Thoughts on Psychotherapy
A client came into session today looking mildly dejected. He wanted me to know it was nothing he couldn't handle. But something was bothering him, and he didn’t entirely approve of his own discomfort. He explained that his wife’s birthday was a few days ago, and they had experienced another go-round in a pattern they’ve played-out before on anniversaries, Valentine’s day, and Christmas. He puts in plenty of effort, but she’s usually disappointed in the results, and he blames himself.
Read MoreWhen a man relentlessly defends himself in an argument with a woman, he is usually doing it to protect the goodness of his character: I am a good person! Can’t you see that? When a woman exerts indignation in a relationship with a man, she is usually asserting her rights, her boundaries, her prerogatives:I matter! Can’t you see that? Until the man stops trying to prove to her, and to himself, that he is indeed “good” and not “bad,” he cannot go about the urgent business of showing the woman that she—her needs, her dignity, her work, her feelings—really does matter to him.
Read MoreThis post is addressed to people who (a) currently live in the world of sex-positive dating, which often includes kink and polyamory, and who (b) have begun to feel that all this sex and sociality is fun, but that Romantic Love is missing, and its absence matters more and more. Living a lifestyle of erotic adventurism and searching for a Primary Partner can be two very different things. And if you think you might want to attempt a permanent monogamous commitment with somebody awesome who feels uniquely suited to your nature, then they’re very different things.
Read MoreSome of the most consequential and wise uses of freedom are inward shifts that can bring to bloom enormous changes in due course. Among the best of these is the free decision to open the faucet in your chest from which love can flow when you dare to allow it. For those whose marriages are dormant but good enough, and potentially very good indeed, it’s well to take a leaf from Homer’s Odyssey and reflect: you may find yourself sometimes fantasizing about Circe and Calypso, and that’s fine. But Penelope is the truth.
Read MoreIn F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel The Great Gatsby, a self-made millionaire aspires to win the heart of a woman he once loved. Daisy is married and unavailable, but Gatsby has idealized her for years. He knows that she appreciates the outward signs of wealth, fame, and power—things that confer status—so he reinvents himself as a wealthy tycoon, hoping this will impress her enough to make her value him. But if it all works out, and Daisy is won over by glitz and bling, how will he know she really loves him? Gatsby is a man, not a Rolls Royce or a bank account.
Read MoreMost people have either cheated or been cheated on, at least once in their romantic lives; many have been in each position at one time or another. The pains of guilt or betrayal are extreme when we’re young and naive, full of huge feelings without the wisdom of experience. Disillusion can be embittering. But if we endure infidelity early in life, we get to enjoy plenty of future decades with those lessons already installed. Big mistakes and betrayals are always possible, but people who have learned from experience can successfully make such crises extremely unlikely.
Read MoreImagine yourself one year in the future. You’ve now made about a hundred more remarks concerning your partner’s spending habits, their specific purchases, and their ideas about money, remarks that sprang from your anxiety and impulsivity. You rationalized your behavior by focusing exclusively on the fact that the money you were trying to save is, ultimately, for the both of you. But now, one year on, you can plainly see how much accumulated suffering this has caused, how much distance it has put between you and the other(s) whom you love. You wish you had a time machine, to undo the piteous waste of closeness and harmony that you squandered in all that worrying. Well, here you are, back in the present, with those twelve months still stretching out ahead, unspoiled by any thoughtless utterance or grim withholding. How will you use this second chance?
Read MoreWhen couples argue, it’s usually about one person’s perception of unfair treatment from the other person. Someone feels some kind of injustice, and then takes a chance on bringing it up, hoping for a resolution of some kind (e.g., an apology). But when an argument becomes a fight – when it really goes off the rails, so that both people get caught up in rage – it’s usually because someone felt as if their personal value as a human being has come under threat. Depending on that person’s life history, they may be more susceptible to feeling that way, even when it’s triggered by something pretty trivial.
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