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Originally Posted by Yellowbuggy
LT, I have a question for you. But before I ask, I want you to apologize in advance if it appears as though I'm prodding you. I think very highly of you and enjoy reading your updates. Sometimes basic questions like mine may appear to be accusatory in writing, but that is not my intention. They are just simple questions whose answers will hopefully be able to advance your understanding of what's going on.
When you question why your T can't tell that you need to talk about the length of the phone call with MC (bolded above), a) what did you hope her reaction would be?, and b) what does it mean to you that he spent as long as he did on the phone with you?
You obviously wanted to talk about the length of the phone call because it was important to you. My question is... why? I think I understand why, but I'm curious if you can answer that question for yourself.
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a) Hm, I'm not sure. Maybe I just wanted to share it, and have her be like, "OK." For it to be something that I could talk about. I think it's also partly that T *didn't* want to know that made me want to tell her. Does that make sense? Like she's also making it a thing. A month or so ago, I'd told her that I'd talked to MC for 25 minutes when I'd been upset about something from session. And a couple times, she mentioned not the call, but "the 25-minute phone call." So the time seemed to be a thing to her, too. So...maybe I wanted to understand why?
b) I think what it meant to me is to show that he really cares. I think it's almost like I need proof that someone cares, that it's hard for me to trust their words. (I mentioned that in the other post too, I think.) Like, to me it's, he took x amount of his own time to talk to me. Maybe...it makes me feel like I'm more than just a paycheck to him.
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Please don't get upset at me for saying this, but I suspect your transference for MC is romantic and you are afraid to admit it to yourself and others for a number of reasons., including the fact that you're seeing MC for marriage counseling (I believe you experienced some opprobrium from members of this forum a while back for that reason). And by denying you experience romantic feelings for MC you are protected from uncomfortable feelings it may invoke.
You don't need to answer this question for me. I am nobody and I don't need to know. But you are a thinker, and I think it would be helpful for you to think about this to advance your understanding of what's going on.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. Forgive me if I am way off base. I'm just trying to help, I assure you. Sometimes being uncomfortable is an important part of growth.
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I figured this was coming at some point, as it sometimes does in threads about MC (though I guess this one was originally about T...) OK, there have definitely been some fleeting moments where it was more of a romantic feeling. Like, maybe I sense some chemistry there at times, say, when we're joking back and forth. And the intensity of my reaction when I found out his wife had died...though my mom had cancer (and survived) when I was a teen (and when my anxiety issues started), so it may have just been that it triggered feelings from back then.
But the reason I think that it's all or mostly paternal is that it seems like the feelings come from a different place. I've had romantic and/or sexual feelings for people many times in the past. I've been in love multiple times. But the stuff with MC just seems rooted somewhere else, in something from the past. Like if I feel hurt by him or even am just overwhelmed by feelings of transference, as happens from time to time, I literally feel it somewhere else in my body (like deep in my chest) than where I've felt romantic love (and I've been in deep, near-obsessive love with people before--sometimes reciprocal, sometimes not--so it's not like I don't know what that feels like). This is just some other thing entirely. He taps into something in me, filling a need, a void that seems to go back to childhood. Particularly when he's being reassuring, even just saying "It's OK."
I don't know, it's just...different. And the thought of losing him (whether by termination, death, etc.) feels more like losing a parent than a lover, like more primal. Like back when I was a kid, and my parents had me stay with my grandfather while they went on a vacation. And I was convinced they were going to die in an accident, and I just imagined what that would feel like...