“I don’t have an answer for this,” the therapist spoke gently. “Everyone heals at their own rate with different factors weighing in.”
“I hate him,” she repeated her earlier thoughts. “How can I love him and hate him at the same time?”
“Being human is a complex situation and nothing is black and white.”
“I keep thinking of him in the apartment where he ruined our lives being stuck to clean up the mess I made and the best friend in me wants to go help him.”
“And the other part?”
“The other part wants to sit him down while I rattle off a bunch of questions at him.”
“What if you do both and neither?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you journal?”
“No. I’ve never felt a reason to journal before. I’m typically a calm person and I’ve loved my life and was incredibly happy.”
“Were you?”
The bold question made her blink. “Yes.”
“What is your favorite, happy memory from the last six months?”
“My birthday. We took the day off and stayed home together and then he surprised me with a get together with my mom and his parents and my best friend Suki. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks. She travels a lot for work. It was good to see her.”
“What about the last year?”
She needed to think hard on it and then shrugged, “I don’t feel big momentous joyous outbursts of happiness. I live a steady, calm, happy life. I feel happy in the little things. I like being home with my partner while he cooks dinner and I make us sundaes for dessert. I like lazy rainy mornings on the weekend where we snuggle and talk about all the things we would do if it wasn’t raining though we both know we wouldn’t do them. I like my job and the people I work with. I like coming home after a day of work to be held and told I’m loved and made to feel loved. I’m blessed with an incredible mom. My best friend is the best. Until this week, I’d have argued to death over having the kindest, most loving husband on earth.”
The therapist frowned and nodded, “One other question for you before we end for the day.”
“Sure.”
“Did you want children or did Kyst?”
“We both did. He wanted it more than me, it’s for sure. I always dreamed of us being a family, but he had names picked out and their lives mapped. He’s a lawyer and he likes law and order and making spreadsheets and lists. Life was orderly and I followed along with his order.”
“You’re being assigned homework before our next session next week,” the therapist said. “There are three things I want you to do. First. I want you to write a letter to Kyst. I want you to ask all the questions you want to ask. I want you to sit with the letter for two days. Read it over. Make changes. Rewrite it. Then on the third day, I want you to answer the questions you have with the only answers you would find acceptable.”
“Why?”
“If you find there are ways to answer your question which is going to make you feel better, be acceptable to your heart and psyche, then I want you to draft a final copy and send it to Kyst, preferably through your lawyer.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, burn the letter and know what he did, there isn’t an excuse in the world to make it feel better. There are couples who can get through an affair. It’s not to say they have stronger or weaker marriages than yours. They are couples with different people who hold different values, weight and opinion on specific matters. At the end of the day, what you need to hear from Kyst will determine whether you will ever be able to forgive him. If you know though, by looking through the responses, they are not anything you can expect to get from him, you burn the letter and your expectation of finding a rational reason for his behavior.”
“Okay.”
“Two other things.”
“Sure.”
“Do something alone. Not risky. I’m not telling you to walk the streets at night. It sounds like you have a very large support system and it’s fantastic but eventually these people will need to get back to their own lives and you to yours. I feel from our conversation; the largest part of your life has been spent intertwined with another individual. Find something to do, which is safe, and do it alone and out of the apartment. If Mr. Perez feels you need to take a bodyguard, then so be it but not your regular team behind you.”
“I can’t even think of one thing I ever left and went out to do on my own.”
“That is the point, Juniper. It’s time to learn who Juniper is outside of Kyst. If you sat down with a list of things to do, what would you pick without his opinion?”
“Okay. The last thing?”
“You mentioned to me you were happy, and I believe you.
However, there were moments in our conversation today where you spoke to pressure, doing things you weren’t sure of, and you even hid your pregnancy from your husband. To me these speak to someone who was feeling like perhaps she was making herself small to fit into a space to avoid the emotions and responses from her partner. Your last assignment this week is for you to think of a time, other than this recent pregnancy, you were afraid to tell Kyst something important and I want you to write it down and write down all the reasons you were fearful to tell him. What did you think would happen?”
Three days later she was sitting in a cat café she’d never been to and laughing her head off at the antics of the kittens around her.
Juniper came alone and was calling this her homework from therapy. This was far easier than the letter thing. She was really struggling to find the answers to the questions she’d written the first day at home.
Instead, she’d taken on the challenge of going somewhere alone and she knew exactly what she would want to do but couldn’t if she was still with him. Kyst was allergic to cats. Something like this would make him run screaming back for the car. She sat at a table, with the biggest cappuccino in her hand, a big tabby laying on her lap and two kittens under the table playing with her shoelaces. She would be covered in cat hair, knowing if Kyst approached her, he’d be squinty-eyed, red blotchy skin and hives. It made her happy to be here enjoying something she’d never allowed herself in the past because of him.
Phineas insisted she bring a driver with her, one who would be able to help her if Kyst somehow found her. He allegedly was calling Beni’s phone and the switchboard at work constantly trying to get in touch with her. Her mother blocked him and his parents after his mother called and said Juniper owed it to Kyst to talk. Her mother had gone nuclear on Lois’ ass, blocked and deleted her from every platform and then took Juniper’s phone and did the same.
She looked at her purse and pulled out her phone and opened the notes section. Perhaps here in this space, where she knew Kyst would be irritated with her for coming to such a place knowing it could make him ill, she could figure out the last homework assignment.
What important things was she afraid to tell Kyst and why?
When she left the therapist’s office she’d considered this assignment dumb because she felt she really did tell him everything. Now, however, she was remembering little things she didn’t tell him because she was avoiding the disappointment he would portray.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.