Una - you'd make a good defense lawyer. But given Skies' history with this therapist previously, I think he's exactly the type to do something he knows he can get away with in most peoples' eyes ("he's running a business!") but that he also knows will hurt her. Win-win for him.

Also I think stopping making excuses for poisonous people in one's life is a good sign. When I stopped doing that for future ex, I could move on (or I suppose I could have chosen to stay with no scales on my eyes). And I'm not sure I could have gotten to that point without listening to my feelings, or observing the larger pattern. It's like, individual events, good and bad, are trees, all the events together are the forest.

Elio's right, maybe there's some kind of transference and sure, that's worth looking at. But does the presence of transference exculpate bad behavior in the other party?