Anger and jealousy in my session today

Seems to me that it's the smart child who tests the waters of disclose by starting "small" first. I think that if I had been in your shoes and I told about the matches and the result was that someone I very much loved was punished, I probably wouldn't tell again.

It seems very spot on to me to link your T's H issue to emotional safety, and understanding that your family growing up wasn't emotionally safe for you-- maybe partly because whatever was going on was also the same reason why your brother did these things to you and it wasn't safe to tell either.

I do wonder, though, whether it also might be useful to you to think about (probably once again) the ways that your current family (your H primarily, but there might be similar dynamics with your grown children) does not make you feel emotionally safe.

Rainbow:

You are doing it again.

All I can say is that those needs might always be with you to some degree. You can't have your therapist in the way you want to. Talking about her husband has nothing positive for you. It will only add to your obsession with your T and her life. You are the only one who can stop wanting info, thinking about your T in a sexual/love way, and start working on yourself (with nothing to do with your T). You know you have talked to all your therapists about your past and your brother.

If you ever want to be free you will have to take the chance and get close to those around you, especially your husband who isn't that exciting to you. Maybe if you try to slowly get emotionally and physically closer to him you will feel more satisfied. Work on THAT with your therapist! I challenge you.

Regards!

..........nevermind..............

I ask this out of genuine curiosity and without absolutely no judgment implied, why are you still married to your husband, rainbow? Your descriptions of him and of your marriage make it seem that there is really nothing of value for you in the relationship. Why not end it?

[so you know I truly mean no judgment, I am contemplating whether to end my marriage or keep trying to work things out because my husband is dismissive, talks down to me, etc. Some of the same things you describe your husband as doing.]

40 years...wow. You should be enjoying this latter part of your lives together. Don't wait for a big crisis like death or illness to draw you back in to your marriage Rainbow. Make a decision and go full throttle. Life is way to short to be miserable. Maybe your H needs to rely on you for a little bit? Instead of trying to "not make him angry" how about trying to "make him happy"? I am sure that after 40 years you know how to make him smile. I know it takes 2 people, but you can only change 1.

It sounds like your T is slamming the door so tightly on her H, that you don't get the peek inside that would reveal whatever you are hiding.

Seems to me that it's the smart child who tests the waters of disclose by starting "small" first. I think that if I had been in your shoes and I told about the matches and the result was that someone I very much loved was punished, I probably wouldn't tell again.

It seems very spot on to me to link your T's H issue to emotional safety, and understanding that your family growing up wasn't emotionally safe for you-- maybe partly because whatever was going on was also the same reason why your brother did these things to you and it wasn't safe to tell either.

I do wonder, though, whether it also might be useful to you to think about (probably once again) the ways that your current family (your H primarily, but there might be similar dynamics with your grown children) does not make you feel emotionally safe. From what you've written about your H, some of the things he says, from being dismissive about your therapy to demeaning you at times, might replicate that feeling of a lack of emotional safety that you grew up with. And that would just be really common, not only for someone with maybe-abuse history, but for any dysfunctional dynamic. We tend to choose people who feel familiar (and ironically, safe), but as we get healthier we realize that the opposite may in fact be true. I'm not saying that you made a bad choice or that you have to consider divorce, but rather than it might be useful for you to explore the ways that you currently don't feel emotionally safe, and think about ways to communicate with your H (and your T of course can help with strategies) to try to get your needs for emotional safety met.
Thank you, Anne. Right now I'm having a hard time thinking of what emotional safety looks like. Oh, it's how I feel with T? Feeling understand, validated, listened to, not made fun of or yelled at. T told me to tell him that I'm not going to allow him to talk to me the way he does sometimes. I tried that but he just said "I'm sorry" but then said something derogatory again.
But maybe this helps explain a bit why T and therapy are so important to you-- if you don't feel a sense of emotional safety much in your daily life, then you need that in T and through therapy. And T's H-- maybe if I follow the "logic" from the emotional safety point of view-- maybe you need to know if T is emotionally safe in her marriage. You love and care for her, and maybe it would make you angry to even consider that she might not be. Or maybe the sense of jealousy comes from imagining that she has the emotional safety at home that you really crave.
Sometimes I think maybe I exagerate my problems. I don't get verbally abused all the time, just sometimes. H and I argue a lot and always have, but it's not major. I don't feel "unsafe" with him; I just wish he would treat me nicer and compliment me rather than put me down. I know that I have to do the same thing--treat him nicer too.
For me, I have made the most progress when I connect my past to my present. There are almost always links for me between something that was present in my FOO (family of origin) and something that goes on in my own marriage. Sometimes it isn't even remotely the same thing, but it is symbolic or about the way I emotionally react to it.

