When I went into therapy, I didn’t realize what I was getting into. I wanted to help people. I only saw the upside of the job. I would take people at a point of trouble in their lives, and I would help them move incrementally toward a position of greater happiness. It seemed simple. What I didn’t realize is that victories in therapy come slowly. They are spread out over many sessions—often many months, even years—and they are shrouded in various disguises. The defeats, on the other hand, come suddenly, without ambiguity and often without warning.
I don’t consider the Wallings’ divorce to be a defeat. They were already there when I first met them; they simply didn’t recognize it. More important, divorce was the best choice for them. The Pact would disagree, but I know one thing for certain: Some people are not meant to be married. The Stantons, though, that’s a true defeat.
I’ve dozed off when I hear the garage door open. I check my phone: 12:47. I get up and brush my teeth so I can greet Alice with a kiss, if she’ll have one, but she stays in her car for a long time, listening to music, something loud with a bass beat. I can hear and feel it through the floor. Finally, she comes softly up the back stairs and into the kitchen. I can’t tell if she is still angry, or merely tired. She glances at me, but doesn’t really seem to see me. “I need some sleep,” she says, heading for our bedroom. And that’s it. I turn on the dishwasher, check the dead bolt on the front door, and turn out the lights.
In our room, Alice has already fallen asleep. I crawl into bed beside her. She is turned away from me, toward the window. I want to hold her, but I don’t reach out. Still, I can feel the heat emanating from her body, and it fills me with longing. After everything that happened at Fernley, I want to be in my home, in my bed, with my wife. But what happened there has changed things between us. Or if I’m honest, it’s not only what happened at Fernley. It’s everything that led up to Fernley.
I stare at her back, willing her to wake up, but she doesn’t.
So I’ll just go ahead and say it: I feel like a failure. It’s a rotten feeling. This is the first time in a long time that issues have mounted and the solutions haven’t become apparent to me at the start. I’m caught off guard by my own inability to reason through the difficulties. Predictability is the consolation prize that comes with getting older. The older you get, the more experience you accumulate, the easier it becomes to know instantly, in so many different situations, what the future will hold. In my teens, everything was new and vibrant and mysterious, and I found myself constantly surprised. And then I reached the age where surprises became more rare. And though life is perhaps less exciting when you can predict what will happen next, I somehow like it better that way.
Now all that certainty has vanished.
61
It’s a Wednesday, so I don’t go home for lunch. I pretend that I’m too busy with work, preparing for my one-on-one with Dylan, the high school freshman with depression. The reality, of course, is that I don’t want to be at home when the messenger shows up. I don’t want to have that awkward conversation while my eyes see the dreaded envelope. I don’t want to sign the delivery slip, I don’t want to be responsible for deciding the way forward. Most of all, I don’t want to face the troubles ahead. I realize it’s immature, but I just can’t do it today.
The sit-down with Dylan goes poorly, and it worries me. Are there no clear answers for Dylan right now, or is it me? Still, trying to break this spell, I leave at a normal time, and I pick up some fresh greens and chicken on the way home. Other therapists laugh at the power-of-positive-thinking movement from the 1970s, but I’m not so quick to dismiss its effectiveness. Optimistic people are happier than pessimistic or cynical people—dumb but true, even if sometimes you’re only faking it.
At home, I’m relieved to discover there’s nothing from the messenger. I dive into the comforting routine of making dinner. I’m listening for Alice’s car, but I’m also keeping an eye on the phone. From the bedroom, I hear the ping of email on the iPad. At seven thirty-five, just when the chicken is out of the oven, the bread is sliced and on the table, and the wine bottle is open, I get a text from Alice.
Working late, eat without me.
I wait up. She doesn’t show. It’s after one in the morning when I finally go to bed. It’s after two when she quietly slides in next to me. Her body, in her thin T-shirt and underwear, is so warm and nice. When I roll over and put an arm around her, she stiffens. At six, when I awake, she is gone.
I’ll come right out and say it. I’m terrified that I’m losing my wife.
At the office, I brace myself for a long day. Three couples in the morning, and the Thursday group of teenagers in the afternoon. The teenagers are combative. Like animals on the savanna, they sense weakness instantly and rarely have qualms about moving in for a quick attack.
The session with the Reeds, Eugene and Judy, at nine, goes surprisingly well. At eleven, the Fiorinas arrive. Brian and Nora are my youngest clients, thirty-one and twenty-nine. Usually, marriage counseling is the wife’s idea, but not in this case. They’ve been married for just nineteen months, and the cracks have already begun to appear. Brian got my number from an old client he plays tennis with. Nora was resistant at first but agreed to do it as a favor to her husband. In our first session, they told me their story: They met online and married quickly. Nora is from Singapore and had immigration problems, and if they hadn’t gotten married, she would have had to return home. They’re both in tech, although when we met, Nora was still looking for a new job after losing her H-1B visa. Her troubles with finding a job have wreaked havoc on her confidence, and her lack of confidence seems to be eroding their marriage.
This morning, Nora is in a feisty mood. I can tell they had a fight in the car outside my office or on the ride over. Brian looks bone-tired. “I’m not sure why we’re doing this,” Nora begins, plopping down in the big chair.
Brian sits on the couch, arms folded, leaning into the corner, clearly not open to venturing a response. Nora is ramrod straight, her hair pulled back too tight.
“Why are you here?” I ask quietly.
Nora looks frustrated. “I guess because it was scheduled on my calendar.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Brian rolls his eyes.
And then it’s quiet for a minute. A minute can feel like a long time, but sometimes that’s what a session needs. Like a run on the beach, sometimes in a therapy session a minute of silence serves as a release valve—tension slowly leaking out, anxiety working its way to the top before evaporating.
“Do you see value in marriage?” I ask. “Do you want to be married?”
Nora glances at her husband. Brian rustles to life. His expression tells me he’s surprised by my question, and not necessarily happy.
“I feel,” Nora says, measuring her words, staring only at me, “that being alone might be easier. No responsibility, do what I want, eat what I want, go where I want, no questions, no need for answers. Simple.”
“Yes, that would be simple,” I agree. I leave a little more silence. “But is simple always best?”