Speaker 1: Hey to your Therapist listeners. It's Lori and Guy and
Speaker 1: we have a quick update.
Speaker 2: Many of you have told us that you get something
Speaker 2: new out of each episode when you listen to it
Speaker 2: again the second or third time. In fact, when we
Speaker 2: listen to the episodes again, we also get takeaways we
Speaker 2: didn't remember.
Speaker 1: We're They're therapy is like that too. There are so
Speaker 1: many learning moments in a session, and it's difficult to
Speaker 1: absorb them all at once. So while we're not taping
Speaker 1: new episodes right now, we are offering you our most
Speaker 1: popular sessions as encores so that you can continue to
Speaker 1: gain value from them.
Speaker 2: We love doing the Therapists episodes, but we're each busy
Speaker 2: with new and exciting projects that we hope you will love.
Speaker 3: Just as much.
Speaker 1: I have a new advice podcast called Since You Asked,
Speaker 1: which you can get wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2: And I have a new book coming out. It's called
Speaker 2: Mind Overgrind, How to Break Free when work Hijacks your life,
Speaker 2: and it will be published by Simon and Schuster. You
Speaker 2: can find out more about it on my website.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about these on our socials. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we hope you find these Dear Therapist sessions as valuable
Speaker 1: as we have making them for you. Hey, fellow travelers,
Speaker 1: I'm Lari Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Speaker 1: Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
Speaker 1: column for The Atlantic.
Speaker 3: And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
Speaker 3: and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted.
Speaker 3: 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 3: So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week,
Speaker 3: a young woman tries to break her pattern of seeking
Speaker 3: out relationships with older, unavailable men.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was dependent on him because of my dad
Speaker 4: and his illness and him dying, and so I came
Speaker 4: to rely on him. And I told him how much
Speaker 4: I cared about about him, and how I grew to
Speaker 4: love him. I guess I think I said first.
Speaker 1: A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
Speaker 1: It does not constitute medical or psychological advice and is
Speaker 1: not a substitute for professional healthcare advice. Diagnosis or treatment.
Speaker 1: Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional,
Speaker 1: or other qualified health provider with any questions you may
Speaker 1: have regarding a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter,
Speaker 1: you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in partworn 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 3: Hi Guy, Hi Laurie. So what do we have in
Speaker 3: 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: me 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. It all started
Speaker 1: in my senior year of college, when I fell in
Speaker 1: love with my professor, who was over thirty years older
Speaker 1: than me. We'd get dinner every week and have the
Speaker 1: most intimate and intense conversations about anything and everything. Our
Speaker 1: conversations were raw and vulnerable and felt like an honest exchange.
Speaker 1: At the same time, my father was dying of cancer,
Speaker 1: and this older professor comforted me throughout the harrowing experience.
Speaker 1: At least he was single, so not totally unavailable. Now,
Speaker 1: three years later, I find myself in a similar predicament.
Speaker 1: I'm completely smitten with a man that I work with
Speaker 1: who 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 3: The research tells us that we tend to go for
Speaker 3: similar patterns of relationship, even if not with exactly similar people.
Speaker 3: It's actually quite common that when you lose a parent,
Speaker 3: you tend to to seek out someone to give you
Speaker 3: that kind of comfort that you've lost. And I've heard
Speaker 3: a lot of stories over the years of people who
Speaker 3: fell in love with people who are much older than
Speaker 3: them coincidentally around the time their parent passed away, And
Speaker 3: it can really form a certain pattern and a certain
Speaker 3: kind of imprinting, especially when you're young, that then sets
Speaker 3: you up to be into the older person, and that
Speaker 3: of 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 or maybe didn't see you or
Speaker 1: understand you in a certain way, we tend to go
Speaker 1: after partners who will replicate that dynamic until we're aware
Speaker 1: of it. There's this saying we marry our unfinished business,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like Emma maybe has some unfinished business
Speaker 1: that is causing her to again and again go after
Speaker 1: men who are much older than her. And she has
Speaker 1: this idea that it's because she's experienced loss and grief
Speaker 1: that people her own age can't understand her. But I
Speaker 1: think it's more complicated than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree that it's more complicated than that, because
Speaker 3: she seems to dismiss younger men as being literally incapable
Speaker 3: of having the level of maturity that she does at
Speaker 3: twenty five, and by younger men, she's saying men who
Speaker 3: are even ten years older. And when you hear a
Speaker 3: blanket statement like that, it sounds like it's a little
Speaker 3: bit defensive, that there's an agenda there, even if she's
Speaker 3: not aware of it. So I'll be very curious to
Speaker 3: hear a little bit more from her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go meet her. Listening to Dear Therapists for
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.
Speaker 3: I'm Lari Gottlieb and I'm Guy Winch and this is
Speaker 3: Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1: So, hi, Emma, hey, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 5: Of course, so we read about your dilemma, and we
Speaker 5: want to start off by learning a little bit more
Speaker 5: about your relationships prior to the one with your professor.
Speaker 5: Can you tell us a little bit about those.
Speaker 4: I was in one romantic relationship, but it was kind
Speaker 4: of short and really intense, and it was my sophomore
Speaker 4: year of college. We met at the end of our
Speaker 4: first semester, and then the school that I went to
Speaker 4: has a very long winter break, and so we started
Speaker 4: texting a lot, which turned into like texting every day
Speaker 4: for like six weeks until we got back to campus.
Speaker 4: And then when we did get back. We started dating immediately,
Speaker 4: really intensely, and because it started so soon and so intensely,
Speaker 4: it kind of like imploded on itself. And so we
Speaker 4: dated for a few months, and that was kind of
Speaker 4: the only relationship I had been in prior. And then
Speaker 4: I had other like short term things or flings or whatever,
Speaker 4: but nothing really serious other than that.
Speaker 1: So this person was your age. He was a fellow student.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was a fellow student who was two or
Speaker 4: 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 4: He was very empathetic and really smart. I felt connected
Speaker 4: to him in a lot of ways. And he was
Speaker 4: like a good listener and empathetic, but wasn't as open
Speaker 4: or as emotionally intelligent, I guess as other people.
