Chapter 12 - What We Were Really Fighting About
The joint counseling session with Glenda happened only once.
Her attorney and my attorney both knew it was occurring.
Nobody expected reconciliation.
The therapist made one rule:
No arguing about whether another person’s feelings were reasonable.
Glenda hated that immediately.
“Demi never respected what Philip owes this family.”
I almost responded.
The therapist stopped me.
“Let her finish.”
Glenda talked about Philip’s failed restaurant.
Refinancing her house.
Her husband working two additional years instead of retiring.
The fear she felt signing checks she could barely afford.
Then Frank died.
Philip became the person she called for everything.
“And then Demi came along,” Glenda said.
There it was.
Not hatred.
Displacement.
“I didn’t take him away,” I said.
“You changed him.”
Philip finally interrupted.
“Mom, I was thirty when I met Demi.”
“You stopped asking me before making decisions.”
“That is what adults do.”
Glenda looked stunned.
Philip continued.
“I kept giving you money because it was easier than letting you be disappointed in me.”
“I never asked you to ruin your marriage.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She looked at him sharply.
“What does that mean?”
“You made everything proof of loyalty.”
He counted them.
If he questioned the business, he didn’t believe in her.
If he wanted an accountant, he thought she was incompetent.
If he refused money, he forgot what his parents sacrificed.
If he defended me, his wife mattered more than his mother.
Glenda’s face slowly changed.
“And what did she make you prove?”
Philip looked at me.
“Nothing.”
I shook my head.
“That’s not true.”
He seemed surprised.
“After the brokerage money, I made you prove I could stay without feeling stupid.”
The therapist asked what that meant.
“I wanted certainty,” I said. “Documents. Property. Rules. Things he couldn’t reinterpret.”
“Was that wrong?”
“No. But I told myself the paperwork meant trust had been restored.”
Philip whispered, “It hadn’t.”
“No.”
That was the difference between us.
I had used documentation to create enough safety to try again.
Philip had signed it because he feared losing me.
He never accepted the emotional meaning behind it.
And because he never accepted it, he eventually tried to work around it.
Glenda looked at me.
“I thought you took his house.”
“He transferred his interest after taking our money.”
“He told me you forced him.”
Philip closed his eyes.
“I said she wouldn’t stay otherwise.”
“That is not the same thing,” Glenda said.
The irony almost made me laugh.
She finally turned to her son.
“You let me hate her for something you chose.”
Philip nodded.
“Yes.”
Glenda began crying.
I felt no victory.
She looked at me.
“I threw that pot because I thought you had stripped him of everything and were about to destroy the company too.”
“And if that had been true?”
She could not answer.
“Would I have deserved it?”
“No.”
It was the first unqualified no I had ever heard from her.
That did not repair my headboard.
Or my arm.
May you like
Or my marriage.
But for once, every person in the room was protecting the truth instead of a role.
