Long story short, my T promised that she would never abandon me. She nearly broke that promise a couple of weeks ago -- she told me that she “couldn’t do this anymore.” But then she changed her mind, and now she says that she “isn’t going anywhere.” But she won’t PROMISE, like she did before.

She says that she can’t make promises like that to me because it would constitute “taking me in as family,” and she can’t do that. She “has responsibilities to her family.” She says that she screwed up when she made that promise to me.

But she also says that I need to learn to accept that these things happen in relationships. People make promises, wanting to be able to keep them, and then they aren’t able to, and they end up breaking their promises. It “isn’t humanly possible” to always keep your promises – and she wasn’t being malicious; she made the promise because she really wanted to be able to keep it.

It sounds to me like her basic position is that, because she is human, she will inevitably end up breaking some of her promises, and if I want to have a relationship with her, I need to learn to accept that – and that acceptance will allow me to have better relationships outside of therapy, as well, because I will be able to tolerate people’s very human failings.

Am I wrong to expect more from a therapist? If I have “trust issues,” should I be able to expect a T to tread very carefully around those issues so as to not cause more damage? Or is that just unrealistic? Am I asking for too much?

I'm afraid to talk to T about it. I'm afraid that she will leave. And I feel like I should seek a second opinion, but I'm afraid to do that, too. Posting on here and getting feedback feels helpful...I hope I'm not annoying everyone with my posts. Thank you for reading.