[2011 Summer of deletion/reposting note: I have found that the hyperlinked clubmom.com URL is no longer a valid website. Ah the passage of time... Yet to be historically accurate, I kept all the original stuff I said]
Again, another blog post featuring something I wrote. rah! Welcome, any new readers coming from clubmom.com. May you have NO way to relate to my situation (my prayer for all of you!)
Woo, it's nice to be recognized, so I'll take some reassurance wherever I can get it. Because, right now? Life is a glass of scary fetal mouse wine at Chez Stepford. Ewwww. Just in time for Halloween. Cheers.
Let me tell you a bit about The Husband's FOO (Family of Origin):
He grew up as an only child (just like me) with a father who defaulted to the mother in everything. His father wasn't much of a strong husband in any way, he did his own thing and just kept the peace. He's a nice enough person, but really he just displaces air. He constantly 'exits' -disappears to smoke, has a 'workroom' downstairs where he retreats to in order to not have too much real interaction. I don't know why, he has his issues.
Even when The Husband was right about something in an argument with his mother, his father would not take his side -in order to keep the peace with his wife. Nobody had The Husband's back. To this day, if too much time goes by without The Husband calling home, his father will call him (from his cell phone, not the house) and prod him to call his mother. Oh, yes, I'm not kidding. Like he needs The Husband to step in and have some sort of relationship with his wife so he won't have to. Wacky, party of one, your table is now available.
The Husband's mother, no doubt out of lack of a relationship with her own husband, was all up in The Husband's life as a child ("ate him alive" The Husband puts it) - she still does, wants to know about every little thing going on in his life. If you put your toe in, she will eat you all the way up your leg, if you know what I mean.
The Husband became somewhat of a surrogate spouse, as far as communication goes. Talk talk talked to him nonstop, all the time, wants all the information there is in the world and yet it's all about her. OMGosh, you people have no IDEA how it is all about her. If you tell her you're sick, or the primary attention is turned away from her in any way (oh, like maybe her son had an affair and lost his j-o-b), she has to top you. With her faux diabetes, or her horrible dental appointment, or have the paramedics called (truly) because she may be having a stroke. No sh!t. Don't even get me started.
Not only this weird dynamic of must-know-all, but also that The Husband is the 2nd class citizen in his own family. Nothing he does is truly good or okay, or pleasing to his parents. There is always something to pick on. In the 10-plus years that we have been married, I have NEVER heard how much fun/sweet/precious The Husband was as a child, or any really good, flattering stories about him. The one story that's brought up entirely too much, for no apparent reason, is that he disobeyed them when he was a toddler and went down the driveway and set a foot in the street. Yeah, okay. All kids do something like this, but that is the bone they chew upon when talking about The Husband as a child. And that he NEVER SLEPT. And the one time he took a nap, she has a picture of it, because it never happened. Any Husband-childhood narratives are flavored like some ginormous inconvenience, heavy sigh, poor us. Well, hello, McFly? Kids are exhausting, yes, and at times a pain in the ass, but OMGosh I adore my kids and tell them all the time how much fun they are, how proud I am to be their mommy/ that they are my kids, etc. I am all about validating them as people, certainly more so because I see how my inlaws do not, and apparently never, validated The Husband as a person of worth just for being on the planet and a great person.
More weirdness: the parents never approved of/fully supported The Husband's hobbies/choices/desires growing up. He wanted to play drums, they gave him a saxophone. He wanted a simple vest from LLBean, they bought him a ugly, not-even-close knockoff. And people, this is a woman lining her own closets ad nauseum with high-dollar Talbot clothes. Money was NOT the issue. She buys all of us knockoff clothing for birthdays and holidays, but never scrimps on herself. That's more of the all-about-me coming out in a visible way. More reinforcement that The Husband was not worthy to get what he really wanted, wasn't good enough, was some sort of a disappointment. He played sports all through school; they never came to his games. Couldn't be bothered. That sickens me.
When we were pregnant for the first time, and announced the news, I remember we mentioned that we wanted more than one child. His mother said something to the effect of "Wait until you actually have one, and you may change your mind" - hello? WTF kind of thing is that to say about your own child? In his face?
So.
The Husband grows up feeling completely watched, poked, prodded and analyzed. And coming up short in their eyes. Big hot button for him.
