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Confessions of a (reforming) serial monogamist
“So, do you think you’re settling (for the man I was with at the time)?” asked my therapist at out last appointment. My knee-jerk reaction, and the truth, was, “Well, hell yeah!!” I never answered her question directly then; rather, I waffled and said, “I”m not sure…” The painful truth — gained after months of soul searching and a nagging feeling that something with him and our so-called “relationship” just wasn’t right — was one I didn’t really want to say out loud, though I suspect my therapist knew it. After all, she is pretty smart and has a master’s degree, plus she and I have a long-term relationship as therapist-client. So I’m positive she knew…. she was just waiting to see if I would admit it. It probably took me a week to come up with an answer for her, one that I hoped sounded glib and clever. I never told her that carefully crafted answer, which I now don’t recall, as we haven’t had an appointment since (due to my terrible habit of procrastinating).
Anyway, whatever cool-sounding answer I was prepared to give her to that straight-out question was probably full of my usual wishy-washy rationalizing that I’ve been known to do frequently with my male partners/boyfriends/significant others or whatever their role in my life was at the time. Hell, I’ve had so much practice of rationalizing the faults, downsides, crappy treatment, bad habits, and whatever, of…
