Therapy - Part two

After spending about half an hour ensuring that I was not (technically) psychotic, the therapy session changed from questions about my daily activities, hormonal cycles, and thought patterns to the reason I sought out therapy in the first place.

Unlike my previous attempt at couples therapy, or what I had seen in movies, Kathleen(the therapist) started out by saying, "You wrote that your husband had an affair last year. Since we don't have much time left today, I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the past. We can do that the next appointment. Instead of telling me what happened last year, tell me what happened the week that you decided to make an appointment to see me. Maybe we can come up with a strategy to help you feel more in control of your thoughts and emotions until you come back again."

I was a bit floored. I always think of therapists as trying to pull information out of the past, blaming everything on your childhood relationship with your mother, and so on. But Kathleen wanted to know what lead to me seeking therapy, so I did my very best summary and said, "I went through my husband's email without him knowing, and I found out that the woman he was seeing last year had contacted him and was trying to meet with him. I don't know why. I don't know what's going on. I don't know how he responded. I just don't know anything."

Kathleen asked me some more detail questions about how I had found the email, how I felt, what scenarios were playing through my mind, and how this news had affected me. She wanted to know things like how many times a day I find myself thinking about DH's infidelity.

After a few minutes of these kinds of questions, she said to me, "Do you realize that when you talk about your husband's affair, you focus more on TOW than you do on DH?"

I thought about that for a moment. I know that I'm a bit obsessed with TOW, because aside from me, I think she is the only woman DH ever fell in love with. Yes, he had a couple of long term college relationships, but they never developed into love. Besides me, TOW is the only person who has ever captured that portion of DH's heart.

So, Kathleen asked me why that was so significant if DH had been willing to end things with TOW in order to stay married to me. She wanted to know if I believe that their is something still going on with DH and TOW. She said she didn't care about evidence, or even if I was correct. She just wanted to know if in my heart I believed that DH was still seeing TOW or not.

I couldn't come up with an answer, so she pressed a bit harder. She asked me if before I had found out about the affair, if I had realized that something was wrong in the marriage. I told her that without a doubt, the answer was yes, but at that time, I didn't know what.

Then she asked what I had felt back then that made me know something was wrong despite the fact that I had no proof.

I told her that back then, DH wasn't fully there in our relationship. He was constantly trying to find proof that I was doing something wrong. He would vacillate between attentive husband and annoyed asshole in a way that he never had throughout our entire relationship. And more than once, I caught him staring off, lost in thought with a look in his eyes that once used to only be there when he thought of me.

Kathleen told me that what I just described is what she calls relationship intuition. She says that the vast majority of men and women who she counsels who were cheated on by their spouse describe some sort of relationship intuition that told them something was going on long before they had proof. But very few actually act on that intuition.

She asked me again, if thinking about those sorts of nuances in our relationship, if I believed that DH was still involved in some sort of extramarital relationship. I thought for a moment, and hesitantly said, "I don't think so, but I think he's thinking about it."

At this point, there were only a couple more minutes left in our hour (50 minutes), and she said to me that she was giving me another assignment ... in addition to the exercise. What she wants me to do is write down anything specific that DH says or does that triggers that 'intuition' response. Even if I have no proof. Even if it doesn't seem to make sense. Even if I feel like I'm imagining it. Until my next appointment, I'm supposed to make a note of anything that leads me to have that 'something is going on, but I can't put my finger on it feeling."

Then, after I write it down, I'm supposed to try not to focus on it. She says that she and I can go through things at our next appointment, but if I find myself focusing on any of those details in the meantime, I'm supposed to physically start doing something that will take my mind off of it.

And that was the end of therapy session #1. I have an appointment to see her again a week from Tuesday.

So far, I have been (reluctantly)exercising daily, and I have written down a couple of subtle things that DH has said or done that made me suddenly, inexplicably insecure... although, I have to admit, there haven't been many of those in the last few days.

I don't know if the therapy is going to help or not, but so far it is definitely not what I expected, and it is making me think.