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CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?
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INTRODUCTION Today, we’ll tell the story of how Elena met Mike and how they arrived at the point they are today. ELENA'S TURN, Part One: “Here I am, almost two months pregnant, and so depressed and scared I don’t know what to do,” says Elena, twenty-four, a tall, slim brunet whose eyes flooded with tears as she spoke. “I just don’t know if we’ll make it to our third anniversary. “I think our problems started when we moved to New York City from Florida two years ago. Never in a million years did I think I’d end up living here. The city has always scared me. Plus, my whole family is in Florida, and I’m very close to them. To leave them was the most emotionally trying thing I’ve ever done. My parents were political refugees from Castro’s Cuba. My father, who’s fifteen years older than my mother, was raised in the old ways. There was no doubt that he was the head of the household and mother put him on a pedestal. Even if she didn’t agree with him, she never said so. Dad’s word was the law. In Cuba, he was a highly respected doctor, but when he moved here, he wasn’t allowed to practice. The only work he could find was as an X-ray technician at a hospital. My mother’s family, also from Cuba, were aristocrats. Here, Mother worked as a domestic to help support the family. My husband, Mike, comes from a very affluent family and, from my point of view, has always been pretty loose with money. Not me. My family was poor, and I was always babysitting or working at the local fast-food joint to bring in whatever I could to help out. Still, it was a happy life, and I knew I was loved very much. I was the baby—a good ten years younger than my two brothers—and the light of my mother’s life. When I entered my teens, though, this idyllic relationship began to change. I began to question everything my parents said and did. Whenever I tried to be independent, Father would cut me off. He’d yell first—wild tirades that shook me to the bones. But worse, he’d shut off his love. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak to me for days.” DR. EVELYN MOSCHETTA: Once again, we see how childhood relationships with parents and family have an impact on us as adults. Elena’s earlier experience of her father pulling away from her emotionally, his love conditional on whether she obeyed him, is beginning to trigger anxiety in her marriage today. She can’t help wondering to herself, If Mike and I don’t agree on something, will he turn off his love, too? DR. PAUL MOSCHETTA: As a child, Elena, like her mother, revered her father and put him on a pedestal. As she got older, however, she understood the imbalance in her parent’s marriage and was determined not to replicate that in her own. Nevertheless, now it appears she has.
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In New York City (212) 319-1808 |
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