Listen to the Marriage

by John Jay Osborn

  Gretchen shook her head. Everything stopped. Something had happened. It wasn’t that Steve had slept with Bonny. That wasn’t important. It was … Gretchen, do you get it?

  It all stopped for a few moments. Gretchen looked around the room, as if she were searching for something. She looked at the green chair, paused on it. Then Gretchen got it. Sandy had been hoping that Steve would get Gretchen, understand the incredible trouble she had revealing her feelings. But it wasn’t Steve, it was Gretchen who made a leap.

  “These things happen,” Gretchen said. “Believe me, I know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Steve said.

  “What do you have to be sorry for?” Gretchen said. “Sandy doesn’t think much of sorry. Sad might be a better word, sad for everything that’s happened. Bonny is miserable and desperate, Steve. You need to be careful. You slept with her, and the next thing, she wanted to create a blended family with you on the weekend.”

  Gretchen got them actually talking. Of course it hurt, but they were doing it, plowing ahead.

  “It didn’t make me feel good,” Steve said. And hesitated. And Gretchen didn’t follow up.

  “Why? Why didn’t it make you feel good?” Sandy said.

  “I didn’t feel any connection with Bonny,” Steve said.

  “Yeah, you did,” Sandy said.

  They paused again.

  “You’re right,” Steve said. “She scared me. She told me that we had had feelings for each other since college. She was pushing me into a relationship with her. I didn’t want it, but at the same time, I didn’t want to hurt her.”

  Oh, Steve …

  “You didn’t want to hurt her?” Gretchen yelled. “Her? She wants you to take my kids away with her for the weekend. She knows I am going to find out about it. She expects me to explode. She’s counting on me exploding. She wants to blow us up. Finish us. Don’t you get it? She asks you to go away with the kids for the weekend because it will make me divorce you. And you’re worried about her feelings?”

  She got it, so much of it. So why aren’t you talking more? Sandy wondered. It would make so much difference.

  “Yes, I was worried, and I thought that the tiny bit of trust that we’ve managed to rebuild, it’s all started with the kids,” Steve said. “It’s like they’re this little island of calm we’ve created. And she was threatening it. I got scared and angry, and I told her to go back to her own house on Tuesday night. She didn’t stay the night. I only slept with her once.”

  Oh, Steve, yes, you need to tell her everything, but not now and perhaps not until you’re much older …

  Gretchen looked at Sandy. “Do you think I really need to listen to this crap? I need to know how many times they made love? Why am I trying to talk to this jerk?”

  Steve, Steve. Slowly. Please.

  “Everything matters between you two,” Sandy said to Gretchen. “He needed to tell you how many times he slept with Bonny. I don’t know why. It seems cruel and stupid to me. But there is a reason. How many times matters to Steve. Why? I have no idea why he keeps score. But maybe we will find out at some point.”

  Sandy saw Gretchen perk up, eyes narrowed. It is the English teacher, Sandy thought, the English teacher is suddenly realizing that this character is more complicated than she had thought. Yes, Gretchen, he keeps score. No …

  Suddenly Sandy realized she was wrong. Steve didn’t keep score. Gretchen did.

  15.

  The next session, they were all over each other, as if they hadn’t made any progress the session before. Sandy wasn’t surprised.

  “Steve, you are intolerable,” Gretchen said. “And the reason is that you are a bottomless emotional pit, an emotional black hole. All you do is demand emotional attention. Nobody can handle insatiable demands like that. Gabrielle will discover it soon enough.”

  Gretchen was really talking about how much Steve had hurt her, how she had tried to wall him off to avoid that, and how scared she was to take the walls down.

  Gabrielle?

  “You were barely available for me,” Steve said. “And if I did want some attention, you regarded it as selfish.”

  Steve didn’t get it. Why would he?

  Gabrielle? Something had set Gretchen off. She saw Gabrielle on the horizon.

  “You made me feel as if I was pathetic for asking for any kind of intimacy,” Steve said, choosing not to engage about Gabrielle.

