Your T comes BACK from vacation?

I am having a really difficult time lately when my T comes back from being away. Yesterday's session was a disaster for me and I'm struggling today to make sense of things. I know the obvious triggers but you would think I that after almost 4 years I would handle this more smoothly with less angst and anger.

when I began seeing my T he explained that he takes a week off 3 times a year for vacations. He said he does not believe in long T vacations because it's too disruptive to his patients. And so I adjusted to his week away. He was usually able to get emails at least and he was open about telling me where he was going. He would usually be away in March, July and October. There was a rhythm to this and I worked around it with the timing of hitting more sensitive topics. It was just a normal vacation he took like everyone else.

But things have changed now. He takes monthly vacations of 4 days (one of those days is my Monday session day) and he goes to his house in another state involving a plane flight. I believe the house was inherited by the wife from what he said. It's in a very affluent, scenic area of that State.

This seems to have triggered all sorts of angry, fearful feelings in me and I'm not handling them. He has tried to get me to see that no matter where he is the relationship does not change. That he is the same person he always was and that he does not change and that I still exist when he is gone and of course I can always call him or email him if I need him. None of this is helping me get past my really bad reaction to dealing with this.

It just feels more threatening because he keeps going to the same place... his other "home". So much nicer than being here with some crazy patients. Why wouldn't he just stay there and never come back? It's all set up to live there permanently so why not? At the same time I worry about all that flying around. It also brings home to me that he lives in another "world". The world of happy people with can jet around and fly off to vacation spots at the drop of a hat to hob nob with the people who live SO differently than I do. How can he begin to relate to my struggles and issues when he has NO idea how I live? What I deal with day to day? It makes him feel more remote from me and I cannot reach across the huge divide that is becoming wider with each trip he makes.

Then he tells me I should be glad that he has a place to go to re-charge his batteries so he can come back and happy and ready to go with me and his other patients. Yeah so why does he now need monthly re-charging when it was 3x a year before and should I be worried now that he is getting burnt out? is sick? or has other stuff going on that I don't/can't be aware of?

So yesterday I see him and he is about 3 shades darker than I have EVER seen him before. It just freaked me out because it is now a visual difference of who he is. He is usually very fair skinned, even in summer. I kept looking at him but it was not him that I was talking to and so I shut down and the session was a mess.

I did not feel this way before he left but I think I was in denial at the time and refused to deal with the feelings bubbling around inside that he was leaving .... again. I told him that talking to him seemed a waste of time since he leaves then I go on my once per year vacation then he leaves again and with all the disruption it seems pointless to try to do any work in therapy.

How do you react when T leaves and then comes back. I know so many of you deal with very long separations and I'm sorry for that and feel stupid even complaining about this but it causes reactions in me I don't seem to be able to control at this point.

thanks for understanding.
TN