Speaker 3: With the professor, you said that that happened around the
Speaker 3: time that your dad was dying. I think could you
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about that period, what was
Speaker 3: happening on the dad front and how things about with him?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean That's another thing too, Like when I
Speaker 4: was dating that other person, my dad was still sick
Speaker 4: and was kind of slowly dying, but it wasn't the same.
Speaker 4: So then my senior year of college, the treatments that
Speaker 4: my dad had been undergoing, like radiation therapy and imminotherapy
Speaker 4: stopped working, which we found out like on September fourteenth
Speaker 4: of my senior year of college. And then a few
Speaker 4: weeks or maybe a month later, he started hospice care
Speaker 4: and that's when he really started to decline. And that's
Speaker 4: 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 4: Yeah, I think we kind of went in and out
Speaker 4: of being close. So it was hard because he became
Speaker 4: sick like my freshman or sophomore year of high school.
Speaker 4: So I kind of lost like a huge part of
Speaker 4: my dad when I was in high school. But prior
Speaker 4: to that, he was always like the really goofy one
Speaker 4: and was super smart and I don't know, like we
Speaker 4: played sports together. He taught me how to play baseball,
Speaker 4: He taught me how to ride a bike. We did
Speaker 4: a lot of like candy things together too, And then
Speaker 4: it was also kind of hard, like slowly losing him
Speaker 4: while I was also going through the classic teenage years
Speaker 4: of when I was supposed to be kind of pulling
Speaker 4: away from my family and becoming more and more independent.
Speaker 3: Who told you and how did they tell you that
Speaker 3: your dad was sick? And how clear was it to
Speaker 3: you at the time that this was serious.
Speaker 4: Well, my mom, I'm sure told me. And then throughout
Speaker 4: high school and even college, there was always kind of
Speaker 4: a negotiation and battle between I having an older brothers
Speaker 4: five years older, and so there's always a negotiation between
Speaker 4: us and my parents of like how much they would
Speaker 4: tell us and how much we wanted to know, and
Speaker 4: we always wanted to know as much information as possible,
Speaker 4: but my mom kind of wanted to protect us. But
Speaker 4: also throughout the years, like my dad never wanted to
Speaker 4: know his prognosis, so that wasn't anything that if him
Speaker 4: or his doctor or my mom would know or talk about.
Speaker 4: And it became more serious probably my sophomore year of college,
Speaker 4: because I guess that's when it became stage three, where
Speaker 4: it had spread to his lymph nodes and it had
Speaker 4: become more serious, and my mom would kind of make
Speaker 4: like a fan somewhat like hysterical remarks about him dying.
Speaker 1: What did those sound like? Those remarks?
Speaker 4: I just remember this one time, my mom saying, like,
Speaker 4: this is the last thing that we can do, and
Speaker 4: if this doesn't work, then like this is it. He's
Speaker 4: 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 4: It felt hysirical in the moment because it was like
Speaker 4: incredibly passionate and high pitch and have a specific tone
Speaker 4: with it. And at that time it wasn't true either.
Speaker 4: This was three years before he died, and he underwent
Speaker 4: countless treatments in those next three years, so it wasn't
Speaker 4: quite true, and it wasn't really what the doctors were saying.
Speaker 4: It was felt more of just like and totally understandable,
Speaker 4: like a moment of weakness and kind of just like
Speaker 4: breaking down. I mean, she had to deal with this
Speaker 4: for the longest and most intensely out of all of us.
Speaker 3: How did you support one another in the family because
Speaker 3: your older brother and you were not privy to all
Speaker 3: the information, so you didn't know everything. They didn't know
Speaker 3: everything because they didn't want to know everything. But how
Speaker 3: did the support go? Who was the person that was
Speaker 3: trying to be more supported? Did that flip around? Who
Speaker 3: supported you? Who supported your mom? Your dad, your brother?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think it changed over the years. I mean
Speaker 4: I was a teenager and just like very far removed
Speaker 4: from anything that was happening. I just wanted to be
Speaker 4: a kid, and so we were all kind of in
Speaker 4: our own planes. I guess later on my brother really
Speaker 4: supported my dad in a lot of ways. They were
Speaker 4: really really close.
Speaker 1: In what ways did your brother support your dad?
Speaker 4: Well, my brother ended up in the last year or
Speaker 4: two of my dad's life, my brother stopped working. He
Speaker 4: lived with my parents off and on, like a few
Speaker 4: days a week to just kind of be there and
Speaker 4: hang out with my dad and spend time with him
Speaker 4: throughout the whole time. Like, my dad definitely had a
Speaker 4: lot of trouble, like talking about his feelings and he
Speaker 4: was suppressed in a lot of ways, and my brother
Speaker 4: would always kind of push him and push him as
Speaker 4: much as possible to talk about those things.
Speaker 3: Who did you talk to, Emma? Your brother was there
Speaker 3: for your dad and they were talking to each other,
Speaker 3: But who were you talking to?
Speaker 4: In high school, I didn't tell anyone about it or
Speaker 4: talk to anyone about it. Actually the first the first
Speaker 4: person that I told was my high school english teacher
Speaker 4: because I had to write a college essay and I
Speaker 4: used to play ping pong with my dad all the time,
Speaker 4: and I wrote about the first time that I beat him,
Speaker 4: and he would always play me lefty because he was
Speaker 4: a lot better than me, and I could never beat him,
Speaker 4: but I won because he was sick and he just
Speaker 4: couldn't play as well as he used to. And then
Speaker 4: one of my friends from high school found out because
Speaker 4: she went to my house looking for me and I
Speaker 4: wasn't there, but my dad was there and he just
Speaker 4: got back from maybe the hospital or something, and so
Speaker 4: he told her what was happening. So that was the
Speaker 4: first person I guess that I talked to about it,
Speaker 4: which was this summer after my senior year of high school. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then when things started getting worse my sophomore year
Speaker 4: of college, I started just valing my friends about it,
Speaker 4: and the person I was dating at that time, I
Speaker 4: would talk to him about it too, whenever my dad
Speaker 4: looked like a scan and we were waiting for insults.
