I had my first session back with T yesterday, after a 3 week break. It was OK. Just OK.

He seemed to want to go through the littany of events of 3 weeks. I didn't. Things that happened a couple of weeks ago are old news to me, I dealt with them, I can't even remember the associated feelings.

I feel "us" slipping away. These days, he seems so much more directive than he used to be. He used to let me bring up the topics I wanted to discuss. Now he asks very direct questions about what he wants to discuss. Usually about the divorce. He asked all about progress on the divorce. Sigh. I obediently gave him all the news. I can talk on most any topic. I guess I am pleasing him and giving him what he wants by answering his question. He is not really my therapist anymore, is he? He has become only my divorce coach. I am sad.

Nevertheless, it was very nice to see him again. I did try to connect on a few occasions. Not much success. Our best exchange was a rather lengthy dialog on an article I had read on divorce and how it related to my own process. He was really interested in this, and so was I. It had lead me to some new insights and a new way of feeling about the process and I wanted to share that with him.

As we were winding up, we were talking about what 2008 will bring (for me, the divorce, finally!). I asked him about his plans to marry and he said they had spent time planning the wedding over the break. He talked a little about how wonderful his current relationship was, which I love to hear, and then said to me, "you know, I was married before, for 20 years. I am divorced." He is telling me this stuff as if I have never heard it!? He has talked about his divorce umpteen times with me, using it as an example of marriage and divorce, etc., to help me with my own process. I know all sorts of details about his former marriage and his divorce. In fact, the first time I learned he was divorced, I had real difficulty with it, and it sent me into a depression. (I felt completely hopeless--how could someone like my T, so knowledgeable about relationships and marriages, be divorced? If T couldn't make a marriage work then it was pointless to even try.) We worked on that in therapy and it was really significant for me, and I thought deepened our relationship. And now, T is asking me if I know he is divorced? If I know he was ever married? It made me feel really rejected, like he couldn't even remember that he had shared with me this most basic of information about himself. I felt like he was putting me on the plain of "every-client". Maybe he has told some clients he is divorced, some he hasn't, can't remember what he's told dear sunny, just one of his many clients. I felt very distanced by that exchange at the very end of our session.

A few hours later that evening at home, I got an email from him. The subject was "Good to see you today...." And he wrote a few lines about that, referred to a couple of things in our session, said he'll see me next week, and he thanked me. ???? It was a very nice email, and not something he usually sends after a session. It made me feel really good, like we were close after all. Maybe next time I just need to skip the session and have him spend 5 minutes of his time sending me an email that helps us connect. I wonder if he felt the disconnection at the end of our session and was trying to offer a little extra support and care and repair by this email?

I don't know. I still love him but I am very sad too, as I feel him slipping away from me. I wonder if this is the beginning of termination? You just start losing the closeness and finally when there is nothing left, there is no point to go to therapy anymore, so you stop. Is that how it is? It's painful.