Love's Executioner

by Irvin D. Yalom

  These messages from the dreamer drummed louder and louder. I had to heed them. They forced me to take my bearings and to review what had been happening in therapy.

  Marvin had moved fast, too fast perhaps. At first he was a man without insight: he could not, would not, direct his sight inward. In the relatively short period of six months, he had made enormous discoveries. He learned that his eyes, like those of a newborn kitten, had been closed. He learned that deep inside there is a rich teeming world which, if confronted, brings terrible fear but also offers redemption through illumination.

  The surface appearance of things no longer compelled him: he was less captivated by his collections of stamps and the Reader’s Digest. His eyes open now to the existential facts of life, he was grappling with the inevitability of death and with his powerlessness to save himself.

  Marvin awakened more quickly than I had expected; perhaps he listened, after all, to the voice of his own dreamer. At first he was eager to see, but soon enthusiasm gave way to a powerful sense of regret. He grieved for his past and his impending losses. Most of all, he grieved for the vast empty spaces of his life: the unused potential within him, the children he had never had, the father he had never known, the house that had never brimmed with family and friends, a life work that might have contained more significance than the accumulation of too much money. Finally, he grieved for himself, for the imprisoned dreamer, for the little boy crying for help in the darkness.

  He knew he had not lived the life he really wanted. Perhaps it could still be done. Perhaps there was still time to paint his life anew on a large blank canvas. He began to twist the knobs of secret doors, to whisper to an unknown daughter, to wonder where vanished fathers go.

  But he had overstepped himself. He ventured farther than his supply lines could reach, and now was assailed from all sides: the past was dusky and irretrievable; the future, blocked. It was too late: his house had been built, his final examination turned in. He had flung open the sluice gates of awareness, only to be inundated with death anxiety.

  Sometimes death anxiety is dismissed as trivial in its universality. Who, after all, does not know and fear death? Yet it is one thing to know about death in general, to grit one’s teeth and stoke up a shudder or two; it is quite another to apprehend one’s own death and to experience it in the bones and sockets of one’s being. Such death awareness is a terror that comes rarely, sometimes only once or twice in a lifetime—a terror that Marvin now experienced night after night.

  Against this dread, he lacked even the most common defenses: childless, he could not be comforted by the illusion of immortal germ cells; he had no sustaining religious belief—neither of a consciousness-preserving afterlife nor of an omnipresent, protective personal deity; nor did he have the satisfaction of knowing that he had realized himself in life. (As a general rule, the less one’s sense of life fulfillment, the greater one’s death anxiety.) Worst of all, Marvin could foresee no end to his anxiety. The dream image was graphic: the demons had escaped the room of his mind and were in full, menacing view. He could neither escape nor reincarcerate them by closing the jammed door.

  So Marvin and I had reached a crucial point, a juncture to which full awareness inevitably leads. It is the time when one stands before the abyss and decides how to face the pitiless existential facts of life: death, isolation, groundlessness, and meaninglessness. Of course, there are no solutions. One has a choice only of certain stances: to be “resolute,” or “engaged,” or courageously defiant, or stoically accepting, or to relinquish rationality and, in awe and mystery, place one’s trust in the providence of the Divine.

  I didn’t know what Marvin would do, nor did I know how else to help. I remember looking forward to each session with more than a little curiosity about the choices that he would make. What would it be? Would he flee his own discovery? Would he find a way, once more, to pull the comforter of self-deception over his head? Would he ultimately embrace a religious solution? Or would he find strength and shelter in one of the Lebens-philosophical solutions? Never have I felt so keenly the dual role of the therapist as participant-observer. Although I was now emotionally engaged and cared deeply about what would happen to Marvin, at the same time, I remained aware that I was in a privileged position to study the embryology of belief.

  Though Marvin continued to feel anxious and depressed, he gamely continued to work in therapy. My respect for him grew. I had thought that he would have terminated therapy long before. What kept him coming?

  Several things, he said. First, he was still migraine-free. Second, he remembered my warning to him, the first time we met, that there were going to be times in therapy when he would feel worse; he trusted my word that his current anxiety was a stage in therapy and would ultimately pass. Furthermore, he was persuaded that something significant must be happening in therapy: he’d learned more about himself in the past five months than in his previous sixty-four years!

  And something else totally unexpected had happened. His relationship to Phyllis had begun to undergo a perceptible shift.

  “We’ve been talking more frequently and more honestly than ever before. I’m not sure when it started. When you and I first began to meet, we had a brief flurry of talking. But that was a false alarm. I think Phyllis was only trying to persuade me that we could talk without having to see a therapist.”

  “But over the last few weeks, it’s been different. We are really talking now. I’ve been telling Phyllis what you and I talk about every hour. In fact, she waits at the door for me to return home from the sessions and gets annoyed if I delay—for example, if I suggest we wait until dinner because it gives us such interesting table conversation.”

  “What types of things seem most important to her?”

  “Almost everything. I told you Phyllis doesn’t like to spend money—she loves sales. We’ve been joking that we’ve gotten a two-for-the-price-of-one therapy bargain.”

