Sam and I are in bed on a morning when it is late and we have slept in. He is lying with his hands behind his head and is looking up at the ceiling. He is sleepy-eyed and precious looking. I roll over toward him and gaze at him, admiring his classic profile and feeling fortunate that I married a good looking man.
"Honey, what are you thinking about?" I ask, eager for a soulful exchange that will unite our hearts during this luxurious, semi-drowsy moment in time. (violins, please).
Sam looks at me curiously. "What am I thinking about?"
I nod, looking at him with unveiled adoration, waiting for this man whom I love to share the depths of his soul with me, withholding nothing.
"Nothing. I just woke up" He looks at me, knowing that this is not what I want to hear.
"Nothing? How can you think about nothing?"
He sighs. "Well, that's what I'm thinking about. Nothing."
If he can't engage with me about his thoughts, at least I can get him to talk to me about something.
"Well, what are you feeling then?"
He suddenly sounds weary. "Nothing!" He regards me suspiciously. "Why do you have to ask me these kinds of questions?"
"Well, I just want to know you inside and out." I feel deflated and disappointed.
"Oh please!" Sam sighs, gets out of bed and stalks off into the bathroom to take a shower. "I don't lay around thinking and feeling stuff all the time." The shower faucett goes on and he steps inside.
I feel tears forming in my eyes, but I should know better because this has happened many times. Sam is a very concrete thinker and does not find it particularly stimulating to try to articulate his inner experience. The more I ask ethereal questions, the more ridiculous they seem. When we were dating he could string out some pretty compelling romantic remarks, but it is just not his preferred way of relating.
Nor is it easy for a number of men, I'm learning.
Friday I worked with a couple who came into the therapy room and sat at opposite ends of the couch. She was sitting forward with her fingers laced around her crossed legs. Her brow was furrowed in a frown and she had tears in her eyes. He sat there, slouched back into the cushions, grinning at me, his arms and legs akimbo, his hair brushed to a point in the front (good grief, where did this style come from?) And guess what their great disagreement was? She pours out her heart to him when they lie down to sleep and asks him what he thinks. He tells her that she is "over-thinking again" and drifts off to sleep. So she stomps out of bed and down the stairs to watch TV until her indignation is spent. When she returns to bed, his blissful sleep is disturbed and he decides that this is a good time for a romp. She is livid and he can't figure out what he did wrong. So they have an awful fight and he sleeps on the couch.
"I must be clueless," he states. She shoots an evil look his way.
"I mean," he continues, "I know she wants something from me and I sit there trying to figure out what it is, knowing that I'm not going to be able to come up with it. So I make jokes or sing my school song to her: "Rah-rah-rah for the Delta Phi Ki Guys!""
I'm dying to laugh. "And how does that go over?"
She makes a disdainful sound. He looks down.
"Not good" they say in unison.
He is clueless. And so is she.
So we work it out that there is room for both of their perspectives and realities, but that since their relationship requires some sort of understanding, there are things they both need to do in order to respond appropriately to the needs of the other. She will cut out the cock-eyed, continual questions, and he will validate her feelings without having to have the same experience as she does. But, but, but....I can hear you saying. There is more to the story, but this was the bottom line for numerous reasons that can't be elucidated here.
I left that session shaking my head. It was awfully close to home.
I remember one morning getting in an argument with Sam about leaving dirty dishes in the sink. It drives me crazy to have yucky, smeary dishes with those awful smells sitting in the sink over night or all day while we're at work. It will attract ants. And since I do much of the yard work, I expected Sam to do much of the inside work. I don't think we ever talked about it, but I found myself getting really angry one morning as we were about to dash out of the house. I drove to work, consumed with passion about this.
My first session of the day was with a couple who were angry with one another because of the unspoken expectations they had of each other around housework. I mentally put my own unresolved housework argument from the morning on a shelf in the back of my head, and started delving into this couple's concerns. Yes, she was a stay-at-home mom who had a babysitter every day for four hours so she could have some time for herself. Yes, he worked 50 hours a week at a very demanding job and was the sole provider for the family. She told him that if she could just stay home from work, she would take responsibility for the house cleaning and management. That suited them both just fine. Until she got tired of it and changed the rules, unbeknownst to him. We had to sort that one out and it took over an hour to look at all of the old stories of offenses both had committed around this issue, and the secret motives that had become apparent through innumerable acts and words over the years. We renegotiated how the household duties would be done, noting that marriage contracts change over time and must be frequently revisited. I was particularly shocked to find myself supporting this man in his request not to have to put the dishes in the dishwasher. She thought that would be fine, after I helped make a case for him. He would however, keep the bathroom sinks clean--a major triumph for her.
So I limped out of the therapy room that day, shaking my head and wondering what I would be faced with in subsequent sessions. In fact, it was a 24-year-old girl who doesn't like her stepparent and secretly wishes that her parents would get back together again. Even though she knows it will not happen. Even though the divorce happened six years ago. "I would never choose to be related to that [stepmother] but I have to have a relationship with her...It sucks."
I am always amazed how therapist's own private behaviors, feelings, and thoughts can rise up and obscure the clients whom we are serving if we're not careful and scrupulous in our dealings. I bracket off my own experience so it won't interfere with my therapy, but I remain aware of my experience while I watch it wrestled over between my clients. Such lovely work, this. Real incentive to pay attention to my own issues and take care of them elsewhere. It's amazing how we are all part of the fabric of humanity, every one of us. So I'm grateful that these things are very familiar to me, and wonder what part of my life will be trotted out in the therapy room for me to dance with this week.
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