Before we begin the first Chapter it is important to note that the following account has been approved to share with you by the participating parties.
With that being said, here is Chapter 1
“Do I love him? How could I love someone that would treat me like this?“ The questions rang out with tears and a subtle despair, her eyes streaming with years of pain that were finally coming to the surface. She was two weeks from her wedding day. A day that would unite her with the man that she had in the past described as, “the man I’ve waited for my entire life.” Now, after an argument over how they managed their time with each other and their community of friends, her insecurities rose. He had spent the last several evenings with his friends playing cards, watching sports while she had worked tediously on the final details of their wedding. Upon confronting him after the third or fourth night he responding with an explosive rage that she had never seen in him before. “I want to spend some time with my friends before you’re in charge of my social life!”, he exclaimed as he stared at her with a furious gaze. She responded to this by taking a small glass figurine that he had brought back for her while on a business trip in Paris, and hurling it across the room just missing his head. The figurine, which had been something she had treasured, as it had been a symbol to her that she was in his thoughts, even when he was thousands of miles away laid on the floor in as many pieces as her heart. She screamed at him with a ferocity that she had not seen in herself since she was a little girl, “don’t worry about me running your social world, I’m done! I don’t want to ever be with anyone that would treat me like this. You’re just like my Dad! He was always busy with “his friends”. He was never home and Mom was always stuck alone. She had all the responsibility and he played, just like you are doing now!!! So run off to your little club house and play with your friends because I refuse to be your mom.” At this his face turned an even brighter red and he pulled out a small box from his jacket pocket. “Fine, you think I act like your Dad? You have no idea! My Mom was always riding my Dad’s case, “John do this, John do that, John you never spend time at home”. Now I get it. I wouldn’t want to spend time with someone that was always demanding my attention. I don’t want it and I don’t want you.” He then tossed the small box on the ground and stormed out the front door. The next sound she heard was the sound of his tires screeching out of the driveway. Now she was sitting in my office questioning the past four years of their committed relationship, weeping. Her insecurities were peaked. She was certain that she didn’t want to be back in a world that was full of the neglect and rage that was her childhood. He was also committed to not returning to that world as well, and yet in the moment they both ran clumsily back to the ways that they had dealt with these fears as children.
As we talked I asked her to remind me how they met. She grabbed another tissue from the now half empty box on the table beside the couch, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. As she remembered, a smile overtook her face. Her expression became calm and serene. She described a small French restaurant in town.
“I was there with a girlfriend; we were celebrating her promotion at work. There was this soft music in the background, it was some kind of French Jazz. There were candles on all the tables and when I looked around the room, that’s when I saw him. He was wearing this sports coat with a nice button up. He looked, well, he looked put together, like he knew where he was going in life. I remember looking at him throughout dinner and then it happened. I was watching him sip his wine while he was waiting for his dinner and then, just like the movies, he looked up and saw me. He put his glass down and as the music played in the background it was as if time stopped. We looked at each other and he smiled. Then he did the most unexpected thing, really unexpected. He got up walked over to my table looked at my friend and apologized for interrupting our dinner then introduced himself. He seemed so strong, so confident. It wasn’t like a cheap come on, he was genuine and kind, just like the movies. After that we invited him to join us. He sat with us and we had a great time. It was like he had just been a part of my world for years. It just fit.”
After this she opened her eyes and as quickly as the smile came it vanished. The tears began to pour and she exclaimed, “where did that man go? He was the man of my dreams, he moved me just like a beautiful song and now the music just feels so different. It’s dark and scary, it doesn’t feel familiar now and I’m terrified.”
Sometimes as a therapist I take these moments for granted. In our field we see these exchanges happen all the time, so it’s easy to miss the true magic that happens when we face our fears. This moment however had a sacredness to it that was inviting, unavoidable. Neither of them were actually dealing with the other. They were reacting to the scars of the past. Those tender wounds that had been imbedded in both of them before they had the ability to make sense of them or even know how to cope with that kind of pain. Instead of reaching a moment of departure, in many ways they were finally arriving. They now had the opportunity, for the first time in the four years of their relationship to finally see what true movement would mean for them. They were seeing the hard work ahead of them and in that sense it is terribly easy to miss the sound of the moving music that still played for them. Instead of ultimatums they had exposed their deepest fears and with this type of movement it can be violent and even scary. There is being moved by French Jazz and then there is being moved by a tidal wave. Both are moving but the latter is terrifying. They had just weathered two such tidal waves and the work of moving forward if they chose to engage would move them like an entire symphony. The pieces were there but the bigger question was, were they willing to walk into this territory?
