Sur-reality

Just prior to tandem therapy, Leiney had gone to see Jenny and asked me to leave the room. I was leaving the room, but within earshot, when Leiney started. She told Jenny how sad she was about her mom's behavior and her failure to prioritize her children. She talked about the condoms that I found in Jenny's bag, and how disappointed she was in her mom. Jenny was shocked. I left the room, so I don't know all of what she said. As I retreated to the basement to talk to Abby--forgetting she was not home but at acting--I heard Jenny tell Leiney she had

had picked up the condoms at a store as a joke. She grabbed them thinking it was funny that the store was giving out free condoms. Who knows? (Given her penchant for lying and cheating, I have an idea I know.)

When tandem therapy began, for the first 30 minutes it was uneventful, the standard drill really.  At minute 31 I raised the issue of the condoms. I was calm. I was collected. I told the story of how I had found them, and that Jenny really hadn't offered an explanation at the time. Albeit, as I noted, she was blotto on fentanyl, but she hadn't explained. Before she could respond, I told her I wasn't asking for an explanation, because I can't believe anything she says about such things anymore. I am just, as futile as it is, asking that she let me now if there are any more surprises for me to discover. I will discover them, I told her. I will discover them.

Jenny told me the same story she told Leiney. She was sobbing. She was talking about the common theme throughout the last 17 months--her fear I would leave or that the level of care I  provide would suffer. I reminded her that just yesterday morning I held her as she cried over her predicament, of impending doom, and that I hadn't shown up angry or even discussed the matter of the condoms until therapy. She said to the therapist that she, Jenny, should just leave. That she is a terrible person, et cetera, ad nauseum. O.k., ad naseum is probably not the appropriate descriptor given Jenny's stomach problems. But it is the place she always goes. Her statements and crying don't feel like real regret, but a desire to flight, to avoid the discussion, but I have become cynical.  

Ultimately, if she was having more than one affair, it doesn't really matter. The fact is, she is in love with someone else and unfaithfulness, whether a single person, whether serial or concurrent with multiple people, the reality is the same. She doesn't love me. 


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