Letting Go

As Dave set the kettle on its base and turned it on, the rumination returned. Days earlier, he had discovered the Valentine’s Day card to another man, and it had it hit like an arrow in his heart. Recently, things had seemed to be getting better in the relationship with his partner of 20 years. This discovery created a mournful doubt that perhaps it was an illusion, a manipulation; that his partner was misleading him into thinking everything was better.

The water began its hissing start to boil, and Dave reminisced about what had happened over the last year. At the beginning of the previous year, during a difficult conversation about their relationship, his partner had told him she had not been happy for some time. She told him she was no longer attracted to him and that she was interested in opening up the relationship to other, outside people; a concept called an ‘open marriage’ where either party can engage in sexual activities with other people. The key to an open marriage is that there is no emotional attachment with the sexual activity. It is simply an exploration of sexual desires.

At the time of the conversation, Dave was going through a very difficult period. In the last couple of years, he had lost his sister, his stepfather, and his mother to mental illness and substance use. He was struggling heavily with rejection and abandonment; childhood traumas that were exacerbated by their loss. He was terrified of losing his partner, so he agreed to the open marriage. Rules were laid out and expectations were discussed. He thought that this might be a good thing for himself as well. The marriage had stagnated quite a bit in the last few years.

Dave stood there with his hands on the counter, staring at nothing. Intrusive thoughts swirled to the surface of the river in his mind. Difficult conversations past returned to become rocks that churned the water. Heated financial conversations, tearful discussions about feelings and expectations, a terrifying discussion about separation, and anxiety-ridden professions of love and support. It all seemed like wasted breath now. He could feel panic as tendrils on the edges of his vision and he took a deep breath, sighed. He was losing the battle with his emotions again.

The bubbling dysregulation began as the water began to boil. He could feel his body starting to vibrate with overwhelming emotion. His jaw tightened, his hands became sweaty, and he was on the verge of tears. But, he had cried so much over the last 3 years that his body just couldn’t produce the tears anymore. Anger came in from the left, frustration and resentment came in from the right. They smashed together in the middle and moved to erupt out the top of his head. He put his head down and closed his eyes. Just breathe, he told himself, and tried to rein it back in. He went about the task of getting the cups ready for the tea.

Dave’s resounding fear of being abandoned crept in from below, causing him to catch his breath. She going to leave me, began to repeat in his head. Counter thoughts of I should leave her combatted across the foxhole pitted battlefield in his mind. What about our daughter? What about the house? What about the businesses? These were the extraneous thoughts that dropped like bombs creating those foxholes.

“I like cream and sugar in mine.”

Dave was hyper-focused on the war going on inside his head. He continued to go about the busy work of getting the tea bags into the mugs, but did not respond to any outside stimuli. Once the quick work was complete, he went back to leaning on his hands on the counter and closing his eyes. The arduous process of separation and divorce became thunder clouds over the battlefield, creating a surreal darkness that shrank the world. He was terrified of the fight that would ensue from that path; the enmeshment of their lives would prove going down that path to be extraordinarily conflictive.

“What do you like in your tea?” he asked. His voice was disembodied from himself and seemed far away.

Dave felt a hand on his shoulder and it brought him out of his dissociation. He blinked and turned to the therapist. “I’m sorry,” he said; always the one apologizing, it seemed.

“Don’t be,” she said. “I like cream and sugar in mine. Are you alright?”

“No I don’t think I am,” he replied. “I feel like I’m losing everything. I feel like everything is coming to an end.”

“And if it does?” she asked. “What then?”

“It will be the end of me,” Dave replied, on the verge of tears that would not come. “Life as I know it will be…”

“Every ending becomes a new beginning,” she said with conviction. “You’re not alone. I am here to help you through this, as I always have.”

Dave drank in the person before him. He had been with his therapist for 13 years now. She had been there for him as he struggled with his alcohol use disorder. She had been there for him through all of his years of recovery. She was there for him when his family had passed, all three of them in the same year. Now she was here to support him in navigating the potential loss of his wife. He gave her a resigned smile. The kettle beeped, and the water was ready.

“You know this isn’t about you, right?” she asked, sincerely. “This is about what she is going through. Sure, you may have said or done some things that prompted her choices, but you are not responsible for her decisions.”

“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t make it hurt any less though. I know that I will be ok. I have been through so much loss, what’s another body on the pile, right?” He gave her a half-smirk in reassurance that he was coming back to himself. She smiled right back and opened her arms.

Dave welcomed the embrace. His therapist, along with his daughter, were the only real pillars of support that he had left. He would not give up on all the work that he had done over the last 13 years because his partner chose to give up, rather than work together on solving the problems they were having.

“Everything will be alright,” she said again into his ear. “You’re stronger than you know.”

The therapist held him at arms length and smiled at him. “Are you ready to begin?”

“I am,” Dave said. He turned and finished making the tea. He brought his therapist her tea and sat on the couch across from her. “Let’s talk about how to let go.”