The Beginning of Something Else

On June 1, 2007 I found out my husband and partner of almost two decades had been unfaithful to me since before our marriage, and had been having intercourse with prostitutes for 3 1/2 years. This is what happened next.

Monday, October 8, 2007

All good things must come to an end - like..therapy

Talked with my therapist today about my concern that Husband and I aren't having more conflict. Since he and I tend to avoid conflict like it's life threatening, I'm afraid I'll go back to being in the same kind of ignorant state of bliss that I was in over the past 10 or more years in which he was secretly getting lap dances and having sex with prostitutes and I was happily married (to him)...pure bliss.

I asked Husband about this lack of conflict. He thinks that while he's expressing his anger and resentment much more now (instead of managing them so I wouldn't get angry or otherwise upset the way he used to) rather than resulting in more conflict or being funneled into distracting addictions, those feelings get resolved.

Also talked with my therapist about feeling like my problems were, in the context of possible problems one could have, not really all that huge and bad. I said that I sometimes wonder if I really need to keep coming to therapy.

She picked up on this immediately, and we started discussing a plan for me to transition out of meeting with her. Cut down to twice a month, then once a month, then stop and come back as needed. I actually feel ready for this, even though it makes me nervous. My little support system saved my sanity and so I'm a little hesitant to make any changes. But it probably is time.

One thing though. I asked her about what the psychic I visited told me: That I had to deal with my issues with my father - that this is the area where I really needed to work (father went on a camping trip with my uncle, who returned alone relaying the message that my dad said he was going out of the country for cancer treatment, and that we shouldn't try to locate him. Months later he was found recovering from a nervous breakdown in a hippie commune in northern CA.) So I do have a history of being lied to by important men in my life with whom I have placed my deepest trust.

I was sure she'd say that I could probably work out all the issues on my own, without having to rehash stuff over with my father. (I don't want to do this because we have a good relationship now and I think it might be painful for him.) Well...of course there's no getting out of the things we need to do that we don't want to do. And to my surprise she said that in fact she agreed with the psychic (although I detected amusement or something similar in her face as she said it) and that I'd need to have some conversations with my father some day when the time was right. Maybe not immediately after my reality had just been blown up by lying cheating Husband (my words, not hers) but some day, if I really wanted to address some of these issues at the root.

So there may be more therapy in my future after all.

No comments: