Dear SG,

Well, I'm glad it was helpful, but I certainly understand the difficulty. Part of my hope for my current T was that she too had 'attachment disorders' on her resume, but perhaps that comes into play in her work with kids. I don't see any sign of it being active in our therapy.

I am decided on leaving her, but not peaceful. I'm really freaked out about it, and can hardly imagine that I will be able to communicate that this is what I want. Maybe I'll post about that elsewhere but it does have a big effect on our couples work, too. We do couples work with both our individual Ts together, and my T has already changed once. To keep this arrangement, which really helps to stabilize the couples work because my husband has a lot of difficult trusting someone he doesn't know, I have to find another T within the same practice. And there are of course limited choices. I can have the very young woman, who I decided not to go with when my last T left, or I can have a male T, also younger than I would like. I think I will try the guy, but I am scared about that. IF in the best case scenario we get along, I suspect it is going to kick up a whole lot of triggery crap for my husband to have a male T in the room who knows me and is there as my support/ally. It could really seriously destabilize things.

But the current arrangement is not okay for me. Last week in our session my T actually violated my confidentiality by saying that I felt a particular way - drawing on information (that I believe she misunderstood) from our personal work. The misunderstanding irritated me, but I didn't even get the confidentiality aspect until she apologized in our personal session. At the time I said 'well, it didn't sit well with me because of xyz, but it worked out ok so I'm ok'. Over the last couple of days I've watched that info play out in our relationship in really unpleasant ways, and it just adds to my sense that I really can't work with her.

I also think that since last week, when I decided for sure that I couldn't go further with her, I have been feeling isolated and despairing about my relationship and my ability to make it work, and that is really helping things to divebomb too.

But hope and strength - yes - may they come to us from somewhere!

Jones

Hi Echo,

Thanks for what you said...you are right, he is CBT (it says that in his profile, too, along with attachment theory). And on one hand, I'm glad he is. Sometimes the only way I can change something is by taking baby steps to do it differently...and getting different results...which feels different...which makes it a little easier to do next time...rinse and repeat 1000 times. A friend of mine used to say "I can't think my way into a new way of acting...I have to act my way into a new way of thinking". That is my understanding of CBT. And I've used it before under other "labels" so I know it works, at least with some things.

But along with that were attachments to some pretty important people...and that's where the deeper changes happened and that's what made it all "stick", so to speak. None of this was formal therapy, but when I read about attachment theory, and particularly General Theory of Love, I recognize the dynamic. I know that I experienced limbic connections with people that profoundly changed me.

And I think THAT is what I'm searching for in therapy...and not finding. That is what I want from our T. But it's asking a lot. I never asked for it specifically before...when it happened before, it felt like a gift. Sometimes I wonder if it can even happen if I'm asking for it or looking for it too hard?

Maybe that's what I need to look for in those profiles. I'll try searching for "limbic connections" on Psychology Today and let you know if I find anything.

By the way...I'm really, really sorry, I seem to have buried your small post earlier in this thread with all my stuff. You had asked how do you know when it's depression and when it's the marriage. How are YOU doing?

Hugs,
SG

Dear Jones,

quote:

Part of my hope for my current T was that she too had 'attachment disorders' on her resume, but perhaps that comes into play in her work with kids.

Ah, yes, that is what I've thought about our couples T, too. They do lots of kids and family therapy at that clinic. And on his website, when it talks about the Circle of Security, it is all about kids. Which is good...it has got to be MUCH easier and more beneficial for everyone to correct the attachment patterns at the earlier ages...it makes sense that there would be much more untangling to do, trying to treat adults for it later.

I am so sorry for the misunderstanding and confidentiality breach with your current T. And also for how it seems to have altered the trajectory of your work with her so that it's no longer going in the direction it needs to go...please forgive me for somehow assuming that your leaving was peaceful. I can really see the bind you are in, having to stay at that same clinic, and trying to pick the next T, who will not only be a good fit for you, but also for your couples therapy. Egads.

Please keep us updated as to how it goes ending with her and starting with the new T...I'll be thinking of you and hoping for strength and clarity and progress all around.

SG

SG - Nothing to forgive - you picked up on my sense of resolution about it, which did sound like peacefulness. Thank you for the good wishes, dear SG.

