Therapists’ waiting rooms are hushed, intimate spaces. You don’t make eye contact. You silently pray that you don’t see anyone you know. You get good at the thousand-yard stare, waiting for your session to begin.
Which is why Benjamin Hertwig’s Modern Love essay, “In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses,” published in March 2016, was so memorable. Sitting outside the office of a therapist, where he had gone to work through the end of his marriage, Mr. Hertwig spotted another waiting patient, a woman he recognized. More than that: He went over to her and blurted, “Are you the wife of the guy my wife is having an affair with?”
The therapist and her receptionist rushed over to separate the two patients, as if they might be irreparably scarred if they came in contact with each other. The therapist told Mr. Hertwig later that in all her years practicing, she had never seen anything like it. But, as Mr. Hertwig wrote, he and the woman, then identified only as “Catherine,” did meet later at a cafe to talk about their estranged spouses’ affair and the swirl of emotions it had stirred up in each of them.
The essay was a reminder that there are two sides to every story, or perhaps four, in this case. We learn about Mr. Hertwig’s pain and confusion and surprise, but what of Catherine? What had she made of being confronted by Mr. Hertwig in the therapist’s office? How did the cafe meeting go, from her perspective?
“It was a time when I had so many questions and so few answers,” said Catherine Chaulk, reached by phone. “I so desperately wanted to understand any part of it. I was just so confused.”
Ms. Chaulk was 28 and had been married just shy of five years when she learned of her husband’s infidelity. She had gone to see the therapist, she said, because she and her husband had met with the woman previously for marriage counseling. Ms. Chaulk wanted to get answers from someone who knew and understood her situation. It turned out that person was not the therapist, but Mr. Hertwig.
Indeed, one ponders the mysterious ways of chance and fate after learning that Ms. Chaulk visited the therapist just once (after couples counseling). Meeting Mr. Hertwig that day in the waiting room was “a total fluke” and “surreal,” she said.
She found talking with the husband of the woman that her husband was having an affair with more therapeutic than any therapy session.
For one thing, she was able, through Mr. Hertwig, to “piece together some of the timeline,” she said, to better know what had happened by comparing their spouses’ behavior and schedules over the previous months. “I’ll never get the full story,” she said. “But having some sense helped me find some closure and move on.”
It also helped that Mr. Hertwig knew exactly what she was going through because he was going through it, too. “With some of my friends, they were so angry on my behalf and I didn’t want the anger,” Ms. Chaulk said. “Whereas Benjamin and I could express a wide spectrum of feelings. It was a safe place to do it, and more productive.”
Mr. Hertwig, looking back on the encounter four years later, had a similar assessment of his conversations with Ms. Chaulk, who had “experienced the flip side of the coin,” he said. Being able to talk to her likewise for him made the therapist largely unnecessary. What was more helpful, he said, was “the feeling of looking across at someone who had experienced much of what I experienced and felt what I had felt.”
Mr. Hertwig is a former soldier who had served in Afghanistan, a difficult experience he was struggling with. In his essay, he said he was “attracted to her strength — maybe to her as well.” How did Ms. Chaulk feel in that moment?
For so long in her relationship with her husband, she said, “I’d been lying to my friends and everyone, pretending all was well when it wasn’t. During that time in the cafe, I was willing to look it in the eye and embrace it and make a plan. That was the first time I was honest with myself and how I was feeling.”
If she felt a similar romantic spark toward Mr. Hertwig, it was because they were communicating honestly, she said, “and because we so clearly were on the same page. We had some very similar values. Being able to share that with someone was intimate in its own way.”
These days, Ms. Chaulk is a nurse in the same Canadian city where the story takes place. She is divorced from her husband, with whom she shares custody of their son, and is currently in a long-term relationship.
Every now and then, she said, she dusts off Mr. Hertwig’s essay. “Rereading it puts me back in a place where I was the most honest I’ve been with myself,” Ms. Chaulk said. “I use that story as a checkpoint so that I maintain that.”
Mr. Hertwig is now a Ph.D. student in English in Vancouver, British Columbia. He said he has more emotional distance from both his divorce and his military service, and better understands how the two were interconnected. He recently published a book of poetry, “Slow War,” that deals with these topics.
Mr. Hertwig is no longer in contact with his ex-wife. He has been dating the same woman for several years, and he also communicates with Ms. Chaulk every so often through Facebook. Despite their brief interaction, and the unhappy circumstances under which it took place, Mr. Hertwig said he will always feel “linked” to her, even as the years pass.
