Trust of One's Self

Post-Traumatic Relationship Syndrome
ProQuest Information and Learning Company

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Not only does attachment trauma bring up issues regarding trust of others, but it also raises issues of trust of one's self by calling into question one's judgement of character. How one's view of others could be so erroneous becomes a puzzle, and if one's assessment of character was so wrong in the case of the perpetrator, how does one know that the assessment of the character of others in one's social world is accurate?

[...]

A week ago, our marriage counselor said that she didn't see a future for our relationship.

I was shocked.

This woman has seen us roughly once a week for the past seven months. She has never said anything about whether she thought we would make it as a couple, except to respect the fact that I considered myself in limbo land (not reconciliation mode) and to note, in response to my questions, that if she thought we had an unhealthy dynamic she would volunteer that conclusion and help us figure out how to separate.

But at the end of last week's session, most of which we both spent defensively angry, I asked her what she thought of us. And she said that she hadn't come to any conclusions prior to that session, but that she could now say she didn't see a future for us.

I think we both left in a daze. I went in the bathroom to cry; Drew waited outside. When I came out, he walked away, just noting that he hadn't wanted me to come out and be alone, but he needed space. So we each went to our separate cars, and about a half hour later, met up for a walk. We walked and talked for the next two hours, then came home and talked for another two hours, then got the girls from daycare and played happy family til they went to bed. Then he left. And I sat.

She didn't see a future for us?

I spent the next week more anxious than I have been for a while, distracted for the first time in months by something other than Drew's affairs. It wasn't the pleasant break I had imagined my next real distraction would be.

I had - have had for a while now - an  innate sense that we were figuring our way through this mess, that Drew was earning his way back in, that I was healing both on my own and with his help. I have even imagined proposing to him - he knows I don't feel married now, and that would be a way of saying, when I was ready, "I know everything, I still choose you."

But our marriage counselor doesn't think we have a future?

I have thought of her as the person to whom I've handed my judgment of my marriage. Who else is qualified? I may have a huge blind spot when it comes to Drew. People who love me (and who know better than to tell me what to do, but I can still read their vibes) don't see our whole relationship - many of those who want me to kick him to the curb want that not because they were always concerned about us, but rather because loved him so much prior to learning of this and now want to punish him for how much he has disappointed and hurt them. My individual therapist - who tells me this is a hard decision because we are great together in so many ways, and I don't seem to be a co-dependent person - only knows what I tell her. But our marriage counselor doesn't have a dog in this fight, sees our interactions and how we communicate - she's the only objective one in this whole mix. And she seems to think we should throw in the towel?

Our counselor stated this conclusion close to the end of the last session, and didn't really explain it, so I spent the week bracing, preparing to go back in and face a long list of reasons why she had ultimately determined that we should start discussing how to divorce amicably.

So we went in, and sat down, reported on the week, and then I screwed up my courage and asked her for her reasons for her ultimate conclusion.

The reason? We both seemed entrenched in our anger last week, and if we stayed entrenched in those mindsets, it wasn't going to work.

But, she continued, because we didn't seem so entrenched anymore, she was no longer willing to say that she didn't think we had a future together! In fact, now she thought we might!

The fuck????

How does someone in her role not recognize the power she has? The impact of a statement like the one she made? Who makes that kind of statement lightly, on the basis of one angry session, knowing each session is just a snapshot, after months of watching a couple move away and toward and away and toward each other again? Who doesn't reach that conclusion and then give it a week or two to allow it to firm up or dissipate? (And, in retrospect, who drops a bomb of a statement like that at the end of a session?)

(And no, this was not some reverse psych game to jar us out of our entrenchment. I specifically asked. At the last session, she didn't think we could have happy lives together. This week, she thinks we can.)

I was so shocked I was pretty much speechless. I had spent the week preparing for this session, preparing to leave convinced, against my inner judgment, that I needed to divorce Drew. I was not prepared to hear that, this week, she thought we had a good chance of having a healthy and happy relationship.

I left, furious. I ranted to Drew for about a half hour, mostly about how the last thing I need right now is added, unnecessary stress. As I was winding down, after he offered an apology about having caused my past week's anxiety because he had robbed me of my ability to trust myself, he observed that a silver lining was that this whole mess might be that it was a reminder that I actually could trust my gut. That our counselor was just another human being, that I was the one who would have to live with the consequences of what I decided to do, and that I shouldn't farm out judging whether I should divorce him to anyone else. That I could - and should - trust myself to know what was right for me.

I made some joke about how he was hardly an unbiased adviser, given that he could tell which way the wind was blowing - but I also think his point was valid.

Part of learning to trust myself again will involve taking ownership of the decision of whether or not to divorce him. It's terrifying. But this is my life, and I am responsible for it.