Echo, I echo SG's question - how are you going? I wish to high heaven I knew a way of figuring out what was my stuff, what's his, what's ours. It's enormously difficult to know whether all this effort is ever going to be worth it.

J

This is an old thread we had way back last year- but I thought I'd bring it back up and reread it, to get some perspective on my therapy situation, and see if I've made any progress, or if I've gone backwards. It's just for, if anybody wants to post anything here, or just re-read- I hope it is ok that I'm doing this.

BB

Thanks, BB! Good idea.

I noticed that some earlier post that were deleted so if anybody wants me to go back through and delete anything that I quoted from you just PM me and I will immediately-, or if anybody needs to delete anything yourself, please go ahead with out guilt! I hadn't thought about, that it might feel unsafe for some of us to bring some of this out at a different time than it was posted, due to being in different circumstances than we all were last year.

H is an @$$. So, I didn't want to be intimate last night, because of my recent flashback stuff, which has happened the last three times. I basically didn't say no, but when he asked if I wanted to, I said, "I will if you want." He said he wasn't angry, but he was so frustrated, he was acting a bit like a kid who had his ice cream stolen. Whatever. I can't lie to him. Then, I had a horrible night's sleep with tons of nightmares about my phone session. In the morning, my sister (who is staying with us) was nice enough to get up with my daughter. When H got up and let our daughter in, I was laying in bed reading the forum here on my laptop (because I saw some posts on my phone last night at band practice I wanted to reply to), and she apparently said, "Hi, Mommy!" several times before I heard and responded. I'm a dissociative reader, I admit it! So H starts tearing into me about how I'm ignoring him and our daughter for this "stupid forum." I won't deny I'm on here a lot lately and not as available as I used to be. I tried to point out that he has spent years on his own forums, on video games, etc. ignoring both of us and that it wasn't intentional and I was sorry, but he didn't have to make me feel like a $#!+ Mom about it, because I'm having a hard enough time with that already." I think he made one of his typical comments that I should "stop being a $#!+ Mom, then" or something. Ugh.

TRIGGER for SI
And after both of these incidents (with rejecting intimacy and this argument we just had), all I want to do is hurt myself and punish myself, because even though I objectively know that I am run down and CANNOT live up to my previous standards, I really feel like the worst wife and mom right now. I can't help but internalize what he thinks about me. And it's especially difficult, because it's partly true and I don't know where that truth ends and I begin to just believe hateful lies about myself.

Oh, no! I could have written every singel thing you just wrote! I have had the same exact scenario play out, in a different manner. Your H is the one who needs to change here...I know it seems paradoxical, but he needs to grow up, stop using you, and start being a man with his own boundaries and his own life. He needs to stop placing everything on you, and acting like you are his mom, who needs to take care of his needs, and start wanting to take care of some of your needs. The addiction to the forum- and all of that stuff about dissociating- my T says it is just pain, and that it makes it much worse when our spouse judges us when we act out or use addictions to dull our pain. What do you think of that statement? My T spent some time last marital session talking to my H about, that he should not judge me for my addictions to computer and to alcohol, but recognize that I wish I could stop them and lead a healthier fuller life, but that the addictions are a symptom of the pain, that he is making worse by getting angry with me. What do you think of this? I find it confusing. My H also thinks I should *just stop it.*

Ps I also have the same kind of physical intimacy issues that you do, except for the condition that your h has- only I am very scared to talk about in detail, so I won't be able to do that. But you are not alone.

Well, H struggles with putting some things in his brain that he shouldn't (which probably makes some conditions worse). He has battled with it and hid it off and on throughout our relationship. He's working on it with T right now. But, his thought is, "If I have to control my addictions, so do you!" Like, it's not fair he doesn't get to indulge in his garbage and I can just suddenly fall apart after being so reliable for so long.

You can ask him to at least keep working on forgiving you for your addictions, while you promise to keep at least working on forgiving him for his? Maybe.

I mean- he needs to accept that he has wounded you deeply, and try to find an attitude of repentance for that wounding inside. Not just you- he has to do it too. But it's difficult, and exhausting and painful work. It should be the same for him, as you. Not just you carrying the whole burden. but both of you sharing it. So says my T anyway.