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mckell13 said:
Yes.....I really don't have an appreciation for what love really is...

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">And maybe you are learning that. And then you naturally ask how does what love really is relate to your marriage? And maybe the answer is hard to bear. Maybe you aren't ready for this, and maybe it is too much too soon. Don't be afraid to tell your therapist you need to slow down.

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Did she manipulate me? Is this some power game?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">It sounded to me like she gave you a straightforward, although difficult, homework assignment. I don't see any manipulation or gameplaying. I think she is trying to help you. If it's not working, you can let her know you need a different approach or pace.

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If you can't share with the T what you are digging up, it probably isn't a good thing to dig so much up at once!

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I agree!

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How does knowing that your are a superficial %#@&#! and that your marriage is %#@&#! help anything?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Realizing the marriage is not good can help you identify ways to work to improve it, or help you make the decision to leave it. So this is very useful information. As for the superficial part, I wonder if you are being too hard on yourself?

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If you were a T and you suspected your patient was struggling and you recommended a treatment approach that would likely result in an adverse response,..Wouldn't you be ethically bound to help them prepare for it??

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">mckell, I think you should talk to her about this. I don't believe she thought her homework assignment would be so traumatic, but I think it is really important to sort this out with her, as your feeling that she did it deliberately, with potential intent to harm, sounds like a pretty serious rupture to me.

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I want to PUKE when my husband touches me!!! ....

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Do you know why? I'm not asking you to share that here, but just wondering if you know? That would be an important thing to ferret out in therapy. It could lead you to insights about your marriage and what you should do next.

mckell, I want to say that I hope you can talk about a lot of this with your T and come to greater understanding and get reassurance. You are important and worthwhile, and you deserve to have your needs met. When I was going through some of the marriage stuff in therapy, it was an important realization for me about the role I had played in my marriage's demise. Even though on the surface, one could look at the situation and say "he was abusive, he had affairs, he treated her like c**p, etc.", it is not so simple. I did a lot to enable his behavior and played a huge part in our dysfunctional marriage. It was hard for me to recognize that, but now that I understand how much I was responsible, I know it is within my power to "never do that again." Learning this stuff about myself will have future pay-offs down the road. So when you ask, how learning these difficult things in therapy can help anything, that is my answer.