Speaker 4: And I was worried.
Speaker 1: When you're friend in high school found out and reached
Speaker 1: out to you, what was that like for you for
Speaker 1: somebody to know, and what were those conversations like?
Speaker 4: I guess it was a relief, but it was really
Speaker 4: hard for me to talk about it. Yeah. I remember
Speaker 4: we just like drove around in her car and she
Speaker 4: was trying to talk to me about it, and yeah,
Speaker 4: it was kind of a relief to know.
Speaker 3: That she knew.
Speaker 4: But I guy was pretty emotional in crying, and yeah,
Speaker 4: it's really hard for me to process it. And at
Speaker 4: that time, also at that time, his illness was getting
Speaker 4: visibly worse, so things were also becoming a lot more
Speaker 4: real and right in front of me. And it was
Speaker 4: also when I was like getting ready to leave for college.
Speaker 4: But now it kind of felt like his life was
Speaker 4: a lot more friend so it was tough leave hat
Speaker 4: during that time too.
Speaker 3: It sounds like you were very close with your dad
Speaker 3: in some ways, and clearly it's affecting you. Yet I'm
Speaker 3: not hearing that you were reaching out to friends to
Speaker 3: get support, and I ask why I was.
Speaker 4: I don't know, kind of similar to my dad in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways and like very stoic, and I
Speaker 4: guess I didn't think that I needed help, and I
Speaker 4: kind of just coped with it in the ways that
Speaker 4: I knew how. I guess I wasn't ready to talk
Speaker 4: about it either, because I mean it more real. I
Speaker 4: just started running a lot and biking a lot, and
Speaker 4: that was kind of like my way of dealing 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 what was happening and how
Speaker 1: you were feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we I think became a lot closer because of it.
Speaker 4: Later on, like when I was in college that summer,
Speaker 4: the summer AFFROMI senior year of high school, we didn't
Speaker 4: really talk about it. We were kind of in two
Speaker 4: different worlds at the time, and I think because I
Speaker 4: suppressed a lot of it. When I got to college
Speaker 4: my freshman year, I had a lot of trouble integrating
Speaker 4: and I was like very homesick and sad, and my
Speaker 4: brother kind of talked me through a lot of that
Speaker 4: 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 4: Yeah, So when we first started dating, we were in
Speaker 4: a relationship. I like essentially moved into his dorm room,
Speaker 4: and for me, it was going really well, but it
Speaker 4: was really really fast. It just too fast, and that
Speaker 4: really freaked him out because he had been in a
Speaker 4: relationship that started too quickly and then ended really badly,
Speaker 4: and he didn't want to do that again. So he
Speaker 4: kind of hit the brakes on us and wanted to
Speaker 4: kind of pause and go back and take it slow
Speaker 4: and just kind of date and not sort of be
Speaker 4: in this like intense relationship from the get go. And
Speaker 4: I didn't want to do that, and I felt like
Speaker 4: he was just kind of like moving slower and slower
Speaker 4: away from me. And by the end of the semester,
Speaker 4: I just couldn't really deal with it anymore. The previous
Speaker 4: semester I was just like a total mess, in a
Speaker 4: nightmare and all over the place and failed in my classes.
Speaker 4: Then this semester I bit off more than 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.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I failed all my classes and I was a mess.
Speaker 4: No, No, I just failed one class.
Speaker 1: Just one, okay? But was that related to what was
Speaker 1: going on for you emotionally around your father's illness or
Speaker 1: what was happening for you? I mean, was that unusual
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was definitely unusual. I was a really good student.
Speaker 4: Freshman year of college was fine, but I was like
Speaker 4: very very unhappy. But I did okay. And then sophomore
Speaker 4: year of college, I was just kind of consumed with
Speaker 4: getting as many friends as I could so I could
Speaker 4: be happier, and like, my dad was doing worse and
Speaker 4: I wasn't handling it particularly well. And I also kind
Speaker 4: of just stopped talking to my parents that semester, to
Speaker 4: both of them, both of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why, I don't know, So what was the circumstance
Speaker 3: in which you just speaking to them? Like, how did
Speaker 3: that come about?
Speaker 4: I just like wouldn't call them, I wouldn't really pick
Speaker 4: up their call, was like, and I felt like I
Speaker 4: was like trying on this personality that was like much
Speaker 4: more outgoing and fun, and that didn't align with talking
Speaker 4: to my parents a lot.
Speaker 3: It also didn't align with the fact that your dad
Speaker 3: was doing very badly, And I'm wondering if that was
Speaker 3: a real attempt to run away from that reality.
Speaker 4: Probably, Yeah, it all kind of felt like an escape,
Speaker 4: 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 4: I think I would hear it from my brother. Probably.
Speaker 4: They were definitely like very disappointed when I ended up
Speaker 4: feeling one of my classes, and I remember my dad saying, like,
Speaker 4: we're not sending you to college just to like drink
Speaker 4: and party. But I don't really remember much more than that.
Speaker 1: You know, what comes to mind and 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, of that resonate.
Speaker 4: Now, Yeah, I think it does. I mean, the first
Speaker 4: thing that comes to mind, like I wonder if it
Speaker 4: was also just kind of like a cry for help perhaps,
Speaker 4: But yeah, I definitely think it does, and I think
Speaker 4: that's kind of an interesting way of looking at it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other part of that that stands out is that
Speaker 3: it's during this time that your dad was getting sicker,
Speaker 3: you were pulling away from them more, and you were
Speaker 3: also trying to attach more intensely to other people. In
Speaker 3: the first case, that guy that you were dating that
Speaker 3: you said it was very intense and very fast, And again,
Speaker 3: it strikes me that you were really trying to create
Speaker 3: your life elsewhere to run away from it as much
Speaker 3: as possible because it was just too painful to deal
Speaker 3: with that reality. So you were living these two lives.