So here we are, married and having our recent issues (PC speak for Infidelity) and he gives me access to his emails, all his passwords, in an effort to rebuild trust. He shares more about his day with me, too. But when I actually did read his email (early on, I don't mess with it now), or I have an issue, or the one (one!) time I told him that I checked his iTunes to see what he was listening to ... all of this is like his mother eating him alive and guilting him into whatever behavior she was trying to get out of him. Again, this 'dabbling', checking-him-out thing, was early on in the post-adultery time. I have since learned that looking in all these places will not help me find what I was truly searching for: his heart.
And that's the paradox. As a wife post-adultery, I have access to his life. As the man that he is and what he came from, giving me that access is torturous to him and makes him withdraw further emotionally from me. Enter the crazy cycle: he felt poked/prodded and withdraws further, I wanted him closer and wonder why he's far off and go pursue him. YUCK.
This contributes a great deal to why our progress has been slower than we'd like. We both have baggage and damage we brought with us to the marriage. Now, post-bomb, it becomes more evident daily what we lack in ourselves and what we need from the other, who fails to provide it. I was thinking today of how much we have changed and yet how far it feels we have to go. I'm astounded by how long this process is.
"The fullest glory in marriage comes when two people - discipled lovers - trust God to lead them through His ultimate curriculum of love and righteousness. The marriage will not be perfect, but the partners will be experiencing the very best of both journeys." -Merrita Tumonong
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence; and likewise also the wife unto the husband. -ICor7:5
[2011 Summer of deletion/reposting note: It seems now that I looked again for the URL to hyperlink below, that bitacle is no longer an active site on the internet (holla!). Yet to be historically accurate, I kept all the original stuff I said]
splog (spam blog): a fake blog created solely to promote affiliated Web sites, with the intent of skewing search results and artificially boosting traffic. Some have no original content, featuring content stolen from authentic Web sites. Splogs include huge numbers of links to the Web sites in question to fool Web crawlers (programs that search the Web for sites to index.
Holy crap, ya'll. I have become a big fan of one of my early readers/commenters, Eva Las Vegas, and was just over there reading about the internet nastiness that is bitacle.org. So I go over there to find out what it is, and -damn!- even little old me, a relative nobody in the blogosphere, has been stolen for profit! About one-third to a half of my Stepford posts are over there. I am sickened.
The people behind bitacle.org steal content, such as text and images, from other's weblogs and place it on their own website. Their practices are criminal and/or abusive, because these people violate the copyrights on the original content, of their holders. Not only copyrights are violated, licenses such as those of the Creative Commons are not respected as well.
The stolen content from weblogs is placed on the demon's website, between commercial messages for which the people behind it are being paid for by advertisers.
Sh!t. Still haven't figured out what we're all to do. Still searching the internet about it. Just wanted to make you AWARE of TWO THINGS:
1) if you have a blog, go to this this page and use the search box at the top of the page. Use the name or most popular keywords used on your blog to see if your blog is listed.
2) please make sure you are reading this content from the original source: me. The URL of this blog is http://instepford.blogspot.com (In case you see a web address containing the word 'bitacle' or 'bitacle.org', you're not looking at the original page), so please make sure you have the correct address bookmarked to visit so you are not unwittingly lining the pockets of the devil's spawn.
"In forgiveness you bear your own anger and wrath at the sin of another, voluntarily accepting responsibility for the hurt he has inflicted upon you." -David Augsburger
Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. James 5:16 (Msg)
The following was written by The Husband in May 2006; his first post on a blog he no longer updates, but it was my favorite post on that blog. He has given me permission to reprint it here. He really does intend to continue with his story for ya'll, he's just writing a LOT currently for other commitments and is drained from the process. But he has promised me that he will not leave ya'll hanging forever. So here's a little tidbit to chew on from earlier in our process:
I am a gadget-geek. Just ask anyone who knows me. I surround myself with stuff: instruments that read temperature and windspeed, and handheld units that track my exact global position, within 20 feet or so, via a half-dozen satellites zooming above me. Strapped around my wrist is a watch that tells me my current altitude and in which direction I am heading. I have two docking stations for my iPod, and when I take the iPod for a iRide in my iSUV, I can tune it in to any FM station on my iRadio. By-the-way, if I wanted to listen to every song and every Podcast on my iPod in one sitting I would need to carve out no less than 5 days in order to do that. And the little bugger isn't even half-full. Incredible.
