Speaker 1: Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lari Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Speaker 1: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist advice column for the Atlantic.
Speaker 2: And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
Speaker 2: and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted.
Speaker 2: And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1: Each week we invite you into a session so you
Speaker 1: can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help
Speaker 1: other people come to understand themselves better and make changes
Speaker 1: in their lives.
Speaker 2: So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
Speaker 2: a young woman tries to break her pattern of seeking
Speaker 2: out relationships with older, unavailable men.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was dependent on him because of my dad
Speaker 3: and his illness and him dying, and so I came
Speaker 3: to rely on him, and I told him how much
Speaker 3: I cared about him, and how I grew to love him.
Speaker 1: I guess I think I said first. A quick note,
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only. It does not
Speaker 1: constitute medical or psychological advice and is not a substitute
Speaker 1: for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek
Speaker 1: the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other
Speaker 1: qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding
Speaker 1: a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter, you
Speaker 1: are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in partwor and full,
Speaker 1: and we may edit it for length and clarity. In
Speaker 1: the sessions you'll hear, all names have been changed for
Speaker 1: the privacy of our fellow travelers.
Speaker 2: Hi Guy, Hi Laurie. So what do we have in
Speaker 2: a mailbox today?
Speaker 1: We have a letter about someone who is stuck in
Speaker 1: a relationship pattern that isn't serving her, And it goes
Speaker 1: like this, Dear therapists. I'm single. My career could not
Speaker 1: be going better, but I keep falling in love with
Speaker 1: men who are at least twenty years older than me,
Speaker 1: sometimes married with kids. It's a painful cycle that I
Speaker 1: keep repeating, and I'm exhausted by it. I started in
Speaker 1: my senior year of college when I fell in love
Speaker 1: with my professor, who was over thirty years older than me.
Speaker 1: We'd get dinner every week and have the most intimate
Speaker 1: and intense conversations about anything and everything. Our conversations were
Speaker 1: raw and vulnerable and felt like an honest exchange. At
Speaker 1: the same time, my father was dying of cancer, and
Speaker 1: this older professor comforted me throughout the harrowing experience. At
Speaker 1: least he was single, so not totally unavailable. Now, three
Speaker 1: years later, I find myself in a similar predicament. I'm
Speaker 1: completely smitten with a man that I work with who
Speaker 1: is twenty years older than me and married with children.
Speaker 1: I feel seriously head over heels in love with him.
Speaker 1: Our relationship is different than the one with my professor.
Speaker 1: Instead of being vulnerable and intimate, it's light hearted and
Speaker 1: fueled by mutual admiration for the work we do. He
Speaker 1: flatters me, constantly, flirts consistently, and all I want to
Speaker 1: do is please him. I would do close to anything
Speaker 1: for him. I haven't felt this way since my professor
Speaker 1: three years ago. I can't stop thinking about him, and
Speaker 1: all my friends are, of course, sick of hearing about him,
Speaker 1: and sick of my typical trajectory towards self destruction with
Speaker 1: older men. I tried to get over this guy by
Speaker 1: dating a different guy who was ten years older. After
Speaker 1: all of the loss and grief I've dealt with, anyone
Speaker 1: remotely in my age range doesn't seem to have the
Speaker 1: depth of understanding or feeling that I have, and I
Speaker 1: can't stand the thought of being with someone my age.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm looking for a father figure,
Speaker 1: but the idea of an older man just feels comforting
Speaker 1: and alluring. How do I get over this man in particular,
Speaker 1: but even more importantly, how do I break this habit?
Speaker 1: Thanks Emma.
Speaker 2: The research tells us that we tend to go for
Speaker 2: similar patterns of relationship, even if not with exactly similar people.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite common that when you lose a parent,
Speaker 2: you tend to seek out someone to give you that
Speaker 2: kind of comfort that you've lost. And I've heard a
Speaker 2: lot of stories over the years of people who fell
Speaker 2: in love with people who are much older than them
Speaker 2: coincidentally around the time their parent passed away, And it
Speaker 2: can really form a certain pattern and a certain kind
Speaker 2: of imprinting, especially when you're young. That then sets you
Speaker 2: up to be into the older person, and that of
Speaker 2: course has its dynamics and complications of its own.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, guy, and I think there are
Speaker 1: two things going on here. One, of course, is that
Speaker 1: she started dating this much older professor around the same
Speaker 1: time that she was going through this huge loss with
Speaker 1: her father. But I think even for people who haven't
Speaker 1: gone through that loss. There is something that happens to people,
Speaker 1: which is that they tend to date someone that feels
Speaker 1: familiar to them in some way that hasn't been resolved
Speaker 1: in the past. So even if you haven't literally lost
Speaker 1: a parent, if you had a parent who maybe wasn't
Speaker 1: available to you or maybe didn't see you or understand
Speaker 1: you in a certain way, we tend to go after
Speaker 1: partners who will replicate that dynamic until we're aware of it.
Speaker 1: There's this saying we marry our unfinished business, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like Emma maybe has some unfinished business that is
Speaker 1: causing her to again and again go after men who
Speaker 1: are much older than her. And she has this idea
Speaker 1: that it's because she's experienced loss and grief that people
Speaker 1: her own age can't understand her. But I think it's
Speaker 1: more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree that it's more complicated than that, because
Speaker 2: she seems to dismiss younger men as being literally incapable
Speaker 2: of having the level of maturity that she does at
Speaker 2: twenty five. And by younger men, she's saying men who
Speaker 2: are even ten years older. And when you hear a
Speaker 2: blanket statement like that, it sounds like it's a little
Speaker 2: bit defensive that there's an agenda there, even if she's
Speaker 2: not aware of it. So I'll be very curious to
Speaker 2: hear a little bit more from her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go meet her. You're listening to Dear Therapists
Speaker 1: for my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.
Speaker 2: I'm Laur Gottlieb and I'm Guy Winch and this is Geotherapists.
Speaker 1: So, hi, Emma, Hey, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: Of course, so we read about your dilemma, and we
Speaker 4: want to start off by learning a little bit more
Speaker 4: about your relationships prior to the one with your professor.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about those.
Speaker 3: I was in one romantic relationship, but it was kind
Speaker 3: of short and really intense, and it was my sophomore
Speaker 3: year of college. We met at the end of our
Speaker 3: first semester, and then the school that I went to
Speaker 3: has a very long winter break, and so we started
Speaker 3: texting a lot, which turned into like texting every day
Speaker 3: for like six weeks until we got back to campus.
Speaker 3: And then when we did get back, we started dating immediately,
Speaker 3: really intensely, and because it started so soon and so
Speaker 3: intensely it kind of like imploded on itself. And so
Speaker 3: we dated for a few months, and that was kind
Speaker 3: of the only relationship I had been in prior. And
Speaker 3: then I had other like short term things or flings
Speaker 3: or whatever, but nothing really serious other than that.
Speaker 1: So this person was your age. He was a fellow student.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a FELLO student who was two or
Speaker 3: three years older than me.
Speaker 1: And did you have that feeling with him that you
Speaker 1: described in your letter, that somebody your age couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: understand the depth of your feelings or had this sort
Speaker 1: of emotional maturity that I think you're looking for.
Speaker 3: He was very empathetic and really smart. I felt connected
Speaker 3: to him in a lot of ways. And he was
Speaker 3: like a good listener and empathetic, but wasn't as open
Speaker 3: or as emotionally intelligent, I guess as other people.