  “Your idea of intimacy was that I pay attention to you immediately when you asked for intimacy,” Gretchen fumed. “But most of the time, you were in your own world. And if I asked for attention, you never gave it to me. You were so amazingly selfish.”

  “You never asked for anything,” Steve said.

  “No, you never listened,” Gretchen said. “You never heard me asking.”

  Steve paused. He tried to think about what had happened in the past. It’s not about the past, Steve, Sandy thought. She considered interrupting them, but she let them go on.

  “It wasn’t a good time for me,” Steve said. “You know that. I was in a crazy situation. I was working twenty-five hours a day. It was like being on a runaway train. I was asking for your help so I could get off it.”

  “So you were like Charlie on the MTA?” Gretchen sneered. “Remember that old song? I was supposed to be at the station and hand you a sandwich when you came rumbling through?”

  They regressed. Sandy knew why it was happening. But she left them alone, hoping they could work it out for themselves.

  “It was always about Steve,” Gretchen mocked. “You’re actually doing it right now. You’ve hijacked this conversation so that it’s about you once again. It was such a bad time for Steve. You’re like a little baby. Poor little Steve.”

  Right now, they couldn’t work it out on their own.

  “You guys are going around in circles,” Sandy said. “It’s monotonous to listen to.”

  It got their attention, and not in a good way.

  “You know, Sandy, that really doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a marriage counselor is supposed to say,” Gretchen said. Steamed. She sort of sat up in her chair, straight-backed.

  “What is a marriage counselor supposed to say?” Sandy asked.

  “That was sarcastic,” Gretchen said. “I can’t believe you think that’s helpful.”

  “I think your idea of helpful is misguided,” Sandy said. “My job isn’t to make you feel comfortable.”

  “Do you want us to be uncomfortable?” Gretchen said. “That can’t be the professional thing to do.”

  “You are already feeling uncomfortable,” Sandy said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. And, by the way, the presumption that you’re going to tell me how to conduct these sessions is condescending. I’m not choosing sides here, but Steve isn’t actively insulting me.”

  “Well, you favor Steve, and I’m sick of it,” Gretchen lashed out. “I’m really, really tired of his whining and whining, and craving attention. And then getting it! How does he do it? I mean, who cares?”

  “When you call someone a vast bottomless emotional pit, you’re making a pretty charged statement,” Sandy said. “When I heard that, I thought you were saying that Steve demanded so much of you that you didn’t have anything left for yourself.”

  “That’s what I was saying,” Gretchen said.

  “And yet, you had two children and you worked full-time at a job you love and you were successful at that job, so how did you have time for that with Steve demanding everything you had to give?” Sandy said.

  “He was incredibly demanding,” Gretchen said. “And on top of that, he was having an affair. He was an absolute shit.”

  Sandy leaned forward and smiled at Gretchen.

  “Gretchen, what has got you so riled up today?” Sandy said softly. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Gretchen said. “I’m just tired, tired of everything, and really, really tired of you, Steve.”

  Gretchen looked at Steve and frowned.
/>   “You just keep holding on, holding on, what is the matter with you? What do you want from me?” Gretchen said.

  He wants you and you know it, Sandy thought. Obviously. Why are we here?

  Steve started to answer, he leaned forward, but before he could say anything, Sandy had her hand up, blocking him, taking the floor. Because he would screw it up.

  “What do you think he wants from you?” Sandy said to Gretchen.

  “He wants me, he wants my time,” Gretchen said.

  “How’s that?” Sandy said.

  “Steve called me twice yesterday,” Gretchen said. “He pretended it was about the kids, but then he wants to know if he can see me, he wants to be personal with me, he wants to know who I’m going out with.”

  “And you don’t want to share that stuff with Steve?” Sandy said.

  “Of course not,” Gretchen said. “And he has no right to know anything about me.”

  “Rights, rights, I’m so tired of rights,” Sandy said.

  “Why isn’t Steve part of this discussion?” Gretchen said. “Why is it just you and me?”

