She cried

She cried the entire hour.

I didn't have to say anything in the beginning. She just sat down, began to cry. Then she began to sob and then to wail.

It was OK. It was in the evening. The building was pretty empty.


She cried because her boyfriend had died. The boyfriend's family, and his live-in girlfriend pulled the plug because his brain was smashed. Her husband doesn't want her to go to the funeral because he thinks she will embarrass him.

She had told her husband he had to leave on the weekend but it was during the week that the car had crashed. Now, her husband won't leave, and he is acting like he is doing her a favor.

His family is angry at her. Her family, what there is of it, is angry at her. The family of the man who died, acts as if they don't know who she is, even though she is a sister-in-law. Even though someday soon they will find a box in the back of his closet with all her stuff in it.

She is afraid to be alone. She doesn't know if people ever recover from feeling the way she feels now. If her husband leaves she doesn't trust what she might do to herself. If he stays she isn't sure what she may do to him.

She has no one else to talk to; she doesn't want to tell anyone else the story.

It helps that she is very capable and very attractive. That means that eventually, despite the guilt from her husband's family, the memory of her dead lover, and the guilt from her crazy religious mother, she will go on.

She will leave her husband, who is probably gay, and see what else life has to offer.
It certainly holds no guarantees, you all certainly know that.

This will take two years. The next few sessions will just be crying.

Oh, and I'm in favor of gay marriage. It's just more problematic when only one of the partners is gay.