Speaker 2: With the professor, you said that that happened around the
Speaker 2: time that your dad was dying. I think could you
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about that period, what was
Speaker 2: happening on the dad front and how things about with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean that's another thing too, Like when I
Speaker 3: was dating that other person, my dad was still sick
Speaker 3: and was kind of slowly dying, but it wasn't the same.
Speaker 3: So then my senior year of college, the treatments that
Speaker 3: my dad had been undergoing, like radiation therapy and immunotherapy
Speaker 3: stopped working, which we found out like on September fourteenth
Speaker 3: of my senior year of college. And then a few
Speaker 3: weeks or maybe a month later, he started hospice care
Speaker 3: and that's when he really started to decline. And that's
Speaker 3: also when I met that professor as well.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear more about your relationship with
Speaker 1: your father. Can you tell us more about him and
Speaker 1: what it was like between the two of you growing up,
Speaker 1: and then also at the time when he got sick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we kind of went in and out
Speaker 3: of being close. So it was hard because he became
Speaker 3: sick like my freshman or sophomore year of high school.
Speaker 3: So I kind of lost like a huge part of
Speaker 3: my dad when I was in high school. But prior
Speaker 3: to that, he was always like the really goofy one
Speaker 3: and was super smart and I don't know, like we
Speaker 3: played sports together. He taught me how to play baseball,
Speaker 3: He taught me how to ride a bike. We did
Speaker 3: a lot of like candy things, together too, and then
Speaker 3: it was also kind of hard, like slowly losing him
Speaker 3: while I was also going through the classic teenage years
Speaker 3: of when I was supposed to be kind of pulling
Speaker 3: away from my family and becoming more and more independent.
Speaker 2: Who told you and how did they tell you that
Speaker 2: your dad was sick? And and how clear was it
Speaker 2: to you at the time that this was serious?
Speaker 3: Well, my mom, I'm sure told me. And then throughout
Speaker 3: high school and even college, there was always kind of
Speaker 3: a negotiation and battle between I having an older brothers
Speaker 3: five years older, and so there's always a negotiation between
Speaker 3: us and my parents of like how much they would
Speaker 3: tell us and how much we wanted to know, and
Speaker 3: we always wanted to know as much information as possible,
Speaker 3: but my mom kind of wanted to protect us. But
Speaker 3: also throughout the years, like my dad never wanted to
Speaker 3: know his prognosis, so that wasn't anything that him or
Speaker 3: his doctor or my mom would know or talk about.
Speaker 3: And it became more serious probably my sophomore year of college,
Speaker 3: because I guess that's when it became stage three, where
Speaker 3: it had spread to his lymph nodes and it had
Speaker 3: become more serious, and my mom would kind of make
Speaker 3: like a fan somewhat like hysterical remarks about him dying.
Speaker 1: What did those sound like? Those reks?
Speaker 3: I just remember this one time, my mom saying like,
Speaker 3: this is the last thing that we can do, and
Speaker 3: if this doesn't work, then like this is it, He's
Speaker 3: going to die.
Speaker 1: And that felt hysterical to you because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you were saying, my brother and I really wanted to
Speaker 1: know the truth of what was happening. And on the
Speaker 1: other hand, when she says, this is the last thing.
Speaker 1: If this doesn't work, he's going to die, that felt
Speaker 1: hysterical to you.
Speaker 3: It felt a circle in the moment because it was
Speaker 3: like incredibly passionate and high pitch and had a specific
Speaker 3: tone with it. And at that time it wasn't true either.
Speaker 3: This was three years before he died, and he underwent
Speaker 3: countless treatments in those next three years, so it wasn't
Speaker 3: quite true, and it wasn't really what the doctors were saying.
Speaker 3: It was felt more of just like I'm totally understandable,
Speaker 3: like a moment of weakness, kind of just like breaking down.
Speaker 3: I mean, she had to deal with this for the
Speaker 3: longest and most intensely out of all of us.
Speaker 2: How did you support one another in the family because
Speaker 2: your older brother and you were not privy to all
Speaker 2: the information, so you didn't know everything. They didn't know
Speaker 2: everything because they didn't want to know everything. But how
Speaker 2: did the support go? Who was the person that was
Speaker 2: trying to be more supported? Did that flip around? Who
Speaker 2: supported you? Who supported your mom?
Speaker 3: Your dad?
Speaker 2: Your brother?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it changed over the years. I mean
Speaker 3: I was a teenager and just like very far removed
Speaker 3: from anything that was happening. I just wanted to be
Speaker 3: a kid, and so we were all kind of in
Speaker 3: our own planes. I guess later on my brother really
Speaker 3: supported my dad in a lot of ways. They were
Speaker 3: really really close.
Speaker 1: In what ways did your brother support your dad?
Speaker 3: Well, my brother ended up in the last year or
Speaker 3: two of my dad's life, my brother working, He lived
Speaker 3: with my parents off and on, like a few days
Speaker 3: a week to just kind of be there and hang
Speaker 3: out with my dad and spend time with him throughout
Speaker 3: the whole time. Like, my dad definitely had a lot
Speaker 3: of trouble, like talking about his feelings, and he was
Speaker 3: suppressed in a lot of ways, and my brother would
Speaker 3: always kind of push him and push him as much
Speaker 3: as possible to talk about those things.
Speaker 2: Who did you talk to, Emma? Your brother was there
Speaker 2: for your dad, and they were talking to each other,
Speaker 2: But who were you talking to?
Speaker 3: In high school, I didn't tell anyone about it or
Speaker 3: talk to anyone about it. Actually the first the first
Speaker 3: person that I told was my high school english teacher
Speaker 3: because I had to write a college essay and I
Speaker 3: used to play ping pong with my dad all the time,
Speaker 3: and I wrote about the first time that I beat him,
Speaker 3: and he would always play me lefty because he was
Speaker 3: a lot better than me, and I could never beat him,
Speaker 3: but I won because he was sick and he just
Speaker 3: couldn't play as well as he used to. And then
Speaker 3: one of my friends from high school found out because
Speaker 3: she went to my house looking for me and I
Speaker 3: wasn't there, but my dad was there and he just
Speaker 3: got back from maybe the hospital or something, and so
Speaker 3: he told her what was happening. So that was the
Speaker 3: first person I guess that I talked to about it,
Speaker 3: which was this summer after my senior year of high school. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then when things started getting worse my sophomore year
Speaker 3: of college, I started just valing my friends about it
Speaker 3: and the person I was dating at that time. I
Speaker 3: would talk to him about it too, whenever my dad
Speaker 3: looked like a scan and we were waiting for insults.
Speaker 1: And I was worried when your friend in high school
Speaker 1: found out and reached out to you. What was that
Speaker 1: like for you, for somebody to know, and what were
Speaker 1: those conversations like?
Speaker 3: I guess it was a relief, but it was really
Speaker 3: hard for me to talk about it. Yeah. I remember
Speaker 3: we just like drove around in her car and she
Speaker 3: was trying to talk to me about it, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it was kind of a relief to know that she knew.
Speaker 3: But I I was pretty emotional in crying and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's really hard for me to process it. And at
Speaker 3: that time, also at that time, his illness was getting
Speaker 3: visibly worse, so things were also becoming a lot more
Speaker 3: real and right in front of me. And it was
Speaker 3: also when I was like getting ready to leave for college,
Speaker 3: but now it kind of felt like his life was
Speaker 3: a lot more fragile, so it was tough to leaving
Speaker 3: during that time too.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you were very close with your dad
Speaker 2: in some ways, and clearly it's a affecting you. Yet
Speaker 2: I'm not hearing that you were reaching out to friends
Speaker 2: to get support, and I ask.