The more I have studied the world of relationships, emotions and even disorders I have noticed one resounding theme. That theme is this that at the root of most of these is isolation. When we are exposed to pain brought by others we lose trust and shut ourselves away. It is a form of self-protection and depending on the degree of hurt, the family of origin and at time even genetics it can cause us to go from simply being quiet to full blown disorders. The challenge of being moved is that we are exposed by our want for more, we are pushed to move towards something that is alive, powerful, different, and in the end we are faced with the fear of being overtaken and even hurt by what moves us the most.
Later in the session she shared that she had been afraid for quite some time. She shared that she had been waiting for, “the other shoe to drop”. She was convinced that under the surface that he was just like any other man that she had been close to. The tears welled up again as a sense of hopelessness overcame her tired eyes.
“I am so afraid that I will always be alone, I don’t want to end up that way but I know that I can’t live like my Mom did. She was married and still alone. She seemed so hopeless at times. Dad would leave every night, the same time every single night. Mom would put us to bed and then when she thought we were sleeping she would cry. I remember hearing her cry and there were so many nights that I cried too. I didn’t want to hear my Mom cry. I knew at such a young age why she was crying. Sometimes I would get out of bed and walk in to the living room. There she’d be curled up on Dad’s recliner. When she saw me she would wipe her tears and smile. She never wanted me to see her this way. She told me years later that she was afraid that I would resent my Dad if I knew and she didn’t want to be the reason that I didn’t get along with him. She was so strong. She never mentioned it to anyone. She just hurt alone. I don’t want that! I can’t do that! I need to just get through this and move on. I won’t be hurt, I won’t be stuck the way that Mom was.”
She shared with such an ardent resolve. She had not only learned of a man’s absence from her Father she had learned to isolate in her fear from her Mother. The family system was so tattered that by the time she was twenty years old her Mom and Dad didn’t even sleep in the same room. They were married in name but they merely coexisted as nothing more than distant roommates. Her Father would still retreat each and every evening to be with, “the guys” and her Mother still isolated. The only difference was that her children were all adults and she was truly alone. She had taken up a few hobbies over the years; none were means to draw close to others. They were only ways of biding her time until something finally gave. She had only experienced a shell of a marriage, a shell of a husband and in the midst had become a shell of the once vibrant and graceful young woman that had entered in to a marriage much as her daughter was on the verge of doing herself. I knew that this would be a tough journey. This was not about the marriage that was soon to be coming, rather it was about the marriage that had died in her childhood. It was the grounding for vows and promises that she carried into her relationship now.
I asked if we could meet together as a couple and before that if her fiancé was comfortable he and I could meet one on one. I explained that what she was going through now was actually a good thing, even though it is painful and heart wrenching. She looked at me with an expression of surprise and uncertainty. “How can this be a good thing? How can his temper tantrum, his absence be a good thing? I just don’t see it.” I agreed that their reactions to the fears they faced were scary and hurtful. I shared with her that in every marriage we face the fears of our parents.
“Those relationships are the model, the language of intimacy that we are taught. We are inundated with them from the time we are born throughout our entire lives. These fears, they are with you but they are not you. You were moved deeply by your parent’s relationship. In fact you were moved to build strong walls around you that allow you to retreat into isolation much the way you saw your Mom retreat. It’s all you were shown, it’s all you have known. The question isn’t do you love him or not, rather it is whether or not you can both walk together, move each other in ways that you have never been moved before. I promise that you will both mess up and we can deal with that, but you are not your mother, he is not your Father. You can move each other differently. You can move each other beyond the pains that you have both experienced. If you are both willing to do the work you will have a wonderful and happy marriage.”
Two days later I received a call from a young man. His voice was shaky, he was nervous and his words were full of shame. “Mr. Sullivan, I think I need to set up an appointment with you. I did some pretty bad things and I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my entire life. I’m sure you’ve heard all the details and I’m ready to hear about the mess that I am, and I am a mess.” We set up a time to meet. I scheduled the time for noon.
