In A Quandary

 “It’s kind of weird starting therapy on FaceTime,” my new patient, Leah, begins. “But I’m a therapist myself, getting used to working virtually, so I figured it was time to get myself back into treatment. I certainly could use the help.”

“And how can I help you?”

“I guess the big push for me to start treatment again is my father, but of course like everyone else in the world, I have problems and problems and more problems.” She sighs. “I’m 45. I’m married, my husband, Ed, is an IT guy working from home. I have two kids, girls, 12 and 14, who are in school virtually. So there we all are at home, each in a separate room, learning, seeing patients and solving computer problems. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a problem if one of my girls doesn’t understand something she’s being taught and thinks she can just interrupt me in a middle of a session. I’ve tried to explain she can’t just do that, but if she goes to Ed, well, he just doesn’t have the patience, so she’ll end up interrupting me anyway. I’ve tried locking my door, but Elisa – she’s my youngest – gets really scared if I do that, so that doesn’t work either.”

“Sounds like you’re being pulled in every direction.”

“That’s for sure. And then there’s my father. My Mom died three years ago and at first I thought my Dad would be okay but now I can see he’s starting on the road to dementia – actually getting worse faster than I would have expected - and I’m worried about him being alone. Sometimes he calls again and again to ask the same question. He told me he’s burned a couple of pots forgetting he had the fire on. He’ll sometimes forget which apartment is his. And, of course, like many people during Covid, he’s lonely and, because he’s who he is, he’s angry. So I’m trying to decide if I should move him into the house with us.”

“Wow! Sounds like you have a tremendous amount on your plate.”

“Yeah. And the added problem is that I don’t like my Dad. I mean I love him – I guess – but I don’t like him. He’s angry, opinionated, narcissistic, dogmatic and intrusive. And that was all my life, not just since my Mom died or since the dementia.”

“So what was it like for you growing up?”

“Well, I’m a therapist, that should give you a big hint,” she says with a small smile. “It was hard. I was the oldest of three girls. My Mom was this really sweet person who didn’t have a backbone. She accepted anything and everything my father did, worshipped him really, and left us to fend for ourselves. Which usually meant I was the one arguing with him. My middle sister was the good girl, kind of like my mother, and my youngest sister just sort of floated through life, which is kind of what she’s still doing. I think she just ended marriage number three and career number … I don’t know. Too many to remember.”

“So what do you think it would be like with your father in the house?”

“Awful. I know it would. My youngest daughter is scared of him, always has been; and my oldest, at 14, she’d probably be arguing with him just like I used to. But I don’t know how they’d do with his dementia.”

“You haven’t said much about your husband.”

“I know,” Leah says sighing. “It’s hard. I mean I love Ed and I know he loves me, but even after all my previous therapy, I still think I married my father. No, that’s not really fair. Ed isn’t an angry bully like my father. But he is self-centered and not inclined to go out of his way to be patient or helpful, like I was saying before about his not helping my youngest with her schoolwork.”

“I notice you keep referring to your children as ‘yours’ rather than ‘ours.’

“That’s true. They’re very much my responsibility. I mean he loves them and he’s great about playing with them as long as it’s something he enjoys. But he’s definitely the fun parent and I’m the one who keeps after them to do their homework, pick of their rooms and so forth.”   

“So you always end up in the role of the responsible one. Any idea why?”

“First response, I was the oldest. Second, it’s the only way I’m sure things will get done.” Pause. “Maybe it’s the only way I feel safe.”

“There’s certainly a lot there for us to explore there.”

“I want to ask you before we stop if I should take my father in, but I know you can’t answer that.”

“Maybe we first need to look at why you only feel safe when you carry all the weight of responsibility.”

The New Year

Heather blows her nose and rubs her very red eyes. “I feel as though all I’ve been doing since the New Year is crying,” she says. “I was sure Rob was it. I even thought he might propose on New Year’s Eve. Instead I just sat there waiting for him. Eventually I got panicked and started calling hospitals. He was always punctual. I don’t know why he couldn’t just call and tell me!”

“There you sound angry,” I say.

“I guess. But I can’t hold on to the anger. Mostly I just feel sad. And I think really stupid things like ‘it’s such a waste’ or ‘he was pretty good in bed.’ I know that’s ridiculous, he is who he is and that’s that.” Pause. “Except that I love him,” she exclaims, crying. “And I thought he loved me. When he finally got the nerve to call on New Year’s Day, he gave me that old line, he loves me but isn’t in love with me. Thought he could make it work until he met Brad and they just clicked. I had the sense they practically fell into bed two minutes after they met. And there I had one of those awful thoughts again. I was going to say, isn’t that what gay men do? I don’t want to be thinking that. That’s not who I am. I’m the most tolerant, liberal person around.”

“Perhaps that’s your anger speaking.”

“Maybe.” Pause. “This isn’t the first time,” she says softly.

“Isn’t the first time …?”

“I was involved with another man who realized he was gay. We weren’t quite as serious as Rob and I, but we’d been going together for a while.” Pause. “I’m not sure why I never told you. It was a pretty big deal to me, especially at the time. And now it’s happened again.”

“What are your thoughts about not telling me about the first man?”

“I’ve thought about it. I think I was ashamed. Ashamed that I wasn’t enough of a woman to hold onto a man. Or maybe ashamed of being a woman, that being a woman in and of itself isn’t enough.” Pause. “I think my mother thought that. I wasn’t enough and she wasn’t enough.”

“Enough for what?”

She shrugs. “Enough to be successful in the world, enough to be smart and educated and intellectual like my father. Enough to hold my father’s interest. He was never interested in her. He’d rather sit around with his fellow professors and have philosophical discussions. You know, I’ve told you, as a family we kind of weren’t. We all went our own way. My father paid attention to me when he wanted to impart some tidbit of knowledge, otherwise I was just kind of there. As for my Mom, we never talked, not even when we went on vacation. Just the two of us. My father never came.”

Heather continues. “You know. I wonder if there’s a connection between my not feeling like enough and choosing – unconsciously choosing – gay men. Almost like – this is ridiculous too – they’re less of a man and I’m less of a woman, so maybe I’d be able to hold onto them.”

“What was it like for you sexually, Heather? Did you feel like less of a woman in bed? Did you feel they were lesser men?”

“They weren’t lesser men. Rob was a very attentive lover, always wanting to please me. In fact, he embarrassed me. He wanted me to tell him what it felt like, what I felt when he’d do one thing or another. I didn’t like all that focus on my body. It embarrassed me, made me self-conscious. He’d always satisfy me, always. That made me uncomfortable too because he didn’t always … umm … ejaculate.”

“And the other man?”

“Now I’m really embarrassed.” Pause. “That was different. That was a lot rougher. Sometimes he’d tie my hands and like take me really hard and fast. It was a turn-on. For both of us. When he told me he was gay I asked him about our sex, about how exciting it seemed for both of us. He said it made him realize how much he wanted done to him what he did to me. That made me feel less than. I couldn’t do what he wanted, not only because I didn’t have a penis, but because I just couldn’t. I couldn’t be that aggressive.”

Heather pauses and then continues. “So what am I saying, that I’m not enough of a woman because I’m not a man? Wow! That’s wild. That’s messed up.”

“You’ve described your father as the source of power in the family, the person both you and your mother hoped to ‘interest,’ so it’s not surprising that only maleness feels like enough. How that relates to your choosing gay men isn’t clear – at least to me – and something we’ll have to continue talking about.”

“Definitely. I’m not interested in repeating this for a third time.”