DISCLAIMER: The following column is a composite of several different experiences I have had with clients. It does not depict a specific encounter. This story is not about you!
If anyone has never had a beautiful dream dashed at one or more times in their lives, please stand up! My guess is that we’ve all had hopes and dreams that were not meant to be for various reasons. We start out believing that if we really wanted something badly enough, it would come to be. Certainly, if we’ve grown up in a relatively stable home, where words had meaning, and parents said what they meant and meant what they said, we had every reason to believe that if life had some reason and rhyme to it, we could count on ourselves and others.
But then life happens. For some children it happens at a very young age if they sadly live through a chaotic upbringing and had the rug pulled out from under them. These children grow up way too fast and realize early on that life can be unpredictable at best. But there are many children, even adolescents and young adults, who have not been tested and are still able to hold onto their dreams, believing they can be achieved. Eventually, though, life does have a way of catching up with all of us. One way or another, things happen. Perfect lives are only really found in fairy tales, and even those don’t always end well.
So, then the question becomes, “How do we cope with disappointment?” Especially if the letdown is quite huge in nature—perhaps a total game changer in the way we assumed our lives would play out? Where do we go from there? Do we have the necessary tools, “emunah,” adaptability to move on with grace? Or do we get stuck in our disappointment(s), living it each and every day, unable or unwilling to move forward? This is a challenge and a choice we no doubt have all had to negotiate in our lives and most likely will continue to deal with as our lives unfold.
Alex and Brenda are in the midst of just such a challenge. It has been dominating their relationship in ways that are perhaps more covert, but nevertheless felt on a daily basis. They have shown up for couples therapy because they know something has to give. Heretofore, neither of them possessed the necessary tools to create the required shift. Time to break open the toolbox.
He Said
Alex is a thirty-six-year-old modern Orthodox man who projects a sense of disappointment in himself, even before he starts talking. Once he started talking, he told me the following about his upbringing and where he is presently holding. “I grew up in Brooklyn, in what you would call a middle class, blue color family. “Both my parents worked hard. My father was and still is a plumber. He is a wonderful, hardworking man, who did his best for his family, though I always knew he would have loved to do even more. It always bothered him that my mother had to work as a pre-school teacher to help make ends meet in our family of seven. I remember once having a conversation with my father when I was still pretty young, and he told me that he always dreamt of becoming an architect. He loved drawing and designing buildings, always appreciated looking at the skylines and imagining how he could create something special. But he was forced to start working straight out of high school and never had the opportunity to get a higher education. I also knew he wanted more for all his children.
“I remember how my father would get home after a hard day’s work and no one was allowed to talk to him until he had spent a good half hour in the shower, washing off the grime of the day, and it seemed to me, his disappointment as well. Once he emerged, clean and fresh, he was always kind and patient with all of us and a pleasure to be around. But we all knew he needed those thirty minutes to transition from what he had to be into the man he wanted to be. It left a strong impact on all of us.
“I’ve always loved helping people. I’ve never been one to shy away from blood, and so I started thinking, from a young age, that I would like to become a doctor someday. Aside from the helping aspect of the profession, I also wanted very much to do something that I could feel good about, and support my family as well in a way I could be proud of. I never wanted my wife to have to work. That was my dream.
“Brenda and I met when we were both in high school. We grew up in the same neighborhood and were both part of a broader group of friends. What started out as just a friendship, eventually turned into much more. But even when we were both just friends, we both talked about what we wanted for our futures and how we wanted to create lives for ourselves that were very different from what we grew up with. Not that either of us had unhappy childhoods. We were both blessed with loving, hard-working parents, and close families, but we envisioned a different kind of future for ourselves.
“Not to drag this story on too much, but Brenda and I eventually became a couple and talked non-stop about the future we envisioned for ourselves, much of which depended on me becoming a doctor. It seemed to be the linchpin of all our planning. We got married during my second year of college and thought we had it all worked out.
“I’d rather not get into all the hows and whys and various reasons why I never became a doctor, but that dream, which I realize now was more of a fantasy, never came to be. I presently work as an Emergency Medical Responder. The truth is that I love what I do. I know that I play a vital role in the well-being of many people’s lives, and feel tremendously fulfilled on that level, which, when I’m thinking straight, I tell myself is what’s most important. But my job title and income certainly do not carry the panache that Brenda and I were hoping for.
