Marriage counselor (MC), for whom I had strong transference/attachment in session and even in outside contact (including phone) very caring and accepting. He's talked about how in real life, he's screamed at his kids, implied he'd also punched a hole in a wall in anger (after my H did that), etc. And at one point, he told me that in real life, he's an a-hole, and I wouldn't want to hang out with him. Which I had trouble believing.

During a phone call in December, I feel like I saw a glimpse of that side of him. Even how he started the call: saying, "I only have two minutes, and I'm going to do most of the talking." (We ended up talking for 20 minutes, and I did my share of talking, too.) He was clearly frustrated with me, breathing oddly--like he was trying to keep it together, to keep from yelling at me and really letting his anger out. He was basically trying to gaslight me at one point (regarding outside contact in the past) and got very defensive when I disagreed with his interpretation of how he was with me/H. Then at the end, he did something that he *had* to know would hurt me, which was to say I had to reduce outside contact. I think that call sort of shattered my illusion of him. We've discussed it more since then, and I feel better about things, but it's like the transference/attachment are just...gone. Maybe I had to "see behind the curtain" to get it to go away, but I kind of wish I could have walked away while retaining my old vision of him...