Maybe "apology" isn't the right word... More like a "hey, I know this has probably been hard for you, thanks for bearing with us as we work out the kinks." According to T, it wasn't as much of a financial thing as him not wanting to manage two offices (which were in the same block, incidentally).

I honestly wonder how much of this is still me being upset that he wasn't going to tell us about his wife's death, that he would have lied about it if asked. Which I know is completely his right to do. Or at least his not really seeming to understand why I was upset about that.

And also being unsure of whether I can bring up stuff like, "You seem a bit less empathic lately" or "You haven't been apologizing for being late" or "You're suddenly adhering to the 45-minute thing, without discussing it before I got upset the one session we had to leave abruptly, when for the past few YEARS you've generally done 50, often an hour with us." When it's like, he just lost his wife, OF COURSE he's not going to be feeling and acting exactly the same. And yes, I know that's probably why he wasn't going to tell his patients (I don't know if any of the other ones know). But at the same time, if I didn't know he'd just suffered a loss, I would have assumed if he was acting differently, that it was about me (just because that's where my mind goes if ANYONE acts differently around me, including H, which drives him nuts).

Thanks, Una, for giving me something to think about--what do I really want to say here? I think what it all comes down to is fear that he has/is going to change how he acts towards us, that he's not going to be as empathic, that he's going to focus more on the clock than on his patients, that this isn't going to be some temporary period he's going through while in the initial months of grieving and adapting to life as a widow, but is just how he'll be from now on.

And all of this of course being tied up in the paternal transference...Like how my dad started acting differently toward me when my mom had cancer (she survived) when I was 12 and I started having really bad anxiety problems. I really need to talk more about the paternal transference stuff, but it's awkward sometimes with H, or I'll say a few things, then MC will be like "So how do you feel about that, H?" (as he should...), then the rest of the session is about that.

So maybe that's also what I'm upset about. I keep thinking...if I could just talk to MC about all this stuff, like whether with H there or not, whether in person or on phone, for 45 minutes, just centered on paternal transference that I'm dealing with, not H's reaction, then maybe I could manage to resolve some of this more. I mean, it's been 2 years since I initially told MC about it (and we met individually twice)--there have been brief conversations and e-mails since then, but I just want to have a real conversation about it. (He keeps saying it's fine to talk about in session, but then stuff gets derailed...I even tried to be on good behavior this past week so H wouldn't have some major thing to bring up, but I may have slipped a bit yesterday.)

OK, will stop rambling now...