One of the most basic gadgets I own is a scanner. Basic technology. Lots of fun. I am the type of person who sees a fire truck pass by, with sirens screaming and lights flashing, and wants to know the inside scoop. False alarm? Car fire? Cat in a tree? I have to know. Since it would be unwise to follow every emergency vehicle I see, lest I be seen as a stalker, all I have to do is switch on my scanner, which, of course, I have pre-programmed to monitor all of the local emergency channels, and PRESTO! Instant information!
So a couple of days ago, on my way home, I found that I had tired of listening to all 1646 of my iTunes, and I switched on the scanner. I have discovered, after listening to this thing for hours, that the police spend an inordinate amount of time doing traffic stops. At least in my small town. Between the city, county, state, and federal officers who patrol my area, you would think that with as many folks as they stop each day that by now everyone in my county has been pulled.
All that to say, when a cop pulls you over, he immediately radios his dispatcher with your license plate number, to make sure the tag is on the right car and that it has not expired. Then, he saunters up to you and confiscates your driver's license, ambles back to his car, and calls his dispatcher with your OLN (operator's license number). The dispatcher then checks their system, and if everything is cool, they let the officer know that you have no"29's", which means you don't have a warrant or 187 parking tickets and haven't recently escaped from prison.
Stick with me, I am making a point.
Each dispatcher has his or her own way of saying things, and you get to know their own individual sayings and vocal shorthands. This particular day, a new dispatcher was working, and, as usual, an officer pulled over a car and did the routine. This time, though, when the OLN came back OK, instead of announcing the subject had no 29's, the dispatcher told the officer that the driver was "clear and valid."
Clear and valid. I immediately thought back on the past five months of my life--probably the hardest time I have ever endured. The pain here was self-inflicted, but came with such a multitude of aftershocks and flashbacks that it will literally take years to restore peace in my world. Years in order to be clear and valid. And it may never happen.
I sat in my car stunned--like someone had taken all of my feelings and boiled them down to a couple of little words. I am not clear and valid. Not in my eyes, or in the eyes of many who know me. I have hated myself, had friends turn their backs on me, and inflicted so much damage that there are days when I wonder if it will ever end, and days that I wish that dump truck coming towards me would suddenly veer into my lane and take me out of my own, and everyone else's, misery.
Sure, I know in my head that in the eyes of my Lord I am indeed clear and valid. Jesus did that for me. Christians talk of the crucifiction and how Christ took all of our sins upon him up on that cross. And I believe that. But, I wonder sometimes, if He did indeed suffer for my sins, then why do I hurt so badly when I sin and why does it have to hurt those around me? Why couldn't part of the deal be that not only are my sins taken away, but the suffering as well? Or even half of it? Maybe limit the pain and suffering and consequences to a particular time limit. You know, lie to someone, get 14 days. After that, clear and valid.
Because the real truth is, no matter what Christ did for us, we will never, here in this short plastic life, feel totally clear and valid. It's not the plan. I guess if we were, we wouldn't need God anymore, right? The suffering and pain is just the road to our Redeemer that we have to travel in order to see Him and feel His love.
Maybe today, we as Christians focus too much on being clear and valid. You hear a lot of talk today in Christian circles about VICTORY and "putting your sin behind you." But what if victory feels more like defeat, and what if I will never forget my past sin? What then? I don't believe the Church today is willing to answer those questions, because to admit that there is actually pain in being a Christian, and that suffering is required in order to follow Christ, then that would be negative advertising, right? Preach a month's worth of sermons about suffering and pain and watch your numbers dwindle. And it all does seem to be about numbers sometimes, doesn't it?
Instead of trying to quicken our steps and impatiently trying to move ourselves, and those around us, out of the pain and straight into a world where your sin is forgiven so why are you still sad you must not be a true Christian--maybe instead we should stop and feel the pain for little while. Maybe the pain and suffering is the victory.
[2011 Summer of deletion/reposting note: I have no HTML in these archived posts, so the actual audio player I speak of below is lost to the ages, no music embedded in these lyrical gangsta posts any longer. Yet to be historically accurate, I kept all the original stuff I said]
Real-live music added to:
14 Aug 2006 Goodbye and Song for a Winter's Night
The Winter's Night song in that post is particularly painful for me, but it's a beautiful song ... if it weren't associated with a CD of Sarah M songs burned for The Husband by she-who-shall-not-be-named, I would listen to it more often. And thus explains how I used to love Sarah McLachlan ever so much, but why she is now like a branding iron to my soft flesh.
