Denying her H was at the office...

I think your feelings are completely valid simply because they are feelings, they don’t need to be rational or logical. Feelings are feelings. It’s not wrong to feel what you feel.

And I understand the expectation of honesty. But to what degree people in helping professions are obligated to be honest about their private life and disclose their personal lives to their clients/patients/students? And if they must be always honest, does it mean we have to be an open book at all times too? Or do we have rights for privacy?

Do clients need to know that a man sitting outside in a car is her husband/lover/boyfriend/affair partner? To what degree a therapist must disclose who is sitting in her car on a parking lot? Or why does anyone even need to know how her car looks? And to what degree are we responsible for what our spouses do?

Feeling that he shouldn’t be there is valid. But can it always be controlled? She told him to leave as a client coming in who’ll be upset if she sees him. Yet he got important message on his phone, his car wouldn’t start, he felt dizzy for a moment, had s coughing fit. He didn’t leave right away and was seen in the car. It’s unfortunate but some things can’t be controlled.

Again your feelings are totally valid. I have 100 examples of being very upset about things that didn’t even make sense to be upset about. But I’d try to shift focus from what your t or other people do wrong to how you can cope with things that are out of your control, including things others do wrong. People will do wrong (or things that feel wrong to you) things. But can you work on to make it more manageable when people mess up or when things just don’t go the way they’d go in ideal world?

Or maybe you can support others? This is a support forum, not a critical forums.

No one has criticised you, Scarlet.

Your absolutist approach to honesty doesn't seem like it serves you very well. It feels like it creates a bind for you (and others). It can't be maintained and eventually at some point causes you considerable pain. It also seems like a blanket, inflexible approach to honesty means that a whole variety of actions and intentions become characterised as dishonesty when, in reality, they are probably due to thoughtlessness, clumsiness, differing priorities, etc.

Other people have the liberty to be dishonest. Of course we all value honesty and want honest interactions, but there is also room for things to be hidden. If the slightest whiff of a lie threatens the integrity of a relationship maybe the issue is not with the people involved or the relationship itself, but your lack of capacity for the hidden aspects of people.

I used to have a similar dogmatic approach to honesty. I came to realise it was about my need for control. I discounted others. I don't think that accepting that your therapist can make mistakes brings you close enough to security. What if they are not mistakes at all, but her deliberately (and justifiably) wanting to hide things?

I suspect you won't like this posting. I don't mean it with any hostility.

I'm sorry this happened Scarlet.

I also have a very good relationship with my T overall and it's similar in a lot of respects to yours. At times she has also told a white lie or two. I don't like it but have come to realise that she had good intentions, which were always to try and spare my feelings. In short, it comes from a place of love and care. Is it possible that you can re-frame it, like I think someone else suggested, and see that her heart is in the right place? I agree with Comrade that holding a place of absolute honesty may not serve you well. Life is grey, it can never be black or white. I understand how unsettling it is to know that T lied though and how destabilising it may feel, like you can't trust her. I never even pulled my T up on it even though I knew she was lying (I found out through other means) and the lies were pretty inconsequential overall. For a time I felt exactly like you especially as my T once said she doesn't tell lies. But I have come to realise that when she did lie, it was because it was preferable than hurting me.

Talk to her about it. I hope she will reassure you that her intentions were good but it backfired in your case because you knew it was her H. It really does sound like she knew full well how upset you'd be and wanted to spare you that pain, which is actually really lovely and caring and says so much about your relationship, at least from my perspective.

Comrademoomoo made such great points.

Something that is perceived as dishonesty might be simply person’s rights to privacy. I also think that concept of disclosure and dishonesty doesn’t look exactly the same with every relationship. There’s a difference

Like one thing is to ask your significant other where they were last night and the other thing to ask your therapist. Your therapist doesn’t have to disclose but doesn’t want to be rude telling you it’s not your business and she also knows how upset you might get finding out what she was really doing, so she tells you she read a book. What she was really doing might not be something she wants to disclose. Would that be considered dishonesty? Putting your relationship in jeopardy? Her making a mistake? Or just a normal thing?

I also think it’s a bit different if you stood in front of her husband at the office and asked “oh hi it’s your husband”and she said “no”. It would be a little strange. You originally said he was at the office where you think he shouldn’t be and she denied it was him. But it turned out he wasn’t actually in the office but on the parking lot in the car.

Scarlet - I can completely understand your reaction and the pain of this situation. I'm sorry you are suffering and that your whole relationship has been cast in doubt. I have a similar reaction to dishonesty. I would go so far as to call it a trigger for me, perhaps the most prominent relational trigger I have. I caught my long-term T in a white lie once (I can't even remember what it was now) and oof. I got so upset (understatement). I felt betrayed and hurt and angry and scared. I told him, "Don't f^&*ing lie to me!!" He KNEW how important the truth was, and had assured me in the past when we talked about it, "If it comes out of my mouth, it's the truth. I don't always tell you everything, but what I tell you is true." So that, clearly, was a lie too.

