Desiree
Work was not going well. It was very obvious to me that Elizabeth had been very right. I had no business being at work. I loved my job. I loved being a therapist, but that was certainly not the day for it. I’m not exactly sure how many people think about what it takes to be going through your own trials and still have to give advice to others while listening to their problems. Being a therapist is wonderful, but that was definitely a setback.
“She doesn’t appreciate anything that I do. She lays around in bed all day long. I do everything. I work all day and I still have to come home and make dinner.”
That couple… I’d listened to them a thousand times and I was always able to keep an open mind, but that day it wasn’t going well.
“Well, when you screw someone else, it causes some problems,” she barked back.
“Okay,” I said. “Before we go too far, let’s talk about general responsibilities around the house. Clara, you work full time, yes?”
“Yes! I do. I work just as much as he does and I don’t…”
“I’m going to interrupt you right there for a sec. Mitch, you also work full time, correct?” I asked.
“Yes. I do,” he responded.
“So you both work full time. You both sleep the same hours. Explain to me the things you both do at home. The sharing of chores, cooking dinner, dealing with the kids – all of it.”
They went into another bickering session and I had to intervene many times. It was hard for me to focus. I kept having flashbacks to my dream earlier and how hard it was for me to wake up. My head still hurt, even after eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen. That couple wasn’t helping.
“So, it seems that Mitch is angry that Clara doesn’t cook more and Clara is angry she has to do the dishes every time she cooks. Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘the cook doesn’t clean' before? There are variations, but the rule is the same. He or she who cooks, does not do dishes. That is what is considered to be fair. I’ve done that before, in the past, and it worked beautifully. That means that if Mitch goes out of his way, he will be met halfway and vice versa. It’s a great middle ground. Laundry can be divided the same way. Each person can do their own, or one person can do the laundry and the other can put away. There are tons of things that can be done to equalize the pressure.”
“That sounds great!” Clara said. “I would be very happy with that. I know I’m depressed a lot, but it’s because of all that happened and the constant fighting. I think this could alleviate some of the fighting. You said you’ve tried it and it worked?”
“Yes,” I said with a smile. “Sometimes we get stressed with our spouses when we feel we have too much to do and the other does too little and, in reality, that can very easily be the opposite. It’s all about perception. Sometimes you may perceive that you are doing far more than you actually are. This is a way to ensure both are doing equal parts.”
Mitch stared at me, his eyes narrowed.
“No offense,” he said. “But didn’t your husband kill himself?”
“Mitchell Wayne!” Clara yelled. Her eyes were wide, her posture rigid. I could see the embarrassment all over her face.
“I said, 'no offense.' I mean… clearly shit wasn’t that great if he wanted to die that bad.”
My heart sank and rage filled me. It was a small town. It was no secret what had happened to Caleb. But to hear his name dragged through the mud like that set me on fire. I wanted to punch that man in the throat.
“Get up!” Clara shouted, grabbing at his arm. “We’re leaving right now.”
I sat in total silence, unsure of how to respond. My rage filled and stunned me to silence. I used to be in crisis counseling. Caleb talked to me about the fact that there are a lot of people out there that needed help. They were traumatized in ways people couldn’t imagine and they needed help. Military, police, fireman, and just regular citizens. No one was immune. That was why I’d originally gone into crisis counseling.
Abused kids. Abused women. Raped women. PTSD sufferers. There was no shortage of people that I could help and I loved making a difference. When Caleb died, however, I felt lost and unqualified. I couldn’t even see the signs in my own husband, how could I help someone else? I moved myself out of that area and took up marriage counseling. It was painful at first, but I remembered that his death had nothing to do with our marriage. Our marriage was as great as anyone could hope for. It was the pain he had in his mind that wouldn’t let him go. Mitch had crossed a line that could not be taken back.
The unhappy couple bickered and fought as he defended himself and his question while she screamed at him for being so insensitive. In truth, he was a jerk. That wasn’t my professional opinion. That was my personal opinion.
Clara had just gotten him to the door when I finally found it in myself to speak.
“Thirty-seven,” I said.
“What?” Mitch asked.
“Thirty-seven,” I repeated. “That is how many letters of condolences that I received. Thirty-seven letters from thirty-seven people.”
“Okay?” Mitch said, an infliction at the end to suggest he couldn’t care less.
“There were actually many more than that, but those were the ones that stood out the most. Those thirty-seven letters were from a mixture of children, wives, and men that my husband affected in his lifetime. Wives telling me just how sorry they were to know the world was short the man that was responsible for saving their husbands. Men thanking me for their lives because if I’d told my husband to never to have signed up in the first place, they would be dead. Young children telling me they cried because the man that saved their daddy was dead. He saved multiple lives. He changed many lives. Some of those children never would have been born had my husband not been around. Unfortunately for him, and unfortunately for me, his suffering and the horrors that he saw nightly became too much for him, despite the many smiles we shared together on a daily basis. He was a soldier. A husband. Most importantly, he was a man. A man that had more than he could take.”
“Doctor Martin,” Clara said, her hand over her chest, tears in her eyes. “I am so sorry, both for your loss and for my stupid husband. I'm just so sorry.”
I didn’t care to even address the stupid husband part. As a therapist, I was expected to caution against name-calling, but all I wanted to do was agree with her.
“Have a good day,” was all I said before walking them to the door.
I had no interest in talking to them further. They still had thirty minutes, but I planned to not charge for that last half and request them to move to another therapist. I honestly didn’t believe that I would be able to remain neutral on his behalf after that. It was the responsible, professional thing for me to do. Or, so I told myself.
Once they were gone, I went to my assistant and asked her to move all of my appointments. I needed some alone time before going home and I didn’t want anything else to happen. I decided to do charting and planning for a while. All alone. Just myself. No one else to worry about at all. With everything I was feeling, I didn’t want to risk not having the filter that I needed. The truth was that I didn’t belong around people at all, let alone clients.