Speaker 3: On the one hand, at home, things were going poorly
Speaker 3: with your dad's health. You might have had a sense
Speaker 3: that you're losing him soon, and yet you're trying to
Speaker 3: create this party life or this fun life and romance
Speaker 3: and friends and all of college. And it just seems
Speaker 3: that they were really two different worlds. Were you aware
Speaker 3: of that at the time.
Speaker 4: No, not really. I haven't really thought about it that way,
Speaker 4: But that also does definitely resonates.
Speaker 3: Can we actually move on to how you met the professor?
Speaker 3: I mean, you think he was your professor, but how
Speaker 3: did you meet him? How did that relationship again?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so a little bit of backstory just going into
Speaker 4: my senior year of college. I so when I was
Speaker 4: dating that person that was really intense for a few
Speaker 4: months my sophomore year, he ended up not really wanted
Speaker 4: to be in a relationship with me, and then I
Speaker 4: kind of fell apart and I withdrew from all my
Speaker 4: classes I could finish them. When I went home and
Speaker 4: I was really depressed, and then I took like a
Speaker 4: year 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 3: And sad and anxious brother.
Speaker 4: Yeah. My brother was, Oh yeah, he had graduated from college.
Speaker 4: He was living in the city and was working. I
Speaker 4: came home and was like severely depressed, like stay in
Speaker 4: 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 4: 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 4: Yeah? Yeah, I was talking to someone like twice a
Speaker 4: week when I first came home, and then eventually once
Speaker 4: a week, and then eventually not so much.
Speaker 3: What were you talking about, if I may ask, because
Speaker 3: there was so much going on.
Speaker 4: I was, like prepherally talking about my dad, but it
Speaker 4: wasn't at this like forefront of what was happening. I
Speaker 4: think then I was probably most concerned with and talking
Speaker 4: about this person that I had and dating, and then
Speaker 4: I was also consumed with feeling like a failure for
Speaker 4: leaving college, and so those were the most pressing issues
Speaker 4: that I was dealing with, just trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how to get back on my feet and feel like
Speaker 4: 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: everything that was comforting to you had gone away or
Speaker 1: was going away. I think for all of us, it
Speaker 1: can be so much easier to deal with the thing
Speaker 1: that feels the most concrete, which is there's this guy.
Speaker 1: We were in a relationship. He was pulling back. I'm
Speaker 1: deeply wounded by this, and that might have been the
Speaker 1: focus of your therapy at the time, but I think
Speaker 1: that whether you realized that or not, you were grieving
Speaker 1: these other losses too.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've definitely drawn that connection before. And I think the
Speaker 4: reason why that breakup was so painful was because it
Speaker 4: felt so similar to kind of that slow loss that
Speaker 4: I was dealing with my dad. Yeah, So I ended up.
Speaker 4: Then I took a full year off from college. I
Speaker 4: worked at home, and then I went abroad for about
Speaker 4: six months, and then I went back to school. And
Speaker 4: then there was this class that I really wanted to
Speaker 4: take with this professor who was like pretty well accomplished
Speaker 4: in his field, and I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 4: try and build like a professional relationship with him because
Speaker 4: I thought it would help me in my career. I
Speaker 4: was doing that over the summer and I would go
Speaker 4: to hospital appointments with him, and so then I got
Speaker 4: back to school and I started that class and our
Speaker 4: first assignment in the class was to write about someone
Speaker 4: you really cared about and someone who you were really
Speaker 4: close to, and the assignment was to render them in words.
Speaker 4: I wrote about this story about my dad. Me and
Speaker 4: my family had gone on in vacation that summer in
Speaker 4: the Berkshires, and my dad was really really not doing well.
Speaker 4: He was pretty sick that summer, so we spent most
Speaker 4: of his time pretty weak and in bed. But there
Speaker 4: was this one day that we went into town and
Speaker 4: we met up with my brother's girlfriend and her mom
Speaker 4: and they had a house up there, and my brother's
Speaker 4: girlfriend's dad had just died like a few months before
Speaker 4: that from patriotic cancer was really quick, and my dad
Speaker 4: walked into the store with my mom and he found
Speaker 4: this little stuffed animal. My dad was like so frugal,
Speaker 4: He never bought anything. He like hated buying things, but
Speaker 4: he saw this little stuffed animal and pointed it out
Speaker 4: to my mom and said, like, I really want that,
Speaker 4: and so my mom bought it for him and he
Speaker 4: had it with him in bed. It was kind of
Speaker 4: like it felt like this protector of him. And so
Speaker 4: I wrote about that for this assignment, and I wrote
Speaker 4: about my dad being sick and this little steft animal
Speaker 4: that gave him comfort. It was almost like for a
Speaker 4: full circle story when you get older and sick and
Speaker 4: dying and you kind of become childlike again, you just
Speaker 4: want your stuffed animal. And the professor read each one
Speaker 4: of our stories out loud to the class. I remember
Speaker 4: after my professor read my story out loud, it was
Speaker 4: just kind of silent, but he kind of filled that
Speaker 4: silence with a story about his own dad being really sick,
Speaker 4: and he was like empathizing understanding my story. So that's
Speaker 4: why I met him.
Speaker 1: How did it move from him being your professor to
Speaker 1: him being your boyfriend?
Speaker 4: He wasn't ever my boyfriend and nothing ever happened like
Speaker 4: physically between us. We had like a really intimate emotional relationship,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't physical.
Speaker 3: That you had feelings for him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did develop feelings for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And when did that happen. Did he know.
Speaker 4: The way things changed was I was seeing him out
Speaker 4: for advice after class and he was like, yeah, but
Speaker 4: I'm about to leave, like I'm hungry. I'm going to
Speaker 4: go get a bye to eat, Like do you want
Speaker 4: to join me? And I was like sure, yeah, I
Speaker 4: just have to call my mom back and he was
Speaker 4: like okay, And then I got a meal with him
Speaker 4: and we were talking and he asked me about my
Speaker 4: family and my parents and how they met, and about
Speaker 4: my dad and how he was doing. And then that
Speaker 4: kind of turned into this like almost ritual where we
Speaker 4: would get dinner every week and have these contents and
Speaker 4: intimate conversations, and then over time I just kind of
Speaker 4: developed feelings for him because of that.
Speaker 3: Did he know that you have feelings for him?
Speaker 4: I think he must have because of how I acted.
Speaker 4: I think he also did things to kind of egg
Speaker 4: me on, and by the end and our friendship or
Speaker 4: whatever it was, our relationship or whatever, just kind of
Speaker 4: ended strangely. And so I wrote him this letter and
Speaker 4: left it at his house before I left college after
Speaker 4: I graduated, and I basically told him in that letter,
Speaker 4: I think 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 4: He would talk about like his ex girlfriends pretty frequently
Speaker 4: and like, tell me about that history when I wouldn't
Speaker 4: like ask him about it or tell him about my
Speaker 4: own dating history.
Speaker 3: So when that ended, you said, it ended in a
Speaker 3: weird way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had considerate After I graduated, I considered staying
Speaker 4: in my college town and working for him. I could
Speaker 4: stay there, and he was going to be away for
Speaker 4: the summer, but potentially I could stay in his house
Speaker 4: and take care of his dog while he was away
Speaker 4: and work for him. But then right after I graduated,
Speaker 4: we had this barbecue in my backyard. He came and
Speaker 4: like other like a bunch of friends and family. Other
Speaker 4: professors were there too, and we had this talk where
Speaker 4: he was like, you know, we need boundaries in our
Speaker 4: relationship and you can't stay in my house over the summer.
Speaker 4: And I kind of asked him what he meant or
Speaker 4: what he was talking about, but he had to leave
Speaker 4: and then he just kind of ignored me and was
Speaker 4: like hang in there, and that was it. So I
Speaker 4: decided that I was going to leave, and when I did,
Speaker 4: I wrote him an email saying like Hey, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to work for you. I decided I'm leaving, and
Speaker 4: then I wrote this page long letter and delivered it
Speaker 4: to his house and then I left, like a day
Speaker 4: or two later.
Speaker 1: What did the letter say?
Speaker 4: Oh, I remember too, when we had that talk and
Speaker 4: he said we needed boundaries. He was like, you're too
Speaker 4: dependent on me, and so I just let I guess
Speaker 4: I was explaining why I was dependent on him because
Speaker 4: of my dad and his illness and him dying, and
Speaker 4: so I came to rely on him, and I think
Speaker 4: I apologized for that. I think I like told him
Speaker 4: how much I cared about him and how I grew
Speaker 4: to love him. I guess I think I said and
Speaker 4: that maybe I had become dependent on him, but also
Speaker 4: like the way he acted and treated me like he
Speaker 4: was dependent on me too, and it wasn't just a
Speaker 4: one sided thing, and I wanted him to take responsibility
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 1: Did he respond to the letter.
Speaker 4: He did respond to the letter, but it took him
Speaker 4: a few weeks. Then it was very professional and buttoned up,
Speaker 4: and it was the email he basically said, like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm so glad you took these classes with me. I
Speaker 4: 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 it
Speaker 1: also crossed some boundaries with you.
Speaker 4: No, not at all. He basically kind of invalidated or
Speaker 4: just ignored it, like I was any other student who
Speaker 4: took classes with him and wished me all the best
Speaker 4: or whatever. And I confronted him again, probably a year later,
Speaker 4: and so I asked him to meet up, and I
Speaker 4: was like, do you know what I want to talk
Speaker 4: to you about? And he was like, I think you
Speaker 4: feel like I let you down in some way and
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I guess so, but it was
Speaker 4: more than that. I said, I also feel like you
Speaker 4: made sexual advances towards me and we're kind of inappropriate
Speaker 4: and it was really confusing, and he like very defensively
Speaker 4: 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 4: Yeah, I said, I was like, you told me about
Speaker 4: all of your ex girlfrien, you talked about your sex life.
Speaker 4: You told me that you thought it was okay for
Speaker 4: professors and students to date as long as students were seniors.
Speaker 4: And he just fought out denied.
Speaker 3: It, okay, And what's happening with your dad at this time?
Speaker 3: Is he still alive when this is going on.
Speaker 4: So he had died a couple of months before I
Speaker 4: wrote that letter, and when I confronted him it was
Speaker 4: like a year and months afterwards.
Speaker 3: It just sounds like it was dealing with a lot
Speaker 3: of loss. It sounds like you got closer with your
Speaker 3: dad again and spent a lot of time with him,
Speaker 3: and that makes it really difficult when he passes away.
Speaker 3: And that's around the time that you were with this
Speaker 3: professor that you know he was perhaps pulling away. I mean,
Speaker 3: it just sounds like you had those losses truly back
Speaker 3: to back at that point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was hard too, because he was someone who
Speaker 4: encouraged me to talk about my dad, and other people
Speaker 4: weren't really asked me about him because they were didn't
Speaker 4: know what to say or they didn't know if they
Speaker 4: should ask about it. But he always did and wanted
Speaker 4: me to talk about it and was really supportive. And
Speaker 4: so then to like a couple of months after my
Speaker 4: dad died, to have him then just like completely what
Speaker 4: felt like kind of like completely breaking ties was Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was really hard.
Speaker 3: It just seems like such a painful double way to
Speaker 3: go through losing these you know, your dad obviously, and
Speaker 3: then this person who seemed so significant to seem like
Speaker 3: the person who would be there to help you through it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, that summer was so hard because like, not
Speaker 4: only had I lost my dad, but also my mom
Speaker 4: was just like kind of a wreck, like totally understandable,
Speaker 4: but I didn't really know how to deal with it,
Speaker 4: and it felt kind of like losing two parents. And
Speaker 4: I think I emailed him. I reached out to him
Speaker 4: and said something to that effect. Did he respond, He responded.
Speaker 4: I think he expressed some empathy or more sort of
Speaker 4: I think he asked me if I had a therapist.
Speaker 3: Emma. In your letter, you indicated that one of the
Speaker 3: reasons that you are attracted to older men is because
Speaker 3: the maturity and stability and they get things. And I
Speaker 3: can see in the relationship with a professor why you
Speaker 3: would feel that way, because he actually asked and he
Speaker 3: was curious about what was going on with your dad,
Speaker 3: and he seemed very supportive for the time that he
Speaker 3: was there. But then the way it ended didn't sound
Speaker 3: like the most mature way to end that situation. And
Speaker 3: it was very disappointing and hurtful for you. With that
Speaker 3: in mind, I do want to hear about this current
Speaker 3: relationship that you have that you wrote about. Can you
Speaker 3: tell us about that?
Speaker 4: Sure? Professor was like over thirty years older than me.
Speaker 4: This other person is only twenty years old, and I
Speaker 4: met him through work and I just like developed these
Speaker 4: really intense feelings for him. And the nature of it
Speaker 4: is so different, Like it's super lighthearted, it's like really
Speaker 4: fun and easy, but he's also married and has children.
Speaker 4: But he also like leaves me a lot of attention
Speaker 4: and showers me with compliments and it feels amazing. But
Speaker 4: it's super different, and it's not burdened by my dad
Speaker 4: dying or some really dark thing happening in my life.
Speaker 1: Does he know that you have these feelings for him?
Speaker 4: I think on some level, when someone has a crush
Speaker 4: on you, you always know.
Speaker 1: It's funny that say that, because it sounds like in
Speaker 1: your family there was a lot of assuming what was
Speaker 1: going on with other people, but not directly talking about it,
Speaker 1: And so for you that might seem like, well, that's
Speaker 1: the norm that people into it what you're feeling, even
Speaker 1: if you don't say it directly because that's what you
Speaker 1: grew up with.
Speaker 4: 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 4: Him, he does know what happened with my dad, And
Speaker 4: maybe he doesn't know, but he might know. The reason
Speaker 4: I think he might know is because I mean, he
Speaker 4: 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 un
Speaker 1: understand you on a deeper level. And yet you haven't
Speaker 1: really engaged in any kind of deep eye thou relationship
Speaker 1: with either of them. And by I thou we use
Speaker 1: this term in therapy, meaning how I relate to you,
Speaker 1: how you relate to me. And you said that you
Speaker 1: did 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 4: The person I was ten years older actually was really
Speaker 4: great and it was going super well, and I didn't
Speaker 4: think that he couldn't relate to me. I felt like
Speaker 4: we could relate to each other super well. But it
Speaker 4: turned out he had just gotten out of a relationship
Speaker 4: and wasn't ready to enter into a new one, and
Speaker 4: that's why it ended. It was pretty brief.
Speaker 3: What's interesting is that to me, the relationship that sounds
Speaker 3: like you were most in it is the one in
Speaker 3: your sophomore year with the guy who was your age.
Speaker 3: That's the one where you entered into it very quickly.
Speaker 3: The two of you kind of moved into his dorm
Speaker 3: room right away. That he felt it was a little
Speaker 3: too quick and he was putting on the brakes. But
Speaker 3: you were in it, you were interested in it, you
Speaker 3: were going for it, and that was your first real relationship.
Speaker 3: And then since then it's been real safe choices for you.
Speaker 3: In the sense that you know the professor, he's thirty
Speaker 3: years older. There was a lot of disclosure going on,
Speaker 3: and that felt very intimate. But nothing happened between the
Speaker 3: two of you and the guy at work. He's married.
Speaker 3: He doesn't even though that you have these feelings. The
Speaker 3: guy who was ten years older was right out of
Speaker 3: a relationship and not ready for a new one. And
Speaker 3: I have this feeling that there's a part of you
Speaker 3: that really wants to just actually be in a relationship,
Speaker 3: to have that part of your life because you're almost
Speaker 3: You're entire of that life was taken up with your
Speaker 3: dad's illness. And then you meet the guy who's ten
Speaker 3: years older. Even that felt good for a while. What
Speaker 3: doesn't feel good is that when you're with the older guys,
Speaker 3: with the professor, with this guy from work, you are
Speaker 3: pining for someone who's older, but it's almost collegial or mentorish.
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel or seem romantic, but it does feel safe.
Speaker 3: And I wonder if that early experience and all the
Speaker 3: turbulence of your adolescent years, after all the losses you've had,
Speaker 3: you're playing it safe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's definitely makes sense to Also, there's
Speaker 4: something alluring about someone who's unavailable and kind of unapproachable,
Speaker 4: and it's easier that way because there's not really in
Speaker 4: the realm of possibility, and therefore there's also not a
Speaker 4: lot of room to get hurt or be rejected or
Speaker 4: left or whatever.
Speaker 3: But they occupy that emotional space in a way that
Speaker 3: doesn't leave you free for someone else perhaps who might
Speaker 3: be there, who might have something to give back.
Speaker 4: 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 4: Yeah, that definitely resonates. I was also like a very
Speaker 4: quiet kid, and I didn't really start talking a lot
Speaker 4: until honestly, like even in high school, I was pretty shy,
Speaker 4: and I didn't really start being more open and vocal
Speaker 4: and putting myself out there until I was in college,
Speaker 4: until like my sophomore year of college, when I kind
Speaker 4: 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 3: To echo Lorre's point, you mentioned I think in your
Speaker 3: letter that your friends, like you know, roll their eyes
Speaker 3: a bit or something like that, where oh, you and
Speaker 3: your older men kind of fixation kind of thing. But
Speaker 3: I think that that's also a sign that maybe you're
Speaker 3: not opening up to them to really talk about how
Speaker 3: you're feeling, what your needs are, what your hopes are,
Speaker 3: what it would be like to be in a relationship
Speaker 3: with someone who could reciprocate. And I think it's easier
Speaker 3: to talk about, oh, the professor and the married guy
Speaker 3: than talking about and yet I'm really lonely and I
Speaker 3: really want someone, and I don't know how to go
Speaker 3: about it because it's very, very scary out there in
Speaker 3: the dating world. Do you have those kinds of conversations
Speaker 3: with your friends where you talk about that, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean we talk about dating and stuff.