Speaker 3: Why I was, I don't know, kind of similar to
Speaker 3: my dad in a lot of ways and like very stoic,
Speaker 3: and I guess I didn't think that I needed help,
Speaker 3: and I kind of just coped with it in the
Speaker 3: ways that I knew how. I guess I wasn't ready
Speaker 3: to talk about it either, because I mean it more real,
Speaker 3: I just started running a lot and biking a lot,
Speaker 3: and that was kind of like my way of dealing
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering about what was going on between you and
Speaker 1: your brother, because you said your brother, at least in
Speaker 1: that last year, was able to really talk with your
Speaker 1: dad and be close with your dad. Were you able
Speaker 1: to talk with your brother about what was happening and
Speaker 1: how you were feeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we I think became a lot closer because of it.
Speaker 3: Later on, when I was in college that summer this
Speaker 3: summer after my senior year of high school, we didn't
Speaker 3: really talk about it. We were kind of in two
Speaker 3: different worlds at the time, and I think because I
Speaker 3: suppressed a lot of it. When I got to college
Speaker 3: my freshman year, I had a lot of trouble integrating,
Speaker 3: and I was like very homesick and sad, and my
Speaker 3: brother kind of talked me through a lot of that
Speaker 3: and we became a lot closer because of that.
Speaker 1: So in your sophomore year, your dad is now apparently
Speaker 1: quite ill and you start dating this person at school,
Speaker 1: and you said that it kind of imploded, I think
Speaker 1: is how you described it. Can you tell us about
Speaker 1: the implosion?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when we first started dating, we were in
Speaker 3: a relationship. I like essentially moved into his dorm room,
Speaker 3: and for me, I was going really well, but it
Speaker 3: was really really fast. It just too fast, and that
Speaker 3: really freaked him out because he had been in a
Speaker 3: relationship that started too quickly and then ended really badly,
Speaker 3: and he didn't want to do that again. So he
Speaker 3: kind of hit the brakes on us and wanted to
Speaker 3: kind of pause and go back and take it slow
Speaker 3: and just kind of date and not sort of be
Speaker 3: in this like intense relationship from the get go. And
Speaker 3: I didn't want to do that, and I felt like
Speaker 3: he was just kind of like moving slower and slower
Speaker 3: away for me, and by the end of the semester,
Speaker 3: I just like couldn't really deal with it anymore. The
Speaker 3: previous semester, I was just like a total mess and
Speaker 3: a nightmare and all over the place and failed in
Speaker 3: my classes. Then this semester I bit off more than
Speaker 3: I could chew.
Speaker 1: I was wait, hold on, I want to step you there.
Speaker 1: So you said it. You kind of threw that off,
Speaker 1: like you kind of tossed that off. You know. I
Speaker 1: failed all my classes and I was a mess.
Speaker 3: No, No, I just failed one class, just.
Speaker 1: One, okay. But was that related to what was going
Speaker 1: on for you in motion around your father's illness or
Speaker 1: what was happening for you? I mean, was that unusual
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I was definitely unusual. I was a really good student.
Speaker 3: Freshman year of college was fine, but I was like
Speaker 3: very very unhappy. But I did okay. And then sophomore
Speaker 3: year of college, I was just kind of consumed with
Speaker 3: getting as many friends as I could so I could
Speaker 3: be happier, and like, my dad was doing worse and
Speaker 3: I wasn't handling it particularly well. And I also kind
Speaker 3: of just stopped talking to my parents that semester, to
Speaker 3: both of them, both of them. Yeah, why, I don't know.
Speaker 2: So what was the circumstance in which you just speaking
Speaker 2: to them, Like, how did that come about?
Speaker 3: I just like wouldn't call them, I wouldn't really pick
Speaker 3: up their calls. I kind of felt like I was
Speaker 3: like trying on this personality that was like much more
Speaker 3: outgoing and fun, and that didn't align with time my
Speaker 3: parents a lot.
Speaker 2: It also didn't delign with the fact that your dad
Speaker 2: was doing very badly, And I'm wondering if that was
Speaker 2: a real attempt to run away from that reality.
Speaker 3: Probably, Yeah, it all kind of felt like an escape.
Speaker 3: For sure. My parents were not happy about it.
Speaker 1: How did those conversations go where they told you that
Speaker 1: they weren't happy about the fact that you weren't communicating
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 3: I think I would hear it from my brother. Probably.
Speaker 3: They were definitely like very disappointed when I ended up
Speaker 3: feeling one of my classes, and I remember my dad saying, like,
Speaker 3: we're not sending you to college just to like drink
Speaker 3: and party. But I don't really remember much more than that.
Speaker 1: You Know, what comes to mind in that conversation with
Speaker 1: your dad is that it's almost like sometimes when we're
Speaker 1: losing someone that we care so much about, it's almost
Speaker 1: like you can't fire me. I quit you failed the class,
Speaker 1: which you knew would be disappointing, and it's almost like
Speaker 1: it might have even been a relief to have your
Speaker 1: father be disappointed in you, that you could at least
Speaker 1: have that barrier between the two of you. And I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to see those things when they're happening
Speaker 1: in the moment, But in hindsight, I wonder if now,
Speaker 1: when you look at that period in your life, there's
Speaker 1: a flavor of it's so hard for me to move
Speaker 1: closer to the pain of this, that I'm going to
Speaker 1: move as far away as I can and I'm going
Speaker 1: to recreate my personality and I'm going to drink and
Speaker 1: I'm going to party, and I'm going to not talk
Speaker 1: to my parents, and I'm going to fail a class.
Speaker 1: Not that you consciously did any of that, but as
Speaker 1: you look at it now and you try to understand
Speaker 1: that period in your life which was so out of
Speaker 1: character for you, does any of that resonate now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it does. I mean, the first thing
Speaker 3: that comes to mind, like, I wonder if it was
Speaker 3: also just kind of like a cry for help. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I definitely think it does. And I think that's kind
Speaker 3: of an interesting way of looking at it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other part of that that stands out is that
Speaker 2: it's during this time that your dad was getting sicker,
Speaker 2: you were pulling away from them more, and you were
Speaker 2: also trying to attach more intensely to other people. In
Speaker 2: the first case, that guy that you were dating that
Speaker 2: you said it was very intense and very fast, And
Speaker 2: again it strikes me that you were really trying to
Speaker 2: create your life elsewhere to run away from it as
Speaker 2: much as possible because it was just too painful to
Speaker 2: deal with that reality. So you were living these two lives.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, at home, things were going poorly
Speaker 2: with your dad's health. You might have had a sense
Speaker 2: that you're losing him soon, and yet you're trying to
Speaker 2: create this party life or this fun life and romance
Speaker 2: and friends and all that college and it just seems
Speaker 2: that there were really two different worlds where you aware
Speaker 2: of that at the time.
Speaker 3: No, not really, I haven't really thought about it that way,
Speaker 3: but that also does definitely resonates.
Speaker 2: Can we actually move on to how you met the professor?
Speaker 2: I mean, you think he was your professor, but how
Speaker 2: did you meet him? How did that relationship again?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a little bit of backstory, just going into
Speaker 3: my senior year of college. So when I was dating
Speaker 3: that person that was really intense for a few months
Speaker 3: my sophomore year, he ended up not really wanting to
Speaker 3: be in a relationship with me, and then I kind
Speaker 3: of fell apart and I withdrew from all my classes
Speaker 3: I could finish them. When I went home and I
Speaker 3: was really depressed, and then I took like a year
Speaker 3: off from college.
Speaker 1: What did you do that year at home with your
Speaker 1: ailing father and you're probably very sad and anxious mother.
Speaker 2: And sad and anxious brother.
Speaker 3: Yeah. My brother was, Oh yeah, I graduated from college.
Speaker 3: He was living in the city and was working. I
Speaker 3: came home and was like severely depressed, like stay in
Speaker 3: my room for probably like two months.
Speaker 1: What did your parents think when you came home severely depressed?
Speaker 1: What were those conversations like in your family?
Speaker 3: They were really concerned and worried.
Speaker 1: Did they suggest that maybe you go talk to someone
Speaker 1: or see a therapist?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I was talking to someone like twice a
Speaker 3: week when I first came home, and then eventually once
Speaker 3: a week, and then eventually not so much.
Speaker 2: What were you talking about? If I may ask, Because
Speaker 2: there was so much going on.
Speaker 3: I was like prepherally talking about my dad, but it
Speaker 3: wasn't at this like forefront of what was happening. I
Speaker 3: think then I was probably most concerned with and talking
Speaker 3: about this person that I had been dating. And then
Speaker 3: I was also like consumed with feeling like a failure
Speaker 3: for leaving college, and so those were the most pressed
Speaker 3: in issues that I was dealing with, just trying to
Speaker 3: figure out how to get back on my feet and
Speaker 3: feel like a normal person again.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing so much loss in what you were experiencing,
Speaker 1: and maybe you didn't think of it that way at
Speaker 1: the time, but to me, you were grieving, and you
Speaker 1: were grieving the end of that relationship with the guy
Speaker 1: you were dating, and that at first you felt incredibly
Speaker 1: attached to, and then you saw him move farther and
Speaker 1: farther away from you, just like your dad was doing
Speaker 1: because he was sick and he was going to die.
Speaker 1: And so you had these two men in your life
Speaker 1: who you couldn't quite reach because they were both going
Speaker 1: to move away from you, both for reasons out of
Speaker 1: your control. And then you were grieving the loss of
Speaker 1: your life as a student that you had never been
Speaker 1: that kind of student before you had always done well
Speaker 1: in school, you failed a class, and you withdrew from
Speaker 1: your classes, and so everything that was familiar to you,
Speaker 1: that was comforting to you had gone away or was
Speaker 1: going away. I think for all of us, it can
Speaker 1: be so much easier to deal with the thing that
Speaker 1: feels the most concrete, which is there's this guy. We
Speaker 1: were in a relationship. He was pulling back. I'm deeply
Speaker 1: wounded by this, and that might have been the focus
Speaker 1: of your therapy at the time, but I think that
Speaker 1: whether you realized that or not, you were grieving these
Speaker 1: other losses too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've definitely drawn that connection before, and I think the
Speaker 3: reason why that breakup was so painful was because it
Speaker 3: felt so similar to kind of that slow loss that
Speaker 3: I was dealing with my dad. Yeah, So I ended up.
Speaker 3: Then I took a full year off from college. I
Speaker 3: worked at home, and then I went abroad for about
Speaker 3: six months, and then I went back to school. And
Speaker 3: then there was this class that I really wanted to
Speaker 3: take with this professor who was like pretty wellcomplished in
Speaker 3: his field, and I knew that I wanted to try
Speaker 3: and build like a professional relationship with him because I
Speaker 3: thought it would help me in my career. I was
Speaker 3: doing that over the summer and I would go to
Speaker 3: hospital appointments with him. And so then I got back
Speaker 3: to school and I started that class and our first
Speaker 3: assignment in the class was to write about someone you
Speaker 3: really cared about and someone who you were really close to,
Speaker 3: and the assignment was to render them in words. I
Speaker 3: wrote about this story about my dad. Me and my
Speaker 3: family had gone on in vacation that summer in the
Speaker 3: Berkshires and my dad was really really not doing well.
Speaker 3: He was pretty sick that summer, so we spent most
Speaker 3: of his time pretty weak in bed. But there was
Speaker 3: this one day that we went into town and we
Speaker 3: met up with my brother's girlfriend and her mom and
Speaker 3: they had a house up there, and my brother's girlfriend's
Speaker 3: dad had just died like a few months before that
Speaker 3: from patriotic cancer was really quick, and my dad walked
Speaker 3: into the store with my mom and he found this
Speaker 3: little stuffed animal. My dad was like so frugal, he
Speaker 3: never bought anything. He like hated buying things, but he
Speaker 3: saw this little stuffed animal and pointed it out to
Speaker 3: my mom and said, like, I really want that, And
Speaker 3: so my mom bought it for him and he had
Speaker 3: it with him in bed. It was kind of like
Speaker 3: it felt like this protector of him, And so I
Speaker 3: wrote about that for this assignment, and I wrote about
Speaker 3: my dad being sick and this little stuffed animal that
Speaker 3: gave him comfort. It was almost this like for a
Speaker 3: full circle story of when you get older and sick
Speaker 3: and dying and you kind of become childlike again you
Speaker 3: just want your stuffed animal. And the professor read each
Speaker 3: one of our stories out loud to the class. I
Speaker 3: remember after my professor read my story out loud, it
Speaker 3: was just kind of silent, but he kind of filled
Speaker 3: that silence with a story about his own dad being
Speaker 3: really sick, and he was like empathizing understanding my story.
Speaker 3: So that's why I met him.
Speaker 1: How did it move from him being your professor to
Speaker 1: him being your boyfriend?
Speaker 3: He wasn't ever my boyfriend, and nothing ever happened like
Speaker 3: physically between us. We had like a really intimate emotional relationship,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't physical.
Speaker 2: That you had feelings for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did develop feelings for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And when did that happen? Did he know?
Speaker 3: The way things changed was I was seeing him out
Speaker 3: for after a class and he was like, yeah, but
Speaker 3: I'm about to leave, like I'm hungry, I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: get a bye to eat, Like do you want to
Speaker 3: join me? And I was like sure, yeah, I just
Speaker 3: have to call my mom back and he was like okay.
Speaker 3: And then I got a meal with him and we
Speaker 3: were talking and he asked me about my family and
Speaker 3: my parents and how they met, and about my dad
Speaker 3: and how he was doing. And then that kind of
Speaker 3: turned into this like almost ritual where we would get
Speaker 3: dinner every week and have these contents and intimate conversations,
Speaker 3: and then over time I just kind of developed feelings
Speaker 3: for him because of that.
Speaker 2: Did he know that you had feelings for him?
Speaker 3: I think he must have because of how I acted.
Speaker 3: I think he also did things to kind of egg
Speaker 3: me on, and by the end, our friendship or whatever
Speaker 3: it was or relationship or whatever just kind of ended strangely.
Speaker 3: And so I of him this letter and left it
Speaker 3: at his house before I left college after I graduated,
Speaker 3: and I basically told him in that letter. I think
Speaker 3: it was kind of clear.
Speaker 1: When you said he did things that egged you on.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: He would talk about like his ex girlfriends pretty frequently
Speaker 3: and like, tell me about that history when I wouldn't
Speaker 3: like ask him about it or tell him about my
Speaker 3: own dating history.
Speaker 2: So when that ended, you said, it ended in a
Speaker 2: weird way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had considerate After I graduated, I considered staying
Speaker 3: in my college town and working for him. I could
Speaker 3: stay there, and he was going to be away for
Speaker 3: the summer, but potentially I could stay in his house
Speaker 3: and take care of his dog while he was away
Speaker 3: and work for him. But then right after I graduated,
Speaker 3: we had this barbecue in my backyard. He came and
Speaker 3: like other like a bunch of friends and family, other
Speaker 3: professors there too, and we had this talk where he
Speaker 3: was like, you know, we need boundaries in our relationship
Speaker 3: and you can't stay in my house over the summer.
Speaker 3: And I kind of asked him what he meant or
Speaker 3: what he was talking about, but he had to leave
Speaker 3: and then he just kind of ignored me and was like,
Speaker 3: hang in there, and that was it. So I decided
Speaker 3: that I was going to leave, and when I did,
Speaker 3: I wrote him an email saying like, hey, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to work for you. I decided I'm leaving, and
Speaker 3: then I wrote this page long letter and delivered it
Speaker 3: to his house and then I left, like a day
Speaker 3: or two later.
Speaker 1: What did the letter say?
Speaker 3: Oh, I remember too when we had that talk and
Speaker 3: he said we needed boundaries. He was like, y're two
Speaker 3: dependent on me, And so in this letter, I guess
Speaker 3: I was explaining why I was dependent on him because
Speaker 3: of my dad and his illness and him dying, and
Speaker 3: so I came to rely on him, and I think
Speaker 3: I apologized for that. I think I like told him
Speaker 3: how much I cared about him and how I grew
Speaker 3: to love him. I guess I think I said and
Speaker 3: that maybe I had become dependent on him, but also
Speaker 3: like the way he acted and treated me like he
Speaker 3: was dependent on me too, and it wasn't just a
Speaker 3: one sided thing, and I wanted him to take responsibility
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 1: Did he respond to the letter.
Speaker 3: He did respond to the letter, but it took him
Speaker 3: a few weeks. Then it was very professional and buttoned up,
Speaker 3: and it was the email he basically said, like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you took these classes with me. I
Speaker 3: wish you all the best.
Speaker 1: But he didn't address the fact that you said you
Speaker 1: grew to love him, or that you felt he had
Speaker 1: also crossed some boundaries with you.
Speaker 3: No, not at all. He basically kind of invalidated or
Speaker 3: just ignored it, like I was any other student who
Speaker 3: took classes with him and wished me all the best
Speaker 3: or whatever. And I confronted him again, probably a year later,
Speaker 3: and so I asked him to meet up, and I
Speaker 3: was like, do you know what I want to talk
Speaker 3: to you about? And he was like, I think you
Speaker 3: feel like I let you down in some way, and
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I guess so, but it was
Speaker 3: more than that. I said, I also feel like you
Speaker 3: made sexual advances towards me, and we're kind of inappropriate,
Speaker 3: and it was really confusing, and he like very defensively
Speaker 3: and firmly denied that and got like pretty upset.
Speaker 1: Did you give him examples of what you felt were
Speaker 1: sexual advances?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I said. I was like, you told me about
Speaker 3: all of your ex girlfriends, you talked about your sex life,
Speaker 3: You told me that you thought it was okay for
Speaker 3: professors and students to date as long as students were seniors.
Speaker 3: And he just fought out denied it.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's happening with your dad at this time? Is
Speaker 2: he still alive when this is going on?
Speaker 3: So he had died a couple of months before I
Speaker 3: wrote that letter, and when I confronted him it was
Speaker 3: like a year and months afterwards.
Speaker 2: It just sounds like it was dealing with a lot
Speaker 2: of loss. It sounds like you got closer with your
Speaker 2: dad again and spent a lot of time with him,
Speaker 2: and that makes it really difficult when he passes away.
Speaker 2: And that's around the time that you were with this
Speaker 2: professor that you know he was perhaps pulling away. I mean,
Speaker 2: it just sounds like you had those losses truly back
Speaker 2: to back at that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was hard too, because he was someone who
Speaker 3: encouraged me to talk about my dad, and other people
Speaker 3: wouldn't really ask me about him because they were didn't
Speaker 3: know what to say, or they didn't know if they
Speaker 3: should ask about it. But he always did and wanted
Speaker 3: me to talk about it and was really supportive. And
Speaker 3: so then to like a couple of months after my
Speaker 3: dad died, to have him then just like completely what
Speaker 3: felt like kind of like completely breaking ties was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was really hard.
Speaker 2: It just seems like such a painful double when me
Speaker 2: to go through losing these you know, your dad obviously,
Speaker 2: and then this person who seemed so significant to seem
Speaker 2: like the person who would be there to help you
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, that summer was so hard because like, not
Speaker 3: only had I lost my dad, but also my mom
Speaker 3: was just like kind of a wreck, like totally understandable,
Speaker 3: but I didn't really know how to deal with it,
Speaker 3: and it felt kind of like losing two parents. And
Speaker 3: I think I emailed him. I reached out to him
Speaker 3: and said something to that effect. Did he respond He
Speaker 3: responded that. I think he expressed some empathy or more
Speaker 3: sort of I think he asked me if I had
Speaker 3: a therapist.
Speaker 2: Emma. In your letter, you indicated that one of the
Speaker 2: reasons that you are attracted to older men is because
Speaker 2: the maturity and stability and they get things. And I
Speaker 2: can see in the relationship with a professor why you
Speaker 2: would feel that way, because he actually asked and he
Speaker 2: was curious about what was going on with your dad,
Speaker 2: and he seemed very supportive for the time that he
Speaker 2: was there. But then the way it ended didn't sound
Speaker 2: like the most mature way to end that situation, and
Speaker 2: it was very disappointing and hurtful for you. With that
Speaker 2: in mind, I do want to hear about this current
Speaker 2: relationship that you have that you wrote about, can you
Speaker 2: tell us about that?
Speaker 3: Sure, the professor was like over thirty years older than me.
Speaker 3: This other person is so only twenty years old, and
Speaker 3: I met him through work and I just like developed
Speaker 3: these really intense feelings for him. And the nature of
Speaker 3: it is so different, Like it's super lighthearted, it's like
Speaker 3: really fun and easy. But he's also married and has children.
Speaker 3: But he also like leaves me a lot of attention
Speaker 3: and showers me with compliments and it feels amazing. But
Speaker 3: it's super different, and it's not burdened by my dad
Speaker 3: dying or some really dark thing happening in my life.
Speaker 1: Does he know that you have these feelings for him?
Speaker 3: I think on some level, when someone has a crush
Speaker 3: on you, you always know.
Speaker 1: It's funny that you say that, because it sounds like
Speaker 1: in your family there was a lot of assuming what
Speaker 1: was going on with other people, but not directly talking
Speaker 1: about it, And so for you that might seem like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the norm that people into it what you're feeling,
Speaker 1: even if you don't say it directly, because that's what
Speaker 1: you grew up with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: I want to open you up to the idea that
Speaker 1: maybe if you don't communicate directly with people, they don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're feeling. So when you say he
Speaker 1: showers you with compliments, I assume those are professional compliments.
Speaker 1: They're not romantic compliments. Is that right? Yeah? And so
Speaker 1: it's almost like a lot of these relationships are taking
Speaker 1: place in your head. And I don't mean that you're
Speaker 1: making them up. I mean they're very real to you,
Speaker 1: but that the other person isn't involved in the sense
Speaker 1: of you have sat down and been vulnerable with this person.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about being vulnerable with the Professor
Speaker 1: about what was going on with your dad, but you
Speaker 1: weren't vulnerable with him in terms of what was going
Speaker 1: on between the two of you until the very end.
Speaker 1: And with this guy, it sounds like he doesn't really
Speaker 1: know what happened with your dad because you probably haven't
Speaker 1: opened up to him about it and it's not happening
Speaker 1: at this moment. And I really wonder whether he has
Speaker 1: any idea that you feel the way you do about.
Speaker 3: Him he does know what happened with my dad, And
Speaker 3: maybe he doesn't know, but he might know. The reason
Speaker 3: I think he might know is because I mean he
Speaker 3: also like flirted with me a little bit.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that you seem to believe that
Speaker 1: you're attracted to older men is that they have more
Speaker 1: life experience and therefore are emotionally deeper and can understand
Speaker 1: you on a deeper level. And yet you haven't really
Speaker 1: engaged in any kind of deep I thou reallylationship with
Speaker 1: either of them, And by I thou we use this
Speaker 1: term in therapy, meaning how I relate to you, how
Speaker 1: you relate to me. And you said that you did
Speaker 1: try to date someone who was about ten years older,
Speaker 1: and that you felt like this person didn't have that
Speaker 1: level of emotional depth, and so I don't really hear
Speaker 1: a lot of emotional depth happening with the current person.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you joke around a lot that you
Speaker 1: have a fondness for each other, but I don't really
Speaker 1: hear anything romantic going on necessarily from his end. You
Speaker 1: know what draws you to him more than maybe the
Speaker 1: person who was ten years older.
Speaker 3: The person I was ten years older actually was really
Speaker 3: great and it was going super well, and I didn't
Speaker 3: think that he couldn't relate to me. I felt like
Speaker 3: we could relate to each other super well. But it
Speaker 3: turned out he had just gotten out of a relationship
Speaker 3: and wasn't ready to enter into a new one, and
Speaker 3: that's why it ended. It was pretty brief.
Speaker 2: Interesting is that to me, the relationship that sounds like
Speaker 2: you were most in it is the one in your
Speaker 2: sophomore year with the guy who was your age. That's
Speaker 2: the one where you entered into it very quickly. The
Speaker 2: two of you kind of moved into his dorm room
Speaker 2: right away. That he felt it was a little too
Speaker 2: quick and he was putting on the brakes, But you
Speaker 2: were in it, you were interested in it, you were
Speaker 2: going for it, and that was your first real relationship.
Speaker 2: And then since then it's been real safe choices for you.
Speaker 2: In the sense that you know the professor, he's thirty
Speaker 2: years older. There was a lot of disclosure going on,
Speaker 2: and that felt very intimate. But nothing happened between the
Speaker 2: two of you and the guy at work. He's married.
Speaker 2: He doesn't even know that you have these feelings. The
Speaker 2: guy who was ten years older was right out of
Speaker 2: a relationship and not ready for a new one. And
Speaker 2: I have this feeling that there's a part of you
Speaker 2: that really wants to just actually be in a relationship,
Speaker 2: to have that part of your life because you're almost
Speaker 2: you're entire of that life was taken up with your
Speaker 2: dad's illness. And then you meet the guy who's ten
Speaker 2: years older. Even that felt good for a while. What
Speaker 2: doesn't feel good is that when you're with the older guys,
Speaker 2: with the professor, with this guy from work, you are
Speaker 2: pining for someone who's older, but it's almost collegial or mentorish.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel or seem romantic, but it does feel safe.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if that early experience and all the
Speaker 2: turbulence of your adolescent years, after all the losses you've had,
Speaker 2: you're playing it safe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's definitely makes sense too. There is
Speaker 3: also there's something a warring about someone who's unavailable and
Speaker 3: kind of unapproachable, and it's easier that way because there's
Speaker 3: not really in the realm of possibility, and therefore there's
Speaker 3: also not a lot of room to get hurt or
Speaker 3: be rejected or left or whatever.
Speaker 2: But they occupy that emotional space in a way that
Speaker 2: doesn't leave you free for someone else perhaps who might
Speaker 2: be there, who might have something to give back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Probably true.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that even in our conversation with you today,
Speaker 1: you haven't really looked at us very much. That when
Speaker 1: you start talking about something that feels very tender or delicate,
Speaker 1: you look down, and when we're talking like right now,
Speaker 1: you'll look right up at us. But then when you're
Speaker 1: responding to us about something that feels maybe vulnerable to you,
Speaker 1: not once in this conversation have you looked at us.
Speaker 1: And you think that there's something about getting close to
Speaker 1: people or really being seen that feels terrifying to you.
Speaker 1: And part of it might have to do with the
Speaker 1: fact that, starting when you were in high school, you
Speaker 1: were dealing with potential imminent loss with your dad. But
Speaker 1: part of it might also have to do with the
Speaker 1: style of communication in your family, where things weren't really
Speaker 1: directly talked about. Everybody seemed to love one another, but
Speaker 1: they didn't really talk about the things that needed to
Speaker 1: be talked about in a direct way. And so part
Speaker 1: of it is that you went through this experience of
Speaker 1: losing someone that you were very close with. But the
Speaker 1: other part is that I don't think that you ever
Speaker 1: really learned how to get close in a way that
Speaker 1: felt safe, that speaking up felt terrifying in your family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that definitely resonates. I was also like a very
Speaker 3: quiet kid, and I didn't really start talking a lot
Speaker 3: until Honestly, like even in high school, I was pretty shy,
Speaker 3: and I didn't really start being more open and vocal
Speaker 3: and putting myself out there until I was in college,
Speaker 3: until like my sophomore year of college, when I kind
Speaker 3: of just let everything go in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: You might be shy, or you might have been shy,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that you don't have a circus
Speaker 1: going on in your head. Okay, it's very loud in there.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on there. It's not as though
Speaker 1: there's an absence of intense feeling of lots of things
Speaker 1: swirling around there all the time. This relationship that you
Speaker 1: have right now to the person that you work with
Speaker 1: is very alive and very active in your mind, even
Speaker 1: though you haven't vocalized anything to him.
Speaker 2: To echo Lorre's point, you mentioned that I think in
Speaker 2: your letter that your friends are like, you know, roll
Speaker 2: their eyes a bit or something like that, oh you
Speaker 2: and your older men kind of fixation kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But I think that that's also that maybe you're not
Speaker 2: opening up to them, to really talk about how you're feeling,
Speaker 2: what your needs are, what your hopes are, what it
Speaker 2: would be like to be in a relationship with someone
Speaker 2: who could reciprocate. And I think it's easier to talk about, oh,
Speaker 2: the professor and the married guy than talking about and
Speaker 2: yet I'm really lonely and I really want someone, and
Speaker 2: I don't know how to go about it because it's very,
Speaker 2: very scary out there in the dating world. Do you
Speaker 2: have those kinds of conversations with your friends where you
Speaker 2: talk about that, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we talk about dating and stuff, But.
