Honestly, I think some of that comes from the paternal countertransference on his part. It's like he wants to "fix me" in a way. Yet is somewhat constrained through marriage counseling. (The recent judgment regarding alcohol/going to bars stuff comes to mind...) And it comes out from him in there at times--including when we're working on actual marriage counseling stuff (which we did last week, I just didn't write it up). Where he'll seem to focus more on me and why I react certain ways and things I can work on (while not really saying the same stuff to H). And I of course play into that in some ways with my transference... I'm not saying it's the healthiest dynamic necessarily...

I did give them permission to talk--well, for MC to share stuff with T2. I didn't give T2 permission to share at this point because I want to feel free to talk to him about whatever I want with MC without fearing he'd go and tell him what I said. I also think T2 is skilled and confident enough in himself that he's not just going to take what MC says as gospel. And T2 did tell me that none of what MC said about me really surprised him, so I think he has a good enough read on me already. Maybe next session I'll get his opinion on MC saying I need to work on certain things...like does he agree with that, or think it's up to me? The sense I've gotten so far is that he's very collaborative in how he works, so it's more what we decide to work on together (not what he thinks we need to work on).