A/N: This story is slightly AR. It's set about eight years into the future. Martin and Samantha are married, but they are having problems within their marriage so they seek professional help to salvage their relationship. Enjoy!
Love and Marriage
Chapter One
"Ok. Hello Martin and Samantha Fitzgerald. What brings the two of you to my office today?" Dr. Leslie Thompson asked with a smile as she looked at the couple sitting on the couch in front of her. They were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, a fact that did not go unnoticed by her. Because of her years of experience as a marriage counselor, she noticed a direct correlation between the amount of space a couple placed between themselves on the couch and the severity of their problems. Judging from the way they were both practically clinging to the sides of the couch, she could tell that this couple was in serious need of her help.
Martin and Sam were both quiet, each expecting the other one to explain. Martin, tired of waiting for Sam to start, let out a sigh and looked at the counselor. "Well, Dr. Thompson…"
"Leslie. Please call me Leslie." She interrupted. "It's not fair for you to have to call me by my last name when I get to call you by your first name."
Martin gave her a small smile. "Well Leslie, we've been having some problems in our marriage. We thought that maybe it was time to get some counseling and try to work through them."
"Sort of like a last-ditch effort to fix our marriage." Sam added.
"I see." Leslie nodded, jotting down a couple of notes on her pad of paper. "So this is a last-ditch effort? Have you tried any other ways to resolve your problems?"
Martin laughed. "No, not unless you count denying that we even have problems."
"So this is your first and last resort?" Leslie asked.
"Yes." Sam replied.
"What happens if, through counseling, you can't resolve your problems?" Leslie asked.
"We get a divorce." Martin replied plainly, saying it the same way he would say hello to an acquaintance. It was casual and free of emotion.
"I see." Leslie looked back and forth between Martin and Sam. Their body language spoke volumes to her. Martin was sitting with his hands clasped tightly together and he had a blank look on his face. Sam, on the other hand, had her legs crossed and was picking invisible lint off of the couch. Something told her that the Fitzgeralds would be her most challenging case yet. "Well before we start diving into the problems of your marriage, I would like to get to know each of you a little better. So what I would like each of you to do is to spend a few minutes telling me about each other. So Martin you will tell me what Samantha is like and Samantha you will tell me what Martin is like."
For the first time since they came into the office, Martin and Sam looked at each other, trying to figure out what they would say about the other person.
"So who would like to go first?" Leslie asked. When neither of them spoke up, she chose Martin. "Martin, why don't you tell me about Samantha?"
He eyed Sam carefully before returning his gaze to the doctor. "Ok," he took a deep breath. "She's controlling. She wants everything to be her way and when it's not, she acts like a child. Our daughter is more mature sometimes. She's cold, she's…"
Sam could feel her blood boiling at the things Martin was saying about her. Well, she would just have to get back at him when it was her turn to tell the doctor about him—and she had plenty that she could say about him.
She saw that this wasn't going well and knew that she had to step in. "Actually," Leslie interrupted, "I was hoping that you would tell me the good things about Samantha. There will be plenty of time later on for you to air your grievances with her. Now is the time for you to tell me the things about her that made you fall in love with her."
"Oh." Martin smiled at the doctor, embarrassed, and unaware of the fact that he had hurt Sam's feelings with his earlier comments. "I guess I fell in love with her because she's strong and tough, but has a very vulnerable side to her also. She just never lets that vulnerable side show. She's beautiful and smart. She just was herself."
"You mentioned that you have a daughter." Leslie pointed out.
"Yes, Claire." Martin elaborated.
"And how old is she?" Leslie asked.
"Five and a half." Sam spoke up.
Leslie nodded. "Martin, is Samantha a good mother to Claire?"
Sam was eager to hear this answer. When they first had Claire, Martin constantly reassured her that she was being a good mother. But lately, he hadn't said anything to her—not any praise, and not any snide remark.
He refused to look at Sam while he said this. "Of course she's a good mother. She loves Claire."
Leslie was satisfied with that answer. "And Samantha is Martin a good father?"
"Yes." Sam nodded. He was a good father, when he actually was home. She had to bit her lip really hard to not take a cheap shot at him by saying that he was never around.
"That's good." Leslie was satisfied with their answers for now, so she moved on. "Samantha, why don't you tell me why you fell in love with Martin?"
Sam shifted in her seat, uncrossing her legs and then re-crossing them a few seconds later. She didn't dare look at Martin, because if she did, she was afraid that she would start to tear up. "I fell in love with Martin because he was the first man who ever seemed to really care about me. He was funny, smart, sweet, good-looking, and he made me really happy."
