I shifted in my seat, heating with shame as I awaited her reply. “And what aren’t you getting from me,” she asked, “that you will from seeing her?”
The woman sitting before me understands me better than any other. For the past 18 months, she has listened to my every hurt, regret and confusion, helping me through the most trying time of my life. Without her, it’s possible I wouldn’t be here. And how did I reward her commitment and compassion? I told her I wanted to experience another woman.
I’d arrived at that abject moment when an inveterate philanderer tells his shrink he wants to try another therapist.
The guilt and self-loathing that accompanied this admission was as excruciating as being caught cheating. I’ve been single for more than a year, but my conflict with fidelity is now played out with my therapist, rather than a partner. In fact, it was my beautiful, open-hearted last girlfriend who brought me — physically, by the hand — to see this counsellor, when I fell into a trance of depression soon into our affair. My condition would prove more than the relationship could stand, but my therapist embraced it in all its ugliness.
As in my past relationships, I omit to tell my therapist the truth about other women
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She has done an incredible job. It has been months since I last investigated how to kill myself. I no longer wake up to an all-encompassing dread — the feeling that the world has collapsed on me like rubble. I’ve been more active, sociable and productive in recent months than I was for several preceding years. But I’m still not happy.
And because I want to be happy — not dogged by this constant melancholy and emptiness — my eye has wandered towards other therapists.
“I’m an adult!” I finally exclaimed to her. “And I’m allowed to try new things.” My heart pounded as I asked: “What’s wrong with that?”
Two weeks earlier, I had a consultation with an art therapist, who lay on the floor, running her hand through a tray of sand, as she explained how I might connect with my wounded inner child. I wasn’t played with much as an infant. Weeks after I was born, I was sent to live with relatives, as my mum had to work and my dad was in the pub from 11am and uninterested in me. By the time I returned, my mother was busy raising my sister, and in frantic despair at being married to an abusive alcoholic as she struggled on her own with two babies.
Watching that art therapist, with her warm blue eyes and loving manner, trawl her fingers through the sand was irresistible to a man who has never adequately bonded with anyone.
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She told me I needed the permission of my weekly shrink before she would get involved with me, but when it came to asking for it, I couldn’t. I kept that consultation a secret in my next counselling session, just as I have the occasional alternative therapy I enjoy. As in my past relationships, I omit to tell my therapist the truth about other women.
I almost lied to the art therapist, too, wanting to say I had approval to see her. But then, realising I’m in therapy to break the habits that inevitably lead to me typing “how to die” into Google, I admitted I had not even broached the matter.
Hearing this, and knowing of my adulterous history, the art therapist refused to indulge me and upped the stakes: not only did I need permission before I could play with the sand tray, but any further involvement would have to be exclusive. I would have to dump the counsellor who had brought me back from the brink.
So I found myself before her, perspiring as I confessed my roving interest.
“You’re obviously dissatisfied with me,” she replied. “I think you’re furious.”
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“About what?”
“You tell me.”
After a think, I admitted I was enraged at still being in therapy after so long and still being unhappy, that sitting there felt like the most damning proof of my own inadequacy.
“How does it prove that?”
“Because,” I said, choking back tears, “people who are capable aren’t sitting here at 12 o’clock on a Friday. They’re out there,” I pointed to the window, “getting on with their lives.”
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“You’re ashamed of that? Of feeling that you have a need?”
“I am.”
Then I had my epiphany: this shame, born of my childhood, is why I flitted from woman to woman, unable to admit my needs, even to myself, because of the terror of the pain incurred when they’re not met — or worse, the terror of being punished for expressing them.
We spent the rest of the session discussing the engulfing dissatisfaction I suffer because I don’t acknowledge these needs, which I always look for someone new to resolve, such as the art therapist, who I emailed later.
I told her I wouldn’t be seeing her and would instead be exploring my commitment issues with my regular therapist.
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“Well done,” she replied. “You have taken an important step in transforming old patterns. I recognise how challenging this was — and confusing. This can often occur before you make a breakthrough. I congratulate you.”