I am a big advocate of working with the transference. It certainly has helped me understand a lot of "irrational" feelings and actions of mine.

But transference operates throughout our life, not just in the therapy room towards therapists. I'm guessing you may have strong transference reactions to your husband. Who is he, in the transference? If you have "snippy" feelings towards your spouse, what could be the origin of those feelings, if you looked at it from a transference perspective? And what if you were as interested in thinking about and analyzing reactions to your husband, from a transference perspective, as you are the transference with your marriage counselor?

I know, personally, that in my own marriage counseling, I had moments of conflict where I was reacting in a transference way, strongly, to both my husband and the marriage counselor. Both of them, in my mind, were replicating transference roles from the past, ones that had been linked together in the past and now were once again, in my mind, coming to life in the here-and-now of the therapy room.

I don't know you, obviously, and there's so much about your life and relationships I don't know. But what sticks out to me is that, in your early life, there was a triad (you, mother, dad) and you felt excluded (secrets, etc., your dad's hurtful comment).

Now there's another triad. What role could you be playing now? What role could your husband be playing?

Transference can be so tricky. As we re-enact the past there can be what someone called a dizzying constellation of transference reactions, where people take on this role and that one as we try to exert control over what were once uncontrollable events. I know, from my own therapy, it is relatively easy to understand when I am playing the child-like victim in the transference, the one who feels abandoned and needs love and care. It's a whole lot harder for me to see when I can be taking on the persecutor role in the transference and treating other people in the same way that people once treated me. Nobody likes to see themselves that way.

I'm not saying that's the case for you--I don't know you! And I hope you don't take any offense. I know you from all your posts to be very thoughtful and so I hope you can take this in the spirit that it's meant, just some thoughts on transference in therapy and relationships from someone who has struggled (and is struggling) with all that herself.