Family Visits

 

“I can’t believe my wife and I actually arranged to see both set of parents in the space of a month,” Harvey begins, a good-looking man in his forties. “Thanksgiving with her family was bad enough, people trying to be polite and pretend that they care about each other and that they care about our kids. I was surprised they even remembered the kids’ names. That’s how often they talk to them. I guess they do occasionally connect on Facebook, but of course my kids aren’t on Facebook that often – for old people they say. My 13 year old kept rolling her eyes when they tried to engage her around soccer.” He sighs. “And in a few weeks we go to my family. That will be different.”

“Different how?” I ask.

“Different in every way possible. I’ve told you about my family, screamers. No one is polite. No one cares about anything but hearing themselves talk. Except my mother. She’s different. Of course my brother will be there. If he and I don’t get into it I’d be shocked.”

“What do you imagine that looking like?”

“I wouldn’t rule out his throwing a swing at me.”

“Like when you were kids?”

“Yup.”

“You told me he was always jealous of you.”

“Definitely. Even though he was my father’s favorite. But that didn’t count for much since my father was such a loser. IS such a loser. In fact, it’s worse – if that’s possible – since he “retired.” Now he doesn’t even pretend he’s looking for work. Sits at home all day, drinking no doubt, getting into fights with my mother and watching Fox News all day.”

“You sound very contemptuous of your father.”

“You got that right.”

“How does it feel to be contemptuous of your father?”

“Familiar. I don’t think I was ever NOT contemptuous of him. Of course, I wouldn’t have said contemptuous as a kid.”

“What would you have said?”

“That he was … Wow! I was about to say that he was a scary jackass. I sort of forgot how scary he was. He was. He was big and blustery and would scream at the drop of a hat. And he was often screaming at me which would delight my brother to no end.”

“Where was your mother in all this?”

“Silent. I knew she felt bad for me, but she was totally cowed by him. She’d say she didn’t want to take ‘sides.’”

“Did you feel angry with her about that?”

“No. I guess I needed one good parent and she was definitely the good parent.” He smiles. “I still love her a lot. She wasn’t perfect but she’s a good person and she’s a great grandma. My kids love her to death even though we don’t visit very often for obvious reasons.”

“Do you ever invite her to visit you?” 

“All the time. But she won’t come without him and I’m not inviting that chaos into my home.”

“I wonder if you’re still afraid of your father.”

“Now? No, what could he do to me? I could knock him out in a heartbeat.”

“And how would you feel about that, about knocking him out?”

Harvey opens his mouth to respond and then closes it. “I was about to say great, but that’s not really true. I guess a part of me would feel great about it, but then he is my father. I guess I’d feel guilty. Yeah, you’re not supposed to be slugging your father.”

“I just had a thought. I wonder if you feel sad and disappointed that you don’t have a Dad you can look up to, one you’d enjoy visiting.”

“I never thought of that, but yes. Even as a kid I was disappointed that my Dad wasn’t more of… I guess that he wasn’t more. That he wasn’t more educated, smarter, more of a role model.”

“So maybe what else bothers you about visiting your parents is that every time you can’t escape feeling that disappointment. And maybe you’re disappointed in more than your Dad. Maybe you’re disappointed that your brother isn’t more of a friend and that your Mom wasn’t more actively on your side.”

“I don’t know about that part about my Mom, but I certainly agree with you about my father and brother. I wonder if knowing that will make the visit any easier.”

“Well, if you could accept that your father and brother are going to be the same as they’ve always been, maybe you can avoid having even the smallest of expectations and therefore be less hurt and less angry.”

“Maybe. I guess we’ll see if a few weeks.”

The Underachiever

Tall and thin with a wiry red beard, Daron Wilson sits across from me looking lost and forlorn. “I’ve never done this before. Never thought I would.”

“How can I be of help to you?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I know you can’t make my wife come back to me.” He sighs, shaking his head. “I love her so much. Her and the kids. But she says she wants more, more for the kids, more for her, more for our family. I don’t know how to give that to her.”

“More in what way?”

“Easy answer would be financially, but I know that’s not what she means. Wants me home more? Yeah, that’s true. But that’s not it either. We were high school sweethearts, madly in love almost from the moment we met. I was valedictorian of my class. She wanted to be a psychologist. Like you. Me, I didn’t know what I wanted. We got pregnant, got married right after high school. She was determined to go to college and she did for a while. I became a long distance trucker. Good way to make money to support a family. And then we had two kids and she dropped out of college and I kept driving. Truthfully, I kind of like it. Feeling of freedom on the road. I drove for other people until I had enough money to get my own truck. Big financial commitment, but now I’m my own boss. It’s okay.” He shrugs. “But Chelsea wants more. And I get it. Our kids are nine and seven. Do we really want them to see that driving a truck is all there is to life?”  

