Page 107 of The Gathered Fragments of Us
It was strange, being nervous about therapy when we were actually in a good place. Six months ago, if someone had told me we'd be in couples therapy, I would have assumed it was because we were on the verge of divorce. Shit, sixweeksago, I would have said the same thing. Instead, we were here because we wanted to stay together.
"Mr. and Mrs. Barrett?" A woman appeared in the doorway—tall, probably in her fifties, with kind eyes and graying hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. "I'm Dr. Mitchell. Why don't you come on back."
Good Lord. Her office was even more soothing than the waiting room. I wish it would start working to calm my nerves. There was warm lighting and two comfortable chairs positioned at an angle to each other, with Dr. Mitchell's chair completing a triangle. No couch—I'd been wondering about that.
"Thank you for coming in," Dr. Mitchell said as we settled into our chairs. "I know taking this step isn't always easy, even when you're motivated to be here."
"Actually," Caden said, "we're both pretty nervous but also eager to be here. Which probably sounds weird."
Dr. Mitchell smiled. "Not weird at all. Some of my most encouraging work is when couples come in proactively, wanting to strengthen what they have rather than waiting until crisis hits."
"Well, we've had our share of crises," I said. "But we've been working through it, and we want to make sure we keep doing that well."
"Okay. Well, let's start with what brought you here specifically?"
Caden and I looked at each other, having one of those wordless conversations that had become more frequent lately.
"We had some rough years," I started. "I felt invisible in our marriage. Caden was consumed with work, and I was... well, I just kept making myself smaller and smaller, hoping that if I ignored it all, everything would somehow get fixed on its own."
"I buried myself in work to the detriment of my marriage," Caden added bluntly. "I thought providing financially was the same as being a good husband and father. I was wrong."
"What changed?" Dr. Mitchell asked.
"Crisis, honestly," he said. "It started with me failing to realize how much I'd missed about my wife and finally everything hit the fan when I..." Caden's voice trailed off.
Dr. Mitchell encouraged him, saying, "Caden, this is a safe space. This is the place where you put it all out there and we workthrough it. Consider this—Not saying it doesn’t erase it, Caden. It already happened. Talking about it is how we work through it."
He sighed, "You're right." Clearing his throat, Caden continued, "I gave my wife's birthday gift away—a very expensive custom purse that she had designed herself and asked me for. I hid it in a stupid place—my daughter's closet. She lived with us on weekends and, not realizing she would search her closet for her ballet shoes, I had tossed it in there to keep it away from prying eyes. Hindsight's 20/20 and I now realize how dumb that was."
"Okay, how did it lead to you giving it away?" Dr. Mitchell's approach was clear, open, and without judgment, which I appreciated.
"My daughter found it and, since it was in her own closet, she thought it was for her—a gift for her first day at her new school. When she found it, rather than explain the situation, I agreed it was for her when she asked."
Dr. Mitchell turned to me and asked me how I found out.
"When I got home, Macy was all excited to show me, not knowing it was supposed to be mine."
"How did that make you feel, Felicity?" she asked me.
The question hung in the air, and I felt that familiar tightness in my chest. Even now, after all we'd been through, remembering that moment still hurt.
"Invisible, forgotten, small, heartbroken, unloved," I said quietly, feeling the words tumble from me like an avalanche. "I felt like I didn't matter enough for him to just tell the truth. Like it was easier to let me be disappointed than to have an uncomfortable conversation with Macy."
"I was devastated," I continued, the words continuing without exception. "Because it wasn't just about the purse. It represented everything wrong with our marriage. I'd asked for something, after being forgotten, and then it was just out of reach—like I'd felt Caden had been over the last few years."
Dr. Mitchell nodded thoughtfully. "Caden, how did you feel when you realized what had happened?"
"Like the worst husband in the world," he said immediately. "But also defensive, which made it worse. I tried to justify it instead of just owning how badly I'd screwed up."
"What happened next?" Dr. Mitchell asked.
We spent the next half hour unpacking all the things that had happened through to when Jessica had taken Macy. We put it all out there, without holding back. I felt broken almost like I'd had to relive everything—giving me somewhat of an emotional hangover by the time I'd said my piece and listened to Caden's.
"This feels like a good place to pause on talking through the events and to instead focus on some homework."
I felt emotionally drained, like we'd just run a marathon through our entire relationship history. Caden looked similarly exhausted.
"Homework?" Caden asked.
