This is feeling complicated, and it's hard to tell from so far away if it's the good kind of complicated that leads to deeper work and understanding by talking to him about it openly, or if it's the kind of complicated that changes things once exposed--because I think I understand that you don't want the connection to go away, you just want to feel that it's not going to cause harm?

I wish I could offer some good insight into this. My therapist does quite a lot for me, but none of it feels out of the bounds of therapy or is about her feelings of needing anything. It would be really hard to bring up if I thought she was doing things because of her own needs and I called her on it--that feels risky because I wouldn't want to lose the connection--but it does seem to be the best way to sort it out.

So...is there a way to enter into this conversation with him by making it about your need not to be a caretaker? Because maybe this is re-enacting a pattern and is not about him specifically or anything he is acting out. In that case, talking about and clarifying that you don't have to look after his needs and can still benefit from a close connection, would be really valuable. Or maybe it really is a combination of the two--your synergy together--in which case, you've both got to figure out where to go from here. The main thing is that you can't absorb all of this on your own.