Is it best to tell them or not?

I told him, and he said "I can't use the word "love" with you, because it has a different meaning for me and because I'm a therapist. But I feel attachment, I enjoy talking to you, I like you and I think you're unique. If you were gone, I'd miss you. Maybe it all means "love". Let's hug!"

But 3 months later he actually said "I love you".

Did you both just blurt it out or how did you go about saying it?

Loving S? I can't remember. Probably during an emotional session. Possibly via email first. I definitely said it out loud a lot in the end. Because why not... I was losing him anyways

The "daddy, he hurt me" thing I shared w/ C via email. I cannot say that word out loud and can barely type it.

I was talking about this world and I said that love is one of the greatest things of the world. Then I said: "But I'm not a bird, so I can't fly". T asked: "Do you mean you can't love?" That question caught me off guard and I said "Mghm...well... I love you".

(T said it in passing, like "I love you and respect you, but... <something else>" and kept talking. I wanted to interrupt him and scream: "Did you realize what you actually just said?!?!?!", but I said nothing)

Well, yes. I supposed that the T would be okay with hearing her say something along the lines as to 'I feel love for you, like I feel love for my dogs.' The OP will have expressed herself and it makes room for open dialogue.

If you think you would get something constructive out of it, maybe instead of just saying "I love you", put it in the context that you are discussing here, introduce it that way and say you want to be able to express these feelings because normally you don't? Emphasize that you are not saying it with an intention to cross lines and get something out of it that therapy is not meant to provide, more from the point of view of investigation and practicing uncomfortable situations.

True, I could word it as loving feelings... might be less likely to spook him.

That is very sad. A good t would be honored to hear about your feelings; no matter what they are. You don't terminate someone for feelings.

I wonder what you are trying to achieve by saying to your therapist that you love him. You say that you don't want him to say it back to you but then you create threads after threads about that very topic. You say that you don't want/need friends and yet you crave a frienship with your therapist. You say that you don't want to sleep with him yet you seem very invested in all the threads of the romantic subforum. I'm sorry to tell you that but it seems like you lie to yourself a lot. You do want friends, everybody does. Humans need human contact, it's normal and no animals are not the same thing as friends. Personally I think your therapist has terrible boundaries and it's no wonder you suffer so much because he's all over the place. But I also think that you are chasing a fantasy with this therapist: a perfectly attuned person who seems to meet all your needs, whether they be friendly or romantic. Such a person doesn't exist.

I post here out of respect to not potentially trigger people, there isn't a friend or love feelings sub forum. I have no desire to have sex with or date him or anyone but yes please feel free to assume you know me

I wont gain anything out of telling him, I just want to learn to deal with emotions that scare me and make me uncomfortable. I wanted to explain why I get emotional over him and not other people.... but I am not gonna do it anyway. I just was curious how it went for others, I've decided it's a horrible idea as is everything I've told him before

Sadly in therapy, you do have to keep a lot of feelings and thoughts to yourself. I'm learning that. I don't want a perfect person, you are right, they don't exist but people do click, it happens, regardless of a person's profession. That has happened here, but it doesn't matter as nothing will come of it. Anyway, bad idea on the thread, and no I'm never telling him anything related to feelings of him or therapy anymore. I have to keep all that inside.

Nope dogs are not the same, they are better. I have a best friend, I have internet friends. I don't like being around people much, so there is no major need for having new friends. I've already told my T it's a pointless convo to keep having with me as I won't be looking for any new people. I don't want it. If I need to talk to people, I have my crappy family or I'll call my bestie

he's sweet, he wouldn't. It's more or less my anxiety and my intense shame of having emotions/feelings that are making me think things like this

I have said it to my T. He has said the same to me. We both know that it is not romantic. (What is romantic love anyway? Wanting to have sex?). It hasn't come up for a while because it just isn't in the forefront of our work right now.

I have problems with sexuality, so I guess my T also expects the romantic/sexual stuff to emerge at some point. I don't know how to get there or how it would feel like. My T would see it as progress though if such feelings would emerge and he obviously would not terminate me for making progress.

FWIW - I don't think 'romantic' feelings = "I want to sleep with you."
Sex and romance are two different things.
You can even have romantic feelings without wanting to date.

Also, you can have "romanticized" feelings that aren't the same as "romantic" feelings.

Meh.
I'm invested in threads here, and I definitely do not want to sleep with my therapist. But, my feelings are certainly "romanticized." In that "there's no way that if C were my IRL dad I would feel THIS much affection for him" way. (Real dads are a lot more annoying, lol)

And, S -- well... my feelings for him are like 50 different things. So.

It's complicated.

