Roundtrip Ticket

Client Mary has had, what SHE called, a 'relapse'. She had sex with one of her partners that she decided she was going to have no contact with at all: no texting, no talking, no emails, no meeting up, no snail mail, no smoke signals--nothing. And yet, she's done it again. I really wouldn't care one way or the other if it weren't for the fact that she seems to be deeply in love with this antagonist 'Bryan'. But, to him, she is quite obviously just someone to have sex with, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately, he is someone who lies, manipulates, and steals heavily. The last time he was at her house (before the 'relapse') he stole about $500 worth of electronics (a Wii complete with about six games and two nanchaku controllers); he consistently uses the proverbial "this is more than sex" spiel to get into her pants; and she has no idea how many sexual partners he actually has, but the women that he is romantically involved with manifest themselves in text messages and angry voice mails. There's only been one physical confrontation in which Mary was found out to be the 'other woman', luckily that merely ended in Mary's phone being chucked from a second story window and broken.

On my end, of course, I cannot fathom why anyone would stay in a "relationship" that causes so much trouble. Sure, she has her sexual escapades on the side, but Bryan is a pretty invariable force in her life, so everything always comes back to him. That's kind of where my 'love' diagnosis comes from. Then again, it could be desperation. Bryan knows all of her sexual likes and dislikes, so she doesn't have to tell him every time she has sex with him what she wants him to do. She is a relatively lazy person, and having sex with new people all the time means she has to start all over with her communication of her desires.

So, here we are at another standstill. I'm just waiting to see how this all unfolds. I'll still be there for her to talk it out with. But every solution she has come up with to help her meet her goal of not being a slut anymore, hasn't worked. There doesn't seem to be any scaring her either. She's already gotten one disease that could've been something else, something much worse; she's not afraid of becoming pregnant, though she can barely take care of herself; and these women that mysteriously pop up that Bryan has lied about being involved with (for some reason unbeknownst to me) don't make her worry for her physical safety. It seems like a no-brainer when I weigh these possible outcomes against MAYBE 20 minutes of sexual intercourse.