  “I thought the problem was that everything was always about Steve,” Sandy said.

  “That is the problem,” Gretchen said. “It’s one of the problems.”

  “Well, right now, it’s all about you and me,” Sandy said. “I said I was tired of what is right. And what is not right. I am. But I’m interested in why you don’t want Steve to know anything about your personal life. We need to think about that. But right now, let me ask the converse question. Is there anything about Steve that you want to discuss, other than the general fact that he’s such a jerk?”

  “No,” Gretchen said.

  “But you started this whole thing off by mentioning Gabrielle,” Sandy said.

  “I did not,” Gretchen said.

  “You said: Gabrielle will discover it soon enough,” Sandy said. “Are you having some thoughts about this cooking teacher?”

  “No,” Gretchen said.

  “Okay,” Sandy said. “So. You were talking about what a black hole Steve was. Sucking everything in. Isn’t that what black holes do?”

  Here we go …

  “By the way, I went on Gabrielle’s website, her Italian cooking website,” Sandy said. “Did you?” She looked at Gretchen quizzically.

  There was a long pause.

  “Yes,” Gretchen said. “So what?”

  “And?” Sandy said.

  “What do you want me to say?” Gretchen said defensively. “It’s like all those websites.”

  Those?

  “It’s all so fake,” Gretchen said. “That little video of Gabrielle walking in the garden with the guitar music playing. And then she picks a tomato and takes a bite out of it. It’s almost soft-core. Come on. Who bites into a tomato?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sandy saw that Steve had slumped down defensively in his chair.

  “And I suppose the fact that she travels to her clients’ homes to give them cooking lessons is a bit suspicious,” Sandy said.

  “You are, like, evil today,” Gretchen said in a monotone. “You surprise me.”

  “Do you think Steve is sleeping with Gabrielle?” Sandy asked.

  “I don’t care,” Gretchen said.

  “I’m not sleeping with Gabrielle,” Steve said.

  “Of course you care,” Sandy said to Gretchen. “What got you here in the first place? Why are you separated from Steve? Because he slept with someone.”

  “No,” Gretchen said. “I don’t care what Steve does.”

  “How can you say that?” Sandy said. “You’re still going with the rights paradigm? That if you sleep with someone, you can’t object to Steve doing it? That isn’t true. The simple fact is that it doesn’t hurt you if you sleep with someone. I would guess it barely registers in your deep emotional memory. But Steve, on the other hand? That burns deep into you. You said he was a deep emotional pit. I would guess that translates into the fact that what he does burns deeply into your own emotions. That’s how I hear it anyway. Steve takes you into deep emotional and upsetting territory … Of course that’s scary.”

  Gretchen was sitting back in her chair, as if she were trying to withdraw from the conversation. Sandy had a vision then: she saw Gretchen sitting back in her chair because there were snakes crawling around on the floor by her feet.

  “I am totally lost,” Gretchen said.

  “I know you are,” Sandy said.

  Gretchen swung toward Sandy, focused on her.

  “I am not lost, I lost track of the conversation,” she said, slapping the words down onto the table.

  “Which is just what I meant to say,” Sandy said.

  “No you didn’t,” Gretchen snapped.

  “I did. How would you possibly know what I mean to say?” Sandy said.

  “I know,” Gretchen said.

  “That’s pretty much where this started, isn’t it,” Sandy said. “You were telling me how to do my job. How do you get to tell everyone else what they think, what they mean?”

  Sandy leaned forward, she nodded toward Gretchen.

  “I know you’re thinking that I’m hammering you, that I’m on Steve’s side,” Sandy said. “Actually, I can’t believe Steve was so very stupid for so very long. But it’s like Steve had an affair, maybe several affairs, and you pulled out all the ICBMs and you nuked the whole marriage. Okay. Fair enough. A lot of people do that. But then you went to a marriage counselor. That was a bit unusual. Now what do you want? What are you doing here?”

  Gretchen rose half out of her chair.

