Don't You Go and Carry On With Your Life

"Hi I'm Dr. Pope, it's nice to finally meet you two!" Dr. Pope greeted me and Alex as we walked into her office.

"It's nice to meet you too. I'm Jack." I introduced myself and shook her hand.

"And I'm Alex." Alex did the same.

"Oh you're the one I've been emailing with." She said and Alex nodded. "Well both of you take a seat and let's get started." She gestured to the couch behind us.

Alex and I both sat down awkwardly next to each other. I felt like we were in the principal’s office and in trouble. Dr. Pope pulled out a folder that had "Gaskarth" on it and then she pulled out a few sheets of paper.

"Okay. Let's start off by you two telling me why you feel couples counseling is necessary for you both." She said.

Alex and I looked at each other to see if the other was going to speak first.

"Um I guess I can go first." Alex said and cleared his throat. "We um were married for almost twenty years and I had an affair which caused us to get a divorce. So I wanted to try counseling to see if this could somehow help me earn Jack's trust back so that maybe we can slowly rebuild our relationship." Alex explained and Dr. Pope nodded.

"Okay and Jack what about you? Why do you think couples counseling is necessary for you both." She asked.

"I guess pretty much for the same reasons Alex said. He explained it pretty well." I said and Alex smiled.

"He did do a great job, but I would love to hear your point of view." She said.

"Oh okay. I um think that this is necessary to see if I'm comfortable with being with Alex again. It's been hard trying to get over what he did to me and frankly it seems impossible right now. After he cheated on me I felt broken for the longest time and I don't ever want to feel that way again. So I need to see if I can get past the fear that he'll one day break me again." I said and she nodded and wrote down some stuff. I felt kind of emotional after saying that out loud. I didn't like the vulnerable feeling I got having to talk about my feelings. I was afraid to look over at Alex after my explanation. I glanced over and saw him tapping his foot lightly and looking down.

"Alright so right now there's kind of a common goal between you two just different paths to obtain it. Alex, you want to earn back Jack’s trust in hopes that it will lead to you two rebuilding your relationship. And Jack, you want help in learning to trust Alex again so it will alleviate your fear of him hurting you again." She said and we both nodded. "Talking about your feelings can be hard but I want to encourage you two to do it honestly with each other, especially in here. Counseling isn't easy, but it becomes doable when you’re honest about your emotions and experiences. So I want you two to turn towards each other and look each other in the eyes." She directed.

Alex and I turned to each other on the couch and made eye contact. He gave me a small reassuring smile that I returned.

"Now Alex I want you to promise Jack that you'll be completely honest with him, about your emotions, throughout the entire duration of counseling with him."

"I promise that I will be completely honest about my emotions with you through the entire duration of counseling." Alex said without taking his eyes away from mine. I quickly got flash backs to when we repeated our wedding vows to each other.

"Now Jack, I want you to do the same."

"Okay. I promise that I will be completely honest about my emotions with you through the entire duration of counseling.

"Good! Now you both made this promise to each other and keeping it is first step to success." She said and we turned back to face her. "So it is very clear to me that Alex's affair was the breaking point of you twos relationship." She said and I nodded. "I think we should break down everything that's happen and go from there. So Alex let's talk about your affair." Dr. Pope said.

"Uh okay." Alex said. His face was red from embarrassment from having to talk about this.

"Okay let's start off simple, who was the person you had the affair with?" She asked.

"It was my uh secretary." Alex answered.

"Mhmm, and how would you rate your relationship with her at the time? Did you have feelings for her at the time?"

"No none what's so ever. The affair was mainly off of impulse."

"Okay. What would you say lead you to having the affair with your secretary?" She asked. Hearing Alex's point of view was kind of interesting.

"Well I was starting to work on more cases at work that required more attention. And I started to work later hours and even on my days off. I wasn't at home as much as I used to be and I guess I was more tired and had less energy to do things with my family. So Jack became upset and began to complain about my working hours and how I wasn't spending time with him and the kids and stuff like that-"

"-that's because you weren’t." I cut him off, before I could stop myself. There was no way he could blame my complaining on him cheating.

"Jack, you'll get your turn to talk once Alex finishes." Dr. Pope told me. She looked at Alex to continue and he did.

"I um would come home exhausted from work and then Jack and I would get into arguments about this stuff. And I became frustrated because this was my job, I had to work like that in order to provide for us. So for me to come home and have Jack yell at me for working it really frustrated me. I began to stay at my office even later so I could avoid being at home and around Jack because all we did was argue and ignore each other. I also figured it would be better for the kids if I just removed myself from the situation so they wouldn't have to hear so much of it. And I think maybe my third week of working late, my secretary stayed to help me and we started talking about our personal lives. She seemed pretty understanding of my situation and we spent so much time together until we just um . . . you know." He explained. Hearing his side out loud kind of annoyed me. I didn't like hearing why he felt like he should start having sex with Tay. I guess Dr. Pope could tell that I was annoyed.

