Monday. Bill and I restarted counseling today. This time with a male counselor, Phillip Beansprout, a gay male counselor. We didn’t want to explain all the secret handshakes to a straight counselor so we asked for a new one. We saw the last one tonight, Carol Howell♪ as we were waiting to see Phillip Beansprout. I felt guilty since I instigated the fact I didn’t want to see Carol again.

Bill was cool and stated that she was a professional and it probably doesn’t bother her at all. Once she got in the elevator that seemed to take a mighty long time to arrive, I felt better. The place still reminds me of a sex club, lot of rooms. A man wearing nothing but a towel wouldn’t look entirely out of place there.

Phillip Beansprout showed up and escorted us to the room through the offices. Various other therapists getting ready to see their patients, or getting ready to go home after seeing their patients. It was a larger room than the last one we had.

Bill and I sat on the couch opposite Phillip. His first question, ‘Why were we there?’ was a good one. I started off and told him why I thought we were there. Skimmed over the year and change freeze out by Bill, which led Phillip to ask Bill why things were the way they were. And Bill told him. Then I told him, then Bill told him some more.

Phillip pointed out how sensitive Bill was about things. Everyone is sensitive about certain things in their life, one shouldn’t be ashamed about them nor made to feel ashamed about them.

Phillip seems astute and pretty much in the know. The only thing that had to be explained was ‘feeling’, as in “Bill wasn’t feeling the pre-game entertainment”. Just not into it. A funny thing is the night I first met Bill and we rode the subway together, when we sat on the seat on the train I said to him, ‘I’m feeling you kid’. Here we are years later explaining to a couples counselor what ‘feeling’ means.

I clearly enjoyed Phillip more than Bill did. He did feel ganged up on but the particular problems that we are facing that caused our rift a few months ago was from his non communication in every sense of the word.

The first question asked was ‘Why were we there?’ That is the situation that got us there, non-communication. That is why we were there.

So it was a positive session for me, hopefully for Bill and hopefully for us. I think we’re going to stick with this and see where it goes.

Then there is the sullen ride home. We don’t really talk to each other until we get home.
Such emotional opening deserves some peace. This is only our second session, but I enjoy the fact that once we’re home we’re rested and able to talk about the therapy.

Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Take what you have learned and go with it. That is what we’re gonna do.