Come Out and Play

 Keep 'Em Separated

Tonight was therapy. Jenny is in Idaho with her sisters at Priest Lake until Friday.  Yes, she is well enough to travel and, contrary to yesterday's lament, doing something.  We did therapy over Zoom, as always, but for the first time separated by several hundred miles.  

Therapy, as often is the case, started out and continued on for some time focused on the mundane, as if there is nothing to talk about.  Jenny volunteered that we had dinner at Daniels on July 11, and she had a lovely time.  I pointed out that only after I sat down did I realize that Daniel's is a favorite haunt of el pinché and Jenny, which soured my experience.  I was beginning, at this point, to quietly let my anger over the last year flow.  My upset increased as Jenny raised the issue of anniversaries of traumatic events causing a person to reexperience that trauma. She said she is worried about not just herself and me, but the kids as well. She mentioned the loss of her mom and the PDAC diagnosis as being traumatic dates.  The therapist beat me to the punch, and reminded Jenny that the day of discovery of the affair would also be likely to cause the trauma of such information to raise its head again.  Jenny agreed.  She knew it, but couldn't volunteer it on her own.  I learned in law school, if you have a bad fact, you put it in the brief, otherwise it

appears you are hiding something and will lose the audience, i.e., the judge.  

Jenny then took a moment to tell me how much she appreciates all that I do for her, and really understands how hard this is (she still can't say the affair) on me, but she just isn't ready to give up the relationship right now, because she needs all the love she can get, and just isn't ready to work on the marriage.   Work on the marriage? I should refer her to comments I have made so many times before.  

The therapist lauded her for saying this--I know, she's a shit therapist--that this is movement because before Jenny had said she would never give this relationship up.  Not true.  She has always said what she said tonight, just differently.  "How can I give up this love, when I don't know if you are committed to change," she would ask.  Which is funny if you think about it.  Then, as now, I have been here doing what I do, and she would like me to change. But she never meant it.  Because now there is no quid for the quo.  She is tacitly acknowledging that I have, as per usual if not always I might add, done all the things she would want a partner to do, and yet that isn't enough.  That's fine.  I have told her many times, although not recently because we do not generally touch on el pinché, that if she weren't sick, we'd be divorced.  I feel more strongly about it tonight after this statement of supposed thanks. This from the person who yesterday was waxing blue about me not sleeping in the marital bed.  Seriously.  I could scream.

The therapist asked me how I felt about the statement.  My anger in my throat, I did not say anything about divorce, but did make it clear that in my estimation nothing had changed.  Not a thing.  I am still caring for Jenny. I am still sleeping on the couch. She is still seeing Eric.  Individual therapy, I noted, has helped me come to peace with, although not accept the behavior.  It wasn't okay a year ago, a week ago, today, and it won't be okay tomorrow.  She, Jenny, has done nothing to change her behavior.  Nothing.  She is constantly on her phone with him, sees him when she is well. Sometimes she tells me, mostly she lies about it.  Her phone tracker is never on, so who knows where she is?  I pointed out that I am constantly, since the discovery of the affair, in fight or flight mode, that the reason I am seeing a cardiologist is likely not simply heredity, but related to this affair.  

If I could describe the therapist's reaction to whatever Jenny tells her, I would say she is often credulous, if not downright gullible.  Anyone who says a therapist shouldn't expect a client to lie, hasn't been to couple's therapy.  So, tonight, when I mentioned how well therapy was working, and asked Jenny if it were true that I didn't react at the time or thereafter when she went to breakfast with el pinché, the therapist was agog, mouth agape.  She actually responded with a "really?" Not asking about my reaction, but about Jenny going to breakfast with el pinché.  Yes, really.  So, those times in therapy when Jenny scolded me for calling the ongoing relationship an affair and her insistence she isn't having an affair proved to be abject--naked like a mole rat--lies. Hoocoodanode?

I told the therapist and Jenny, that I don't feel any progress between us has been made, outside of the purpose of the therapy, to survive each day, one day at a time.

I complain about this therapist, but she did pull off two amazing feats tonight:

1) She noted that Jenny's cancer coach isn't  a real therapist--and Jenny agreed for the first time.  A small victory.  

2) She pointed out to Jenny, that I also haven't had a chance to grieve the loss of Omi, Jenny's mom.