"Jack, would you like to talk about how what Alex just said makes you feel?" She asked.

"Not really." I grumbled and Alex sighed.

"You made a promise to be open about your emotions in here. Plus it'll really make you feel better to talk about it instead of bottling up your feelings." She told me.

"Fine, I'm feeling really annoyed. Hearing why Alex felt it was necessary to cheat on me made me angry."

"I don’t think it was necessary for me to cheat, I was just explaining why it happened. And I wasn't trying to make you angry." Alex said and I just shrugged.

"Thank you for telling us how you feel, Jack. Why don't you share your point of view of what happened between you and Alex and we'll start assessing." Dr. Pope said.

"Okay I guess I'll start off with when Alex starting to work more. At first I didn't mind it because it is his job and I know being a lawyer is stressful or whatever. It just bothered me to see him come home and not have any interaction with the kids or me. He would come home, sit his things down, tell us hi, and then go to his office to do more work. It bothered me because we felt neglected. I mean yeah Alex was home, but he wasn't really there with us if that makes sense. And so when I started "nagging" it was more of me telling him to make time for the family. I was never suspicious that he was cheating or anything, I just wanted him home with us." I said and she nodded. Alex and I wouldn't even look at each other now that we were saying how we felt. The room was really tense at this point.

"I think we should dig deeper into your emotions, Jack. What exactly hurt you most about Alex's cheating?" She asked.

"I think what hurts the most is the fact that he couldn't find time for us, his family, but he could find time to have sex with her almost every night in his office." I answered, trying to hold my tears from falling.

"Jack I-" Alex began to talk.

"-Alex it'll be your turn in a minute." Dr. Pope cut him off. "So you feel as though Alex wasn't truthful about not having time to spend with you and your kids?" She asked me.

"Yeah I think he could have found more time to spend with us." I said, honestly.

"Okay, and Alex what do you have to say back to that?" She asked.

"I had time to spend with you and the kids at home, but majority of it we spent arguing about me working so much. That's why I stayed later at my office." He rebutted.

"So is it my fault that you cheated on me?" I asked and he sighed.

"You know that's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying because I don't understand." I was starting to think counseling was a bad idea.

"I'm just explaining why I began to stay later at my office. Cheating was my own fault, I made that stupid decision." He said.

"It's very important that you both can see the fault in your own behavior. It’s very good that you can admit that cheating was your own fault and not push the blame on Jack.” Dr. Pope told Alex. “Now Jack, I want to know if you can maybe find a fault in your own behavior. Not in the sense that you did something to make Alex cheat, but maybe before he cheated like when you both were arguing a lot. Do you think there was something you could have done differently?" She asked.

"Umm maybe I could have let it go some days he came home late. I guess it wasn’t necessary to argue about it every day.” I answered.

"Okay, very good." She nodded and wrote down more information. "Alright let's keep going."

Alex and I stayed with Dr. Pope for an hour and a half total. The sessions were normally going to be an hour but she needed background information about our relationship. During the rest of our time with her she had us act out some of our arguments, and other therapy techniques. Repeating my arguments with Alex with a mediator actually helped me see how pointless most of our fighting was. Dr. Pope said she thinks our main problem was lack of communication at the time.

"Okay that's all the time was have for today. I would love to see you both here again next Thursday." Dr. Pope said and Alex and I nodded. "In the meantime, I think it would be helpful if you two try to slowly build up a small friendship. Maybe go on small outings together and get to know each other again since you two have been divorced for a little while now. Just take it slow, one step at a time, okay?" Dr. Pope suggested.

"Okay, thank you Dr. Pope." Alex told her.

"Yes, thank you." I added.

"You're both welcome. I'll see you two next week." She called after us as we left.

Alex and I walked out of her officer together silently. We walked out of the building and to the parking lot. I didn't know how we were supposed to talk after hearing each other's real feelings.

"Are you hungry?" Alex asked as we walked towards our cars.

"Kind of, but I'm supposed to be going to my mom's for dinner. I'm kind of a little late." I looked down at my phone to check the time. We were having dinner at my mom’s house tonight. Kellin and Kylie were already there, but I told my mom I had to stay late for work and that I would be over a little later.

"Oh okay." Alex said and placed his hands in his pockets. I felt bad for turning down his offer after Dr. Pope said we should spend some time together.

"Maybe we grab something to eat Saturday?" I suggested as we stopped by our cars.

"Yeah that sounds great." He said happily.

"Okay we'll talk about where and when later." I told him.

"Alright, bye Jack."

"Bye, Lex."

He stepped closer to me and I opened my arms to hug him. He hugged me back for a few seconds and then we pulled apart. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me but he didn't. Dr. Pope said small steps and that's what we were doing now. We smiled at each other and returned to our own cars.

Notes

I really like this chapter lol