The New Year – Part II

As I open the door, I am surprised to see a smiling Heather waiting for me. Quite a change from just three days ago, I think.

Once comfortably seated in the chair across from me, she says, “Not the person you expected to see today, right? Rob and I got back together.”

“How did that happen?” I ask, while silently thinking, oh no.

“He called. Said he made a mistake and wanted us to be together. Turned out that Brad was actually living with another man and Rob decided he couldn’t deal with the free-wheeling gay lifestyle.”   

I struggle with whether to remain silent or share my concern. While deliberating, Heather says, “You don’t approve.”

“It’s not a question of approval, Heather. I just wonder why you were so quick to take him back. He told you he wasn’t in love with you and you certainly know that you can’t choose who you’re attracted to.”

“We had great sex after the breakup. I remembered what you and I talked about and tried to be more aggressive. It was terrific. We didn’t tie each other up, but I tried to do more to him, like … umm …. doing oral sex and … I’m not sure I can say this …”

Silence.

“Like putting my finger up his ass. I thought I’d be grossed out, but it was okay.”

“So you’re saying that you tried to be what you consider more masculine.”

“I guess.”

“It’s like what you said last time, you thought if you could be more of a man you’d be good enough.”

“Why are you trying to take this away from me?” Heather asks plaintively. “I was so miserable; I felt so shitty. And you can see how much better I feel.”

“I know that breakups are horribly painful, but it seems to me that you’ve put yourself in the position to be hurt all over again. If Rob is gay, he’s going to find another man he’s attracted to and …”

“No, he told me he wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” I say, asking myself why I am pushing Heather so hard. Why am I trying to protect her, rather than looking at the underlying dynamics that have led Heather to return to this relationship? Am I re-enacting something in her family dynamics? Something in my own?  

Backing off I say, “What do you feel would be helpful for you today?”

“Oh!” she says, obviously surprised. “I don’t know.” Pause. “You just stopped. You didn’t keep badgering me. My mother never did that. She didn’t talk to me much, but when she did she was always trying to convince me to do what she thought I should, even if it made no sense.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I want to stay with Rob, see what happens, and try to be more assertive.”

I think of all the rejoinders to her comment, but decide that confronting her directly will only feel like her old arguments with her mother. “And what would you like me to do?” I ask.

“Hmm. I’d like you to help me be more assertive.”

“So perhaps you’re being assertive right now, by telling me what you want me to do.”

“I guess, but it’s easy with women. Like I pretty much did what I wanted regardless of what my mother said. But with my father, there was no way. I toed his line.”

“So we’re talking about the power your father had and how being male was prized in your family.”

“Oh yeah.”

“And last week you talked about not feeling good enough to keep a man because you weren’t male enough.”    

“Yeah, weird as that is.” Pause. “So I guess I’m saying that I’m going to try to be more male.” Pause. “I guess that’s okay.” Pause. “What do you think?”

“It depends how much you’re twisting yourself into someone you’re not, vs. how it flows naturally.”

“It doesn’t flow naturally.”

Silence.

“So are you saying there’s no hope?”

“Depends what you’re hoping for. If you feel you to need to be a man, there’s certainly no hope for that. If you’re talking about keeping Rob, I’m dubious – although I could be wrong – because I think it’s about him, not you. But there’s certainly hope that you can give up feeling your womanness is inadequate and feel that you’re more than enough for a man.”

“Right now I just want to make it work with Rob.”

“I hear you. And I’ll be with you in any way I can.”

Breaking Up

“I’ve decided I’m going to break up with Tim,” Allison announces at the beginning of her Monday session.

“Really?” I say, obviously surprised. I see Allison three days a week. On Thursday there was no intimation of her breaking off the relationship. “I thought you and Tim were doing very well.”

“Wow! I finally got to shock you,” she says laughing, passing her fingers through her curly, brown hair. “Yeah, we were. But, I don’t know, I think he’s too boring for me.”

“Too boring,” I repeat. 

Allison is a 30 year old drug rep who came into therapy because she made repeatedly poor choices in men. We came to understand that Allison chose men who were similar to her grandiose and narcissistic father, a man who was always too busy and self-involved to attend to Allison. By choosing boyfriends who were like her father, she hoped to win in the present the love she couldn’t achieve in the past. Such a strategy never of course works, since choosing a narcissistic boyfriend will lead yet again to disappointment and pain.

“Yeah. I don’t know, the relationship is just too predictable, maybe too easy.”

“Too easy,” I say.

Allison laughs. “I’ve clearly thrown you for a loop. I love it!”

“So maybe our therapy sessions were also too boring and you’ve just spiced them up.”

“I never thought of that, but maybe,” Allison replies, still gleeful.

“Okay, so here are my questions: What’s wrong with easy? What makes easy uncomfortable? And what happened in the last four days?”

“It’s just not exciting. There’s no spontaneity. He’s always there – trusty, reliable Tim.”

“And you could say the same of me.”

“Yes, that’s true, you’re trusty and reliable, but I kind of like that from you.”

“Except you liked ‘throwing me for a loop.’”

“Yes. But that was like I kind of one upped you, like you know so much and sometimes it seems you can even read my mind and here I am able to surprise you. It makes me feel like I got you!”

Thoughts race through my mind. Allison feels she has just won a competition. With her father? More likely her mother. Allison and I have spent so much time dealing with her father, that her mother is a more shadowy figure to me. Still, my sense is that she too was fairly narcissistic and definitely intent on receiving as much of her husband’s meager supplies as possible. And there’s still the question of what changed in four days. Was the weekend break difficult for her? Was I too know-it-all in our last session?

“Did you have a hard time with our weekend break, Allison?” I ask.

“This has nothing to do with you! Why do you always want to make it about you?” she says angrily.

“I guess that makes me feel like your parents.”

“Now that you mention it, yes! I think you just wanted to deflate me because I surprised you.”

I consider Allison’s accusation. “I’m not consciously aware of competing with you or wanting to deflate you, but I am aware of being disappointed in your so easily discarding Tim and what seems like such a good relationship. Perhaps it made me feel you were discarding our work together and perhaps that made me want to reassert my presence.” 

“Wow! There’s a lot of stuff in there. You certainly think a lot about why you do what you do.”

“I try to. I think it’s very important that we try to understand as much as we can about ourselves and our motivations. Doesn’t mean we always succeed. We all have an unconscious – including me – and by definition the unconscious is unconscious.”

“I guess you’re saying I should try to understand why I want to break up with Tim.”

I nod. “Yes, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

“He’s so much not my father. I know, I know, that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t always feel like such a good thing. It feels like I’m giving up so much.”

“You are. You’re giving up hope. You’re giving up the hope of ever getting the father you needed and deserved in both the past and the present and that’s very painful.”

“But you’re saying I should do it?”

“I’m not saying you should stay with Tim, but I am saying that until you mourn the father you never had and give up chasing him in the present, you’re going to face a lot of painful breakups in your life.”