“Because however brief, it was important to me,” he said.
(Source: NYT)
Which is why Benjamin Hertwig’s Modern Love essay, “In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses,” published in March 2016, was so memorable. Sitting outside the office of a therapist, where he had gone to work through the end of his marriage, Mr. Hertwig spotted another waiting patient, a woman he recognized. More than that: He went over to her and blurted, “Are you the wife of the guy my wife is having an affair with?”
The therapist and her receptionist rushed over to separate the two patients, as if they might be irreparably scarred if they came in contact with each other. The therapist told Mr. Hertwig later that in all her years practicing, she had never seen anything like it. But, as Mr. Hertwig wrote, he and the woman, then identified only as “Catherine,” did meet later at a cafe to talk about their estranged spouses’ affair and the swirl of emotions it had stirred up in each of them.
The essay was a reminder that there are two sides to every story, or perhaps four, in this case. We learn about Mr. Hertwig’s pain and confusion and surprise, but what of Catherine? What had she made of being confronted by Mr. Hertwig in the therapist’s office? How did the cafe meeting go, from her perspective?
“It was a time when I had so many questions and so few answers,” said Catherine Chaulk, reached by phone. “I so desperately wanted to understand any part of it. I was just so confused.”
Ms. Chaulk was 28 and had been married just shy of five years when she learned of her husband’s infidelity. She had gone to see the therapist, she said, because she and her husband had met with the woman previously for marriage counseling. Ms. Chaulk wanted to get answers from someone who knew and understood her situation. It turned out that person was not the therapist, but Mr. Hertwig.
Indeed, one ponders the mysterious ways of chance and fate after learning that Ms. Chaulk visited the therapist just once (after couples counseling). Meeting Mr. Hertwig that day in the waiting room was “a total fluke” and “surreal,” she said.
She found talking with the husband of the woman that her husband was having an affair with more therapeutic than any therapy session.
 |
| Benjamin Hertwig Credit Céline Chuang |
It also helped that Mr. Hertwig knew exactly what she was going through because he was going through it, too. “With some of my friends, they were so angry on my behalf and I didn’t want the anger,” Ms. Chaulk said. “Whereas Benjamin and I could express a wide spectrum of feelings. It was a safe place to do it, and more productive.”
Mr. Hertwig, looking back on the encounter four years later, had a similar assessment of his conversations with Ms. Chaulk, who had “experienced the flip side of the coin,” he said. Being able to talk to her likewise for him made the therapist largely unnecessary. What was more helpful, he said, was “the feeling of looking across at someone who had experienced much of what I experienced and felt what I had felt.”
Mr. Hertwig is a former soldier who had served in Afghanistan, a difficult experience he was struggling with. In his essay, he said he was “attracted to her strength — maybe to her as well.” How did Ms. Chaulk feel in that moment?
For so long in her relationship with her husband, she said, “I’d been lying to my friends and everyone, pretending all was well when it wasn’t. During that time in the cafe, I was willing to look it in the eye and embrace it and make a plan. That was the first time I was honest with myself and how I was feeling.”
If she felt a similar romantic spark toward Mr. Hertwig, it was because they were communicating honestly, she said, “and because we so clearly were on the same page. We had some very similar values. Being able to share that with someone was intimate in its own way.”
These days, Ms. Chaulk is a nurse in the same Canadian city where the story takes place. She is divorced from her husband, with whom she shares custody of their son, and is currently in a long-term relationship.
Every now and then, she said, she dusts off Mr. Hertwig’s essay. “Rereading it puts me back in a place where I was the most honest I’ve been with myself,” Ms. Chaulk said. “I use that story as a checkpoint so that I maintain that.”
Mr. Hertwig is now a Ph.D. student in English in Vancouver, British Columbia. He said he has more emotional distance from both his divorce and his military service, and better understands how the two were interconnected. He recently published a book of poetry, “Slow War,” that deals with these topics.
Mr. Hertwig is no longer in contact with his ex-wife. He has been dating the same woman for several years, and he also communicates with Ms. Chaulk every so often through Facebook. Despite their brief interaction, and the unhappy circumstances under which it took place, Mr. Hertwig said he will always feel “linked” to her, even as the years pass.
“Because however brief, it was important to me,” he said.
(Source: NYT)
No comments:
Post a Comment