They have to accept a change." The following case illustrates this point.
I had been seeing a wife who was having a series of affairs. Her husband ostensibly did not know about them. She told me she wanted her husband to become aware of the affairs so they could either break up their marriage or re-establish it on a sound basis. I told her I would see her husband at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and I wanted her to leave town and not come back until Sunday morning.
When her husband - let's call him Gerald - came in, he began to tell me in a repetitions way what a nice, sweet wife he had. He just couldn't understand why they had conflict with each other or what be trouble was.
He talked about their life together, and he said that every time be had to go out of town on a trip, his wife got lonesome and so one of his friends dropped in. He was pleased that a friend came over, bemuse he didn't want his wife to be lonesome. He mentioned that a friend had left a tube of toothpaste on the bathroom sink. Another time he noticed a discarded razor blade there which was of a different make than his own.
lie talked about be visiting friends as if they had come on Saturday, left at dinnertime, come back on Sunday, and left at dinnertime. Friend and wife had listened to records together and talked.
He talked about his adjustments with his wife and their constant quarreling and friction. Then lie would mention that his wife had pubic her, from her social service work in a poor section of town. He'd comment that when he returned from one trip, there was a breakfast food at house of a different kind from the usual, and that there would be leftover breakfast dishes that looked as if his wife had eaten two breakfasts.
He began talking at one o'clock, and finally at six he remarked, "You know, if my wife were any other woman, I'd say that she was having affairs."
I asked, "In what way does your wife differ from other women?"
He said, "My God, my wife is any other woman!" At this point be became quite upset, yelled, waved his ants, and proceeded to go over the same details again. The toothpaste in the bathroom, the razor blade, the breakfasts. He identified every detail in that new context.
All afternoon I had been hoping he would say something that would allow me to ask that kind of question. That's why I let him repeat his story over and over again, looking for some little remark so that I could yank him outside that constricted configuration. Once he recognized that his wife was "other women," there was nothing he could do about that new understanding.
I made an appointment for him and his wife the next day, and I saw them together. I said to his wife, "Now, you keep very quiet. Your husband has something to say." Since
she had been out of town, they had not talked together, and I did not want them to talk together now. I wanted her to just listen.
The husband went through the entire story detail by detail. Coldly, deliberately, he identified the toothpaste tube, the razor blade, the dishes, the items on Me grocery bill when She had cooked something special for a boy friend, and so on. The wife sat there mute, obviously upset and distressed. She was amazed at the acuity of his unconscious recognition. Gerald also made some errors in his statements about what must have happened, and she had to accept those errors because she had to be quiet. I didn't want her to defend herself or she would transform the situation. She wanted to defend herself, but her emotion went into the idea, f might as well take that disgrace as well." She was punishing herself with the weapon her husband was offering.
When he finished what he had to say, I told his wife, "You go out into the other room and I'll ask your husband what should be done next" I talked to him alone. He had received the passive acknowledgment by her silence and knew it was all true. He said, "What should I do?" I said, "You've got a lot of thinking to do. Do you want to continue your marriage, do you want a divorce, or do you want a separation?" He said, "1 love her very much. I'd like to put all of this in the past." I told him, "That's an impulsive utterance.
Suppose you come back here a week from now. In the meantime, don't see your wife. Do all of your own thinking by yourself."
He went home, and she went to a hotel at my suggestion. I set an appointment for her in a week's time, and an appointment for him. I happened to set the appointments at the same time, but they didn't know that; each was expecting just to see me. So they me in unprepared.
When they came in, I asked the question the husband would have asked if he had thought of it. I said, "Before we begin the interview to determine your future, there's one question I want to ask: You've been living at a hotel this past week. Has your bed been occupied only by you?"
She replied, "1 was tempted several times, but I figured that my husband might want me back. I knew I wanted to come back, and I didn't want to gamble for a few minutes'
pleasure."
They did little discussing of the affairs, so I had to ask the personal questions. I asked some of him and some of her. I Said, "What about ) our good friend Jack?" He said, "He used to he a good friend, but he'll get the go-by next time I see him." I asked his wife, "What about Bill?" There were a half dozen college men she was having affairs with, and I noted the ones her husband emphasized and asked him about those, and I asked her about the others. They were disposed of.
I wanted the confrontation in my presence because I didn't want an argument where they would go back to previous patterns of behavior. He would think, "If I had said this..." and she would think, "If I had answered that..." Then it's a reaffirmation of past patterns. With the confrontation, the separation, and the confrontation again, there was no
possibility of an argument until this red-hot situation had cooled down. It wasn't too difficult to keep them from dwelling on the past - I wanted to know about the future, not the past. Is this a termination of your relationship or the beginning of a new one? If it's termination- period. If it's a new relationship, what do you want out of it?
The two of them went back together, and the problem of affairs did not come up again. A year later when I saw them, they were saving money and planning children, which they later had. For a number of years I met them socially. Once some years later I was talking with him and lie reminisced about marriage. He corn, commented, "That was about the time I discovered my wife was just another woman," and he said it with amusement in his voice.