Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(49)
“Surprisingly, I did. I knew I was angry and had contributed at least somewhat to things, and I didn’t want to carry that anger and self-destructive streak on out of the marriage and into any future relationships. So, I called this therapist. Her name was Linda and she just happened to have a cancellation the next morning, so I went to see her. It was the best call I ever made.”
“Really?” he asked, and couldn’t hide the doubt he was feeling on the subject. She had stayed with Joe, after all, something he thought was just wrong after everything the man had done. He would have thought a good therapist would have insisted she leave, not convince her to stay.
“Yes, really,” Mary assured him solemnly, and then explained, “Linda listened patiently to my tale of woe about my marriage. How he’d convinced me not to go on to further my education. How he’d cheated on me. How he’d refused to face me, forcing me to drive madly off and crash, and how he, how he, how he . . .” She let her voice trail off and then he heard her sigh and she said, “And then Linda asked if I’d even been in the marriage.”
“What?” he asked with confusion, casting another glance her way.
She smiled at his expression and admitted, “That was my reaction, but then she said that the way I told the story, I hadn’t made a single decision or choice. Linda said I was taking the victim’s role. That, yes, Joe had suggested I didn’t need an education, but was it possible it was because he’d realized that I was unsettled about what to take and perhaps a little afraid and so had tried to make my decision easier by giving me the option to be a housewife? If I’d really wanted that education to fall back on, wouldn’t I have spoken up about it and insisted? Even if only to take part-time courses to see what I liked? After all, as I’d told her, he was making good money, and I wasn’t pregnant for the first three years of our marriage. I could have taken courses until we were blessed with that baby if I’d really wanted to. Wouldn’t he have allowed that?”
Mary paused and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her raise her coffee cup for a sip. After swallowing, she continued. “I had to admit that yes, he probably would have been fine with that. And she said, so, I hadn’t really been interested or wanted a degree. He hadn’t forced me not to go on to further my education.”
“Hmm,” Dante murmured. “I suppose she is right.”
“Yes, well that was the first of the revelations,” Mary said wryly. “By the time I left her office, I was thinking less like a victim, and acknowledging my part in things. I had told even myself that I wanted my marriage to work, but my actions said something else entirely. In truth, I hadn’t wanted Joe back as a partner; I’d wanted to punish him pure and simple. And I had. I’d got exactly what I’d wanted,” she said wryly. “And then Linda made me begin to question Joe’s motives in all of this. Why had he put up with my punishing him? Why had he stayed married to me when I offered him nothing but food he disliked, a cat he couldn’t breathe around, and children who grew increasingly distant from him? What had been in it for him?”
“She suggested I put off the divorce, and that we work together first, her and I, and once we got to a space where I felt comfortable, bring in Joe for couples counseling.”
“I was sure Joe would never agree to couples counseling,” she admitted quietly. “But I was wrong. We set the divorce aside. I moved back to the house with the kids and he got a temporary apartment close to work while I started therapy. But it wasn’t long before my whole attitude was changed and I was able to see things more clearly. And then the couples counseling started. I found out the first session that after I’d spoken to him about the couples counseling, Joe had called Linda and asked if he could see her one-on-one like I was doing. So he’d been working too. We both knew what our motivations were, and understood what we’d each been doing, and it was just a matter of admitting it to each other, and finding out a way to deal with each other without falling into old patterns.”
“And what was he doing?” Dante asked dryly. “Aside from having affairs at every turn?”
“Joe hadn’t intended on having the first affair,” Mary said quietly. “That had developed over long hours together working a project. He said he knew he should have arranged for her to be transferred the moment he realized what was happening, but he’d been afraid of looking stupid or weak at work. It had been a mistake.”
“I’ll say,” Dante muttered.
“No one’s perfect,” she repeated solemnly. “And there were extenuating circumstances. We’d been married three years when I finally got pregnant. I expected it would happen right away, but it didn’t. It took three years, so for three years I was just a housewife, cleaning house and cooking meals and getting comments from friends and family like didn’t I want to do anything? Didn’t I feel I should stop being a burden to Joe and get a job?” She paused and then admitted, “It wasn’t very good for my self-esteem. I felt like a failure because I wasn’t getting pregnant and started having problems with depression. I doubt I was great fun to live with after the first year or so.”
“That does not—” Dante began, but she continued over him.
“Then when I finally did get pregnant? Well . . . I was over the moon, of course, and sick as a dog. I spent more time hanging over the toilet than anything else. Joe used to come home from work to a mess, no food and would spend hours just rubbing my back and holding my hair out of the way as I threw up. My doctor said he’d never seen such a bad case of morning sickness. Which is a misnomer by the way, it was morning, noon and night sickness.”