When he arrived I had two sandwiches and two sodas waiting. He was a tall thin young man no more than twenty three years old. I met him at the door of the office and introduced myself. His gaze looked downward immediately. “I’m the mean guy that you’ve probably heard all about. I’m sure everything she’s told you is true and honestly I’ve been dreading this since we spoke on the phone the other day.” I reached out my hand and said simply, “welcome to the men who make mistakes club, I’m one of the founding members.” His eyes turned upward and for the first time he made eye contact. Slowly a smiled crept up and I invited him in to the office for lunch. “I hope you like turkey. I wasn’t sure so I guessed. I did have them put the French mustard on it.” With this we both laughed. He shared with me about his job and how he was constantly making trips to France and told me that he even met his fiancé in a French restaurant. His confidence slowly returned as we talked. He was laughing and there was a deep excitement when the conversation turned to his soon to be bride, which it did often because he mentioned her several times throughout the conversation. I explained that the reason that I invited him to come alone first was to add to his shame but really to build some relationship with him. I think it is often hard for men to come to counseling for several reasons. Shame often plays a huge role and in this situation it would have hindered their growth as a couple had his first interaction with the therapist had been in front of his fiancé. I shared him much of the same information about mistakes and growth. I shared some of my own mistakes to reassure him that he was not alone. During the session he shared what had happened that night and how he felt backed into a corner.
He said that, “it felt like so many of the arguments that I watched my Mom and Dad have. I didn’t even know I was doing anything wrong. I always hang out with the guys. When she brought it up I just reacted. I saw myself doing and saying things that my Dad used to do. It was like I was watching the whole thing play out and I didn’t know where it was coming from. It wasn’t until an hour or so later that I realized just how badly I had treated her. She deserves so much more than that. I knew that I had done to her what her Dad used to do to her Mom. When I realized all that I just couldn’t face her. I love her too much to hurt her that way. If that’s how I’m going to act when I’m backed into a corner, well, she deserves a better man than that. Is there any hope for me? Will I always do this kind of stuff? Is it in my genes or something?”
At this I smiled and said I have good news and bad news. “Do you want the bad news first?” he nodded.
“The answer is yes you will hurt each other again and this is definitely not your last argument. And yes you have both learned bad habits from your parents. The good news is that you are not doomed to repeat the same mistakes. You can do it differently. Right now you are feeling the burn of shame. Shame is one of the most powerful moving forces in a man’s world. It can push him to react, to hurt the people that he loves the most. So let’s start there. There is shame and there is guilt. Knowing the difference between them will allow you to embrace an entirely new direction that neither your parents nor your fiancé’s parents ever grasped. Guilt is a word that we use in court. It is a word that tells us that you are responsible for an action. You were found guilty of a crime. You were guilty of neglecting to stop at the redlight. After a guilty verdict then sentencing is passed. Since you were found guilty for this or that the penalty is a fine or in worse cases a jail sentence. When you have paid the debt to the court you are considered a free man. What you felt when you realized your actions the other night, that was guilt. You saw that your reaction was hurtful and you found yourself guilty of hurting your fiancé. The penalty for your action was shame. Your sense of who you are as a man was diminished and you isolated from the person you hurt. Shame was the penalty that you have been paying since those actions. That is your parents system, the system that you were taught to adopt as your own. Fortunately you are not the only one. As men we are pretty efficient at beating ourselves up for days, weeks, and sometimes for the rest of our lives. Would you agree?
He nodded and was fully attentive. “So when I do something stupid like lose it, well, what am I supposed to do? I feel like if I had stayed I would have just kept on punishing her for my fear. I left, I just left. If I were there again I’m terrified that I would do it all again. I can’t imagine just sitting there punishing her with that rage. It still is echoing in my head, the things I said, the way I said it, throwing her ring on the floor. I mean I was a mess. What should I have done?”
“In that moment you made the mistake. It’s done, over. The hurt is there. It will be every time you argue. The mistake was an action. It was one point in time that after it is done it can’t be taken back. So to spend hours and days wishing that you could reign in the past becomes another series of actions that continue to punish both of you. So after you cooled off and realized what had happened the question became, what do you do now? Do you continue in the actions that brought guilt and shame or do you pursue a different course. You were, like every other man on the face of the planet at one time or another moved by your shame to isolate. So how do you do it differently? If you could talk with her now what would you say?”
At this his eyes rose once again. His countenance lifted and he said, “ I would look her in the eyes and apologize. I would tell her that I am so scared of hurting her and that the thought of what I did and said still tears me apart. Then I would ask her to forgive me. That would be really important. I would want to tell her that it will never happen again but if what you are saying is right then I will mess up again. So I would say that even when I blow it, when I say things that I regret, I will hang in there and that at the end of the day I will be there, right by her side.”
Shortly after this a wedding took place and I can say with great confidence that the couple is continuing to risk with one another. They are growing in ways that they never thought possible and continue to see ways that they move each other. They are now planning to start a family and asked me to share with you that they will actively move and be moved in and by the lives of their children.
