I shall call her Leah. She is an old friend of the family, a respected healthcare provider, a much-loved figure in her world, and my newest, most interesting dilemma.
At the tender age of 19, she got a job working for my father-in-law at his private medical practice. She was just a receptionist. Fast forward nearly 30 years and she is now one of the physicians in the very same practice. She put herself through medical school and made a significant contribution to my father-in-law's practice all at the same time.
I met her just a couple of years after my husband and I first started living together. I remember conversing with her briefly at our wedding, and being pleased at all the nice things she had to say about my new husband and his family. Over the ensuing years, I learned more about her and who she was to the family and business. I grew to respect and honor her as a woman and friend. And then, my husband took over the practice.
Suddenly, I discovered things about Leah that blew away all my previous perceptions of who she was. She began to engage me regularly as a friend and we would go out together to bond. These experiences left me more and more uncomfortable and bewildered. The truth about Leah now completely infuriates me, distresses me and breaks my heart. I am in a true quandary. What shall I do with this information? How does this affect the new stresses within my marriage. Did she play a significant part in the demise of my husband? If so, how can I continue to let her get away with it?
The first sign of danger came one night when Leah and I were together at dinner. It was just the two of us and we were ranting about my father-in-law and his impending retirement from the practice. She professed how much she would miss him. No surprise there. I knew and understood how close they had become over the years. Then she said something that shocked me. She described my father in law as being "everything" to her. She said, ".... he is my father, brother, teacher, student, friend, lover, confidant, etc..."
The word that gave me pause was, "lover." WHAT?!?!? Had she had a sexual affair with my husband's father and just admitting it to me now? I pressed her by uttering some questioning over the use of the word, "lover." I said, "... when you say, "lover," surely you don't mean it in a literal sense??" I asked with the overly polite tone of incredulity that I thought would evoke the expected denial and reassurance of fidelity on the part of my father-in-law.
What she said next, changed my world.
She said that although the relationship never became sexual, she is without a doubt the closest person to my father-in-law in the world. She bragged that he shared things with her that he would never and has never shared with his own wife. She essentially assured me that she is the number one, emotional and intellectual soul mate of my father-in-law's life. She was so proud. She was so confident and at peace with everything she was saying.
Undoubtedly, she assumed that I would understand and even be pleased, since it was my mother-in-law after all that was on the losing side of this scenario. My mother-in-law, whom I have had the typical conflicts, and have expressed as somewhat of a nemesis. I'm sure that it never occurred to the irrepressible Leah that I would take the position of the betrayed wife, rather than the victorious daughter-in-law with something finally on her hardest won fan.
I tried to express my dismay through the airwaves. We were in a public place and it was a restaurant that she frequented. She was well known and loved here, and my suddenly throwing a drink in her face would not have gone over well. I uttered a few words like, "... how is that even possible?" But, she did not pick up on the emotional cues that were practically vibrating all over me. That's when I realized, she can't empathize with me.
All this time I had assumed that she shared the gift of empathy that made my father-in-law such a superb doctor. He could literally feel the air pressure around you and figure you out in seconds. Many times I observed him with my children and could see how he would skillfully attend to their needs as if he was in their heads. I note this only because connecting with my kids is a skill I thought I alone possessed. Yet, here he was connecting and understanding my children in as much an intimate way as I could - as if he too gave birth to them.
I knew that this was his gift. Why he was so good at what he did and why he was so loved and admired by his patients and co-workers. He is a gifted empath. Empathy is a skill I have honed only now in my last couple of years, in order to be a better mother. I could see that empathy was a tool that my father-in-law employed to gain the wisdom, trust and expertise it took to diagnose medical conditions.
Empathy was something very clearly lacking in Leah. She was almost like the character Dexter from the popular cable series. Dexter is a sociopath that intellectually decided he would try to blend into normal society. He lacked the empathic/sympathetic connections that most normal people have. However, he was unusually clever at intellectually calling upon the proper behavioral responses to appear normal to other people. A true sociopath.
Leah is a sociopath. I only uncovered this trait because of the series of interactions I've had with her in which I try with all my might to express emotional distress while presenting a poised front. Most people would see right through it, and some more sensitive people would feel the same distress I was feeling. She felt none of it. She only reflected the arrogance and confidence that she THOUGHT I was feeling at her revelation.
What the hell am I to do with this information? It is critical for my husband to know what is up. Does he even have a clue or will he be the next "victim?" Will she commandeer his loyalties away from me in the same insidious way she had with my father and mother-in-law before us? Am I too late?
In the next blog. Leah over steps her bounds.
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