There were lots of arguments, sometimes quite stormy ones.

他們開始不斷爭吵，有時候吵得很兇。

When one night Johnny smashed his fist through the kitchen door,

一晚，當強尼太生氣而一拳打破了廚房的門時，

a friend suggested he might try therapy.

他的一個朋友建議他試試心理諮商。

It felt odd at first to be in a room with a stranger, who wanted nothing more than to listen to him closely.

他一開始覺得跟一個陌生人共處一室感覺很怪，尤其是那個陌生人什麼都不要，只想要仔細聽他傾訴。

She asked what the fights between him and Rachel were about.

諮商師問他他跟瑞秋都在吵些什麼。

"Oh, this and that." said Johnny.

「喔，就這個這個、那個那個啊。」強尼這麼說。

Was there anything else he was sad about in his relationship?

「那你們的感情關係之中有什麼讓你覺得很難過嗎？」

"Sad" was a useful word to use.

「難過」是個很好用的字。

It made Johnny feel that his anger wasn't some kind of horrible madness, which was the vibe he tended to get from all other observers.

它讓強尼覺得他的憤怒並不是什麼恐怖的發狂，但他身邊的旁觀者往往讓他覺得他就是如此。

His anger was coming from a place of weakness and inadequacy, which, crucially, a therapist could understand, and not immediately judge him for.

他的憤怒來自他內心的脆弱感跟不滿足感，重要的是，心理諮商師可以理解其心理現象，也沒有馬上批評他的行為。

There was a lot of sadness around sex.

強尼在性關係方面有挫折。

Johnny and Rachel had been going for months without too much of it.

強尼跟瑞秋已經好幾個月沒有正常的性生活了。

Johnny would try sliding a hand over gently, but Rachel would subtly ignore him, pretending to fall asleep.

強尼會試著輕輕的把手伸過去，但是瑞秋會巧妙地忽略他，假裝她睡著了。

The rejection was silently killing Johnny, and was at the root of his increasing coldness and snappiness with Rachel.

瑞秋的拒絕讓強尼無比煎熬，而這正是強尼跟瑞秋的關係越來越冷淡以及過度情緒化的主要原因之一。

"That must feel pretty painful to be turned down!" said the therapist.

「被拒絕的感覺一定很痛苦吧！」諮商師如此說道。

In such a sympathetic way that Johnny, who is an ex-marine, felt tears welling up.

如此有同理心的言語，使強尼止不住眼淚，即使他之前是海軍陸戰隊隊員。

Johnny began talking of his childhood.

強尼開始談論他的童年生活。

He'd grown up in Texas and had never known his father.

他在德州長大，沒有見過他的生父。

His mother had been beautiful, volatile, and an alcoholic.

他的媽媽非常美麗、善變，而且酗酒成性。

He always had a sense that he was a burden to her.

他一直都覺得他是媽媽的負擔。

He'd been a chubby boy, slow at school, shy at home.

他身材偏胖，學校課業表現不佳、在家裡又很內向害羞。

When he was fourteen, she'd left him in the care of her sister, and had gone to live with a lover in Chicago.

他十四歲的時候，他媽媽把他交給她的姊姊撫養，自己跑去芝加哥跟愛人同住。

Johnny and his mother rarely saw each other now.

強尼跟他媽媽現在很少見面了。

Beneath Johnny's outward strength, not far beneath, was a sense he was unacceptable to the core of his being, unable to sustain even his own mother's interest.

在強尼強壯的外表下，其實藏著一個它的存在無法被接納的感受，連自己媽媽的關心都得不到。

The feeling of self-loathing and shame was easy to reawaken.

自怨自艾跟羞愧是兩種很容易被喚起的感受。

And Rachel's sexual disinterest played right into it.

而瑞秋在性方面不斷地拒絕就是喚起這兩種感受的元兇。

The problem was that Johnny wasn't good at translating his hurt into anything another person could understand.

問題在於強尼並不善於以他人能夠理解的任何方式表達他受傷的情感。

Let alone sympathize with him for.

更遑論有人能夠同理他了。

We tend not to be endeared by people who'd call us rude words and break furniture; however, vulnerable they might be feeling inside.

我們並不容易去喜歡一個滿口粗話並會損毀傢俱的人，不論他內心到底有多麼的脆弱。

Rachel had come to see her boyfriend as a bully, not a hurt, lost boy.

瑞秋慢慢地覺得她的男朋友是個霸凌者，而不是一個受傷的、迷失的男孩。

Though that was, beneath it all, perhaps precisely what he was.

雖然在強尼的外在行為之下，他或許正是一個這樣的男孩。

The therapist suggested something as basic as it was brilliant.

心理諮商師告訴強尼一個非常簡單卻有效的作法。

Rather than trying and failing to have sex,

與其不斷的嘗試再失敗跟瑞秋做愛，

Johnny should tell Rachel a little bit more about what it felt like to be him, when his hand laid rejected, untouched by her in the bed.

當強尼的手不斷被瑞秋拒絕，只能躺在床上的時候，他應該多告訴她一些他的感受。

Most importantly, he had to stay calm when he explained himself to her.

最重要的是，他在跟瑞秋解釋的時候必須要保持冷靜。

On the basis that, unlike when he'd been young, he now had agency, and choice, and a possibility of maturity.

基於他不像小時候，現在的強尼有行動力、選擇權以及一個心理成熟的可能性。

Put like this, Rachel understood at once.

強尼如此跟瑞秋說完後，瑞秋馬上就懂了。

She didn't have some macho guy at her hands; she was picking up on echoes of a lost, scared boy, whom she actually cried for when it was explained to her like this.

她理解到她交往的對象並不是那種大男人主義的男朋友；她面前的是一個失落的、害怕的男孩，強尼跟她娓娓道來的時候她甚至還哭了。

It wasn't that Johnny and Rachel immediately had sex all the time.

強尼跟瑞秋並沒有在解開心結之後真的每天做愛。

Rachel's job often left her not in the mood.

瑞秋在工作後往往沒有那心情。

But the meaning of lack of sex changed between them.

但是他們彼此間沒有發生性關係的意義改變了。

Rachel understood how Johnny might interpret her tiredness, and took steps to reassure him of her basic love for him.

瑞秋知道強尼可能會怎麼解讀她當天的疲倦，所以用其他方式來表達她對強尼仍然保有最基本的愛。

Johnny better understood why rejection had a habit of stirring up such uncontrollable hurt in him.

強尼更加了解為什麼拒絕（特別是性方面的拒絕）常常激起他內心那種無法控制的傷害感。

Johnny gradually lost the old sense of helplessness.

強尼漸漸的不像以往那麼無助了。

"She isn't my mother, and I'm not a little boy at her mercy!" he stated one day in therapy.

「她不是我媽媽，我也不是需要她憐憫的那個小男孩！」有一天諮商的時候他這麼說。

And it felt like the most obvious and momentous of points.

而這正是最明顯卻又關鍵的癥結點。

Johnny took on board what belonged to the past and what belonged to now.

強尼理解了哪些東西是屬於過去的他、哪些屬於現在。

The therapy lasted over a year.

他們的心理諮商持續了超過一年。

Johnny and Rachel are going to be married soon.

強尼跟瑞秋很快就要結婚了。

The School of Life offers therapy in person or over Skype.

人生教室透過當面或是 Skype 的方式提供心理諮商。

Click here for details.

點擊這裡獲得更多資訊。