Page 18 of The Therapist
He shakes his head. ‘Look, I don’t know what you’ve told Lana, but I’m not the one who lashes out.’
‘Liar,’ says Sandy quietly.
‘You’re the liar,’ he replies, his voice rising.
There are always three sides to every story. Everyone knows that. I have always prided myself in being able to ascertain, fairly quickly, who is closer to the truth when I undertake marriage counselling. I have never had a situation where I am as unsure as I am now as to who to believe.
‘Okay, I feel that this is not the best way to move forward,’ I tell them both, hoping that the tension I can feel smouldering in the air can be tamped down. I cannot have this session get out of control.
Mike looks from Sandy to me and back again. He won’t do anything in here, surely? I can see that he’s getting angry. He jiggles one leg and cracks his knuckles. But I also sense a lot of confusion from him.
I watch him take a deliberate breath and I can almost see him counting in his head. ‘What exactly has Sandy told you?’ he asks me.
‘I told her that when you get really angry, you hurt me,’ whispers Sandy, looking down at her lap, where she has started on a fresh tissue, moving it from hand to hand and tearing off small bits. ‘I told her that you black out when you drink and that’s when you hurt me.’ Sandy has not told me this. She has told me about the drinking and the gaslighting and she has also told me she got the black eye when she walked into a door. The explanation didn’t make sense but I get it now. She feels safe enough, with me here, to say what she needs to say. But he seems puzzled as well as angry. Even if he blacks out and hurts her, he must have seen the results of his violence. It cannot be that she has never said anything at all about his behaviour to him until now. She’s talking as though this is something they both know. Is his puzzlement all an act? Are her accusations of abuse a lie? I hate that I am still not completely sure who is telling the truth.
He raises his hands and runs them through his neat blond hair and then he closes his eyes. I wait again in silence for him to say something. Finally, he looks at me and says very slowly, ‘That’s a lie. Everything she says is a lie.’ His tone is even, as though he is simply stating a fact.
I find myself questioning everything I know about this situation again. Who should I believe?
‘You’re the one who makes things physical,’ he says as he looks at me although he is obviously talking to Sandy.
‘Oh, Mike,’ says Sandy, shaking her head as more tears appear. ‘If you can’t even admit you have a problem, how are weever going to make things better? I don’t want to go to the police. I really don’t want to. I don’t want to get divorced either but you have to admit…’ Her face pales. ‘You have to admit what you do in order for anything to change, isn’t that right, Lana?’ she says, raising her head and looking at me, and I nod. I am gifted one of her glorious smiles for agreeing with her and I realise that I am being manipulated here. I am supposed to be neutral.
Mike shoots out of his seat and I feel myself rearing back as my heart rate speeds up. He comes towards me, waving his clenched fist in my face. ‘How stupid are you to fall for this crap?’ he says. ‘She’s the one who gets physical.’
I push myself further away from him and he drops his fist, mutters, ‘Shit,’ and goes to the door. ‘I knew this was bullshit,’ he says and he opens the office door, slamming it behind him as he leaves.
And Sandy bursts into tears. ‘Do you see?’ she wails. ‘Do you see what I’m dealing with?’
I wait while she sobs, giving her time to get a hold of herself – and if I’m honest, for me to get a hold of myself, too. I saw that surge of anger. Is that what happens? Does she goad him into hurting her? It’s not something we are ever supposed to consider but it can happen. In relationships where domestic violence is part of things, one partner sometimes does push the other into violence. Most of the time, it’s the woman pushing the man because at least, once he has hit her, she gets some relief from the cycle of abuse. She gets to have him move into the apologetic phase. And that appears to be what I have seen today but I also watched Sandy push her husband, watched his incomprehension at her accusations. He didn’t say that she forces him to hurt her, that it’s her fault. He just denied it was happening and instead called her the aggressor.
Finally, she stops, blows her nose and then sits back and takes a deep breath. ‘I had such hope,’ she says.
I’m not sure what to say to her. Her husband has accused her of being the one to lash out physically but everything about him seems to indicate that he is the one who hurts her. Whatever the truth is, these two people cannot be together until things are sorted out, especially not tonight after what just happened.
‘I think you should find a safe place to be tonight,’ I say. ‘He does seem really angry. Maybe get the children from school and go somewhere else, give him time to cool off. There are places I can call…people who will help…’
‘No…no, it’s fine,’ she replies, shaking her head vehemently. ‘You don’t need to worry about me. I know him and I know he’s going to be upset about walking out. He’ll probably be really…nice for a few days.’
‘But maybe some more time apart would be good for him. It will give him time to think. I can get Kirsty to organise somewhere for you to stay tonight with the kids. I can speak to the police with you. I promise you that I can help you get free of this man.’
‘And I’m telling you, Lana…’ she begins, her demeanour changing quickly. I see the shutting down in her eyes again, the quick change in her personality when she wants to end a discussion. ‘I know my husband and I’ll be fine. You don’t want to be someone who pushes a patient into doing something she doesn’t want to, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ I reply, feeling like I’m being accused of something. ‘But I want you to be safe. You will be safer away from him.’
‘No,’ she says firmly. ‘No,’ she repeats, returning to the tissue in her hand. ‘It’s fine for you to tell me what to do, Lana, but you don’t know everything about my life and my marriage. You don’t even know everything about him. He’s a good man, a good provider. He loves the kids and I’m not willing to blow up eight years of marriage because he’s struggling right now.’
‘I understand but you shouldn’t be afraid of your partner. You know that.’ It’s difficult to keep myself from getting exasperated. I’m not sure what Sandy hoped to achieve here, but I remind myself that domestic abuse – emotional or physical – is complex and Sandy has been with this man for a long time. Unravelling how she got here and why she stays will take many hours of work. I cannot push her to make any decisions until she is strong enough but I would like her to put some distance between herself and Mike tonight.
‘Just for tonight, take some space and time,’ I try.
‘You don’t’ – she turns to stare at the door to my office as though she is contemplating leaving – ‘you don’t get it. He had a hard childhood. His parents, particularly his father,’ she says, ‘was brutal.’
‘We all carry baggage but it’s not an excuse to hurt someone.’
‘He once told me a story about his father teaching him to swim or not teaching him, just throwing him into the pool and waiting for him to surface. I mean I’ve heard of people doing that before but Mike never surfaced; he sank like a stone every single time. He was only four years old and he almost died. He used to hide whenever his father told him it was time for a lesson. Isn’t that terrible? I mean can you imagine?’
It does sound awful. My mind flashes back on Iggy’s first swimming lesson, both Oliver and me in attendance with our phones ready to snap pictures and a sweet teacher who turned the whole thing into a game and rewarded him with a small chocolate afterwards.
