Something that my T told me was really helpful to me. I kept thinking that how things ended sort of negated the good that had come out of the relationship. Like, it ended poorly, so that's the takeaway I have from the relationship. While my T...actually let me look up what he said in this one email: "I can also appreciate that you are having trouble not redefining your entire relationship with [ex-MC] based on how you've been feeling these past few months. Hopefully, and I would like to support you in doing this, you will be able to parcel out the good and the bad and eventually end up holding the full experience of your work and feelings for him...which will include love, disappointment, gratitude, loss, and many other feelings as well."

Those words (and talking about it with him) helped me realize it didn't have to be black or white, good or bad. That I could still hold on to the positive memories and feelings of being cared for and things I'd learned from him. They didn't go away because of what happened.

To answer your other question, I'm doing much better with the grieving--I feel it turned some sort of corner maybe 2 months ago. So like 8 months after the rupture and 4-5 months after the actual termination. I'm no longer having the urge to email him when something good or bad happens. And I can talk about him in session with T without crying--which is a big shift for me. I think I mainly needed time and distance. (I was still emailing him maybe once a month for the few months after termination, and that kept me tied to him in some ways.) And to discuss him repeatedly with T, even though I worried he'd get sick of me talking about him. It also helped to think of it as grieving.

I'm thinking with you, you wanted to get the answers from your ex-T. So maybe you put your grieving on hold? And now you have the answers, so that part can start. I'm not very good at grieving deaths either, or even ends of relationships (romantic or friendships), but I think being able to talk about this with T has helped me. So keep talking about your ex-T with your current T.