Dr. Lowen says here you have one female and two males.  Send your son to boarding school.   He’ll come into his own there.  That’s what saved the British aristocracy.

I don’t know about the British, but it is working for us.  Herb says he doesn’t want to go to therapy anymore.   I ask Dr. Lowen to see him for one session to evaluate our situation.

After that, Herb says we don’t need therapists anymore and I should call Dr. Lowen and quit.  I say no, I must tell him in person.

It has been a year since we started.

Dr. Lowen says people go to therapy the way they approach life.

Your husband does not believe that therapy will help him and that he must solve his own problems.

In your case, you think the therapy will succeed if you put your whole effort into it.  You know, I’ve had patients that I work with for years to get them to fully accept a painful truth before they can move on.

With you, as soon as we uncover something you accept it and then you present me with the next step.

I say I’ve read all your books.  They are very clear.  Then I describe my own case.  Am I accurate?  He nods.  You remember everything.   You should write.  Not philosophical tracts.  The most interesting thing you could ever write about is your own life story.

Oh no, I could never do that!  Think of all the people involved!

Not now, he says, you’re too young.  You have years to enjoy life fully.

For what you came to do, I must say that we are done.   Never again will you fall for a man who sabotages himself.

Your fantasy was to be chosen by a king.   (In Dr. Lowen’s terms a king is a man who has come into his own as a man, who is his own man.  Every man has the potential of being a king.)

Your husband is a king.  Your father was a king too.

But your husband is a wounded king.   He is in a bind.   He has a tremendous life force which up to now has maintained his defenses.  But he did not use his energies to go forward with his own achievements – to take his place in the sun.

I have to say that as sick as he is he really loves you.  You gave him a place in the heart.  But for a man, that is not enough.  He cannot live through you.

I still love him.  I want to stay with him.

Dr. Lowen will not tell me what to do, but I can sense his disappointment.  It is as though I went through rehab and just said that I am going back to drugs.

You have a right to your own happiness!

We have a dispirited back and forth.

Finally, he says that he has to warn me.  It may be years, he says, but as he gets older your husband’s defenses will break down.  If he so much as pushes you in anger, you have to leave.  If he turns to violence against you he won’t be able to stop.

I say goodbye, but I don’t do goodbyes well.  This is one of the worst.  I leave Dr. Lowen with a heavy heart.