[kim_johnson]

i told him i love him. by email. and i told him i do NOT want to talk about it. pretty brave for me. no good will come of it, of course.

[Kiya]

=(

(((((((kim))))))))

I do not think that T's respond as badly to patients confessing they feel love towards them as most people expect them to. It's natural and human nature.

It is difficult for them to openly return any feelings of love due to ethical constraints.

I think what you did was a very good thing. You are willing to be open and honest with difficult feelings that make you very vulnerable.

((hugs))

[Mouse_]

I think telling him you love him will be useful....I remember once I spent nearly the whole session in tears trying to say to T that I felt as if I loved her....I did wonder if she was waiting for some traumatic memory to be told but when I finally pulled myself together I said, I feel as if I love you...I've not said it again in as many words as I've switched it to, "I think of you as my mother", but yeah I wish I could just say "I LOVE YOU" again...to me that is the hardest thing to reveal in therapy...

[sunrise]

(((((kim)))))

Very courageous, Kim I'll bet he will make you feel at ease! Let me know how it goes

[Slippers]

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no good will come of it, of course.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Well, at least you're going in with a positive attitude!

Good luck and let us know how your next session goes...or his reply, which ever happens sooner.

S

[ECHOES]

Wow, that is huge that you could do that.

And I'll bet it brought a smile to his face, so something good may have already come of it.

How are you feeling about having told him?

[chaotic13]

I agree with Stormy, the response from T's is never as bad as what we envision it to be. Doesn't make it any easier to go to that next appointment though does it. Although I have never told my T that I love her (maybe next year or in my case better give me two more years), but I have come clean on some other feelings that pertained to the therapeutic relationship. Very difficult for someone like me to admit, but I did--in writing. It was really hard to sit in the waiting room and then as the session began, but you get through it.

As for the "here let me lay this on you, but by the way I don't want to talk about it." notion. With my T that doesn't fly. I wrote that line once and the first thing she did when I entered the room was to whip out that dang letter and start reading it. I'm only telling you this because you are likely going to discuss this topic with your T whether you really want to or not. The good news is you will likely survive and be better off for it in the end.

KJ go in with your head held high, because you are taking the risks necessary to get better.

Good luck KJ

[Fuzzybear]

[SingleGirl]

I sort of wrote about this a little earlier. At least my version of it, in my life. Like the others said, the response was never as bad as I imagined it would be... almost everyone was absolutely kind.

Of course, I'm not in your shoes, don't know your situation, but just wanted to thank you for sharing. Reading stories like these are truly helping me out.

Good luck with the response. Isn't waiting just the worst?

[kim_johnson]

I think... I think that he will be respectful about this. He might try and raise it, but I'm fairly sure that the only response he will get out of me will be that I'll blush and hang my head. I think he will be okay about my not talking about it. Just my telling him... My admitting it to myself and then my telling him really is a big step for me. And I think it will signify a change in our relationship whether it is something that is directly talked about or not.

For a long time... I've felt like parts of me are disconnected from other parts. And there isn't anyone in my life who gets to see something of the different parts. And there is a part of me that deals with online interactions. Email is important to me because I can share something of that other part. I can talk about stuff that I email him about a little... But there are some things that are just too hard. I think this will be one of these. But usually (in person) I think I come across as a little reserved, withdrawn, aloof, etc. Admitting my attachment... Is hard... I think it might help him to know that I do feel that we have a bond, though. I think it will help.

[kim_johnson]

What I meant by 'no good will come of it' is that the person goes. My father left. Bobo stopped giving me the benefit of the doubt with respect to trusting my intentions and interpreting my words charitably. Mr Man... Decided I didn't mean as much to him as he meant to me and he wasn't prepared to wait 6 months for me. And of course I face up to this realization a few months before I'm off for 9 months and when it is uncertain whether we will ever see each other again...

Maybe that is the thing. It is a 'taking the power back' kind of thing. I had no control whatsoever over my Father's going. Bobo wanted (wants?) me to wait a year for him and I'm not prepared to do so. The main reason is that there is nothing whatsoever to prevent precisely this situation with him happening again. So there I have some degree of control, I suppose. Mr Man wanted to date other people instead of waiting six months for me - but he said he didn't think of it as us breaking up. I'm not prepared to wait for him in the sense of my being alright with that situation - and so I broke up with him. I am not prepared to be with him for 9 months and then for him to want to go back to dating other people and so things are over for us. My therapist isn't going anywhere... But I am. He isn't going to be leaving me (that isn't on the table - even though I fear it, of course). I'm going to be leaving him. It still hurts... But maybe it is a way for me to take the power back.

