The DilemmaChapter 14 Gareth Chancelor Monday
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“I feel guilty,” I said.
Benito smiled at me and nodded. “What’s making you feel guilty?”
We were sitting on Dr Puretti’s couch in his office. He’d asked for an appointment, so I’d taken off from work early. My boss knew about Estelle being in hospital, so she’s given me a bit of slack this week.
“I let Jennifer do that to me last night,” I said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“What aspect of that is making you feel guilty?” asked Benito.
“Um ... My wife is in hospital, recovering from surgery and I betrayed her” I said.
“Estelle was encouraging you to do that and more. She wanted it to happen.”
I sighed. “But we’ve pretty well established that Estelle wasn’t in a normal state of mind when she wanted that.”
“What do you think Estelle would say about it now – now that she’s in a more normal state of mind?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Does she know Jennifer’s been sharing your bed? How does she feel about that?”
“Yes, she knows. She seems to be pretty happy about it, even this week.”
“Does she know about you helping Jennifer in the shower?”
“Yes, I told her about that,” I said. “I told her yesterday. She seemed pleased. She told me I was a good man. I must admit that confused me.”
“What confused you? Did you expect her to feel betrayed?”
“Yes, but she seemed pleased,” I said.
“So, is it possible that she might feel the same way about last night?”
I didn’t answer. I sat and looked at him and thought about what he was saying. I couldn’t see a flaw in his logic. In the end I nodded to him.
“Okay, was that the only thing making you feel guilty?” asked Benito.
“Un ... I don’t believe family members should do that to each other but I let it happen. I know I was doing the same to her but that was for a reason. Then I promised Jen she could do it for me and I couldn’t break my promise.”
“So you had a choice of sticking to your principles or breaking your promise to Jennifer. Whichever way you went you would have ended up feeling guilty.”
“That’s true,” I acknowledged. “I shouldn’t have made the promise in the first place. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You told me you didn’t want to hurt Jennifer.”
“Yes, exactly. I agreed to it because I could see how much she needed to balance the scales, so to speak,” I said. “And then, once I made the promise I didn’t want to break it.”
Benito looked at me for a moment. Then he said, “I suspect there’s something else to do with that which you feel guilty about.”
I frowned at him as I thought about what he said and then I did a slow nod. “I think that, most of all, I feel guilty because I enjoyed it.”
“Ah,” said Benito. “Now we get down to the key. Why aren’t you allowed to enjoy it?”
“Well, I’ve heard men talk about sex with their daughters like some sort of fantasy. It always made my skin crawl. It seemed like a perversion of what a healthy family relationship should be when I heard them talk like that. The things they wanted to get their daughters to do...”
“And now you think you’re one of those men?”
“Yes, exactly,” I said.
“Did you force Jennifer?”
“No, of course not,” I said.
“Did you use your power and authority to coerce her?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it was completely her idea,” I said.
“Do you feel the urge to run down to the pub and tell all your mates how good it was?”
“Um, not at all.”
“Are you now going to have full intercourse with her?”
“No, that would be going too far. I’m still not prepared to do that.”
“It seems to me that makes four ways that you’re different from those men.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Do you think Estelle would have wanted you to enjoy the experience?” asked Benito.
I didn’t answer.
“Do you think Jennifer wanted you to enjoy the experience?” asked Benito.
I didn’t see any need to answer that one.
“So why aren’t you allowed to enjoy it?” asked Benito.
“I think I get your point,” I said. “I’d like to go away and think about this.”
Benito nodded. “That’s fair enough. Let’s change the topic.”
“So what should we talk about?” I asked.
“Just a moment while I take off my psychiatrist hat and put on my family-counsellor hat,” said Benito with a grin.
I grinned back and watched as he mimed changing hats. Then he settled back into his position on the couch and turned several pages in his notepad.
“Estelle is going home tomorrow morning. What do you expect to happen then?” asked Benito.