Speaker 1: Do you hear the difference between talking about dating and
Speaker 1: having the kind of conversation with your friends about you
Speaker 1: not dating in general and the kinds of general stories
Speaker 1: people talk about about being in the trenches, but about
Speaker 1: something specific to you, which is I really struggle with
Speaker 1: putting myself out there emotionally. I really struggle with with
Speaker 1: getting close to someone and risking having that go away.
Speaker 1: I really struggle with the possibility of rejection. I really
Speaker 1: struggle with the fact that my dad died and I
Speaker 1: haven't quite dealt with it in a way that I
Speaker 1: think would be helpful for me. Did you ever talk
Speaker 1: to them about that? Not so much.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I really struggle with the fact that not only did
Speaker 1: my dad die, but then my mom was really dealing
Speaker 1: with this, and I felt very alone. I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like I had a parent anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not really.
Speaker 1: How much emotional real estate goes toward thinking about the
Speaker 1: different men that you have been really interested in, and
Speaker 1: particularly right now with the current person, what do you
Speaker 1: think would replace that if you weren't thinking about him?
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you think about him quite a bit,
Speaker 1: You talk about him quite a bit, to the point
Speaker 1: that your friends are saying enough already. What do you
Speaker 1: think you'd be thinking about if you weren't thinking about him?
Speaker 3: I know that when I was thinking about the professor
Speaker 3: a lot, and I would stop doing that. I would
Speaker 3: think about my dad a lot, and now I would
Speaker 3: probably think about my brother who's been having a really
Speaker 3: hard time.
Speaker 1: And so when you hear yourself say that, can you
Speaker 1: hear that these distractions conserve is almost like a drug,
Speaker 1: like I'm going to put the needle in because I
Speaker 1: don't want to think about these other things. I'm going
Speaker 1: to numb myself with thoughts about people I don't have
Speaker 1: to get that close to. But it feels good to
Speaker 1: fantasize about it or imagine it. When you take the
Speaker 1: needle out, you start to say, oh, what's there that's
Speaker 1: about my dad or my brother? And I think underneath
Speaker 1: that even is this intense loneliness. And we don't want
Speaker 1: you to have to feel so lonely. So, Emma, we
Speaker 1: have some advice for you, and what we'd like you
Speaker 1: to do is we would like you to call your
Speaker 1: mom and we would like you to start a conversation
Speaker 1: with her by saying, you know what, Mom, there's this
Speaker 1: guy that I can't stop thinking about. And I realized
Speaker 1: that if I stop thinking about him, what I would
Speaker 1: be thinking about would be Dad. And I would like
Speaker 1: to be able to talk with you about what this
Speaker 1: experience has been like for our family. And I'd like
Speaker 1: to be able to share with you a little bit
Speaker 1: about what has been like for me. I know you've
Speaker 1: certainly struggled with it, understandably so, and so do you
Speaker 1: think that I could share a little bit with you
Speaker 1: about what this has been like for me to go
Speaker 1: through Dad's illness and to lose Dad. Could we start
Speaker 1: maybe opening up those conversations and I want to be
Speaker 1: clear that it's not like you're going to go through
Speaker 1: the last ten years in that one conversation. It will
Speaker 1: probably be dipping your toe in and letting your mom
Speaker 1: acclimate to what it's like to have these kinds of
Speaker 1: conversations in the family, because your family wasn't a family
Speaker 1: who had these kinds of conversations even before your dad
Speaker 1: became ill, and just sort of gauge her reaction and
Speaker 1: be able to tell her maybe a little bit about
Speaker 1: you know, I realized that I haven't really dealt with it,
Speaker 1: and it would feel so good to be able to
Speaker 1: talk about it with you because we've been through it
Speaker 1: sort of in the family together, and see what that's like,
Speaker 1: see what happens for her when you open it up
Speaker 1: in that way. And we'd like you to have a
Speaker 1: similar conversation with your brother, and you might open it
Speaker 1: up with him and say, you know what, there's this
Speaker 1: guy that I think about a lot. And I realized
Speaker 1: that if I were to stop thinking about him, I
Speaker 1: would be thinking about Dad, and I would also be
Speaker 1: worried about you, because I know that you're struggling a
Speaker 1: lot too, and I would love to be able to
Speaker 1: talk the two of us as siblings about what we're
Speaker 1: struggling with and what we're going through, and maybe have
Speaker 1: more direct conversations about that, because I think it would
Speaker 1: be really helpful for both of us and see what
Speaker 1: that conversation is like with him. And we also feel
Speaker 1: like that would help you do some of your grief
Speaker 1: work that hasn't been done yet. How does that sound
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 3: Sounds hard but manageable.
Speaker 2: Okay, good Emma. There's the second part you wrote to
Speaker 2: us about dating, and we have some advice for you
Speaker 2: there as well. You probably spend many hours a day
Speaker 2: thinking about the guide from work, and those are in
Speaker 2: essence a bit wasted hours because there's nothing that's going
Speaker 2: to really happen there. Would like you to convert at
Speaker 2: least an hour of that time where you would be
Speaker 2: thinking about him, to thinking about more likely suspects for dating.
Speaker 2: And are you on any dating apps?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Great. We would like you to spend at least an
Speaker 2: hour a day talking with age appropriate people. Now, we
Speaker 2: had a debate about what that is for you, and
Speaker 2: I suggested be cappy with thirty. Laurie said thirty five.
Speaker 2: We're going to agree on thirty five. We would like
Speaker 2: you to try if you can within this week set
Speaker 2: up a FaceTime date or a socially distanced one with
Speaker 2: somebody within that age range. You've spent so many years
Speaker 2: dealing with loss and grief and illness and not being
Speaker 2: able to really have that young adulthood that you really
Speaker 2: want to have in part, and we don't want you
Speaker 2: to waste too many more years on the unavailable older
Speaker 2: guys who can't give you that, So we would like
Speaker 2: you to spend this time trying to get at least one,
Speaker 2: and just to remind yourself of those options and that
Speaker 2: there are people out there and that age range who
Speaker 2: are mature enough and open enough for you that you
Speaker 2: can have a relationship with.
Speaker 1: Potentially, And we want you to make sure that the
Speaker 1: age range really is twenty five to thirty five. You
Speaker 1: are considering people who are your own age because I
Speaker 1: think there's a story that you're telling yourself, particularly about
Speaker 1: the person that is the object of your affection right now,
Speaker 1: that somehow he's deeper and can to understand you better
Speaker 1: than someone in your own age range. And yet nothing
Speaker 1: deep has transpired between the two of you. There has
Speaker 1: not been one hint of the depth of his inner
Speaker 1: life in anything that has transpired between the two of
Speaker 1: you other than that you admire his work. So we
Speaker 1: also are giving you the ticking clock of the week
Speaker 1: because you have all kinds of excuses for you know why,
Speaker 1: nobody is appropriate. We are forcing the issue, and we
Speaker 1: are making you choose someone. We're not looking for perfect.
Speaker 1: We're making you choose someone that you think you might
Speaker 1: have a nice conversation with. That is the extent of it.
