Journal Entry: October 31, 2014

Later in the evening, after our disaster of a couple’s therapy session, I had my husband call Chatty Kathy’s office and leave a message telling her we were canceling our appointment for the following week and we would not be returning to her for counseling.

Here is the transcript of the message Chatty Kathy left on my husband’s phone this morning:

I will take you off the schedule both next week and as a standing appointment. I’m sure you would not be surprised that I would appreciate some context around the decision. I called Kat and did not hear from her, hope she’s doing okay. Give me a call back even if you don’t reach me, your choice if you don’t. I won’t expect to see you in the near future and probably long term. If there was a concern about our work together, if you were to re-engage services with me, I would need to have an understanding about why taking the break and what this is about and that would be a request or a requirement kind of from my end if you were to recontact me as to sort through how things played out. I wish you both, and you, the best.

I ended up calling Chatty Kathy back myself and leaving a message when I knew she would not be in the office. I didn’t feel any obligation to speak with her directly. I actually typed out the message beforehand, and that is how I have it now to share verbatim:

Kathy, this is Kat. I asked Blue Eyes to call you last night so that you would have as much time as possible to replace us in your schedule. I made the decision to end the couple counseling with you. I have had doubts that you were a good fit for us since you and I had our difficult session a few months ago, but I really wanted to be in couple’s counseling. I decided to stay with you because I was frankly just tired of starting over with therapists and having to explain our story and our backgrounds and I really hoped it would work with you. After yesterday, I believe that we need a counselor that better understands the dynamic between a betrayed wife in trauma and a newly diagnosed sex addict. I thought you understood me better and our situation better. Also, the phone call Blue Eyes made to you a couple weeks ago, was precipitated by The Shrink. He asked Blue Eyes to call you and discuss the disclosure. Blue Eyes lost his nerve, and blabbered on about something else. I just thought you should know that he wasn’t calling you to start some covert relationship on the side with you as you insinuated. Regarding the disclosure yesterday, I felt completely ambushed. Again, I spent such a wonderful weekend in a room filled with women who understand what I am going through and then just a few days later, I am sitting in a room where I feel like no one understands, especially not you. If the disclosure had been made at the beginning of the session, or even if there had been sufficient time to have a discussion about the actual information being disclosed, I do not think I would have made the decision to terminate our relationship with you at this time. When I was trying to make sense of your communication worksheet and related it to mine and Blue Eyes’ relationship, I had no idea what was coming. I know you had your own agenda, but frankly, the communication worksheet could have waited a week. Blue Eyes’ prep for his 1st step was so overwhelming and he was acting completely out of sorts. Although I knew he was stressed out, I had no idea what was coming. You knew the whole time what was coming and yet you selfishly had him wait until the end. When we got home, I asked Blue Eyes about what he had disclosed in your office and how the whole thing came about. During Blue Eyes’ sexual history with The Shrink this past summer, Blue Eyes remembered a woman that he had had a failed one night stand with. In a perfect world, Blue Eyes would have come home after the session and told me about it right then and there. That is what he and I have discussed all along. If he remembers anything, or is holding anything back, just tell me. You knew this. You have been counseling me for months. Before I sliced my arm open in May, the last thing I said was were you going to divulge this new information in front of your therapist and humiliate me. If there is more information about my life and my husband, I want to know immediately. Do not hold anything back. Well, the reason he held back this time was because he did not want to tell me about this failed one night stand at all. He didn’t think I needed to know. Anyway, my choices for this disclosure would have been 1) tell me right away 2) don’t tell me at all. I am so tired of the details of his acting out. He’s a sex addict. He’s done horrible and degrading things. Unless he tells me he has a kid or something, I don’t care. I am tired. The thing that set me off was the ambush. He knows how I feel about using my self harm as an excuse for not disclosing, it is BS. He was pressured by The Shrink and two of his 12 step guys to just tell the truth. The Shrink decided that couple’s therapy was the best place to do it. You decided when it was going to be done. Again, I felt ambushed and humiliated. I do not want to feel that way again. We will not be re-establishing therapy with you in the future.

For the record, that is now three individual therapists and one wive’s support group for me and two therapists, and one sexual addiction institute for my husband, plus one couple’s therapist for the both us. Kaput!