I guess the only good that can come of the situation is that I work through my feelings for him. Maybe it is safer to do that at a distance... My father was IRL... Bobo was internet only... Mr Man was intermittent... I don't think he handled the distance at all well... The breakup was via email... My t... Is intermittent... I tell him this by email. He will not see me cry over this. Maybe if I have experience having the power then I'll be better placed to take suitable risks with my heart IRL... Maybe...

[kessa19]

I think LOVE is meant to be shared!!!!!!!!!!!!! However, that's easier said than done. I admire your courage. Please toss some courage my way.

[kim_johnson]

thanks. he said... well... he sent an email... something about there being a risk in loving... that he hoped it was worth it(?)

that was good. i think he is getting the hang of this email business...

he hoped love was worth it... he hoped he was worth my love... nice ambiguity... a question... something for me to think about... perhaps... does email count as talking? (?) perhaps... but i thought about it anyway...

he even had the courtesy not to mention it in todays session. we talked about my ex... i'm still struggling a little with that... up and down over it... hardest thing was that i really wanted for us to be able to be friends. you know, my being mature about this and all... but i've realized that that isn't terribly psychologically plausible... i need to have boundaries around him now so that i can move on from him. he has made it clear that he isn't prepared to commit to me so i need to accept that and move on.

i wish... i could save my heart for someone who feels that way about me (for someone who is prepared to commit to being with me and to making things work and to sticking around when times get tough and doing the necessary work so that we can have a healthy relationship). i wish i could save my heart for that... that i didn't love these men who are not in the position to reciprocate. i wish that i didn't love them. caring about them is okay... but i wish that i didn't give them the power to affect me so...

where is my mute button? why didn't i get born with a mute? just to tone things down a little...

((((KIM))))),
I know this is really unnerving and painful.

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i need to have boundaries around him now so that i can move on from him. he has made it clear that he isn't prepared to commit to me so i need to accept that and move on.

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He won't commit to you in the way that you desire, but he is still your therapist. He has to be objective in order to help you, and appears to be committed to that

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
wish... i could save my heart for someone who feels that way about me (for someone who is prepared to commit to being with me and to making things work and to sticking around when times get tough and doing the necessary work so that we can have a healthy relationship). i wish i could save my heart for that... that i didn't love these men who are not in the position to reciprocate. i wish that i didn't love them. caring about them is okay... but i wish that i didn't give them the power to affect me so...

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I can't be sure, but it sounds like the feelings that you have for your T are transference. If you look in the paragraph you typed above, you desperately want to get what your Father never gave you. I know well how painful this is. It is a long journey, but one that will help you mourn for what you didn't get and then be able to move on. Don't push your T away, he is a safe base for you now while you work through these issues. I wish you the best of luck. Take care.

[sunrise]

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Soliaree said:
</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
i need to have boundaries around him now so that i can move on from him. he has made it clear that he isn't prepared to commit to me so i need to accept that and move on.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

He won't commit to you in the way that you desire, but he is still your therapist. He has to be objective in order to help you, and appears to be committed to that

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Hmmmm, I thought Kim was referring to her ex, the guy she just broke up with, not her T.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

[MissCharlotte]

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. something about there being a risk in loving... that he hoped it was worth it(?)

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I hope so too Kim. I think you are very brave. It crosses my mind all the time but I haven't had the courage to go there.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
i wish that i didn't love them. caring about them is okay... but i wish that i didn't give them the power to affect me so...

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Ohhh, this is such a powerful yet regretful feeling. After one of our ruptures I remember telling T that I hated that he had the power to hurt me so. He winced. But you k now what Kim? If we don't give up the power, then we won't have the beauty of the experience either.. It is a risky exchange, isn't it?

I am so happy for you that you were able to tell him. Keep up the brave work!

