Michelle reached for a tissue from the box next to her, handed it to her twice-weekly client, and waited as she dabbed away the evidence of her sadness. Shayla sunk lower in the couch, framed behind her by abstract prints on the wall of the Lexington Avenue offices where Michelle ran her psychology practice. “What is it that bothers you most? Is it that he slept with another woman? Or that he slept with her someplace where you did in the past? Or is it something else?”

Shayla bit her lip and looked away, perhaps not wanting to deal with the something else possibility that had brought her here in the first place. Not that it was her fault that her husband had a dick that needed to be locked up and sent straight to jail for its one eye that wandered ALL. THE. TIME.

Shayla faced a different set of challenges, and that’s what Michelle needed to help her with. She gently prodded her client, who sat frozen like a statue, her jaw set hard, as if she needed to hold all her fears inside. “Or is it because you think it’s your fault that he isn’t faithful?” Michelle asked cautiously.

“It is my fault,” Shayla squeaked out, insistent. “I haven’t wanted to have sex ever since we had kids.”

“And you think that makes it your fault that he’s cheating on you?”

“Isn’t it?”

Michelle shook her head. “Of course it’s not. He’s responsible for his actions, and only you can decide if you want to hold him accountable for them. But we also need to keep getting at the root of the why for you. We spend a lot of time focusing on him and his actions, but we need to dive into why you don’t want to have sex with him. Because you lost interest well before he started cheating on you,” she said. That’s why Shayla was here, to focus on her own intimacy issues, since that was Michelle’s specialty—helping patients work through relationship challenges and fears of closeness. Shayla’s were compounded because her husband was an ass. But first things first. There would be time to deal with him later.

“Let’s talk about why . . .”

Forty-five minutes later, Michelle flashed a small smile at Shayla, pleased that her client was making a modicum of progress. Some days, progress was glacial, and sometimes it was cheetah fast. All that mattered was that Shayla seemed to be moving forward. Michelle said goodbye to her, then checked her schedule for tomorrow on her laptop. It would be another full day, with a new patient appointment, too. The evening ahead of her was packed as well—she had a presentation to give at a sexuality conference, sharing some of her findings with other psychotherapists on sex and love addiction. She had experience in that area, having helped guide several patients through the throes of addiction and into recovery, and the president of the New York Chapter of the Association of Intimate Relationship Psychologists had invited her. Carla Kimberly had been a mentor to her over the years, and had referred patients to Michelle, so it was a double honor to have been asked to speak tonight.