Separate Hours - Excerpt

THE STRUCTURE OF BEHAVIOR

As a psychoanalyst, I am a profound believer in middles, in the life itself. Beginnings and ends are the stuff of fantasy. I once imagined that if I ever wrote the story of my life I would begin by saying, "Call me Shrink," a remark which offers the form of a joke without its substance and so disarmst her eader by its foolishness. Someone so ungarded, someone toard whom you feel immediately superior, cannot be other than trustworthy. Watch out for me. I am full of tricks.

The aetiology of my condition was arrogance. I was, let me confess, overwhelmingly content with my life-with my career as analyst, with my brilliant and beautiful wife, with my precocious daughter, with my elegant West Side brownstone. I floated in the ether of contentment. Routine sustained me. So many hours a week of private practice, so many hours at the hospital, so many hours teaching a course at the unviersity, so many hours with my family, so many hours writing my book. I was occupied from morninig to night with matters of consequence. Let me say itn ow-it will not come out soon enough-my wife Adrienne (my former wife Adrienne) is also a therapist. IT gave us a common language, a common point of reference. I liked that, had come to it by premeditated choice. I had a companion with whom I could share the things that mattered, I thought, most to me. We had as good a marriage in our way, as intimate a friendship, as anyone we knew. We got along, didn't we? We got along famously, performed our roles with impressive conviction. I remind myself that this is the account of a man who saw only what it suited him to see. We had the appearance, the illusion, of a happy marriage.

In taking you into my confidence, I am playing a kin dof confidence game. I want you to perceive me as a trustworthy witness, someone who will tell the truth even to his own disadvantage. My sanity has been thrown into question by Adrienne's opposing version of our shared relaity. I leave it to you: which of us is unable to separate reality from wish. If one of us is telling the truth, the other, says reflex, is an extraordinarily persuasive lunatic. I begin with my first meeting with Adrienne.