Thanks, Sandra. I told him pretty much exactly what you said. Makes me feel good to have someone understand me and be in my corner.
I just got a phone message from my graduate school advisor saying she heard about my "problems" and wants me to call her, if she can do anything, and she's praying for me. Weird, she never said anything like that to me while I was working with her...
Sad told me about the call when I got home from putting a contract on a house, thinking I would be happy to hear from her. I tried taking care of the kids, talking with him, but while I was making food for the kids I just started feeling so ashamed. I asked if I could come upstairs by myself for awhile and he said yes.
I abused my power as a psychologist, and that is a bad thing. When Sad first found out, he was the only one who knew anything about it. I knew I would have to report myself to the Board of Psychology, which I technically didn't HAVE to do, but in those first couple of weeks I think I thought I would be able to keep my license, and I think I thought I wanted to keep practicing. If I kept my license, I knew I would have to report myself.
Anyway, after my consultant/therapist discussed with me how much I needed a break from therapy, and my reaction was so strong, it has become more and more clear to me how being a therapist was NOT what I wanted to do. I've been struggling with why did I waste so much of my life being a miserable graduate student and a miserable psychologist, when now I don't even want the damn degree!
I also live in fear that people I know and have to face day to day will find out what I did. Seems like some people have affairs (maybe most?) and when it's over, the only people who really know are the spouse & the person who had the affair...I don't know...there is also something that feels terribly dirty to me about it having been 2 clients. More shameful...Anyway, Sad said "how much do you think she knows?" Which, of course, I don't know! And I said to him in a snippy voice, "It's public record at the board....sexual intimacies with 2 clients...It's public record." He said something about did I blame him for it being public record...blah blah blah...
No, it 's not his fault. He did request that I turn myself in to the board as part of my "gesture of faith" that I wanted to work on the marriage. But, honestly, I had to do that anyway. I did tell him what it would mean - that I might lose my license, etc. etc. And he has been so wonderful about the fact that our finances are in a mess because of this. Well, becuase of this and because he got arrested for beating up OM#2....
Anyway, I DO NOT want to be a psychologist anymore...and my advisor did sound completely sympathetic, not judgemental, which is a good thing. Oh well. I have to face what I did. Just wondering if anyone has thoughts about my self-pity at having to be publicly humiliated and lose my career because of having 2 affairs...which I really only count as one, because they were symptoms of the same underlying illness...the psychotherapist disease!
I'm not feeling COMPLETELY sorry for myself - I definitely WANTED to lose the career...but I don't like fearing having my peers finding out about this...
WEll, I guess anyone who cheats leaves themselves open to having other people find out about it - including co-workers and close friends...I guess I could use some support/insight about how to deal with this from that perspective, too.
Thanks, everyone...
I guess the good news is we put a contract on a house exactly in the neighborhood we want! It's smaller than the one we have, but we can add on to it as we get our finances back in order. And store a lot of stuff in the attic until then!!!!