  “That’s the kind of bargain I’m glad to give.”

  “I think the thing that meant the most to Phyllis was when I told her about our discussions about my work, about how disappointed I am with myself for not having done more with my abilities, for having devoted myself only to money, for never having considered what I might have given to the world. That hit her very hard. She said that, if it were true for me, it was true in spades for her—that she had led a totally self-centered life, that she’s never given anything of herself.”

  “She’s given you a great deal.”

  “I reminded her of that. At first she thanked me for saying it, but later, after thinking about it more, she said she’s not so sure—maybe she’s helped me, but she said that in some ways she may have stood in my way.”

  “How so?”

  “She mentioned all the things I talked to you about: the way she’s barred others from our home; the way she’s discouraged me from making friends who might have wanted to visit our home; the way she’s refused to travel and discourages me from traveling—did I ever tell you about that? Most of all, she regrets her childlessness and her refusal many years ago to see a fertility doctor.”

  “Marvin, I’m amazed. This openness, this honesty! How are you two doing it? These are tough things to talk about, really tough.”

  He went on to say that Phyllis had paid a price for her insights—she had become very agitated. One night he couldn’t sleep and heard some whispering from her room. (They slept in separate bedrooms because of his snoring.) He tiptoed in and saw Phyllis kneeling by her bed, praying, chanting the same phrase over and over: “The mother of God will protect me. The mother of God will protect me. The mother of God will protect me. The mother of God will protect me.”

  Marvin was very affected by this scene though it was hard for him to put it into words. I think he was overcome with pity—pity for Phyllis, for himself, for all small, helpless people. I think he realized that her chanting that phrase was a magical incantation, a wafer-thin protection against the terrible things we all h
ave to face.

  He finally got back to sleep and later that night had a dream:There was a statue of a female god on a pedestal in a large crowded room. It looked like Christ but was wearing a flowing orange pastel dress. On the other side of the room there was an actress with a long white dress. The actress and the statue traded places. Somehow they traded dresses, and the statue got down and the actress climbed up on the pedestal.

  Marvin said he finally understood a dream: the dream meant that he had turned women into goddesses and then believed he would be safe if he could appease them. That was why he had always dreaded Phyllis’s anger, and that was why, when he was anxious, she could offer such relief by soothing him sexually.

  “Especially oral sex—I think I told you that when I’m in panic, she takes my penis in her mouth and my bad feelings just melt away. It’s not sex—you’ve been saying that all along, and now I know you’re right—my penis can be completely soft. It’s just that she accepts me totally and takes me into her. It’s like I’ve become a part of her.”

  “You do grant her magical powers—like a goddess. She can heal you with just a smile, an embrace, or by taking you inside her. No wonder you take great pains not to displease her. But the problem is that sex is turned into something medicinal—no, that’s not strong enough—sex becomes a life or death proposition, and your survival depends on merging with this woman. No wonder sex has been difficult. It should be a loving, joyful act, not protection from danger. With that view of sex, anyone—certainly including me—would have problems with potency.”

  Marvin took out his notepad and wrote down a few lines. I had been irritated weeks ago when he first started taking notes, but he made such good use of therapy that I had learned to respect any of his mnemonic aids.

  “Let’s see if I have this right. Your theory is that what I call sex is often not sex—at least not good sex—but instead is a way of protecting myself against fear, especially fear of aging and death. And when I’m impotent, it is not because I fail sexually as a man but because I’m asking sex to do things that sex can’t do.”

  “Exactly. And there’s a lot of evidence for this. There’s the dream of the two gaunt undertakers and the white-tipped cane. There’s the dream of the liquefying ground under your house which you try to cure by drilling with your giant auger. There’s the feeling you just described of being soothed by a physical connection with Phyllis which masquerades as sex but isn’t, as you noted, sex at all.”

  “So there are two issues. First, I’m asking sex to do something beyond its power. Second, I’m giving almost supernatural power to Phyllis to heal me or protect me.”

  “And then everything fell apart when you overheard her plaintive, repetitive chant.”

  “That was when I realized how frail she is—not Phyllis in particular, but all women. No, not just women, but everybody. What I’ve been doing was exactly what Phyllis was doing—depending on magic.”

  “So you depend on her power for protection, and she, in turn, pleads for protection by a magical chant—look where that leaves you.

  “There’s something else that’s important. Consider things now from Phyllis’s side: if she, in her love for you, accepts the role of goddess that you assign her, think of what that role does to her own possibilities for growth. In order to stay on her pedestal, she was never able to talk to you about her pain and her fears—or not until very recently.”

  “Slow down! Let me get this down. I’m going to have to explain all this to Phyllis.” Marvin was scribbling away furiously now.

  “So in a sense she was following your unspoken wishes by not openly expressing her uncertainties, by pretending to be stronger than she felt. I have a hunch that’s one of the reasons she wouldn’t come into therapy when we started—in other words, she picked up your wish that she not change. I also have a hunch that if you ask her now, she might come.”

  “God, we are really on the same wavelength now. Phyllis and I have already discussed it, and she is ready to talk to you.”