[kim_johnson]

hey. yeah... i was talking about my boyfriend at that point, but i'm not surprised that that was confusing. they are kind of run together... in my mind at least.

there is the notable absence of another person from the list. I'll call him 'M'. I loved him, too. but i didn't want to consider him... messed me up big time (a home group leader when i was 14). i loved him, too. and he left me. inevitably. his priority needed to lie with his family. and his loving me... was precisely why he needed to commit to never seeing me again.

my therapist is kind. that is why i love him. i know it is transference. but then if freud is to be believed ALL of our relationships have a transference aspect to them. i know that i'll never get to be with my therapist - that that is the nature of our relationship. i'm okay with that. i figure that if we stepped outside the therapy bonds (which we won't) then i'd lose my therapist as my therapist. and that is who i love... my therapist as my therapist.

but i do obsess a little about whether he thinks of me outside therapy at all... even for a moment.
and i do think it is a little unfair that he clearly means much more to me than i mean to him.
and i don't like him having the power to make my day (by emailing me or texting me) or break my day (by not emailing me or texting me).
i don't like him having such power to affect me so, and i don't like the emotional demands that my love places on him... i don't like it at all.

i do wish that i could save my love for someone who loved me in return.

but then if i did that... i wouldn't have loved anybody. anybody at all. except perhaps M. and... no good would have come of that either.

[kim_johnson]

it is all muddled up... my father... M... bobo... mr man... my therapist... so muddled up all into a big mess in my head...

i had this discussion with my supervisor a couple weeks back. i needed to do an academic CV for something and he was telling me that I should write a short statement on my research interests and a short statement on my thesis topic. he said that in a way it was descriptive (i needed to be able to justify / back up what i said with respect to what i had in fact done) but he said something that deeply affected me...

he said it was mostly predictive. it was about presenting myself as the kind of academic i wanted to be. the kind of academic that i wanted to become. i saw my thesis project... and was horrified as to how that presented me... identity crisis.

so... after finally hitting upon a doable and worthwhile project i came to realize that that was not the project i wanted to do. there was such a discrepancy between my statement of research interest and my thesis project that my thesis project had to go.

but that discussion has had bigger ramifications for me identity-wise than that. in particular... i've realized just how predictive those stories that we tell ourselves really are. for example... i thought to myself 'i love my therapist'. and i thought to myself 'all of those relationships mentioned above seem to be a big muddled mess'. and now (in predictive fashion) they really have become a muddled mess. and i'm thinking about my therapist differently (more sexually) than i was before... and i'm thinking about mr man differently (more as a person who rejected me for others) than i was before... and i'm thinking... this isn't so good for me.

just like my statement of my thesis project... i want to take this statement back. to see the relationships as different is important, i think. to tease them apart. so i can give a different response to my therapists question 'is it worth it?' i was thinking 'no, not when the other person feels differently'. and i think that is right with respect to mr man. but of course that dosen't apply to my therapist. because if he felt similarly... that would be so very much worse.

so with respect to my father the answer is probably 'yes, it was worth it' because i needed that attachment and it helped me survive until i was 14 and it was feasible for me to run away from home and fend for myself whereas i don't think i would have survived if i had given up on that attachment earlier. with respect to bobo the answer is 'no, it was not worth it' because he didn't take appropriate care and thus i shouldn't have given him the power to affect me so. though... he too helped me stay alive for a time, and (to begin with at least) he did seem to take appropriate care and so he did help me. it was probably just when he thought i was attached enough such that he could do whatever he liked that it became not worth it. i needed to put limits... and then it was hard... with respect to mr man the answer is 'no'. because i really think that with respect to looking for that life partner you should save your heart for someone who feels (is capable of feeling, does feel) similarly to you. maybe... mr man was worth it. but given the way events transpired (and given the way he now feels about me) the answer is 'no. he is not worth my love anymore'.

with respect to my therapist the answer is 'probably yes'. it is probably worth it. i guess bobo taught me that love is not (should not) be unconditional. if the other person doesn't take appropriate care then you do need to withdraw your love from them - preferably BEFORE humiliating yourself too much. that you need to have boundaries and limits such that the person KNOWS that your love isn't unconditional - that if they cross certain boundaries that your care will be withdrawn. and i think... they really need to know that BEFORE you do it and BEFORE they cross that line - because that is what makes it so much more likely that they won't cross that line. or if they do cross it (as bobo did, as mr man did) then they know full well that the inevitable result is that i withdraw my care. there is a place for appropriate anger, indeed, and there are lines that when crossed are lines that means that you do what you need to do to withdraw your care. he wasn't worth so much of my care. and that is a fact.

