TRANSCRIPT 2.
Sydney Cleary and Curtis Lowe, Couples’ Counseling Session
Ellen Dwyer, Psychologist, PsyD
Ellen:
Curtis, do you feel comfortable telling me how the infidelity happened?
Curtis:
I work in property management. Commercial leasing. I don’t normally handle clients, but we were short-staffed. And this was a big deal. It was a lot of money. So, I was spending a lot of time with this woman—
Sydney:
Her name is Collette. You can say it.
Curtis:
We’d finally closed on a location, and we cracked a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. Collette had some party drugs. MDMA, I think. I don’t normally partake, but I’d been under so much stress. It just sort of… happened after that.
Ellen:
Was it an emotional affair?
Curtis:
God, no. I felt nothing for her.
Sydney:
He seems to think that makes it better, but I think it makes it worse. If he had real feelings for Collette, maybe I could understand why he’d betray me. But this was just careless. And cruel.
Ellen:
It’s not uncommon for men and women to view the emotional component of an affair differently. Men tend to feel that infidelity is more forgivable if there are no feelings involved. Women are more likely to feel it’s justified if there are. Was the relationship ongoing, Curtis?
Curtis:
No. It was just one time. Just one huge mistake.
I was drunk and high—I know that’s not an excuse, but it feels like it wasn’t even me in a way.
I know what I did, and I take responsibility for it, but if I was normal, if I wasn’t so fucked-up, I would never have risked my marriage.
I love Sydney so much, and I could lose her.
Ellen:
You seem very committed to this relationship. How do you feel, Sydney?
Sydney:
I don’t know… I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.