“You sound so sad and lost.”

“Yeah, that’s about right. I don’t know what to do. It’s not like I can snap my fingers and suddenly have a college degree and be working as some hot shit IT guy.”

“You said you were valedictorian of your class. Was that important to you? Were you proud of yourself?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Were your parents proud of you?”

He scoffs. “My parents? My parents could have cared less. My father was too drunk to come to my graduation. My mother came, looking uncomfortable every minute. They raised five kids. I was the last. They didn’t have much left over for me.”

“That’s very sad.”

“I guess. After a while you just stop caring.”

“So what motivated you to put forth the effort to become valedictorian of your class?”

“I don’t know.”

“Had you met Chelsea by then?”

“Yeah. We met when we were Juniors.” Pause. “I might have wanted to do it for her.”  

“What have your siblings done with their lives?”

“Liz – the only girl - is a wife and mother. My brothers? One’s an alcoholic; one has serious mental problems, can’t hold down a job. Joe – he’s the oldest - has done okay. He worked for GM when you could still make a decent living that way. I guess they all have their problems.”

“So if you had gone to college when you graduated from high school, that would have been a radical departure from the rest of your family?”

“That’s for sure.”

“And did you have feelings about being that different from your family? Even being valedictorian?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did you feel when you studied? How did you feel when you got good grades?”

“It’s too long ago to remember.”

“Daron, I think over the years you worked pretty hard – unknowingly of course – at trying not to know your feelings, your feelings of sadness and anger and disappointment and hurt. You turned yourself off so that now it’s very hard for you to know what you feel either now or in the past. I guess when you met Chelsea you were able to open yourself up to loving her which may have also opened you up to strive and succeed and do well. I’m not saying you don’t do well as a trucker - you obviously do - but it sounds as though a part of you died in the process.”

Daron’s eyes fill with tears. “That’s what Chelsea says. She says I feel dead.” Pause. “I wonder if that’s one of the reasons I like to drive. Always something new. Sort of escaping from myself.”

“That’s a great insight Daron. I guess the question is whether you’re ready to stop escaping and to look at all the painful feelings you have buried inside you.”

“First thing I thought? How long will it take? Can I do it before Chelsea leaves me?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, Daron. You’ve sat on your feelings for a long time. It won’t be a quick or painless fix.”

“But it’s a shot. I don’t have anything else.”

Money Matters Again

I am aware of feeling annoyed as I go to the waiting room to greet Philip. It’s been five weeks since I’ve seen him. Each of the last four weeks he cancelled three or more days prior to our session – well within the time required by my 48 hour cancellation policy to avoid being charged – with various excuses, mostly related to business. Philip is a successful import/exporter. It’s not unusual for him to travel, but we’ve usually been able to reschedule during the week or arrange to talk by phone, even when he’s out of the country.

“It’s been a while,” he says greeting me with a broad smile that enhances his already handsome face. “I’ve been incredibly busy. Business has really picked up. Not that I’m complaining. I know lots of people are hurting, so I’m more than grateful. Other than that, not much is happening. Things are going okay with Serena, although she hasn’t been too pleased with all my traveling. I have been able to keep up with my kids, although I can find myself squeezed between time with Serena and time with the kids.” 

“And us?” I ask.

“Us?”

“We haven’t seen much of each other the past several weeks either and now you seem to be saying that there’s not much to talk about.”

“Truthfully, I haven’t had much time to think about myself. I just keep on truckin’.”

“Does that strike you as strange? You’re someone who usually spends a lot of time reflecting about yourself, trying to understand why you do what you do and now you’re being kind of flip and indifferent.”

“Maybe I’m just tired of spending all this time ruminating on myself. Maybe it’s time to just start living.”

“Philip, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“First you disappear for over a month …”

“I didn’t disappear,” he interrupts. “I called every time to say why I couldn’t come. Gave you enough advance notice too.”

I find myself confused, annoyed and stymied. When Philip kept cancelling, I thought about our last several sessions trying to understand what might have triggered his desire to keep away and hadn’t come up with anything. Now he’s being disinterested, dismissive and even hostile and I have no idea why. Was he feeling too close and needing to get away? And what was that comment about giving me advance notice? Philip is a wealthy man. Money never seemed to be an issue between us.

“Was it important that you gave me advance warning?” I ask.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t want you to be charging me for a session when I’m not here, especially since you just raised your fee.”

I try to keep my surprise from registering on my face. I raised Philip’s fee by $25, an amount I thought would be insignificant to him.

