Therapy Works: In Honoring our Own Story

 “That’s not a bad story, is it?” 
“In fact, that’s a pretty good story.”

Jerry* is in his 50’s and has been working for just over a year regarding wishing to leave his marital relationship and move towards a relationship with a woman he reconnected with from college and feels much more understood by.  

[*Names and identifying information will always be changed in ways that protect patient confidentiality.]

Jerry entered therapy with me after a brief EAP therapy time (Employee Assistance Program: typically short term problem focused therapy) and repeated the EAP therapist’s description that Jerry is “too nice” to take decisive action.  

Jerry has chosen to tell his wife and children and important others that he wants to make a new life.  His initial way of doing this was as a “confession” … Jerry emotionally heaped ashes on his own head and flagellated his own back as he told people, shame-faced, that he was “involved in an adulterous relationship.” 

Now months after these confessions and after months of feeling that his, understandably angry, wife is “attacking attacking attacking” – Jerry has come to feel much more support for himself and is expressing it in a way that I find rather meaningful and delightful.  

Some months ago, in agony, Jerry told how he had been unhappy for years in his marriage, yet tried to be a good father, decent husband (“we thought of ourselves as best friends”) and involved with his daughters via sports, school, and church.  Instead of self-flagellating with the whip of “I’m an adulterer”, Jerry called out, in general confusion, “Is that such a bad story?!”  [Note: Jerry is an avid reader and has many times explored his love for an “ideal” family, a family with “happy stories” to tell round the fireplace on a snowy Thanksgiving day … so “stories” are central to him].  

Today in therapy, as his sense of self keeps growing, Jerry looked so much more the part of a man who understands himself and supports himself. Jerry is wearing a hat, recently purchased, that says on the brim:  “Life is good.” Jerry is probably 50 pounds lighter than initially (and his weight and heart have been an issue in life).  Jerry announces without hesitation or worry for the therapist:  “I’m canceling next week’s appointment.  I’ll be back in town from a trip and trying to catch up on things.”  (This kind of separateness and respect of the separateness of the other is new.  Indeed, in one of the earliest breakthroughs in therapy, Jerry said, “Sorry I let you down last week Doc.”  And when we processed it a week later, he seemed quite intrigued that that kind of caretaking for me was unnecessary and actually felt smothering.  Me:  “I’m an adult.  I’ll take care of myself.”)  

So, today in therapy, Jerry once again goes into a revelry about his decades in marriage, touching his anger at his wife’s issues and his own unwillingness/inability to confront her and separate sooner, and then in a reflective slowing mood says, “I tried to make the very best of our marriage that I could.  And I was going to do everything I could to father my children the best that I could.  I would have liked to have known myself and left earlier, but really, when all is said and done, in fact, that’s a pretty good story, isn’t it?!”   

His self-support is richer and fuller and keeps growing.