[quote=sunrise;1302964]Maybe let his actions speak louder than the words, which you have trouble accepting. From time to time I seek "evidence" that my parents loved me. I go over situations from my childhood, looking for shreds of actions that must "prove" they loved me. I try to compile this evidence into a heap in the hopes that the shreds will all add up to a significant mound and then I will have the evidence I need. I'm not saying this is a healthy thing to engage in, LOL, but from what you have written here on PC over the time you have been in therapy, you have so much "evidence" that he loves and cares deeply about you. Oodles of evidence. So maybe you can rely on all that evidence instead of what your T "says" directly to you, from time to time, about his love. Maybe his words themselves need not be that important since you have your mountains of evidence.

This is off your main topic a bit, treehouse, but could you explain more about talking "in" the attachment vs. talking "about" the attachment? Do you mean that when you talk "in" the attachment, you are being close and connected and having reciprocal interchanges and really "getting" each other, but yet you are not talking about how connected you are, how you care about each other, etc.? And then talking "about" the attachment would be talking overtly about your connection, caring, love, etc.? It's like talking "in" is more like engaging and being, whereas talking "about" is more direct and "meta", i.e. let's talk about we're both experiencing here in therapy with each other rather than just experiencing it?

It can be hard for me to handle when he says really nice things to me very directly. I do better when we are illuminated together in soft, reflected light rather than when he shines the bright light right on me (I get kind of blinded). When he is really direct like this, I try my hardest to sit there and take it, and not immediately try to deflect the light by minimizing his words or changing the subject. It is really hard to sit there and take it!

sorry, not real versed in doing the quotes, and off the subject tree, but "how do you take it?" When t says really nice things to me i often sit and wonder "how can you just f**king sit there and lie to my face, and this is after 10 years with the same person...but a little tiny piece of me wants to believe what he says so much, but don't want the pain if he is just lying