MKAC.................you don't me know me but I have followed your story off and on. A lot of what you have shared in the past has helped me quite a bit with my relationship with my own T and I value that so much. How long have you seen your CT?

Of course in the end you do whatever you feel is best. I honestly think you are running from a great opportunity. It took you a long time to build up what you have with CT, a lot of risk on both your part and his part. You are mistaken when you say he doesn't love you or that you are not special to him. It is possible for a T to love someone and keep them as just a client............simply because if he didn't keep you as a client it would change the dynamics of your relationship and thus hurt your ability to further heal and make changes. He means a lot to you, from what you have shared, and I believe you mean a lot to him as well. He took a personal risk to share his feelings about you, with you, knowing it would help your therapy along...........which it did. My own T has done the same with me and as someone who has intimacy issues myself, it has made a world of difference.

I know it is hard to reconcile the money stuff. I think your T didn't handle that in the best way. However, your PT is wrong when he says your intimacy issues will not surface there. It is impossible in my mind for therapy to work(unless you are not wanting to deal with the intimacy issues) unless I mean something to my T and vice versa. My T's willingness to talk about his feelings for me has made all the difference in the world to my therapy. I believe your CTs willingness to do that with you has as well. He will let you email him(as you don't abuse it), he has discussed extremely personal things with you that other Ts would run away from because I believe he knew it would be beneficial to your therapy(like whether he found you sexually attractive and the whole I love you thing).

You have said you will only remain "just a client" to him. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by that............but it sounds to me like you are feeling vulnerable in the relationship and that with your past experiences may be clouding things a little? Which is a wonderful opportunity to explore all of that in therapy(even though I know it is super scary and hurts like hades).

Honestly I would urge you to stay with CT. I was lucky enough to find one like yours for myself, although he doesn't share the looks of John Stewart, and his willingness to openly talk about "our relationship" has done wonders not only for my therapy but all the other relationships in my life as well. I have never experienced anything like it, not even in my very long marriage, and sometimes we just need to go with it and not overthink things too much.

Good luck in your journey and thanks so much for sharing, I really can relate and I wish you all the happiness and success you deserve.