justly criticize a friend or a family member because then I’m too negative. I can’t condemn a perfectly healthy able-bodied homeless person or disapprove of an overly obese child without being called cruel. I have to be happy all the f*cking time or else I’m a bad person! Tell me this, where’s the motivation to be a good wife when you’re always made to feel like a stupid, lazy, mean one?”
Just as she’s about to tackle that question, I furiously interject, “I’ll tell you where the motivation is: it’s at a bar seducing the first nice man it meets.” Exhale.
“Are you okay, Chrissy?”
“No, I’m not okay! I came here because I thought I was a shitty person for cheating. But that’s not where the shittyness started. It started when I pretended to be someone I’m not so Kurt would marry me. And yeah that’s pretty shitty, but does my shittyness justify his? Shit! Shit! Shit! How could I have allowed for this to be my life, my marriage?”
I’m devastated and disgraced and my voice is cracking like a log on a wet fire.
“You know, I’ve lost ten pounds in four weeks because I’m a total stress case.”
“I noticed.”
“My co-workers think I’ve become anorexic, and my boss pulled me aside and asked me if I’ve been doing blow. You wanna know what Kurt’s said about it? Nothing! He’s said absolutely nothing about it. Why would he ignore me like that? He’s crazy. No! I’m crazy for letting him get away with all of it.”
“Chrissy, maybe we should-”
“I’m so tired of hurting and hoping. God, I’m so tired. I’ve known Kurt my entire adult life and I can’t think of a day I felt cherished by him. You know, once I even asked him why he doesn’t tell me I’m beautiful and he said it’s because he doesn’t want me to get too full of myself. I don’t even know what to make of that.”
I detect a note of pity on Dr. Maria’s face, and it feels like a stab wound to my heart because despite all of the other bullshit, not feeling cherished is what hurts the most.
“I can’t think of a time when Kurt’s paused long enough to tell me how much he loves me, and that includes our wedding day. I met Leo all of three months ago, and he made me believe his world would fall apart without me in it. I just want Kurt to love me like that, Dr. Maria! Why is it so hard for him to think I’m special just the way I am?”
“Chrissy, I think we need to ask him those questions. Did you ask him if-”
Lifting my head from the tissue I’m ferociously blowing my nose into, I interrupt again.
“Lately I’ve been thinking really hard about what triggered my weird behavior in January when I met Leo. I think it goes back to something that happened three months prior, in October. Yeah, sure there was all of that other dysfunctional crap going on in my marriage, but something so bizarre happened and I think it immediately severed whatever tiny connection there was holding me and Kurt together.”
The timer alerts us that the session is over, and Dr. Maria motions for me to stay seated while she walks out of her office. I presume to tell the next whack job that she needs a few more minutes with the one she’s currently with. It gives me a second to reconsider what I’m about to tell her.
“All right hunny, continue.”
“If you have to go…”
“Please. Continue.”
“Last October, I had a miscarriage, and Kurt wouldn’t talk to me about it.”
“Did he…hold on…did you try to talk to him?” I knew it was unbelievable.
“A little bit.”
“Why not a lot?”
“You just heard me describe him to you. What’s the point?”
“What happened exactly?”
“I wasn’t planning on getting pregnant, and we barely even have enough sex to make it possible but it happened.”
“How did Kurt react to the news?”
“Like he needed proof.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told him I took a test and it came out positive. He said, “Wow” and that was about it. We didn’t talk about it again.”
“How long was it until the miscarriage?”
“I guess about two weeks after that. I asked Kurt if he wanted to talk about what happened and, without even a hug, he said it’s not worth agonizing over since we didn’t know for sure if I was even pregnant.” Staring out of the window and into the dark night, I continue. “The illusion of me and Kurt being the perfect couple, the illusion I had been living every single day for the last twelve years, was shattered the moment he doubted the pregnancy.”
Dr. Maria looks repulsed. I wonder if she thinks I’m lying.
“So, he had no reaction to either the pregnancy or the miscarriage?”
“Nope. Not one day during the pregnancy did he ask me how I felt or touch my tummy. He never asked if I called a doctor or asked to take a pregnancy test with me. Then, after the miscarriage, he just rejected the idea that we even lost anything. Kinda like when we were younger.”
Oh crap. I didn’t mean to bring that up.
“What happened when you were younger?”
“You’re gonna think I’m a total mess.”
“Trust me, you’re not the messiest.”
“Kurt and I had a pregnancy situation when I was seventeen.”
“How horrible for you guys.”
Looking back out into the darkness, “I terminated it. That was supposed to be that, except it wasn’t.”
“It was pretty bad?”
“The worst.”
“And Kurt?”
“We were both in pain, but of course we handled it differently. I tried so hard to talk to him, but he completely shut me out, told me what’s done is done, so move on. I wanted the tragedy to bring us closer and he wanted it to disappear. But I never let it disappear. I just buried it.”
“And that’s not a healthy thing to do is it?”
“Nope, because all these years later, it still hurts. The disappointment is as fresh today as it was then. The sad thing is I know it’s the same for him, but he won’t talk about it.”
“Do you think that experience compelled you to stay with Kurt? You know…ignore the things he did that made you feel bad because you felt the need to right a wrong with him?”
“I’m beginning to think there were a lot of naive reasons we stayed together. I’m not sure which one to put at the top of the list.”
“What was your reaction to the miscarriage in October?”
“It was the opposite of the abortion. I didn’t beg for attention. I didn’t cry. I didn’t force Kurt to feel something that wasn’t there. I even remember being in awe of his disconnection from the experience. Not in a distraught way, more like a, ‘so this is who you really are,’ kinda way.”
I address Dr. Maria like I’m the one in charge.
“So now I know. The miscarriage was the knife in the back of my illusion; it was the thing that killed us.”
“Regardless of your responsibility for how things are in your marriage, it’s not normal that a married woman would have to give proof of a pregnancy to her husband. Her word alone should be cause enough for celebration, or in your case of loss, compassion. That must have been a very difficult time for you.”
“Loss? Call me heartless, Dr. Maria, but I never mourned the loss of that baby. That child would’ve only perpetuated my illusion for God knows how much longer. Shit was gonna hit the fan eventually, no need for a child to be a part of the pain. That experience was my wake-up call. I feel like Kurt’s commanded control of nearly every aspect of my life. I eat what that man wants me to eat, I wear the shoes he wants me to wear, I go on the vacations he wants me to go on, and the list goes on and on. But when he made me doubt what I had experienced, I totally checked out of the marriage.”
I don’t think I’ve been this true to myself since I was sixteen years old. It feels awkward, like a crippled person who stands up from a wheelchair and takes a few miraculous steps. Don’t fall, Chrissy.
“You have to figure out why you let him control you. That’s something you and I will work on together. In the meantime, I’d like you to put your foot down on some of his demands about the food you eat and other personal choices like that.”
“I already have, and it’s created a pretty turbulent environment. I don’t want to live like this anymore, Dr. Maria. I love him, I really do, but I’m afraid there’s too much space between us to ever have what I need out of my marriage.”
“Hun, it’s critical for your sanity and your marriage to get Kurt in here right away. Can you make that happen next week?”
“Yeah. And by the way…you’re gonna love him. Everybody does.”