Transcript:

September 17, 1962

 

Dearest Sylvia:

The thing that has thrown me off is the paid sessions idea. Also, your previous distress letter did not reach me at once, as I had gone for a month’s vacation.

I have thought alot about your difficulty. I just don’t see you as a second Caitlin. I much prefer your 50-yr. image with wisdom and blue hair. Now then, the problem is: am I being consulted as a woman(mother)(witch)(earth-goddess), or as a mere psychiatrist? As the latter, I could properly only explore your feelings, and invite you, in the light of whatever was discovered, to make your own decisions. But my 3rd ear tells me I am also wanted in some other role, if not actually one of those parenthetically suggested. Also, in spite of much effort on my part, I am totally unable to function solely as a psychiatrist in this crisis. Too much of my own past, too much of my feelings about my mother, my sister-in-law(my brother having left her), my every personal experience, plus my general beliefs about women, their status as it is, was, has been, and should be, enter into whatever I might say to you. I cannot pretend that my viewpoint is objective. Frankly, I am furious at Ted. You thought you had a man, and perhaps you do, but he is certainly acting like a little child. No mature person makes wild talk of jettisoning everything and starting over every few years. This is an abject confession of the inability to give up anything. It is the child in the toy-store at Christmas who cannot choose, but has an inconsolable tantrum because he cannot be given everything In spite of your denials (search your soul and call me wrong if you can), neither you nor I feel that we have exhausted the possibilities of growth, pleasure, sense or sensibility by settling on one man for “life”. But we are mature enough to realise that to have ANYTHING, one must choose to give up MOST THINGS, or one ends up with NOTHING. It is that simple.

Now, for the immediate. First, middle and last, do now give up your own personal one-ness. Do not imagine that your whole being hangs on this one man. I know that one of the forms of greatest happiness in life for a woman consists in finding the one man in whose basket it is safe to put all one’s eggs. I also know (but Ted apparently does not) that this may also be the highest form of happiness for a man. But it is not the only one. If you permit yourself the “all is lost” attitude, you throw away all other possibilities. Remember, every day has choices, some optional, some not. Just don’t get out of the driver’s seat in your own life. Has he left you? OK, sad, tragic, stupid, unfortunate, anxiety-provoking, BUT NOT THE END. There are other ways of life, which may or may not involve another man. This doesn’t matter. Feel yourself out, and then go on where your instincts lead you. At this moment in life, you are married to a man in crisis (as I see it, an identity crisis, a crisis of maturity). You help neither him nor yourself by going down in a whirlpool of HIS making. Decide what you will put up with and what you will not. Stick to it. Don’t be anyone’s doormat. Do your crying alone. Hold your head up, and your heart will follow. I know that if he loses you or throws you away he is a damn fool. He may or may not recognize this, but for your own sake and that of your children he had better. The psychiatric pitfall that I see is your succumbing to the unconscious temptation to repeat your mother’s role––i.e., martyr at the hands of the brutal male. If he really needs a succession of two-dimensional bitchy fuckings, let him have it. Set your conditions (quietly, in your own mind). Get a good lawyer, make him feel the bite of responsibility for the children (BUT NOT FOR YOU) in his pocketbook. stand back and be an old-fashioned lady. If he is a boor, throw him out. If you happen to want to go to bed with him, do. If you want to, but his conditions of indignity or implicit servility are degrading, RESIST THE TEMPTATION).

It seems that perhaps your first choice (your first giving up of other choices, actually) may not be turning out well. Do not forget that this was not your only choice. I have said everything I can think of that might be useful. Write again. The paid business is (not silly) but irrelevant. If I help you, it is my reward. I would love to have the dedication to RB. I have often thought, if I “cure” no on else in my whole career, you are enough. I love you.

Good luck––   Ruth B.