“Philip, what did it mean to you that I raised my fee?”

“Nothing. You’re entitled. This is your job. You deserve to make a living. And $25, it’s no big deal.”

“Seems like it is a big deal, Philip.”

“Don’t be silly. I can give $25 to the valet when I leave my car at the airport.”

“Except I’m not the valet,” I say quietly.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” he says quickly.

“Philip, let’s stop a moment. I feel like we’ve been sparring all hour and I think I do understand what’s going on. I understand that the actual $25 an hour increase is inconsequential to you. But I think what it did is remind you that we have a professional relationship, that in addition to our human relationship, in addition to the caring interaction that goes on between us, you do pay me for my time. It reminded you, as you said, that this is my job. And I think that made you feel uncared about.”

“I never thought of that. At least not consciously. But now that you put it into words, I think you’re right.” He pauses. “Know what I just thought about? I thought about the time when I was a kid and my father and I had baseball tickets. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. And then sometime before the game a delivery guy arrived with an electric guitar I’d been wanting and a note that said, ‘Sorry, kid, can’t make it. Enjoy. Love, Dad.’ I never did play that guitar. I realize it’s not the same thing …”

“But it felt that money, material things were taking the place of time and caring and that’s how it felt with me too.”

“I guess. I’m sorry. I know that’s not fair.”

“Nothing to apologize for. I’m glad our relationship matters to you. It matters to me too. And I’m glad we were able to figure out what was going on.”

I Want Revenge!

Pat, an attractive woman is her early fifties, is angry, angry, angry! Her husband of over twenty years had an affair. In the midst of an ugly divorce she discovered that he had been unfaithful with many women throughout their marriage. Good reason to be angry. Except that they have now been divorced for five years and Pat is as angry today as she was the day she discovered his infidelity.

“My daughters don’t even want to talk to me anymore. When they see it’s me they just don’t pick up! They say they’re sick and tired of listening to it. Who else am I supposed to talk to? My friends are sick of me too. I don’t get it. What do they mean I should be over it already? Why should I be over it? What would make me get over it?”

“Actually that’s a good question, Pat, what would make you get over it?”

“When he drops dead! Or gets some horrible disease. Or loses all his money. But none of those things will happen. I’ll be dead before him. He could never suffer enough!”

“He could never suffer enough to what?”

“To make me happy. To get me my revenge. To make him feel the hurt that I felt.”

“Do you still feel that hurt, Pat?”

“What do you mean? Of course!”

“Well, you’re certainly still very angry, but I wonder if you do still feel the hurt I’m sure you did feel, or if you let yourself feel the hurt even five or six years ago.”

“Do you mean do I cry myself to sleep? No, I don’t cry myself to sleep anymore. I wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.”

“Did you cry yourself to sleep when you first found out?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Why do you keep asking me all these questions?”

“Your anger takes so, so much of your energy, Pat, so much of your focus, that I wonder if it’s partly a defense, a defense against all the pain and humiliation and powerlessness you felt. I wonder if your anger helps you to feel more powerful, but also keeps you trapped with your ex-husband forever.”

“Damn right I don’t want to feel powerless. I don’t want to feel powerless ever again in my life. That jerk humiliated me in front of everyone. I want him to pay – and I don’t mean just monetarily.

“At this point, Pat, I’d say your anger is hurting you much more than your ex-husband. It’s eating you up. And, as you said, it’s driving people away from you.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I can’t tell you what you should do, Pat, but I think being willing to look at some of the feelings you have underneath your anger – like hurt and powerlessness – might really be helpful to you.”

“Not until I get my revenge!”

“But you already said that you don’t think you’re going to get your revenge, so why would you doom yourself to anger and misery for the rest of your life?”

“I want him to suffer. I want him to suffer like I suffered.”

Much to my surprise, an image of my husband lying in his hospital bed shortly before he went into hospice, flashes through my mind. “Pat,” I ask, “Did you really, really love your husband?”

“Why did you ask me that?” she says less stridently.

“I don’t know. I thought if you really loved your husband, perhaps we could focus on that love and maybe that would bring us closer to your hurt, maybe that would help us to break through some of your defensive anger.”

She lowers her head and mumbles, “Yes, I really loved my husband. I thought we had a great marriage.” After a brief pause she shifts back again, “Ha! That’s a joke! The bastard was screwing around on me forever!”

“Pat, you know for a moment you allowed yourself to feel your sad, hurt, loving feelings. I know it’s hard for you to stay there, but I do think that’s where we need to go. You need to be able to move on in your life and you can’t do that while you’re tied to your ex with your anger and desire for revenge.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I want to do it.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what develops.”