Tonight is our first couples counselling together since the world went crazy and I came out as non-binary and a eunuch.

We’ve had joint therapy before, but I had never felt safe to say anything and I felt like I was being ganged up on and pressurised. I thought that was because there was the counsellor we were seeing and my husband is also a qualified therapist, so however I realise that actually this really was down to my own communication difficulties.

Things aren’t being helped today by a cluster of anxiety induced migraines, that started on Monday.

Tonight, I shall have to make sure that I am properly rested and drugged up accordingly to overpower the headaches.

Why am I anxious?

Past experience with couples counselling of course, but also the general anxiety that I always feel when an emotional conversation with my husband is in the immediate future.

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The session

That was tough.

The counsellor, I’ll call her Roxy, let us in, and after we’d sat down (me on the floor), asked us how our week had been.

There was some silence and neither my husband nor I seemed willing to start – I didn’t know how to start, or what to say, however I did go first.

She asked us what we wanted from counselling. I said a lot of “we”, but she said “what do you want, Jay?” So I started talking about our week and the difficulties I have around “balance”.

Summarising the week

I talked about the conversations that my husband and I had had in the list week, including the argument over when I would come back to him on the subject of balance.

That enabled him to reply, and he gave examples of how I hadn’t come back to him on things that we were talking about in the past. Indeed, how I’d done everything in my power to shut down difficult conversations. I had to own that when I’m cornered or not given warning of a conversation that I am likely to lash out verbally.

Bad sex talk

I have said some very hurtful things in those knee-jerk defensive moments.

He brought up an example of a historical discussion about sex. He wanted sex more frequently than I did, and since I almost exclusively bottom, and this was before I knew about douching, sex too often or when I wasn’t 100% confident of cleanliness down there, that it could be uncomfortable or painful (and not in a good way). Worse: it could be smelly and messy and humiliating.

So what did I say back then? Did I say “I can’t bottom as much as you’d like me to, can we do something else?” Of course not. For a start, unless I was penetrated it didn’t feel like sex to me. But what I said was horrible: I said that his sex drive was abnormal.

I also used his past as an excuse for his “abnormal” sex drive, accusing him of only being able to feel love through sex.

I could see that Roxy was affected by what we were saying.

She asked my husband why he’d stayed in the relationship, even though he was so unhappy? That was a brutal question to ask on day 1, but completely pertinent.

Husband said that his self-esteem was so low that he didn’t feel able to leave.

Not enough

He also brought up the list that I gave him of where he was in my list of priorities. I remember it a little differently, in that I remember it as telling him where he stood in my list of who I could trust and rely on. However, the effect on his feelings was the same.

Why didn’t I trust him? His drinking and the things he did and said when he drank.

I used to beg him not to drink, but after years of that not working, I started using other tools – like shame – to try to control him.

Roxy asked if I understood how that might have been for Ant. I wanted to say “yes”, but I released that I didn’t understand.

Not understanding depression

I only saw an alcoholic. He was already diagnosed with depression and took medication for it. I didn’t recognise that or understand it, at least not until my brother made an attempt on his own life. I got it a bit then.

I certainly never believed that my husband was bipolar and whilst I might have believed that he had PTSD having been through so much, I believed that he was using that as an excuse for his behaviour.

I used to say to him “you’ve let me down and you’ve let your colleagues down.” Adding more shame onto how he already felt.

My husband shared about his bulimia and other ways of self-harming.

Roxy asked me something about that (I don’t remember what exactly), but I released for the first time that my banding of my testicles was a form of self-harming. I was a little upset. 

She very gently said that my husband was talking about himself and I was making it about me. I explained that I wasn’t really because of just realised that I could have shared in my husband’s pain, and instead I made him feel worse.

End of the session

Towards the end of the session, I remember reaffirming to my husband that I knew that the real work would happen between the sessions.

I thanked him and Roxy, then I looked at my husband and I said that “I owe you”; I was surprised to find that I was crying a little.

However, my husband was angry. Roxy held the moment and later asked him why he was angry. He said that he’d heard it before and was afraid that I was just saying what I was expected to say.

That hurt me and I could feel the glue-brain starting.

After the session, we walked back to the car. I desperately wanted to shutdown; I am not certain that I was completely safe driving home.

I’ve captured as much as I can remember, it’s late now and I am very tired!