Counseling 30

Yes, actually I do remember that I left off at Counseling 24. Sessions 25, 26, and 27 weren't very interesting or productive; they came along in the wake of my efforts to be more friendly to Wife, and she appreciated it, and we didn't end up with a lot to discuss. Session 28 was more interesting, but requires some back-story; with luck I may still get to it. Session 29 ...? I don't remember at the moment. Maybe if I check my old e-mails.

But yesterday, Wife and I met at Counselor's office, and she wanted to discuss my concerns about her medications. I wasn't sure she would want to discuss it, but she leapt immediately into the topic. She steered clear of discussing any of the actual events that had caused me to worry, but expressed a fair bit of outrage that I had "basically accused [her] of narcotics addiction."

Counselor tried to de-escalate the discussion by asking a couple of questions, after which he said, "You know, I don't hear Hosea using words like narcotics or addiction. And those are pretty powerful words. What I hear him asking is a straightforward question about balancing your medications -- and it's no secret that you have a lot of medications, more than anybody else I know. So I think maybe we want to be a little careful about handling this on a less intense level, rather than escalating it right away. I mean, when you talk about narcotics addiction, you get all these images in your head of criminality, and shooting people in alleyways. It turns into a discussion about bad character, rather than a much lower-key, more impersonal discussion about medicine."

We talked around this point for a little while, but Wife's basic response was, "Yes, but all this was in the context of Hosea complaining about my character, and about how I'm no longer the woman he married, and how he has no respect for me. So I think that is exactly the topic."

I demurred a little bit that the conversation she had in mind had gone the other way round. We weren't discussing her medication "in the context of" discussing her character or personality, ... in other words, we didn't start with talk about character and end up using medicine as an example. I had started by expressing my concerns over her prescriptions -- and notwithstanding some of the discussions I had earlier had with D, I phrased those concerns as impersonally as possible: "Could it be that the strengths which were prescribed for you when you were a lot heavier are no longer applicable now that you have lost so much weight ...?" It was only when she denied stoutly that she had any of the symptoms of someone abusing her medication that I tried to suggest, "Well something has changed in the last two years because you don't seem to take pleasure in any of the things you used to enjoy, and it is almost as if you are a different woman ...."

I also tried to make a distinction that had occurred to me long ago, but that I am not sure Wife sees or gets. (In retrospect, I see that I discussed it here last August.) I said there are concrete things she does that I don't respect, but that has nothing to do with who she is. A good person can sometimes do bad things; a bad person can sometimes do good things. If anything, the fact that I call her attention to things that bug me is a sign of respect, that I believe she has the power to change them. (And as I remarked to D in a phone call later yesterday afternoon, the fact that I criticize Wife a lot less than I used to may be a sign that I am giving up hope of her ever changing. But be that as it may.)

Wife didn't say much to this, but Counselor picked it up. He suggested that there were probably things in Wife's past that made it so easy and so natural for her to interpret any criticism of deeds as a rejection of her inner self, as a judgement that she is fundamentally unlovable ... and that this is something we could work on in his office. Maybe if we did, she would see things get better.

"Maybe. But I don't see why we should bother. Hosea fundamentally doesn't care about me any more. He said as much, in just those words, over the weekend."

"In every relationship, people say a lot of things in the moment that they don't mean deep down. What I have to say standing outside is that I have worked with the two of you -- you and Hosea -- for many years now. And in all that time I have never seen any evidence -- none at all -- that Hosea doesn't care for you. Quite the opposite."

And we were out of time.