Speaker 1: As part of this exercise, we would like you to
Speaker 1: tell your friends, who are so tired of hearing you
Speaker 1: talk about this other guy, Hey, I am really making
Speaker 1: a concerted effort to meet someone my own age. Is
Speaker 1: there anyone you can think about introducing me to. Just
Speaker 1: making it clear to your friends that, hey, I want
Speaker 1: you to know that instead of spending all that time
Speaker 1: talking to them about Oh my gosh, and here's what happened,
Speaker 1: and we had this interchange and he looked at me
Speaker 1: this way, and here's what happened at work. To say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to spend my time
Speaker 1: talking about him with you anymore. So we want you
Speaker 1: to stop talking about him with your friends. We want
Speaker 1: you to talk about the things that you would be
Speaker 1: talking about if you weren't talking about him. Talk about
Speaker 1: your dad, talk about your fear, talk about this new
Speaker 1: idea of I'm going to be open to meeting people
Speaker 1: in my age range. Talk about movies that you saw,
Speaker 1: talk about books that you read, talk about the things
Speaker 1: you would be talking about if you weren't on the drug. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, all right. So we look forward to hearing
Speaker 1: how the conversations go and how the dating goes, and
Speaker 1: we will hear back from you shortly.
Speaker 2: Thank you. What became clear to me in this conversation
Speaker 2: with Emma was the extent to which these infatuations with
Speaker 2: the older men are truly distractions from dealing both with
Speaker 2: the pain of losing her dad and with a fear
Speaker 2: of finding someone whose age appropriate, of entering into her
Speaker 2: own relationships, of dealing with loneliness, of dealing with the
Speaker 2: risk of rejection. And I hope that our homework for
Speaker 2: her will help her break out of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're trying to redirect her and help
Speaker 1: her to deal with what's really going on. When people
Speaker 1: ruminate like that, when they sort of ruminate and obsessed.
Speaker 1: She said she thinks about him all the time, that's
Speaker 1: all she can think about. Studies show that in order
Speaker 1: to break that, you need to focus on something concrete
Speaker 1: for a specific amount of time, just to kind of
Speaker 1: reset your brain. And so I think giving her that
Speaker 1: hour where we're saying, Okay, you want to obsess eight
Speaker 1: hours a day, that's fine, do what you need to do,
Speaker 1: but on this ninth hour, we're going to have you
Speaker 1: do this task. It will give her the opportunity to
Speaker 1: take the needle out for an hour and to access
Speaker 1: all that she is trying to distract herself from, because
Speaker 1: I think what she will find is that her fear
Speaker 1: of her feelings is a lot scarier than the feelings themselves.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after
Speaker 2: a quick break. We did not receive a voicemail from Emma.
Speaker 2: This is the first time that we haven't received a
Speaker 2: voicemail from one of our guests, one of our fellow travelers.
Speaker 2: We asked our producer to reach out to Emma and
Speaker 2: inquire about it and remind her, and she did and
Speaker 2: to ask if there was any reason that Emma didn't
Speaker 2: send the voicemail. And Emma actually said no, that she
Speaker 2: just was busy and didn't have a chance to get
Speaker 2: to it that she would, but again she did not.
Speaker 2: Even after she said that, we still didn't get a voicemail.
Speaker 2: And so we're going to discuss a little bit about
Speaker 2: what that might be and why that might be going on.
Speaker 1: Right, and so something like that happens when we have
Speaker 1: that happen in the therapy room, for example, and somebody
Speaker 1: says they're going to do something and then they don't
Speaker 1: follow through, and then we talk about it and they
Speaker 1: say they're going to follow through and they don't. We
Speaker 1: didn't have the opportunity with Emma to really understand more
Speaker 1: about what was going on for her, but based on
Speaker 1: our conversation with her, it did seem like there was
Speaker 1: a lot of avoidance going on of really dealing with
Speaker 1: the impact that her father's long illness and death had
Speaker 1: on her all through her teen years and then through
Speaker 1: her college years. And what we were asking her to
Speaker 1: do was to really go to places that maybe she
Speaker 1: wasn't ready to go to.
Speaker 2: What happens often is that when somebody comes and tells
Speaker 2: us their story, and here the story was I get
Speaker 2: into these relationships with older men. It doesn't work well
Speaker 2: for me with the younger men my age, and we
Speaker 2: as therapists, our job is to tell them, often a
Speaker 2: different story than their story, and in this case, the
Speaker 2: story was you had a lot of trauma and loss
Speaker 2: with losing your dad, and you had a lot of
Speaker 2: hesitation about getting hurt, and so it was safer to
Speaker 2: go with older men who didn't really have a relationship
Speaker 2: with you had crushes on than to deal with the
Speaker 2: fear and the anxiety and the hurt and the potential
Speaker 2: loss of somebody more in your age bracket than somebody
Speaker 2: who's twenty or thirty years older. And that is what
Speaker 2: she then had to confront And I think that it
Speaker 2: wasn't just the task she wasn't ready for, but it
Speaker 2: was the narrative that we were proposing that she was
Speaker 2: struggling to accept.
Speaker 1: I think you're right about really embracing this other part
Speaker 1: of the narrative, and maybe she's having some trouble with that,
Speaker 1: But I also think that those relationships served as an
Speaker 1: escape for her from really dealing with the grief and
Speaker 1: the loss. And when we talked to her about what
Speaker 1: would you be thinking about if you weren't obsessing about
Speaker 1: the current guy, and if you hadn't been obsessing up
Speaker 1: about the professor, and she said, I'd be thinking about
Speaker 1: my dad. And I think that when we asked her
Speaker 1: to talk to her mom and talk to her brother
Speaker 1: about maybe opening up these conversations in the family about
Speaker 1: the impact that this experience has had on all of them,
Speaker 1: that maybe that was something that she's not ready to
Speaker 1: do yet. That it feels so good in a certain
Speaker 1: way to hold on to Well, let me think about
Speaker 1: the guy at work and what does that mean that
Speaker 1: he said that, and was he flirting with me? And
Speaker 1: is he ever going to leave his wife for me?
Speaker 1: Then to say, hey, mom, hey brother, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that maybe we should talk about.
Speaker 2: I agree. And I think the other part of that
Speaker 2: is it also was safer to think about the married
Speaker 2: guy at work than it is to deal with the
Speaker 2: potential hurt and disappointment of taking someone that actually reciprocate
Speaker 2: and have a real relationship with all the fears that
Speaker 2: go with entering into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I have a lot of compassion for Emma
Speaker 1: because I think by not reporting back to us on
Speaker 1: how these tasks went, and I think that means that
Speaker 1: she didn't do them that she was sending us a message.
Speaker 1: But again there's that avoidance of instead of saying to
Speaker 1: our producer, you know what I thought about it, but
Speaker 1: I just I'm not really ready to do these things yet.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, and just being direct about it, she
Speaker 1: just said, oh, yeah, I'm going to have it by tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have it by this day, and then
Speaker 1: radio silence. We just never heard. So I think there's
Speaker 1: that question about you know what makes it hard for
Speaker 1: her to actually be direct instead of avoiding something that
Speaker 1: might be difficult.
Speaker 2: And we know from our practices that people have to
Speaker 2: be ready to make the changes that we try and
Speaker 2: help them make. And I hope that when Emma feels ready,
Speaker 2: she'll know the path that she has to take.
Speaker 1: Next week, we'll get updates from last season sessions to
Speaker 1: find out how our advice worked out a year later.
Speaker 5: I was always taught that your parents will live with
Speaker 5: you and you take care of them for the rest
Speaker 5: of your life. There's no other option. So when you
Speaker 5: both presented something else to me and gave me permission
Speaker 5: of a sort, that that was life changing.
Speaker 1: Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
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Speaker 2: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 2: Bigel Smooth, email us at Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
Speaker 1: by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns
Speaker 1: are Dorit Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison
Speaker 1: Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric.
Speaker 2: We can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.