I will start by saying that in 1.5 years, T has only been late for a session once, and in that case he apologized appropriately and offered to add the time on to the end of our session.

I usually show up at T's waiting room right before my session, partly because of my busy schedule and partly because I don't want to see T's other clients come out of the room. But lately I have been trYing to get there earlier to center myself. On Friday, when I got there, I could hear T and some woman laughing together. This went on for several minutes until, right at the hour, she came out. She smiled at me and walked out the door, clearly not in any great distress.

I was expecting T to come to the door to bring me in, since now it was my designated time for therapy. But instead, I could hear him moving around inside his office for several minutes. When he opened the door, it was about 4 minutes after the hour.

When I sat down, he did not apologize. So I pointed out that he was late and that he is not usually late. He acknowledged that he was late by "about 2-3 minutes" but did not apologize.

It is days later and this still bugs me. I understand needing to go over with a client who is in great distress, but this woman clearly was not. From the sound of it, they were having a great time together laughing. And I know that a few minutes late is not a big deal, but I feel like given how absolutely punctual T normally is, the fact that he was late and did not acknowledge it until I brought it up is out of the ordinary for him.

And, I will say, that even though my session that followed was highly emotional delving into trauma, he made sure I was out the door before the hour ended.

So, yeah, I am angry and hurt, and also jealous of this other client. I hate feeling these feelings and it makes me want to distance myself from T.