Another therapy session with Ian. As soon as Dr. Prentice closed the door, he dropped a bombshell on her.
“I kicked Hope out of the house.”
Aubrey didn’t know what to say. This was unexpected. She had been trying to help Ian work through his marriage troubles, secretly hoping he would fail, but she wasn’t ready for the reality.
It was too soon. Aubrey hadn’t sorted out her own feelings for her husband, Foster, let alone starting up with Ian. This was a drastic step and out of the blue.
Aubrey searched for a question to deflect her surprise.
“So what are you saying, Ian?”
“I kicked Hope out of the house,” Ian repeated. He was sure of his actions. Confident. Cocky even.
“How did this happen? What were you thinking that prompted such an extreme severing of ties with Hope?”
“I caught her cheating on me.”
Aubrey was incredulous. So much had happened between their last session. What was going on here? Had Aubrey’s secret desire for Ian corrupted her psychoanalysis session to the point that he was a raging lunatic?
Aubrey had to slow things down. “Ian, the last time we talked, you were supposed to be planning a date night with Aubrey, not giving her an ultimatum to leave. What happened on your date night?”
Ian was thoughtful for a moment and then spoke. “Date night went all right. It had its ups and downs. We had a lot of tension to overcome. After that, we had dinner and went to bed. We had great sex and then I wanted to talk, but she was worn out from making love. I thought it was a success.”
“Okay,” Aubrey responded. “But you went from finding some common ground and enjoying each other’s company to throwing her out?”
“It’s complicated,” Ian said.
“That’s why we’re here. You’re not going to shut me out, are you?”
“No.” Ian was matter-of-fact. “I was going to ask you out. You seem interested in me.”
“Ian.” Aubrey was blindsided. “I’m your therapist, and I’m happily married. This is highly inappropriate behavior. If you insist on this course of conversation, I can’t be your therapist.”
“It was worth a shot.”
Inside, Aubrey was thrilled. Once she got over the shock, she realized this was really going to happen.
Back to reality. “We can’t have these discussions if you have feelings for me. It won’t work.”
Ian sighed. “It’s not that, Dr. Prentice. I’m confused. You listen to me, and you care. I never got that from Hope.”
“Then let’s start with that, Ian.”
Aubrey regained control of the session.
“You can’t mistake someone caring about and listening to you as romantic love, even if it comes from the opposite sex. And you can’t mistake rescuing someone from their bad choices as someone who will love and thank you.”
“I’m getting that,” Ian said.
“So forget about you and me. We have a professional relationship. Let’s talk about you and Hope. You say you rescued her from her self-destructive behavior. Now you’ve thrown her out for the same reason. You can’t force these relationships, like trying to save Hope and then feeling angry when it doesn’t work. It’s not fair to her.”
“But I caught her with another man.”
“Isn’t that what you rescued her from? Dancing for other men, including yourself?”
Ian grumbled. He didn’t like being wrong. He had put on his old armor and wasn’t open to suggestions.
“So how did you think you could change her behavior? By forcing her to keep house and make your dinner? Locking her away and throwing out the key? Now you’ve thrown her out.”
“She’ll land on her feet. Her type always does.”
“You’re missing the point, Ian. Hope is not yours to take in like a stray cat and then throw her out when she claws the drapes. That’s not love, Ian.”
“I caught her cheating. What should I do? Bring her in for couples therapy?
“Okay,” Aubrey was determined to dominate this session and get Ian talking again.
“Let’s talk about the cheating. What exactly did you find her doing?”
Ian was getting upset. “I walked in on her with another man in our living room. They were in the middle of a fight.”
“About what?”
“About whether he was going to take care of her when she left me. He didn’t want the responsibility. Can’t say I blame him. What a fucking whore.”
“Ian,” Aubrey warned, “stop the name-calling. What happened next?”
“She admitted the affair and told me I was a bad husband. That it was my fault. Then I let her have it.”
“Please tell me there was no domestic violence.”
“No, Dr. Prentice. I gave her a while to sit there and think about what she had done. She blamed me for everything. I was done with it, so I gave her time to pack her things and gave her a platinum card until she could get on her feet. I’m not a monster.”
“Have you talked to her since then?” Aubrey was excited about this fortuitous change in Ian’s marital status, but she had an obligation to Hope if her advice led Ian’s wife to harm.
“No, I’m gonna let her stew for a while and then listen to her terms for divorce. I’m not going to protest anything.”
“And what about you? How do you feel?”
“Relieved,” he said. Then he shook his head. “No. That’s not right. I feel like a failure. I feel like I had a good thing going and I messed it up. I miss being married and I want to give it another go.
“That sounds closer to the truth.”
“I keep telling myself I did the right thing,” he continued. “That I finally stood up for myself. That I stopped being an idiot, but then there’s this part of me that keeps asking if I ever get to be right.”
