Therapy saved my life when my marriage fell apart

My MArrIAgE was falling apart and so was I. We’d been married for 25 years and it had indeed been a bed of roses, full of painful thorns which were not easy to untangle and separate from, but nevertheless it was happening. ‘you better talk to someone,’ said my erstwhile husband as I sobbed, ‘because I can’t help you any more’. He was off and I was on my own.

However, he was right. I did desperately need to talk to someone, so a friend recommended a therapist, who agreed to see me on the basis she would farm me out to someone else if she didn’t think she could work with me.

I felt as though I was on sale- or- return and was braced for another rejection as I climbed the many stairs to her consulting room — a crushed, discarded, middleaged woman, full of shame and self-loathing.

I disliked her on sight. She was older than me, calm and posh, and resembled a rather stern headmistress in a Fifties school where they played a lot of hockey. What would sweary working-class me have in common with this woman?

And yet I sat down in the intimidating chair, looking at the couch where other patients chose to lie, and spilled my guts.

By the time the allotted 50 minutes were up I wanted to stay there for ever.

Thankfully, she said she thought we could work well together and we made another appointment.

Despite my initial reluctance I left feeling all the things good therapy is supposed to make you feel — held, contained, safe and, most importantly, heard. She listened to me and didn’t judge.

She helped me arrange my thoughts and tamed them. I walked in hating myself and walked out thinking that maybe I wasn’t quite so bad after all.

I think we all want to be liked. When your partner — your best friend, the person who once upon a time agreed to love you warts and all — decides that actually, on reflection, you might be a bit too warty for him, it destroys your confidence. I felt like a pariah.

But lest you think I had not contributed to the destruction of our marriage, let me disabuse you of that idea. It was an even match. Well, maybe Nadal versus Federer, with me being the Spaniard. So I did not feel likeable at the time.

I found that one of the most lifeaffirming things about therapy was the acceptance. I told this woman the most heinous things I’d done, I scraped my shame up and served it to her on a not-verysavoury plate. And yet, I still felt she liked me.

I liked her back. Sometimes she’d tell me exactly what she thought, not all of it honeytongued, but never judgmental, never critical, never belittling. Just straight.

I have never had unconditional liking, let alone love, in my life, and it was a new thing not to have to earn or cajole, or beg to be liked.

I was myself, stripped back to the bone, and still she made me feel accepted. So yes, I paid to feel

liked once a week. It was worth every penny. Some women have their hair or nails done. I go to therapy. There’s no contest. At least I never have to listen to anyone telling me what they did on their holidays.

Some people talk about therapy as a confessional and, for me, there was a strong element of that at the beginning. To be able to say the unspeakable.

But therapy doesn’t offer atonement. you don’t go off and say a few Hail Marys and feel relieved. Therapy offers understanding, from both the therapist and yourself.

Does it change anything? Well, it helps you to forgive yourself and others, and to understand why you have reacted in certain ways to certain circumstances. It saved my life.

I still see her twice a month, and have done, off and on, for the past ten years. Sometimes we just talk about books. We laugh a lot. I still cry. Sometimes I feel myself reaching for the invisible glass of wine as though I’m chatting with a friend. I can honestly say it is the most nurturing relationship I have ever had in my life.