Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,6

aren’t Very Approachable. But Boyfriend insists that it’s only about his wanting to live without kids, not without me.

I’m in a state of shock mixed with bewilderment. I don’t understand how this has never come up. How do you sleep soundly next to a person and plan a life with her when you’re secretly grappling with whether to leave? (The answer is simple—a common defense mechanism called compartmentalization. But right now I’m too busy using another defense mechanism, denial, to see it.)

Boyfriend, by the way, is an attorney, and he lays it all out as he would in front of a jury. He really does want to marry me. He really does love me. He just wants much more time with me. He wants to be able to leave spontaneously together for the weekend or come home from work and go out to eat without worrying about a third person. He wants the privacy of a couple, not the communal feel of a family. When he learned I had a young child, he told himself it wasn’t ideal, but he said nothing to me because he thought he could adjust. Two years later, though, as we’re about to merge our homes, just as his freedom is in sight, he’s realized how important this is. He knew things had to end, but he also didn’t want them to—and even when he thought about telling me, he didn’t know how to bring it up because of how far in we were already and how angry I’d likely be. He hesitated to tell me, he says, because he didn’t want to be a jerk.

The defense rests and is also very sorry.

“You’re sorry?” I spit out. “Well, guess what. By trying NOT to be a jerk, you’ve made yourself into the world’s BIGGEST jerk!”

He goes quiet again, and it hits me: His eerie silence earlier was his way of bringing this up. And although we go round and round on this until the sun peeks through the shutters, we both know in a bone-deep way that there’s nothing else to say.

I have a kid. He wants freedom. Kids and freedom are mutually exclusive.

If the queen had balls, she’d be the king.

Voilà—I had my presenting problem.

3

The Space of a Step

Telling somebody you’re a psychotherapist often leads to a surprised pause, followed by awkward questions like these: “Oh, a therapist! Should I tell you about my childhood?” Or “Can you help me with this problem with my mother-in-law?” Or “Are you going to psychoanalyze me?” (The answers, by the way, are “Please, don’t”; “Possibly”; and “Why would I do that here? If I were a gynecologist, would you ask if I was about to give you a pelvic exam?”)

But I understand where these responses come from. It boils down to fear—of being exposed, of being found out. Will you spot the insecurities that I’m so skillful at hiding? Will you see my vulnerabilities, my lies, my shame?

Will you see the human in my being?

It strikes me that the people I’m talking to at a barbecue or dinner party don’t seem to wonder whether they might see me and the qualities I, too, try to hide in polite company. Once they hear that I’m a therapist, I morph into somebody who might peer into their psyches if they aren’t careful to deflect the conversation with therapist jokes or walk away to refill a drink as soon as possible.

Sometimes, though, people will ask more questions, like “What kind of people do you see in your practice?” I tell them I see people just like any of us, which is to say, just like whoever is asking. Once I told a curious couple at a Fourth of July gathering that I see a good number of couples in my practice, and they proceeded to get into an argument right in front of me. He wanted to know why she seemed so interested in what a couples therapist does—after all, they weren’t having problems (uncomfortable chuckle). She wanted to know why he had no interest in the emotional lives of couples—after all, maybe they could use some help (glare). But was I thinking about them as a therapy case? Not at all. This time, I was the one who left the conversation to “get a refill.”

Therapy elicits odd reactions because, in a way, it’s like pornography. Both involve a kind of nudity. Both have the potential to thrill. And both have millions of users, most of whom keep their use