T today (second session of week). Sat down, I was wearing distressed jeans with a couple holes in them. T said, "Are things so bad that you have holes in your jeans?" I said, "I'm just being stylish!" Then said how when I wear this, D will say "Mommy has holes in her pants!"

He asked what I wanted to talk about. I said, "Well, H and I talked to MC Tuesday night on the phone." T: "How did that come about?" I talked about how I'd been struggling since Monday's session. T said, "With me?" I said yes, how I felt it had dredged up some stuff from the past, like with the teacher. T asked if I felt the parallel with him and MC, and I said yes. But it was more about recalling more details of the teacher stuff that I talked about with T Monday. T said it must be really difficult--tragic--to go through something like that once and feel like it's happening again. I said yes, that I knew this was different, and that I was reacting to it, approaching it differently. But it still echoed that. And how I couldn't eat Monday night.

Then Tuesday, I decided to start writing an e-mail to MC. And I just totally broke down sobbing while writing it. Realized that maybe writing e-mail wouldn't really get me anything. So I texted him requesting call, not expecting him to say OK. Then he responded saying he could talk to me and H at 8:30 that night. T asked if we'd done that before, call with all three of us. I said no (had just been me and MC in past), but I figured that was MC's boundary, so I'd just agree to it. Told H, talked to him before call about purpose for it, what I might want him to say. I said how MC called at 8 p.m., when we were about to give D her bath. How I'd told him he said 8:30, and he apologized, saying he could call back then. I said to T, "Of course, the one time he's early, or on time!" T laughed--he used to work with MC and knows he has a tendency to run late.

I said how H was playing video game the whole call. T gave rather puzzled look to that. I said that at first it bothered me, especially since we thought call was only going to be 15 minutes--ended up being over an hour. But also that I've now realized that H probably knew he wasn't going to be active participant, maybe there to chaperone.

I mentioned how some people on here had said they wouldn't have put up with this if they were my H. T clarified I meant PC forums. I said yes, how that made me think and mentioned what someone had said. He said, "Wow, you get some really direct advice on there, don't you?" I said yes, how sometimes it can be that way, kinda critical, then sometimes give me different perspectives, other times lots of support. How MC had been very anti-PC. How once he'd said if he had one wish, it would be that I wouldn't go on PC. That he'd then said, actually, one wish, he wanted [his favorite baseball team] to win World Series, but if had two wishes, he'd wish for me to stop using PC. T said, "Did he use his third wish to ask for more wishes?" I said, "Or maybe it's like that thing, where the guy wishes for the sausage, then wishes it was on wife's nose, then has to use last wish to get it off her nose." T: "Isn't that from Sesame Street? Is that a Sesame Street reference?" Me: "I think it was on there--but I thought it was based off an old folk tale? I'll have to look that up." (It's based on an old folk tale.)

Later in session, I mentioned not being attracted to someone, and T said, "Is it because they had a sausage on their nose?" I think he referenced it a third time, too.

Back to H--I said I'd talked to H some last night about it, how I appreciated him bearing with me through this stuff with MC, that I realized it might be difficult and confusing for him. T asked what H said to that. I said he mostly was concerned with how it all was affecting me, how much it was upsetting me, which I really appreciated.

I said back to MC phone call, that it probably took first 20 minutes to really get through to him what I was looking for, why Friday's session had upset me. I said he eventually began to get it, that in the overall call, he seemed to be conciliatory. Then I said, "Is that the right word? It's not a word I use very often." T: "I think so. I guess we have the same dictionaries in our heads, so either we're both right or we're both wrong." Me: "Guess I'll add that to list of things to look up when I get home!" (I used it correctly.)

I said how MC had seemed to be really pushing the fact that he believed it was romantic love I'd been expressing rather than platonic. Even when I'd clarified in e-mail and previous phone call. He still kept thinking romantic (meanwhile, H is on call...). I told T how I wasn't sure why this time he thought it was romantic love as opposed to transference. T said he wasn't sure what it would mean if it was one vs. the other. I tried to explain what I thought the difference was, and he said maybe he wasn't smart enough to grasp it, or because he hadn't been trained psychodynamically. I said I thought the main difference was: transference would be stuff from my past, so not really about MC, while romantic love would be about MC. And how the former wouldn't seem a threat to my marriage while the latter would be. T seemed to kinda get that.