Speaker 1: But do you hear the difference between talking about dating
Speaker 1: and having the kind of conversation with your friends about
Speaker 1: you not dating in general and the kinds of general
Speaker 1: stories people talk about about being in the try trenches,
Speaker 1: but about something specific to you, which is I really
Speaker 1: struggle with putting myself out there emotionally. I really struggle
Speaker 1: with 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 4: 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 4: 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: and you talk about him quite a bit, to the
Speaker 1: point that your friends are saying enough already, what do
Speaker 1: you think you'd be thinking about if you weren't thinking
Speaker 1: about him?
Speaker 4: I know that when I was thinking about the professor
Speaker 4: a lot, and I would stop doing that. I would
Speaker 4: think about my dad a lot, And now I would
Speaker 4: probably think about my brother who's been having a really
Speaker 4: hard time.
Speaker 1: And so when you hear yourself say that, can you
Speaker 1: hear that these distractions can serve 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. And when you take
Speaker 1: the needle out, you start to say, oh, what's there
Speaker 1: that's about my dad or my brother? And I think
Speaker 1: underneath that even is this intense loneliness. And we don't
Speaker 1: want you to have to feel so lonely. So, Emma,
Speaker 1: we have some advice for you, and what we'd like
Speaker 1: you to do is we would like you to call
Speaker 1: your mom, and we would like you to start a
Speaker 1: conversation with her by saying, you know what, Mom, there's
Speaker 1: this guy that I can't stop thinking about. And I
Speaker 1: realized that if I stop thinking about him, what I
Speaker 1: would be thinking about would be Dad. And I would
Speaker 1: like to be able to talk with you about what
Speaker 1: this experience has been like for our family. And I'd
Speaker 1: like to be able to share with you a little
Speaker 1: bit about what has been like for me. I know
Speaker 1: you've certainly struggled with it, understandably so and so do
Speaker 1: you think that I could share a little bit with
Speaker 1: you about what this has been like for me? To
Speaker 1: go through Dad's illness and to lose Dad. Could we
Speaker 1: start maybe opening up those conversations. And I want to
Speaker 1: be clear that it's not like you're going to go
Speaker 1: through the last ten years in that one conversation. It
Speaker 1: will probably be dipping your toe in and letting your
Speaker 1: mom acclimate to what it's like to have these kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations in the family, because your family wasn't a
Speaker 1: family who had these kinds of conversations even before your
Speaker 1: dad became ill, and just sort of gauge her reaction
Speaker 1: and be able to tell her maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: about you know, I realized that I haven't really dealt
Speaker 1: with it, and it would feel so good to be
Speaker 1: able to talk about it with you because we've been
Speaker 1: through it sort of in the family together, and see
Speaker 1: what that's like, See what happens for her when you
Speaker 1: open it up in that way. And we'd like you
Speaker 1: to have a similar conversation with your brother and you
Speaker 1: might open it up with him and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: there's this guy that I think about a lot. And
Speaker 1: I realized that if I were to stop thinking about him,
Speaker 1: I would be thinking about Dad, and I would also
Speaker 1: be worried about you, because I know that you're struggling
Speaker 1: a lot too, and I would love to be able
Speaker 1: to talk the two of us as siblings about what
Speaker 1: we're struggling with and what we're going through and maybe
Speaker 1: have more direct conversations about that, because I think it
Speaker 1: would be really helpful for both of us and see
Speaker 1: what that conversation is like with him. And we also
Speaker 1: feel like that would help you do some of your
Speaker 1: grief work that hasn't been done yet. How does that
Speaker 1: sound to you?
Speaker 4: That sounds hard but manageable.
Speaker 3: Okay, good Emma. There's the second part you wrote to
Speaker 3: us about dating, and we have some advice for you
Speaker 3: there as well. You probably spend many hours a day
Speaker 3: thinking about the guide from work, and those are in
Speaker 3: essence a bit wasted hours because there's nothing that's going
Speaker 3: to really happen there. Would like you to convert at
Speaker 3: least an hour of that time where you would be
Speaker 3: thinking about him, to thinking about more likely suspects for dating.
Speaker 3: And are you on any dating apps?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Great. We would like you to spend at least an
Speaker 3: hour a day talking with age appropriate people. Now, we
Speaker 3: had a debate about what that is for you and
Speaker 3: I suggested be cappy with thirty. Lourie said, thirty five.
Speaker 3: We're going to agree on thirty five. We would like
Speaker 3: you to try, if you can within this week set
Speaker 3: up a FaceTime date or a socially distanced one with
Speaker 3: somebody within that age range. You've spent so many years
Speaker 3: dealing with loss and grief and illness and not being
Speaker 3: able to really have that young adulthood that you really
Speaker 3: want to have in part, and we don't want you
Speaker 3: to waste too many more years on the unavailable older
Speaker 3: guys who can't give you that, So we would like
Speaker 3: you to spend this time trying to get at least one,
Speaker 3: and just to remind yourself of those options and that
Speaker 3: there are people out there in that age range who
Speaker 3: are mature enough and open enough for you that you
Speaker 3: can have a relationship with potentially.
Speaker 1: And we want you to make sure that the age
Speaker 1: range really is twenty five to thirty five, so that
Speaker 1: you are considering people who are your own age because
Speaker 1: I think there's a story that you're telling yourself, particularly
Speaker 1: about the person that is the object of your affection
Speaker 1: right now, that somehow he's deeper and kind of understand
Speaker 1: you better than someone in your own age range. And
Speaker 1: yet nothing deep has transpired between the two of you.
Speaker 1: There has not been one hint of the depth of
Speaker 1: his inner life in anything that has transpired between the
Speaker 1: two of you, other than that you admire his work.