  And that was how Phyllis entered therapy. She arrived with Marvin for the next hour—a handsome, graceful woman who, by sheer will, overcame her timidity and in our three-way session became boldly self-revealing.

  Our conjectures about Phyllis had been close to the mark: she often had to swallow her own feelings of inadequacy in order not to agitate Marvin. And, of course, she had to be particularly solicitous when he was in distress—which meant, recently, that she had to be solicitous almost all the time.

  But her behavior was not entirely reactive to Marvin’s problems. She was also struggling with many personal issues, particularly her painful sensitivity about her lack of education and her belief that she was intellectually inferior to most people, especially Marvin. One of the reasons she dreaded, and avoided, social events was that someone might ask her, “What do you do?” She avoided lengthy conversations because it might become evident that she had never attended college. Whenever she compared herself with others, she invariably concluded that they were better informed and more clever, socially adept, self-confident, and interesting.

  “Perhaps,” I suggested, “the only area where you can maintain power is sex. That’s one place where Marvin needs you and can wield no control over you.”

  Phyllis responded hesitantly at first, and then the words began to pour out of her. “I guess I had to have something that Marvin wanted. In most other ways he is very self-sufficient. Often I feel I don’t have much else to offer. I wasn’t able to have children, I’m afraid of people, I’ve never worked outside the home, I have no talents or skills.” She paused, wiped her eyes and said to Marvin, “See, I can cry if I put my mind to it.”

  She turned back to me. “Marvin’s told you that he tells me about the things the two of you have been discussing. I’ve been in therapy once removed. Some of the topics shook me up, they apply more to me than to him.”

  “For example?”

  “For example, regret. That idea really hit home. I have a lot of regret about what I’ve done with my life or, better, what I haven’t done.”

  My heart went out to Phyllis at that moment, and I desperately wanted to say something helpful. “If we stare too hard into the past, it’s easy to be overcome with regret. But now the important thing is to turn toward the future. We’ve got to think about change. What must not occur is that five years from now you look back with regret over the way you’ve lived these coming five years.”

  Phyllis responded after a short pause, “I started to say that I’m too old to do things differently. I felt that way for thirty years. Thirty years! My whole life’s gone by feeling it was too late. But watching Marvin change over the last several weeks has been impressive. You may not realize it, but the mere fact that I’m here today, in a psychiatrist’s office, talking about myself is in itself a big, big, step.”

  I remember thinking how fortunate it was that Marvin’s change had spurred Phyllis to change. Often therapy doesn’t work that way. In fact, not uncommonly therapy places strain on a marriage: if a patient changes and the spouse stays locked in the same position, then the dynamic equilibrium of the marriage often disintegrates. The patient has either to forego growth or to grow and jeopardize the union. I was very grateful that Phyllis demonstrated so much flexibility.

  The last thing we discussed was the timing of Marvin’s symptoms. I had satisfied myself that the symbolic meaning of retirement—the existential anxiety underlying this important life marker—was sufficient explanation for the onset of his symptoms. But Phyllis supplied additional explanations for “Why now?”

  “I’m sure you know what you’re talking about and that Marvin must be more upset than he knows at the idea of retiring. But, frankly, I’m disturbed at the idea of his retirement—and when I get upset, upset about anything, Marvin gets upset. That’s the way our relationship works. If I worry, even if I keep it completely silent, he senses it and gets upset. Sometimes he gets so upset, he takes my upsetness away from me.”
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br />   Phyllis said all this with such facility that I forgot for a moment the great strain she was under. Earlier she had been glancing at Marvin every couple of sentences. I wasn’t certain whether it was to obtain his support or to reassure herself that he could tolerate what she had to say. But now she was engrossed in her own words, holding her body and her head absolutely still as she talked.

  “What about Marvin’s retirement disturbs you?”

  “Well, for one thing, he feels retirement means travel. I don’t know how much he has told you about me and traveling. I’m not proud of it, but I’m having a lot of trouble leaving the house, let alone traveling halfway around the world. Also, I’m not looking forward to Marvin’s ‘taking over’ the house. For the last forty years he’s run the office and I’ve run the house. Now, I know that it’s his house, too. It’s his house mainly, you could say—his money bought it. But it’s very upsetting to hear him talk about remodeling rooms so he can display his various collections. For example, right now he’s trying to get someone to build a new glass dining-room table which will display his political campaign buttons. I don’t want to eat on top of political buttons. I just fear we’re heading toward trouble. And——” She stopped.

  “You were going to say something else, Phyllis?”

  “Well, this is the hardest thing to say. I feel ashamed. I’m afraid that when Marvin begins staying home, he will see how little I do each day and lose respect for me.”

  Marvin simply took her hand. It seemed the right thing to do.

  In fact, throughout the session he remained deeply empathic. No distracting questions, no jocular clichés, no struggling to stay on the surface. He reassured Phyllis that travel was important to him, but not so important that he couldn’t wait until she was ready. He told her explicitly that the most important thing in the world to him was their relationship, and that he had never felt closer to her.