The Doctor is in

    Once my therapist asked me, "Do you know what is the biggest sorrow I have to help my patients overcome when they see me in here? I shook my head while I blew my nose for the tenth time. "Regret," said Dr. Steinberg as he slowly took his glasses off in his usual calm manner. Dr. Steinberg became my hero; after all he saved me from prolonged unnecessary grief and not in the most obvious way.  

    I think I believe in different dimensions now and somewhere in dimension city at the corner of misery and oh, why did I stay with him, I would still be married with my ex-Sean. Back then Dr. Steinberg was our couple therapist, our last attempt to fix our messy marriage in name of our daughter and all the years together. 

    Dr. Steinberg had been seeing both of us separately at his office at Mt. Sinai Hospital for months. He was the closest to a spiritual therapist I could think of, with all the impressive needed academic degrees of course. At this point and even though I was still so hurt I was genuinely trying so hard to mend things with Sean. Dr. Steinberg and I were discussing the reasons why I was so determined to fix my relationship with him, aside from the obvious reason, our daughter Amber. I was pulling reasons out of my brain and watched them come out of my mouth as fast as I could make them up. Like a train trying to stay in its rails, shaking and tumbling, almost falling out of its base. 

    And before that train crumbled down a tall mountain, Dr. Steinberg stopped me abruptly with a statement I will never forget. “He is still seeing her,” he said. I froze, my mind froze, my brain froze, my bones froze, my heart stopped. “What?” I replied, my mind was going in all directions. And silence followed, I couldn't process it, it took me the whole ride home to understand what he said. 

    And then I thought of him, my therapist, was he so disgusted with my then husband that he could not bare see me making the huge mistake of staying with him? Not to mention breaking his patient confidentiality rule with Sean. I thought immediately about the risk he was taking by telling me this. But he did, thus saving me from the most feared feeling to overcome, regret. 

    Dr. Steinberg saw me as his daughter I guess, perhaps from another dimension. And one does anything for their kids, even trying to save a doomed marriage, even breaking the rules. That is just what we do.