"We made our bed and now lie in it,all tangled up in the dirty sheets of dishonor.All because we sinned against our God,we and our mothers and fathers. From the time we took our first steps, said our first words, we've been rebels, disobeying the voice of our God" -Jeremiah 3:24-25 (Msg)
"The smallness yiou feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way ... open up your lives. Live openly and expansively" -2Cor 6:11-13
"Your job is to pull up and tear down,take apart and demolish, And then start over, building and planting" -Jeremiah 1:10 (Msg)
Ya'll. Who knew. I love Imogen Heap but dang, she's all mainstreaming it - 2 songs on The OC Soundtrack and from the season finale? Eww. Of course they are 2 of my favorites. I guess a girl's gotta eat (-as my old roommate April would say when accepting dates with random boys).
Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just began to form crop circles in the carpet
Sinking, feeling
Spin me around again
And rub my eyes
This can't be happening
When busy streets a-mess with people
Would stop to hold their heads heavy
Hide and seek
Trains and sewing machines
All those years
They were here first
Oily marks appear on walls, where pleasure moments hung before
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this
Still life
Hide and Seek
Trains and sewing machines (you won't catch me around here)
Blood and Tears
They were here first
Hmm, what'd you say, that you only meant well?
(Well, 'course you did)
Hmm, what'd you say, that it's all for the best
(Of course it is)
Hmm, what'd you say, that it's just what we need
(You decided this)
Hmm, what'd you say, what did she say?
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you
You don't care a bit, you don't care a bit
-Hide and Seek, Imogen Heap
I'll add the high-tech actual music player here when I'm not so tired and my Mac quits giving me the Spinning Pinwheel of Death.
This is a personal journal entry from almost two months ago. It halfway sucks to become self-aware and yet still realize how far I have to travel to change my landscape. My perspective has shifted, yet my ability to step on this stuff outwardly has not so much. The track that my behavior follows in my brain is a well-worn trail. I am mentally & physically exhausted attempting to change all my deep-rooted behavioral flaws simultaneously. (Good Lord, there are so many it seems some days)
Here's one of them:
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
My view is till distorted. I come into a room hoping he'll see me (react positively to me) and I'm so focused on me, how he sees me that I don't turn focus on him outside of what he's thinking about me - screwed up. It is still selfish and self-centered to try to force [The Husband] to SEE ME and yet I don't focus on SEEING HIM - I am not [The Husband]-focused and outward in my concerns or conversations with him to validate him or be there for him. I am trying to "be there" so he sees me. How does what he's talking about affect me? How does he feel (about anything) affect me?How does it affect me? me, me, me. If I look just right, will he like me? Will he think I'm pretty? Will he want to talk to me more if I say just the right thing? Act the right way?
What about [The Husband]? How can I turn my focus outward in a NON-selfish and sincere way? At least I can see it now. It's a start.Therefore, it will come as no great surprise to you how often I fail to change my outward behavior while my inner self is screaming to do so. Or (perhaps worse) a constructive change doesn't stick, and my behavior seems inconsistent. Arguments and tears (mine) Friday night, as well as one this morning, come immediately to mind. (heavy sigh)
Go easy on me, peeps. Posting this entry is for some reason, really uncomfortable. No cakewalk today sharing my rotten parts with the masses.
"Hope for the moment. There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine and tomorrow the sun will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow."
-Ardis Whitman
Our first assignment from Thing 2: write out, separately, what the Ideal Marriage would look like for each of us.
The Husband, in his efficient way, bullet-pointed his:
Mutual Respect
A Team
Common Goals
Ability to be able to solve problems without attacking one another
A passion for each other - physical and emotional
Giving each other the benefit of the doubt
Laughter
Protect each other from the world
Serve one another
Hold each other accountable
Transparency/Honesty
Love without walls
Me, in my typical way, was all over the place. (Surprised? No, I didn't think so.)
I had a bullet list, too, then I expounded into categories, then I added a list of what I don't want in my marriage, and finally I threw in a list of what I loved 10 years ago when we were first married. Because, apparently, you can never have TOO MUCH OF MY OPINIONS. ha.
