Surviving Our First Session

Today's appointment with the Ricky and the MFT was interesting - for lack of a better word. I was far more nervous about it than I was my individual appointment. Ricky was late and taking phone calls from his office as we were walking in - no big surprise. The therapist (Fred) asked some basic questions initially about how we met, things that attracted us to one another etc... The meeting quickly became what I called "The Ricky Show". He was personable, affable, friendly... I don't think I said 10 words during the entire hour. He was fairly honest with Fred about some things - admitting to working excessive hours and ignoring the marriage. The only time I felt the need to speak up and say something was when the two of them were talking about why he would never call when he was 3-4-5-6 hours later than he said he'd be. He claimed that he didn't call because he thought I would "yell" at him. I interjected and clarified that I had not "yelled" about him doing that to me (despite finding it horribly rude and disrespectful) for years. He finally conceded that he couldn't even remember the last time I had "yelled" about such a thing.

He also told Fred (much to my surprise) the reasons for a move we made from one state to another in 1999. I didn't expect that - believing it might come out eventually - but not on our 1st visit. In a nutshell, less than 2 months after our 1st child was born, he came home early one Friday - distraught and emotional - to let me know that he had been caught at work viewing "objectionable" (pornographic) webites on his computer. Oh. My. God. I was devastated (as I held our 6-week old baby) and shocked beyond belief. I was hurt and angry as hell too - but there was little time for discussion or arguments. He was given the choice of accepting a sizeable demotion or leaving and we agreed that leaving was the best option. We immediately sprung into look-for-a-new-job mode. He was very apologetic, embarassed beyond belief and seemed extremely remorseful. My parents and I did our best to "pump him up", though, so that he could successfully seek out and gain other employment. He did - within hours - and spent days apologizing to me, thanking me for my support and swearing that he had learned a valuable lesson and would never do anything like that again. I believed him. I had no reason not to. He was my husband. The only explanation he could give me for why he had been doing that was that he was "just curious". Although crushed, I took his word for it and even accepted a bit of blame myself - I had been pregnant for most of the 2 years prior (suffering from a handful of back-to-back miscarriages before successfully carrying our son to term) and assumed that my pregnant and dramatically-changing body just wasn't "doing it for him" anymore. Looking back, I realize that the pain this episode caused me may have been too difficult to really face and I probablyI did stuff a lot of what I was feeling (embarassment, shame, disappointment, anger etc.) down inside.

Upon learning this (in the therapy session), Fred asked Ricky if he was still viewing porn and he emphatically said "no". Fred told us that he was surprised he could quit cold turkey and without help. Ricky explained that he quit smoking the same way and never turned back. I couldn't help but sense that Fred was extremely skeptical about this but he didn't push the issue.

Acknowledging that Ricky probably wouldn't have the time to, Fred recommended that I get a book titled The Five Love Langues by Gary Chapman, read it, give him a "cliffs notes" version of the book and then be prepared to discuss it at our next appointment.

I didn't find the appointment to be terribly effective or productive. My Mom had some input, though, that helped me to feel a little better. She thinks that the therapist is working on gaining Ricky's trust right now. If he really came at him with talk of the workaholism etc. on the first minute of the first visit, there would be a great chance he would never go back. He seemed to think the appointment went well so I guess that is good. Our next visit is on July 2.