“Well,” I said. “I’m hoping things will get back to normal. I think we’ve all learned something important and now we can get back to a more normal life.”
“Do you mean with you and Estelle as husband and wife and the parents of two lovely kids?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Hmm, so this hospital stint has scared you into putting an end to your little experiment?”
“You could put it that way,” I said. “Yes.”
“I hope you don’t mind me calling it an experiment,” said Benito. “I don’t know what else to call it. How would you react if I told you that Estelle wasn’t ready to finish the experiment?”
“What?” That genuinely took me by surprise.
“And I tend to agree with her,” said Benito.
“What?” (Sorry, but I can repeat myself sometimes.)
“Let’s wind back a bit and set up some background to that,” said Benito.
“Okay,” I said. “That would be good.”
“Your marriage has been in trouble for some time. Neither of you has been particularly happy. But as sometimes happens, there has been a failure to communicate. I’m not blaming anyone. Neither of you could articulate the problem clearly, or saw any way out of the problem, so you both adopted the age-old strategy of ignoring the problem and hoping it would go away.”
“Oh,” I thought that was a bit harsh, but I was willing to keep listening.
“Do you want to save your marriage?” asked Benito.
“Of course,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’m serious. I need you to think about this carefully. “Do you want to save your marriage?”
I thought about it for all of two seconds. I suppose I knew, deep down, that we were having trouble, but I never stopped wanting to get back the Estelle I fell in love with and go back to having a happy marriage.
“I’m certain,” I said. “I want to save our marriage.”
“Good,” said Benito. “That’s excellent. So does Estelle. That means we’re off to a flying start. I very much believe that I can help you save your marriage. If we’re successful, I see no reason whatsoever why the two of you shouldn’t be together and happy for the rest of your lives.”
“Good,” I said.
“Now,” said Benito. “I get the impression you expect me to do a lot of work with Estelle, helping her to get over the issues she’s been having and help her return to being the warm and loving woman you met all those years ago.”
“Um, yes...” I said. “I certainly hope you can do that.”
“Estelle expected me to do that as well,” said Benito.
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Both of you are wrong. I’m not going to do very much with Estelle at all, at least, not initially. Most of my work will be with you. If we can change your patterns of behaviour, then Estelle’s issues will mostly be resolved and both of you will be happier.”
“My behaviour? What have I been doing wrong? I’ve done everything I could to make things work. What are you saying?”
“I know that came as a bit of a shock,” said Benito. “I’m going to explain as clearly as I can, so bear with me.”
He shifted in his seat and looked around the room. Then he looked down at his notes, and then back at me.
“What would you see as an ideal marriage?” he asked.
“Well, I suppose it would be one where both partners love each other,” I said. “Where they both respect each other. Where they both want to make the other person happy.”
“That’s an excellent place to start,” said Benito. “Most people would agree with that though sadly some marriages don’t even pass that hurdle. Go on.”
“I suppose it would be one where the two people work together to make decisions,” I said.
“So, you imagine an equal sharing of power within the relationship – a kind of two-person democracy?” asked Benito.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said.
“Good. In this day and age, that’s the only type of relationship we hear about. In most parts of the world, including here, it used to be that the man would automatically be the dominant partner and the woman was required to be subservient to him. What with feminism and all that, a marriage with two equal partners has become the ideal. And that’s a good thing compared to what we used to have. Estelle wanted a democratically equal sharing of power too. Did you ever discuss this with her?”
“Um, no, we didn’t. I think we both assumed that was the best thing to do.”
Benito nodded. “It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption given the society we live in. And it’s a wonderful goal to strive for. The only problem is that it’s all nonsense. Very few relationships are that equal. Usually there’s one partner that’s more dominant than the other. What appears to be equality in those partnerships is actually the dominant partner inviting the subservient partner to be involved in the decision-making process. That might make the couple seem democratic and equal on the surface but when you drill down into the dynamics of the relationship, the imbalance is revealed. A lot of this can be operating at the subconscious level. An amazing number of couples think they share power equally when they really don’t.”
