[ScarletPimpernel]

L is getting married this week. I feel very jealous of her partner and very possessive of L. I'm not acting on it, of course. My core-self believes if you love someone, you set them free. Yet, I have these feelings. L and I spent the whole session talking about them. She was very accepting and normalized it for my past. In my past, there was a lot of favoritism and neglect and people not being able to love me and someone else at the same time (i.e. my parents). I understand why I have these feelings, but I don't like them. I'm ashamed of them.

So I'm just wondering if this is normal to feel towards a T? Has anyone else had these feelings?

[SprinkL3]

Sorry you struggle with jealousy. Yes, I think it's normal.

Here's my experience:

I grew up with a sister who was close in age to me. My abusive parents kept comparing us against one another to the point of pinning us against one another at times. To this day, my sister and I remain estranged. We tried to patch things up a few years back, but we are just opposites. She also cannot stop doing the sibling rivalry stuff, constantly comparing me to her. I just can't live like that.

Most of my jealous feelings for others stem from my relationship with my sister growing up. I've been jealous of a pastoral counselor in the past giving more attention and resources to other members of her flock, but then completely abandoning me in therapy there. I was really hurt by that church and her, and I wasn't the only member to feel that way after her trauma-processing spiritual counseling. It wasn't helpful, but we didn't quit on her - she quit on us. It was painful.

So two negatives in our lives just reinforced the initial childhood trauma.

I felt jealous of my T when she was at the Vet Center. She is now doing private practice. I was very fortunate to be able to discuss my feelings with her, and to be able to afford her as a now Medicare patient. I used to see her for free at the Vet Center. She explained to me how she treats every client based on what their needs are for treatment. She says that they're not always treated the same, because every client has different needs. It's more visible, like a church, in veteran settings. In civilian settings, however, the patients rarely know one another, and so it's easy for therapists to protect clients more that way. But group therapy sessions can be difficult when jealousy feelings arise.

Overall, it's normal to feel those things when we had negative childhood experiences, and even negative adulthood experiences. People who have experienced unfaithful, cheating partners are also prone to feeling jealous, but perhaps from a relational trauma trigger, which might differ from our deeply seeded traumas from childhood. Or maybe they're similar. I don't know.

In therapy, we often use transference without knowing that is what is happening. So these transference feelings are important to discuss in therapy, and are probably part of the therapeutic process themselves. It helps us to work things out in session so that we can learn how to live life better when the jealous feelings happen in real life.

You're not alone

[Lonelyinmyheart]

Yes I'm having the same feelings now and I'm also struggling with knowing that loving someone means setting them free.

T has a new partner and I'm in so much pain about it. Like your T, mine has accepted and normalised it, but the grief is absolutely unbearable.

I think part of it is wanting to be the most important person to T as I never was as a child - I was ignored in favour of others.

But I also love her from an adult level.

I'm trying to see that my feelings mean something and I don't need to blame them, just understand them.

It's agonising and I have no answers but you're not alone.

P.S It's interesting what you said about not being able to love two people as the same time as that was my experience too. I wasn't 'allowed' to love my dad because I had to love my mum. My family was very segmented. Even my siblings were and are. There was no sense of connectedness and belonging. I do think this is why I'm struggling so much to accept that T can love someone else as well as me, albeit in different ways. I want to either be number one or back off.

[unaluna]

Oh heck yeah. Some of my most brilliant comedy appeared when my t remarried. Or so i thought.

[Marie123]

I was in love with my t for many years (don't see him now, but still love him). Unfortunately he led me on.

[LonesomeTonight]

For me, it was more jealousy of my former marriage counselor's kids due to my paternal transference toward him. He would talk about how he helped both of them with their anxiety at various points. I struggled with anxiety as a kid (and still do!), and my parents weren't helpful with it. So I wished he could have been my dad to have helped me through it. I remember, too, how he missed one session to take his daughter on a tour of college campuses, and I was jealous of her being able to spend all that one-on-one time with him.

For my current T, I feel occasional twinges of jealousy when he talks about doing something with his wife, but I also am pretty sure he'd be a difficult person to live with, so I can dismiss those feelings pretty quickly! I have felt jealous a few times when he's talked about meeting a friend for lunch or otherwise getting together with friends, because I'd like to be able to know him in that way, like to just hang out with him, more as equals.

I imagine it's a pretty common feeling in therapy, particularly because the therapeutic relationship is such a unique one.

I want more of her and I want to control her. I don't want other people to have access to her, but I often don't want anything to do with her either. I am the toddler spitting out her dummy but bawling because she spat out her dummy but doesn't want the dummy back but can't be soothed without the dummy.

I don't like her other clients (and have told her so). Her partner seems stupid plus she plays golf so I don't consider her much of a threat. It's hard to feel jealous of a woman in golfing shoes. She has an adult niece and nephew and I am jealous of them because I expect she gives them Christmas gifts. Generally speaking, I resent her existence outside of interactions with me.

[ArtieTheSequal]

I struggled with jealousy when my t first moved out of state near the end of my first year seeing her, because she told me she'd be having a home office at her new house in the other state. I was SO jealous of her clients there who would get to see her at her home!!


And oh yeah, a funny story about feeling possessive of t (well, it's funny now so many years after the fact): during year 1 when I still saw her in an office building, one time I went in and on the table in the waiting room I saw a clipboard with intake paperwork and her business card so I knew a new client would be coming in after my session and it was there for them to fill out. I almost had to literally sit on my hands - because what I wanted to do was grab the clipboard, tear up the forms, and stomp the whole mess into the floor yelling "NO!!! MY T!!"

[Salmon77]

Through googling I stumbled across another of T's clients (they referenced him by name in a blog post about their therapy) who is similar to me in some ways. Occasionally I see this person coming and going to the office and I always feel very competitive, like I want to be T's favorite and best client, and maybe that other person is actually his favorite. T says these feelings come from a background of not getting enough attention, feeling like there is not enough attention to go around and if he pays attention to someone else than I am left out in the cold. In reality of course I know this is not a zero sum situation.

[Mountaindewed]

I’d get jealous of one of my former therapists clients who were kids and I’d even read book series meant for kids and I would bring it up in sessions that I were reading them to try to get her attention that I was younger then I actually was. I don’t know how to explain what I was doing. It was weird and I don’t do it anymore with my current therapist. But I wanted her to treat me like I was younger then I actually was.

[Lostislost]

I really loved my T, until I found out he didn't want me at all. He hadn't even been thinking of me as I thought he had been. In fact he hadn't thought about me at all.

I had to push the love thing out of my brain then, because I just felt like a big creep and very stupid. And heartbroken.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I, too, have maternal transference towards L. And I also often feel like a child in an adults body. (I do feel like an adult sometimes too).

I get jealous of her partner because of how much time he's going to get with her. He'll get to sleep next to her, cuddle with her, wake up to her, and say goodnight to her. He'll get to go out with her, spend quality time with her, etc. And all I get is 2 hours a week with her. It hurts.

And I already know, as does she, that I will be extremely jealous if she has children. A little jealous of her because I can't have children, but jealous that her children will have her as a mom.

I wish she was my mother. I know she still has flaws and won't be perfect, but she will be 1,000 times better than either of my parents. And because I often feel like a child when with her, I imagine it will feel like severe sibling rivalry and favoritism all over again.