You make some good points here. My T has said before that he tries to get me to understand the effect I could have on other people in my life--hence his giving some of the feedback. (Though some of it is just his own stuff, clearly). However, he has admitted that he doesn't know what other people are thinking and that they may not react the way he does.

This led to an issue a few years ago where he suggested that my H might be feeling a certain negative thing about me, because he (Dr. T) would if he were in H's position. So I got all worried about it, then checked in with my H about it, and he was like, "No, I don't feel that, what is he talking about?"

Thanks for explaining the unethical thing--I had misunderstood.

When you talk about the core--do you mean like my core issues? What is leading to me to, say, want to check in with him? To feel insecure in other relationships, too? He made a comment yesterday about how I should be able to trust in the relation now, with us having worked together for more than 4 years. I said I still worried about the security of the relationship with my H, that we've been together 16 years (married 14), he took actual vows, we live together, and we say "I love you" multiple times a day. That made him just be like, "oh."

I'm sure I've mentioned that I have emetophobia, too. Can I ask (if you don't want to share here, feel free to PM me) what you thought that was a distraction from? I'm just wondering. As I've dealt with that since I was a kid.

I feel like we're getting to some sort of core thing right now. I have no idea if he'll be able to handle that. It seems he sees my focusing on my role in things (instead of just his) as a breakthrough of sorts. So maybe that can lead somewhere? I told him yesterday that I wanted to make sure we didn't just drop this thread, even as other life stuff comes up. That we keep working on it. And he seemed to agree with that.