Also, I agree with this. I admit I feel sort of like I'm special when I can get him to relax something. And/or like he really cares.


This is just one example, but I had that earlier session Thursday. At the start of session, he said he wasn't sure if I'd wanted him to take my Friday session off the schedule, so he kept it open. And that I could just let him know in the morning if I still wanted the full slot or a half slot. I said he could go ahead and fill it if needed, that if I didn't take it, I didn't want him to end up with an empty slot and lose potential income (especially as he'd equated time with money re: email). He said, "Well, I have to do paperwork sometime, so I'd just save it for then."


That evening, I was upset about how session had gone and thought I needed time (like seeing him Friday could make it worse). So I texted to cancel the session and said to keep me on for Monday (he uses texts for scheduling, so I wasn't pushing anything there). He said OK and that he hoped I wasn't too stressed.


Then yesterday morning, I was just sitting here crying and having trouble getting work done thinking about the conflict. So I texted and asked if he by any chance still had 30 minutes available, that if he didn't I completely understood. He offered me 1-1:30, so I suspect he may have just kept it open (or else no one requested a session). But I could see many T's being like, "You canceled it, so I filled it," even if they hadn't filled it, in order to sort of prevent the canceling/rescheduling in the future.

Maybe that's a bad example, but there's a lot of other stuff where, yeah, he caves to me. And it feels good in the moment, but then I wonder about the long-term effects. Part of what made me feel "safe" with him early on was that he seemed strong and consistent on boundaries (as compared to ex-MC, who could be both loose and inconsistent on boundaries). So then when he's loosened some--like not charging me for an email even admitting it took him more than 15 minutes to reply--it both feels nice and makes me feel a bit ill at ease.