Every Day Gets a Little Closer by Irvin D. Yalom

Author:Irvin D. Yalom [IRVIN D. YALOM AND GRINNY ELKIN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

November 16

DR. YALOM

A RATHER single-minded interview today and one which was quite uncomfortable for me. I felt like a cheerleader or a second in a boxing corner egging Ginny on. Essentially, she came in to say that she hadn’t done what I had suggested last week—she hadn’t been able to bring up the question of marriage to Karl—and ironically enough an opportunity to do so had fortuitously been dropped in her lap. One of her friends had cornered Karl and Ginny at a party and asked, half comically, “When are you two going to get married?” Karl immediately replied that he’s not interested in marriage, that he doesn’t call what Ginny and he have a “marriage.” Ginny said the opportunity to talk to him about it that night was lost when she impulsively invited everyone over to their house to watch a movie on T.V. until 4 a.m. Karl was so angry at her for doing this that the evening ended with her having to apologize to him to assuage his anger rather than vice-versa.

A couple of other troubling incidents arose; for example, the other night Karl began to chew her out for having made a mistake in preparing some part of the dinner, and started haranguing her about her many weaknesses. She meekly agreed with everything he said and practically thanked him for telling her. I tried to go over alternative things she could have said, wondering mainly how it came about that their relationship was so denned that he had the right to criticize her without her having the reciprocal prerogative. She said, well, she could start telling him some of the things he did wrong, but it was pointless because the fact is that he was absolutely right in his criticism. I had to keep repeating over and over again: it isn’t whether he was right or not, but how did the relationship get defined in that manner? I did some role playing with her, repeating what Karl had said and asking her to respond in a different way. She then began to make excuses, saying that she was just trying to make him a gourmet dinner, or would he rather have hamburgers, which she could make without a single mistake? I told her she was being very indirect; couldn’t she say anything more personal? In the safety of my office she role-played. She told Karl that he had hurt her; why did he have to cut her down just before they went to bed? Then she slipped out of that uncomfortable scene with the comical observation that she felt as if I were putting her through a Samurai school, teaching her how to have her feet planted in the right place, and how to hold the sword.

She told me of another incident in which she had blurted out “I love you” to Karl during the week and Karl had made no answer, and I wondered why she didn’t feel she had the right to inquire into his silence.

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