“As a result, I feel like there are three players in our marriage: Brenda, me, and her disappointment. Brenda is kind enough not to actually say anything outright, but I see it in her expression, in her sighing when she comes home from work exhausted every day. It’s clear to me in so many ways that I’ve shattered her dreams.”
She Said
Brenda, thirty-five years old, though extremely attractive, has a face dominated by a worried expression. She began to share her childhood memories and how we wound up here today in my office. “As Alex explained, he and I both had very similar childhoods. We lived in the same neighborhood, both had very hard-working, wonderful parents who did the best they could for their children, but hoped that their children would have easier lives when they grew up and got married.
“Yes, Alex and I talked non-stop about the future we would create together. That Alex would become a doctor, the kind of neighborhood we wanted to live in, how many children we would have, and so on. As I look back now, I can’t believe how naïve we both were, thinking we had the power to fulfill all our dreams. I know better now, but at the time we felt invincible. I guess that was our first problem.
“I wasn’t unaccustomed to hard work. I always worked even as a teenager, and the plan was that for quite a few years, we would tighten our belts and I would work hard to support us while Alex worked hard to get his M.D. All good. It would be worth it in the end. Sadly, it never came to be. We got as far as Alex starting his first year of medical school and then, out of the blue, he told me that it killed him to admit that he didn’t feel he could manage it. I was shocked. I look back now and feel like he and I handled that time of our lives very poorly. I kind of just shut down, upped my efforts at work, and allowed him to fail. I regret not encouraging Alex to speak to other doctors or maybe even a therapist to explore what the problem was and maybe finding a solution for him to power through. But we were both on autopilot and here we are.
“There is this unspoken sadness that is always present enveloping the two of us. I try not to say anything, but I know he is always feeling it and so am I. I do work extremely hard. Ironically, I have a great job, moved up the corporate ladder over the years, and am quite successful in my own right. I do come home exhausted, and that’s what Alex sees, but I’m not even sure I’ve ever shared with him the fact that I love my job. Even if I could afford to stop working, I don’t think I would want to. That’s the crazy part of all of this. Had Alex become a doctor, I never would have come to this place professionally, so I guess that if I’m being honest with myself, I should be grateful for that. But we had a plan…”
My Thoughts
Secrets, avoidance, and running away from one’s truths never ends well. What jumped out at me from Alex and Brenda’s story is the fact that there was so much left unsaid. Alex never fully shared with Brenda the whys behind his believing he wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. Perhaps it was the shame around his own inability, or maybe guilt over destroying their well-laid plans, but it quickly became clear to me that Alex never gave Brenda the opportunity to hear his story, support his struggles, and team up with him in finding the best solution possible.
Brenda, being the kind and loving woman she was, thought it best to just go along with his decision without first having the difficult conversation. And so, their trajectory continued to snowball, goalposts shifting, dreams shattering, disappointments, guilt, unspoken pain continuing to pick up steam. As the sadness and resentments continued to build, all it took was a look to send each of them spiraling into a dark place.
My first goal was to create a safe environment where Alex could honestly share what he was experiencing when he made the determination to quit medical school. It is sometimes hard to believe that such obvious conversations fail to take place between two people who truly love each other. But emotions are very powerful, and Alex’s guilt definitely paralyzed him from speaking his truth to Brenda. Maybe even to himself.
Brenda also needed to share her experiences with Alex. How she felt when he broke the news to her. She needed to be able to actually feel and share her anger at that moment, her shock, her sadness. These were not quick or easy conversations to have in my office, but they were nevertheless vital conversations that were long overdue.
Once honesty and clarity emerged between the two of them, we actually moved on to the realities of their present life. Despite it looking very different from their original plan, was it working? Was Brenda meant to be the major breadwinner and was that in fact not such a bad thing? Could they afford the neighborhood and home they always dreamed of? In fact, they could. Could Alex and Brenda respect the work Alex was doing for all the right reasons, labels aside? In fact, they could.
We did take some time to talk about the possibility of Alex returning to medical school. After all, though Alex thought of himself as old, in fact, G-d willing, he has a long life ahead of him. Maybe at this stage of his life, if it was something they both still dreamed of, they could make it happen assuming they reached out to get the proper advice and support that was previously missing.
When two people are truly honest with each other and share their fears, insecurities, pain, etc., knowing their spouse is there to listen and be supportive in a non-judgmental way, the air is clear and the possibilities are endless. n
Esther Mann, L.C.S.W., is a psychotherapist in Hewlett. Esther works with individuals, couples and families. Esther can be reached at 516-314-2295 or by email, mindbiz44@aol.com.
