Mouse, for me the financial pressure is not what I am paying for therapy. I do pay 100% out of pocket, but am able to manage that once a week, at least for now. The question my T asked is "when do you want your divorce to be final?" My answer is by the end of the year. That has big financial consequences for whether my daughter can get financial aid to go to college (if we're married for even one day next year, the colleges will count my husband's income toward her support in college). It seems kind of mercenary to set a timeline based on this, but getting aid would be huge for her, for example, perhaps by letting her go to a 4 year university instead of a 2 year junior college. And since I want the divorce anyway, why not shoot for that timeline, which would have a huge benefit?

Echoes, I think I felt the change in our sessions was due to now we have to buckle down and work on the nuts and bolts of divorce if I am to make the deadline. T and I have worked a long time to get me to see that I have been in an abusive relationship for many years, and I finally have dropped my head-in-the-sand denial on that. For me, that has helped open the way to moving forward with leaving the relationship. But it still is not easy or straightforward. But still I want to be done by the end of the year. Just don't know if I can do this. So quickly.

I really wish I were stronger and not so scared. How do you conquer fear? I think that is what I need to work on now. How to not be scared. T has said before I am frozen or stuck because of unresolved trauma from childhood abuse. So then I face the need to go back and deal with childhood stuff. But I have the need to deal with present stuff too. And I just go back and forth in therapy. Sometimes it just seems like I am on a see saw. Past present past present. It's not that I don't want to deal with childhood issues, and we have done some good work on that, but my self-imposed end of year deadline looms (just want to make clear that I chose this deadline, not T). Even if I just want to work on the present stuff so as to make the deadline, the fact remains that I am terrified.

So sorry everyone if this is too much information. Thanks for reading.