Should She Rat Herself Out?

Therapist Lori Gottlieb has returned from vacation. Yesterday, she offered the following letter, a cry for help from a patient who apparently cheated on her boyfriend three years ago and who has been wracked with guilt ever since.

She calls herself, “Holding a Secret:”

I’ve been engaged for six months now. My fiancé and I have been together for six years. We’ve built an amazing life together, but I have a really dark secret I’ve kept from him.

Three years ago, I had too much to drink and made out with a former professor in a bar. Ever since, I feel taken advantage of. I was drunk to the point that I wasn’t thinking clearly but looking back, I wish I had told him no. I never told anyone about this incident but am currently working through this with a therapist.

I’m confident that revealing this to others would cause a lot of chaos in my life. This guy is a big-deal professor at a big-deal university. He is married and has kids. I feel strong in my ability to deal with this by not burdening others with this information. This is the first “adult” problem in my life, but it’s hard for me to move through life knowing how scary and complicated the future will be and how there are so many shades of gray in a world that is dictated by black-and-whiteness. My guilt is all-consuming, and I feel like I need to shout from the mountaintops that I’m a bad person and need to be punished.

I guess I’d just like some reassurance that good people can do bad things and can come back from them. But is believing that a cop-out for bad people?

Gottlieb rightly says that we do not have enough information to draw conclusions, but we do have enough to make a few observations.

First, and most obvious, what does she mean when she says that she made out with a former professor? Is this a euphemism for fellating him in the restroom? Gottlieb seems to think that they kissed at the bar, but I doubt whether she has tortured herself for three years over a stolen or even consensual kiss.

Second, as for the secret… a mildly astute observer would have noted that if she was making out with the man in a bar she was doing so in public, not in private. At that point, the discussion of secrecy is misdirection. The real issue is not what is in her mind but what someone else might have seen. And what that someone else might or might not mention to her fiancé. If, however, she blew the man in the restroom, then only one other person knows what happened. How much can she trust the professor in question? What if she runs into him and his family while she is with her fiancé? What about her friends? One finds it difficult to believe that she never confided in any of her close friends. At that point, the information is in circulation and she does not control who exposes what to whom. HS mentions that revealing the secret to others-- NB, not one other-- would cause chaos in her life? But, if it happened in a bar and if the man in question has already mentioned it to others... then it is a lot less secret than she thinks.

Third, the issue less concerns guilt than the threat of exposure by third parties. HS mentions that she might or might not tell someone else, the man’s wife, about what happened. But this also suggests that someone else might tell her fiancé what happened. We do not know whether or not the man has told his wife and whether said wife might want to avenge herself on the college student who tried to seduce her husband. Somehow or other Gottlieb misses these points.

Fourth, HS talks about the experience in terms that hint at something like an assault.  Whatever else does it mean when she says that she should have said No? Said No to what exactly: did he grab her and kiss her? Did he drag her off into the restroom? Did he stick his hand under her skirt? Anyway HS felt that she had been taken advantage of. To my jaded ears it does not sound like making out in a bar. Then again, was the make out session in the bar something she wants to repeat?  Has she chosen to marry the wrong man? Should she have tried to break up the professor's marriage? As for her need to be punished and her allusion to  third rate BDSM novels, perhaps the issue involves her kinkiness. Does her fiance know that she lusts for bondage? 

Fifth, in this as other similar circumstances, “the better part of valor is discretion.” I am on the record. I do not believe that anything can be gained by her telling her fiancé. Again, this depends on what happened. If she was assaulted her fiancé might decide to take revenge on the man. If she kissed a man at a bar while in a drunken stupor her fiance might still feel that she has betrayed him. The rule I apply in such cases is that if she does not tell him it did not happen and is not relevant to their relationship. If she tells him then it becomes a central fact in their relationship. HS says that telling him would be damage her relationship… so, she should shut up.

Sixth, HS says that she is working through the issue with a therapist. Big  mistake. Doubtless the therapist is not telling her what to do or what not to do but therapy is built on the model of the confessional. It takes it as an article of faith that being open and honest and shameless points you toward mental health. These are built into the therapy model. Therapy will produce a mental conflict between  knowing what she should not do and therapy’s push in the opposite direction.

She has written to another therapist seeking help. She knows that therapy is hurting her and threatening her impending marriage. She wants to hear from another therapist that she should say nothing. And yet, her problem is that if this fact becomes exposed by someone else, against her will, then what should she say to her fiancé.

If you miss the fact that this might all be revealed despite her… you have missed the point of the dilemma.