Counseling 15

In the last episode of our soggy melodrama, Wife had agreed not to bring Boyfriend 5 to the house, but to go rent a hotel room for them to meet in some time next week. A couple of days later, I made the obvious follow-on remark to Wife that of course it is very easy to say she's going to meet him in a hotel and then bring him to the house anyway -- after all, I'll be out of town -- so could I please have a photocopy of the receipt? Surely it would have been obvious to anybody I was going to ask for this. It was obvious to all of you, wasn't it?

But it seemed to take Wife by surprise. She said she'd have to ask Boyfriend 5. Then she never got back to me.

So when we met Thursday in Counselor's office, I asked about it. Is this OK? Can I get the photocopy?

Apparently the answer was No. Or, well, mostly No. When Wife asked Boyfriend 5, so she says, he got very angry and insulted. I was trying to control him. I was trying to force him to do one little nit-picking thing after another. If he was going to pay for the room, then I shouldn't have the slightest say in anything. He should be free to come and go as he likes. What's the problem, don't I trust him? [insert smirk here] I should be willing to take his word on things without having to check. And so on, and on, and on .... He conceded grudgingly that if Wife paid the hotel bill, then he would have no say in the matter; but he still didn't like it. (I should note that Boyfriend 5 always gets really mad when he wants to scare Wife away from probing in a certain direction; in retrospect, this last-minute concession of his makes me think the real issue is that he fears my getting his credit card information. Or maybe he just wanted to make her pick up the tab while still looking gallant?)

When Wife finished relaying this second-hand tirade, I commented simply that no, of course I don't trust him. She knows that already. And when it comes to this kind of thing, I don't trust her either. Again, this is hardly news. So without a receipt, I have to assume that they went around behind my back. Without a receipt, I have to assume that they came to the house after agreeing not to. Without a receipt, I have to assume that it is no longer possible for me to make agreements with Wife about anything, because if she pretends to agree to something it is only for the purpose of duping or exploiting me. I didn't quite want to threaten her with something irreversible, but I wanted to make it clear that this is not a minor issue to me.

Wife, for her part, responded in an absolutely classic fashion: she's just a victim caught in the middle between the two of us, trying to placate us both; the problem is that neither of us will accommodate the other; whatever happens, one of us will walk away unhappy ....

And at this moment both Counselor and I seized on the last point and said, Exactly!

From there, Counselor and I more or less tag-teamed Wife. I no longer remember who said what. But both of us insisted that Wife is the one in a position of power here, because one way or another she is going to make a decision on the question of the receipt. That decision will mean either that she takes a stand with Boyfriend 5 to face me down ("Hosea, you're not getting a receipt!"), or that she takes a stand with me to face him down ("Boyfriend 5, either you agree that Hosea gets the receipt or don't come."). But one way or another, she is going to tell one of us, "I'm choosing for the other guy and you don't get what you want."

Will one of us walk away unhappy? You bet. While the choice is hers, and while it is free in the sense that it is uncoerced, it is not free in the sense of being without cost. Choosing either direction will have consequences, probably serious consequences. So she has to shoulder the responsibility for those consequences. She can't find a way to make everybody happy, so she has to choose whom she is going to make unhappy. She might feel sorry in the abstract, but she will choose to do it anyway because that choice is less bad than the alternative. And she has to realize that this is a position of power -- indeed, she holds the most power in this whole enterprise. The mask of helplessness that she has hidden behind for years now just doesn't fit any more. She can no longer afford the cowardice that has made her wear it for so long.

"But either way I choose, I'm probably going to end up losing one relationship or the other."

And Counselor said, "Maybe what you are seeing is that if you are true to yourself, you can't keep both relationships anyway."

Wife walked out of his office at the end of the hour looking a very somber and unhappy woman. And all I could think was "Hallelujah!"
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