or maybe it is... that they all were worth it for a time (when they seemed to care for me appropriately) and then when they didn't seem to care for me appropriately anymore then they simply weren't worth my love and care anymore. at that point... it became not worth it. trouble is that once you do care... it is so very hard for me to withdraw that care. to come to not care anymore. to come to not care so much but still care... that is hard for me. so very hard. and given that i'm not so good at that... sometimes it feels like it wasn't worth my caring about them the way i did. that if i hadn't come to care about them so very much they wouldn't have had such power to hurt me so very much. and then... i wouldn't have struggled so very much with withdrawing my care in appropriate ways (especially with respect to trying to deal with my anger).

i don't want my therapist to think about me a lot outside therapy (just to think kindly of me in the odd moment - as his odd emails show me he does). i don't want him to start thinking about me all muddled up with his mother and his wife. i want him to have this clarity about us having a different relationship. that is affected by those other relationships of course, but not one that is defined by them. one that is more responsive to me in the present than to those relationships in the past. and... i want to view him more in the present than as a symbol of my relationships in the past.

in particular... i need to accept his care and concern and affection for me in a way such that i can internalize that and carry it around with me. and to lament that 'no, it is not worth it' is to reject him... to reject him on grounds that simply don't apply (and for reasons where if those reasons were undermined then that is precisely what would undermine his ability to help me).

dammit. why is life so %#@&#! confusing?????

[sunrise]

I don't know. But it is.

(((((kim)))))

Wow, Kim - what an insightful post.

It gave me a lot to think about. It sort of reminded me of the "gray" area I'm learning to be in with T right now - accepting that he cares for me AND he's only "kind of" available to me. Not "he's not available therefore he doesn't care" or "he cares so that means I can have all of him, all the time" - not black or white - but gray "he cares, and he can't always be there". It hurts - but in a bittersweet way.

Not that that is what YOU were saying, but your post reminded me so much of that process of learning to see the gray....and to live in the "tension" as my T calls it...the place between all and nothing, where the grace lies.

[kim_johnson]

thanks sunrise. earthmama... my therapist talks to me sometimes about 'learning how to tolerate ambivalence'. i hate ambivalence. i hate uncertainty. tis hard for me. grey areas are hard. hang in there.

[Dinah]

I think I agree with earthmama. I think the answer may lie in the grey areas.

Your father was your father. I think there's biological drives to love your caregivers. Not because of them so much as because of your need to elicit a nurturing response from them. Your father was limited because of himself, not because of you. He wasn't as good a father as he could have been. But that had nothing to do with your worthiness. And it was largely beyond your control.

The others... Well, loving doesn't have to be about whether they were worth it. Decisions yes. It's wise to make decisions based on who the other person is. It's wise to have expectations that aren't above what the other person can give. Or as I often say, lowered expectations are the key to happiness. Which isn't entirely true. But there's a fair amount of truth in reasonable expectations being the key to happiness.

The others... Well, Mr. Man, and Bob for that matter, had qualities that made them loveable to you. And you loved them. They were also limited. They can't be to you what you want them to be to you, because they are who they are. I doubt any of them wanted to hurt you. I am sure they want the best for you, and care about you to the extent they can. They hurt you by letting you down. They weren't "good" because they met your needs sometimes. And they aren't "bad" because they don't meet your needs now. They are who they are. A package of good and bad, of strength and weakness. Not good or bad in the entirety.

And so is your therapist. There will likely come a time when what you need and what he can give won't mesh. Hopefully he'll handle it sensitively. But he'll still be the complex package of good and bad qualities he is now.

Mind you, I do understand. I'm fully intending to hate my therapist forever if he terminates me. He repeated it as "be mad at me forever" when he asked if I wouldn't keep the good things as well. I said corrected him to hate, and said no, if he wanted me to keep the good things I darn well wouldn't. So believe me, I do understand.

In truth though (and don't tell him this) I'd probably drop the hate eventually. Not for him but because it would be too much pain for me to hold.

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but i do obsess a little about whether he thinks of me outside therapy at all... even for a moment.
and i do think it is a little unfair that he clearly means much more to me than i mean to him.
and i don't like him having the power to make my day (by emailing me or texting me) or break my day (by not emailing me or texting me).
i don't like him having such power to affect me so, and i don't like the emotional demands that my love places on him... i don't like it at all.

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I feel exactly the same way! Another T I know told me that I am giving all of my emotions to T and then am getting angry because he's not doing with them what I want him to be doing. Ughhh. It's all so frustrating!