Frankly, I don't have an agenda. I am not out to get you. I feel empathy for you, and if you think that is presumptuous, then so be it, I don't care, because I'm not feeling empathy just to spite you, or even for your sake, I just do.

I see the little party lines here. I recall a lot of the threads on this subject and how it has been playing out on this board. Well, let me be clear, none of that matters to me and I have no intention to play a part in it. I am not in any camp. I have no agenda other than my own desire to grow and share that growth.

You know, deep down, I still probably love my ex T. I try to rationalize it and change it and reframe it and whatever, but emotionally it doesn't change, even after she shut me out without any lasting recognition of two years' worth of enactments, I still love her, and she still has a deep place in my heart. Not that she would do this, but if she called me today and said she needed me, let's run away together, I would find it really hard to say no--no questions asked, even though it would be totally irrational and reckless. I felt more alive with her than with anyone ever. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm also realistic now about what it means for the fate of a therapy relationship when it is, to some extent, reciprocated.

But the truth is, I wanted more from her than therapy. I wanted that emotional enactment, I sought it, and also acted it out, whether deliberately, knowingly, or unconsciously. This was not a narrative that she did to me, I created it with her.

By going to a therapist, and paying for a therapist, but then also longing for more than a therapist in her, and actually treating her as more than just my therapist, I became more than a client. We developed a dual relationship in the confines of her office. The one relationship was all the things we said, and the other relationship was all the things we thought, and dreamed, and fantasized about, and ruminated on, but were too afraid to say. Those things leaked into our actions, but we did not acknowledge them for so long. Well, the purpose of therapy is to say those things, and by not saying them, I was seeking Not Exactly Therapy. If I don't believe I am really paying for therapy, I will not act as if I am really getting therapy, and in return, I will not get therapy, and that will be all my money was worth to me. There are plenty of Not Exactly Therapists who will gladly take my money in exchange for the Not Exactly Therapy I am willing and wanting to pay for, and they will enact my feelings with me, and not really do the best job of therapizing, but bottom line is that if that's what I expect from them, it's what I'll seek out.

If I wanted Real Therapy, I would accept that I have to be willing to say the things I'm not saying, and give up on the fantasies, and I would have said them much sooner, and the reactions of a Not Exactly Therapist would be not good enough for me, and I would move on and find a Real Therapist.

All of this was within my control. That's just my situation. But in any situation, there is this interpretation, where you create your circumstances, and life is uncertain, and risky, but with risk comes reward, and creativity, and the potential for growth. With certainty and guarantees, on the other hand, comes stagnation, and inertia, and loss, because certainty and guarantees do not exist, they are a fantasy.

In my situation, too, there is the interpretation that because my T was not acting in the full capacity of a Real Therapist, the blame lies with her.

But in reality, if she had been a Real Therapist, what would have happened? She wouldn't have escalated the boundary crossings, and I wouldn't have felt special and loved and wanted, and I would have not developed my feelings, and I would have thought, "therapy is boring, I already know all this stuff logically, I just don't think this is for me." And I would have moved on. Or otherwise, I would have kept going, not knowing why or what I wanted out of it, and she would have felt unable to help me make progress and referred me out, before there was any emotional involvement in the first place.

So there are two black and white interpretations, a) the therapist is entirely responsible, or b) the client is entirely responsible, and neither of these are true. Both the therapist and client are responsible, but I am the client, I am the factor that is in my control, and more importantly, I am responsible for finding a therapist who IS responsible, so really I lean more towards b, even if it is not absolute.

What my Not Exactly Therapy taught me was that I want two different relationships, instead of a dual relationship. I want a) Real Therapy and b) real, healthy, functional, loving and mutual relationships outside of therapy. I would never have figured this out, on an emotional level, if I hadn't first experienced the Not Exactly Therapy, the transference enactments, and why they were bad for me. Even if I knew what the books said, I had to make the mistakes to learn from them.

I can tell myself, oh, the therapist acted like more and less than a therapist to me, so she was awful and wrong and caused this pain.

But that's not true. She did not cause the pain. The pain, my pain becoming applied to this situation, was caused by my own cognitive blurring of the therapy and the intimate relationship. I want her to love me AND be ethical. I want her to want me AND protect me. I want her real feelings AND to not get hurt. I was the one who set the trap in my therapy, with my own expectations, because when she failed on either count, in my head I turned around and recriminated her with the double standard. When she was being my therapist, I internally blamed her for being secretive, and when she was transparent and emotional, I internally blamed her for not being my therapist. So anyway, I ultimately got exactly what I was asking for, which is also the only thing I would have accepted at the time, even though it was guaranteed to hurt me in the end.

But even if I never faced that pain in therapy, it was already hurting me unconsciously, it had a grip on my behavior for my whole life until it became conscious, because I was avoiding situations that would bring it back into consciousness. It was always there, limiting me, and I was already always suffering for it. T did not create the suffering, she just forced me to recognize that it was there all along, bring it back into consciousness and try to find a resolution this time.

How can I hold my T responsible for my suffering? She was doing the very best she could. These feelings are intense and overwhelming and hard to sort out. She was trying so hard to do the right thing and she still "failed" because, though I was trying my best, too, I was unintentionally also setting her up to fail. It is mutual. It is karmic. You get back what you put out there, and no force in the world can protect you from yourself. That situation doesn't look the same for everyone, but I believe the underlying principle is always true and manifests in its own way.

Respectfully, budfox, I am not at all implying that this situation has anything to do with you. But, if you can take something from it, that would be cool too.