DEJI
Do one nice thing for each other every day for the next week.
This was Dr Amber’s assignment for them this week. They’d had two sessions with her and Deji felt like he couldn’t wait till they got to the good part because why did couple’s counselling seem like it was creating more of a wedge between him and Ivie than bringing them together?
They were missing something and he knew what it was. It was the elephant in the room: Ivie’s drinking.
In the intake forms they had filled before becoming Dr Amber’s clients, there had been a space for other comments or anything else relevant that the doctor should know to make this experience more effective, he had wanted to write my wife is an alcoholic but he couldn’t bring himself to form the words. It was a truth he wasn’t yet willing to admit to himself or anyone. He noticed in Ivie’s form that she had put N/A in that box too. He had said nothing to her about it even though he’d been hoping that she would be the one to bring it up.
He’d tried to convince himself that her drinking was not one of the factors that had caused their marriage to break down to this point but who was he fooling?
In the two weeks since they started counselling, he’d noticed her drinking had picked up again. She was hiding the bottles better now, putting them in the back of the trash can underneath the kitchen sink. It almost made him laugh because she never used to hide her bottles so much so that it had become like a game for both of them; she left the bottles out for him to find and determine how drunk she was going to be.
Now she was hiding them, forgetting that he was the one who often took the trash out and of course, he would notice the empty dark green bottles lying behind the trash can.
Of course, he would notice the mellowness in her mood when he got back from work, an effect of the alcohol swirling in her. She wasn’t nicer, she was just numb. She pretended to smile a real smile at him when she opened the door to welcome him, but he could tell it was the alcohol smiling.
And at night, she burrowed close to him, sniffing his body like a dog in heat. The good thing though, was that they’d had sex for the first time in months. Granted, it was sex fuelled by the drinking, but there was something else there too - a yearning. Going down memory lane with Dr. Amber had triggered something in both of them and even if Ivie’s desire was clouded by alcohol, his wasn’t.
Do one nice thing for each other every day for the next week.
The first two days, it wasn’t so hard to find nice things to do. Deji had offered to make dinner the first night.
“Put your feet up, hang out with the kids,” he told Ivie. “I’ll handle it.”
He had come home from work early with the ingredients for his special dinner. He wasn’t a great cook especially because his mother had done most of the cooking and wouldn’t let the boys anywhere near the kitchen, but he’d gotten a recipe for stir-fry pasta off YouTube and stumbled his way through.
The next day, he got up early and prepared the kids for school, since it had been a while since he did that, he even made them breakfast (granted it was toast and tea), and dropped them off at school while telling Ivie to have a lie-in.
Somehow he’d worked his way through the week and now they were back with Dr Amber to report on their success or lack thereof.
“So, how did you find this week’s assignment?” She asked.
Today she was dressed in a leather skirt and had put her hair up in a bun, looking every bit as no-nonsense as she had at their first meeting.
“It was…interesting,” Deji said.
“How so?”
“I guess it just made me realize how neglectful I’ve been of our relationship, of my wife.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’ve been taking a lot of things for granted, I guess.”
“Interesting observation. What nice thing did you do this week? Care to share one instance?”
“Oh, I made dinner one night. Offered to give her a massage another.”
Dr Amber smiled. “I like that it wasn’t just things around the house you thought of. I like that you thought of offering her a massage, making it personal. I’m also glad you found the exercise helpful.” She turned towards Ivie. “How about you, Ivie? One nice thing you did for Deji?”
Ivie shifted uncomfortably in her seat beside Deji, she lowered her eyes before saying:
“I didn’t have a drink all week.”
Hearing her say it out loud, a mixture of pride and shame lingering in her voice made Deji soften towards his wife.
And yes, she had truly, really abstained all week…he’d checked all her main hiding spots and they were empty. But it had meant that she was cranky and withdrawn. It had crossed his mind that she had stayed away from alcohol for his sake but he didn’t know if he appreciated it if it meant she was cranky with him and the kids. Also how pathetic was it that the only nice thing she could think of doing was abstaining?
There was an awkward silence that followed her declaration and Deji wanted to turn back the hands of time to before she had admitted she had a problem. He didn’t want Dr Amber to see how broken they were.
“And Deji, how did that make you feel?” She asked, after a few seconds of writing in her notepad.
He blinked because the question had caught him by surprise. How had he felt?
“Relieved, mostly,” he said. “I looked in all the usual places for the bottles but I didn’t find anything. I was relieved but also scared.”
“Why scared?”
“Because I was worried about what she was giving up and how it would come back to bite her, bite us.”
“So, you’re saying that in a way you count on the drinking to keep her in line?”
Deji shrugged, “I haven’t really thought about it before.”
Dr Amber sighed, leaning forward. “You know I sensed that you both were holding back something significant. And I’m so glad we finally cracked it. Now we can properly do the work.”
Deji felt it too, the way the stuffiness in the room had evaporated and he could breathe better. He stole a look at his wife. She had her eyes closed.
He reached out his hand across the sofa and touched her right palm which was planted on the chair.
She didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes, but she let her fingers curl around his. He squeezed gently.
“So, Ivie do you want to talk about it?” Dr Amber’s voice was coaxing.
Ivie opened her eyes. “Funny, no one has ever asked me to talk about it. Except for when I went to rehab when I was pregnant.”
“I think Deji and I want to hear about it now.”
Ivie nodded, glancing at Deji. “He was never interested in knowing why.”
“Uh uh, remember, no accusatory statements, Ivie. You can say how you feel but let’s not assume or throw accusations about how the other person feels or thinks.” Dr Amber said.
Deji knew that something big was about to happen, something they couldn’t take back and a part of him was scared, scared of what would come next. But that was the point of counselling, wasn’t it?
“Uhm…where do I start?” Ivie heaved a sigh.