Part I, The Bullets:
laughter
eye contact
smiles
connected
date nights
playful
family vacations/adult-only vacations
touches integrated into life, not just an effort at a specific time
trust
respect
enjoyment
fun
conflict handled non-personally, non-defensively
Part II, The list in Categories:
Communication: ability for both to bend together, encouragement, enthusiasm for other as an individual & for the unit
Quality Time: fun, satisfied, time alone a priority
Affection: physical touch/hand-holding/making love (I crave this frequently; I am starving for it)
Finances: a team effort, scheduled (weekly?) updates, goal planning
Part III, What I DON'T Want:
separate liveschild-centered marriage
presuming the other's thoughts/feelingsbeing stiff-armed re: his frustrations (when The Husband is mad or frustrated by circumstances unrelated to me, i.e. seasonal allergies, house projects)
slow-burn feeling of disapproval from him
Part IV, What I used to Love 10 years ago:
reading out loud together in bed
laying in bed talking every night
walks in the neighborhood in the mornings (after I worked nights)
Sunday date with our newspapers on the sofa and all-day kisses
being playful
day trips to the beach
projects that felt more team/joint (painting, kitchen remodel, etc)
games (making bets about trivia, playing Hangman in restaurants, game nights at home)
random sex (wall, kitchen, you know..)
our wedding trip, from start to finish
The Husband coming to watch me play tennis
The bathtub time, i.e. my Husband's Leg - I can't believe this was on my list and I also blogged about it. How wacky that this tee-tiny moment is so strong in my heart.
So. We 'handed in our homework' and Thing 2 read them silently. She then handed them back to us and (again) mentioned how alike we were (really! in spite of my verbosity!) in our goals and what we want in a marriage. Our marriage.
Again, that was encouraging, even though at List Time we were early on in the process of redefining ourselves and our marriage post-destruction. I wondered if The Husband had assumed at one time that he was going to have this utopian relationship he had described with she-who-shall-not-be-named. The farther out we are from our personal Ground Zero, the more I can grasp how unrealistic that was for the both of them, and the flaws in their 'relationship' stand out with increasing clarity to me. (You know, besides the obvious ones of hey, they're both married with small children). It didn't used to; I used to be completely bought in to the fact that even though it shattered me and my family, that the two of them must be 'meant' to be together. That is the freshly-minted hell you inhabit when you read most all their emails for about 7 weeks.
Let me bust out here as an aside: Ya'll, Don't Snoop. I mean, confirm the adultery obviously, if you must (and I am so sorry if this applies to you. My heart just aches when I think of all the people daily who find their world crashing down with this type of news; it's a pain you cannot even pretend to understand without living it). But beyond the basic facts of the betrayal, DON'T go looking for more details. I speak as your horrible warning, not your good example. All the passionate language, undying love, future plans, dirty talk, whathaveyou, seared itself into my cerebral cortex, and became a HUGE roadblock to reconciliation between us. I could pull out any of The Husband's words against him, and I still could, but it's becoming less of a 'threat' to my well-being as we walk this road together. If that makes sense.
I still feel we are 'early on' at times, even 9 months out, but looking back at these Ideal Marriage Lists - which I have not done since I tucked these papers away months ago - I see the hope in them, and I could almost (almost!) smile when I read them because maybe (maybe!) we are on the way there with each other.
Of course, this hopeful post must be interrupted by a caveat of emotional turmoil of some sort...could it be: satan? ha. Just another difficult day for us today, on different levels, and The Husband especially - as we are navigating some scary financial waters without enough income to row the boat if you know what I mean.
Infidelity is ugly enough without losing your job on top of it. We are racking up the credit card debt while waiting on God to work out the details of providing. If you're a praying person, I'd ask you to shoot up a 'flare prayer' for us in this area.
You know, it never fails. Progress, Backslide, Progress, Backslide.
Case in Point: The Husband posts his first entry here back in the day, and The Universe conspires to take him down emotionally. He recovers, posts his 2nd entry almost a month later, and The Empire Strikes Back. Hmm. Could it be... satan? [insert Dana Carvey's voice here]. It's ridiculous. Just a lot of crappy 'coincidences' occur after each of his guest posts that emotionally drain him, and therefore his blogging here is fewer and further between. I'm just saying.
We are plugging along, living our little separate lives, yet trying to intersect occasionally. It's awkward and uncomfortable, and way frustrating that it's so unnatural doing the Marriage thing with my husband of 10+ years. WTF? I am hopeful that the reason is because we're in a transition phase and NOT that we're completely over each other. The latter thought sucks the oxygen from my lungs if I let it in, and I struggle to push it to the back of the line.
