Chapter 9

In the beginning, I'm not sure we needed a marriage counselor so much as a referee to break us apart in the clinches. We had so much anger there wasn't room for much else.

By the third session we were able to listen without attacking, though the anger bubbled just below the surface.

Andrea played a short film for us about nothing that had to do with us or our relationship. Then she gave us each a pad and pencil and asked us to write down ten facts about what we'd seen in the film.

It was easier for me. I was trained. When we finished, I read my list.

"That's amazing," said Andrea. "I've never seen anyone do that so well. Your first six were facts, then a conclusion citing the facts, two more facts and a final conclusion. Let's see what you have, Betty."

Somewhere in the middle Betty stumbled onto a fact, an observation of what we had seen. As we went over her list, Andrea explained.

"Most of what you wrote was an interpretation of what you saw based not only on the facts, but on your view of how things work in the world. To put it in terms of the experience in your marriage, you noticed you weren't getting pregnant and concluded something was wrong. When you checked it out, it had to be Randy.