A Slip with an Email

By J Jones

A symptomatic Freudian slip is made by a lady - we will call her Mary. In short, she complains her husband is cheating on her. In fact, she is not so sure he is cheating, even though, listening to the advices of her family and friends, she followed her husband and caught him with a woman, an office colleague. However, her husband denied having an intimate relationship to the colleague, claiming they stuck to innocent conversations. But he gradually became very cold and distant towards Mary, asking her imperatively to believe him; otherwise their relationship might come to an end.

Mary went and she is still going through desperate situations - on the one hand she accuses her husband and on the other hand she is no longer sure of her judgment, if he really cheated on her or it was, as he claimed, an innocent happening.

In this indecision state she went to a psychiatrist and got a treatment which, according to her statement, helps her in no way but gives her a persistent sleepiness state.

By coming to us she hopes to get an advice that could calm her down. She is currently leaving with her husband.

But the answer we sent her come back to us. The cause? Mary's email account does not exist. To be more precise we should say: it exists but she made a mistake when writing it down. Why? Obviously, in order not to receive our answer. And why not to receive our answer when she actually requested it? Simple, because Mary suspects what answer she will get and she disagrees. Her own judgment tells her to be at least reserved towards her husband, to keep her mind clear and her critical sense awake - on the other hand, she still feels emotionally bounded to him. The solution of this conflict between reason and emotion is exactly the slip - the mistake in writing correctly the email address - which inclines the balance towards emotion, towards the emotional solving of the situation.

Of course Mary does not want to lose her husband, even if he cheats on her, or maybe this is exactly the reason why she does not want to lose him. Moreover, we can suspect her of a major jealousy complex which amplifies her need to keep the husband close to her. Having no additional data about our correspondent's personality we cannot decide if our final conclusions are confirmed. However, the explanation of the faulty act remains, and this obviously has no fault.

<- Previous              Next ->

<= Back to the Freudian Slips section | Techniques

or to the Index Page