  “Are you telling me that it’s okay to have an affair? Is that what your advice is?” Gretchen yelled. “Like that’s not enough!” She yelled loudly. Sandy watched Steve as the yell pushed him back in his chair even further.

  “Will you please sit down,” Sandy said.

  Gretchen didn’t seem to know that she was standing. She looked around, and then, carefully, she sat down.

  “Again, when you say, Is it okay to have an affair? you are asking me for a value judgment, and I am very loath to make value judgments. Sometimes it is okay to have an affair,” Sandy said. “I guess. I don’t know. But what I do think is that it is not okay to not talk to someone. Why can’t you just tell Steve what the hell is going on? If you’re sleeping with someone, you can’t tell him? God, you guys are separated, you are trying to decide what will happen to the most important relationship in your whole life, whether you will get back together or not. This has lifelong implications for your kids. And you can’t tell each other what is happening? You will never be able to make decisions sensibly if you can’t talk to each other.”

  Gretchen shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. As if she hadn’t heard it. As if when she shook her head, her ears might unlock and she would be able to hear.

  “I should tell Steve about who I’m going out with?” she said.

  “What do you think?” Sandy said.

  “You want me to tell him about sleeping with people?” she said.

  “Gretchen,” Sandy said slowly, carefully. “I am saying the opposite. What scares you is listening to Steve talk about sleeping with other people. You don’t want to listen to what he might tell you on this subject. That is what is going to hurt you. But you turn it around so that it’s about yourself. You want to pretend that Steve can’t hurt you anymore. He can. He does.”

  “That is so convoluted,” Gretchen said.

  “Not really,” Sandy said. “It’s just painful. And you think it’s going to get worse because it’s going to happen with Gabrielle.”

  “I’m not going to debase myself by asking Steve if he’s sleeping with Gabrielle,” Gretchen said.

  “You don’t have to because he already told you. He’s not,” Sandy said.

  “And you believed him?” Gretchen yelled. “You actually believed him?”

  “Yes,” Sandy said. “As a matter of fact I did.”

 
16.

  “Liz is taking a while to adjust to her day care,” Gretchen said. “She can go off on a crying fit that lasts for an hour. It usually happens in the afternoon, which can be a big problem for me if it is on a Monday or a Wednesday.

  “Those are the days when I teach my survey course, Introduction to English Literature, with more than a hundred students at the lectures. It’s really, really bad to cancel a lecture.”

  Gretchen hesitated, getting her thoughts together. The issues involving the children were really tough for her, Sandy knew.

  “So, if we are going to pick her up on one of those afternoons when I’m teaching, Steve has volunteered to do it, even though it’s a week when the kids are my responsibility,” Gretchen said.

  “If you are going to pick her up?” Sandy said.

  “We can let her cry it out for an hour,” Gretchen said.

  “Have you ever done that?” Sandy asked.

  “Not yet,” Gretchen said. “Steve has picked her up if I’m teaching. It’s only happened twice. I was teaching, they couldn’t reach me, so they called Steve and he went and picked Liz up.”

  “So why is this a problem?” Sandy said, looking at Gretchen.

  Gretchen didn’t say anything. She looked at Sandy and then looked away.

  “Not that you have to have a reason that you can put into words,” Sandy said. “If it bothers you, it bothers you.”

  “It bothers me,” Gretchen said. “It’s like a feeling that the weather is about to turn. I’m uneasy with it.”

  “But you can’t tell me why?” Sandy said.

  Gretchen shook her head. Sandy looked at Steve, who had been too quiet.

  “Steve, what do you think might be the reason?” Sandy said.

  “Why would you ask Steve about what I’m feeling?” Gretchen said sharply.

  “Why not?” Sandy said. “I think it’s really good practice to have Steve try to put himself in your shoes. Don’t you want him to be able to do that?”

  Gretchen gave Sandy a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. She didn’t roll her eyes, but she might as well have.

  Sandy paused, and when Gretchen didn’t say anything else, she turned back to Steve.