Myth and Meaning - Unhealthy Relationships

Written by Tammie Byram Fowles, PhD, LISW-CP

For several years she had attempted to get him to change. She had participated in ALANON, had attended AA with him when she could get him to join her, and had been in couples counseling and individual counseling twice before. After twenty-five years of begging, ignoring, manipulating, cajoling and seducing - things were only worse. Her children, now grown, were unhappy and bitter. Her finances were precarious, her health poor, and her life seemed to her to be filled with disappointment and futility. She hated her husband, and yet she didn't feel that she could leave him. She had tried twice before only to return. "I couldn't stand it. It hurt so badly. I couldn't sleep or eat or think straight. I thought about him all of the time. It seemed as though I was damned if I left, damned if I stayed. I decided to stay. It was a lot less lonely." But was it? My experience has been that those in unhealthy and distancing relationships seemed to be the loneliest of people. When I shared this observation with her, she agreed that she had been terribly lonely for years, particularly since her children had left home. I informed Catherine that I could do nothing to help her with her husband, and that I would work with her only if she agreed that the focus of our work would be on her, not him. She accepted my condition of treatment.

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Catherine's childhood story was similar to those of many other women who've found themselves feeling trapped in unhealthy relationships. She'd been an unhappy child, raised by a depressed mother and an abusive, alcoholic father. She had dreamed of the day that a handsome prince would carry her away, and they would finally live happily ever after. Tragically, her adult life had closely mirrored the life she had lived as a little girl. While the details had changed, she had remained depressed, disappointed, frightened, and still waiting for her happy ending. As a child she had relied upon a rich imagination to help her avoid dealing with her painful feelings. As an adult, she had focused on working on her husband's potential to someday become her prince. Just as when she was a child, it was only her fantasies that she had to hold onto.

Catherine didn't want to revisit her childhood, and I didn't blame her. It had been too painful then. It was too painful now. The closer we looked into her life, the greater our awareness became of how deep her pain was and always had been. It was far safer to worry about her husband than to feel her anger, her sadness, her emptiness, and her shame. Just when her depression threatened to deepen, her husband would rescue her by creating another crisis to which she would have to attend. And so it went. Catherine would peer over and into the deep well of her misery, and then she would run the other way in order to put out another fire that her husband had set. She would run around and around and around. Still, running, while exhausting, can be a lot less scary than standing still.

And she suffered greatly on behalf of her man. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." God had sacrificed greatly, and we worshipped him for it. Catherine would sacrifice, too, and perhaps someday her husband would acknowledge her self-denial and would beg for her forgiveness. He would then cherish her and make up for all that she had endured on his behalf. Or so she hoped . . .

To leave her husband, she would have to abandon her dreams. She would have to accept that all of the years of agony had failed to produce her happy ending. The pain of facing this bitter reality appeared to be more than she could endure. To suffer a little every single day, but have hope that it might all eventually be worth it, seemed much more appealing than to suffer tremendously and for what? (to save her life.)

For years she stayed with her husband and in therapy with me. First, I hoped that she would leave him. Later, I began to secretly wish she would at least leave me (in peace). And then her oldest son attempted suicide. She spent agonizing days and nights at the hospital, waiting to see if he would live, and then waiting to know if he would sustain permanent brain damage. For months she was caught up in the terrible aftermath (her Quake.)

As her son began to recover, she, too, finally became ready to work through her own denial. Just as she had urged him to fight for his life, she was now prepared to reclaim her own. And step, by sometimes painful, sometimes triumphant step - that's exactly what she did.

I ran into Catherine at the grocery store a few years ago. She looked wonderful! I felt somewhat self-conscious with my hair out of place with my crumbled jeans and oversized shirt, standing beside this sophisticated and well-dressed woman. She had divorced her husband about eight months before finishing her work with me. She informed me that she remained single and lived in a delightfully cozy apartment close by her son and daughter-in-law. She had strengthened her ties to old friends as well as establishing new relationships. She was painting again (she had loved to paint as a young girl) and had joined forces with a group of women who supported each other's efforts to build spirituality into their every-day lives. We chatted and laughed up and down the aisles of the store and stood in line together to check out. As she completed her transaction, and was closing her purse preparing to leave, I asked quietly, "What ever happened to happily ever after?" She smiled impishly and said, "It's here."