It's resoundingly difficult to feel like your spouse/former soulmate/partner could simply take you or leave you, with no real interest in knowing you anymore. No longer desiring to make it the utmost priority to spend time with you. And if it is there, I'm being fooled because I sure don't feel it. (Reminds me of that Michelle Branch/Santana song "I'm Feeling You". Wish I was.) I took that interest/desire for granted when we had it, way back when. When we slowly drifted, it just wasn't that big a deal to me, because you just assume the other person will always be there, la la la... Idiot me: the Ostrich (notice the telltale head-in-the-ground).
Then there's an affair, and so much ground to recover to find each other again because you had already drifted before it even occurred, and then the extra layer of pain with the infidelity. It's not always the Land of Doom here; not even close, but here in cyberspace is where I regurgitate my deepest concerns to my invisible confidants, so have a serving.
Today's Special: Hidden Fears. Sh!t. No wonder so many people just opt out, and go looking for an 'untainted' new relationship/marriage. We chose the harder thing, the road less traveled, and I am trusting that God will bless that. (Hello, God? Hear that? Doing the right thing. Trusting You. Let's get on with the blessing, okay? Please? Any time now. Thanks for what You've done already, but You see how much is still missing? You know where to find us. Love, me & The Husband)
More posts in the queue about various and sundry topics related to rebuilding the marriage, cleansing my "comparison-to-her" demons, and digging into my own fleshy parts with my mental scalpel to expose and excise the stuff that's got to go. I have a whole bunch of drafts to post, but it takes a while to polish them up.
If I don't, they end up all wonky and disjointed. Um...not unlike this post.
Okay, so what else did Thing 1 do that wasn't productive? How about the fact that he would see us individually, although this was marriage counseling? At first, I didn't think that was a bad thing, but it turned our discussions at home (and in joint sessions) into He Said/She Said arguments, and trying to decipher whose "side" Thing 1 was on. Our current therapist, Thing 2, will not do that at all. If one of us cannot make it, she will reschedule. Period. And part of me longs for her to see one of us alone on occasion, but I now understand why not. Individual counseling can happen with another person, just not with her if we're to continue as a team.
Thing 1 never gave us any direction, and going into Thing 2 I was well aware that I wanted some GOALS set for this process. We would just go into Thing 1 sessions with what was on our minds and we would ramble, then he would ramble (truly, sometimes it wasn't even relevant to our situation), then we might watch a cool video, and then time's up, see you next time. Still leaving there with angst unresolved. Plus, when a man is committing adultery but he's IN COUNSELING, give him some credit. I mentioned that The Husband was still emailing and calling the other woman into the wee hours and Thing 1 called him a hormonal teenager. To his face. Not exactly the way to win someone over to your side of the fence. Reminds me of Christians who want to THREATEN you into the faith. Yeah, no thanks.
So we researched and asked around, and found Thing 2. Locally. Not an hour drive away; we couldn't believe it. Could a decent therapist practice in our one-horse town? We were both hesitant, and not terribly optimistic, to try another Thing. But off we went. Thing 2 is a conservatively dressed, soft-spoken woman. Upon first glance, I figured she probably couldn't handle us. Our fat drama. Our fatter baggage. We were like some big cussing sailor stomping into a small country church. And, as always, looks are deceiving. She very much could handle us, encourage us, and focus us. Who knew? The initial difference was: before we even met with her, she sent us paperwork that included a several pages for each of us to fill out our situation, our past (a bit) and our GOALS FOR THERAPY. woot! Just what I wanted. 1 point.
In our first session she read them silently at first, and then commented (somewhat taken aback) that our goals were surprisingly similar (we hadn't read each other's paperwork). So, right off the bat, she was encouraging. 1 point.
She had no papers in her hand, took no notes, needed no 'cheat sheet' - AND she remembered us, and all of our details in subsequent appointments, with no paperwork in sight. And she never yawns. Many points.
She gave us homework, right away. Assignments to do, tasks to complete. 1 point.
See the difference? If you've had some sh!t counseling, it MAY NOT BE YOU. Find someone else. Try again. (But on a side note: I have seen a zillion-plus therapists in my short stay on the planet. You must be ready to be forthcoming and work to change what needs it. If you want to just whine and b!tch, that's fine. But don't blame your therapist as being ineffective if you're not willing to DO what he/she says DO. Ya'll, BTDT).
