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My first reaction was disbelief, then shock. I felt frozen: My emotions were numb. What I was hearing was unbelievable. For a second, I thought I was in a dream. In tears, my wife had just divulged intimate details of her last therapy sessions. Up to that point I had believed that her two years of therapy had been performed in a typical, normal, honest and ethical fashion by a professional therapist—you know, the professional who has all those big and impressive certificates on his wall and a 100 years of experience! But as I was soon to discover, they were anything but ethical and professional. As I rewind to 18 months earlier, I should have seen it coming. Six months into the therapy, I had begun to become uneasy, and I didn’t know what was happening. I was too stupid to do anything about it, and I reacted like a deer in headlights. During those first few months of therapy, I remember the excitement she had and how convinced she was that she had finally found the “answer” for her struggles. I didn’t think anything was unusual about her new therapist, and I was happy that she had found a therapist who understood her and her issues so well. Having therapy was nothing new to her: My wife had worked with several therapists over the years, most being male. But this one was different. By the sixth month, I noticed she displayed a dependency upon her therapist that I hadn’t seen before. I questioned her about this: The answer she gave was that it had something to do with the therapy model he was using. This model required a total submission of herself to him and his therapy to deal with her years of childhood trauma. As it turns out, the way he was using this model created this heavy dependence. He convinced her that this was okay, and she convinced me. Weird, but okay. She assured me that things would get better in a few short months and that I would need to just hang on. What really happened in the months to follow was something else. By the first year, her dependency on him had escalated to the point where she was barely active in our home and married life. Along with my full time job, now I was doing all of the grocery shopping and most of the household chores. And although we were still physically intimate, it seemed her heart and mind were someplace else. She had become preoccupied with him and her therapy. At that time, she was audio recording her sessions and writing out the transcripts. When she came home after therapy, she would disappear and spend hours analyzing and writing out the sessions to the point of obsession. She was barely involved in our life and our marriage. My wife displayed extreme emotions which seemed all centered around her therapy sessions and the therapist. I noticed that she always had to contact him by phone or in emergency sessions, and she would end up in tears regarding something said or not said in therapy. During a short trip to Arizona, she was greatly concerned about whether she would be able to have a phone therapy session with him while there. On several occasions, we attended her therapist’s church: I observed how preoccupied she was in finding him and whether or not he was looking at her and giving her attention. My wife was becoming a different person than I had ever known. I was losing her, and I missed the woman I had married and had grown to love over 24 years. I felt so disconnected from her that at one point I said to myself, “This isn’t a marriage,” and I entertained the idea of separation. At the one year mark, my wife’s ongoing behavior was so disturbing that I considered intervening by meeting with her therapist to ask him to “knock it off” and refer her to someone else. I know in my heart that I should have done this, but I didn’t. I regret it now, and I especially regretted it upon hearing the story of her last session and previous sessions over the roughly two years of her therapy. What I heard was shocking and left me feeling cold and numb. Her last session included hand holding, physical touch, full body hugs, and intimate and seductive vocal tones and expressions. He had held her close in his arms on his couch, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. He had placed his hand over her hip. And it turns out that the physical touch, hugs, and hand holding had started over a year prior. He had started out slowly and within months had progressively fostered and increased his physical and seductive approach. After the numbness had worn off, my next reaction was, “What the hell was he doing holding and touching my wife? Where are the boundaries and the ethical protocol? Isn’t he supposed to be a professional therapist while she is a client?” As the story unfolded, my wife had also questioned him early on about the dependency she felt while under his care. Tragically, he had dismissed her questions and did more to promote it than diminish it. It appears now that he was very intentional about getting her hooked. And hooked she had become, as in a spell or a trance. Like the proverbial frog in boiling water. He had prepared a pot of water, first warming it, and then gradually making it hotter. And she was the frog. It has been nearly two years since I heard the news about that last session. My wife has endured countless hours with subsequent therapists, and we have spent thousands of dollars to repair the damage done. Our marriage, though scarred, has slowly been recovering. I believe we are closer now and will be stronger than before. Shortly after she told me of that last session, in my heart I blamed her. Then later, I blamed myself for not doing anything when I had the chance. But now I have come to realize that it is this therapist who should bear full responsibility. When she was particularly vulnerable and hurting, he groomed and took advantage of her, his client, my precious wife. In doing so, he took advantage of me. I had trusted him with the care of my wife, to faithfully act and perform his vocation in an ethical and “professional” manner. Instead, he betrayed her. And I have been betrayed by him as well. Edward S. Flores To return to the list of Essays, click here. |
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