I didn't think I could get past this. I felt like it undid everything we had and everything we had ever done, because now I didn't know what was real/true anymore and what was a lie. Like comrademoomoo pointed out above, I had an absolutist (black/white) perspective on honesty that did not serve me (or others) well. Also, it was not realistic. Research is pretty clear that humans lie, ALL humans. And if we think we don't, we are probably lying to ourselves. Lying appears to be almost a reflex at times and can even happen without much conscious thought or decision making.

As part of my process of working through this, I thought through the benefits of lying (and there are some, perhaps even many, thus the concept of a "white lie," where lying can cause less harm than honesty). For example, sometimes we are caught in values conflicts and have to make hard decisions. There are extreme examples of this, where telling the truth can lead to death (e.g., those who hid Jewish people during Nazi Germany). In the case of L, she possibly had conflicting values. On the one hand, she had her promise to you to never lie (which, by the way, is a promise I don't think she should have made, because it's probably not a promise anyone can realistically keep). On the other hand, she had her right to privacy. Even more importantly, her DH's right to privacy--perhaps she didn't feel she had the right to make that decision for him.

To hold the belief that lie = bad/wrong and truth = good is a simplistic view. It's simply not true (ha!) that lying is universally bad or wrong. It's much more relative than that. It's also unreasonable to expect others to never lie to you, as much as we might want it. I know that sounds harsh, but that is the perspective I had to come around in order to improve my relationships. Not only with my T, but also my husband and my children and my friends, all of whom have lied to me on occasion.

I hope my words are not invalidating. I want to validate the hurt (oh how I understand that!), but also suggest that your perspective on lying and the promise you extracted from L might be causing you more pain than it is helping you. Once your feelings and hurt have been heard enough in therapy with L (and they do deserve to be felt, and heard, and validated), then perhaps working on a more flexible view of lying might be helpful for you like it was for me?

x 10

The therapeutic relationship is meant to be based on trust and honesty. It is not about a client having to know the ins and outs of the therapist's private life.

This situation is different: a client saw the T's SO and asked 'is it your husband'? The therapist lied, period. This was a conscious choice the T made to lie to her client's face.

Why? To spare the client's feelings. So, should that exclude the lie? Am I the only one to see how condescending this is? This implies that T was trying to manage a client's feelings, not trusting or respecting Scarlet enough to manage her own feelings, with T's support. Yes, it might hurt to hear a 'yes, it's my husband' - but then this could be worked through and actually, could lead to fruitful discussion and exploration of the client's feelings. Instead, the T decided to lie and invalidate what Scarlet actually saw.

In some contexts / relationships, this could come across as gaslighting. Denying the reality of what someone saw - is that acceptable? No. Does this mean the therapeutic relationship is doomed or T can never be trusted again? Again, no.

But T ought to have more faith that her clients can face a truth rather than assuming, or even projecting onto her client, that said client cannot manage their own feelings and needs to be protected. This is condescending, disrespectful and invalidating towards one's client.

L has a right to privacy, as do I. That's more how open we are. That's not what this is about. This is about lying to my face.

Also, L was very open to allowing me to see a picture of her H when I was ready. I was not ready to see his picture let alone in-person.

Like Rive said, by "protecting" me, she is not allowing to process my feelings and experience. When we say "Honesty first", we agreed that it might be extremely painful to hear the truth, but that we're strong enough to work through the pain.

And someone asked something along the lines about why I know L's car... Because we used to do late night sessions and our two car were the only ones left in the parking lot.

Do I have black and white thinking about honesty/lying. Yes. I can see and admit to that. Isn't that something to work through in therapy? We haven't gotten to that point.

I want to add that I've been lied to most my life. My H is a compulsive liar. I live with it daily. I cannot trust his word. T never lied to me. She wasn't as open with me as L is, but she never lied.

In my opinion, L should have given me the chance to process. "How would you feel if that was my H?" type questions. Then when I asked directly, she could have declined to answer, instead of telling me a lie.

That makes sense Scarlett. I agree she shouldn’t outright lie. It’s goofy. She could just refuse to answer if her husband’s privacy was a concern. Hopefully you will be able to discuss all this in a session as well as discuss how to proceed in similar situations in the future and also maybe how to tackle jealousy etc

I have my next session on Tuesday. It's an hour and a half session. We will definitely be talking about this. I'm still waiting for an email from her telling me her side of the story. She's the one that offered the email, btw. And I have been very open and honest with my feelings about her H. She knows I'm jealous of him AND that I'm happy she has him. In this sense, I am trying to hold the "grey".

Was I upset that I saw him? Definitely. But that wouldn't harm our relationship. But her lying when directly asked... I still don't know know her side, so I don't know what I'll do.

Una - please respect my wishes. This forum does NOT need to know the ins and outs of my relationship with L. I do NOT post everything. And I won't. Some of it is to protect her privacy, some to protect mine, some is because of the criticism here, and other is because I am selfish and want to hold onto precious things all for myself. So yes, I want you to focus on this one point because you do NOT know the relationship as a whole.

