dizgirl: Thank you. I know you understand! Therapy is so hard when we have the need for our T to be "more than our T". I wish I didn't feel the way I do, but I can't help it and I just have to accept it.

WePow: Part of me wants the way it was for the few emails when my T responded to everything I wrote in a different color. She wanted to do that. She's very dedicated and conscientious. I felt so, so loved when she answered my emails that way. It was the best present I'd had in a long, long time! I know it's black and white thinking, but if she's not going to answer me that way, I'd rather not have any answer at all.

But....I don't like that either. I'd be miserable with no answer. We tried that once already. It's hard to go backwards to "no response" at all. In the beginning I thought I was going to email and tell her when I wanted a response, but somewhere along the way I asked her about that. She said "I'll always respond." So for a while she answered every single email, but then she changed it to only one per week. I wish she would still answer every single email, at least briefly. So I want more than she's willing to give me.

BR: I'm glad my post is helping you and yes, I too wish we could find a happy medium!

poetgirl: I'm too weak/needy to go with no email responses from my T. I have to work on accepting that what she writes is "good enough" for me.
My former T was forever drilling it into me that I had to give up my fantasies about the t-relationship and accept reality. She made me absolutely miserable and it didn't help. I just cried and cried in my car after sessions or after a frustrating phone conversation with her. I'm convinced her methods hurt me though her intentions were good. She was treating me as a "borderline". She even told me that.

My gut feeling is that I will learn to accept the reality of the relationship because I can talk and talk about it with my T. She gives me so much of herself that I usually don't want more. I mean, it's better than with any other T I had. I'm not as frustrated because I don't have to "beg" for affection from her. I am getting a lot of what I dreamed about having from my other Ts, but never knew was allowed, like the hand-holding. That's been the most healing part for me, and we don't even do it so much anymore.