I don't talk about sex too much with T, but we have touched on it here and there, like in the context of my extended relationship with my 35 year old lover that started when I was 17. I had quite a few relationships with similarly older men, in positions of authority, and in positions with supposed boundaries that somehow always got crossed. I had a history of attaching very readily to such men, and I must admit, when I first got into therapy with the current T, I had some of the same feelings come up. Here is a guy in a position of authority with boundaries, older than I am--it felt pretty natural to attach to him. Like climbing back into the saddle after all these years. (I've been married for a long time to a guy only 8 years my elder and who is my peer so have never counted him in this pattern I had prior to him.) It's not that I have a sexual relationship with T, but the attachment component felt the same to me as in these earlier relationships. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but T does not seem to like it much when I talk about my relationship with the guy 18 years my elder when I was so young. He does not encourage me to explore it. When I bring it up, he is silent. And I wonder if he is thinking "maybe if I don't respond or ask her questions, she will drop this topic and move on to something else." I am not sure why he reacts this way. Maybe he thinks it is an inconsequential topic and not what we should be working on. Or maybe he disapproves of this relationship and thinks this guy was wrong to have a relationship back then with me, a teenager. And he doesn't want me to know he disapproves. I told him once that a friend I had during this era was the first person I told about the relationship who didn't disapprove, and I really valued that. So maybe T does not want to seem disapproving to me because I've given him this strong message that I don't want disapproval. I don't know.

We've also touched on sex in several other contexts, marriage for instance. But this topic does not dominate our sessions. We have so much else to work on.