I think you're putting more in there than might actually exist, Wepow. He says he doesn't have the ability to answer the email but that is not the same as not having the ability to want to go the extra step. . .

I understand writing to T and wanting T to reply. That's straightforward and there's disappointment when T doesn't reply. But there's nothing wrong with wanting T to reply or in feeling disappointed if T doesn't reply. But what the disappointment means to us, is personal, not about T's replying or not replying.

If T hasn't the experience/time/ability to answer the email, that is about T and we have to accept that; for example, my parents decided they could not afford for me to take flute lessons in 6th grade. But where we go with our disappointment of T not answering is all us. Deciding that my parents didn't want to afford flute lessons for me in 6th grade is something completely different; is making my parents decision about how much money they had/didn't have and how it had to be apportioned in our family, personally and blaming my parents for my disappointment, instead of accepting what I want and was not able to get for myself at this time.

Yes, I was a child and did not have any understanding of money and my parents finances, was only concerned about what I felt I wanted at the moment. But life is like that throughout, we don't always get what we want. I think it's even less easy when we're adults to come to grips with that than when we're children because it appears more black and white when we're children. I had never specifically heard of a flute when it was recommended I have lessons on it; had never actually ever seen one so my "wanting" to be in the band was really about other things; about being selected after a test, being special. I know now that if I'd really wanted to play the flute I could easily have gotten books from the library about music and that instrument, would have paid attention two years earlier in 4th grad when we had recorder lessons, etc. but I was a child and did not see those connections whereas my parents did.

I think when working with T, we have a great deal that we don't see, just like when we were children but that T might see, just as my parents must have. In addition to truly not having the money (there were 5 children in my family, my stepmother made a lot of my clothes, etc.) they saw more of my overall life (my 4th grade inattention/failing at recorder lessons) and made a "better" decision overall.

However, I didn't know any of that and didn't feel like their decision was good, etc. When I was 38, I found a clarinet teacher and bought a clarinet and had one-on-one lessons and, guess what? I didn't practice, didn't try very hard, didn't really like playing a musical instrument, just liked the "idea" of playing a musical instrument. The good thing that came out of it is I quit resenting that my parents had "held me back" by not letting me take flute lessons in 6th grade, that their decision 26-27 years earlier had been a good one for both them and me.

If T did/does answer your emails every time? What do you learn or take away from that? What happens when there is no more T? What happens when no one else is that deliberately consistent. Parental consistency is good because it provides the "good enough" parent, not the "perfect" parent. Consistency is not every single time, but enough times to form a pattern. Our parental SO's were consistently abusive so that we view them as "abusive". But they weren't abusive all the time; they weren't perfectly abusive.