ETA: I don't know whether or not I will leave L No matter what the outcome. I do hear that my thinking is black and white, so I will keep that in consideration. Who knows what her side of the story is. I'm not going to decide anything until I at least talk to her.

Also, she agreed to being 100% honest 3 years ago when we started. It wasn't me demanding it. Maybe some of you are also thinking in black and white about me?

Hugs if wanted, Scarlet. I'm sorry this has happened. I also just really want to say that of course I only know what you share here, I don't know you in quote real life, but from what you post here anyway I have to say that I totally respect the authenticity of your posts. I hope that doesn't sound weird or something. I'm just barely now starting to learn how to show up as my authentic self in all relationships (including here). I'm not sure I was ever even completely authentic in therapy, not even after 10 years! You inspire me and I mean that sincerely.

Aww...thank you Artie. That means a lot to me.

I try to be 100% honest here. I try in my life as well. I like the saying "I mean what I say, and I say what I mean". But I'm not that open in real life. I'm very cautious. H knows almost everything, but the rest of my family knows bits and pieces. I've tried being more open with them. L gave me an article about how family can support loved ones with SI. I shared it with them and... they were like "why did you even send this to me" or "umm thank you?", and then it was never talked about again.

Having read all of these posts, the only thing I have to say/do is offer you my thoughts, Scarlet. You are clearly very much hurting because of this incident and in reality, this probably isn't the best time for a deep philosophical debate, as much as it has been interesting for me as an outsider.

It seems like what you need is for people to just show up, and say they see you pain and hope that you can find ways to comfort yourself as you wait for your T to explain her side of things to you, as she has said she will. And that I hope together you can work this through, and get to a more stable footing again. THEN it may be time to look at why this caused so much upset/triggering. That's work you can only do when you feel safe again.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Thanks Waterbear. Yes, you are exactly right. I don't need debating or teaching right now. It actually doesn't help because I only know my side of the story, not L's.

I can only assume my course, but in reality, I don't know what's going to happen. Is it all a misunderstanding? Or is my perception right? Is it a little bit of both? If I find out the 'why' will I be more forgiving? Can this relationship hold this type of rupture?

Right now, I've made no decision. I haven't threatened anything or acted out in any way. All I have done with L is writer her the facts I know and my feelings. I haven't accused her of anything either. Even though I might feel a certain way (i.e. ignored, forgotten, unimportant, disrespected, etc.), I have owned my emotions and have stated them as "I feel...". I think I have made a lot of progress in this area of communication and owning my own stuff.

Yes, all I want is to be heard and to be seen and to be known. That my feelings are valid. That I'm not alone. Later, hopefully when this gets repaired, then maybe I can work the black and white thinking about honesty. The issue of jealousy we were already working on.

I did get an email from L, but it was not a response. She just told me that she will respond before tomorrow afternoon... I guess it's another restless night of sleep for me.

No one is debating, teaching, criticising! This really infuriates me. People are contributing and responding, discussing stuff and showing an interest in what has happened to you. Validation does not just come in the form of "there, there, this is awful for you". Everyone who takes the time to respond here and to engage with you does so because they recognise that you are experiencing something. We are whole humans who have our own ways of communicating and relating - trying to tightly prescribe how we interact with you devalues our vitality.

Comrade - I'm sorry this infuriates you and you feel devalued. That is not my intention. AND I don't feel it's appropriate to contribute 1. To things I didn't ask for, 2. For things that I don't feel is supportive, and 3. For things that no one, not even I know about (i.e. L's perspective). It's not fair to assume what I need and what will be best for me. Do I have areas that I need to grow in? Sure! I fully admit to that. Is it reasonable to force your opinion of support onto someone when they've clearly stated what they need during this time?

I have said multiple time that I do see where I'm having black and white thinking. I can even see where I'm catastrophizing. Do I feel it is helpful to process that here and right now? No.

You also seem to ignore that I have made a lot of progress. Like I said before: I am also communicating with J. And she has been helping a lot with the same kind of support that many people are so graciously giving me the type that I need and asked for.

Comrade, I do completely understand and agree with you, I nearly added in my post too that I did think that everyone who has replied has done so with an intention to try and help/support etc. Sometimes people just aren't in a position to hear what we have to say... And I think Scarlet's responses to such comments show that she isn't in such a place right now. That doesn't take away from the fact that people are trying to 'be there', but... I don't know... Sometimes our words won't be met the way they were intended. That's all a part of human life too.

I'm trying to take in what I can. I'm trying, but some of you don't see that.

This is making me feel more alone. I'm just going to ask that thos thread be closed.

Sorry Scarlet

I think you, like all of us, are doing the best that you can in the situations that we are in. You've said you know in yourself you've made significant progress in how you handle situations - and that's amazing. Really amazing.

Communication is HARD sometimes and I'm sorry if anything I've said has upset you further.