"And what about now?" Leslie prodded. "Does he still make you happy?"
Sam looked down at the couch, returning to her new favorite hobby of picking invisible lint off of the fabric and throwing it onto the floor. "Things are different now."
Leslie nodded. "That wasn't exactly my question though. Does Martin still make you happy?"
"Sometimes." Sam whispered softly. "But not very often."
It hurt him to hear that coming from Sam, but he knew it was the truth. They weren't making each other happy anymore. That fire that had burned between them had been extinguished until it became merely a flicker. Somewhere along the way, something had gone wrong with their marriage and they didn't seem able to fix it. So instead of fixing it, it got worse because they denied there was a problem. Now, because of the snowball effect, everything got worse. He wasn't even sure they could fix their problems anymore. But they knew they had to try, if only for Claire's sake.
"What specifically doesn't make you happy anymore?" Leslie asked, hoping that they could communicate openly about what did and didn't make them happy.
"He's never home anymore…" Sam started to say.
"It's my job." Martin interrupted. "You know how that is. You've working Missing Person's before."
"Martin," Leslie interfered. "Please let Samantha finish without interrupting her." Once Martin nodded his head to signify that he would be quiet, Leslie turned back to Sam again. "Go on Samantha."
"He's never home anymore, and when he is, he spends most of his time with Claire. Now I don't mean to make you think that I'm jealous of my daughter or anything, but he has more meaningful conversations with her than he does with me. We don't talk anymore; we don't laugh anymore; we don't…get intimate anymore."
"That's all you care about, the sex." Martin mumbled.
Sam bit her lip again and closed her eyes, trying to calm down and not tear him apart. "You know that's not true."
"Do I?" Martin asked sarcastically.
"You should." Sam replied softly.
Leslie took this moment to intervene. "Ok. So Samantha, what I'm getting from you is that you feel isolated and slightly neglected. Is that correct?"
"Yes." Sam nodded.
"Ok." Leslie then turned her attention to Martin. "Martin, does Samantha still make you happy?" Leslie could see the pain written clearly on their faces and wondered what had happened to bring them to this point. There was still love there; she could see it. So if they loved each other, what drove them apart and why did they let it get this bad? She had counseled many difficult couples before, but these two might win the prize for being the most difficult.
Martin looked at his hands, still clasped together tightly and sitting in his lap. "Not really."
Sam heard his words confirm what she already had figured out. He wasn't happy in their marriage any more than she was. A part of her wondered why they were even here. It seemed to her that this was probably just a waste of time and money. For the past couple of weeks she had toyed with the idea of just filing for divorce and getting it over with. Maybe if they broke up they could find someone else without so much baggage and start over. Maybe then they could be happy again.
Two things always stopped her from picking up the phone and calling a lawyer: Claire and Martin. No matter how unhappy she was right now, she couldn't arbitrarily ask for a divorce and break up the family that Claire had grown to depend on. She couldn't do that to her daughter. She didn't want her daughter to grow up with parents that were divorced unless it was absolutely necessary. The other thing that stopped her was Martin. As angry, hurt, and unhappy she was with him, there was still a part of her that loved him and she didn't want to let him go. She couldn't. But maybe she had to. Maybe it was time to admit that this marriage idea was a bad one. Maybe they needed to cut their losses and start fresh with other people.
"What is it exactly that doesn't make you happy?"
"She says that I neglect her, but she neglects me too. She's cold and controlling, and she's just not my favorite person right now." He exclaimed passionately.
"I see." Leslie glanced down at the notes she had taken so far and had an idea. "What would you two say about having separate counseling sessions with me in addition to these sessions? I think it would help me get a clearer picture of what's going on with your relationship if I could talk to you privately. Would you be willing to meet once a week?"
After a moment of hesitation, Sam sighed. "Sure. If you think it would help."
Hearing that Sam was interested in trying it, he agreed too. "Ok. I guess we can do that."
"Great." Leslie looked at the time and noticed that their time was almost up. "It looks like we're almost out of time. For next week, I want both of you to start thinking about exactly when it was that these problems started. I am interested in hearing both your opinions about that." She gave them each a smile.
"I'm very glad to have met both of you and I look forward to working with you. You can make appointments with my secretary on the way out for your individual sessions."
"Thank you Leslie." Martin smiled, standing up to leave.
Sam stayed behind for a moment to ask Leslie a question. "So, are we hopeless?"
"Nobody's hopeless." Leslie smiled, hoping to install some kind of hope inside Samantha. "I'm going to do everything in my power to help the two of you."
"Thank you Leslie." Sam gave her a small smile and then left the office, still not believing that her marriage was salvageable.