Hi Lady... I felt I had to reply here because I can relate on two levels. The first is that I have not told my dh that I am in therapy. I have a few reasons. First because he does not really believe in therapy and thinks it's pretty much a lot of just talking and BS. The other is that I want this for myself. I want to be able to have this time for ME and I don't want anyone clouding it or ruining it for me like I know he would. He would want to know everything I told my T and if I didn't tell him he would start acting all weird on me. Or he would judge me in some way for going. And I would feel that I HAD to tell him what I talked about. Now that I'm in therapy, it would be even harder to admit because I am also now so lost in transference with my T. This is hard enough to keep to myself without him knowing about therapy. Yes, it's a tangled web but I know that I am less inhibited with my T because no one really knows that I see him.

Now...I had a session where I needed to make a decision about something and was struggling so I brought it to my T. I needed to talk about my feelings and emotions related to this decision and he seemed to just want to write things down, make lists and act all analytical and detached about it. I kept trying to talk about emotions and he was writing away and being pragmatic. His behavior infuriated me and after awhile I just shut down. He was not getting it and I just gave up instead of calling him on it. I stewed about it all day and that night wrote him a scathing email accusing him of all sorts of (unfair) things.

He emailed me back totally shocked at what I had written and told me I should come in to talk to him about it the next day because he had no idea I was so upset. When I saw him he was visibly concerned and confused by what had happened. I accused him of acting like a "male" and not understanding or not even trying to see what I needed. He said I should have stopped him and told him what I needed from him. Of course by this time I was also feeling sheepish because I had realized that my anger over this was coming from the past and I was not really angry with him but with how some adults in the past had ignored and/or betrayed my needs at the time.

So what I'm saying is that because of that what happened during that session when I felt he was being too analytical and practical we had a very deep, wonderful, clearing the air, very connected session which set the stage for a lot of exploring of other issues. So it all turned out really well. The key is to be courageous enough to look inside yourself to see why you had that reaction and also to take what you learn back to your T and discuss it openly and honestly. Despite my transference love for my T I seem to have no reservations about confronting him on things that bother me. I would guess this is a good thing because I don't let my feelings for him interfere with the therapy we need to do. And he is always very responsive and accommodating to me. And he never seems to hold a grudge LOL. Of course, he is not supposed to either!

On a funny side note... the other day we were talking and he was trying to keep everything I was saying straight and he smiled at me and said "well I would have written it all down except that I don't dare pick up my pad any more" I had to laugh at that because I knew what he was referring to. I told him that I'm over that now and he could feel free to jot stuff down whenever he needs to... but that if I feel upset by it I will just tell him.

Just thought I'd share.

TN