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This message has been edited. Last edited by: LadyGrey,

((((LG))))

I don't know. Do you think she loves you?

My T told me he doesn't love me. He loves his dog but not me. But he cares about me more than he cares about his dog.

Anyway, though, I do FEED "loved" and that is good enough for me regardless of what he calls it.

Do you feel loved by your T?

Nice to see you!

Liese

Hi LG,
It's good to hear from you but not that you're hurting.

quote:

So when I read that I felt all warm and fuzzy but then after about a minute I felt very uncomfortable...and then I felt a little sad and then even angry. Instead of hearing, "I care about you" I hear, "I don't love you". Instead of hearing "I wish so too" I hear, "yeah, but that will never happen, I already have a child...".

LG, could it be that when you get this from your T, it evokes the grief and pain of not having this from your parents? That the hurt and anger are about what your parent's didn't give you? As important as it is to receive care from our Ts, it's not enough to make the loss we experienced with our parents disappear. I have experienced the confusion many times of realizing that even getting what I want can evoke painful memories. The contrast between what we are getting now and what we didn't get then, can just hurt.

And honestly, I know your T is saying "care" but I have no doubt she loves you. They just have to be careful to not hold out the promise of something that it's impossible to provide.

AG

LG - I struggle with this same thing. Either I hear things my T absolutely isn't saying and would never mean, or else I hear only what he's not saying, see it as avoidance of a sort. I understand. I wish I could invent some sort of emotional ear transplant surgery.

quote:

And honestly, I know your T is saying "care" but I have no doubt she loves you.

I definitely agree.

That just melted my heart, LG. Your T is such a sweetie, and clearly does love you very much.

That is so sweet, LG. Your T really does love you. Embarrassing as it is, my T will offer text-hugs and holding hands with the little parts kind of as a visualization that the connection isn't broken between sessions. It is embarrassing, but also very touching that he expresses still feeling connected in that way. It's wonderful to me that you are able to experience a sense of connectedness in that way, especially working at such a distance from your T. ((((LG))))

Good to hear from you LG I'm glad you are feeling your Ts love

That is just beautiful LG. Just beautiful.

LG: Thank you so much for this post. I have been going through the same thing. Once my T used the word love, then, but things shifted somehow, we seem less close and now he he preferrs the word "care" over "love". It surprised me how much that hurt. I think he figured that the time has past for him to build trust with me and now he can do the "real" work. Now I feel that just like anyone else, the more someone knows me, the less they like me let alone love me. That's why I don't like deep relationships and thought that I did not like the word love either. But it does hit us somehow. I would like to believe in it, but I'm not sure I do.

So I brought my own "stuff" into this, but I get it, I think... Is it almost the same thing?

Yakusoku: We used to text green hearts- to represent non-romantic love. When he stops sending those, I feel it.

quote:

And honestly, I know your T is saying "care" but I have no doubt she loves you. They just have to be careful to not hold out the promise of something that it's impossible to provide.

Probably the same emotions, but love is such a tricky word, isn't it?

Green hearts to all.

And WHY is "tough love" an acceptable term, but not "love"?

If you can't love me, don't give me the "tough love" crap. I ain't buying it!

Sorry, Lady Grey, I missed this post and have only just read the whole thread now.

I feel cared about by my T. I have never asked him if he loves me, only twice asked if I am in his heart and he always says yes, of course and it is said so lovingly.

I think he loves me but he never uses the word love. I would have to ask directly.

They can get a bit twitchy about the 'L' word. I have not told him how much I love him. I have not even told him that I feel loved by him. [I wrote it down but he has not read it yet... he often does not read what I type out for him. ]

So I don't know, we need love and we need to feel important and that we matter - and really we need to be loved. how awful can that be, really? I don't think it is awful at all.

I would feel a little rebuffed and a wee bit put down if my t said he cared about me but could not say he loved me. I feel he loves me - so I guess I shall just have to smile at the conventions of therapy where often we are loved but they are not allowed to say so.

((((LG)))))

So glad you finally feel that love. What a nice feeling. Nice to see you around.

HUGS,

Liese

I think the reason some T's don't like to use the word "love" is because the client might interpret that as "need." Sometimes I think we really want "I love you" to mean "I need you." But our T's cannot need us because then it turns selfish and we get hurt. My T did not say "I love you" to me in the beginning of our therapy relationship, but now I hear it from her fairly often. And yet because of other things she says, I know that she does not need me. She loves/cares as an act of service to me, not to serve herself.

So I think the question, for me at least, is why do I want my T to need me? Is it because it would feel like I had more power in the relationship? Is it because I would feel any more "special" then?