“I think I do. I have some of them working on business development, and others focus on appraisals. A lot of them are getting stretched because I can’t double-check all of their work like a large corporation might. Some like that freedom but others get freaked out by it. I enjoy watching them discover something new about themselves and then I just make sure they stay on track. Yeah, you could say it’s rewarding.”
“And all of them are full-time advocates for S&S?” Ray pointed out.
“Yeah, I think so. I sure hope so.”
Taking a soft, slow turn Ray steered Stephen into the more personal depths of what motivated him, “So how does Sarah feel about S&S?”
“She gets it. She’s on board.” Stephen said flippantly.
“And you guys get along fine despite the hours away?”
“Yeah, of course. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We’ve had our problems before.” Stephen admitted, “Plenty of times in the past where we struggled to stay in the same room together without breaking into a cage match.”
“But better now?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Getting better. I think we’ve come a long way. I’m not really sure what happened or when it even happened but at some point, it seems like she just really started to be my fan again.”
“Out of the blue? What did that do for you?”
“I’m not sure I’ve thought about that before. It just sort of happened one day.”
“Then this may be a good time. How does it feel to have Sarah as your biggest fan?”
“Honestly, it makes it harder for me to get mad at her. I think I did start to realize, a little while back, that there were times I was just looking for a fight. It used to be that I would have this whole plan of attack ready to go before we even started arguing. So I’m ready with an arsenal, ready to unload on her. Then it was like, I would say something and she just didn’t respond the way I expected her to.”
“She was calm? More calm than you were expecting?”
“It was crazy. Like from one week to the next, it was all different. She stopped blowing up, she stopped accusing me of things, she just… I don’t know it was like she started appreciating me again; I think. We’d just talk things through and if I started to get heated, she would calm down even more. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Sarah’s no push-over. She would still make her point, but it wasn’t with the anger I was used to having thrown at me. Eventually, I stopped planning what I was going to say to her. I stopped planning how I would argue, how I would attack. I just didn’t need it. I didn’t want it. I don’t know. Now, it’s like I’m doing the same thing and its… it’s good. I know it sounds strange but things just started working.”
“She disarmed you? By loving you?” Ray’s words came with a smile that revealed it was not the first time he had heard of a wife winning over her husband.
“Yeah, it sounds sort of cheesy when you say it like that… but, yeah. I think that’s pretty much what happened.”
“So you guys are on the same page, for the most part?” Ray hinted.
“Yeah, we’ve got this good little fire-team thing going, like a partnership. She had heaps of great ideas about the business; which I would’ve never even done in the first place if she hadn’t come up with the idea. We also had this big issue with the IRS going on for a while. I guess it wasn’t that big, but it was a lot of money for us. She did some research online and we figured out how to extend payments to make them manageable. Things like that.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a pretty strong partner there.”
“I mean we’re still struggling financially and all this stuff going on with the costs of insurance right now is brutal. But we’ve got money coming in the door and now we’re working together to figure things out.”
Getting the impression that Stephen’s positive words weren’t being matched by his heart, Ray pried further, “So what’s holding you back?”
“I don’t know. Sarah’s great and all, but it’s like I can’t enjoy our marriage. I’m surrounded by all this other stuff and every stress I have is just a mountain on my back. I feel like I never get a chance to finish anything I start.” Stephen conceded.
“How do you feel?”
“I feel like everything is out of order. Like I don’t know which direction I should be going in or why I’m going there. And then, if I do figure out what I’m supposed to be doing, I don’t know where to start. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I need to run, run away from it all. I mean, I’m not the kind of guy who would leave his family or toss out his responsibilities, but there are so many times I feel like I’m failing and I just want to quit and run away.”
“Would that fix anything?” Ray challenged.
“I don’t know, Ray. But that’s not a real scenario, I know that. The real situations are the ones like Hailey’s health and my marriage. And both of those are going pretty well now.”
“But you don’t feel like you can fully appreciate that, can you?” Ray asked.
Stephen looked away and murmured, “I just need to keep a handle on things and it’ll be fine.”
Ray could tell Stephen didn’t fully believe the words he was saying. He wanted to, but Ray had seen several people who said they knew their life was great. And more than a few of them washed those great lives down the drain because they couldn’t grasp the joy right in front of them. He could see talking about Sarah was a challenge for Stephen. Their relationship was improving but it was pretty obvious that Stephen was having a slow time adjusting to Sarah’s new approach. She was taking huge strides in the right direction, but her husband couldn’t move at the same pace. “But things really are better between you and Sarah?”
“I’m pretty sure they are.” Stephen replied unsurely.
Ray sat in silence to see if Stephen would go any further.
After a brief moment of thought, Stephen drew a deep breath and spoke again, “It’s me, isn’t it? I mean the issues that are still there between Sarah and me. I’m the problem, aren’t I?”
Ray gave him an out, “Don’t push it. These things can take some time. You both want the marriage and you’re willing to work for it. Just let it happen.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” Ray didn’t want to overwhelm with his words, “Well, let’s just say there will be times when it’s best not to talk so she can see how you’re really feeling.”
Stephen grunted, “So what am I supposed to do? I’m not much for expressing my feelings to begin with, how am I supposed to do that without talking?”
“Stephen, in those times just hold her. Just hold her, man.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll see about that. So what do I do, you know, for me?” Stephen asked somewhat sheepishly.
Encouraged with the way their brief introductory session had gone and concerned to not push his new patient away, Ray decided to hold off from exploring some of the lingering effects of Stephen’s darker struggles. He felt confident they could journey down those roads in their next sessions, extremely confident there would be another session. “You need time.”
“Time?” Stephen replied, lacking any confidence.
“Time. And maybe something else.” A thought formed in Ray’s mind that brought a grin to his face. “You say you feel like running away, right?”
“Well, I feel that way sometimes. But it’s just a feeling. I wouldn’t ever abandon my family.”
“Right. What if instead of running away from something, you ran towards something?”
“Okay, but running towards what?” Stephen requested
“Stephen, in the Army you had a mission, right?”
“Of course.”
“In the Army, you were told exactly what to do, when to do it and where you should be when the mission is complete.”