I nodded. “That makes sense to me. People used to think my parents were equal, but my mother was clearly the dominant partner in my parents’ relationship. She would always talk to my father and get his opinion, but we all knew she was the one making the final decision. Except out in the garden. Dad had control over the garden.”
Benito smiled and nodded. “It’s common for the dominant partner to either cede or claim complete control over one aspect of the household.”
“But how does this relate to us?” I asked.
“You both wanted an equal relationship with power shared democratically. The problem is that neither of you are particularly well suited to that type of marriage. You’ve both been trying to do that and you’ve both been doing it badly and that’s where the basic problem with your marriage is. Well, the first layer of the problem, anyway.”
“What?” I said.
“Let me put it another way,” said Benito. “After listening to my little speech about dominance and subservience, which of you would you say is the dominant partner.”
I shrugged. “That’s easy. It’s Estelle.”
Benito grinned. “I gave Estelle the same speech. She was just as quick to name you as the dominant partner.”
“What?”
Benito nodded. “Truth. At a subconscious level, you’ve been thinking Estelle was dominant and Estelle was thinking you were dominant.”
“Oh,” I said.
“So, let’s paint a picture of your relationship with Estelle. It started off wonderfully. You were both in love. But you were both acting subservient and subconsciously, you were waiting for the other partner to become the leader in the family. When neither of you did, that put a strain on your relationship. Love and youthful enthusiasm carried you through the early years and you started a family together. But as time passed, that strain started having its effect. Estelle, without any real awareness of what she was doing, tried to step into that power vacuum. In fact, I suspect you pushed her into that role. She tried to take on the leadership role and she wasn’t suited for it, so she did it badly. You resented her attempts to take control and she resented your resistance to her attempts to manage the family.
“Then Jennifer grew up. Her personality has a bit of a dominant streak. She slipped into the gaps in the power dynamic of your family. She became a third parent to Bonnie and she became the glue that held the family together. She took the brunt of Estelle’s frustration and let it wash over her. She pulled you out of your passive flight mode and more or less forced you to take a more active role in the power dynamic of the family. She also taught you how to be a pro-active father for herself and for Bonnie rather than a passive father. Both the girls think you are now a great father, by the way.”
“Jen forced me?” I asked.
“Yes, you were being too passive as a parent when she was younger, and she didn’t allow you to get away with that. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I looked away while I thought about that and then I sighed. “You’re not wrong. I just never thought about it like that.”
“So, Jen became the cornerstone of your family, holding everything together. Then we come to this year and the time when Jennifer’s going to leave home started to loom large on the horizon. Estelle didn’t know why but the idea of Jennifer leaving frightened her. She worried that somehow the family would not survive without Jennifer. She was probably right with the dynamic the way it was. Then her cyst came into play, pressing against the part of her brain that controls judgement. Deprived of the ability to effectively judge the rightness or wrongness of her actions, she set out on a plan designed to keep Jennifer at home and keep her family together. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling stunned. “Yes, I do. The cyst stopped her from understanding that what she was doing was wrong. She wanted Jen pregnant, so Jen would stay at home and therefore keep the family together.”
Benito shook his head. “It went further than that. She couldn’t articulate this, but Estelle really wanted Jennifer to essentially become a second wife to you so that she would stay at home and properly adopt that leadership role that we’ve been discussing. You all mentioned how surprised you were when Estelle accepted being demoted to little sister while Jennifer stepped in as substitute wife. Estelle didn’t understand why she accepted it so easily either until I helped her drill down into her motivations. She now understands that she accepted it because she prefers being in a subservient position and she accepted it because it was a step closer to her goal. It might not have been part of her original plan but there was Jennifer acting as your wife.”
“Oh,” I said. “But that was only ever supposed to be a temporary thing.”
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