The start of the "i wish I were your child" conversation frustrated me. I felt like I was talking about me and him, but he was talking in general terms about "the therapy relationship" and "the limitations of being a client". I told him I was frustrated with him for making it all about me and not about what is happening between us.
He then said "what if we move to our second question". The second question on my agenda was "what do we mean when we say our relationship is unusual". T said he can speak for the "we" but for him, it is the depth of connection. He said he thinks part of it is that he identifies with me. (We are oddly similar and think in similar ways). I'm glad he could acknowledge that part, because that part is about his feelings about himself I guess. That suggested he doesn't have a misconception that this is all about me.
I said my follow up question is "why is our relationship like this?" He used what he called a "dangerous analogy" and said that there are unconscious factors which make two people drawn to each other. He likened it to falling in love - you don't necessarily know exactly why those feelings develop. He said he trusts our unconsciouses, and that he feels a strong sense of responsibility towards me - he feels like the responsibility to keep the boundaries lies with him and he said "I want to do a good job for you".
We talked about a conversation we had a while ago about what will happen post termination. We had said we would like to continue to be in touch, but also agreed that's a conversation for the future, not for now.
We talked about going back to face to face next week. What it will be like. The fact the context is changed slightly because we have discussed ET in depth over this past year while online. We talked about his room, how I miss it, and we talked about how I will miss zoom T too.
I will see him f2f next week.