He talked about how I felt for MC, the intense emotions. And asked if I'd ever felt that for H. I said yes, at one point. He asked what happened. I said, "Well, we moved in together and got married..." He asked if I knew how to transition from the excitement of early love to what happens later. I said I didn't know...how my longest relationship before H had been a year and a half (I'll be married to H 10 years in April). He said he wondered if I'm hooked on the feeling at the start of a relationship. He made a reference to Tiger Woods, who is known for being unfaithful to his wife, who seemed to have everything any husband could want. He said how some people need that excitement, and they may need to find other ways to get it. How some couples will do new and exciting things together to keep that feeling up. I mentioned how MC had H and I go a couple years ago to this ropes course as a bonding experience and how that had been kind of a nightmare, how I'd had an awful sobbing panic attack while standing on a suspended log (like 30 feet from ground). T asked if I could laugh about it now, and I said my hands were sweating thinking about it. He said it was still a shared novel experience with H, and I said I guessed so. I think he implied we needed more stuff like that...

He mentioned how a married couple he'd counseled used to do this thing where the wife would go to a bar and start hitting on a guy, then the husband would show up and sort of win her back. How it seemed to work for them, but T didn't think that was a healthy thing because it could have hurt someone--the other guy the wife was hitting on. Or potentially led to violence. That with his moral compass, he tends to think things are OK as long as they don't potentially hurt another person. I think that's the first time he gave any details about a past client. He was trying to say what the third party, the other guy in that would be called and was like, "target? No that's not right. Maybe another thing for you to look up!" I said, "That might be a bit more difficult to look up! And this is getting to be a long list."

But he said maybe I was looking for some sort of other spark, like I wanted a reaction from H, including about the MC stuff. I said how I'd had a sort of one-sided emotional affair with a guy in grad school, but H hadn't seemed bothered by that. He was much more bothered by the one-night stand a few years ago. T said that was interesting, how many people would be much more bothered by an emotional affair. I said I was like that, how it would bother me way more than if H just hooked up with someone. We discussed that more. How maybe part of me wanted H to be jealous? Or express more emotion about the relationship? I said I wasn't sure and mentioned some past more intense relationships I'd had, how they were also less healthy. But still I craved that at times. He was trying to clarify what I was looking for because "intensity" could mean many things. I said, maybe intense emotional connection? Like almost, as cheesy as it sounds, a soulmate sort of thing? Even though I know that's not realistic. I said I'd think on it more.

During that, I ended up talking a bit about past relationships and may have given T a bit TMI about my sex life when I'd been dating and when I first got together with H. Oh, and I guess earlier in the session, I'd mentioned something about sleeping on the couch instead of in bed with H, and we'd discussed that. I mistakenly thought I'd told T that before, but apparently not, because he seemed really surprised. Came up in context of insomnia (the kind where you wake up in middle of night and can't go back to sleep).

Was near end of session, and I said I wanted to wrap up MC phone call. Said near end, he'd mentioned how he'd been hurt by some things I'd said and had at times been frustrated with me. T said it was good that he'd said that. I was like, "Really? I thought T's were supposed to deal with that stuff on their own?" T said he disagreed with that, and that he'd bring it up if similar emotions came up for him. That he tends to be a "straight shooter" with clients. He's about 5'7" and gave example of, "If a client said, 'I think short men are worthless,' then I'd ask them why they said that to me, knowing I'm a short man." I said how he's still taller than MC (who is maybe 5'5"?). T said, "True. This is a bad joke, but that's a pretty low bar to cross!" We both laughed at that.

Was time to schedule. I asked if he had anything Tuesday, he said that was fairly full. That he could give me Wed. I said, "Well, that's my birthday, so not sure..." He offered Thursday, but I'm going to concert Wed. night so wasn't sure. Then he said, "OK, I have a guy with a regular appointment on Tuesdays. But he has a really flexible schedule, so I should be able to give you that time and have him come a different day." I said, "Are you sure? I feel weird about doing that." T said, "You're not doing that, I am." I said, "OK, if you're sure that's OK..." He said to assume the slot was mine, and he'd let me know by Sat. morning. I made sure I could get some other appointment if that didn't work, and he said yes.

Walked to his desk to pay. I commented on how I was going to a concert next Wed., but that I wasn't going to e-mail anyone afterward! (The love e-mail to MC resulted from a concert for a band who had songs I associated with him.) T said, "That's probably a good policy. And you're funny!" Just before we were going to shake hands, he sneezed into the elbow of his right arm. I said, "Bless you!" He asked, "Still want to shake hands?" I said, "Yeah, OK." Shook hands, he said "Take care," I said, "You too." Then asked if he could verify Tuesday either way. He said yes, and if I didn't hear from him, to go ahead an e-mail to check.