Rainbow I neither like or dislike you. I sort of react to your threads at times but sometimes people just react for reasons within themselves rather on what is based on reality. You can call that " online transference" and although I get " triggered" some times I still picture you as this nice grandma ( IRL) with curly hair and glasses just wanting to keep the therapeutic realtionship so desperately intact no matter what-

I am not judging you ( although I may come across as such at times) but as I have stated before I have read all your threads.
I have to ask you if you have ever come across the expression " a sense of entitlement" and whatever comes along with that state of mind or traits?

I am not pointing towards a dx ( cause who am I to that)...It just seems like this could explain alot of your issues and may help you to realise some of your behavior pattern and problems and how this inflict on your relationships irl, the reactions you get here and maybe even in T.

Remember this is MY view when I read your threads. It does not mean you or anyone else should agree with it.

40 years...wow. You should be enjoying this latter part of your lives together. Don't wait for a big crisis like death or illness to draw you back in to your marriage Rainbow. Make a decision and go full throttle. Life is way to short to be miserable. Maybe your H needs to rely on you for a little bit? Instead of trying to "not make him angry" how about trying to "make him happy"? I am sure that after 40 years you know how to make him smile. I know it takes 2 people, but you can only change 1.

Rainbow, I wonder if your relationship with your H is suffering because of your relationship with your T? With my first T , she had loose boundaries and changing boundaries and what eventually happened is I was so invested in wanting HER to save me that my partner became invisible to me, a no count, almost the enemy sometimes.I didn't do it intentionally. I just started to expect T to fill my needs instead of people in my RL , especially the partner. I wanted to know more about xT , I was jealous of other regarding her, I wanted her to be mine and save me. It became too much for xT to take and I was an emotional basket case because of it. Once xT and I parted ways (which was tragic for me , even though by this time she essentially hated me), I was able to see what happened. Now my relationship with partner is much better and new T is much healthier for me and my relationship. In hindsight i can see why I did what I did, because xT paid 100% attention to me, unconditionally, she was warm and caring, she indulged my fantasy of a mommy and it was all about me, she wanted nothing from me and I sucked that well dry as a bone... not like it is in a RL relationship, not like it was with Partner...hence partner became the enemy in my eyes, as partner was very critical of my reaction to xT. ( It was jealousy of my xT on the partners side.) This may not be your situation, but it seems kinda familiar to me in a way. Just a thought.

I agree. DOn't focus on what you may miss in the past... You wouldn't want to be here in few year trying to fill in what you didn't get in your marriage and might have, because you been too focused on the past.

I don't know... why don't you write a long (or even short) letter to your H, like you used to your T and tell him what he means to you. Go to for some special night out... or have a weekend trip... there must be something holding you two together. value it.

Lola's post is exactly what was just crossing my mind. You talk about hating your T's husband (who you don't know so "hate" is truly a very strong word) for getting between you and your T, but it seems that the real problem is that your infatuation with your T has consumed your life and all your feelings and keeps you unavailable in your own marriage.

Your relationship with your T is not real life. Our T's care about us and give us complete and undivided attention, but no one in the real world really can do that; that is a construct of the therapy relationship. It seems like you may be expecting more from your husband than really is possible in reality. You've been married to the man for 40 years and he sounds a lot like a lot of older men I know: kind of unemotional, matter-of-fact, none of that silly romance kind of guy. That's the reality of who he is. I suspect he cares deeply about you, but you are wanting him to be someone he just isn't. You want the fantasy, the emotions, the undivided attention, the romance, but your husband just doesn't seem built that way. That doesn't make him a bad person; that's just his personality. You are getting from your T the fantasy relationship that you aren't going to get from your very real husband.

Perhaps it is time, after 40 years of marriage, to accept your husband with all his faults and quirks and stoicism, embrace it even, rather than spending your time pining in wishful thinking for that "in love" feeling you have with your T. Your T relationship seems to dominate your life and hold more importance and emotion for you than your relationship with your husband. There's something wrong with that picture. Allow your husband to be who he is. Allow yourself to accept him for who he is instead of holding him to a standard that he will always come short of, that of your T. It just seems like you are letting some very precious time with your husband pass you by longing for him to be more like your T.