And you can tell yourself whatever feels right for you. If that changes over time, that's OK too. I swore up and down I didn't have romantic feelings for S. I wasn't lying -- even though, later, I realized I did have those feelings. Didn't mean I was lying. Meant I wasn't aware of (or maybe just not ready to acknowledge) any romantic feelings at that time, and then that changed as circumstances changed.

Nobody gets to tell you what you feel but you.

Thanks

and I have no clue what romantic feelings are then if not dating/sex type stuff... if it's not that, then why do T's freak out so much over it?

So confused.

They don't always freak out so much over it.
Feelings are feelings, not actions.

Wanting to have sex with or date a therapist implies an action.
You can have feelings without wanting the actions.

I have romantic feelings for S.
I don't want to date him or have sex with him.
That's all I know *shrug* hard to define.

For me, the feelings are caring and connection for current T and PrevT. I could call it love, although it’s not sexual. It’s not romantic. It’s more maternal.

Sometimes I feel a surge of grateful/caring emotion toward T that feels like tiny endorphin bursts. It feels good. It feels happy. Part of it is gratefulness for being heard and supported emotionally. I can’t remember having these feelings or this emotional support from family, spouse or friends.

I thought I had this connection with AbusivePDoc and the Pdoc before him but they only pretended to have my best interest at heart. I certainly felt the feelings.

For me, I believe the feelings come from T and PrevT supplying me with some previous unmet need. Growing up, I never had a person I could tell *everything* to. Never had an hour a week and more be all about me. I had hard, confusing times growing up but there was no one to work these out in real time, in real life.

I am 63 and I’m still trying to figure it out and talk about it with T. I believe these feelings are confusing because we probably didn’t have them met at the proper age or development stage. Now they feel very awkward to have them and sometimes I don’t know what to do with these feelings.

Added: Forgot to answer your question. Should we tell T? I told T and PrevT. They seemed to take it well and let me talk about it...helping me see where it comes from. There are wide ranging feelings that include feeling sexually attracted to T ....to ? My hope is that your T is well trained and responds to you in a helpful way if you choose to disclose your feelings to him/her.

Hi. Yes. I've told T I find him sexually attractive, and later told him I love him (but specified it isn't romantic). He hasn't run away yet It's given is a lot of territory to explore. It's not easy by any means, but keeping it quiet became far too stressful.

Good luck x

Ain't that the truth

I agree that this is a possible or likely T approach to any confessions of feelings / transference.

DP, you've said that love generally is uncomfortable territory for you, so it seems like your T would see it as progress if you said that you do feel some loving feelings toward him. You might say that you're only really used to having loving feelings toward your dogs, but you have started to have some feelings of that sort toward him.

He did show you that sheet with descriptions about what love feels like, so I was thinking you could say that some things apply, others don't. You don't have to specify which ones if you don't want to.

I'm not sure how he could take this in any other way except as progress. If he'd like you to find more friends or make more connections with people, then you would presumably have to get a little bit more comfortable with warm, close, or affectionate feelings for people. You've said that this is not your own goal for yourself, but it seems to be something he's thought about.

It could be possible that a small part of you would like to hear that he loves you too, even if the larger part of you would dread that. It's possible he has rules about not saying such things to clients, or he might worry about making your feelings / "transference" worse or more painful if he reciprocates by expressing his feelings. You might want to be prepared for him not to say anything reciprocal whatsoever, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care for you.

best reply yet

If you truly want to get better, you need to face your feelings and find a way to communicate them to him. He is the key to other fufilling relationships that are available to you.

The more you can share with him, the deeper the healing should be.

I write down my thoughts and feelings and give them. It is hard but it is harder suffering in silence and it prolongs the healing process.

I agree that the one reply was the best... she's right about a lot of that, although I truly don't want to hear anything back. the L word makes me highly uncomfortable and untrusting of people.

He knows about a lot of my issues so I was hoping he would see it as progress, which is partly why I wanted to say something but then again, I thought that too with touch and that backfired on me. I did write down what I wanted to say, had a few people read it and say it was really good but then I saw the replies here and am just debating if it's worth the risk

March is gonna be a highly stressful month for me, I'll need him, I can't lose him over nonsense like this, so I'll debate it. Maybe re-rwite my thing again.

I personally find therapy exhausting and I think you can get so worn down that its like...

F.u.c.k it. I dont care... this is how I feel

Otherwise, Its too easy to have therapy as just a revolving door.

You have to be honest with yourself and ask if you really want to get better even tho it means ending the relationship. I think its too easy to want to hang on to a t and so unconsciously a client can be sabbotaging their own healing.

This may be true for many but i feel it depends on our therapy goals. I need support as I deal with certain issues. I don’t see this changing anytime soon, for me.