Speaker 1: So we also are giving you the ticking clock of
Speaker 1: the week because you have all kinds of excuses for
Speaker 1: you know why, nobody is appropriate. We are forcing the issue,
Speaker 1: and we are making you choose someone. We're not looking
Speaker 1: for perfect. We're making you choose someone that you think
Speaker 1: you might have a nice conversation with. That is the
Speaker 1: extent of it. As part of this exercise, we would
Speaker 1: like you to tell your friends, who are so tired
Speaker 1: of hearing you talk about this other guy, Hey, I
Speaker 1: am really making a concerted effort to meet someone my
Speaker 1: own age. Is there anyone you can think about introducing
Speaker 1: me to. Just making it clear to your friends that, hey,
Speaker 1: I want you to know that instead of spending all
Speaker 1: that time talking to them about oh my gosh. And
Speaker 1: here's what happened. And we had this interchange and he
Speaker 1: looked at me this way, and here's what happened at
Speaker 1: work To say, you know what, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: spend my time talking about him with you anymore. So
Speaker 1: we want you to stop talking about him with your friends.
Speaker 1: We want you to talk about the things that you
Speaker 1: would be talking about if you weren't talking about him.
Speaker 1: Talk about your dad, talk about your fear, talk about
Speaker 1: this new idea of I'm going to be open to
Speaker 1: meeting people in my age range. Talk about movies that
Speaker 1: you saw, talk about books that you read, talk about
Speaker 1: the things you would be talking about if you weren't
Speaker 1: on the drug. Okay, all right, all right, So we
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing how the conversations go and how
Speaker 1: the dating goes, and we will hear back from you shortly.
Speaker 3: Thank you. What became clear to me in this conversation
Speaker 3: with Emma was the extent to which these infatuations with
Speaker 3: the older men are truly distractions from dealing both with
Speaker 3: the pain of losing her dad and with a fear
Speaker 3: of finding someone whose age appropriate, of entering into her
Speaker 3: own relationships, of dealing with loneliness, of dealing with the
Speaker 3: risk of rejection. And I hope that our homework for
Speaker 3: 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 3: You're listening to Deo Therapists Hout Radio. We'll be back
Speaker 3: after a quick break. We did not receive a voicemail
Speaker 3: from Emma. This is the first time that we haven't
Speaker 3: received a voicemail from one of our guests, one of
Speaker 3: our fellow travelers. We asked our producer to reach out
Speaker 3: to Emma and inquire about it and remind her and
Speaker 3: she did, and to ask if there was any reason
Speaker 3: that Emma didn't send the voicemail, and Emma actually said no,
Speaker 3: that she just was busy and didn't have a chance
Speaker 3: to get to it, that she would, but again she
Speaker 3: did not. Even after she said that, we still didn't
Speaker 3: get a voicemail. And so we're going to discuss a
Speaker 3: little bit about what that might be and why that
Speaker 3: might be going.
Speaker 1: On, right, and so something like that happens when we
Speaker 1: have that happen in the therapy room, for example, and
Speaker 1: somebody says they're going to do something and then they
Speaker 1: don't follow through, and then we talk about it and
Speaker 1: they say they're going to follow through and they don't.
Speaker 1: We didn't have the opportunity with Emma to really understand
Speaker 1: more about what was going on for her, but based
Speaker 1: on our conversation with her, it did seem like there
Speaker 1: was a lot of avoidance going on of really dealing
Speaker 1: with the impact that her father's long illness and death
Speaker 1: had on her all through her teen years and then
Speaker 1: through her college years. And what we were asking her
Speaker 1: to do was to really go to places that maybe
Speaker 1: she wasn't ready to go to.
Speaker 3: What happens often is that when somebody comes and tells
Speaker 3: us their story and hear the story was I get
Speaker 3: into these relationships with older men. It doesn't work well
Speaker 3: for me with the younger men my age, and we
Speaker 3: as therapists, our job is to tell them, often a
Speaker 3: different story than their story, and in this case, the
Speaker 3: story was you had a lot of trauma and loss
Speaker 3: with losing your dad, and you had a lot of
Speaker 3: hesitation about getting hurt, and so it was safer to
Speaker 3: go with older men who didn't really have a relationship
Speaker 3: with you had crushes on, than to deal with the
Speaker 3: fear and the anxiety and the hurt and the potential
Speaker 3: loss of somebody more in your age bracket than somebody
Speaker 3: who's twenty or thirty years older. And that is what
Speaker 3: she then had to confront. And I think that it
Speaker 3: wasn't just the task she wasn't ready for, but it
Speaker 3: was the narrative that we were proposing that she was
Speaker 3: 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 about
Speaker 1: the professor, and she said, I'd be thinking about my dad.
Speaker 1: And I think that when we asked her to talk
Speaker 1: to her mom and talk to her brother about maybe
Speaker 1: opening up these conversations in the family about the impact
Speaker 1: that this experience has had on all of them, that
Speaker 1: maybe that was something that she's not ready to do yet.
Speaker 1: That it feels so good in a certain way to
Speaker 1: hold on to well, let me think about the guy
Speaker 1: at work and what does that mean that he said that?
Speaker 1: And was he flirting with me? And is he ever
Speaker 1: going to leave his wife for me? Then to say, hey, mom,
Speaker 1: hey brother, we have a lot of stuff that maybe
Speaker 1: we should talk about.
Speaker 3: I agree. And I think the other part of that
Speaker 3: is it also was safer to think about the married
Speaker 3: guy at work than it is to deal with the
Speaker 3: potential hurt and disappointment of taking someone that could actually
Speaker 3: reciprocate and have a real relationship with all the fears
Speaker 3: that 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 difficult.
Speaker 3: And we know from our practices that people have to
Speaker 3: be ready to make the changes that we try and
Speaker 3: help them make. And I hope that when Emma feels ready,
Speaker 3: 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 6: I was always taught that your parents will live with
Speaker 6: you and you take care of them for the rest
Speaker 6: of your life. There's no other option. So when you
Speaker 6: both presented something else to me and gave me permission
Speaker 6: of a sort that that was life changing.
Speaker 1: Hey fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
Speaker 1: miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
Speaker 1: telling your friends about it and leaving a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
Speaker 3: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 3: Bigo 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 3: We can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.