“We’ll get there. You ended this relationship abruptly. There’s going to be some fallout.”
“But did I give up too soon? Did I fail her? Or was I finally admitting I couldn’t save her at all?”
“That’s grief, Ian,” Aubrey said. “Not for Hope, but for the fantasy woman you wanted her to be. But that woman never existed. You can’t miss something that never was.”
“I thought if I loved her enough, if I guided her, if I gave her stability, she’d become someone better. Someone worthy of what I gave up for her.”
“And when she didn’t,” Aubrey said, “you felt betrayed, not only by her, but by your own hope.”
Ian showed his bitterness. “Yeah. So now I get to be the bad guy. The man who kicked out the damaged girl he once promised to save. The executive at Henshaw Industries who couldn’t keep his marriage together.”
“You’re not the bad guy,” Aubrey replied. “You’re a man who tried to force a story to end the way you wanted it to. And when real life didn’t follow your script, you snapped the book shut.”
Ian was quiet.
Then: “I don’t know who I am without someone to fix.”
Aubrey made a mental note of that. Now that Hope was out of the picture (thank God!), she had to listen to Ian as a potential love interest, not necessarily as a patient.
“You’ve built your identity around saving people,” she said carefully. “Without Hope, you’re faced with yourself. Your needs. Your loneliness. Your fears. That can feel unbearable.”
He looked up at her, eyes suddenly vulnerable. “So what do I do?”
“You learn how to be responsible for your own life,” Aubrey said. But first, you grieve. You get angry. You sit with the discomfort. And you don’t run from it by replacing Hope with someone else.”
That was a key point to make to Ian. Dr. Prentice didn’t want him getting any ideas about another girl before she had a shot at him.
Now for some more advice: “When you are done grieving, you learn to build a relationship where both people stand on solid ground.”
Dr. Prentice was planting the seeds of how she wanted her relationship to go when they were romantically involved.
Her heart pounded as she said it.
Ian studied her, as though weighing whether to believe her.
“So this is it?” he said. “I just hurt for a while?”
“Yes,” Aubrey said. “You have to sort out your feelings before you can fix them. If you don’t know why you’re upset, I can’t help you. You got Hope out of your life. Fine. But now the real work begins.
“I guess I’ll give it a try.”
“That’s all I want from you,” Dr. Prentice said.
On the surface, Dr. Prentice appeared clinical and understanding.
But on the inside?
On the inside, she was on fire.
“Ian, I would like to give you an emotional exercise for next week,” Dr. Prentice said.
“Homework, huh?”
“Yes,” she replied. “But it’s not for a test. It’s an exercise to reach a place of emotional vulnerability.
“Okay. What does that mean?”
“I want you to spend time every evening sitting with how you actually feel.”
Ian scoffed at the idea.
“Just you. Alone with the truth of your emotions.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“It might be,” Aubrey admitted. “But you need to face what drove you to divorce; face what is pressuring you at work; face yourself.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “What do you want me to do, journal?”
“That would help,” she said. “Ten minutes a day. And remember, no one is going to read it but you. So you don’t have to write anything to impress me. This is for you to put down in writing what you feel deep down inside.”
“And then what? I read it back and feel pathetic.”
“You look at it,” she said. “And acknowledge that this is your actual emotional experience. No denial. No shame. No fixing it. That’s my job. These feelings aren’t going to go away if you ignore them. And I can’t help you unless you can admit what they are.”
Ian looked at her indifferently.
“And no contact with Hope while you’re sorting out your feelings.”
“Why the fuck would I call her?”
“You don’t realize it now,” Dr. Prentice said, but you will be lonely and you will think things weren’t so bad as you remembered. And don’t fall for her begging to come back.”
“That’s something I’ll never do.”
“Good. Keep it that way. And Ian, if I were you, I’d find another place to live.”
“I already have, a condo in Scarsdale. I don’t have anything to prove anymore,” he said.
“Why should I live in squalor?”
Dr. Prentice was satisfied. She had helped Ian realize that he was no longer in love with Hope and he had already moved on. Now, she could focus him on meeting someone new, but not yet, she had some more molding to do to make him into a man that she would want to be involved with.
“How do you feel about all this? Dr. Prentice asked.
“Good. It’s such a relief not to have to go home to that situation every night. I still have to go home to my condo now and spend time alone. I’m afraid of what I might think or do.”
“Ian, you can always call me if you are in crisis. And there are anonymous hotlines you can call, but I suspect you are going to go home and get a good night of sleep.”
“I think you’re right doctor.”
"So, same time next week?”
“Same time next week.”
Aubrey took a few moments to realize what had just happened. She may have been moving closer to Ian, but what the fuck was she going to do with Foster?”